More media accomplices
I said yesterday it was no wonder the NRA spends so much money lobbying, the Bradies get their propaganda for free. Head has another case to illustrate that:
Short version- police raid drug house, no one hme but a legal semiauto “AK-47”. The rifle becomes the criminal. The rest is taken almost verbatim from The Brady Center or VPC.
And my favorites:
The AK-47 bullet is approximately 3 inches in length. A size that is large in comparison to that of an every day ink pen.
Actually, the bullet is only about 3/4 of an inch. The entire cartridge is about three inches.
Police describe the weapon as a hand held machine gun.
It’s not a machine gun, though.
Clueless or complicit? You decide.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:40 am
I was, strangely, wholly unaware that all my ink pens are less than 3″ long.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:17 am
Oh, and they show a 7.62x54R cartridge…
Kind of like when they said the .50 BMG *bullet* was the size of a katsup (spelling?) bottle. The whole cartridge was about two thirds the size of a katsup bottle smaller than I’ve ever bought.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:39 am
Actually the OAL on 7.62x39mm is about 2.3 inches. They measured 7.62x54R.
Basically…. they didn’t get anything right at all.
January 24th, 2006 at 10:48 am
“Oh, and they show a 7.62×54R cartridge.” Makes you wonder whether what they confiscated was actually a semiauto AK-47 or a Moisin-Nagant bolt action that fires those cartridges. Now, the M44 carbine is wicked looking with that long foldout spike bayonet, but no MN looks anything like an AK-47…
I wondered whether the “larger than an ink pen” might be intended to refer to the diameter rather than the length. (If so, they’re nearly as incompetent at grammar as at gun vocabulary, but…) So I got out the calipers. Three cheap ink pens range from .31 to .34, larger than a 7.62mm=.30 bullet but narrower than any .30 cartridge. My good pen is .49 at the thickest part of the grip. I’m not sure how that compares to the base of a 7.62×39 cartridge.
By the way, isn’t the second number in 7.62×39 the overall cartridge length? That’s barely over 1.5 inches long. 54mm is barely over 2 inches.
January 24th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
“Actually, the bullet is only about 3/4 of an inch. The entire cartridge is about three inches.”
While technically correct, nagging on pointless little crap like this is pretty worthless. Say “bullet” and all but the most devout of gunnies will generally envision a cartridge. I’m all for technical correctness, but you do yourself and your cause no favors obsessing over little nits like this.
Sometimes you remind me of a high school teacher I had who would get all worked up if anyone referred to aluminum foil as “tin foil.” Sure, it’s not technically tin, but everybody with half an ounce of intelligence knows what you’re talking about.
January 24th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
I say “generally envision a cartridge,” but a better way of putting it would be that they envision those things you put into the magazine (which they will generally refer to as a “clip,” by the way), not just the part that shoots out the front of the gun.
January 24th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
It’s not a nit. The bullet is the actual peice of metal that would strike a target. If it is over three times the size, it would be a lot more damaging. And that is the angle they’re going for: to scare you into thinking a 3 inch long chunk of metal is what this thing is hurling.
January 24th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Yet another example of the mainstream getting nearly every thing wrong about firearms. If you were to take them to the range they’d be a positive hazzard to themselves, confusing butt and muzzle.
January 24th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
When it comes to the most basic human right of armed self-defense, so-called “liberals” and the most of the like-minded mainstream media object to that liberty with the same type of ignorance, bigorty and prejudice they otherwise SAY they despise.
Back when liberals were–liberal:
“Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no
matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear
arms…. The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against
arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote
in America but which historically has proven to be always possible.”
— Senator Hubert H. Humphrey
“The closest the Framers came to the affirmative side of liberty was in ‘the
right of the people to bear arms’. –William O. Douglas, Associate Justice of
the Supreme Court, New York University Law Review 38:233(1963)
“By calling attention to ‘a well regulated militia’, the ‘security’ of the
nation, and the right of each citizen ‘to keep and bear arms’, our founding
fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is
extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to
the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment
still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military
relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of
his country. For that reason, I believe the Second Amendment will always be
important.” –John F. Kennedy, April 1960