PSH From Police Rifles

Thirdpower points out this bit of pant shitting hysterics from the Associated Press:

When she pointed her handgun at the two nearest deputies, officers switched to assault rifles, hitting Sarah Marie Stanfield of Boise eight times with bullets designed to break apart on impact to increase internal damage. She died last fall of multiple gunshot wounds.

Or it could be, they are designed to fragment so they don’t pass through things and hit whatever is behind them, but whatever scares people the most, you know.

Some jurisdictions across the U.S. have been arming rank-and-file officers with high-powered assault rifles for a decade or more

Of rather, they are arming police with the types of rifles that are appropriate for police work, like AR-15s, that are neither high powered nor assault rifles.

The rifles fire bullets with enough velocity to penetrate some types of body armor and have greater accuracy at longer range than handguns.

So does your dad’s deer rifle. This is true of any center-fire rifle.  The Brady Campaign seems to be understanding of this predicament.  Angry Peter says:

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence said it understands the moves to assault weapons. “Police officers need to be able to defend themselves and the rest of us, and they need the weapons to do so,” said spokesman Peter Hamm.

I agree with Peter.  But if the Brady’s are conceding that these firearms are useful for self-defense, why do they suddenly become useless for that purpose when they are in my hands instead of police officer?

Except to see more of this type of thing in the coming months.  No doubt the gun control proponents will go full court with their press game in an attempt to influence the outcome in Heller.

3 thoughts on “PSH From Police Rifles”

  1. Well, at least they used the qualifier “some types of” when talking about body armor. That’s a lot better than what the VPC does.

  2. Honestly, she pointed a gun at the officers so they killed her. Who cares what type of gun they used? Why is that even a story? You point a gun or something that looks like a gun at the police they’re going to shoot you.

  3. At least they didn’t call them “police rifles,” although “high powered assault rifles” is just as erroneous. The knowledge of ballistics and how bullets work is just so out of reach for reporters. A google search would correct most of their stories.

    The confusion about body armor and its protective qualities has infected the media for years. This story – http://www.wbaltv.com/news/15615796/detail.html – is a reason cops might be interested in the AR platform; the Baltimore thug was wearing a protective vest but was still cut down by cops. A rifle would have helped.

    I did a test shoot on a ballistic vest – http://fateoflegions.blogspot.com/2008/03/part-3-ballistic-vest-live-fire-test.html – in response to the “armor piercing” stupidity that is passed around by the media. The results surprised even me.

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