Tommy Guns and Assault Weapons

In the 30’s when gangs were shooting each other up with machine guns, the Congress essentially banned these weapons for citizen possession. Fast forward to 2004 when the 1994 assault weapons ban expired, and was not extended. Now the country has been flooded with AR-15s and similar assault weapons. These, the weapons of choice for the many mass killers, are as useless for any purpose but mass killing just as machine guns were in the 1930s. A pity that President Bush and the Congress couldn’t have envisioned the mass killings that ensued and taken action to extend the ban.

If we think this is all right or a part of politics, we might put ourselves in the positing of a first responders to a school shooting. There are children bleeding, crying, screaming, not knowing what has happened to their world. There may be a pair of little eyes looking up from the floor pleading, pleading, pleading until they close for the last time.

I suspect that many gun advocates don’t know this about the ballistics of AR-15s and similar weapons: The high velocity bullets have the property that when they enter a gelatin target—or a human body—they don’t just penetrate to the other side leaving a clean hole. They become unstable, wobble around and tear up everything in their path. Was this design intentional? Who knows? But it is a weapon that should never be available in any civilian situation.

Think further about those called upon to care for the wounded and dying after a mass shooting. I think of the nurse at Parkland who told about how the bullets from these weapons shattered little bodies—flesh, bones, organs—beyond modern medicine’s ability to repair. How these nurses can pursue their profession without a meltdown is in these conditions is astounding. Their bravery is remarkable, but elected officials who take money from the NRA sadly are not brave.

If you take a minute to think about these scenarios, rather than brushing over them, can you avoid being an advocate of an effective assault weapons ban?