Although I do not profess to be an expert, let's talk about guns for a moment. When I lived in Michigan a few years ago, over a million hunters always took to the fields and woods to hunt deer each year. That's roughly equivalent to the size of the United States Army, and the data may also be comparable in many states which allow hunting. Almost all of those hunters were law-abiding citizens who took care of their weapons and made sure everyone around them was safe. They used high-powered guns something like the old M1 rifle used by the military a few wars back. No one questioned their right to own and use a firearm; indeed, no one I ever talked with even got around to mentioning Second Amendment rights. It was understood.
Such is not the case today. There are a great many different kinds of modern weapons on the market today. When you read about the mass killings in the news, you almost always hear about some kind of an AR or AK (ARs are American made; AKs refer to a Russian weapon) large magazine, weapon. They usually use a 223 caliber bullet, a projectile that is very fast and deadly but nothing like the calibers used by deer hunters such as the 270, 30-06, 308, or even the 30-30. The AR/AK gun is an assault weapon.
Unless these weapons are modified, they are semi-automatic -- that is, you have to pull the trigger each time you want to shoot a bullet. A fully automatic weapon is different, and they are illegal for anyone outside of the military to use. With a fully automatic weapon, you merely pull the trigger and hold it down and the weapon spews out bullets as fast as the mechanism will allow. The upside of such a weapon is its ability to dispense a lot of deadly force quickly; the downside is it is almost impossible to actually aim the weapon at a small target while firing rapidly.
Let's consider the situation at the First Baptist Church in Sunderland Springs, Texas, where a shooter entered the church during worship and killed 26 people while wounding another 20 people -- almost everyone there. He apparently had a number of different weapons, but he used an AR rifle almost exclusively. The neighbor who responded and eventually stopped the shooter by injuring him also used some kind of AR rifle. At least two things should be noted.
First, the neighbor was right when he heard the shots going off separately instead of in rapid fire. That meant that the shooter was not shooting randomly; he was targeting each person, and since an AR rifle is very accurate when you have enough time to aim, he was shooting to hit people in a vital spot. Thus, he did not select only certain people; he wanted to kill as many people as possible and took his time doing it (around 7 to 9 minutes).
Second, as a firearm instructor, the neighbor also used some kind of an AR rifle to confront the shooter. That's effective but, apparently, he did not have enough time to actually aim his shots with the adrenaline flowing. Thus, as far as we know, he missed hitting a vital part of the shooter. Had he used a deer rifle, he would have been aiming and his bullet would have penetrated even the protective vest the shooter was wearing. He used an AR rifle in order to get off a lot of shots but, until the shooter wrecked his car and took his own life, it probably was not the best choice of a weapon. Likewise, handguns are extremely effective at close range, but they are not effective in selecting and killing a lot of people quickly, especially at a distance.
The above information may be informative to some and drivel to others. However, my point is specific: AR and AK rifles are killing guns; they are not effective weapons for hunting or even self-protection (See "Gun Control AR-15 Rifle" on the web). There are other weapons legally available for these purposes. And yet, the market has sold around 8 million of these guns.
I really appreciate and will defend Second Amendment rights, but it is wrong to assume that we have not already limited what it means to own a weapon. I own and use various weapons for hunting and protection, but it is illegal for me to own a fully automatic weapon, purchase a 50-caliber machine gun, or an anti-aircraft gun. In other words, there already are some serious limitations to our Second Amendment rights, and I am OK with that. However, I think it is only reasonable for us to rethink just what owning and using firearms actually means. AR/AK guns may be fun to shoot on the gun range, but do we really need them? Maybe, if we see a large, hostile crowd coming to do us harm (something that is not realistic) and we need to be defensive; but using them for hunting is ridiculous. Yes, it is true: guns do not kill people; people kill people using whatever weapon is at hand. However, owning a large arsenal of weapons to defend ourselves or our nation is not only unrealistic; it flies in the face of what our Constitution's framers had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment. Maybe it's time for us be a little more realistic about gun ownership and focus more upon how to promote peace and to save people's lives.
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Robert Box is the former chaplain for the Bella Vista Police Department and is currently the Fire Department chaplain. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editor's Note: The M1 rifle used a few wars back is also a semi-automatic rifle, capable of firing 40-50 rounds per minute. The caliber, 30-06, is considerably larger than the .223 ammunition fired in most AR-type rifles and usually considered more deadly. While similar to the AK-type weapons in bullet diameter, it is also more accurate and effective at longer ranges (out to 500 yards). It was the standard U.S. service rifle during World War II and the Korean War and also saw limited service during the Vietnam War. While weapons similar to the M1 are certainly effective hunting rifles and some use them, most hunters are more likely to use rifles more similar to WWI rifles like the 1903 Springfield (a five-shot bolt-action rifle which requires the manual operation of a bolt-action between each shot -- more similar to weapons used by snipers in the military). Civilians are permitted to own certain fully automatic weapons but special permits are required. While AK stands for the Russian Avtomat Kalashnikova of 1947 designed by Russian Mikhail Kalashnikov and is also used to describe semi-automatic rifles of similar design, AR does not mean it is an American-made rifle but just that the style of the sporting version is similar to the more-modern military rifles with the exception of not being capable of fully automatic fire. The AK-type weapons use a 30 caliber bullet similar in effectiveness to a 30-30 round used in popular lever-action deer rifles. The .223 round is a popular hunting round used for hunting small game because of its flat trajectory. Until recently, it was not allowed for deer hunting in many states because its smaller-diameter bullet was viewed as less likely to kill big game. And, finally, the Constitution's framers, in the Second Amendment, spoke specifically of bearing arms capable of use in military action. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Editorial on 12/13/2017