BACKGROUND CHECKS NOT ENOUGH! BAN AR15 BATTLEFIELD WEAPONS.

WE MUST BAN BATTLEFIELD WEAPONS FROM CIVILIAN USE BACKGROUND CHECKS NOT ENOUGH NOT SECOND AMENDMENT —BUT SECOND THOUGHT During the Vietnam War, about 1964, the US Army began to rethink its devotion to the heavy old M1 30 caliber Garand rifle. This was a semi automatic gas operated weapon with an eight round clip. It weighed more than ten pounds with its bayonet in place. And the 30 caliber clips and rounds were bulky and heavy too. It was rated as being able to fire 30 rounds a minute. Rifle squads facing waves of determined Vietcong attacker’s carrying Russian style AK47 (or Chinese rip off of the AK47) assault rifles didn’t have enough firepower in these circumstances. The US rifle squads depended upon the Browning Automatic Rifle to lay down “lead” against these attackers. The Browning or BAR was the only “automatic” weapon of rifle squads—and had at least one per squad. This weapon fired the same heavy, bulky 30 caliber cartridge, and weighed about 16 pounds. It could theoretically fire 500 rounds per minute...but at that rate a rifleman would burn out the barrel and have to change it —before it blew up—-or retreat. You may hear many stories of heroic BAR rifle men firing their weapons into waves of charging Vietcong as their platoon had to retreat behind them. The Army realized it needed more firepower, and a more efficient killing machine in the hands of each trooper. Colt engineers went to work for them. Sometime prior to 1964 Colt engineers devised a light weight, rapid fire, weapon firing a low weight but high-velocity cartridge which could kill even more effectively and do so at about twice the distance (@ 600 yards) that the M1 30 caliber round. It could be fired both automatic and semi automatic. Though as with any automatic it could only be fired in short three or four round bursts—to keep the barrel cool. Each rifle had a thirty-round clip. Its actual rate of fire was, as with the M1 about 12 to 15 rounds per minute. Though in a dire emergency a trooper could “burp off” the whole 30 round clip. But the result might make it necessary to drop the hot M16 with a smoking barrel and use another one. This newly designed weapon—firing the new small caliber and light weight but more powerful cartridges (permitting each trooper to carry more ammo) was designated as the M16 when it was adopted by the Army early in the 1960s. This M16 eliminated the need for the heavy old BAR, and in effect made everyman in a rifle squad an “automatic firing” BAR rifleman. The M16 was and remains (in is many phases and modifications) a major success story. It was designed as the perfect killing machine for the battlefield in Vietnam...and has served efficiently and effectively since then. It continues to serve the Army, Marines and other services in its many theaters of war. It is the quintessential modern battlefield weapon. When the Vietnam war ended...the manufacturers had many of these M16s in stock. They developed a ready domestic market for this battlefield weapon by making a minor change to its operating system so that its “automatic function” was turned off and it became a “semi-automatic”. They called this domestic version of the M16– the AR 15. A “semi-automatic” designation meant that it was NOT a machine gun. So it was LEGAL for domestic sale.That is it was legal according to our antiquated and unmodified 1930-era gun laws. Under these laws it was able to be sold to civilians...as a “sporting” rifle. But the AR15 remained the same effective killing machine as its design progenitor the M16 that saved the lives of our troopers in Vietnam and others in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and elsewhere. It could still fire as fast as you could pull your trigger finger back. Well over 30 rounds per minute. It fires a high-velocity bullet that is designed to deliver massive destructive energy to its target. In the words of the military: to have enormous “stopping power”. The bullet which often tumbles in the air when the barrel gets hot..causes horrible damage to anything it hits. Hitting a human target—it does not simply pass through the human body...but literally explodes organs it passes through. There is little likelihood of surviving a hit. The AR15 is still a formidable battlefield weapon. It is not different enough from its M16 parent to be considered safe for civilian use. It is not good enough for our politicians to state that that they will “make sure that guns stay out of the hands of those that should not have them.” We must also strictly control what type of weapons we are permitting (even “responsible” gun owners) to own. Battlefield weapons should and must be confined to the battlefield—for the purposes that they were designed. They were not designed for “home protection”, for hunting, or for target shooting. As in any other question of their design purpose is significant. We do not permit civilians to own machine guns, fragmentation grenades, or build or use weapons of mass destruction. Our government decided long ago that the remote possibility that someone would purposely use or misuse such devices and such use would result in massive and tragic loss of life—was simply too much of a risk to take. They were correct. Yet in the case of the M16 military rifle (and the domestic “knock off” weapons such as the AR 15 and others like it) we permit almost anyone— even teenagers to purchase such devices and use them against other adults and children, as we have sadly witnessed in too many, tragic cases in the USA. There is no other advanced western nation in the world which permits its citizenry to own, use and carry battlefield weapons. Even in far off, wide-open-space-Australia—a country with a history and culture much like our own—citizens are not permitted to buy, own or use AR15 or similar style battlefield designed weapons. Years back after a tragic incident of mass murder in which a similar battlefield style weapon was used, the Aussies banned them. In 2017 their rate of death by gunshot per 100,000 citizens was about one (1) !. The rate of killings by guns per 100,000 in the USA over the same period was close to thirty (30). Our citizen’s death rate by gun fire was thirty times higher than in Australia! We will not end all gun violence. Handguns and real sporting guns are used in violent acts too. But we can make a significant difference by ending the access to killing machines that were never designed to be easily accessed or in common use as they are here in the USA.