Lethal Weapon

I have been spending some more time on FB discussing Assault Weapons with some die hard... "We need them in case the federal government over reaches or the government collapses types..."  They used the Cliven Bundy Ranch Rent stand off as a good example of where the AR15 type weapons were needed. I noted that the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters accomplished a similar result without guns. And Lord knows the Black Lives Matter folks frustrate me often with their civil disobedience.

To give you some perspective... I posted the following.  "And as I said earlier, how many innocent lives are you willing to sacrifice to keep those guns readily available in our private market? Remember Las Vegas, Pulse, etc. How will you feel if one of ours kids dies in the next event?"  USA Today AR15 Mass Shootings   The reply I received was "Liberty shall not be sacrificed for safety. That's all I have to say about that. Banning a specific model of a gun will make our children no more safe - it may just make some people "feel" safer."  And one of the commenters posted this link, I assume to indicate that assault rifles are not the problem since hand guns are used more often.

Well that got me thinking...  Why do I want to tighten the screws down on bump fireable large magazine rifles? And I think it is for the exact same reason these gentlemen think they need them to hold off federal officials and/or future dictators. I mean if semi automatic handguns, shot guns, rifles and AR15 type weapons are "just guns"...  Then why do people resist giving up their AR 15 types weapons so passionately?

And the reality is because the AR15 type weapons are simply more lethal and can have bigger clips.  They are very good for killing enemies, holding off Federal Marshals, killing zombies and killing innocent civilians... And they can be used accurately from longer distances than a hand gun. (ie from safe cover, possibly a hotel room) Now to check out what I think is a pretty straight forward hypothesis, I filtered MJs Mass Shooting Records for events where more than 10 people were killed in an attack since Columbine. The results:

• AR15: Avg Dead/Attack: 27  Avg Injured/Attack: 94
• Hand Guns: Avg Dead/Attack: 16  Avg Injured/Attack: 30

The simple fact is one has to be fairly close to effectively kill with a hand gun...  Then some one who is "conceal and carrying" has a chance of playing Dirty Harry and killing the shooter.  However in situations like Las Vegas, it did not matter who had hand guns on the ground.

And now that the Vegas shooter has raised the bar, maybe next time it will be at a high school football game, when the kids are in the parking lot after school or at bar close.  I mean the crazy person just needs to camp out behind a wall at a higher elevation and it will be like shooting into a flock of ducks.  Whether one of the ducks is carrying a hand gun or not.

Tap to see in more detail.  Thoughts?

Update:  So I decided to re-run the numbers with all the MJ data and here is what it shows. Though Assault Rifles are involved in fewer of the attacks, they result in almost twice as many deaths and almost 7 times as many injuries.  Does anyone argue the logic?  That is what the guns were made for.