US Presidential Election 2008 - Candidates stances on gun control

I've been trying to document various public statements that all the current candidates have made regarding gun control or the 2nd Amendment. The videos are posted at our Politics 2008 page and are sorted alphabetically by candidate.

Here's a sample:

Hollowpoints are better man stoppers?

Well this short little video from FirstScience.tv certainly wants to say that hollowpoints have "better stopping power" than round nose bullets...based on the damage to a couple of milk jugs. I feel a heck of a lot better about the work we've been doing after watching this video (though I could learn something from them on video editing). While I'm not debating the obvious merits of hollowpoints, I don't know that you can definitively say they have more stopping power.

A) It really depends on the type of shooting you are doing. As an antipersonnel round, perhaps they're better, but I've heard that they are illegal in some parts of the US. As a hunting round, I'm not certain that this is the case. A lot has been written about "Keith" bullets (essentially semi-wadcutter lead bullets) and the power those type of bullets posses (read up on them).

B) The caliber and type of gun would seem to matter much more than the bullet (assuming you hit what you're aiming at in the first place), when you weigh stopping power. And no, I'm not getting into a 1911 vs 9mm debate, but rather look at the muzzle velocity of a .357 Mag handgun vs a .357 Mag rifle (any number of lever runs are available in this caliber). Same round, same bullet, vastly different muzzle velocities because they're vastly different firearms.

For example, a number of states list their game regulations as some form of "must have 1,000 ft lbs of energy at 100 yards" for a firearm to be able to be used on big game. With a .357 rifle with a 16" barrel, at least one of the factory Buffalo Bore rounds will produce that energy. The muzzle velocity is listed as near 1800 ft lbs (in a 16" barrel) vs similar (if less "heavy") product from Remington producing 1295 ft lbs (in a 4" barrel). At 100 yards, you'll see significant fall off from a .357 Mag and you really need that high starting muzzle velocity to have a chance at making the game regulation as stated above. So you can certainly argue that it's barrel length, along with the load that determines stopping power in this case.

These are the things that you need to consider when you try to make an "apples to apples" comparison: caliber, load (aka powder), bullet type, bullet weight, and barrel length.

Do you shoot better than a NYC police officer?

The New York Times released an article today discussing a NYC shooting statistics. The number of times shots were fired, along with the number of hits (See the image below)


Basically as the distance between the officer increases, the chance of success decreases (imagine that), and total number of shots also decrease (also expected). There's a fair bit of back in forth in the two page article talking about why officers shouldn't use lethal force, or when they do shoot their firearm the result tends to be lethel, but I'm uncertain why they have such a problem with the success rates.

They're not talking about IPSC comptetion results; they're talking about real world results. The real world isn't a John Wayne movie (though I may enjoy those as much as everyone). You can't "throw" your pistol forward and hit every time. Anyone that shoots regularly knows this, and can attest to this at the gun range. Ok, so let's find someone who might know what they're talking about; look at what the NRA Handgun Qualification says about their Marksman rating (the third level up from beginner):

Warm-Up Event
Position: Standing, two hands.
Distance: 15 feet.
Target: Paper plates/discs 9" diameter.
Time: No restrictions.
Rating requirements: Acquire 10 plates with 10 shots in each plate. All shots must be inside a 1½" margin from the edge of the plate. The 10 plates do not have to be fired in succession or on the same day.

That's 100% success rate...with no hurry on when you shot. Ok, not quite what the police are likely to encounter. How about the NRA's Sharpshooter classification (level 5 of 7)?

Sustained Fire Event
Position: Standing, ready, two hands, with strong side and weak side stages.
Distance: 25 feet.
Target: D-1 precision target. This event is conducted in 2 stages. Both stages must be completed in the same session to qualify as one completed course of fire.

• Stage 1 strong side: 5 shots in 20 seconds.
• Stage 2 weak side: 5 shots in 20 seconds.

A total of 10 shots per target. Possible score per target: 100.
Rating requirements: Acquire 10 targets, 5 with a score of 60 or better and 5 with a score of 65 or better. The 10 targets do not have to be fired in succession or on the same day.

Ok the distance seems right, and now there's a time constraint. They still want 100% on the target, but notice that the area of the target becomes important. Note that these are essentially "paper plate" targets in size, so they're a fair bit smaller than "standard" police targets.

Here's a clip on the LA police qualifications:

Without defining what is good (which the article doesn't do), how do you determine if a police force is shooting accurately? Maybe via comparison to other cities? They do compare it to LA, but then again, the size and environment of the city is vary different between LA and NYC as should be readily apparent. I'd be curious what the differences were between NYC and Chicago are, and why that wasn't used in the article.

t would seem hard to say with any certainty what is a good percentage for accuracy until the paper plates start shooting back.

Is the .308 dying out as a hunting round?

I've been considering a scout rifle project based on a Remington 700 series that I own chambered in .308 Win. After poking around for a little bit, it would seem that some manufacturers think this is still a viable (economically) round and some are more keen on the magnums and newer rounds. For example:

Manufacturer	Number of Rifles in .308 Win
Mossberg	0
Thompson / Center	0
Smith & Wesson	0
H&R	2
Ruger	7
Remington	18
Beretta	21
Browning	23

Mossberg: They've only recently been pushing their rifles, so this isn't that surprising, especially considering they're only fielding two models currently.

Thompson / Center: I was very surprised they don't offer a barrel in .308 Win. I wonder if this is a technical reason (doubt it) or there just isn't demand for it from people would buy one of their rifles? I'd guess that anyone that gets a T/C might already have a normal rifle in .308 Win?

Smith & Wesson: Again, a bit surprising, especially given their rifles seem to be tactical in nature.

H&R: Only two offerings. However, they only field five different series of rifle so this isn't as bad as it might seem.

Ruger: Only seven offerings, and they do have a variety of series.

Remington: Eighteen offerings. Still, it seems like the 30-06 is a much more available (if not more popular) chambering for their rifles. Additionally they seem to really be pushing the magnums...

Beretta: 21 offerings mostly in the Sako, Tikka, etc series. I was a bit surprised they offer so many, but I'm pretty unfamiliar with Beretta in general.

Browning: 23 different rifles are offered in .308 Win. Given that the entire BLR series (Browning's lever action rifle) can take this cartridge it certainly helps Browning's numbers.


I really need to make a chart of all the rifle chamberings for each of the major manufacturers and graph that out to see what the trends look like. Perhaps that would show if they .308 Win is less popular or dying off.

A new Rambo movie?

Apparently there's a new Rambo movie coming out! While I really like the first (and if you listen to the DVD with the commentary, it's actually quite interesting), they did get progressively worse with each add on. However, there's been nothing to see at the movies in a while, so I may head out to see this in January.

Here it is (via YouTube):

and in case that's bad, you can view it on Apple's trailer site right here.