Things you have been possibly "misinformed" on

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How about the whole concept of stopping power being important? It matters where you hit someone and how many times, not the caliber.

A local neurosurgeon who has worked trauma in ERs and the Mideast and carries concealed says:

Shooting someone doesn't necessarily stop them, but sometimes they stop because they have seen it on TV and think that's what is supposed to happen. Most gunshot victims die from bleeding out, which can take quite a while (up to 30 min); the time it takes is proportional to your size (because you have more blood). Even if you hit someone in the heart, they won't die for 30 seconds. You can drop them if you hit the central nervous system.
 
Nom de Forum said:
A long time ago I was misinformed that you could determine the Relative Stopping Power of a pistol bullet using the formula:

Bullet Weight x Bullet Velocity x Bullet Sectional Area

In my defense, I was very young and inexperience, and the misinformation came from a still well respected source.
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Well, you can. It just won't mean anything. And it may stop some relatives, but not all. :evil:
 
Oh yeah, another:

If you hear an intruder in the house, all you have to do is grab your shotgun and rack it loudly! The perp will wet his pants and punch a shaped outline in the door trying to get away!

Recent case to the contrary, homeowner stepped outside to investigate noise around his vehicle parked on the street and warned off two police officers investigating a separate incident. Detained, arrested, and hours later, finally released.

How about some other advice, like, shoot a blast thru the door? Recommended by a highly placed government official, too. Homeowner tried that, arrested, went to trial.

Or, "Just dial 911!" which one lady recently did, over 45 times for 45 minutes. She finally gave up and got out her gun, which resolved the situation. And the courts have already ruled there is no legal claim or justification that the police can or even will show up in time. Sorry, you have no right to even expect it.
 
Pizzapiniochle said:
Uh.... No one believes guns spontaneously jump up off the table and kill people. Yes, that is ridiculous and the only people I have ever heard talk about it are pro-gun people ascribing that view to others. Never actually seen an anti gun person say it. If anything, this is a pro-gun myth/story created to make antis look bad.

What anti gun people DO say is that guns make it much EASIER to kill people, which is true.
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I'll side with Tirod on this one. I have read and heard antis claim that "Guns Kill People." When confronted with this fallacy, the less hidebound/more honest of them will (grudgingly) alter that statement in the manner you describe.
 
A local neurosurgeon who has worked trauma in ERs and the Mideast and carries concealed says:

Shooting someone doesn't necessarily stop them, but sometimes they stop because they have seen it on TV and think that's what is supposed to happen. Most gunshot victims die from bleeding out, which can take quite a while (up to 30 min); the time it takes is proportional to your size (because you have more blood). Even if you hit someone in the heart, they won't die for 30 seconds. You can drop them if you hit the central nervous system.
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Welcome to 1998 my friend. I recall when Dave Vaughan told me that in my very first CCW course. This was the guy, http://www.threatsolutions.com/personalbio1.html


A local-to-you neurosurgeon must've taken one of his classes.

I've been misinformed by people who think they are the first one to pass me information that I've actually known since before I had the interweb.
 
have seen many people jump up from their seat in fear at the mere presence of a gun sitting on a table
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I once showed a coworker a photo of a gun I bought and she had the same reaction - complete with gasp and chest clutch.

The misinformation I swallowed was this:
1. No good parent would ever allow a real gun in the house.
2. No good parent would ever allow their children to play with toy guns.

I bought it, hook, line, and sinker, and decided that when I married and had children I would allow neither real nor toy guns in my house. I would be a good mother.

#1. I married a cop, so, real gun in the house.

#2. From about age 3, my son became fixated on guns. He turned evertyhing into a gun - fingers, pencils, air. On his 6th birthday, he got cash he wanted to spend. I told him it was his money to spend or save however he wanted <insert lesson in fiscal responsibility here>. He wanted to buy a gun. Having just assured him that he had control over his own money, I had no choice but to let him. I gave up on the toy gun ban. I'm not convinced that it wasn't the ban that caused his interest lol.

Eventually I lost my own fear of guns when I realized it was caused by lack of knowledge. I just didn't have any interest in them then. It wasn't until I was in my late 50's that I fired a gun for the first time and was hooked. And my son eventually became a gunsmith.
 
Another one (minor, but it bugs me because I'm a pilot):

Humid, "wet" air is heavier, more dense and impedes bullet flight more than dry air. I just read this in the American Rifleman a few months ago. Sports broadcasters also get this wrong (this ball won't carry as far in this park because the air is "thick and moist", just heard it last night watching the Giants game being played in Sandy Eggo).

Cool, dry air is most dense. Warm, humid air is less dense.

Dan

(BTW, excellent post KarenTOC!)
 
A bullet with a numerically superior ballistic coefficient always has a higher lethality.

BC is a contrived numerical index, a mathematical correction number to get ballisticians out of the corner they painted themselves into because the formulas are actually too simple to calculate the difference in shapes that bullets have, and the resulting difference in flight they will exhibit even when all else is the same.

It takes out a whole 'nother page of calculations and reduces the formula down to a few operations in a simple string. BC in and of itself can be changed by what model is being used - that's the baseline, and if you change the baseline, it changes all the resulting numbers.

So, if you use a "type A" bullet factor, vs a "type B," the comparison instantly becomes apples and oranges. It's also why you can't use figures stated in print because they often don't give you the baseline model used.

While it all looks and sounds very impressive, it's all too often some smoke and mirrors, especially in marketing or debates on the internet. "My bullet has a better BC and therefore it's better than yours" when translated becomes "and so am I." In other words, the usual monkey dancing over social standing. The bullets are actually innocent in all this, it's the shooter who chooses how they are used.

So, when they haul out BC to make some point, don't expect the discussion to go well as it usually won't stand scrutiny. It's a straw man argument based on a characteristic that is impossible to directly measure.
 
That you can't shoot fast and still hit. Like there's a choice to be made:

"Yew kin shoot fast if'n yew want tew, but Ah would druther hit..."

Or the oft quoted: "Speed is fine, but accuracy is final."

Why not learn how to hit fast?
 
Or the oft quoted: "Speed is fine, but accuracy is final."

Why not learn how to hit fast?
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Bill Jordan is often credited with that as it appears in No Second Place Winner where is says he doesn't know who first said it. But his point is really the same as yours: Speed without accuracy doesn't get you anything but second place. You need to be both fast and accurate.
 
Tirod said:
Oh yeah, another:

If you hear an intruder in the house, all you have to do is grab your shotgun and rack it loudly! The perp will wet his pants and punch a shaped outline in the door trying to get away!
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But, you weren't there. So, how do you know it didn't happen?:p
 
In the 80s, 90s and until about '07: Everything related to so-called "cop-killer bullets", the loaded expression "assault weapon" etc. No family or friends were members of the NRA (we lived in east Memphis, mostly near mid-town). I was a bit skeptical of the NRA's agendas, but understood nothing and was totally ignorant.

My only news was CNN/ABC/NBC :)barf:), until I repeated one of my misperceptions (via CNN's deception) to a coworker, who told me how the mass media Chooses to be misinformed about any gun topics, and how the media Chooses to misinform the public.
 
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JSH1 said:
There are still shootings in the UK but very few. The UK had a total of 33 firearm deaths in 2010, that is 0.25 gun related deaths per 100,000 people and 70% of them were suicides.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-kingdom
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Great that you sourced your info. Hope you don't mind my pointing out that you didn't quote the data accurately though! (wouldn't want any readers to leave with the wrong impression of the numbers, and under-quoting the number of gun deaths in a country that has banned semi-auto rifles and all pistols, rather plays into the hands of the anti-gun lobby....)

Real information from the link you posted:

Total gun deaths in 2010 were 165.
109 of those are quoted as "gun suicide"


I agree with you though, that UK "gun murders" are relatively low when compared to some other countries. However, despite the bans on certain weapons, illegal guns are still readily available to those criminals who want them.

As an example, during this same 2010 period, handguns were using in over 3000 firearms offences. Quite suprising for a country which banned handguns 13 years earlier...
 
Great that you sourced your info. Hope you don't mind my pointing out that you didn't quote the data accurately though!
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I don't mind at all and you are correct, I got the numbers wrong. These are the correct numbers:

Gun Suicides: 109
Gun Homicides: 33
Undetermined Gun Deaths: 11
Unintentional Gun Deaths: 8
Justifiable Gun Homicides: 4
Total Gun Deaths: 165

The UK had 0.26 gun deaths and 0.05 gun homicides per 100,000 people in 2010

during this same 2010 period, handguns were using in over 3000 firearms offences. Quite suprising for a country which banned handguns 13 years earlier...
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That doesn't surprise me at all. I never claimed that gun crime doesn't exist in the UK, just that the level is quite low. It is also declining:

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/192/rate_of_all_gun_deaths_per_100_000_people
 
Well, the problem with the UK handgun ban is that firearms offenses were already very low. But they had a sensational spree killing (Dunblane), and knee-jerked even tougher gun-control laws.
 
Well, the problem with the UK handgun ban is that firearms offenses were already very low.
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Gun deaths were low before the ban and they are lower now. I don't know if the drop is due to the handgun ban or not.
But they had a sensational spree killing (Dunblane), and knee-jerked even tougher gun-control laws.
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Yes they did. It is up to the people in the UK to decide if that was a good decision or not.
 
Humid, "wet" air is heavier, more dense and impedes bullet flight more than dry air. I just read this in the American Rifleman a few months ago. Sports broadcasters also get this wrong (this ball won't carry as far in this park because the air is "thick and moist", just heard it last night watching the Giants game being played in Sandy Eggo).

Cool, dry air is most dense. Warm, humid air is less dense.
Click to expand...

You changed the conditions.. Humid air is more dense than dry air.. is what you quote. Humid warm air is more dense than Dry warm air. TRUE.. Humid cold air is more dense than Dry cold air.. True.. By adding the temperature differential, YES you change the meaning..
 
Greg528iT said:
You changed the conditions.. Humid air is more dense than dry air.. is what you quote. Humid warm air is more dense than Dry warm air. TRUE.. Humid cold air is more dense than Dry cold air.. True.. By adding the temperature differential, YES you change the meaning..
Click to expand...

I didn't explain myself very carefully. I should have prefaced my initial statement by saying "The press gets it wrong when they say..."

But other poster are starting off with the "misinformed" part and I followed suit.

Dan
 
FinnComm said:
I agree with you though, that UK "gun murders" are relatively low when compared to some other countries.
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Just an interesting tidbit on violent crime that I think illustrates the role that poverty and culture have in the incidence thereof:


The homicide rate in the UK as a whole is hovering around 1.2/100k.

Which is within a couple tenths of ...Iowa,Vermont, New Hampshire, Wyoming and Idaho.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state
 
/devil's advocate
But the UK can do it while being urban as opposed to some of the states you listed. If nobody is around it is harder to be murdered.

And to keep on topic of the OP
I was misinformed that all NFA markings had to be on the receiver. Most can be on the barrel.
 
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