Dear Ms Goff,
I just finished reading the subject article and I'm afraid you have been subjected to some overly dramatic statements by law enforcement officers, perhaps to impress you with their flair and expertise in weaponry. As a retired peace officer myself, I am aware from watching episodes of COPS that officers say some really stupid things when placed in front of a TV camera.
The SLED officer's statement that an AK-47 shoots nine bullets at one time going 2400 feet per second is curious. I am not aware of any weapon that fires nine cartridges at the same time unless it has nine barrels and nine chambers. His additional statement that that it is a weapon used in combat is additionally provocative. Is the combat usefulness of a weapon defined by bullet speed? If so, then the rifles commonly used by law enforcement officers, AR-15s, must be super combat weapons since their bullet speeds out the barrel are over 3,000 feet per second. Does that mean that the term 'combat' as applied to weaponry is good, or bad?
Lieutenant Ricky Ezell defines a rifle's fear value to peace officers by their ammunition's ability to pierce police body armor. Is this a new definition of combat weapon? That sounds terrible, but I'm sure that just about any rifle cartridge authorized by your state's fish & game department to take deer size game will pierce police body armor. Does that also make every deer hunter in South Carolina a potential police killer?
Lieutenant Ezell also states, apparently from extensive research, that his department has collected cartridges that are capable of going through as many as four people if they are lined up properly. I suppose this is true, given a heavy enough projectile fired at high enough velocities, but my experience causes me to believe this is possible in weapons of light anti-armor (armored vehicles) variety mostly, not something your average street thug is willing to haul about. If you do some research yourself, you will see the light anti-armor rifles weigh on the order of 25 pounds and more. This is something street thugs don't just carry around under their sweatshirts.
In spite of all the smoke thrown your way by these officers, I'm glad to see that Captain Smith finally came clean, in spite of his gun control bias, and admitted that criminals will continue to get guns no matter how many gun control laws are passed. So, what he is really wanting is gun control laws that will hinder and restrict the law abiding citizen, right? The people who pay taxes for his protection, right?