VPC Study Explains Assault Weapons' Spray-Fire Design

[gun-fucious]

VPC Study Explains Assault Weapons' Spray-Fire Design
http://www.jointogether.org/z/0,2522,563470,00.html?U=154041

The Violence Policy Center (VPC) announces the release of a
new study tracing the design history of assault weapons from
1944 to the present.

>>>>>>>
and to think i was taught,
sprayed fire is inaccurate fire...
>>>>>>>>

Press Release
Violence Policy Center
1140 19th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
www.vpc.org
Contact:
Jennifer Friedman
Phone: 202-822-8200
Bullet Hoses Documents History of Assault Weapons, Shows That Widely Available Civilian Assault Weapons Incorporate Specific Military Design Features for "Laying Down a High Volume of Fire Over a Wide Killing Zone"
Washington, DC - The Violence Policy Center (VPC) today released a new study, Bullet Hoses: Semiautomatic Assault Weapons -- What Are They? What's So Bad About Them? The study traces the design history of assault weapons from the 1944 Nazi Sturmgewehr (STG) 44 -- the first assault weapon -- to the current Bushmaster XM-15, the assault rifle used last year by the Washington, DC-area snipers. Bullet Hoses shows how civilian semiautomatic assault weapons--like the AK-47, UZI, and TEC-9 -- incorporate the major design features that were specifically developed by the military for laying down a high volume of fire over a wide killing zone, often called "hosing down" an area.
"Bullet Hoses demolishes the National Rifle Association's phony argument that AK-47 and UZI civilian assault weapons are just like grandpa's semiautomatic hunting rifle," said study author Tom Diaz, VPC senior policy analyst. "It also shreds the unregulated gun industry's pretense that there is no such thing as a civilian assault weapon and documents how the industry has in fact cynically exploited the deadly design features of civilian assault weapons -- like the TEC-DC9 and Hi-Point Carbine used at Columbine High School in 1999 -- to sell these killing machines and boost its profits."
Bullet Hoses documents 10 key points about why semiautomatic assault weapons are too deadly for civilian use, using firearms references widely hailed by gun enthusiasts as authoritative sources as well as documents from the gun industry itself. The study also explains how the current federal assault weapons ban -- scheduled to "sunset" or automatically expire on September 13, 2004 -- fails to capture the most deadly design features and thus needs to be strengthened. The unregulated gun industry has successfully circumvented the current law, designing and marketing assault weapons like the Bushmaster XM-15 that incorporate slight cosmetic modifications to evade the ban, while keeping the principal features that make deadly "spray-firing" easy.

Date of Release: May 22, 2003

http://www.vpc.org/studies/hosecont.htm

 

[SIGarmed]

The DC shooter/murderer's weapon was a Bushmaster self loading rifle. Every victim was shot once. Some spray and pray weapon, the killers could have used anything.

 

[Standing Wolf]

The unregulated gun industry has successfully circumvented the current law, designing and marketing assault weapons like the Bushmaster XM-15 that incorporate slight cosmetic modifications to evade the ban, while keeping the principal features that make deadly "spray-firing" easy.

Even if there were a speck of truth in all that, leftist extremists' irrational fears and anti-Second Amendment bigotry still wouldn't trump the nation's civil rights.

 

[gun-fucious]

me wonders how fast a lever action winchester could be "spray fired"

 

[longeyes]

How can a semi-automatic weapon, with one bullet fired per trigger pull, be considered a weapon that can lay down a high volume of fire, a "bullet hose?" You can lay down an equivalent hail of fire by pulling the trigger rapidly on a revolver.

 

[Seminole]

You can lay down an equivalent hail of fire by pulling the trigger rapidly on a revolver.

Exactly. . . ! Which is why revolvers should be banned.

 

[Navy joe]

From the link...

4. However, this is a distinction without a difference in terms of killing power. Civilian semiautomatic assault weapons incorporate all of the functional design features that make assault weapons so deadly. They are arguably more deadly than military versions, because most experts agree that semiautomatic fire is more accurate—and thus more lethal—than automatic fire.

5. The distinctive "look" of assault weapons is not cosmetic. It is the visual result of specific functional design decisions. Military assault weapons were designed and developed for a specific military purpose—laying down a high volume of fire over a wide killing zone, also known as "hosing down" an area.

So, what's it gonna be Diaz? Lethally accurate semi-auto fire or dastardly deadly spray fire hosing down an area? I realize now I know Tom Diaz, he hides out in GT point vs. aimed shooting debates.

 

[Jeff White]

I find it very hard to believe that the people at VPC are so stupid that they really thought banning cosmetic features would really take the evil balck assault weapons off the civilian market.

Bullet Hoses shows how civilian semiautomatic assault weapons--like the AK-47, UZI, and TEC-9 -- incorporate the major design features that were specifically developed by the military for laying down a high volume of fire over a wide killing zone, often called "hosing down" an area.

Really, Tom? It seems that none of them have the one main feature that allows them to hose down an area...Full auto capability. Yes Tom the military uses machine guns in this role. Not usually hand held weapons either. They are most often fired from a tripod or bipod.

Gee Tom, you missed tripods and bipods as evil features. Either you know nothing about that which you speak, or you know that you'd never get public support to ban tripods and bipods.

Jeff

 

[Sir Galahad]

I can't find the "spray" position on my AK's selector. It only has "safe" and "fire" and only semi-auto fire at that. Should those of us without "spray" functions ask for refunds or is this an warranty upgradable thing?

 

[Gordon Fink]

“The unregulated [sic] gun industry has successfully circumvented the current law, designing and marketing assault weapons … that incorporate slight cosmetic modifications to evade the ban, while keeping the principal features that make deadly ‘spray-firing’ [sic] easy.â€

To paraphrase someone wise, the deadliest thing on the battlefield is a single well-aimed shot.

~G. Fink

 

[Pinned&Recessed]

The unregulated gun industry has successfully circumvented the current law, designing and marketing assault weapons like the Bushmaster XM-15 that incorporate slight cosmetic modifications to evade the ban, while keeping the principal features that make deadly "spray-firing" easy

Emphasis mine.

This is crap. Let me explain

Unregulated Gun Industry: This is untrue on its face. The gun industry, like the auto industry or the widget industry, is sharply regulated by taxation, workplace regulations and standards, consumer safety laws and a plethora of other things I'm too tired to remember. More crap from the Antis.

Circumvented the Current Law and Evade the Ban: More untruths. Bushmaster and others are not "evading the law", THEY'RE OBEYING IT. The law says that a new production semi-auto rifle cannot have a detachable mag and 2 evil features. Guess what? New Bushys have a detachable mag and ONE evil feature. Sounds like they are following the law to me. The law says that certain model guns cannot be produced. Guess what? You won't see a new Colt Ar-15 for sale, but you'll see a Bushy XM-15 or a Armalite M-15 for sale.

What pisses the anti's off is the fact that the manufacturers are following the LETTER of the law, not the SPIRIT of the law.

Right now the Anti's control the debate as they have grabbed control of the language. Don't let them do it. Grab it back.

 

[Feanaro]

Wow, I guess the military has the wrong idea then. They teach soldiers to fire one or two shots at the enemy to kill them. I thought the reason they took full auto off the M16 was because the soldiers kept shooting the jungle up and hitting NOTHING. But the military knows nothing, right?

And they themselves admitted the features were cosmetic when they said Bushmaster changed some COSMETIC features and it was legal. This reeks of crap.

 

[Justin]

Oh come on. Little Tommy Diaz is a fellow gun owner. You'd at least think that he could come up with something a little less, well, screechy and stupid.

Unless it's true that he's nothing more than the ultimate Gun Shoppe Commando.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9407&highlight=Diaz+500

I have to admit to having a certain level of fascination with the VPC's agitprop. The only group of people who seem to be able to top the VPC's blowhard hypocritical squealing are the North Koreans.

 

[dinosaur]

I think the VPC is trying to spray hose the average sheep. If boring articles could kill, Diaz would be a mass murderer.

 

[El Tejon]

This is a fake. No one could be this stupid.

 

[Waitone]

OK. We've got 15 months ahead of us where the fight will be over terminology and what terms gain acceptance in the media. We'll see numerous terms introduced then dropped then reintroduced. There will be an parade of these kinds of articles where inflammatory phrases will be introduced. Then look to see what terms end up in other publications.

Assault weapons--served nicely for 10 years by is now marginalized.

Semi-Automatic assault weapon--new favorite designed to smear eventually semi-automatic pistols.

Machinegun--been used wrt to Case Western Univ shooter and others but has recently disappeared for now.

Latest verbal spray for Tom Diaz
--Bullet Hose--good one

--Killing Zone

--Unregulated gun industry

"Bullet Hoses demolishes the National Rifle Association's phony argument that AK-47 and UZI civilian assault weapons are just like grandpa's semiautomatic hunting rifle," said study author Tom Diaz, VPC senior policy analyst.

Beginning of the effort to blend evil based on functionallity.

 

[Monte Harrison]

Taking it line by line,

1. Semiautomatic assault weapons (like AK and AR-15 assault rifles and UZI and MAC assault pistols) are civilian versions of military assault weapons. There are virtually no significant differences between them.

Agreed.

2. Military assault weapons are "machine guns." That is, they are capable of fully automatic fire. A machine gun will continue to fire as long as the trigger is held down until the ammunition magazine is empty.

True.

3. Civilian assault weapons are not machine guns. They are semiautomatic weapons. (Since 1986 federal law has banned the sale to civilians of new machine guns.) The trigger of a semiautomatic weapon must be pulled separately for each round fired. It is a mistake to call civilian assault weapons "automatic weapons" or "machine guns."

Well, I'll be damned. One of the Idiot Left actually making this distinction.

4. However, this is a distinction without a difference in terms of killing power. Civilian semiautomatic assault weapons incorporate all of the functional design features that make assault weapons so deadly. They are arguably more deadly than military versions, because most experts agree that semiautomatic fire is more accurate—and thus more lethal—than automatic fire.

Also factually correct.

5. The distinctive "look" of assault weapons is not cosmetic. It is the visual result of specific functional design decisions. Military assault weapons were designed and developed for a specific military purpose—laying down a high volume of fire over a wide killing zone, also known as "hosing down" an area.

Here, he contradicts himself. If "semiautomatic fire is more accurate—and thus more lethal—than automatic fire," then does "laying down a high volume of fire over a wide killing zone, also known as hosing down an area" really make sense? He describes the concept of "supressive fire" without mentioning the fact that you are not likely to hit anyone doing that.

6. Civilian assault weapons keep the specific functional design features that make this deadly spray-firing easy. These functional features also distinguish assault weapons from traditional sporting guns.

Once again, If "semiautomatic fire is more accurate—and thus more lethal—than automatic fire," then how is "spray-firing" so deadly?

7. The most significant assault weapon functional design features are: (1) ability to accept a high-capacity ammunition magazine, (2) a rear pistol or thumb-hole grip, and, (3) a forward grip or barrel shroud. Taken together, these are the design features that make possible the deadly and indiscriminate "spray-firing" for which assault weapons are designed. None of them are features of true hunting or sporting guns.

Interesting, he called it a "magazine" instead of "clip."
So I guess if you don't use your guns to murder Bambi they aren't "true sporting guns"? That's a bit bigoted and snobbish, isn't it? By "barrel shroud", is he referring to handguards? I guess we should accept burning our hands on hot barrels as a sacrifice for the safety of the children.

8. "Spray-firing" from the hip, a widely recognized technique for the use of assault weapons in certain combat situations, has no place in civil society. Although assault weapon advocates claim that "spray-firing" and shooting from the hip with such weapons is never done, numerous sources (including photographs and diagrams) show how the functional design features of assault weapons are used specifically for this purpose.

...to no real effect except wasting ammo. Keep flogging that dead horse.

9. Unfortunately, most of the design features listed in the 1994 federal ban—such as bayonet mounts, grenade launchers, silencers, and flash suppressors—have nothing to do with why assault weapons are so deadly. As a result, the gun industry has easily evaded the ban by simply tinkering with these "bells and whistles" while keeping the functional design features listed above.

So at least he admits the current "assault weapon ban" is bunk.

10. Although the gun lobby today argues that there is no such thing as civilian assault weapons, the gun industry, the National Rifle Association, gun magazines, and others in the gun lobby enthusiastically described these civilian versions as "assault rifles," "assault pistols," "assault-type," and "military assault" weapons to boost civilian assault-weapon sales throughout the 1980s. The industry and its allies only began to use the semantic argument that a "true" assault weapon is a machine gun after civilian assault weapons turned up in inordinate numbers in the hands of drug traffickers, criminal gangs, mass murderers, and other dangerous criminals.

I can call my Corolla an exotic sports car, but that doesn't make it so. "Assault weapon" has a definition in the law. According to the law, if a gun does not have a flash suppressor and bayonet lug, it ain't an "assault weapon."

In Diaz's defense, he gets a lot of the facts correct in this "study." But all of his argument boils down to "killing is baaad, so guns are baaad." Genius.

 

[Soap]

You all forget that people who don't know anything about do not know that all civilian clones are semi-auto only. There are literally millions and millions of people out there that would think that my semi-auto Bushmaster can shoot in fully automatic mode. Even if they hear "semi-automatic", they have no idea what this means. So to the casual observer, what Diaz says makes sense. Sad, but true.

 

[longeyes]

Waitone's point is on target. It doesn't matter whether every one on this forum knows that Diaz's remarks are stupid and/or disingenuous in terms of the reality of firearms technology. What matters is that there's a war going on here in terms of the language. The idea is to plant catchy terms and wait for them to explode at the voting booth. We need to get hip to that reality and start a semantic counter-attack, something I don't think the gun community has been very adept at to date. If we let some dunderhead confuse machineguns with semi-autos we will wind up losing our 1911s, Glocks, and SIGs as "bullet hoses." The time has come to find tougher, more aggressive, and, yes, more sensationalistic language to characterize those who would deprive us of the right to self-defense.

 

[DRC]

For those of you unfamiliar with VPC...

I'm sure most here are familiar with VPC but in the even that you aren't I often use information from this site to show my CHL students why ignorance is truly bliss Seriously though I tell my students to stop by this site from time to time just to see what they could be up against. The first time I went to the VPC site I literally thought it was a parity board or something along those lines but then I realized it was real.

I still check the site out to see just what nutty deduction VPC has come up with. I keep waiting for them to come up with a story to support the idea that cockroaches talk to you in your sleep making you use firearms in an unsafe manner. This could explain why criminals do what they do. It might even explain people like Charles Manson and VPC would be Johnny on the spot with that story I'm sure

Anyway, I recommend to anyone here to go to the VPC board to see how ignorance plays a big part in many lives. It can also give you a better understanding of why folks think this way in some cases and give you better talking points against anyone willing to debate on the issue. Keep in mind in no way am I saying that this site is well done, based on any fact at all or worth reading for any other reason than to know what ignorant people think. Always best to understand and know your enemy.

DRC

 

[general]

The time has come to find tougher, more aggressive, and, yes, more sensationalistic language to characterize those who would deprive us of the right to self-defense.

What we need is a descriptive term to identify these "traitors to the Constitution"
I think my sig line says it all...

 

[Battler]

I almost want to go talk to folk at VPC to see which it is. . . .

The question haunts me. . . .

Do they know a lot about guns and make this stuff up to deliberately mislead others?

Or are they really stupid?

I almost believe the former, as they make it sound so believable - you can't make up this level of misinformation if you don't know guns and aren't deliberately trying to mislead.

But it's just so daft. . . .

I just don't know. . . .

 

[Dave R]

If this were the 18th Century, I would propose a duel with the author (or with Feinstein, Boxer, et. al.)

Distance would be 100 yards.

They would be armed with an "assault rifle" with full magazine.

I would be armed with a bolt-action rifle and a single cartridge.

They would "spray fire" from the hip.

I would fire from the shoulder.

Any bets on the outcome?

 

[Nightfall]

They are arguably more deadly than military versions...

Funny how it's gone from almost as deadly, to as deadly, to more deadly now.

For all of us who complain and whine about not owning full-auto, take solace! Those handicapped semi-auto rifles are even more deadly than those piddly M16 or M4 rifles!

Military assault weapons were designed and developed for a specific military purpose—laying down a high volume of fire over a wide killing zone, also known as "hosing down" an area.

Apparently this is their reason why we shouldn't own military assault weapons. Too bad the AWB has nothing to do with military assault weapons. Any assault weapon comes with a specific feature that makes it better suited to area fire... it's this little switch or lever that enables you to set a firearm for full-auto fire. While they do admit this in their sickening 'article', their reasoning is that since military assault weapons were designed for full-auto area fire, and the semi-auto version of that weapon still has something like, oh say, an adjustable M4 style stock, that the weapon is still designed for area fire. Sorry VPC, the functionality of a Bushmaster is different from that military assault weapon and that is what matters. When you take away the function that makes a weapon well suited to a specific task (in this case auto-fire), just because it looks like that weapon doesn't mean it is still designed to fulfill the role. An M14 looks like an M21, but they fill two different roles.

Utter trash.

 

[CleverNickname]

Civilian semiautomatic assault weapons incorporate all of the functional design features that make assault weapons so deadly. They are arguably more deadly than military versions, because most experts agree that semiautomatic fire is more accurate—and thus more lethal—than automatic fire.

So if full-auto is less lethal than semi-auto, I'll assume that the VPC is going to start lobbying for the repeal of the '86 machinegun ban. After all, we have to remove those deadly semi-auto assault weapons from private citizen's hands. What better way than to encourage them to convert the guns to full-auto?