What caliber has killed the most people?

[leadcounsel]

How can a gun owner on this forum say:


Quote:
Religion is undoubtedly the primary cause for the wholesale slaughter of billions of people in the history of the world from the Crusades to present day. People with conflicting views on GOD attack each other - kinda ironic if you think about it.

When all of us know that it isn't the guns that kill people, somewhere down the line they made the choice to kill. No matter how little input they had, they chose to depress the trigger, stab or whathaveya. Ideas are no different.

Easily: Guns are tools used to carry out a desired action, typically murder/death. The gun doesn't CAUSE the action of murder, it just happens to replace a different tool, be it a sword, axe, club, etc. Guns don't shape underlying moral behavior - sure they shape the battlefield, but not the underlying behavior.

Religion is a belief system which shapes moral behavior and YES, is the root cause for wholesale slaughter of billions of people. Religious zealots have violently imposed their beliefs upon others since the dawn of religion through present day. I'm here in Iraq, in part, because some religious screwjobs threaten world security.

One other point that is important to make for the PROGUN crowd: Despite all of the deaths from people using guns (whether for good or evil intent), the mosquito is responsible for more human deaths than all guns combined.

 

[TAB]

The most dangerous person is a religious zealot. Always has been, always will be.

 

[mbt2001]

The most dangerous person is a religious zealot. Always has been, always will be.

No, the most dangerous person is someone that has nothing left to lose.




Edit: I removed my previous post

 

[Hostile Amish]

The 7.7mm Japanese round and the .50 BMG round should be somewhere on that list. I'm not so sure of .22 LR.

 

[tcrocker]

You forgot the most dangours of them all the dreded car Ted Kennedy is driving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[pete f]

303, while being used by the brits in the colonial(not ours but india, palestine, and other places, certainly had its run, the winner is most likely split between the 7.62x54R and 7.92 x 57 mauser rounds.

The AK came too late, and although involved in some bloody stuff, (the balkans, the horn of africa) its really be small scale since the end of WW2 Even in Korea, the conflict was intense, but the numbers were in relative terms small compared to the Campaigns of WW2.

The two jap rounds, the 6.5 and 7.7 were used with effect and without remorse an awful lot,but the numbers do not seem to add up to the two top rounds.

The 30-06 was a killer, but it just did not have the socail killings added to it that made the others the top seeds.



Although the 9mm is cited by some, the real killers of the war in the hand gun were the .32 and 380. This was the round of execution as seen in the forests of Poland, the mountains of the Balkans and the steppes. One german killing field was found to have nearly a quarter million all shot once in the head with a small caliber round. Soviet Gulags have similar numbers. When you are fighting in the soviet winter, there is no time for feeding prisioners or civilians when you can not feed your own men. I believe it was during the siege of Leningrad, the 900 day siege that the germans killed two whole divisions of surrendered Red troops. because they had no other plans or ability to deal with them. Word of this is what kept Leningrad and Stalingrad from falling.

 

[Kentak]

So its OK to blame religion for religious violence...but its wrong to blame guns for gun violence?

Not comparable at all. Guns (weapons) are merely the instruments of warfare. What is it that causes people to go to war? Many, many things of course. The need for territory, power, resources, etc. Or, the desire to spread ideology, such as Communism, or Bush's desire to impose democracy on other cultures. Or, the desire to spread or defend religious beliefs and influence. It's no coincidence that much of the warfare in the past and in the present pit one religious group against another.

K

 

[jamesslonders]

ACW

.577 Minne Ball Civil war Musket. Killed more than all american wars combined.

 

[longdayjake]

7.62X39

I think this one is getting looked over simply because it was not in wwII. Every nation other than the NATO nations use AK's and almost every nation that uses them has used them to slaughter millions. Lets see, Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Equador, bolivia, Paraguay, etc. these are simply south american countries that are not known for big wars, but the death tolls from the 7.62 x 39 are in the millions. Now imagine all of the wars in the east that it has been used in and also the amount of murders have been committed in foreign countries with it. There are more AK's than any other rifle on earth. How could it not be the big killer?

 

[justin 561]

Hands down I'd say the 7.62x39, It's the popular choice for genocide in countless countries and wars.

 

[macp]

The AK came too late, and although involved in some bloody stuff, (the balkans, the horn of africa) its really be small scale since the end of WW2 Even in Korea, the conflict was intense, but the numbers were in relative terms small compared to the Campaigns of WW2.

Right although the AK wasn't used in Korea that I know of.

However as far as the overall numbers go, the Chinese and North Korean forces' KIA alone are estimated at over 600K, not including both North and South MIAs which are over 100K. The Korean War was one of the most destructive wars in history.

Also, here's a sobering tabulation of different conflicts' death tolls: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm

 

[gtmerkley]

.38 S&W killed the most police

 

[RaferJanders]

Boys, I think I am going to go with the Maxim gun, MG.08 7.92 would be my guess, Though You could make a case for the 303, Still rackin up to this day

 

[RaferJanders]

Nice reply KenTac, They are just tools in a tool box, Words, written words are way more deadly