2damnold4this
New member
The point of the study is to prove that intent doesn't matter and the gun used is what is important.
JAMA article on caliber lethality
- Thread starter dyl
- Start date
Thank you for the excerpt from the study. TO me, it points to a number of "disconnects" in logic. A big one is using "shooting" or "assault" instead of "murder". And I believe that while intent does have an effect on the final outcome, it has nothing to do with the mechanical ability of a bullet to kill.
Citizens defending themselves is a different matter than assault with intent to kill. Defense shooting is done to STOP an attacker. Whether they live or die as a result of being stopped is not relevant.
To be blunt, if I meant to kill you, I would shoot you, and shoot you more than once, and keep shooting you until I was certain you were dead. My intent would be to kill you, and I would use whatever means I had to get the job done. If I were really serious, I'd drive a stake through your heart, fill your mouth with garlic, cut off your head, burn both separately, and scatter the ashes at a cross roads. Doing all that changes the lethality of my large or small caliber gun not one whit.
"Guns don't kill people, people kill people" is correct, but too many people no longer remember the unspoken part of the phrase, which is "guns don't kill people BY THEMSELVES...
And, yes, of course the law considers killing more serious than wounding, because someone DIED! The law considers intent, as a factor in PUNISHMENT, not anything else.
Again, here is a disconnect. A person dying from being shot is NOT a reliable guide to the intent to kill. It is other factors that determine the intent, and the law does recognize that, which is why there are different classifications of crimes where someone dies. Manslaughter is a crime where someone dies, but there is no intent to kill. Murder (under various names) is where someone dies because of the intent to kill.
There is a significant difference. Homicide can be murder, or it can be justified, or even accidental. Either way, a person is dead, but it is intent that determines the legal classification.
Lump too many distinctly different situations under the term "shooting" and the study is flawed, and its conclusions are worthless.
Citizens defending themselves is a different matter than assault with intent to kill. Defense shooting is done to STOP an attacker. Whether they live or die as a result of being stopped is not relevant.
To be blunt, if I meant to kill you, I would shoot you, and shoot you more than once, and keep shooting you until I was certain you were dead. My intent would be to kill you, and I would use whatever means I had to get the job done. If I were really serious, I'd drive a stake through your heart, fill your mouth with garlic, cut off your head, burn both separately, and scatter the ashes at a cross roads. Doing all that changes the lethality of my large or small caliber gun not one whit.
"Guns don't kill people, people kill people" is correct, but too many people no longer remember the unspoken part of the phrase, which is "guns don't kill people BY THEMSELVES...
And, yes, of course the law considers killing more serious than wounding, because someone DIED! The law considers intent, as a factor in PUNISHMENT, not anything else.
Again, here is a disconnect. A person dying from being shot is NOT a reliable guide to the intent to kill. It is other factors that determine the intent, and the law does recognize that, which is why there are different classifications of crimes where someone dies. Manslaughter is a crime where someone dies, but there is no intent to kill. Murder (under various names) is where someone dies because of the intent to kill.
There is a significant difference. Homicide can be murder, or it can be justified, or even accidental. Either way, a person is dead, but it is intent that determines the legal classification.
Lump too many distinctly different situations under the term "shooting" and the study is flawed, and its conclusions are worthless.
Bartholomew Roberts
Moderator
Why do gun control researchers always sound like a bunch of six year old boys speculating on how babies are produced? Sounds like this group got ahold of an old Playboy magazine and got themselves really mixed up.
2damnold4this
New member
Yep. You would try to shoot me as many times as you thought necessary to kill me if that was your goal. If your goal is to scare me into compliance with your robbery threats, you might fire a shot at my leg. If you were a law abiding citizen defending against an attack by me, you would try to shoot me as much as necessary to get me to stop my attack. In all of these cases, intent could play a role in whether I live or die.
In what seems like an effort to make the gun the center of attention, the study purports to debunk the claim that intent is important but it doesn't try to quantify intent so it can be compared to what it calls "caliber." The study does make an attempt to separate multiple wounds from a single wound and that seems to be a huge factor in mortality.
The study doesn't properly categorize the cartridges it examines by caliber yet suggest the results be used to regulate caliber. The study claims that caliber, not intent, is the important factor in whether a victim lives or dies but makes no attempt to measure intent.
As gun people, we argue over what is the best hunting or defensive cartridge and we argue over particular loads of those cartridges. There are obviously differences in power of various cartridges and loadings of those cartridges but I think the best way to compare these is using tissue simulants as I don't think the study does an adequate job of accounting for the different variables.
Aguila Blanca
Staff
Bah.
"Everyone knows" that .223 Remington (a.k.a. 5.56x45mm) is too wimpy to use for hunting whitetail deer (according to several state governments), yet it's lethal enough for our soldiers to carry into combat. Go figure.
"Everyone knows" that .223 Remington (a.k.a. 5.56x45mm) is too wimpy to use for hunting whitetail deer (according to several state governments), yet it's lethal enough for our soldiers to carry into combat. Go figure.
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The other part of what "everyone knows" but seems to never remember is that sport hunting is just that. A sport. A GAME. And that the rules are whatever the govt. feels is best for the game. Not the game being hunted, but the game of sport hunting. What can do the job humanely in the hands of an expert may not be, in their opinion, allowed, simply because of the number of less than experts who would use it, and fail to humanely take game.
I have seen game laws where a certain gun and caliber are legal, and the exact same gun and caliber with a 1.5" shorter barrel are not legal.
I have seen laws where buckshot is not legal for deer, but IS legal for hunting black bear, in exactly the same location...
As the old saying goes, it doesn't have to make sense, its the law!
The various shooting sports, that more or less simulate targets that somewhat copy the human shape, IDPA/IPSC to name two of these. Mostly call for two hits per target. And the area of the target that gets the best score 5 points, is the centre of mass, so two hits in that area, score 10 points, a perfect score.
And the calibre (size) of the projectile is not differentiated at all!
So in the lethality of these sports targets, really are saying, by definition, were you hit (accuracy) is more important, than what you hit it with, again calibre?
And also hitting twice is better than once? IE the infamous Double Tap!
All of this never comes up, because it's only a sport? Sure.
And the calibre (size) of the projectile is not differentiated at all!
So in the lethality of these sports targets, really are saying, by definition, were you hit (accuracy) is more important, than what you hit it with, again calibre?
And also hitting twice is better than once? IE the infamous Double Tap!
All of this never comes up, because it's only a sport? Sure.
Bartholomew Roberts
Moderator
44AMP said:
And if it makes no sense and contradicts another law without explanation, then it’s firearms law.
Aguila Blanca
Staff
Brit said:
Don't forget power factor. .38 Super made a comeback because it was such a hassle to "make major" with 9mm. And, of course, 9mm and .38 Super (as well as .380 ACP, .38 Special, .357 Magnum, and .357 SIG) are the same caliber. The author(s) of the article obviously don't know enough about the topic to differentiate between "caliber" and "cartridge" or "chambering."
Double Naught Spy
New member
Which is an absolutely ludicrous argument or justification to substantiate anything about calibers.
Aguila Blanca
Staff
We are digressing. The point is that "caliber" is a way of expressing the diameter of the bullet (or barrel) -- nothing more. The fact that, as just one example, all those cartridges from the lowly .380 ACP all the way up through the .357 Magnum launch bullets of [essentially] the same diameter [and thus, the same caliber] was mentioned only to illustrate that point. It was not a recommendation for carrying .380 ACP (although I have done so on occasion).
We're discussing a very poorly presented article about what "calibers" are "more lethal" than others, so let's not let this discussion detour into another caliber wars argument.
We're discussing a very poorly presented article about what "calibers" are "more lethal" than others, so let's not let this discussion detour into another caliber wars argument.
Well even being called stupid (absolutely ludicrous argument) does not bother me too much, in my defence, not that I really need to, but I was just repeating many posts that use those terms.
Twenty years on the board of IALEFI, I took lots of flack on my love of the 9mm in fact, meeting with Col Cooper on his ranch, with his arm over my 18 years old Son's shoulder (they were the same height) he said: " Your Father is quite a nice person, except for his penchant for that Pip Squeak calibre, the 9mm!" And now the FBI endorse's it?
In fact, I have always thought that what your projectile strikes, is more important than what you strike it with.
What is the point of that remark?
I have seen two people being shot about six to twelve times each with 9mm handguns that could run around the street corner to my office. If they had been armed they could have fought back, they were so riddled with bullets that it was hard to tell entrance from exit wound and sadly they died quickly from blood loss. Lethality does somewhat get increased with a larger diameter bullet wound, it is the destruction of tissue and arteries that will cause bleeding and shock. A .223 Winchester at its high velocity with a high performance expanding projectile can very well end up with a substantially bigger exit wound -and larger expanded diameter - than the good ole .45 ACP 230 gr hardball.
I'm sorry, but "Caliber" is more than just bullet or bore diameter, depending on context. All the uses I can think of refer to the amount of/quality of/existence of something, but what that something is depends on context.
Caliber can refer to the cartridge name. Look at any firearm listing from their manufacturers and you will find a cartridge name under the heading "Caliber".
Another place caliber is used is in large arms (meaning the opposite of small arms) aka "artillery" There caliber is used not only for bore diameter, but also for barrel length, expressed in multiples of bore diameter.
The US use is mostly common in the Navy, other nations use the term with all their artillery. The USS MISSOURI (and all our Iowa class battleships) have a main armament of 16inch 50 caliber rifles. Our classic 5 inch naval gun, used on WWII destroyers as main armament and other ships as secondary armament or AA armament is a "5inch 38 caliber" gun.
it means the barrel is 38x5 inches long. Or in the case of the battleship, 50x16inches long. In this context, "caliber" is not only telling you the bore size, its telling you the barrel length, and it also gives you a rough approximation of the power of the gun, from its barrel length. Longer barreled guns are more powerful.
Very useful when your inventory has more than one size of gun with the same bore diameter. Any student of WWII German panzers learns their system, its a simple way to accurately describe which gun (or ammo) you're talking about. 7.5cm L/24, 7.5cm L/48, and 7.5cm L/70 are all 75mm bore diameter, but the different barrel lengths, expressed in calibers (multiples of bore diameter) easily identify which gun is being discussed. (also, in this case, each gun used different ammo, all 75mm "bullets" but different sized cases.)
Caliber is also used to describe quality. or lack thereof, such as the phrase "a man of his caliber"...
Caliber, like many other English words has multiple meanings, depending on context.
Which doesn't mean the yammerheads who did the JAMA study are right, only that they aren't completely inaccurate using the term "caliber" to indicate cartridges by name. Sometimes, even a blind monkey finds a banana...
Double Naught Spy
New member
Try rereading. You weren't called stupid, but the argument is ludicrous regardless of how many times it is made. Blindly repeating it does not make it any more true.