Le Mas RBCD armor piercing Ammo, Where can I get it?

[jizzmonkey]

Does anyone know how to get ahold of these rounds, I hear they are pricey, 37 bucks for a box of 20, but I hear they deliver as advertised.

[ßå$tĮТHÏ¿ð]

I thought ammo like that was only for the military and was illegal for average joe to own??? Apparently not in the states.

[California Joe]

Did you just call me average?

OK, the obvious questionnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.........WHY do you need armor piercing Black Talon type rounds?

[ibstolidude]

I thought ammo like that was only for the military and was illegal for average joe to own??? Apparently not in the states.

"Armor piercing ammunition" is defined in federal law [18 U.S.C. 921(17)(B)] as "a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed" of various metals harder than lead, or "a full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile."

http://www.atf.treas.gov/firearms/legal/armor.htm

I'm sorry you were saying?

[ßå$tĮТHÏ¿ð]

wow nice to know you guys are psychotic. That must make police feel safe at night knowing any idiot with a hangun can put one threw there vest like a hot knife threw butter. Thank god that stuff's only allowed for the military in Canada.

[Roger Rabbit]

Have the criminals and all the bad guys you Americans are scared of started wearing bullet proof vests then?

[jizzmonkey]

I thought ammo like that was only for the military and was illegal for average joe to own??? Apparently not in the states.

Not really, the only ammo that I know of (other than 40mm on up) that is regulated is the so called "black talon" teflon coated rounds, but even they are easily purchased at your local Gun show.

The reason I am asking is that a recent article in the Army times talks about a guy who is not active duty, he's a "security consultant" IE dyncorp or something else. Anyway, this guy purchased a limited amount of this ammo from Le Mas, and used it, apperantley this ammo causes irepairable damage in a human body, This guy shot a guy in the buttocks, and the guy died instantly (so he claims).

P.s pardon the terrible spelling but I'm a grunt.

[cut]

so you want to try it out?

[jizzmonkey]

not officially, buuuut yeah.

[fred_engles]

apperantley this ammo causes irepairable damage in a human bodyYeah, umm, bullets do that, I hear.

[jizzmonkey]

apperantley this ammo causes irepairable damage in a human bodyYeah, umm, bullets do that, I hear.

RIIIIIGHT... but a buttocks wound is seldomly mortal, this round is supposed to explode on impact and fragment in the human dody and cause almost instant death.

[Beowulf]

The print is small in this article, but it reviews the round.
http://www.afji.com/AFJI/Mags/2001/August/MeteorRound.htm

Some points: a knife or an arrow will pass through a vest mroe easily than any bullet.
Some criminals have gotten access to bulletproof vests, i.e. california bank robbers.

I don't think the average citizen needs armor piercing ammo.

Personally, I would rather have hollow points as they will do more damage. Plus in the ensuing civil case you will be asked about your choice of ammunition, and if it happened to go through a wall and hit someone you're f-d.

Expanding ammunition typically has less penetration, and causes more physiological trauma. aka bleedingoutgoingintoshock-itis

my .02
-b

[Beowulf]

apperantley this ammo causes irepairable damage in a human bodyYeah, umm, bullets do that, I hear.

RIIIIIGHT... but a buttocks wound is seldomly mortal, this round is supposed to explode on impact and fragment in the human dody and cause almost instant death.

yeah right. Sounds pretty sketchy to me. I'll believe it when I see a real study done in a lab with ordnance gelatin, either by FBI, ATF, or IWBA.

They did some testing in the article I linked. The round is supposed to go through hard matter and onl expand when it hits tissue. Maybe it's true, but I'm sceptical. It would be great if it was, it would solve the problems of penetration vs. expansion, and give both....

[ibstolidude]

wow nice to know you guys are psychotic. That must make police feel safe at night knowing any idiot with a hangun can put one threw there vest like a hot knife threw butter. Thank god that stuff's only allowed for the military in Canada.

I try again....
http://www.rbcd.net/Special%20Application%20Ammo.htm
RBCD "Special application ammunition" for military and law enforcement



****monkey,
re-read the article..
the gentleman was with BlackWater.


Not really, the only ammo that I know of (other than 40mm on up) that is regulated is the so called "black talon" teflon coated rounds, but even they are easily purchased at your local Gun show.
http://www.atf.treas.gov/firearms/legal/armor.htm there is quite a bit regulated and illegal..

[jizzmonkey]

apperantley this ammo causes irepairable damage in a human bodyYeah, umm, bullets do that, I hear.

RIIIIIGHT... but a buttocks wound is seldomly mortal, this round is supposed to explode on impact and fragment in the human dody and cause almost instant death.

yeah right. Sounds pretty sketchy to me. I'll believe it when I see a real study done in a lab with ordnance gelatin, either by FBI, ATF, or IWBA.

They did some testing in the article I linked. The round is supposed to go through hard matter and onl expand when it hits tissue. Maybe it's true, but I'm sceptical. It would be great if it was, it would solve the problems of penetration vs. expansion, and give both....

allright I finally found the article here it is:

By John G. Roos
Special to the Times

Ben Thomas and three colleagues were driving north out of Baghdad in an SUV on a clear mid-September morning, headed down a dirt road into a rural village, when gunmen in several surrounding buildings opened fire on them.
In a brief but intense firefight, Thomas hit one of the attackers with a single shot from his M4 carbine at a distance he estimates was 100 to 110 yards.

He hit the man in the buttocks, a wound that typically is not fatal. But this round appeared to kill the assailant instantly.

“It entered his butt and completely destroyed everything in the lower left section of his stomach ... everything was torn apart,” Thomas said.

Thomas, a security consultant with a private company contracted by the government, recorded the first known enemy kill using a new — and controversial — bullet.

The bullet is so controversial that if Thomas, a former SEAL, had been on active duty, he would have been court-martialed for using it. The ammunition is “nonstandard” and hasn’t passed the military’s approval process.

“The way I explain what happened to people who weren’t there is … this stuff was like hitting somebody with a miniature explosive round,” he said, even though the ammo does not have an explosive tip. “Nobody believed that this guy died from a butt shot.”

The bullet Thomas fired was an armor-piercing, limited-penetration round manufactured by RBCD of San Antonio.

A new process

APLP ammo is manufactured using a so-called “blended-metal” process, said Stan Bulmer, president of sales and manufacturing for Le Mas Ltd. of Little Rock, Ark. Le Mas is the distributor of RBCD ammo.

Various bullet types made by RBCD are designed for different effects, Bulmer said.

The frangible APLP ammo will bore through steel and other hard targets but will not pass through a human torso, an eight-inch-thick block of artist’s clay or even several layers of drywall. Instead of passing through a body, it shatters, creating “untreatable wounds.”

Le Mas gave Thomas a small number of APLP rounds after he contacted the company.

After driving off their attackers, Thomas and his colleagues quickly searched the downed enemy fighter for items of intelligence value. They also took time to examine the wound.

“There’s absolutely no comparison, whatever, none,” to other wounds he has seen from 5.56mm ammo, Thomas said in a telephone interview while on home leave in Florida.

He said he feels qualified to assess a bullet’s effects, having trained as a special-operations medic and having shot people with various types of ammo, including the standard-issue green tip and the Black Hills Mk 262, favored by spec-ops troops.

Thomas was the only member of the four-man group who had RBCD ammo. He said that after the group returned to base, they and other members of his group snatched up the remaining rounds.

“They were fighting over it,” he said. “At the end of the day, each of us took five rounds. That’s all we had left.”

Congress wants tests

Last year’s defense budget included $1.05 million for testing blended-metal bullets, Bulmer said. Fourteen months into the 24-month period during which those research and development-testing funds must be spent, the military has not purchased a single bullet from Le Mas.

Publicly, at least, military officials say RBCD ammo is no more effective than other types now in use and, under certain conditions, doesn’t even perform as well. Those conclusions are derived from a series of tests conducted a few years ago in which RBCD ammo’s effects were observed in ballistic gelatin, the standard means for testing bullets.

Naval Reserve Lt. Cmdr. Gary Roberts, a recognized ballistics expert and member of the International Wound Ballistics Association, conducted the gelatin tests in March 2002.

According to his findings, “Claims that RBCD bullet terminal performance can vary depending on target thickness, size or mass were not shown to have merit, as bullet performance remained consistent irrespective of gelatin block size.”

Roberts found that in gelatin, a 9mm, 60-grain slug exhibited “tissue damage comparable to that of other nonexpanding 9mm bullets and is less than that of standard 9mm [jacketed hollow point] designs, since the RBCD bullet does not create as much tissue damage due to its smaller recovered diameter.”

A .45-caliber bullet “offered average terminal performance in bare and denim-clad gelatin, similar to that noted with the 9mm bullet. ... The RBCD bullets do not appear to be a true frangible design, as significant mass is retained after striking a target.”

Not surprisingly, Roberts’ assessment remains a major impediment to getting RBCD ammo into military hands. Considering his standing in the ballistics community, his findings are accepted as gospel by many influential members of the special-operations community.

But Bulmer insists that tests in ballistic gelatin fail to demonstrate RBCD ammo’s actual performance because the gelatin is chilled to 36 degrees. Their bullets seem to shatter most effectively only when they strike warmer targets, such as live tissue. Bulmer said tests using live animals clearly would show its effects. Despite his appeals for such testing, and the funds set aside by Congress to conduct new tests, the military refuses.

Bulmer said authority to spend the testing funds initially went to U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., which delegated testing responsibility to the Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Queries to the command confirmed that it was aware of the testing requirement but had not decided when, or if, the tests will be conducted.

Bill Skipper, president and CEO of the American Business Development Group, is a lobbyist representing Le Mas on Capitol Hill. “When I heard of the ballistic characteristics of this ammo, as a retired military officer, I realized it has to stay in the good guys’ hands,” he said, adding that SOCom’s reluctance to test it is “irresponsible.”

“This is an issue of national security,” he said.

Some supporters of RBCD ammunition suggest SOCom officials may be reluctant to test the ammo because it threatens “in-house” weapons and ammunition programs underway at the command.

Special-operations forces long have sought a more potent standard round than the 5.56mm, which lacks the punch needed during the long-distance engagements that frequently occur in Afghanistan and Iraq. In response, SOCom is working with weapons and ammunition manufacturers to develop a new round and new upper receivers for M4 and M16 rifles.

The command apparently has narrowed its search to a 6.8-by-43mm round.

Indication of industries’ involvement in this effort was seen in October during the annual Association of the U.S. Army exhibition in Washington.

If Le Mas’ 5.56mm APLP round delivers the performance SOCom is seeking in the new 6.8mm ammo — and Bulmer insists it does — the rationale and the potentially lucrative contracts for producing a new ammo type and modifying thousands of weapons used by special-operations forces would disappear.

Thomas said he isn’t familiar with the reasons that might keep RBCD ammo from getting a realistic test within the military.

“The politics, that’s above my pay grade,” he said. “All I really care about is that I have the best-performing weapon, optics, communications, medical equipment, etc. I’m taking Le Mas ammo with me when I return to Iraq, and I’ve already promised lots of this ammo to my buddies who were there that day and to their friends.”

When military officials in the United States got wind that Thomas had used the round, he quickly found himself in the midst of an online debate in which an unnamed officer, who mistakenly assumed Thomas was in the service, threatened him with a court martial for using the nonstandard ammo.

Although Thomas was impressed by RBCD ammo’s performance, he feels it should not be the standard ammunition issued to all U.S. forces.

“The first thing I say when I talk to people about Le Mas’ ammo is, make sure that 22-year-old infantrymen don’t get a hold of this, because if they have an accident ... if they have a negligent discharge, that person is dead. It doesn’t matter how much body armor you have on.

“This is purely for putting into bad guys. For general inventory, absolutely not. For special operations, I wouldn’t carry anything else.”

A video clip on RBCD ammo that was shot at the annual Armed Forces Journal Shootout at Blackwater is online at www.armedforcesjournal.com/bullets.

John G. Roos is editor of Armed Forces Journal.

[jizzmonkey]

The print is small in this article, but it reviews the round.
http://www.afji.com/AFJI/Mags/2001/August/MeteorRound.htm

Some points: a knife or an arrow will pass through a vest mroe easily than any bullet.
Some criminals have gotten access to bulletproof vests, i.e. california bank robbers.

I don't think the average citizen needs armor piercing ammo.

Personally, I would rather have hollow points as they will do more damage. Plus in the ensuing civil case you will be asked about your choice of ammunition, and if it happened to go through a wall and hit someone you're f-d.

Expanding ammunition typically has less penetration, and causes more physiological trauma. aka bleedingoutgoingintoshock-itis

my .02
-b

without a doubt, in my opinion, if you want something for home defense the best thing is a shotgun, buckshot wont penetrate regular walls for the most part unless at close range.

[ßå$tĮТHÏ¿ð]

Le Mas stands for Law Enforcement and Military Ammunition Sales
Ummm ya so they will sell you the same rounds that the military is using?


Tests of the unique ammunition have demonstrated that when a BMT round strikes soft tissue in a chest cavity, the resulting hydrostatic shock is so severe it destroys brain tissue mass, Bulmer said. As a result, a heart or lung shot against a large animal, such as a deer (and, presumably, a human), consistently causes the animal to drop the instant it's struck. (After receiving a fatal shot to the chest from standard ammunition types, a deer's reflexes often propel the animal a short distance after being struck.)


Wow nice to know if I get shot during a shootout with someone using this ammo your completely utterly fuct.
Thats some crazy ammo, this definately should be sold to any ordinary joe.

[California Joe]

Quit it.

[Beowulf]

Naval Reserve Lt. Cmdr. Gary Roberts, a recognized ballistics expert and member of the International Wound Ballistics Association, conducted the gelatin tests in March 2002.

According to his findings, “Claims that RBCD bullet terminal performance can vary depending on target thickness, size or mass were not shown to have merit, as bullet performance remained consistent irrespective of gelatin block size.”

Roberts found that in gelatin, a 9mm, 60-grain slug exhibited “tissue damage comparable to that of other nonexpanding 9mm bullets and is less than that of standard 9mm [jacketed hollow point] designs, since the RBCD bullet does not create as much tissue damage due to its smaller recovered diameter.”

A .45-caliber bullet “offered average terminal performance in bare and denim-clad gelatin, similar to that noted with the 9mm bullet. ... The RBCD bullets do not appear to be a true frangible design, as significant mass is retained after striking a target.”
Not surprisingly, Roberts’ assessment remains a major impediment to getting RBCD ammo into military hands. Considering his standing in the ballistics community, his findings are accepted as gospel by many influential members of the special-operations community.

But Bulmer insists that tests in ballistic gelatin fail to demonstrate RBCD ammo’s actual performance because the gelatin is chilled to 36 degrees. Their bullets seem to shatter most effectively only when they strike warmer targets, such as live tissue. Bulmer said tests using live animals clearly would show its effects. Despite his appeals for such testing, and the funds set aside by Congress to conduct new tests, the military refuses.

IMO the real issue is whether or not the gelatin is an effective test. The LeMas people say the bullet performs better when hitting a "warmer" target. It doesn't make sense, what does temperature have to do with ballistic performance??

Like I said it would be great if the round performed as claimed, but I doubt it.

[jizzmonkey]

I dont know, I'm inclined to take Ben Thomas for his word. And I dont think the human body would normally drop below 36 degrees, unless I shot a guy in a frost-bitten toe.

[Beowulf]

I dont know, I'm inclined to take Ben Thomas for his word. And I dont think the human body would normally drop below 36 degrees, unless I shot a guy in a frost-bitten toe.

Right, but the question is what does the temperature have to do with the performance of the round. Let me clarify, the gelatin is a certain density. It's the same density every time, no matter what.

If I fire two separate rounds into something that has the same density I can assess the performance of the rounds. So what does the temperature have to do with it?

-b

[jizzmonkey]

I dont know, I'm inclined to take Ben Thomas for his word. And I dont think the human body would normally drop below 36 degrees, unless I shot a guy in a frost-bitten toe.

Right, but the question is what does the temperature have to do with the performance of the round. Let me clarify, the gelatin is a certain density. It's the same density every time, no matter what.

If I fire two separate rounds into something that has the same density I can assess the performance of the rounds. So what does the temperature have to do with it?

-b

I have no idea, I'm a grunt not a scientist, dammit JIM!

[jizzmonkey]

All I want to know, is where the hell can I get some?

[Beowulf]

to anwer your question, i don't know where you could get it. It's probably not even been manufactured on a large scale yet. If the claims are true I'll buy some.

-b

[jizzmonkey]

I talked to a few guys at "Bulls eye" gun shop (irronically the place where John Mohammed the D.c sniper purchased his rifle) and they say its special order but purchasable over the counter, but these guys arent what I would call legit or trust-worthy.

[jizzmonkey]

And I never reeeally considered what the risks of using it would be (i.e UCMJ laws of land warfare), I'm sure not good if you got caught.

[ßå$tĮТHÏ¿ð]

I'm sure if you did something stupid with a gun and that ammo and got caught the officers would gladly take you to the back of the car and prepare you for whats called "batton f*cking". enjoy

[jizzmonkey]

I'm sure if you did something stupid with a gun and that ammo and got caught the officers would gladly take you to the back of the car and prepare you for whats called "batton f*cking". enjoy

Anyway, that is assuming I didn't do anything stupid with it.

whats a "batton ****ing" anyway................ohhhhhh wait... yeeeeah... that wouldn't be cool.

[jizzmonkey]

ooooookay, I get it, you mean like anal ***?! but not between a man and a woman . right?

sorry about the lack of imagination... its the baptist in me :D

uhhhhh I'm kidding! dont go postal on me CaliforniaJoe.

[ßå$tĮТHÏ¿ð]

with the name ****monkey i bet you can figure out what i ment.

[Ngati Tumatauenga]

There's an article on www.strategypage.com about it.

The ammo that is, not baton f%$king.

[Red]

i think the 7.62 is the best,never used anything larger.When an american unit came to our country for excercises i had the chance to shoot 5.56 thought the were ok but still lurve the 7.62,always burst a hole through ure ass.

[jizzmonkey]

with the name ****monkey i bet you can figure out what i ment.

hey, the name was a term of endearment from my wife! :D

why do you have to get personal?!!!

[ogukuo72]

I thought ammo like that was only for the military and was illegal for average joe to own??? Apparently not in the states.

Not really, the only ammo that I know of (other than 40mm on up) that is regulated is the so called "black talon" teflon coated rounds, but even they are easily purchased at your local Gun show.

The reason I am asking is that a recent article in the Army times talks about a guy who is not active duty, he's a "security consultant" IE dyncorp or something else. Anyway, this guy purchased a limited amount of this ammo from Le Mas, and used it, apperantley this ammo causes irepairable damage in a human body, This guy shot a guy in the buttocks, and the guy died instantly (so he claims).

P.s pardon the terrible spelling but I'm a grunt.

Hmm. Is the target bending over by any chance? And the bullet drill through his buttocks, up his body, disrupting major organs (e.g. liver, stomach, lungs) all the way until it exited from his head? Yes ... that might cause instanteneous death.

[jizzmonkey]

uhhhh, yeah, maybe the iraqi was mooning him, I mean most enemy insurgents tend to do that, you know the first thing they do is bend over and show you their ass. :cantbeli: I dont know!

[JunglistSoldier]

i think the 7.62 is the best,never used anything larger.When an american unit came to our country for excercises i had the chance to shoot 5.56 thought the were ok but still lurve the 7.62,always burst a hole through ure ass.

:roll:

[JunglistSoldier]

I've read a lenghty discussion about this ammo and it's general consenus was that this ammo is pretty much bull****. There is no legit reason why it wouldn't perform in calibrated ballistic gelatin.

[StarvingStudent47]

IMO the real issue is whether or not the gelatin is an effective test. The LeMas people say the bullet performs better when hitting a "warmer" target. It doesn't make sense, what does temperature have to do with ballistic performance??

Like I said it would be great if the round performed as claimed, but I doubt it.

Yeah, that didn't make any sense to me either. I could see how the temperature of the bullet could cause significant change in performance (whether or not it fractured), but the temperature of the target? In the 1/100th of a second it takes the bullet to run its course through a target, the difference between 40 degree gelatin and 98 degree flesh doesn't seem like it would have a noticable effect on the round. I don't have any tests to back me up, but these claims don't seem to mesh with common sense.

[StarvingStudent47]

Hmm. Is the target bending over by any chance? And the bullet drill through his buttocks, up his body, disrupting major organs (e.g. liver, stomach, lungs) all the way until it exited from his head? Yes ... that might cause instanteneous death.

Well, they seem to describe it destroying internal organs in the torso. It must have had an upward trajectory that took it into the torso. So even though it entered the buttock, I think it's unfair to call it "just a butt shot."

[martinexsquaddie]

two things
pesky thing called the geneva convention bans this sort of bullet from military use. Counter terror you can use what you like.

if your not military or Leo why the hell do you want that sort of ammo?

[Durandal]

For those of you worrying about this super duper high frade ammo, don't. Americans like the freedom to buy what ever they want. And most of us understand that if you give in an inch to anti-gun lobbyists, they will take a mile. Unfortunate, since I wold never waste my money on this stuff, but then again, who am I to say that they can or cannot buy it. The people that can afford to buy it are not goiing to use it to rob banks by imress their friends on the range.

As far as ONLY LE or Military sales goes...not a word actually says joe citizen can buy it. Quite the opposite. An ammunition manufacturer, especially small ones fight tooth and nail for contracts. There are only a limited few who get them. They have to make their money somewhere...enter the public. And the next time you see a rouund being made in .454 Casul, you kinow it is public, not limited. The .454 is a round that the public buys, not LE or military.


http://www.rbcd.net/Special%20Application%20Ammo.htm
RBCD "Special application ammunition" for military and law enforcement

Not a thing there says it is NOt for sale to the public. In fact ANYONE can win three boxes of handgun ammo...




If you are **visitor number 1,300,000 to the RBCD Performance Plus website...print the "home page" which indicates the visitor number, mail the original printout with legible visitor number to the address listed in this site and you will receive Three (3) boxes of handgun ammunition.

See Official Contest Rules & HOW TO ENTER at bottom of RBCD Home Page.

Here are the rules...

RBCD PERFORMANCE PLUS FREE AMMO Official Contest Rules




How to Enter:* Print the "RBCD Performance Plus Home Page" which indicates the correct winning visitor number, mail the original printout with legible visitor number to the address listed in this site.* **Must be 21 years of ages (legible copy of photo ID must be included with your Full Name, Address, City, State, Zip Code, Telephone Number with Area Code, E-Mail Address and handgun calibers desires.* No Post Office Boxes accepted, must be street address.)*




Entry must be received via mail (United States Postal Service)* in the RBCD Performance Plus office no later than thirty (30) calendar days after winning visitor number page printed,* winning visitor number must be legible - must be original printout, no photocopies accepted, full homepage (all pages) printout must show date and time when printed, no partial or incomplete printout or entries accepted.* ALL LISTED INFORMATION MUST BE INCLUDED TO BE CONSIDERED VALID - if all listed information is not included, or as listed, prize will not awarded as entry will be considered non-valid.* All entries become the property of RBCD Performance Plus and will not be returned.* RBCD Performance Plus is not responsible for lost, late, postage due or misdirected mail.* RBCD Performance Plus is not responsible for computer or internet failures. *




Limited to one winning entry per person / address / residence.* U.S. Mail fraud statues* prohibit the use of fictitious or assumed name or address.* The right is reserved to confirm identity* Requests from PO Boxes will not be honored.* Void where prohibited by law.* Winner product shipped to Continental United States address only.*

By participating in this contest, entrant agrees to abide by and be bound by these Official Rules, which are final in all matters pertaining to this contest.* No transfer of prize permitted.* All taxes are the sole responsibility of the winner.* Acceptance of prize offered constitutes permission to use winner's name, city , state for advertising / trade purposes without further compensation.

Mail entry to:* RBCD Performance Plus, Free Ammo Contest, 721 S. St. Mary's St., San Antonio, Texas 78205.*

[pinkeye]

[quote="Durandal"]For those of you worrying about this super duper high frade ammo, don't. Americans like the freedom to buy what ever they want. And most of us understand that if you give in an inch to anti-gun lobbyists, they will take a mile. Unfortunate, since I wold never waste my money on this stuff, but then again, who am I to say that they can or cannot buy it. The people that can afford to buy it are not goiing to use it to rob banks by imress their friends on the range.

pretty damn f$%king scary nonetheless. honestly, you have to be pretty damn f$5ked-up in the head to want to try this ammo for kicks. in a controlled military setting i see no problem, but as a civilian? freedom to buy whatever americans want? i'm rather thankful that my neighbour is not allowed to purchase and store assault rifles at his place.
this ammo can be legally purchased in gun shops? the u.s. can be a truly scary place...

[Durandal]

pretty damn f$%king scary nonetheless. honestly, you have to be pretty damn f$5ked-up in the head to want to try this ammo for kicks. in a controlled military setting i see no problem, but as a civilian? freedom to buy whatever americans want? i'm rather thankful that my neighbour is not allowed to purchase and store assault rifles at his place.this ammo can be legally purchased in gun shops? the u.s. can be a truly scary place...

Cut the reactionary banter.

You know, I have been shooting since I was 5 years old. I recently started collecting firearms, both for a historical collection and others to shoot. I own LOTS of guns. I, my friends that do the same, have never hurt anyone, scared anyone, and threated to do either. I live in a residential neighborhood in the middle of a ciy that, fortunately is in a Commonwealth, where the laws of the State are the laws of the city, thus no wacked out gun laws tha change depending on what corporation limit you are in. I have a gun safe with 9 rifles (no assault rifles since they are illegal to own unless you have a class III FFL). My neighbors are no more and no less in danger because those weapons are there.

A person is JUST as easily dead from an unjacket straight lead bullet than an armor piercing one. In fact more people are killed by unjacket than jacketed. The whole "armor piercing" thing is silly. Body armor is only so good and most of it can be penetrated at close range but most heavier firearms.

It does not worry me, nor do I sit up late at not losing sleep over it. Criminals are not buying this stuff. they are getting the 9mm and .45 PMC and Winchester when it goes on sale at their local store.

I mean automobiles and cigarettes kill more people ithe world than guns EVER do, yet we do not freak out about that...well most of us don't. :)

Chill.

[Caribou Kid]

Good points there, durandal. Without kicking off a pro/anti gun debate, I agree wholeheartedly with your views on responsible people using this ammuntion. People who fear others using "scary" eqipment should pause to think for a second. Is a Lamborghini more scary or evil than a Honda Civic just because it goes MUCH, Much faster than the legal road limit, and has little practical use? no. Both have equal potential to KILL PEOPLE, just like these bullets under discussion do. One is merely a fancier, flashier version. That's all.
The bushfires in California (more powerful than ANY bullet could ever hope to be) could be instigated by ONE moron with a box of matches, but according to this train of thought/logic, we can't be allowed Zippos, or disposable cigarrette lighters because they are fancier, slicker ways of doing the same job the box of matches that "common, normal" people would use. (I guess only high speed units like delta would use Barbeque lighter, too. :lol: )

Maybe sandwich shops should have a ban on electric knives, in case one of their employees does a postal worker, and goes on a rampage with that electric knife. ("the carnage would have been less gruesome if he/she had only been allowed to use a butchers meat cleaver, or jungle machete instead of the high speed cutter used in the food court carvery.")

Do you see the connection, or is my comparison too vague? Remember, folks, they are only tools. Nothing more, nothing less. You can be killed just as easily with a cordless drill from Home Depot or a Knife from Ikea, or a truck from Mack as you can a Winchester hollowpoint bullet (read:Black Talon) fired out of a Glock. I saw a sig on this forum a while back that summed it up best:"
"Blaming violence on guns is like blaming Arson on matches"

It's the nut behind the butt, and not the gun/ammo combo you really gotta worry about, bastard child and pinkeye.

Think:Lorena Bobitt
Think:Timothy McVeigh
Think:Jeffery Dahmer

Not a firearm in sight, but all very dangerous people. And yes, they were all Americans who had access to Devastator/Glaser/Raufoss rounds, and yet, they still chose to harm others in whatever manner they used. See?

Having said that, if ****monkey is gonna use them to put two in the chest and one in the head of some little sand-crab with an RPG/SAM-7 trying to take out some our troops...Mate, may your sight picture be swift and true.

[Durandal]

Think: The Woman behind the Million mom March who was put away for cripling a kid with a gun. She went ona vendetta for the guy that killed her son after the cops took too long. She shot the wrong guy adn the cops later arrested the guy responsible.

The Irony.

[Spooky]

Ammo sounds like bull****. I remember a while ago when the media freaked everyone out over Black Talon and Black Rhino rounds.

Black Talon supposedly opened up at the tip of the bullet when it entered the body and had jagged sprits splay out to the sides. Supposedly it "tore people up" but it turned out to be worthless.

Black Rhino had similar claims. These were the first "cop killer bullets" that came out and they didn't work for ****. 12 guage sabot rounds for armor piercing and .45 hydrashock for soft targets are far more effective.

[StarvingStudent47]

Think:Lorena Bobitt
Think:Timothy McVeigh
Think:Jeffery Dahmer

Not a firearm in sight, but all very dangerous people.

Just for the record, Loreena Bobbitt wouldn't have been dangerous if her husband hadn't anally raped her. It's not like she was wandering down the street, amputating the genitals of strangers. I can't say I condemn what she did. I'll agree 100% as to the rest of your post, though.

[Durandal]

Ammo sounds like bull****. I remember a while ago when the media freaked everyone out over Black Talon and Black Rhino rounds.

Black Talon supposedly opened up at the tip of the bullet when it entered the body and had jagged sprits splay out to the sides. Supposedly it "tore people up" but it turned out to be worthless.

Black Rhino had similar claims. These were the first "cop killer bullets" that came out and they didn't work for ****. 12 guage sabot rounds for armor piercing and .45 hydrashock for soft targets are far more effective.

Heheh too true. What about a basic, run-of-the-mill, jacketed .308? That is lethal as any of those...more so because it will go through one side of a cop car and through the other ditttos to body armor.

People just tend be reactionary when they are against something they do not understand OR in the case of the manufacturer slling to a crowd that is impressed by this kind of press.

I wold wager that someone on this list buys a box just because they read it.

[Roger Rabbit]

I worry about Americans and guns i really do.

[Durandal]

I worry about Americans and guns i really do.

Trust me, worry about yourself. :D

[Red]

BS, i would love me that bullet i would love to shoot someone with that in the head at point blank range

[XASA]

BS, i would love me that bullet i would love to shoot someone with that in the head at point blank range

Son, you need to take a chill pill ;)

[Red]

i took one but i was alergic

[Roger Rabbit]

:roll: this is why i worry about Americans and guns.

[Red]

What i dont think that all Americans are violent.I am violent because i am black.I am a savage,be afraid of me

[XASA]

What i dont think that all Americans are violent.I am violent because i am black.I am a savage,be afraid of me

Benibo, congratulations for setting a new low for the forum. Aside from propagating stereotypes, it is a racist statement. I don't know if you are an African-American or not, even if you are, your post is beneath contempt and you need to work on your self-esteem.

How old are you? Your posts suggest you are very childish if not a child. You can learn quite a bit from a forum such as militaryphotos.net but please try and refrain from racially provocative statements in the future.

[Red]

What i dont think that all Americans are violent.I am violent because i am black.I am a savage,be afraid of me

Benibo, congratulations for setting a new low for the forum. Aside from propagating stereotypes, it is a racist statement. I don't know if you are an African-American or not, even if you are, your post is beneath contempt. How old are you? Your posts suggest you are very childish if not a child. You can learn quite a bit from a forum such as militaryphotos.net but please try and refrain from racially provocative statements in the future.
buhahahaha think i am a child?well dont worry i am not a child.Cant i insult my race.It is not like i said anything bout white guys,look men i am black i should be able to say some things that are light hearted

[XASA]

^ Benibo, all I can do is wish you the best. I really feel sorry for you. Obviously, regardless of your race, you have psychological issues that cannot be address in a forum. Try talking to a pastor, teacher, older relative or friend about getting some help before it's too late and you find yourself all alone because, with an attitude like yours, no one will want anything to do with you. Perhaps that's the case now? Good luck :(

[Roger Rabbit]

XASA lighten up. If only everybody everywhere was able to be proud of who they were and still able to make fun of themselves and the stereotypes associated then there would be far less problems.

I am English, i am proud of who i am, my history and my culture. But i am not above making fun of any of the above or laughing at jokes about it. Humour is humour, don't read so much into it.

[Durandal]

:roll: this is why i worry about Americans and guns.

And this is why I think you and all anti-gun NUTS/reactionaries are sanctimonious a$$holes.

You live in a country that sentences a man to jail becuase he defends his home when no one else would/could. To add insult to HIS injury your court system makes it seem like the criminal has a RIGHT....OVER....his.

Complete crap...

:roll:

Idiocy. Bah.

:D

[mocking_loudly_died]

Those wacky yanks. :D ;)

Sorry, but you guys freak me out with these gun / ammo fetishes.

"Hi, I want to defend my home, do you have the latest anti-cyborg 7.62mm phaser induced rounds with extra exploding **** on the inside?"

[StarvingStudent47]

^ Benibo, all I can do is wish you the best. I really feel sorry for you. Obviously, regardless of your race, you have psychological issues that cannot be address in a forum. Try talking to a pastor, teacher, older relative or friend about getting some help before it's too late and you find yourself all alone because, with an attitude like yours, no one will want anything to do with you. Perhaps that's the case now? Good luck :(

I'm pretty sure Benibo's post was tongue-in-cheek (though yes he is African-American). I took it to be a light-hearted joke--the equivalent of saying "Of course I'm a momma's boy, I'm Jewish, what do you expect?"

[Durandal]

Those wacky yanks. :D ;)

Sorry, but you guys freak me out with these gun / ammo fetishes.

"Hi, I want to defend my home, do you have the latest anti-cyborg 7.62mm phaser induced rounds with extra exploding **** on the inside?"

For some it is about home defense. A very logical argument.

Personal defense. Also very logical argument.

For most it is simply wanting to own a gun, or several, and shooting them at targets, or hunting.

Nothing wrong with that.

Till of course someone has the balls to suggest that we shouldn't have our hobbies, interests, and defenses.

There are always a small percentage that are "gun nuts" but like any hobby or interest, you have those that go to the extreme.

There are far more dangerous hobbies, property, and interests inthe world. Yet, for some reason a number of folks feel that my hobby and interest should be made illegal or so costly on the rich can afford it.

Bugger off I say...

You don't like guns? Don't own one or associated with those that do.

Most of you have much more to worry about than American gun culture, especially if you are NOT Americans...

[Royal]

And this is why I think you and all anti-gun NUTS/reactionaries are sanctimonious a$$holes.

You live in a country that sentences a man to jail becuase he defends his home when no one else would/could. To add insult to HIS injury your court system makes it seem like the criminal has a RIGHT....OVER....his.

Complete crap...

:roll:

Idiocy. Bah.

:D

A man who'd had his shotgun licence revoked becuase he was a convicted criminal (as, I believe would happen in the good ol' US of A ;) ), who was thus holding an illegal firearm.

Yes, he went to jail.

[Durandal]

A man who'd had his shotgun licence revoked becuase he was a convicted criminal (as, I believe would happen in the good ol' US of A ;) ), who was thus holding an illegal firearm.

Yes, he went to jail.

Actually, he went to jail because he was convicted of murder...time was addded because he wounded the second burglar and possessed a shotgun with out a license.

In the United States, convivted FELONS are not allowed to own firearms. Then again, they are not allowed to vote either. As soon as you commit a felony, you pretty much get your citizenship revoked in many ways.

Which fortunately was overturned.

Interesting article here written by the senior advisor to the MIT Security Studies Program.



Restricting firearms has helped make England more crime-ridden than the U.S.

By Joyce Lee Malcolm

On a June evening two years ago, Dan Rather made many stiff British upper lips quiver by reporting that England had a crime problem and that, apart from murder, "theirs is worse than ours." The response was swift and sharp. "Have a Nice Daydream," The Mirror, a London daily, shot back, reporting: "Britain reacted with fury and disbelief last night to claims by American newsmen that crime and violence are worse here than in the US." But sandwiched between the article’s battery of official denials -- "totally misleading," "a huge over-simplification," "astounding and outrageous" -- and a compilation of lurid crimes from "the wild west culture on the other side of the Atlantic where every other car is carrying a gun," The Mirror conceded that the CBS anchorman was correct. Except for murder and rape, it admitted, "Britain has overtaken the US for all major crimes."

In the two years since Dan Rather was so roundly rebuked, violence in England has gotten markedly worse. Over the course of a few days in the summer of 2001, gun-toting men burst into an English court and freed two defendants; a shooting outside a London nightclub left five women and three men wounded; and two men were machine-gunned to death in a residential neighborhood of north London. And on New Year’s Day this year a 19-year-old girl walking on a main street in east London was shot in the head by a thief who wanted her mobile phone. London police are now looking to New York City police for advice.

None of this was supposed to happen in the country whose stringent gun laws and 1997 ban on handguns have been hailed as the "gold standard" of gun control. For the better part of a century, British governments have pursued a strategy for domestic safety that a 1992 Economist article characterized as requiring "a restraint on personal liberty that seems, in most civilised countries, essential to the happiness of others," a policy the magazine found at odds with "America’s Vigilante Values." The safety of English people has been staked on the thesis that fewer private guns means less crime. The government believes that any weapons in the hands of men and women, however law-abiding, pose a danger, and that disarming them lessens the chance that criminals will get or use weapons.

The results -- the toughest firearm restrictions of any democracy -- are credited by the world’s gun control advocates with producing a low rate of violent crime. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell reflected this conventional wisdom when, in a 1988 speech to the American Bar Association, he attributed England’s low rates of violent crime to the fact that "private ownership of guns is strictly controlled."

In reality, the English approach has not re-duced violent crime. Instead it has left law-abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals who are confident that their victims have neither the means nor the legal right to resist them. Imitating this model would be a public safety disaster for the United States.

The illusion that the English government had protected its citizens by disarming them seemed credible because few realized the country had an astonishingly low level of armed crime even before guns were restricted. A government study for the years 1890-92, for example, found only three handgun homicides, an average of one a year, in a population of 30 million. In 1904 there were only four armed robberies in London, then the largest city in the world. A hundred years and many gun laws later, the BBC reported that England’s firearms restrictions "seem to have had little impact in the criminal underworld." Guns are virtually outlawed, and, as the old slogan predicted, only outlaws have guns. Worse, they are increasingly ready to use them.

Nearly five centuries of growing civility ended in 1954. Violent crime has been climbing ever since. Last December, London’s Evening Standard reported that armed crime, with banned handguns the weapon of choice, was "rocketing." In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent.

Gun crime is just part of an increasingly lawless environment. From 1991 to 1995, crimes against the person in England’s inner cities increased 91 percent. And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled. Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York. England’s rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America’s, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police. In a United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations published in July, England and Wales led the Western world’s crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people.

This sea change in English crime followed a sea change in government policies. Gun regulations have been part of a more general disarmament based on the proposition that people don’t need to protect themselves because society will protect them. It also will protect their neighbors: Police advise those who witness a crime to "walk on by" and let the professionals handle it.

This is a reversal of centuries of common law that not only permitted but expected individuals to defend themselves, their families, and their neighbors when other help was not available. It was a legal tradition passed on to Americans. Personal security was ranked first among an individual’s rights by William Blackstone, the great 18th-century exponent of the common law. It was a right, he argued, that no government could take away, since no government could protect the individual in his moment of need. A century later Blackstone’s illustrious successor, A.V. Dicey, cautioned, "discourage self-help and loyal subjects become the slaves of ruffians."

But modern English governments have put public order ahead of the individual’s right to personal safety. First the government clamped down on private possession of guns; then it forbade people to carry any article that might be used for self-defense; finally, the vigor of that self-defense was to be judged by what, in hindsight, seemed "reasonable in the circumstances."

The 1920 Firearms Act was the first serious British restriction on guns. Although crime was low in England in 1920, the government feared massive labor disruption and a Bolshevik revolution. In the circumstances, permitting the people to remain armed must have seemed an unnecessary risk. And so the new policy of disarming the public began. The Firearms Act required a would-be gun owner to obtain a certificate from the local chief of police, who was charged with determining whether the applicant had a good reason for possessing a weapon and was fit to do so. All very sensible. Parliament was assured that the intention was to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals and other dangerous persons. Yet from the start the law’s enforcement was far more restrictive, and Home Office instructions to police -- classified until 1989 -- periodically narrowed the criteria.

At first police were instructed that it would be a good reason to have a revolver if a person "lives in a solitary house, where protection against thieves and burglars is essential, or has been exposed to definite threats to life on account of his performance of some public duty." By 1937 police were to discourage applications to possess firearms for house or personal protection. In 1964 they were told "it should hardly ever be necessary to anyone to possess a firearm for the protection of his house or person" and that "this principle should hold good even in the case of banks and firms who desire to protect valuables or large quantities of money."

In 1969 police were informed "it should never be necessary for anyone to possess a firearm for the protection of his house or person." These changes were made without public knowledge or debate. Their enforcement has consumed hundreds of thousands of police hours. Finally, in 1997 handguns were banned. Proposed exemptions for handicapped shooters and the British Olympic team were rejected.

Even more sweeping was the 1953 Prevention of Crime Act, which made it illegal to carry in a public place any article "made, adapted, or intended" for an offensive purpose "without lawful authority or excuse." Carrying something to protect yourself was branded antisocial. Any item carried for possible defense automatically became an offensive weapon. Police were given extensive power to stop and search everyone. Individuals found with offensive items were guilty until proven innocent.

During the debate over the Prevention of Crime Act in the House of Commons, a member from Northern Ireland told his colleagues of a woman employed by Parliament who had to cross a lonely heath on her route home and had armed herself with a knitting needle. A month earlier, she had driven off a youth who tried to snatch her handbag by jabbing him "on a tender part of his body." Was it to be an offense to carry a knitting needle? The attorney general assured the M.P. that the woman might be found to have a reasonable excuse but added that the public should be discouraged "from going about with offensive weapons in their pockets; it is the duty of society to protect them."

Another M.P. pointed out that while "society ought to undertake the defense of its members, nevertheless one has to remember that there are many places where society cannot get, or cannot get there in time. On those occasions a man has to defend himself and those whom he is escorting. It is not very much consolation that society will come forward a great deal later, pick up the bits, and punish the violent offender."

In the House of Lords, Lord Saltoun argued: "The object of a weapon was to assist weakness to cope with strength and it is this ability that the bill was framed to destroy. I do not think any government has the right, though they may very well have the power, to deprive people for whom they are responsible of the right to defend themselves." But he added: "Unless there is not only a right but also a fundamental willingness amongst the people to defend themselves, no police force, however large, can do it."

That willingness was further undermined by a broad revision of criminal law in 1967 that altered the legal standard for self-defense. Now everything turns on what seems to be "reasonable" force against an assailant, considered after the fact. As Glanville Williams notes in his Textbook of Criminal Law, that requirement is "now stated in such mitigated terms as to cast doubt on whether it [self-defense] still forms part of the law."

The original common law standard was similar to what still prevails in the U.S. Americans are free to carry articles for their protection, and in 33 states law-abiding citizens may carry concealed guns. Americans may defend themselves with deadly force if they believe that an attacker is about to kill or seriously injure them, or to prevent a violent crime. Our courts are mindful that, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes observed, "detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an upraised knife."

But English courts have interpreted the 1953 act strictly and zealously. Among articles found illegally carried with offensive intentions are a sandbag, a pickaxe handle, a stone, and a drum of pepper. "Any article is capable of being an offensive weapon," concede the authors of Smith and Hogan Criminal Law, a popular legal text, although they add that if the article is unlikely to cause an injury the onus of proving intent to do so would be "very heavy."

The 1967 act has not been helpful to those obliged to defend themselves either. Granville Williams points out: "For some reason that is not clear, the courts occasionally seem to regard the scandal of the killing of a robber as of greater moment than the safety of the robber’s victim in respect of his person and property."

A sampling of cases illustrates the impact of these measures:

• In 1973 a young man running on a road at night was stopped by the police and found to be carrying a length of steel, a cycle chain, and a metal clock weight. He explained that a gang of youths had been after him. At his hearing it was found he had been threatened and had previously notified the police. The justices agreed he had a valid reason to carry the weapons. Indeed, 16 days later he was attacked and beaten so badly he was hospitalized. But the prosecutor appealed the ruling, and the appellate judges insisted that carrying a weapon must be related to an imminent and immediate threat. They sent the case back to the lower court with directions to convict.

• In 1987 two men assaulted Eric Butler, a 56-year-old British Petroleum executive, in a London subway car, trying to strangle him and smashing his head against the door. No one came to his aid. He later testified, "My air supply was being cut off, my eyes became blurred, and I feared for my life." In desperation he unsheathed an ornamental sword blade in his walking stick and slashed at one of his attackers, stabbing the man in the stomach. The assailants were charged with wounding. Butler was tried and convicted of carrying an offensive weapon.

• In 1994 an English homeowner, armed with a toy gun, managed to detain two burglars who had broken into his house while he called the police. When the officers arrived, they arrested the homeowner for using an imitation gun to threaten or intimidate. In a similar incident the following year, when an elderly woman fired a toy cap pistol to drive off a group of youths who were threatening her, she was arrested for putting someone in fear. Now the police are pressing Parliament to make imitation guns illegal.

• In 1999 Tony Martin, a 55-year-old Norfolk farmer living alone in a shabby farmhouse, awakened to the sound of breaking glass as two burglars, both with long criminal records, burst into his home. He had been robbed six times before, and his village, like 70 percent of rural English communities, had no police presence. He sneaked downstairs with a shotgun and shot at the intruders. Martin received life in prison for killing one burglar, 10 years for wounding the second, and a year for having an unregistered shotgun. The wounded burglar, having served 18 months of a three-year sentence, is now free and has been granted £5,000 of legal assistance to sue Martin.

The failure of English policy to produce a safer society is clear, but what of British jibes about "America’s vigilante values" and our much higher murder rate?

Historically, America has had a high homicide rate and England a low one. In a comparison of New York and London over a 200-year period, during most of which both populations had unrestricted access to firearms, historian Eric Monkkonen found New York’s homicide rate consistently about five times London’s. Monkkonen pointed out that even without guns, "the United States would still be out of step, just as it has been for two hundred years."

Legal historian Richard Maxwell Brown has argued that Americans have more homicides because English law insists an individual should retreat when attacked, whereas Americans believe they have the right to stand their ground and kill in self-defense. Americans do have more latitude to protect themselves, in keeping with traditional common law standards, but that would have had less significance before England’s more restrictive policy was established in 1967.

The murder rates of the U.S. and U.K. are also affected by differences in the way each counts homicides. The FBI asks police to list every homicide as murder, even if the case isn’t subsequently prosecuted or proceeds on a lesser charge, making the U.S. numbers as high as possible. By contrast, the English police "massage down" the homicide statistics, tracking each case through the courts and removing it if it is reduced to a lesser charge or determined to be an accident or self-defense, making the English numbers as low as possible.

The London-based Office of Health Economics, after a careful international study, found that while "one reason often given for the high numbers of murders and manslaughters in the United States is the easy availability of firearms...the strong correlation with racial and socio-economic variables suggests that the underlying determinants of the homicide rate are related to particular cultural factors."

Cultural differences and more-permissive legal standards notwithstanding, the English rate of violent crime has been soaring since 1991. Over the same period, America’s has been falling dramatically. In 1999 The Boston Globe reported that the American murder rate, which had fluctuated by about 20 percent between 1974 and 1991, was "in startling free-fall." We have had nine consecutive years of sharply declining violent crime. As a result the English and American murder rates are converging. In 1981 the American rate was 8.7 times the English rate, in 1995 it was 5.7 times the English rate, and the latest study puts it at 3.5 times.

Preliminary figures for the U.S. this year show an increase, although of less than 1 percent, in the overall number of violent crimes, with homicide increases in certain cities, which criminologists attribute to gang violence, the poor economy, and the release from prison of many offenders. Yet Americans still enjoy a substantially lower rate of violent crime than England, without the "restraint on personal liberty" English governments have seen as necessary. Rather than permit individuals more scope to defend themselves, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government plans to combat crime by extending those "restraints on personal liberty": removing the prohibition against double jeopardy so people can be tried twice for the same crime, making hearsay evidence admissible in court, and letting jurors know of a suspect’s previous crimes.

This is a cautionary tale. America’s founders, like their English forebears, regarded personal security as first of the three primary rights of mankind. That was the main reason for including a right for individuals to be armed in the U.S. Constitution. Not everyone needs to avail himself or herself of that right. It is a dangerous right. But leaving personal protection to the police is also dangerous.

The English government has effectively abolished the right of Englishmen, confirmed in their 1689 Bill of Rights, to "have arms for their defence," insisting upon a monopoly of force it can succeed in imposing only on law-abiding citizens. It has come perilously close to depriving its people of the ability to protect themselves at all, and the result is a more, not less, dangerous society. Despite the English tendency to decry America’s "vigilante values," English policy makers would do well to consider a return to these crucial common law values, which stood them so well in the past.

Joyce Lee Malcolm, a professor of history at Bentley College and a senior adviser to the MIT Security Studies Program, is the author of Guns and Violence: The English Experience, published in May by Harvard University Press.

[Royal]

Actually, he went to jail because he was convicted of murder...time was addded because he wounded the second burglar and possessed a shotgun with out a license.

In the United States, convivted FELONS are not allowed to own firearms. Then again, they are not allowed to vote either. As soon as you commit a felony, you pretty much get your citizenship revoked in many ways.

Which fortunately was overturned.

Actually, he went to jail because he was convicted of manslaughter - murder involves premeditation - there was none in this case.

I restate my point; as a convicted felon he would not have been granted a firearms licence in the USA either.

[Durandal]

Actually, he went to jail because he was convicted of manslaughter - murder involves premeditation - there was none in this case.

Wrong bucko!!!!

He was charged with murder AND intent to cause harm.


Three days later, Martin was taken into police custody and charged with murder and wounding with intent.

He was convicted of MURDER.


Norwich Crown Court decided he had gone beyond self-defence, and convicted him of murder - for which he was automatically sentenced to life.

After going to jail, he appealed the ruling...


The court found in Martin's favour and in October 2001 his offence was downgraded to manslaughter and his sentence reduced to five years.

The surviving robber is trying to sue him...


But the controversy did not end there.

Fearon, who had more than 30 criminal convictions, is now trying to sue Martin for damages as a result of being shot.

He has asked for a reported £15,000 for loss of earnings, claiming he can no longer enjoy *** or bear to see shootings on television.

Fearon is himself currently in jail, after being convicted in February of this year on drugs charges and jailed for 18 months.

The case is likely to be heard once both Fearon and Martin have been freed.

And to top off the whole story...


The parole board, however, has continually refused him early release - saying he has shown no remorse and would continue to pose a danger to any other burglars.

This whole case is screwed up and unfortunately is not the only one.

[martinexsquaddie]

I think he had his shotgun taken away from him after at a neighbourhood watch meeting where he ranted and raved about shooting burgulars and anyone else who trespassed on his land.
to an extent that the police were worried re his mental health

[Durandal]

I think he had his shotgun taken away from him after at a neighbourhood watch meeting where he ranted and raved about shooting burgulars and anyone else who trespassed on his land.
to an extent that the police were worried re his mental health

No, he had his license suspended when he shot at a car. The report never said if the vehicle was occupied, just "at a car".

He was also charged with owning a "shortened weapon with ammunition" a sawed off shotgun the year he as arrested for defending his home. He was never "convicted".

Thy guy was definately an eccentric and if the local authorities want to nail him with possession of an illegal weapon then they should have done that, since that is the ONLY crime he comitted.

According to all the articles I just searched through the last hour, the guy had been charged but never convicted of any crime that would prevent him from owning a shotgun, he simply had his shotgun license revoked. There is a difference.

So, to sum it up...He was not a criminal....he shot a criminal...his crime was possession of a firearm, the young robbers he shot had a history of criminal convictions.


Edit: There was a guy here out side of Cincinnati, OH. He owned a junkyard and drove a tank around on city streets and parades (he had a permit belive it or not). Three teenagers broke into his junkyard about 25 years ago and he shot and killed one of them. He was never tried for the death of the one. He was however convicted of assault for 15 years whne he beat the hell out fo the other two.

The guy should have never gone to jail at all.

He is now back, bought a Scorpion AFV and still runs around town, and is currently running for office in the town of Batavia.

Eccentric but not a criminal.

[Royal]

If you're going to quote UK stories to a Brit, keep up to date.

Fearon is not trying to sue Martin - the fact that he's a convicted heroin dealer having something to do with not having a leg to stand on, along with an investigative reporter proving that he could walk just fine.

Martin was released months ago, despite his comments to the parole board to the effect that he would do it all again. His murder conviction was overturned for precisely the reason that the Crown could not prove pre-meditation.

BTW I'm not anti guns - I was a hand gun owner until the post Dunblane ban came in. I'm just anti idiot ;)

[Durandal]

If you're going to quote UK stories to a Brit, keep up to date.

Fearon is not trying to sue Martin - the fact that he's a convicted heroin dealer having something to do with not having a leg to stand on, along with an investigative reporter proving that he could walk just fine.

Martin was released months ago, despite his comments to the parole board to the effect that he would do it all again. His murder conviction was overturned for precisely the reason that the Crown could not prove pre-meditation.

BTW I'm not anti guns - I was a hand gun owner until the post Dunblane ban came in. I'm just anti idiot ;)

I know he was already released (I think in July if I am not mistaken). That does not make this tale any less valid, so cut with the strawman routine.

I did not think Fearon was out of jail yet. If he is, cool. If not, I am holding my breath on weather the suit comes about.

We can agree on one thing though. Anti-Idiot is a GREAT stance. :D

[Durandal]

Oh, and BTW, I am sorry for hijacking the thread. It was a nice thread, but I just refuse to let people that do not know crap about gun ownership to turn something like this into some sort of "fear gun owners" thread.

[martinexsquaddie]

well an armed idiot is more scary than an unarmed idiot
but unfortunatly idiots are capable of weaking havoc with all sorts of equipment :lol:
generally posting somebdys turning out new matchgrade ammo with weight of projectile powders type etc etc longrange target shooter harmless likely to be deadly in conversation
posting this ammo blows peoples insides out where can I get some sounds slighty worrying

[TriggerPuller]

I just would like to add a little info to this discussion. Iam personal friends with Ben Thomas and I was given this story way before the press picked it up,by him personally. I also have a few other very close friends who were in the AO when this happened,and it did happen. Iam also friends with the owner of LeMas ltd (blended metal technologies) the ammo works. Seen it work on live tissue and it is completely devasting. Ive seen it go throuh 5 mm of steel and into live tissue on the other side of it and it was still devasting to say the least. A 90gr round out of a 5inch 1911 moves at over 2,000fps the rounds stay intact through hard targets and once they hit soft tisuue is when they do their damage. believe what you want but I dont want the owner of this company's reputation to be mudded with speculation and heresay. It WORKS period! If you are LE and have a legitimate reason to own this ammo you can contact LeMas and they will send you a CD/DVD to see for yourself. This is all I will say on this matter.

FR

[Durandal]

well an armed idiot is more scary than an unarmed idiot
but unfortunatly idiots are capable of weaking havoc with all sorts of equipment :lol:
generally posting somebdys turning out new matchgrade ammo with weight of projectile powders type etc etc longrange target shooter harmless likely to be deadly in conversation
posting this ammo blows peoples insides out where can I get some sounds slighty worrying

Until you think, A) Who do you know is actually going to buy super expensive ammo or B) That might work well, not human, but the pit-bull that is about to kill a young kid.

The point is, STILL, your comments continue the reactionary crap.

It is a bullet. It is designed to preform a certain way. Do we think it worls that way or not, has anybody tested it or seen it in action or has anyone soken with the comany. The point of the thread was to discuss the ammo, not what some idiot's pointless, reactionary feers.

You should be more worried that your neighbor has a pool filled with water than what type of ammo he or she MIGHT be buying for their pistol or rifle...or that they own a gun at all.

[Mr. Nielsen]

I just would like to add a little info to this discussion. Iam personal friends with Ben Thomas and I was given this story way before the press picked it up,by him personally. I also have a few other very close friends who were in the AO when this happened,and it did happen. Iam also friends with the owner of LeMas ltd (blended metal technologies) the ammo works.

If you have access to the theory behind how this bullet work please post it.
I have seen an attempt to explain it at this link:

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/bullets/

But I couldn't make any sense out of it.

[josh10524]

one thing that stood out to me right away about the ballistics tests is the calibers used. A hot 5.56 behaves very differently from even the fastest 9mm. While the ballistics of the .45 and 9mm may be comparable to standard ammunition, they simply are not moving at the velocities of the 5.56. There is a massive hydraulic force from something moving 5000 fps+. this can cause the round to behave quite differently on impact. I would really like to see how the rifle rounds compare to the pistol rounds in ballistic gel. secondly, there is a valid reason the round may work better on a warm target. I don't remember exactly, but the bullets are made by compressing and heating a certain substance to a preset temperature. I think that they are made to disentegrate at a certain temperature, which is reached at a certain amount of friction and energy from whatever it hits. I really don't remember how it works for sure, so I'd suggest doing a search on it. Anyway, what I'm thinking is that the cold gel may have a cooling effect on the bullet and prevent it from reaching the specified temperature. anyway, I'm really not an expert, but those things really came to mind when I read the article and I thought I'd throw them out there. can you confirm or elaborate on what I am saying mr. nielson?