This commentary is by Norm Vandal, a resident of Roxbury.
What would you be thinking about assault rifles if your precious young child had been brutally murdered while in his or her classroom at school?
It’s easy for us to forget about these despicable events, but more and more parents are faced with this terrible loss and unfathomable, interminable sadness. “How could this happen?” we are likely to say.
Well, it happens because of a partnership: an ungodly union between a deranged individual and a terribly lethal weapon that has no place in a civilized, nonmilitary society.
Gun zealots say these weapons don’t exist. They want you to think they are identical to common, semiautomatic hunting rifles. Please, spend a couple minutes on the web researching a Remington 742, possibly the most popular semiauto hunting rifle of all time, and a Remington Bushmaster. Then, see if you can believe they are the same weapon.
The zealots also want to confuse you with nomenclature. They try to confuse with terms like AR, AR-15, assault rifle, assault weapon and modern sporting rifle. Does that Bushmaster look like a sporting rifle, or does it look like weapons you see carried by soldiers on the evening news?
Of course, these weapons do exist. How could they not exist if seven states ban them altogether? If you believe that these guns are sporting rifles, then your sport is putting as many tiny holes in a target, most likely a human silhouette, as fast as you can. What a rush! Your sport is hearing that awesome report: bangbangbangbang, one after the other, maybe 30 or 60 times. Even a hundred.
You like having that power in your hands. You like thinking that perhaps someday you will have to defend yourself or your loved ones by blasting away your assailant. What a lovely sport this is, this sport of danger and destruction, of pure, unrestricted power.
These shoulder-fired rifles typically shoot a 5.56 NATO round, designed by the military for several characteristics (they also shoot a civilian .223 round). They are lightweight, so that a 60-round magazine won’t weigh too much when fully loaded. They have comparatively little recoil, which allows you to stay on target easier, meaning you can put maybe 10 rounds in that assailant’s forehead in close to 10 seconds.
Selecting a smaller round intuitively means you have less power, but not so with the NATO 5.56. It has tremendous pressure and speed, enabling the round to hit with such force that flesh is literally blown apart, especially at close range. Bullets are designed to function differently in flesh and bone. Some even tumble, so maybe the bullet can go in the abdomen and come out one’s neck. Please watch the CBS “60 Minutes” segment on assault rifles if you want to learn what the NATO 5.56 round will do.
These weapons are made to be small and lightweight. Some even fold up for concealment. They are made of interchangeable components. They have guards on their barrels so you won’t burn your hands when the barrel area gets scorching hot as you fire 30 rounds into the guy you think is assailing you, or into the children sitting in that classroom. They have pistol grips so you can even fire them one-handed if you need to. You know, like Rambo did.
They have loads of accessories allowing you to pimp out your weapon for maximum tactical effect: optics, various sights, flashlights, bayonets, etc. You know, so you can really look like a soldier. They can be altered to become fully automatic, or you can get a bump stock on the black market to make them fire as if fully automatic. You can get them with magazines up to a hundred rounds. Just imagine how that lights you up, blasting a hundred, super-lethal rounds into that thin, paper, human silhouette target. Awesome! What a sport!
Readers, ask yourselves, is this a gun you would want to take hunting? Does carrying a gun like this to hunt even bespeak of ethical behavior? Humane? Yet, the zealots will tell you they’re no different from other hunting rifles. And that NATO 5.56 round? Can you imagine what it would do to the meat you anticipate harvesting and putting on your table?
Regardless of what name you choose to call them, these are military weapons, and they indeed exist. Don’t believe any of the crap the gun-rights folks dish out. Truth is, they don’t belong in the civilian population. There is absolutely no civilian need for them, only twisted, selfish desire.
To those who insist that the real problem is mental health, consider how quickly a completely sane person can become distraught, emotionally incapacitated, as we can surely imagine anyone can become whose child was murdered senselessly while at school by this “modern sporting” weapon.
If you feel as I do, and you want to do something simple and easy on the path toward making these weapons illegal, then don’t vote for any Republicans on any ticket, local, state or national. Speak up. We are in a majority.
