A Rifle is a Rifle is a Rifle - Unless It's America's Favourite Assault Rifle

I remember when the United States introduced the M-16 for use by its troops in Viet Nam (back when that was two words).  It was a real departure from previous military rifles such as the M-14 or the FN-FAL, big, heavy rifles that fired large and powerful rounds.

The M-16 was chambered in .223 calibre. Its bullet was scarcely bigger than a .22 long rifle, the rifle most often used by young people learning how to shoot. The cartridge was bigger, there was more powder, but still this wee little bullet.

Then it emerged that the M-16 brought an entirely new ballistic dimension to military firepower. Yes it fired that diminutive bullet at a great muzzle velocity but the magic was in what happened when that bullet met flesh and bone.

Instead of just punching a neat little hole like earlier full metal jacket rounds, the .223 was designed to tumble on impact. They not only dumped all their energy in the tumbling effect but tore up everything in their path.  From The New York Times.

Many factors determine the severity of a wound, including a bullet’s mass, velocity and composition, and where it strikes. The AR-15, like the M4 and M16 rifles issued to American soldiers, shoots lightweight, high-speed bullets that can cause grievous bone and soft tissue wounds, in part by turning sideways, or “yawing,” when they hit a person. Surgeons say the weapons produce the same sort of horrific injuries seen on battlefields.

Civilian owners of miliary-style weapons can also buy soft-nosed or hollow-point ammunition, often used for hunting, that lacks a full metal jacket and can expand and fragment on impact. Such bullets, which can cause wider wound channels, are proscribed in most military use.

A radiologist at the hospital that treated victims of the Parkland attack wrote in The Atlantic about a surgeon there who “opened a young victim in the operating room and found only shreds of the organ that had been hit.”

The article quotes Dr. Jeremy Cannon, a trauma surgeon who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The tissue destruction is almost unimaginable. Bones are exploded, soft tissue is absolutely destroyed. The injuries to the chest or abdomen — it’s like a bomb went off.” If a bullet hits an arm or a leg, he said, the limb often hangs at an unnatural angle. Such victims can need a dozen surgeries over months. “Some eventually decide to undergo an amputation if there is severe pain in the limb and it is dysfunctional,” he said.

Dr. Martin Schreiber, also a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.

What makes injuries from these rifles so deadly, he said, is that the bullets travel so fast. Those from an M16 or AR-15 can depart the muzzle at a velocity of more than 3,000 feet per second, while bullets from many common handguns move at less than half or a third that speed. The result: “The energy imparted to a human body by a high velocity weapon is exponentially greater” than that from a handgun.

“You will see multiple organs shattered. The exit wounds can be a foot wide.”

“I’ve seen people with entire quadrants of their abdomens destroyed.”

The AR-15 uses the same lethal technology as its predecessors, the M-16 and the more modern M-4. It is designed for maximum lethality, to put down its target with one massively destructive hit.

I was surprised to discover how popular the .223 calibre is even here in Canada. How can the AR-15 even be sold in Canada?  Yet you can snag one for $699.99 from Cabelas. At that price you should have plenty of cash left over for a shitload of ammo. And, compared to the cost of a box of 20 rounds of quality .308 hunting rounds, that .223 stuff is about half the price. You can even pick up a 1,000 round pack, "For practice, target shooting, training exercises or any other high-volume shooting situation UMC centerfire rifle ammunition offers value without any compromise in quality or performance."

"High volume shooting situation" - is that code for ripping up a school?

Update:

I'm unsure that using the .223 round is legal under the Hague Convention, 1899. The Convention consists of three treaties and three declarations, the final declaration prohibiting bullets that can change their form or expand within the human body.

I expect Canada was initially bound by the Hague Conventions when Britain signed on in 1900. However Canada signed on in its own right in 1960.

Whether the .223 used by military forces actually deforms as it enters the human body is unclear but it certainly fragments.  And its explosive tumbling quality does seem to violate the spirit of this the Third Convention.

If you can stomach it, here's an article by a US Special Forces physician on why, if he had to choose, he would sooner by shot by a Russian AK-47 than an M16/M4/AR-15 any day.