The slingshot does "hit harder" i.e. impart more momentum into the target and thus more likely to knock you down.
Intuitively this seems like it would therefore cause the most damage and for several 100 years this was the prevailing logic with muskets and cannonballs.

So much so in fact that when Charles Whitworth first introduced his rifle it was dismissed by the British army partly for having too small of a bullet. Whitworth used a smaller more stable round for its increased range and accuracy/stability (though there were also concerns about "muzzle fouling" and slower reload time).
It was believed at the time that the larger (slower) much less accurate bullets from the Enfield were more effective at actually injuring enemy soldiers, but history later demonstrated that speed and penetration can have just as much (if not more) effect on soft bodies than sheer mass and momentum.

Simply put, that large slingshot round would likely knock you to the floor in the same was as an MMA fighter landing a roundhouse square in your guts would. It might even penetrate the skin a bit and embed itself in you. What it won't do however is travel through your soft tissues at high velocity and create a large "temporary cavity" which is how most firearms do their real damage.

The 9mm etc. don't carry as much overall energy as the slingshot, but they do deliver it to a soft target much more effectively (that is to say lethally). A much more informative test would have been to fire them into ballistic clay, this would have highlighted the differences between speed, momentum and penetration much more clearly. The slingshot would leave a massive dint, the bullets would leave tunnels.

That said, the point they are making does stand to some extent. If you used that slingshot on someone that was trying to shoot you there is a good chance you'd knock them down (or at least stop them taking an aimed shot back for a few seconds). Hell you might even hospitalise them with a good shot!

It's not fair to say that the slingshot is a more "powerful" weapon but I think they did clearly demonstrate that it's a viable alternative under some circumstances. In fact for defending yourself in your own home etc. it might even be better!

Little/no risk of collateral damage (unless you miss really badly)
Very cheap
Would put most people on the floor with one good hit
No firearms licence or background checks needed
More difficult for a child to misuse (Most kids would lack the strength)
Enemy wouldn't expect it
Much less likely to kill
etc. etc.

Hell I'd get one myself if UK law wouldn't fk me over for using it.
It's illegal here to use a weapon specifically intended or kept for defense. i.e. if you grab a random object like a chair and beat up an intruder that's ok, if you have a baseball bat etc. by your bedside for expressly this purpose then it's not.
Handy then that one of my broken computer chairs happens to contain a loose 1ft long iron bar. Naturally I'd never even consider using such a thing violently, but who knows what might come to hand when faced with an intruder

(Seriously though, as broken furniture its a viable means of defence, if I kept it by my bedside as a "weapon" I'd be breaking the letter of the law by using it. Fucking stupid!)

I bought a Russian SKS, a double barrel Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun and a glock 9mm at 2 gunshows locally few years back no questions asked.

but private sale between citizens are fine here. If I want to sell my neighbor my tv, my baseball bat, my RC Helicopter, my car, my gun collection, etc I have every right to sell whatever I wish that I own.

I can also barter for goods if I wish, If I no longer need the shotgun, but I'm out of a job and need food and I can use the gun to aquire a butchered pig/cow from local butcher I can do that as well.

course its simple in south east and everyone owns a gun, heck my 93 year old grandmother owns a .410 shotgun she keeps loaded by her bed. Course her husband, my grandfather, passed away before I was born, was a prison guard that walked inmates to "old sparky" in Florida long ago.

When I hear the argument about hammers, I laugh, because who ever believes that is a dumbass. And then I realize, people actually believe it, and then I'm sad.

Yes, assault rifles are outnumbered by hammers . . . maybe. Actually, BLUNT OBJECTS outnumbers rifles, but that includes bats, bricks, printers, pianos, pipes, candle holders and the whole ensemble of clue.

Now, in reality most murder is between people who know each other. That's why serial killers are more terrifying. They're killing people they don't know, seemingly at random. Which puts the paranoia in the population and people start freaking. Random killings just seem more terrifying. For some reason people just don't expect their mom to kill them. Who knows why, must be some weird fluke or Buddha or something.

The idea that I can go watch a movie with my daughter and some guy with an overloaded assault rifle, body armour etc can come in and just shoot everyone is way more terrifying a prospect than my mother-in-law finally snapping and picking up a knife and stabbing me. First off, I could totally kick her ass. Second, the former I can't do anything about. Despite the "it takes a good man with a gun" bullshit, reality shows otherwise. 9mm versus bulletproof vest, smoke grenade, IED's and assault rifles just doesn't cut it. But I don't play CoD . . .

In regards to the constitution, yeah, when it was written the military and the people had the same access to weaponry. Matter of fact, we didn't even have a standing army. It really was up to the states to get a regulated militia to keep the country safe from invaders. So comparing that to printed newspapers and tv and internet is, well, simple. It's a similar argument most paranoid gun owners use for everything. Let's just take a superficial look and ignore reality. Kind of like real dictators and tyrants taking away 22mm hand guns while pointing their tanks at your house.

I think that's the greatest irony . . . those who wish to own guns to protect themselves from tyrants are blindly following their leaders and scream for murder and revolt, or 1766 will rise again! yadda yadda, are becoming the same puppets they claim they are protecting themselves from. No one saw Hitler coming? Well, he sounded a lot like Beck honestly. So did Stalin, etc. The people who followed them thought they made absolute sense, and then this and that happened and now we all know them as mass murdering fiends.

So again, are we really talking gun control so we have the right to become the fourth reich, or are we really wanting a worthwhile discussion on saving lives?

Yea there are both 9 and 20mm versions for target practice, the 20mm adds more realism in the form of a large bang,
I have used both, and i have to say that the 9mm is definitely one of the weirdest weapons to shoot.
First its basically a gun barrel in a drainpipe which effectively makes it a suppressed weapon, it doesn't go plonk as the wikipedia article states but more of a suppressed pong as the whole tube resonates with the bang.
Secondly it's surprisingly accurate (possibly due to the size of the weapon), but the barrel is designed to mimic the flightpath of the real ones which makes the bullet behave strangely once it hits something, it has a tendency to bounce, deflect or just move irraticly, multiple times at that.
On several occasions during training we saw those tracer rounds basically jump and skip up the cliff face behind the firing range.

Yea like @zeoverlord said: Those are not reloadable like the RPG-7 but are one shot weapons where you then just dump the tube after shooting it once. Basically someone handed in a couple of already fired AT4 tubes. They are originally Swedish made and the US has adopted them as they are far superior to the weaker LAW so they have probably been brought home by a soldier who have fired them in training or perhaps even in one of the wars.

The Swedish name is Pansarskott m/86 but the US renamed them to AT4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT4

Oh I almost forgot that there are reloadable AT4s as well but they have been modified to fire 9mm pistol tracer rounds for target practice... cheaper and safer than the real deal...

There is a nice part of Yes, Prime Minister regarding nuclear deterrent that outlines my position quite nicely. http://youtu.be/IX_d_vMKswE

See, your government isn't going to sell you to slavery overnight. More likely they'll strip your rights away bit by bit. How do you protect yourself against that with a firearm. At what point do you organise a militia to overthrow the tyrants, and tbh...why hasnt it happened yet? I didn't see many gun owners defending themselves from say, the patriot act or demanding that money be out of politics while waving a 9mm around.I like the spirit of the 2nd ammendment, I think europeans are perhaps too complacent, I just don't think its really practical. Its a law from another era.

As for school shootings etc. Well, correlation doesn't equal causation. Other countries might have less firefarms and less shootings, but we also don't lock up 1/7 of black men. Some shootings you can definitely see that gun control would probably have prevented it, but you can see that if somebody really wants to kill, and spends time planning it then they're probably going to find a gun somehow.

I do think that guns raise the stakes on a lot of non-violent crimes that can turn fatal though. Neither the homeowner or the burgler want to kill the other, but both fear that the other might pull the trigger first. Its a sort of prisoners dilemna where really the only winning option is to shoot first and ask questions later. Maybe with less guns swimming around you'd get less twitchy fucks shooting black kids carryin nothing more than a bag of skittles. I don't think it does anything as a way of deterrent either, desperate people do tend to somewhat ignore all risk.

Loved the video, but I wouldn't recommend dealing in RL.

Had two friends who were into it college. One kept smoking his own supply to the point where he not only was losing money, but eventually got kicked out of school because he was always too wasted to go to class.

The other guy gave up dealing when a deal went bad and the "clients" pulled out 9mm handguns, forced him into the bathroom, and pistol-whipped him until he gave up both his stash and where the money was. While lying on the cold tile bathroom floor with a gun to the back of his head, he decided the money from dealing wasn't worth the associated risks.

The pen is mightier than the sword... but not a 9mm

Is this kind of BS happening more now, or are just hearing about it more? This is not the first, nor second or third time I've heard a story of police using way too much force (sometimes deadly) on someone who posed as much threat to a supposedly trained police officer as a bee

>> ^NetRunner:

@jimnms I think the right lesson to take from the example of Brazil is "gun control laws need to be properly enforced to reduce homicide", not "gun control laws never reduce gun crime."
Also, you're wrong about gun shows, there's a pretty big loophole. From wikipedia:

U.S. federal law requires persons engaged in interstate firearm commerce, or those who are "engaged in the business" of dealing firearms, to hold a Federal Firearms License and perform background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System maintained by the FBI prior to transferring a firearm. Under the terms of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, however, individuals "not engaged in the business" of dealing firearms, or who only make "occasional" sales within their state of residence, are under no requirement to conduct background checks on purchasers or maintain records of sale (although even private sellers are forbidden under federal law from selling firearms to persons they have reason to believe are felons or otherwise prohibited from purchasing firearms).

In other words, you can always just say you're a private seller, and sell guns at gunshows without doing background checks or recording the sale.
There are videos, sifted right here on Videosift, of people going and buying guns at gunshows while literally saying to the seller "I don't need a background check, right? 'Cause I probably couldn't pass one" with the seller replying with some form of "no problem, here's your gun".
But more than anecdotal video evidence, there's also a been series of studies about drug cartels moving serious amounts of guns using straw purchases at gun shows.
Yet for some reason you're calling Moyers a liar for saying the same thing.
Also, the Assault Weapons Ban set the maximum legal size of a single clip at 10 rounds. IIRC, this latest shooting featured the shooter using a barrel mag with over 100. That used to be illegal. Also, the Tuscon shooting featured a shooter using 2 guns with 30-round clips -- and he was stopped when he had to reload.
Personally, I don't quite understand the anti-gun control side of the argument. Say banning assault weapons only reduces the number of people killed by gun violence by 1.6%. That's still what, a few thousand people's lives a year? Why is having assault weapons legal for civilians worth the deaths of a thousand people a year? Why would it be worth the death of even one person a year? You can still have a pistol, a hunting rife, a shotgun, etc., you just can't have a high-velocity, large-magazine firearm. What exactly is the harm in making that illegal?


That's not a loophole in gun shows, private sales and transfer of firearms are not regulated in some states. You can't set up a booth and sell guns at a gun show unless you are a licensed gun dealer. And you certainly aren't going to walk in and buy a fully automatic assault rifle without showing ID or getting a background check. If a person legally has a fully automatic weapon, they have to have a class 3 federal firearms license and register the weapon with the ATF. If they sell that weapon, the person they are selling it to must also have a class 3 firearms license and the transfer of the weapon must be reported to the ATF.

I've seen the videos you speak of and I read the report you linked. It's good that the ATF is doing their job and cracking down on those douchbags dealers. What you said about Brazil, "gun control laws need to be properly enforced to reduce homicide", not "gun control laws never reduce gun crime.", can be said about the U.S. also.

The assault weapon ban limited pistols magazines to 10 rounds and rifles to 30 rounds. This also only applied to weapons and magazines manufactured or imported before the 1994 law went into effect. He still could purchase the high capacity magazine if it was manufactured or imported before the law went into effect, or he could have purchased it illegally.

People are still confused about what an assault rifle is. The definition of an assault rifle is a gun that can fire full auto or in bursts, and generally uses a shorter, less powerful cartridge than a battle rifle. The guns the media so ignorantly call assault rifles are NOT assault rifles. They look like their military assault rifle counterpart, fire the same round, but the internals are different. They only fire in semi-automatic and can not be modified to fire full auto.

If "assault weapons" were the least used weapons in violent crimes, why go after them when according to the DOJ the effect on crime is "too small for reliable measurement, because assault weapons are rarely used in gun crimes." The guns most preferred by criminals are small caliber (.25, .38 an 9mm) easily concealed pistols with magazines of 7 or less. So what do they do? They ban "assault rifles" and big magazines. Does that make any sense? It's just politics to appease the mass stupids by banning big scary looking guns.

Lets apply the same logic used by legalize drug crowd (which I'm all for). Pot and other drugs are illegal. There are laws against the sale and possession of these drugs, yet people still get them. Ban all guns, and people will still get them, only it will just criminals with guns. Both England and Australia have banned private ownership of guns, and their crime rates went up because the only people left with guns were criminals [1][2][3][4]. Why don't we give that a try here, because it worked so well for them.

This is just some middle of the road, middle england mid-morning BBC presenter trying to stop unsubstantiated and potentially dangerous anti-police rhetoric going out to the country. The BBC are the most reliable mainstream news source in the UK except maybe for the Guardian but they do have a 'look after the country and include everyone' agenda. Hardly the worst problem to have with a news agency.

Darkus has been vociferously sharing his opinion with the BBC for my whole life. He's OK by me and he has a good point about black kids being pissed off with the cops, nothing new there.

But this guy Duggan *ALLEGEDLY* had a loaded 9mm in his hand when the armed police came to get him. IF that's true (and remember de Menezes before believing them) then its a very short step to getting shot from there. As an excuse for a horde of chav 14 year olds to pile out of the estates into sports shops and steal trainers and flatscreens it's off message enough to be irresponsible to broadcast.

The real problem, that the BBC will stay will clear of on the morning news, is 30 years of unregulated capitalism, training kids to build their self esteem around what they have and relying on the market to get it to them. The market isn't looking after these families any more, and that means no one is. No brains, no prospects, no jobs, no money and still a constant barrage of adverts telling them what to desire. More trouble to come..

I imagine he gets some kind of deal, but 9mm incendiary rounds tend to go for about $50 for 20 rounds. If he paid the normal price, the video cost several hundred dollars.>> ^Croccydile:

Always been curious to the costs involved with these videos. Does anyone know how much money he spent with those incendiary rounds?

this is what happens when people without guns stand up to people WITH guns.
you dont have to respect the badge nor the position but you should have the common sense to respect the 9mm pointed at yer noggin.

This is great. People have such warped ideas of guns from Hollywood mythmaking - though a lot of video games don't help either.

I've seen guys come into the range, fire a 9mm for a bit, then brag about how much better the Desert Eagle is. Then a range officer pulls one out and they realize that it's hard for them to hold it steady, let alone fire accurately. A .50 pistol sounds impressive only until you realize that you only have 7+1 rounds, you can't aim for shit, and the recoil is a bitch. As my favorite range officer put it: "Angelina Jolie [a la Tomb Raider] would have trouble carrying one in each hand, but somehow she is firing two on the run?"

Some movies are getting better, more accurately depicting the proper usage of a gun and actually showing reloads, but even my girlfriend starts laughing at some of the more blatant mistakes in action movies (The Green Hornet has some whoppers).

This was clearly the most awesome and epic thing I have ever, and will ever witness.

A few comments:

1) Your personal firearms collection is very nice.
2) You do have a well-sculpted body. Kudos.
3) You have obviously never had any sort of combat training in your life, otherwise, you would know that:

a) Grenades have a second safety thumb clip that needs to come off before pulling the pin
b) you don't put grease paint on to blend in and then take your shirt off
c) you apply grease paint in such a way that it's actually effective with darker colors on high-shine areas
d) you don't throw a knife away when you're holding a gun, especially without looking. If you miss, you can't fire another knife.
e) you don't wear reflective material like chain necklaces
f) you don't use 9mm SMGs in open terrain
g) you don't silhouette yourself by standing on top of a cliff
h) you don't rest a weapon on the magazine. It can lead to jamming.
i) you don't need a black mask in broad daylight
j) you don't roll around on the ground whilst firing. You won't hit anything.
k) you don't spin around a corner and immediately fire. You won't hit anything.
l) you don't walk through big bushes. You can't see anything and you will give yourself away.
m) you don't hold a weapon right-handed and look through the left eye.
n) squatting and letting wildlife crawl around you doesn't accomplish anything.
o) you don't fire an automatic weapon with one hand
p) You don't hold fire on full auto without having a weapon fed by a belt.
q) you don't jerk the trigger on a rifle. Your aim will be off.
r) You don't stand in a window to screw a suppressor on. You're easier to see and will get shot. Same as (g).

Other than all that, you're fuckin' awesome.

How can he, with a straight face, say that drunk driving accidents have been caused by marijuana?

That's like saying people who smoke marijuana and shoot themselves in the head with a 9mm are ALSO dieing from marijuana.