You said almost 3 times that speed, continuously for over 10 minutes....and not with a lightweight speed shorting pistol.

If someone wanted to kill with each shot on moving targets at 3-400 yards in the dark, yeah, 5 seconds+- per shot still seem reasonable, maybe half that for someone who practices on living, moving targets often. Your claim some people can continuously do that 120 times a minute including mag changes is just laughable. They might shoot that fast, but not hit anything accurately at that distance.

You have to prove it to convince me...better? If it's as common as you say, that should be easy to provide with a comparison video instead of a suggestion to buy and read a certain book. The videos I found are all short range small target, not at all the same as what we're debating. Show me a comparison of a field layered deep with 10000 balloons getting shot at from distance, that would be informative, short course accuracy target shooting isn't.

My claim is you will have more control at full auto than absolute maximum possible finger speed.
My other claim is you will put more lead down range with most full autos. In a crowd situation where missing is basically impossible and aiming wasted effort, like this one, more bullets means more damage. Once the crowd dispersed, aiming a high powered rifle would probably be more effective, but not before. Were this not the case, why would any military allow them, ever?

In this Turkey shoot situation, you get more hits on target in full auto. In target shooting, you won't. This was not a series of targets at 20 yards, it was a target zone at 3-400 yards in the dark.

Just about any competition shooter can keep up 0.3 splits for 10 minutes. Go to a three-gun competition near you and ask someone to show you.

Aiming is relative to what you want to achieve. From "spray and pray" to taking many minutes per shot in Palma and F-class. You might take 10-12 shots per minute with a semi-auto at this distance. Others will aim and shoot at 5 to 10 times that rate.

"Shooting with your finger at maximum speed is always far less accurate and slower than full auto with the same gun. You have to prove it to me that I'm wrong, because that's simple logic."

No. That's not how it works. I don't have to prove anything to you (as much as you have to prove anything to me). How about this though - first go read "On Killing" by Dave Grossman, which covers this topic, then go search on Youtube for the many videos (I checked just now and there are plenty) showing how full auto hits much less, (and the shots where you do hit are mainly sub-optimal) compared to aimed fast shots in semi-auto, then go join a gun club and try some competitive shooting. I'd be surprised if at the end of that you still imagine full-auto is what you think it is.

Also fun to watch are videos of guys like Jerry Miculek who can fire in semi-auto at insane rates of fire.

Now, lets be clear, I'm not saying full-auto doesn't have its uses, because it does. I'm taking umbrage with your claim that you have more control in full-auto (you do not) and that you get more hits on target with full auto across a series of targets (you do not).

I don't believe for one second that you could keep up that rate for a full minute, much less over 10. If you take the time it takes to aim a 300 yard shot accurately, you're talking 10-12 shots per minute.
Shooting with your finger at maximum speed is always far less accurate and slower than full auto with the same gun. You have to prove it to me that I'm wrong, because that's simple logic. Full auto is a more stable rate, so easier to adapt to, and doesn't require you to vibrate one hand, shaking the gun, dividing your attention, and tiring you out.
It's silly to imply the full auto functionality didn't exponentially raise the number both wounded and killed. Without the crowd, it might have made less difference. With the crowd, absolutely not imo.

I shoot regularly (often multiple times per week). My lazy firing rate has splits (time between shots) of approximately 0.2 seconds. I can do that for a long time (many minutes before I slow done). That is a rate of 300 rounds per minute. My fast splits are approximately 0.12 seconds. I can't do that for very long (probably one magazine). That is a rate of 600 rounds per minute.

An AR-15 on full auto fires at approximately 600 rounds per minute - twice what I can do on semi-auto. Using a competitive shooter as an example, and taking into account magazine changes (which with training are done much quicker than any of the operators in AR-15 to failure tests I've seen), and assuming lazy splits of 0.30 seconds, a competitive shooter can probably fire at a faster rate per minute than a novice can on full auto (i.e. well more than the approximately 150 rounds per minute a novice shooter achieves when taking into account magazine changes).

The thing is, it is well known in military and firearm enthusiast circles that the massive reduction in accuracy when shooting on full auto does not give the perceived payoff. You have much less control when firing a fully automatic firearm. You hit your target less often. Semi auto plus aiming = hits on target. At the range he was shooting (300 to 350 meters), the same lunatic deciding to aim his firearm would have resulted in less wounding and more fatalities.

Any ex-military here? Chime in.

Really? You have a complete inventory of his arsenal, because I haven't seen one. He had many bump stocks.
Full auto what is 20 Hz? Different guns have different rates of fire, and he had many. Different bump stocks also deliver different rates, as do different fingers on different triggers.

When your target is a 15 degree arc, it's fine. For aiming, I agree.

Not in my experience at gun shows is all I'll say about that.

My point, these are legal. The traceability comes in if he had escaped.

You don't have to be squeaky clean, just not banned if you buy legally. There's no check at all for the bump stock or other rapid fire mechanism (there are many).

Ban of the rapid fire mechanisms would have at least forced him to buy them on the black market for far more money...if he could find them at all. That's a step, not a solution.

Hmm. I disagree with your description text, @ChaosEngine.

I've never shot something fully-automatic. I have shot an AR-15 semi-automatic, and I know where you're coming from when you say that hitting a target on full auto would be difficult, especially for a relatively untrained person (recoil control).

However, I think Vox and others are basically correct when they say that this modification (bump stock) contributed to the Las Vegas shooting being so deadly. Specifically in that sort of scenario.

The dude wasn't picking targets and sniping, going for accuracy. He picked an ideal shooting location (elevation with clear LOS) and sprayed into a crowd. He'd have been more accurate by keeping the weapon on semi-auto and actually aiming carefully, and certainly would have gotten more hits per bullet fired, but on the other hand the rate of fire difference would have so different that people would have had more time between shots to scramble for cover, etc.

He had position, an abundance of bullets, and lots and lots of time. Given those givens, having a rate of fire approximately equal to fully-automatic means a much higher body count than if he'd have been limited to traditional semi-auto.


The NRA is being more cunning than I figured they would, and has come out in favor of banning bump stocks. I agree with you that they see that mostly as a pointless concession, and a distraction from additional / better stuff that needs to happen.

But it isn't a pointless concession. If banning fully-automatic firearms in 1986 (minus the ones grandfathered in) was the right thing to do, extending that to include bump stocks is also the right thing to do. For the same reasons.

@newtboy is correct to note that technically, a rifle with a bump stock isn't a fully-automatic "machine gun". The user's finger still pulls the trigger once for every bullet that comes out -- semi-automatic.

However, I think that the "spirit" of the distinction is that with semi-automatic firing you have to think and consciously decide to pull the trigger each time you want to shoot a bullet, whereas with fully-automatic you consciously decide when you want to start and stop shooting. By the letter of the law, weapons with bump stocks are semi-automatic. But by that definition of the "spirit" of the law, they are fully-automatic. Pull the grip/barrel forward to start shooting, pull it back to stop.

It's a pretty frequent occurrence for technology to outpace the law. The definitions of semi vs fully automatic include the word "trigger" because they didn't anticipate this kind of conversion that makes the trigger sort of one step removed from the conscious decision to fire. The law would have similar hiccups if a weapon was developed that used a button or switch to fire, rather than a traditional trigger.

When those hiccups happen, the solution is to clarify the intent of the law and expand or clarify definitions as necessary. I'm pleasantly surprised that many legislators seem willing to do that with bump stocks, and that the NRA seems like it won't stand in the way. Mission accomplished, situation resolved? No. But a step in the right direction.

Miraculous how the rockets just happened to go off perfectly aimed at a large military truck that, in all likelyhood, looks kinda like the rest of the trucks on the range?

Must have been eyeballing it, IR would have shown plenty of people around the vehicle (bit of a dead give away in a practice engagement that shooting is a bad idea...)

Are you for real?

Do you not see that you are literally gaslighting by attempting to paint an individual, who organized a stunt aimed at intimidating another person in public, as the victim of the incident?

I don't even give a shit about gamergate or the feminism/anti-feminism celebrity battle that you, clearly, have taken a side on. I don't support anyone involved because all of the participants appear to be acting like asshats. But any objective viewer can see that one side made a bold move to aggressively provoke an opponent and succeeded in their goal of getting a response. It was bullying and abusive and it illicited an undignified response.

Let me reiterate, I am not your opposition in your crazy war. But I have to point out that it is a perplexing bit of mental acrobatics for you to attempt to perpetuate a false reality by accusing an intended victim of trying to perpetuate a false reality.

That's a clown move and if you had any integrity you would pause a moment for a little self examination.

"Where should we put the end of the slide? Leading into the open grassy area?"

"Nah, let's aim it 2 feet to the left, straight into the table."

A few points.
First, that was more than two points. ;-)
Second, watch again. The first time he pulls the trigger, it's pointed head high into the crowd, but fortunately for everyone, he didn't have a round chambered. True, his second attempt didn't look like it was aimed at people.

Yes, people on both sides of this conflict came armed with pepper sprays, helmets, masks, and clubs. Only one side seemed to have guns, and they used them.

The guy who shot was far from being attacked, he approached gun drawn to have a confrontation, not to avoid one.
Side note, I hope they arrested the fucker with the spray can too. I don't justify unjustifiable actions...ends don't justify means.

So, the antifa should have shown up with guns? Or are you saying the right is SO dangerous you should expect to be shot if you protest Nazis? What is your point?

Clearly, you are a petty cunt, hence the petty comment. If this was a commentary opinion piece excusing the flamethrower, like that other video, I wouldn't expect any upvotes.

Bob, the people you're trying to either defend or deflect attention from are fucking cunts, end of story. I understand that people are being driven to the far right (leftist violence and impingement on free speech predated Trump and the rise of the alt right, and has a lot to do as a causal factor for both), and that certainly not everyone heading to that end of spectrum are awful, but anyone preaching racial purity, resisting the white genocide etc have lost the fucking plot. There is no right side apart from condemning all illegal violence and upholding free speech.

Newt, you pontificate about how even handed you've been, but where are the hosts of videos showing antifa violence? Where are the upvotes for this video? I've been considering putting some of them up not as a mitigation for the actions of the right, but to show that polarisation and extremism is no good for anyone, but I was almost entirely sure they wouldn't sift in the slightest. Given this vid has been up for 9 hours and has 1 vote (mine), the theory seems to hold water...

Meanwhile, Arnold's tirade against nazi's is top sift of the week. Not that he was wrong of course, but anyone with five minutes and a willingness to be open minded can find endless unbiased documentation of leftist violence, something he completely omits to mention. He talks about the nazi's rotting in hell, how about Stalin's communists (which antifa models itself off...)?

Sift is leftward leaning and that's cool, I generally agree with a lot of sensible ideas that people around here are for. But it has it's own bigotry against people expressing views that aren't in lockstep with the majority view, and members certainly aren't afraid to punish people for not toeing the line.

And one of my favourite quotes as an advocate for free speech no matter how awful or confronting it might be...

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."

H. L. Mencken

I managed to do this at my kids summer camp. Only problem was I wasn't aiming at either one.

I would have hit the camera, dead center, while aiming for the house.

So we kill some of those poor people to save them and educate them about democracy?

How well has this worked before, ever? Is there a recorded case of peoples lives improving based on superpower military intervention in regime change? Outside the ones aimed at keeping dictators in power, because those do tend to work well.

What are we going to do differently this time?

Haven't read the book, was the trailer aimed more for the folks that have?