Reply #82: Reports from NRA or VPC, does it matter which? [View All]

[kbelzner]

Not really. If the researcher performed an experiment, then others should be able to verify by repeating the experiment and getting essentially the same results. If the researcher gathered and analyzed statistics, then others should be able to check the original sources, run the nubmers through a calculator, and get the same results. If the researcher conducted interviews or examined original period documents, then others should be able to verify by interviewing those same witnesses or consulting those same original period documents.

Here is my problem with the VPC. I read their report "Officer Down: Assault Weapons and the War on Law Enforcement."
http://www.vpc.org/studies/officecont.htm

No where in this report do they define the term "assault weapon." They throw the term out there, conflate "assault weapon" with "assault rifle," and then make unverifiable claims about the number of police officers killed by someone wielding an "assault weapon." They can't state how they collected the information or determined how a certain weapon was or was not an "assault weapon."

Elsewhere on the VPC site I finally came across a description - but not really a definition - of an "assault weapon." http://tinyurl.com/xmyr
The VPC states that "assault weapons" have two characterstics. They accept "high-capacity" magazines (holding ten or more round), and they have features "that make it easy to point (as opposed to carefully aim) while rapidly pulling the trigger."

Why ten rounds? Why not eleven rounds? Or 6 rounds? Sounds somewhat arbitrary.

Speaking as a gun owner, I have yet to encounter a gun on the civilian market that I did not have to carefully aim, regardless of what kind of grip(s) it had. The proper procedure for aiming a rifle is the same regardless of whether one is using an AR-15 or a Remington 700.
http://tinyurl.com/xmzy
The VPC claims that "assault weapons" are designed to be used by "spray-firing" from the hip, which the VPC claims is "a widely recognized technique for the use of assault weapons..." Pardon me, but can anyone name any rifle instructors who teaches this technique? No, they can't, because *no one* teaches this supposedly "widely recognized technique." How could anyone make such a stupid statement? Does their information come from watching Hollywood Rambo movies perhaps?

Those of use who know better read these kinds of ludicrous claims on the VPC site and have a good belly-laugh.