And You Thought AR-15s Were Deadly

And You Thought AR-15s Were Deadly

By Thomas Coffin

Note: this article was published in the St. Louis Post Dispatch on August 29, 2022.

The first gun control measures in decades followed the Uvalde massacre of 19 elementary students and 2 teachers by an 18-year wielding an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle developed for the military and purposely designed to kill as many of the enemy as possible in combat. That weapon was the result of a Department of Defense contract with a gun manufacturer with specifications designed to achieve maximum lethality on human targets. A major component of this war weapon is its high speed velocity and kinetic energy which creates an explosive tumbling impact on the body, literally shredding organs and decapitating its quarry.

This is not a hunting rifle, nor does if fit within the common understanding of “self- defense” unless the user is a soldier in combat.

The history of such private sector possession of such assault weapons demonstrates conclusively that they have a lengthy history of being used in mass shootings and are the weapons of choice for mass shooters. The gun industry denies any complicity in what they dismiss as “the criminal misuse” by the killers, but at the same time they have been selling these military grade weapons to cartels in Mexico, advertising them as having the ability to dispatch large numbers of opponents in armed combat. Mexico presently has a lawsuit pending against several gun manufacturers for promoting the sales and distribution of these war weapons to criminal organizations in its country.

The United States is suffering the same carnage. Sandy Hook, Orlando, Las Vegas, Stoneman Douglas High School, Sutherland Springs Church, Virginia Tech, Uvalde, and on and on is a never-ending tragic list totaling tens of thousands of victims. And why? The answer is corporate profits. The blood being spilled on our American killing fields is the true cost of fattening the bank accounts of those profiting from the commercial trafficking in the weaponry being used. According to a House investigation being conducted, sales of these lethal arms have brought in $ 1 billion in revenue to the arms industry over the last 10 years.

To add an exclamation point to this expose, let me add the most recent development — the marketing of the SIG Sauer’s new MCX-SPEAR which has twice the kinetic energy of the AR-15 assault weapon.

The Spear was developed pursuant to a Department of Defense contract to military specifications seeking a combat weapon to pierce enemy body armor. Now a so-called “civilian” version is being marketed to the private sector.

This is a war weapon that will penetrate even the latest body armor of the police. Forgive me for the graphic detail, but if the kinetic energy from its predecessor AR-15 will decapitate and shred the organs of its victims, this weapon will leave pieces of flesh scattered around the killing fields. The feeble background checks and other half -heated measures that has emerged from Congress will fall very short of accomplishing what is needed—a total ban on sales of these killing machines and all the accessories that come with them (extra capacity magazines, high velocity ammunition, etc.—such as silencers which the industry lobbied Congress to authorize several years ago under the Hearing Protection Act to spare shooters from the effects of the noise from their guns.)

Why are these military weapons of mass destruction being marketed to the general public while mass shootings are becoming ever more frequent? Why are we allowing the continued flow of these made for war firearms when we know full well how they are being used? Why does our military even allow them to be distributed outside its control and safekeeping?

Forget Congress as a solution. Citizens United has transformed Congress into a conflicted and compromised institution. The corporate sponsors of our legislators are not willing to allow passage of the measures that are essential to end the slaughtering of our children in their schools and all the other innocent victims of their greed.

What must be done with all haste is the issuance of an order from none other than the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces—President Biden— forbidding any and all military weaponry from being sold outside the military and ordering that such be secured within guarded military arsenals. We simply should not be allowing the military to pay for weapons that end up being used against the people they exist to protect. Everything else is a mirage.

The Second Amendment has been exalted to become America’s golden calf. We must immediately stop the human sacrifices being made to this twisted, evil invention of the war weapons industry.

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Thomas Coffin was the keynote speaker at the Blackberry Pie Society’s Political Party in February, 2020.

He is a retired federal magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and a former professor at the UO Law School.
Thomas retired in 2016 after 24 years on the bench, prior to which he had a career as a federal prosecutor spanning 21 years. He is married with 7 children.
The Blackberry Pie Society is pleased to include a collection of his essays on our website. We will post them as they become available.

Posted 8.18.2022