So you’re saying that you don’t actually own a “minigun” and everything you said was a joke…right?
Has Canadian Tire got those back in stock again? They were out last time I was there.
One thing I feel like I should add here - although I suspect that most of you who know about guns already know this - is that you do not want to be using full metal jacket ammunition for home defense. It could go through the target, through the wall, and then hit someone in the next room. The last thing on earth you would ever want on top of a dead or seriously wounded burglar in your house, is a dead or seriously wounded random person in the next apartment.
In general you should be mindful of rule number four of guns, which is, know your target and what is behind it.
(I’m not trying to sound like some big gun expert or something by posting this - I’m not - but I just thought it’s worth mentioning.)
[Moderator Cluex4 Stick In Hand]what do you think?[/Moderator Cluex4 Stick In hand] 
Shoot to kill, without hesitation. Aim for center mass.
Is FMJ commonly sold to civilians? 
Of course, I’m surprised that you actually had to ask. That, and I’d have to the world’s worst shot; the buyers of bullets would take my toy away.
Sure it is, you can get it on any ammunition website or at any military surplus store that sells ammo.
Huh. Ignorance fought.
Or, indeed, any store that sells ammunition. Most match ammo is full metal jacket, as is virtually all military surplus, and most rifle or semi-automatic pistol ammunition.
Stranger
I always thought hunters used hollowpoint rounds - and I figured everyone else did too.
A lot of people who shoot often use military surplus ammunition, which is all full metal jacket because there’s an international ban on using hollow point bullets in wartime. Mil-surp ammunition is usually cheaper than commercially-produced ammo. If you shoot .30-06 or .308 and you want to shoot a lot, you’ve got either to buy surplus ammo or hand-load - new commercial ammo always seems to be more expensive.
The best way to avoid even having to worry about this is to use a shotgun for home self defense. I have two brothers who are very, very serious about their guns; one is an accomplished competition shooter, one is a police officer in the Kansas City area. Both have 12-guage shotguns in their homes for defense. Shotgun blasts lose velocity quickly and give a defender better coverage. And if you’re actually living an action movie and the paid assassins coming through the door are wearing body armor, a shotgun blast has a better chance of penetrating a chink in the armor.
This being the Dope I must nitpick. Minigun is the common name for the M134. It is 7.62mm. The 6 barrel gatling style gun that is 20mm is the Vulcan (remove 3 barrels and its the gun on the AH-1 Cobra). There is nothing mini about the Vulcan.
I read the book in your cite. It was interesting. One thing you may not know is that LTC Dave Grossman is a gigantic tool. Most everything he writes is more about LTC Grossman than the subject. He is the self described expert on the psycology of killing (which he cleverly calls killology) and warfare even though he is a retired colonel who spent a large portion of his career in the ROTC program. And he was never on the same continent as an actual shooting war. Did I mention he is a tool? Sorry no cite, just my impression when I met him.
If those statistics are true about the riflemen, I’m surprised that we didn’t lose WWII and win Vietnam. At least that is how it would seem to me. Since I am not military, I will have to defer to those of you who are with regard to this matter. What’s your take on that?
Any similar stats on the Germans or Russians?
This Article seems to contradict that, though it is mainly about Vietnam.
Starts with mentioning Brigadier General Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall and his assertion that fewer than 30% of WWII soldiers ever fired their weapon in combat (nearly twice the other guy’s assumptions) but that 100% of soldiers in Vietnam did. The article then notes that both figures are highly disputed.
“When asked what portion of their fellow soldiers fired during any given engagement, the veterans estimated that about 84 percent of a unit’s men armed with individual weapons (rifles, pistols, grenade launchers, shotguns) and approximately 90 percent of those manning crew-served weapons (generally the M-60 machine gun) did so.”
There is some discussion that it is not the job of a lot of the soldiers to actually fire their weapons - they have other jobs to do - and pulling out rifles to shoot means that they aren’t performing their duties.
“One veteran recalled situations when ‘many soldiers don’t return fire because they are behind a tree or log under heavy suppressive fire. Once artillery or other units create a distraction of fire with the enemy, these same soldiers will return fire with relish.’”
It mentions fear as the biggest reason soldiers did not fire their weapon, but talks about how this usually only lasted for the first couple of encounters for fresh soldiers. Interestingly, it also notes that in Vietnam, your chances of being killed in your first 3 months were equal to your chances of being killed in the next nine months, because by then you’d learned the lessons of war and how to survive.
I’d take those statistics with a grain of salt, if I were you. The only way to do a “study” like that is to interview lots of soldiers and officers, none of whom, naturally, are likely to provide much in the way of actual data.
Think about it - they would effectively have to count how many rounds each of their personnel had left after each engagement to get an accurate figure.
By the time we got to Vietnam, of course, the Army had lots and lots of experience with actual objective studies, and probably did count how many rounds each soldier had left.
Yeah, looks like some folks need to take a course on self-defense, and not the fun one where ya get to blow holes in stuff, the boring (and incredibly more important) one on the legal aspects of using deadly force!
The right to use deadly force in self-defense (or defense of others) does not give you the right to kill.
In most jurisdictions (if not all) that first shot was manslaughter (if not more).
When “Yankee” disarmed “husband” the threat of deadly forced ended and with it the right to use deadly force. If “Yankee” had been armed he could have shot “husband”, but if “husband” drops the rifle or turns and runs, that’s it it’s over, and shooting at that point is NOT self defense.
The general rule is that you may only use deadly force when you are confronted with deadly force, and your right to use deadly force ends when the threat to you ends. You’re (generally) also limited to only using the amount of force required to end the threat. Now, it’s a polite fiction that center mass is not shooting to kill, if one were really trying to kill, center mass is where you’d aim. Aiming at the head (or throat :rolleyes: ) shows that your intent was not to stop the aggressor but to kill them. There are situations where shooting to kill would be justified. If “husband” was clearly aiming that rifle at “wife’s” head, finger on the trigger ready to take the shot, those particular facts would more than likely justify “Yankee” making a head shot.
The specific details of any given shooting are the difference between justifiable self defense and an unlawful killing, and again generally, the standard is not the subjective “I was in fear for my life (or for the life/lives of others)” but a more objective “reasonable person” one. (See; Imperfect self-defense, Justifiable homicide)
CMC +fnord!
IaNaL, and I really wish one of the boards lawyers was doing this “Law 101” ignorance fighting instead of me :(.
That kind of thing varies state-by-state pretty significantly. Colorado was famous for a while because of the poorly nicknamed “Make my Day” law. Behold -
I need not wait until confronted with deadly force before I protect myself or my family in my home.
I also am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV
Depends on the perceived threat level. If it was a split second thing I’d probably aim for the chest just because that seems like the most obvious and easy target. If I actually had time to consider my options, the situation would probably be not dire enough for me to want to kill the person. I might do things in steps - tell them to go away or I’ll shoot, then shoot them in the arm or leg, then go for something more lethal if they still seemed like a threat. If I’m really in danger though I doubt I’ll have time to think about what kind of shot to make.
That’s of course a defending my self and family situations.
If I were a cop, I’d tend to want to shoot to disable if possible, certainly if the person were feeling, and I’d seriously consider not using my gun if the perp wasn’t armed.
If I were in a horror movie then all bets are off. I would not only shoot to kill, I would grind up the body into little pieces, burn them, scatter the ashes in different locations and with varying degrees of containment.