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Should We Be Worried About the AR-15 Ammunition Ban?
Conservatives who defend the Second Amendment right to bear arms (among whom I count myself) are raising the alarm that the Obama Administration is trying to threaten the AR-15 by banning its ammunition. Apparently, the ATF has announced its intention to prohibit what a news article describes as “inexpensive 5.56 M855 ammo, commonly called lightgreen tips” because it can pierce the armor commonly worn by local police.
I ask the Ricochet community to explain what this ammunition is. It is only with that knowledge that can we judge whether this is a true threat to Second Amendment rights.
As I see things, the Constitution recognizes the pre-existing natural right of individuals to possess firearms. At the same time, like other individual rights, the right to bear arms is not absolute — it can be regulated reasonably. It seems to me that one reasonable regulation is to ban ammunition that poses a serious threat to the lives of law enforcement officers. On the other hand, I’ve seen reports that the ammunition is primarily used for target shooting, and that its ability to pierce armor is just a byproduct of that use.
It seems to me that protecting the lives of law enforcement is an important enough interest to limit certain kinds of ammunition — if there are no other means of regulation that would be more protective of the right to bear arms. In this context, if there are other forms of ammunition that are good substitutes for use in target practice, then banning this one type of AR-15 ammunition does not seem to me a serious intrusion on Second Amendment rights (in contrast, say, to an effort to ban the AR-15 itself, or all ammunition that would be used by AR-15s, which I think would be a violation).
What do you think?
Published in General
Best summary I’ve read is Kevin Williamson’s article over at NR.
Seems like this paragraph highlights how they came to be popular.
And the real fear.
Kevin Williamson and Charles C.W. Cooke discussed this on their Mad Dogs and Englishmen podcast. The discussion of the ban is in the second half of the podcast.
As a complete non-gun expert, my understanding of their argument was that many types of guns, like some types of rifles, can pierce armor just by virtue of being powerful guns. Thus, some types of ammo are functionally armor-piercing, because they can pierce armor, even though that is not what they were designed to do. Thus, a ban on armor piercing ammo could apply to much broader categories of ammo than we might expect.
UPDATE: Asquared pointed out some parts of their argument I had forgotten, like the non-lead ammo.
“It seems to me that one reasonable regulation is to ban ammunition that poses a serious threat to the lives of law enforcement officers.”
The explicit purpose of the Second Amendment was to allow free individuals to defend themselves against an over-weening state. If you limit it to only weapons that are not a threat to agents of an over-weening state, then you’ve gutted the Amendment.
So no, I don’t think that’s reasonable.
I am sure skipsul will weigh in.
However, in my mind protecting police officers is not a valid reason for restriction in this case. If someone figured out a gun or bullet that would only kill police officers, that would be reason for restriction. But in this case the rounds were not specifically designed for penetrating body armor, it just happens to be a byproduct of the cheap design.
A couple days ago I read an article from the New York Times on this subject. The NYT is not exactly a publication that caters to firearms enthusiasts. The article said there was not one reported case of someone using this ammunition to kill a police officer wearing a bullet-proof vest.
I’m not a hunter and I’m not an expert on body armor. But I’m given to understand that most body armor is not going to stand up to the ammunition necessary to take down big game, like moose. So it may not be possible to have ammo that covers all the needs of hunters and target shooters, and that cannot go through common body armor. I look forward to reading comments from people who know more about this than I do. Perhaps the newest body armor is better than I think.
Also a non-expert, here is my question: are there actual cases of these types of bullets being used to injure/kill armor-wearing police officers?
When it comes to any types of restrictions on the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, I think one criterion must be an actual track record of harm. These types of discussions always seem to revolve around what is theoretically possible, but if these bullets have been available for a while without leading to an epidemic of police killings using them, I would argue that empirical evidence is stronger than any theoretical musings.
The “green tips” the ATF are set to ban will penetrate the soft body armor worn by most civilian LEOs. This is not caused by the tip itself but by the velocity at which the bullet is fired.
The USMC abandoned this ammo because it was actually ineffective for them. Because the bullet didn’t fragment it creates a clean, ice-pick-like wound which is more survivable.
From BearingsArms.com:
M855 was the standard US military rifle round when I was involved in that industry more than a decade ago. For military purposes, the bullet has a small conical steel tip backed up by a lead cylinder all inside a copper jacket. That tip is for piercing body armor, etc.
Gun grabbers obviously have always wanted to ban it.
The main reason it was not banned was that it was quite economical for the military to also have civilian consumers. Civilian use allowed the military to increase economies of scale. Also, in times of peace the military could sell off its aging stocks and buy new. That provided a cheap source for civilian target shooting.
Your Constitutional analysis is severely misguided. The second amendment is not about limiting civilians to weapons that are ineffective for military purposes. It is the fact that the round is military in origin that puts it squarely within the core second amendment.
“Reasonable regulation” sounds like the foot in the door to tyranny to me.
Elbridge Gerry’s discussion regarding arming and training civilian militias in the Norfolk Method comes to mind as a source for why the 2nd Amendment is in the Constitution. Gerry was asking that citizens be trained against the British army. Any “reasonable regulation” would have seen this as treason, and it was. Yet it is due to these militia that we are discussing this question today.
Here is a comment I made on an earlier thread regarding this topic:
Here’s my understanding. The Obama Administration is actually acting within its legal capacity, according to the 1986 amendments to the Gun Control Act.
There are two problems with the 1986 amendments intended to limit “armor-piercing ammunition”. The first is that they were based on the body armor available at that time.
The second problem is that just about any hunting rifle for large game, by virtue of its superior firepower, is armor-piercing. So there was a carve-out for ammo that is fired only in rifles.
However, lately AR-15 “pistols” have become increasingly popular. These are similar to AR-15 rifles, except that they have a short barrel and no stock. By law, they are thus not considered rifles, but rather pistols.
If they are considered pistols according to one law, they are pistols according to the law. So BATF is removing the carve-out for ammo that can be fired from an AR-15 pistol.
This is a regulatory power grab, but the power appears to be fully within the scope of the Gun Control Act. So there is one answer here: Congress needs to overhaul the Gun Control Act. I have no patience for legislators who complain about the issue but won’t do their jobs and fix the legislation.
A further thought: Even if banning this ammo is within the letter of the law, it goes against its spirit. The law was intended to protect law enforcement against armor-piercing ammunition in easily-concealed weapons. The AR pistols are typically 2 feet long. They are not concealable. (Nor are they inexpensive enough to be attractive to criminals.) This action is being taken against a non-threat, which is why it is plausibly understood as a power grab.
I tried to make a similar point above: before we even consider banning something, there should be concrete evidence (from previous experience) of it causing a problem, not a theoretical case for why something “might” be a threat.
This philosophy should be extended to all regulation, in my opinion. Take net neutrality: there is hardly a single case of anyone’s internet experience being hurt in the absence of it – but supposedly we need it because those horrible consequences are lurking right around the corner.
With a very few exceptions, regulations and bans should require, as a prerequisite, hard evidence that the thing being banned has actually caused serious harm in the past.
I agree the best thing I every heard Tomas Sowell say is laws should only be passed based on experience. We would have a lot fewer laws if Republicans abide by this concept. I actually think it should be a constitutional requirement for administrative law and the best science available argument is never a valid argument. The best available science means crappy, inconclusive or very shaky science can be used to regulated Americans. You need to have sufficient science/experience before you should even be legally allowed to pass regulations.
The problems with most guns laws is they are not based on experience or science, at lest based on the reasons politicians gives for the regulation. If you look at their real goals then you can’t really say that in many cases.
The real issue here is cost of feeding your gun. The M855 is a military surplus round, and thus a lot cheaper than new commercial ammo. Its soviet cousin, the 5.45×39 7N6 was banned from importation last year. Again, commercial equivalents are available, but at about four or five times the cost.
Either of these rounds will go right through most soft body armor in a lead/copper loading. They will also go through car doors and most building walls. Bear in mind that these are about the weakest center fire rifles on the market. Any of the classic big game cartridges will do the same thing.
What the steel penetrator gets you is the ability to go through harder forms of armor, like alloy steel plate, helmets, etc. The 7n6 round was designed specifically to punch through the NATO helmet of the 70s. If the police show up with military surplus gear or vehicles, the armor penetrating rounds could conceivably equalize some of that protection.
That’s a partially separate issue because the M855 has lead, but some of its military replacements do not. Those replacements are also likely being banned.
The quotation above refers to a broad situation usually involving what would otherwise be regarded as pure hunting and target ammunition.
Typical hunting rifle bullets involve a lead core in a copper jacket. Pistol bullets also often are of jacketed lead. However, many other pistol bullets are of essentially unjacketed lead. Many lead-free alternatives to any of these replace the lead with other metals that are not as soft as lead (whether as monolithic pieces of metal, compacted metal powders, or metal powders in a polymer matrix). Those alternatives thus have greater likelihood of penetrating light body armor (or whatever else they are tested on) than does lead. Thus the need for exemptions.
First they came for the M855, but I did not speak out, because I didn’t have a rifle in that caliber …
If I have the constitutional right to own a weapon, I also have the constitutional right to buy ammo for it. Finding justifications (it might pierce some LEO armor) for incremental bans on constitutionally protected rights is a dangerous game that will not end well for the constitution or the people.
Is there anyone who believes that banning M855 ammo will prevent any criminal from shooting an officer with a cartridge that can pierce body armor? Hell, is there anyone who really believes the criminals won’t still be able to load up with M855 after the ban? The ban will only serve to prevent honest citizens from buying the round, it won’t make it evaporate from the streets.
Mr Yoo;
The ‘intent’ of the campaign to ban this ammo is accomplished when a post like this is generated stating: “It seems to me that protecting the lives of law enforcement is an important enough interest to limit certain kinds of ammunition…” Now all the Liberals on capital hill have a ‘defensible’ position statement for media consumption and they can sound fairly ‘moderate’ back home.
The politics is outlined and the ‘argument’ is framed to not address the issue but the ‘intent’, even though there is no proof of the intent. So we continue to be pwned again and instead of addressing the issue the issue is ‘framed’ as Saul said: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
The hectored argument is: “So as a conservative you believe in the right to bear arms and kill cops?” If you don’t know the strategy you will never defeat an enemy with tactics.
I can load you up a batch of .44 magnum rounds that will go through a quarter inch of plate steel. These would not be classified as “AR-15 ammunition” nor “armor piercing”. Why not ban Spin from hand loading? Or at a minimum, publish federal guidelines for the loads that one can produce?
Oh, I know why: because that requires some actual thought on the subject. It’s much easier just to say “we want to ban AR-15 ammunition.”
Hundreds of millions of these rounds are sold and safely used by the citizenry of this country every year. Nobody uses this ammunition to shoot at police. (For that matter, criminals almost invariably use handguns if they are going to use any firearm at all.) I have been a criminal defense lawyer for over a third of a century, and have yet to see a case where this ammunition was used in an assault. The administration proposal is a purported solution to an imaginary problem, but a solution that seriously impinges the use of the most popular firearm in the country. It is just anti-citizen, anti-gun crap.
Of course, merely making the proposal drives panic buying, induces hoarding behavi0r, causes shortages, and raises prices. What a crock.
In Comment #3, Tuck hits the nail on the head. While self defense is a portion of the reason for the protection of the people’s self existing right to bear arms, there is also the understanding that those same protected arms must be able to perform in militia service. That militia service arm would not just be used to protect the people against foreign enemies, but those domestic ones as well. As a result, the arms born by the people that are protected by Amendment II, must be those that would have the capability of penetrating the armor of those under the British crown, those of other foreign invading forces, or that worn by police and military serving the US or state’s governments.
While some may wish to dance around this fact, Amendment II stands to protect the arms held by the people that may need to be used by the people to shoot and kill US soldiers and police, if it becomes necessary to do so to protect their own rights. Even the US government understood that Amendment II protects effective military arms, and argued as such in United States v. Miller.
As a result, a claim that an armor piercing ammunition ban is Constitutionally acceptable is not just false, it is flatly laughable and those who would claim that it is should be openly mocked.
It seems my opinion here is asked…
I think that the ban is actually limited to an importation ban, perhaps with a ban on selling off domestic military surplus too, and if this is the case then it is really a combination of the usual ATF bureaucratic obduracy, and Obama poking gun owners in the eye (again) over something actually rather petty. It is also not new.
The AK47 standard round is the 7.62 x 39. 20 years ago you could buy 500 round tins of the stuff for $50. It was all military surplus stuff, and it all had a mild steel core. It was cheap, plentiful, and friends and I would use it on cinder blocks. You cannot use it for hunting in most places, and it isn’t any good for the job anyway (and yes there are hunting-specific loads for the AK and its predecessor SKS). Its import was banned for a variety of reasons, but AK ammo is still plentiful in FMJ lead ball. Not so fun on cinder blocks, but adequate for target shooting. We went through this last year again on 5.45 x39, the ammo for the AK74, where the usual rounds available were steel core, and now you can only get FMJ lead.
In both cases the reasons for the ban came down to this: people made and sold legal pistol versions, thus turning it into “armor piercing” by the 1986 GCA.
M855 ball is, again, nothing but a target round for most US shooters. Militaries are banned from using hollow points, frangible rounds, or anything considered a “hunting round” due to treaty restrictions that pre-date WWI (how dare you use a game round on a human being! Those rounds are fit only for beasts I say!). Civilians and law enforcement are under no such restrictions, and for home defense you would not use such a round. Besides, it will go through multiple layers of drywall, 2×4 timbers, your neighbor’s dog, etc. if you miss (and sometimes even if you hit). Better to use a dedicated self defense round that will not over penetrate.
So, again, M855 ball is, for civilian shooters and law enforcement, just a target round. For target shooting, there are lots of other FMJ lead rounds out there that you can still use (PMC is a good cheap choice for brass cased rounds, and there are some steel cased rounds from Wolf available too, though I’ve had some issues there).
So what does all of this mean practically? Well, it means that manufacturers and militaries in other countries won’t be able to sell off their surplus rounds to us anymore, and those places are the major sources. Federal (the ammo company, not the US government), the main manufacturer here, likely won’t be able to sell it to us either. But there are many other options.
This all means it will get a little more expensive to take that AR out to the range. In the near term (as people panic – see here for a piece I did 2 years ago) it may get a lot more expensive (as it did after Newtown – again see here). Obama and the ATF have just attacked 1 ammo option, so this ban is just spiteful pettiness.
However, their long game is to attempt to ban lead ammo altogether via the EPA (even though Congress has specifically forbidden the EPA from doing so). California has been attempting this on the state level, and if they succeed expect other lefty states to follow suit. Lead is the game to watch here.
Funny thing is, consider this handgun:
This, folks, is the Magnum Research BFR (Biggest, Finest, Revolver). You can get this in some rifle calibers, including .30-30, and .45-70. Yet these calibers have never been touched, despite going into a handgun, because the rounds have never been steel cored, always strictly lead ball.
I’ve always wanted to try shooting one of these…
The “Firearm Owners Protection Act“, signed by Reagan, which banned what are honestly known as assault weapons, those which are fully automatic.
Sigh.
Right on, Tuck!
Moreover, any ammunition poses a serious threat to the lives of law enforcement officers. There is no 100% effective body armor. Therefore, Prof. Yoo’s statement would support the banning of all ammunition, which is obviously contrary to the Second Amendment.
Reagan, as CA governor, also put in open carry bans.
Proving the maxim, “Nobody’s perfect.”
Just re-watched Lawrence of Arabia over the weekend. There’s a scene where one of the Arabs says of Lawrence, “He is not perfect!”, after Lawrence’s promise of trunks full of gold proves hyperbolic.
LOL. People never learn. :)
Let’s face it. We are not allowed to have tanks (without special permits); we are not allowed to own RPG’s or atom bombs. There is a limit to what we citizens can possess to protect ourselves.
They may be “gaming the system” (as has been suggested here) by declaring lead bullets as armor piercing. But as a duck hunter who realizes that lead pellets are no longer acceptable (a good decision), and who understands that major responsibilities come with gun ownership, I’m not hampered by our government not allowing armor piercing bullets.
Using hyperbola, suppose there were a bullet that could travel 100 miles and penetrate steel or concrete. Just because technology can give us such a weapon (or ammo), do we as a society have a right to banish it. Of course we do. No hunter needs a bullet that can travel 100 miles or penetrates steel.
The right to bear arms is a vital component to protecting our freedoms, but there any reasonable man or woman would agree that there are some limititations.
“The right to bear arms is a vital component to protecting our freedoms, but there any reasonable man or woman would agree that there are some limititations.”
We’re just arguing about what’s reasonable. And it’s an underhanded, back-door trick for them to use this armor piercing canard. Again, any normal hunting rifle with an old-school bullet is capable of going through the body armor that your local police wear on a regular basis. And the “cop killer bullet” nonsense of the nineties should have been taken off the books. If the government wants to ban something, it should have to show that it’s actually causing harm. Which steel-core ammunition clearly is not.
There are two levels of constitutionality here: (1) Is Obama acting within his statutory authority? and (2) Is that statutory authority constitutional?
It’s important to make this distinction, because if the answer to question #1 is “Yes”, then the focus needs to be on Congress, not Obama. If the problem is the 1968 Gun Control Act, or the 1986 amendments to it, then Congress needs to step up and make the law consistent with the Constitution and the constraints of reality.
Jefferey,
That is the siren song of incremental tyranny. Sure, it’s well and fine that YOU are not hampered by this back door legislation. And in this case, I am not hampered either as I don’t own an AR-15. But as an AK owner, I’ve seen much of my own affordable ammo dry up because of ATF bans in the past year.
But I don’t find this ban even remotely reasonable. Supporters of it have not pointed to a single case in which a LEO has been killed by a “green tip” bullet let alone have his armor pierced by one. The truth is that almost any intermediate or high powered rifle cartridge will pierce soft body armor that police commonly wear. So why aren’t anti-gunners just honest and advocate banning ALL rifle ammo? Because it would be unsuccessful and better to do death by a thousand cuts.
Almost all gun crimes are committed with handguns. And yet strangely the anti-gun crowd is fixated on semi-automatic rifles.