4 ms·

"An AR-15 is just a semiautomatic rifle, so the founding fathers basically had AR-15's" Wait, what? Not really an expert on 18th century weaponry, but even I k

by iends 12y ago

"An AR-15 is just a semiautomatic rifle, so the founding fathers basically had AR-15's" Wait, what? Not really an expert on 18th century weaponry, but even I know from grade school that the best weapons of that era were muzzle loaded which significantly impacts the number of rounds you can fire per unit of time. So I googled... An AR-15 can fire 45 rounds per minute. A Pennsylvania Long Rifle from that era could approximately fire 1 round per minute.

codezero 12y ago
Well, our population is almost 100x what it was back then too, so at scale, we're able to kill less people! :P
15155 12y ago
How about weapons that DID exist? Private citizens owned the vast majority of the US's naval power. Namely: a substantial amount of cannonry, mortars, etc. These primitive weapons have (and had) the capability of razing cities. Were the rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air imaginary? No, but the home-teams' were privately owned.
- iends 12y ago
  "Were the rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air imaginary? No, but the home-teams' were privately owned." The star-spangled banner was written in 1814 during the War of 1812, which is definitely not the 18th century. Fort McHenry was also commanded by the US Army and not a state's militia, so it's not clear who owned the cannons.
  - 15155 12y ago
    Exact numbers are escaping me, and I'll have to find a source, but, there were around ~500 privateer ships involved in the War of 1812, and ~20-30 US Navy vessels. Suffice it to say: there were substantially more privately-owned armaments, crews, etc. than government.
brandonmenc 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_rifle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_rifle Breech-loading, 6-10 rounds per minute, used by the British in the Revolutionary War.
- iends 12y ago
  Interesting article. Looks like there were ~100 used in the Revolutionary War, all owed by the British. TIL.
nkurz 12y ago
An AR-15 can fire 45 rounds per minute. I believe the "45 rounds per minute" figure is an estimate of sustained rate of fire, including reloading and potentially waiting for the barrel to cool. As a semi-automatic, it will fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. Pulling a trigger more than once per second is easily achievable. Doing so with accuracy is the difficult part. But while checking on this number, I came across something that surprised me: there is a legally-available mail-order accessory that will allow an AR-15 to fire several hundred rounds per minute with rather impressive accuracy: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2013/0203/Bump-fire-devices-turn-rifles-into-machine-guns-How-is-that-legal http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2013/0203/Bump-fire-de... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOUNvIwxSWg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOUNvIwxSWg
- 15155 12y ago
  I never understood why people get so hung up on cyclic rate when it comes to firearms. There will never be a cyclic rate limitation imposed on firearms by federal legislature. It's a meaningless, fear-mongering number that doesn't actually measure lethality. Semi-automatic handguns are here to stay. Period, end of story. For the scenarios most people are concerned about, semi-automatic handguns are of the same relative lethality as an AR-15 (in rifle configuration). Perhaps even more so, as they're easily concealed. If we want to get hung up on cyclic rate: the (unobtainable) Glock 18 (fully-automatic handgun) has a cyclic rate of 1300 rounds per minute. Ooh!!! Scary! The Glock 17 (semi-automatic variant, a mainstay in many police departments), which is mechanically almost the exact same is completely capable of the same ROF (if you could actually move your fingers that fast). It's legal, here to stay. Find a different stat to try and scare uninformed people with.
  - nkurz 12y ago
    Your account is new to this site, and you seem to have a useful perspective and information that most people here do not. But your tone is unwelcome, and suggesting that my goal is to "scare uniformed people" is offensive. Stick around, but please be more considerate. The numbers are just numbers, but it's better that people start with accurate numbers rather than false ones. The "45 per minute" figure comes from a misleading Time Magazine graphic, and should be corrected regardless of the direction of the correction: http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/01/21/time-magazine-attempts-to-scare-with-ar-15-fact/ http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/01/21/time-magazine-at... Rate of fire and lethality have limited correlation, but perhaps more interesting for this discussion, legality and lethality have even less. I posted the article on the Slide Fire stock because I was not aware of it, because it's legal, and because it actually does turn an AR-15 into what is functionally a fully automatic rifle. But add a simple spring into it and suddenly it's illegal: http://www.slidefire.com/downloads/BATFE.pdf http://www.slidefire.com/downloads/BATFE.pdf The lethality is the same (and yes, arguably no different than an unmodified AR-15, although you should watch the videos if you haven't) but the functionally fully-automatic version with the spring is illegal, and the one without is currently legal (except for California). I find this an interesting point of discussion.

by iends 12y ago

codezero 12y ago

Well, our population is almost 100x what it was back then too, so at scale, we're able to kill less people! :P

15155 12y ago

How about weapons that DID exist? Private citizens owned the vast majority of the US's naval power. Namely: a substantial amount of cannonry, mortars, etc. These primitive weapons have (and had) the capability of razing cities. Were the rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air imaginary? No, but the home-teams' were privately owned.

iends 12y ago
"Were the rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air imaginary? No, but the home-teams' were privately owned." The star-spangled banner was written in 1814 during the War of 1812, which is definitely not the 18th century. Fort McHenry was also commanded by the US Army and not a state's militia, so it's not clear who owned the cannons.
- 15155 12y ago
  Exact numbers are escaping me, and I'll have to find a source, but, there were around ~500 privateer ships involved in the War of 1812, and ~20-30 US Navy vessels. Suffice it to say: there were substantially more privately-owned armaments, crews, etc. than government.

brandonmenc 12y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_rifle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_rifle Breech-loading, 6-10 rounds per minute, used by the British in the Revolutionary War.

iends 12y ago
Interesting article. Looks like there were ~100 used in the Revolutionary War, all owed by the British. TIL.

nkurz 12y ago

An AR-15 can fire 45 rounds per minute. I believe the "45 rounds per minute" figure is an estimate of sustained rate of fire, including reloading and potentially waiting for the barrel to cool. As a semi-automatic, it will fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. Pulling a trigger more than once per second is easily achievable. Doing so with accuracy is the difficult part. But while checking on this number, I came across something that surprised me: there is a legally-available mail-order accessory that will allow an AR-15 to fire several hundred rounds per minute with rather impressive accuracy: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2013/0203/Bump-fire-devices-turn-rifles-into-machine-guns-How-is-that-legal http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2013/0203/Bump-fire-de... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOUNvIwxSWg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOUNvIwxSWg

15155 12y ago
I never understood why people get so hung up on cyclic rate when it comes to firearms. There will never be a cyclic rate limitation imposed on firearms by federal legislature. It's a meaningless, fear-mongering number that doesn't actually measure lethality. Semi-automatic handguns are here to stay. Period, end of story. For the scenarios most people are concerned about, semi-automatic handguns are of the same relative lethality as an AR-15 (in rifle configuration). Perhaps even more so, as they're easily concealed. If we want to get hung up on cyclic rate: the (unobtainable) Glock 18 (fully-automatic handgun) has a cyclic rate of 1300 rounds per minute. Ooh!!! Scary! The Glock 17 (semi-automatic variant, a mainstay in many police departments), which is mechanically almost the exact same is completely capable of the same ROF (if you could actually move your fingers that fast). It's legal, here to stay. Find a different stat to try and scare uninformed people with.
- nkurz 12y ago
  Your account is new to this site, and you seem to have a useful perspective and information that most people here do not. But your tone is unwelcome, and suggesting that my goal is to "scare uniformed people" is offensive. Stick around, but please be more considerate. The numbers are just numbers, but it's better that people start with accurate numbers rather than false ones. The "45 per minute" figure comes from a misleading Time Magazine graphic, and should be corrected regardless of the direction of the correction: http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/01/21/time-magazine-attempts-to-scare-with-ar-15-fact/ http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/01/21/time-magazine-at... Rate of fire and lethality have limited correlation, but perhaps more interesting for this discussion, legality and lethality have even less. I posted the article on the Slide Fire stock because I was not aware of it, because it's legal, and because it actually does turn an AR-15 into what is functionally a fully automatic rifle. But add a simple spring into it and suddenly it's illegal: http://www.slidefire.com/downloads/BATFE.pdf http://www.slidefire.com/downloads/BATFE.pdf The lethality is the same (and yes, arguably no different than an unmodified AR-15, although you should watch the videos if you haven't) but the functionally fully-automatic version with the spring is illegal, and the one without is currently legal (except for California). I find this an interesting point of discussion.