08 - Air Rifle

Joe Mantegna popping rounds though a Girandoni replica (the second gun). He's not even trying to rapid fire it: he could go much faster.

Before you laugh at air rifles (BB guns), the 1790 Girandoni that Thomas Jefferson owned could fire 22 shots of .46 caliber lead balls (at 800fps), reload the tube with 22 more shots, and do it again. Each shot could take down a bear or elk (easily kill a human). It was used by the Austrian Army for a couple generations, but they were expensive to make, and American invented cartridges obsoleted everything else (cartridges are powder, brass, bullets and primer in one). But this was used on the Lewis and Clark expedition to demonstrate to local Indian tribes the kind of magical firepower they had and is why no Indian tribe attacked them. Add in that modern big bore air rifles go up to .50 caliber, and can be fully automatic (up to 10 rounds per second), and the lethality should not be mocked. Though because they are much quieter (can be silenced more) and still have limited rounds, they would work "better" for for the sniper kind of attacks -- the problem is those kind of mass murders are often deadlier, last longer, and are harder to deal with.

Reload Times

There's a fallacy amongst hoplophobes (gun phobics) that limiting magazines to 10 rounds will help against mass shooters, or that assault rifles are somehow unique. However: The time it takes to reload is less than the reaction time to know that a shooter is reloading. We fought all wars prior to the Korean war without removable magazines, and all wars prior to Vietnam with 10 round magazines (or less). The FBI studied mass shootings and found that the average mass shooting is 10 rounds over 5 minutes, most never even need to reload. In all the mass shootings in the U.S. there has never been a case where a shooter was charged and disarmed during a reload, even with revolvers. Shooting sprees end by them leaving, surrender, suicide or getting shot: virtually never by takedowns during reloads. Magazine limits, assault rifle bans, outlawing removable magazines, and so on, sound great to those who don't know any better, but is just an infuriating ineffective annoyance to gun owners. Each bad law like this, makes it harder to pass "good" laws, as the tolerance for any more legislation was been wasted dividing us, instead of making a real difference. more...

📚 References Evanix 9mm fully automatic (800fps) w/10 round magazines can easily kill on each shot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUYoAY6AQGQ Reload Times: The Basics • Removable Magazines • Fixed Magazines • Revolvers • Pump Action • Lever Action • Bolt Action • Break Action •