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Comment by bagacrap | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty sure I'd rather be shot by a hunting rifle than an assault rifle. Hunting rifles aren't designed to blow a deer's leg off.

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I think you should question your surety. Most states ban modern day assault rifle calibers for hunting deer because they are too small in diameter to do enough damage and deliver a humane kill. Hunting calibers (.308, .243 win, 30.06) are much larger and more powerful than the 5.56/5.45 the modern M4-pattern and AK74 use.

In addition, per wartime regulations the worlds armies are only allowed to use FMJ which leaves a much smaller wound channel. Hunting rounds are typically soft point or hollow point and expand on impact to leave a much larger wound channel to increase the likelihood of a humane kill.

It’s a bit silly while it’s technically correct that expanding munitions were banned by the 1899 Hague convention modern hollow points could probably be fine, especially the fragmenting ones.

The reason these aren’t widely adopted isn’t because of any convention as these hardly stop anyone during war time, but because they aren’t as useful as you think for military purposes.

Armor piercing incendiary and high explosive incendiary rounds are used and I rather get show with a hollow point than an HE round.

The Soviets during WW2 used HE rounds as sniper munitions.

You're more likely to survive an assault rifle round than hunting rifle.

Hunting rifles are often a larger caliber and are designed to kill with one shot from a much further distance. Assault rifles are designed to disperse many smaller rounds, rapidly, from a closer range.

You clearly don’t know anything about firearms. An “assault” rifle bullet/round (5.56mm/0.223) is smaller and less powerful than a typical hunting rifle (7.62mm/0.308) round.

“Assault” rifles aren’t designed to blow your anyone’s leg off.

This sort of denying all the technology in assault weapons to maximize destruction. It's the kinetic energy, the design of the bullet, there's recoil mitigation, bullet cavitation, etc. They are weapons designed to reduce the amount of effort required to stop people, permanently.

(I'm not a gun nut but I am a physics nerd, so i read up on how assault weapons differ from more conventional hunting weapons. Note that many people hunt using assault rifles now).

> the kinetic energy

Please explain how a cartridge with less powder ends up generating more kinetic energy. Alternatively, explain how it's worse to have less kinetic energy.

You can reference this visual comparison of rifle cartridges to see what I mean: https://1source.basspro.com/news-tips/hunting-information/74...

Assault rifles were designed to allow soldiers to carry more bullets. It started with the Germans in WWII, who found that with mechanized warfare, infantry engagements were at closer range so they didn't need big heavy cartridges anymore.

Note that the .30-06 is a hunting cartridge today but it was also used in the main American battle rifle in WWII, the Springfield 1903. There's also the .308 which is commonly used in hunting and also various military battle rifles and sniper rifles. No infantry soldier would claim either is less effective than the 5.56.

"better to have less kinetic energy" I mean :)

In a few states, you can use an assault rifle for hunting deer.

But it only makes sense at really close range with excellent shot placement - anything less that is inhumane and causes the deer to suffer.

You can also verify this by checking the rifles that snipers use if they have a choice - it's never an assault rifle.

The hunters I know who use AR15s for hunting (I think it's elk, not deer) are ex-snipers.

Nothing about my message should suggest anything about the humanity of using assault rifles to hunt deer. It's entirely about being factual about the nature of assault weapons, which some gun nuts seem to intentionally deny.

That’s not how these things work, “assault rifles” aren’t rail guns.

Assault rifle was a nomenclature for smaller caliber rifles capable of both automatic and semi automatic fire that were designed to be used in an “assault” as in more mobile and rapidly advancing combat.

“Battle rifles” were defined as large caliber designed for more long range engagements and being primarily fired form stationary positions.

Arguably the first modern assault rifle was the M1 Carbine during WW2 it was essentially in the middle between a machine pistol/sub machine gun and a rifle.

When the “assault rifles” we know today were being designed the inspiration for them was many of the same hunting and sporter rifles and cartridges you want to get shot with.

5.56 NATO is based on the .223 Remington a hunting cartridge in fact the AR-15 predates the M-16.

If forced into a firefight, I'd prefer to face the hunting rifle, as the term (in most of the World) generally refers to a bolt action rifle. However, if I had to actually take a bullet, I'd prefer it to be from an assault rifle any day of the week.

Assault rifles generally fire either 5.56x45 or 7.62x39 - intermediate rounds than are unlawful for use in hunting most game because they are unlikely to kill the animal, at least quickly.

Hunting rifles are going to (except for varmint hunting) generally use much bigger, much more powerful rounds such as the .308 Winchester. It is much more likely to kill you (and much, much more likely to blow off an extremity if hit there) than an intermediate cartridge fired from an assault rifle.

Actually hunting rifles are typically a larger caliber than assault rifles. The AR-15 for example uses .223 (or the equivalent 5.56mm), which is one of the smallest rounds for centerfire rifles. Here's a visual comparison of various rifle rounds and what game they're good for:

https://1source.basspro.com/news-tips/hunting-information/74...

> I'm pretty sure I'd rather be shot by a hunting rifle than an assault rifle. Hunting rifles aren't designed to blow a deer's leg off.

I don't think you know what you're talking about. IIRC, hunting rifles typically have more powerful cartridges (~bullets).

IIRC, typical military cartridges have been getting less and less powerful since WWII, because they make automatic fire possible and allow soldiers to carry more ammo.

Oh sweet summer child. Your scary AR is meant to maim, not blow off limbs.

You clearly know nothing about firearms, munitions, or ballistics.

You may want to research the caliber and associated energy and ballistic differences between the firearms and cartridges you are talking about.

Don't get confused by the terms. They are both 100% deadly. Both come in semi-automatic configuration as well. The only difference is that hunting rifles typically have low capacity magazines whereas assault rifles have high capacity magazines.

EDIT: In case you are talking about types of ammunition, it's true that anti-human ammunition is more deadly. But I am not sure it makes that much of a difference because hunting ammunition is already deadly enough.

High capacity vs low capacity magazines is a real difference if you are in a fire fight.

Not really the biggest difference would be a detachable magazine vs a non detachable magazine.

And selective fire. If it comes only in semi-auto configuration, as all legal AR-15 type rifles do, it's not an assault rifle.

U.S. legislators are fond of using the deliberately similar sounding and confusing term "assault weapon" to refer to any rifle with military-style features.

Automatic fire other than for suppression isn’t effective if you want to kill people semi vs auto won’t make a big difference neither is 10 vs 30 rounds.

This is the problem with the gun control debate you either control all of them or none of them.

The assault weapons ban did absolutely squat to prevent gun violence in the US.

Being able to attach a bayonet or having to pin and weld a flash suppressor I mean sorry compensator or w/e they’ll call it to pass the requirements isn’t going to make a gun less deadly.

Honestly I don’t know what can be done in the US at this point there’s more guns than people, and despite the so called ammo shortages there are probably enough rounds out there to kill every person on the planet 10 times over.

There little that any gun control legislation other than a complete ban and confiscation campaign could do.

This is because if you look at gun violence you see essentially two groups neither of which could be prevented by stricter gun legislation.

One is people committing crimes/homicide with legally purchased firearms and passing all checks including any additional checks that any “sensible” gun legislation would introduce.

The other are people who obtain guns illegally by stealing them or buying them on the black or grey markets.

More background checks won’t stop them, especially not in the near term until guns become prohibitively expensive for most criminals to obtain but without confiscation that isn’t likely to happen.

There’s still gun violence in the UK as far as criminals go but that’s mostly limited to organized crime vs organized crime incidents other than that and the Irish border conflict related violence you can rally only get the odd crank that finds grandpa’s old shotgun with a few 50 year old hunting rounds.

Common criminals can’t afford to buy guns in the UK and many of them don’t want anything to do with firearms because of the response it would trigger.

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