- by Dave Carr, originally broadcast on 560CFOS,"Making Waves", Thursday, February 22, 2018
When I was in the army all those years ago, I carried an M-16 rifle. And I'm amazed my old M-16 is still around today, better than ever. It has a different name, though. Today, it's an AR-15, and it's the gun, and the .223 calibre is the bullet that killed 17 and wounded 14 more in Parkland, Florida. A 19 year old allegedly needed just one such rifle and a bunch of 30-round clips to create that carnage. But few are talking about that .223 calibre round, and we should. Nominally, it's only larger than the old .22 rim-fire that's been around forever by the thickness of a single human hair. But this bullet is heavier and now sits atop a shell full of powder with a bigger bang: it leaves the barrel of an AR-15 at an incredibly high speed. When it hits a high school student, the entry wound is pretty much the same size as getting shot with a .22, and lots of farm kids have survived that. But with its rate of speed and instability, once it enters the soft flesh of a Grade 10 body, the bullet starts to both tumble and disintegrate. Its weight and speed guarantee it will go through, but while the entry wound might be small and pristine, a neat little hole like you see on TV, the exit wound might be the size of a cigarette package. Now in your mind, switch that information onto the tiny Grade 1 and 2's of Sandy Hook in 2012. We sanitize what this bullet does to the human body, but particularly in the case of Sandy Hook, and I suspect in most other AR-15 shottings, there have been a lot of closed coffins out of horrific cosmetic necessity. No parent, no citizen needs to see what that bullet does. What we seem to be unable to get through our heads is that the AR-15 is made for one purpose only -- to kill humans: not for hunting, or skeet, or target practice. It kills humans, period. When you know that -- and I'm not sure why we all don't -- you should be able to come to the next logical conclusion. But, apparently "now is not the time". So I'm just here with thoughts and prayers, and new vivid memories of my old M-16 -- and just what it can do. And it makes me cry.
