EDWARD BOYD comments on gun-controllers’ renewed efforts to capitalize on the D.C. sniper.

UPDATE: One minor note: the TAPPED post that Boyd criticizes refers to John Muhammad’s Bushmaster as a “high-powered rifle.” It’s not. Rifles firing the .223 cartridge aren’t “high-powered” and calling them that just shows ignorance.

By way of comparison, it’s as if Bill Bennett characterized Pete Townshend’s arrest over child pornography as evidence of the moral degeneracy of “those gangsta rappers.” You can bet that TAPPED would be all over something like that.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails:

Although the .223 is not as powerful as the 30-06, 7.62 X 39 mm, .308, or other military rounds, it is, for all practical purposes, a “high-powered” round. The .223 can penetrate most levels of body armor used by police, it can be deadly up to 500 meters, and it produces 2-3 times more foot-pounds of energy than almost all pistol rounds. In the opinion of the average man-on-the-street, that’s a high-powered bullet.

Well, okay, but by this standard pretty much any rifle bullet is “high-powered,” isn’t it? Which pretty much makes the “high-powered rifle” term redundant. Most discussion I see of the .223 among rifle experts focuses on its relative wimpiness compared to other rifle rounds like the .308, .300 Win. Mag., etc. — and if you showed up at the “high power” range at the shooting range I belong to, you’d be referred elsewhere since it’s for shots of up to 1,000 meters and the .223 is useless at that distance.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Keith Terranova emails:

I think the reader who emailed you about the .223 is stretching the “hire-powered”‘ness of it when he says “it can be deadly up to 500 meters”. The bullet weighs 55 grains compared to 150, 165, 180 for the 30-06 or .308. I have not read one in some years, but the shooting manuals like the Shooter’s Bible offer ranges out to 300 yards and if I remember correctly the bullet drop is a couple of feet.

I think I just hit my gun-geek limit for the day. This isn’t Kim du Toit’s blog, you know. . . .

LAST UPDATE: Okay, I said no more, but Jeff Bishop thinks I’m wrong, too:

I know you’ve already exceeded the gun geek limit, but FYI, the CMP requires you to participate in a “high-powered” rifle match to qualify for an M-1 Garand. I qualified for it using my .223 Mini-14. AFAIK, the .223 is at the very bottom of what qualifies as “high-powered.”

As I replied, all I ever hear from gun people is snideness about the underpowered .223 cartridge. But, there you are.

Reader, Michael Levy, on the other hand, offers this question:

I wonder when the media will start referring to handguns as “low-powered firearms?”

I’m holding my breath on that one, Michael.