Thread by @FearlessExpress

Let’s talk about the AR15
<thread 🧵>

Ya ever in a discussion with a reichwinger about trauma caused by gunshots & they say something along the lines:

Do you even know the caliber of an AR15?

Or some such insinuation that the damage is overstated due to small projectiles?

Depends on which kind of rifle you have. Most employ the .223 (the sniper’s round) or a 5.56 NATO round, but that’s not at issue. How many joules were delivered to the target & where were they hit?

Note I bring up the joules, or energy delivered to the target. That’s where the bullet hits the bone when it comes to inflicting trauma- the greater the energy, the greater the capacity to cause catastrophic damage.

The AR-15 delivers around 1800 joules of energy to the target producing about 1300 foot pounds of force. That’s not an insignificant amount of energy & is quite capable of removing body parts rapidly enough.

So to close this thread I leave you with this- the size of the projectile matters less than the capacity to deliver destructive energy to the target.

#GunControlNow

Edited to add:

For comparison, the femur is one of the strongest bones of the human body. It can only withstand about 150 foot pounds before breaking. The AR15 delivers 8.6x that amount of force to the target.

Edited to add:

It has been brought to my attention that a comparison with other firearms would be helpful so I found a handy dandy chart. The relevant metric is “100 yd energy Lb ft”- or the energy in foot pounds the projectile imparts to the target.

https://twitter.com/atimeswift/status/1656853826169720834

For scale the AR15 delivers around 1300 foot pounds. The following links to charts for other firearms for comparison.

And for clarity, the point of this thread is dead is just as dead whether you put a tiny hole in their head or blow it clean off. J/s

gunnersden.com/handgun-ballis…