Hello again everyone. Welcome to Washington Gun Law tv. I am Washington Gun Law President William Kirk. Thanks for joining us. Hey, we are going to geek out on another amicus brief yet again in the case OFN v. Brown, which is a challenge two Maryland's assault weapon ban, which is pending before hopefully the United States Supreme Court right now asking for permission to come to the party. This is a memorandum that is done by a party that should know a lot about what they're talking about, which is exactly how these firearms work. And it's a memorandum that you could probably program a few things so that when you're debating your less educated friends, you'll have some facts to give them to think about. So today, let's spend a few minutes and let's talk about the truth about the AR 15 in one brief.
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Visit my Good friends@protectwithbear.com. Okay, America, like I said, we're going to talk again about a different amicus brief. Now in the matter of Snoop v. Brown, can you tell the kind of life I live when I just sit at home in the evening reading amicus briefs on a case that may or may not be accepted by the United States Supreme Court? Now, the Amicus Party here is a unique party and certainly has some expertise in the field that we're going to be talking about today. The amicus parties include the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, professors of Second Amendment Law and History and Independent Institute in support of petitioners. And listen, the entire purpose of this memorandum is essentially this. Listen, the courts are getting bad information by people who do not know what they're talking about, and they're making these knee-jerk reactions based upon improper facts.
And what we want you to do is to actually understand the platform of firearm that we are talking about here, which presumably they're talking about center fire, semi-automatic rifles, chambered in 5, 5, 6 or 2, 2, 3. Now as you know, this court has already held that the Second Amendment does not even apply here, and they're not alone in that because we've got the seventh circuit that's done it as well, which is basically saying, well, these firearms are so appropriate for military use that clearly they have no business being in civilian hands and therefore they're not protected by the Second Amendment. Now, one of the things that the Amicus party points out if Bianchi's claims are true and the rifles actually are useful only for mass slaughter, typical American police officers would not choose them. Conversely, if the rifles are no more dangerous than other firearms, the Bianchi rationale collapses.
And as I mentioned earlier, they also point out many of the suspected facts about the ban rifles come from opinions in which plaintiffs relied exclusively on the common use doctrine from Heller and pointedly declined to contest the ridiculous assertions about ARS made by government Defendants Bianchi rests upon incorrect and impossible factual claims. Now we're going to go ahead and link up the full amicus brief down below so that you can geek out on all the details. But I do want to highlight some of the points here because these are really good factually correct talking points that you can kind of log in here. So then when your friend is sitting there going, I don't understand why someone needs one of this or anything like that, you talk about one of these rifles that shoots like a thousand rounds a minute. You can actually, if you're not already familiar with this platform of firearm, you can actually operate from a location of truthfulness.
Law enforcement officers choose rifles like those at issue because those rifles are often best for defense of self and others. And these firearms are absolutely not useful for self-defense as some courts will say. Well, as the experts point out to the contrary, ars have excellent utility for lawful defense of self and others as demonstrated by the routine choices of law enforcement officers. One typical use is closed quarter operations inside buildings, a similar situation to that faced by many citizen defenders. Look, these things are killing machines. They're far too easy to shoot. And of course, if we make a firearm in which a user can be proficient, suddenly that is dangerous, even if they're using it in self-defense. But again, as the amicus party points out, the AR superior accuracy over handguns reduces miss shots, thus reducing danger to bystanders. An AR rifle is superb for putting a bullet on target.
The trade-off is that the AR 15 is inferior to most other rifles and being able to stop an attacker with one hit. That is why law enforcement agencies believe that 30 round magazines are best choices for defensive purposes when using AR 15 rifles. Oh, but you can fire thousands of rounds a minute, right? No, these are semi-automatic rifles. So as the amicus party correctly points out, the rifles at issue fire at the same rate as most common handguns. That's right. As we know, there have been multiple courts that have said, well, this is far more appropriate for military service and therefore as a citizen, you should not have access to it. But that's not what the amicus party is claiming. In fact, they're claiming the truth here, which also includes the following. ARS are not most useful in military service. They are not used in military service at all.
No military force in the world uses a service rifle that is semi-automatic only. Again, going back to rate of fire. What's another truth about it? Semi-automatic rifles fire at the same rate as common handguns much slower than automatic rifles. If in fact, the rate of fire that a person could execute with a semi-automatic rifle is what makes it banned. I got bad news for a lot of gun owners because as the amicus party points out, all semi-automatics fire at about the same rate. The rate of fire for ARS and other semi-automatic rifles is like the rate of fire for common semi-automatic handguns. None of the opinions cited in Bianchi acknowledged the fact semi-automatic handguns comprise approximately 84% of new handguns AR 15. So the claim that the AR is semi-automatic mechanism makes it just like a machine gun is really a claim that 84% of handguns can be banned.
Now again, if you ever have someone who's like they can fire 300, 500 800 rounds a minute, the Amicus party did the math on it. And so you got to remember this. This is just basic simple math. These claims are impossible because any semi-automatic fires, only one cartridge for each trigger pull, the user would have to pull the trigger five to eight times per second for an entire minute that would take a superhuman finger, especially when pulling against the pounds of force required to move a trigger. The 300 to 500 rounds per minute. Pseudo fact came from an unsourced claim by a gun control lobbyist in 1991. Of course, the Bianchi court and many of the other legislatures around the country say, well, it's all these other features like the barrel shroud and the flash hider and all these vertical fore grips, all these other things that make the weapon actually far more lethal.
Is that true? Of course not. And as the amicus party points out, these features include detachable magazines, flash suppressors, barrel shrouds, and aff, fixable sight scopes, flashlights and bipods. Most of these features are ergonomic accuracy enhancing and common for other long guns. None make AR bullets fire faster or strike harder. The next one, and this is a big one especially, it's like, well, you can't take 'em deer hunting. That's true in Washington state for example, you cannot take an AR 15 chambered in two, three or 5, 5, 6 deer hunting. Why is that? Because the round is not powerful enough. Okay, let us remember that a 5, 5, 6, a 2, 2 3 is essentially a 22 round bullet with better aerodynamics going at a much quicker velocity. But beyond that, that's the type of bullet that's running down range. And so as the amicus party points out, the rifles at issue are more powerful than handguns, but less powerful than most other rifles because AR bullets are small, their terminal performance is inferior to many other long guns.
And of course, we know kinetic energy equals one half the mass time, the velocity squared. Of course, you guys all knew that right now, I mean, if I was good at math, I would've gone to medical school, but we're not going to get into the terminal ballistics of that. But you should check out Gavin over at Ultimate Reloader because he will absolutely educate you all about that. But not only does the velocity of the round itself matter, but then the weight and mass of that round itself when it strikes the object that it was intended to hit. The bottom line is is that the 5 5 6 2 2 3, which is commonly considered the AR 15 round, yes, it is more powerful than most handgun rounds, but it is far less powerful than a traditional rifle round. As a matter of fact, the power of the 5, 5, 6 or 2, 2 3 has often been questioned.
I already stated earlier, it's not even allowed for big game hunting in Washington state because it is not powerful enough. And as the amicus party points out, there are longstanding complaints within the military about the relatively weak stopping power of AR 15 bullets. Yes, in fact, there have been multiple reports of the United States military wanting to develop a different type of ammunition, something a little bit more powerful than the 5 5 6. Many people think that the 5, 5 6 has been outgrown by the types of current warfare that are being engaged in around the globe. And then of course, finally, and this is a very, very sad truth, you could always point out that the deadliest of all mass shootings and almost all mass shootings are actually carried out by the handgun. Listen, these aren't things that you can tell people that are going to make them think the way you want them to think, but it certainly are the things that you could tell them that will give 'em all the stuff to think about.
Once again, it is the amicus brief in the case of Snope v. Brown, kudos to the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, the professors of Second Amendment law and History, and of course, the Independent Institute who were supporting the petitioners of very, very well done brief. We're going to link it up down below so that you guys can geek out on it. Maybe you got more questions about this or anything else related to what's left of our Second Amendment rights. You guys should know how to get ahold of Washington gun law if you do, but if you don't, that's okay. That information, it's down there in the description box. If you got an idea for video we should be doing around here, go ahead and click on that link right there and let us know. It's probably better than any idea we're going to come up with. Maybe you just want to be part of our monthly newsletter if you want to subscribe to that. All of that information is down there in the description box. And then finally, and most importantly, let's everyone remember that part of being the lawful and responsible gun owner, like we talk about all the time here, is to know what the law is in every situation and how it applies to you in any instance that you may find yourself. Until next time, thanks for watching and stay safe.
YouTube Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNLF4KTpbFg
Credit: William Kirk, Esq. Washington Gun Law