The White House claim that the ammunition for the popular AR-15 rifle should be banned as part of a “common sense” effort to protect police officers’ lives is being derided by police officers themselves as a shameful lie.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said this week that the .223-caliber M855 ball should be banned because it can penetrate an officer’s soft armor and can be fired not just from sporting rifles but “easily concealable weapons.”
The term “easily concealable” was used to describe the AR-15 handgun. A bulky 6 pounds and 25 inches long, the semi-automatic version of this weapon, with a magazine, would be difficult to conceal, say firearms experts. And it would likely not be the first choice of any street thug or gang member, as it retails for between $1,000 and $2,000.
In fact, gun-rights advocates and law enforcement agencies contacted by WND say they have been unable to document a single incident in which a police officer has been taken down by a criminal using an AR-15 handgun in the 20 years since this particular round, the M855 ball, has been exempted from the federal ban on armor-piercing bullets. It was exempted based on its use for sporting purposes.
“We have not been able to find a single instance where a police officer has been shot from this type of handgun using a bullet that pierces his soft-body armor, and if the administration had any examples you know they would be pushing it in everybody’s face to further their executive action,” said Alan Gottlieb, executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation. “We’ve scoured everywhere, gone into every source possible to try to find an instance of this and have not been able to find one.”
So Earnest’s comments only further infuriated gun owners who were already seeing red over the possibility of losing access to some of the most common ballistics used for sport-target shooting and hunting.
WND polled several large police agencies, looking for evidence that vest-wearing officers have been killed or seriously wounded by this particular form of ammunition fired from a handgun, only to come up empty.
“Not in my jurisdiction,” said Sheriff David Clarke Jr. of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. “We’re doing a search nationwide to see if there’s any data that exists as proof of this comment coming out of the White House, but so far we haven’t found anything.”
Clarke said he was skeptical that the White House was really concerned about officer safety.
“I’m disgusted that this administration would use the safety and well-being of our nation’s law enforcement officers to accomplish their gun-control agenda by circumventing the Congress and circumventing the Constitution in rewriting this law,” he said. “That’s all this is. They don’t fool me. No fraternal order of police, no sheriff is going to fall for this.”
http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/zero-cops-killed-by-obamas-bad-ammo/#kZX3lVz81jGLM3uD.99
