Bryan Lentz says Pat Meehan wants to allow evil, armor-piecing ammunition. I’m going to wager Bryan Lentz has no clue what armor piercing ammunition is, or what properties it has. He’s delving into a highly technical topic here, where advocates of gun control have successfully created a lot of confusion and beliefs out of ignorance. Does Rep. Lentz know, for instance that:
- Grandpa’s hunting rifle ammo will punch through the armor typically worn by police like a hot knife through butter, as will just about any centerfire rifle cartridge.
- Gun ban advocates have been going after lead ammunition lately, which has no ready alternative because bullets containing metals other than lead can be construed as armor piercing under federal law and are therefore not legal to sell to civilians.
Tread carefully on this topic, Representative Lentz. You’re heading into gun banning territory, and going back to positions that were politically untenable even in the 1980s. I should say tread carefully if you want to have a chance of winning. We still have a lot of gun owners in the 7th District, and we’ve done a pretty good job of educating them that when someone starts talking about “armor piercing” ammunition, that’s code for banning grandpa’s hunting ammunition. Anything that will effectively kill a deer will go through soft body armor. This is a manufactured issue, much like your “Florida Loophole”
We have to defeat this guy. I hope people in 7 are pulling out all the stops for Pat Meehan.
UPDATE: If you’re on Twitter, please join my “Retweet the truth” campaign, which doesn’t strictly have to be a retweet, but include Kopel article shortened URL, along with something that suggests Bryan Lentz is a gun banning radical, out of touch with mainstream gun owners, and use the hash tag #PA07. I want Lentz to know were out there, and he has more to lose by the anger he’s whipping up than by the friends he’s winning spreading Teddy Kennedy’s old tricks around. Keep in mind this also shows Pat Meehan he can make friends by standing with us.
I am pretty sure that Bryan Lentz knows a thing or two about armor piercing ammunition along with as hollow points, 5.56, and 7.62. As well as he is familiar with the devastating effects they have on the human body. I am sure he is intimately familiar with what it feel like to have various forms of ammunition headed in his direction. The man was an Army Ranger fought in the first Iraq war and served his country in Bosnia.
I don’t mind you being against the man because you feel he might take away your guns. But please know who you are attacking before you going spouting off about what a man knows and doesn’t know.
You talk about the truth start with gathering the facts first.
I appreciate his service, but that doesn’t mean he’s an expert on ammunition, and how it’s designed and performs. 7.62x54mm in civilian parlance is .308 Winchester, which is fairly common for hunting, and will easily slice through soft body armor. Same with 5.56x45mm, which is .223 in the civilian world. .223 is a vermin round.
Do you think he knows what, under federal law, makes ammunition “armor piercing,” and what changes to this law would he find acceptable? If he does, he’s quite the expert on federal gun laws, because that’s some of most convoluted stuff Congress has ever passed, and that’s not even including the patchwork of state laws, including Pennsylvania.
I’m making specific policy arguments, not attacking the guy’s service record. If he’s going to spout off about armor piercing ammo, he ought to know what the hell he’s talking about. I don’t think he does.
To Tim Drake:
I live in PA07 and know Bryan Lentz’s background.
1) He was a prosecutor. This means that he should be familiar with PA state laws regarding firearms. He should also know Heller & McDonald. FAIL!!!
2) As a DELCO PA resident he should know the gun culture here. Only an idiot representative from Philadelphia talks about banning guns. Will Bryan be representing Philadelphia or Delaware County? FAIL!!!
3) As a Army Ranger (Lentz highlights this experience in his campaign commercials) he should know the difference between armor piercing and Hunting Rounds. FAIL!!!
In short, he has NO excuses for this stupidity. I am sure that Sebastien knew all about Lentz before he wrote. Your defense of Lentz rings hollow.
Let me turn things around on you: Since it is obvious from his background that Letnz knows a thing or two about guns can we make the assumption that he is hostile to our 2A rights? He swore an oath as an Army officer to defend the Constitution…all of it, from my point of view he has violated his oath.
Bryan lentz is promoting a solution in search of a problem like the Florida permit “Loophole”. I am tempted to call his office and report a ManBearPig sighting. This is why I can never vote Democrat….They can not be trusted with our rights.
Retweet mission away.
7.62x51mm is (basically) .308 Winchester. 7.62x54mm, with a Rim, is a/k/a .30 Russian, and I’m not sure what x54mm without a rim is…
Don’t feel bad, Baldy the WonderSEAL of FutureWeapons gets it wrong regularly. Oh wait, he’s also a vet! By Tim’s lights, he can’t be wrong, even when he is.
Just to clarify the confusion (for Tim in particular):
Few people understand that federal law defines “armor piercing” in a manner which has nothing to do with ability to pierce armor. Further, the reasoning behind the definition has nothing to do with _soft_ (body) armor Lentz is referring to, but instead addresses _hard_ (materiel) armor which, for most practical purposes, only soldiers and high-risk politicians would be interested in.
The federal definition of “armor piercing” is concerned with chemical composition, not performance. It prohibits manufacture for civilian use any ammo made of tungsten, DU, or a variety of other metals which are about the only viable alternatives to lead (though how high-percentage copper is prohibited yet legal escapes me).
Insofar as Lentz has personal experience with “armor piercing” projectiles, he may not realize that his experience just doesn’t translate to governing civilians. We peons have neither hardened-steel plating protecting us, much less worry about harder-cored projectiles penetrating it. Maybe the problem isn’t that he doesn’t understand, maybe it’s that he has too much personal experience with it and can’t shake its worrysome hold.
Lentz, in my opinion, is doing whatever CeaseFirePA wants him to say. They are behind the “loophole” crap, they are behind his entire anti gun positions. We tried to educate him, he listened and ignored.
I am a Veteran. It hurts me to the coor to say that I can not support 2 fellow Veterans in November. Sestek and Lentz have turned their back on the Sacred Oath. “I solemly swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” So help them GOD!!
This whole armor piercing ammo argument is a bunch of bunk. I wish ALL the bad guys would start using bullets that were designed to be “armor piercing”. Let me explain.
When we talk about a bullet that is designed to be “armor piercing”, what we are talking about is defeating HARD armor. Like the armor on a tank or an APC (Armored Personel Carrier). Pretty much any old rifle will defeat the soft body armor that the police use (in spite of what you see on TV). So, we are talking about a bullet that is pretty tough and is designed to hold together so that it can make a hole through some really hard stuff. So here is the thing; bullets that are designed to do that don’t perform anywhere near as well on soft targets (people) as the bullets that are designed for hunting, defence, etc. that are in common use in America today. Quite often, they punch right through and leave a fairly small perminant wound channel behind, as opposed to the (much) larger perminant wound channel of a bullet designed for say, hunting deer.
That said, if a bad guy is gonna shoot me, I WANT him to use an armor piercing bullet; BUT, I would probably never get so lucky. Actual Armor Piercing ammunition is fairly rare, and making it legal wouldn’t change that all that much. It just isn’t all that useful.
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Don’t forget the non-stick teflon coating. That helps the bullet “slip through” the armor, right?
7.62 x 54R is pretty much the same as .308 (usually works out to .312 to be exact) but instead of the recessed cartridge base found on most NATO cartirdges (5.56, 9mm, .45 ACP) it has a protruding rim like a .30-30. the 54 refers to the length of the case in milimeters.
As a long time shooter of the “Glorious 3 Line Rifle” I can tell you that AP ammo in 7.62 x 54R is both abundant and cheap. Not FMJ, not Teflon coated platicrap, not policarb/carbon-fiber/hydrocarb whatever. I mean real, honest-to-the-gods steel cored AP. I also see similar ammo (from time to time) in .30-06, 5.56 x 45mm and occasionally 7.62 NATO.