The mysterious, time-traveling gun
Via Dr. Strangegun, comes this:
Senator Chuck Schumer is among those pushing to have the gun, called the Fabrique Nationale 5.7 outlawed.
It’s the first time that this particular gun has been recovered in New York.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said the “cop killer” gun has a 20-round magazine, is able to shoot 50 to 100 yards with great accuracy and its bullet can pierce 48 layers of Kevlar.
Brown said that of the 616 police officers killed in the line of duty nationwide between 1994 and 2003, 425 were killed with this handgun.
First, the armor piercing ammo is not available to the public. I’m uncertain if the civilian round can penetrate a vest. Also, the FN is only a few years old (two, I think). So, there is no way it killed police in 1994. Period. And even if it was, I doubt it would be responsible for 425 deaths since the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that from 1995 to 2004 there were 636 officers killed in the line of duty.
July 24th, 2006 at 10:24 am
When was the gun first available? I don’t remember hearing about it or seeing one until after I graduated from college (January ’04). I’m pretty sure (though I couldn’t find anything to back it up) that the gun wasn’t even available until mid ’04 for civilian purchase. So, killing 425 in about a year or so out of 625 in a decade would be rather tough.
So, I’m calling shenanigans on this.
Everybody grab a broom! It’s shenanigans!
July 24th, 2006 at 10:42 am
I found an article from 2000 saying it was the new kid on the block here
On the 5th page, they say
July 24th, 2006 at 11:14 am
The Five-seveN, IIRC was first offered for sale to the public in late 2003-early 2004.
And that’s armor-piercing ammo (SS190), not armor piercing armor.
July 24th, 2006 at 11:17 am
I think they mean to say that 425 of the 616 were killed by handguns not by this handgun.
July 24th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
The article says “this handgun”, though. If that was indeed the case, think they’ll print a correction?
July 25th, 2006 at 9:26 am
[…] In an update to the mysterious, time-traveling gun, KDT asked the press about their failure to factcheck and gets a response: You are right. The statistics are wrong and we are removing the story from our website. For what it’s worth, the number were cited by Queens D.A. Richard Brown at his press conference. The other information in the story also came from the D.A. While we tend to give credit to law enforcement sources for knowing what they are talking about, we should have realized that the statistics didn’t make any sense. […]
July 25th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
My SKS fires armor piercing ammo as well.