Ann Coulter and "Automatic vs Semi-Automatic Firearms"

I've also been reading the books which Ann Coulter has 'recently' published. Like most people, I've found some minor inconsistencies, but nothing important ... until I got to Page 263 in "How To Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), published in 2004.

In this book she reprints previous columns which either have or have not been published (you have to read the whole thing, which implies "buy the book", to get the sense of which columns have not been published. Personally ... I can't tell the difference.) But each chapter is carefully prefaced by her own comments.

In Chapter 13" "Elian Gonzalez: The Only Immigrant Liberals Ever Wanted to Deport" (pp: 257 - 272) she discusses the obvious subject. Rather than quoting her articles, she presents an 'overview' and some background information demonstrating how ...

"[w]hen it came to Elian, liberals abandoned every seditious cause they had once held dear -- disfunctional familes, judicial activism, illegal immigrants, their opposition to the use of military force, their fear and hatred of "assault-type weapons," the Constitution as a living document, Fourth Amendment rights, and a weak executive branch."

On pp 261-262, she discusses the pre-dawn "Commando raid" which was conducted for the specific purpose of " ... seizing the terrified little boy ..." (Elian Gonzalez) "... who was hiding in a closet":

"Relying on the media's complete, abject ignorance of firearms, the administration and its lackeys insisted on calling the MP-5 submachine guns carried by the Delta Force Gang "automatic rifles." That sounds so much more gentle than "machine gun" -- which is what an "automatic rifle" is. (By contrast, those "assault weapons": liberals are so terrified of are semi-automatic rifles, considerably less lethal than the gun pointed at Elias's head.) ...

[Emphasis added by Editor]

I realize that Ms. Coulter is a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment. She makes that perfectly clear in Chapter 15: "Hello, Room Service? Sent Up a Bottle, a Blonde, and a Gun" (pp: 304 - 319; July 1999 thru July 22, 1999.)

But the point her is ...I do SO wish that Conservative writers, who intend to support Second Amendment causes, would at least get their facts right!

I refer, of course, to the parenthetical statement:

(By contrast, those "assault weapons": liberals are so terrified of are semi-automatic rifles, considerably less lethal than the gun pointed at Elias's head.)

Although it may be too late to be pertinent in the quoted context, I call upon Michael Bane (who knows Ms. Coulter much better than do I) to impress upon her the following pertinent facts:

Semi-automatic weapons are not necessarily " ... considerably less lethal ..." than full-automatic weapons. Lethality is a characteristic determined by many factors, not least are caliber and velocity.

Rate-of-Fire is not really a measure of lethaltity.

I note that the danger of fatal wounds from a 9mm MP-5 is probably less than that of a 7.62 M-60 (full-auto machine guns) and the MP-5 is probably less 'lethal' than a .30-30 .30-40 Krag.

Ms. Coulter is much smarter than I am, and a much better writer of political essays without doubt.

But she should leave the question of firearms lethality to the people who know what they're talking about. Or she should research the subject at least as much as Lexis/Nexis will support, or no further.

Or she should not make comments which are not supported by her research.

She does the RKBA folks a disservice when she offers opinions in the guise of fact ... a situation for which she (rightly) castigates Liberals without mercy.