Thursday, January 10, 2013

McChrystal on Drones/Guns

No one would ever mistake General Stanley McChrystal for some sort of bleeding heart pacifist.  His take on the escalating Drone Wars of the Obama Administration:
"What scares me about drone strikes is how they are perceived around the world," he said in an interview. "The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes ... is much greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated on a visceral level, even by people who've never seen one or seen the effects of one."
 
Of course, this is the same man who wanted to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan, indefinitely (kind of a Perma-Surge).  So maybe he just finds drones distasteful because they allow for reduction in troop levels.  But still.  The former top commander in Afghanistan thinks maybe we are over-doing it with unmanned terror sorties from the sky.  Perhaps that is a viewpoint worth considering.....

In addition he also has an interesting take on assault rifles:
“I spent a career carrying typically either an M16 or an M4 Carbine. An M4 Carbine fires a .223 caliber round which is 5.56 mm at about 3000 feet per second. When it hits a human body, the effects are devastating. It’s designed for that,” McChrystal explained. “That’s what our soldiers ought to carry. I personally don’t think there’s any need for that kind of weaponry on the streets and particularly around the schools in America.”
Only an effete, Ivy League elitist liberal would ever claim such a thing, right?  An actual soldier who served in combat couldn't possibly believe that we would be safer without free access to military ordinance.  This is not possible.  GUNS DONT KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE, la la la la.

7 comments:

Joseph Sucher, MD FACS said...

Yah.. but generals are effete, Ivy league types.. They are a class of people that are in that position based off of their political prowess and ability to find pathways of least resistance. Quite frankly, the quoted statement is rather vapid within the context of weaponry. There is nothing about the M16 or M4 (both of which I have fired and carried as an enlisted soldier) that is more "devastating" than any hunting rifle. In fact, most deer rifles fire larger, heavier, and more powerful projectiles than that of an M4. So, let's discuss guns and controls on them with some intelligence. Not with soundbites of BS .

Jeffrey Parks MD FACS said...

Hey Joe. Long time no heard from.

What is vapid about: . "I personally don’t think there’s any need for that kind of weaponry on the streets and particularly around the schools in America."

To me that's a pretty clear stance taken by a former war commander.

A sound byte, perhaps, but certainly one that carries a bit more weight than a similar opinion from the sterotypical MSNBC-watching grad school type.

CE said...

Please sign world famous war protester,
Rosemarie Jackowski's, White House Petition
to End Drone Strikes killing children
and innocent civilians. http://wh.gov/UKpQ

Anonymous said...

Hey, long time reader here-
There's definitely no need for an M4 or M16 on the streets of America- which is why they've been banned from American streets since JFK first passed an act outlawing machine guns in the 1960s. Pretty much no one except some gun store owners are allowed to own them, and then only for salesmanship purposes.

"Assault weapons" or "military-style" is a misnomer: military assault weapons are automatic guns that fire multiple rounds with each pull of the trigger, and they've been banned continuously for over 40 years. What people really mean when they say "military style" or "assault weapon" is one that looks scary. In reality, the odds ratio for someone owning an "assault weapon" gun committing a crime or killing someone vs. someone owning a non-"assault-weapon" gun is less than 1. Meaning to say, if we're going to be regulating guns, "assault rifles" are exactly the kind of guns we don't need to regulate- it's every other type of gun that actually matters.

Joseph Sucher, MD FACS said...

Jeff,

General McCrystal certainly does carry more weight. That's what's bothersome. Because he has weight, his incorrect stance is taken as gospel.

Anonymous -- The M4 and M16 are not "machine guns". They are not even "automatic" weapons as sold to the general public (AR-15 variants). They are, in fact, "semi-automatic" weapons. Even the military variants are no longer fully automatic. In the late 1980s, the M16-A2 was fielded, which has a "burst" fire mode, which will fire only a 3 round burst at each pull of the trigger.

Additionally, automatic weapons are not "banned" at all. I can buy a fully automatic weapon if I choose to pay a large fee and go through a number of relatively easy hoops of legal paperwork.

As you stated, the "assault weapon" is indeed a misnomer and its definition is horrible, because it is completely cosmetic. This is the problem that makes discussing gun control so difficult.

We don't need "more" gun control. We need to focus on our society and how we can reverse this growing generation of "I deserve" everything for nothing. How? ... Stop trying to bubble wrap the world. Personal responsibility and hard work. Charity, Love and God.

Peace

Jeffrey Parks MD FACS said...

From what I have read, "assault weapon" is definitely a useless term. What we are talking about is semi automatic and automatic arms with high capacity clips discharging projectiles at higher velocities than standard hunting weaponry.

These are the weapons that need re assessed. To what extent is it a "defense of liberty" and the 2nd ammendment to make these arms easily available to the general public.

Anonymous said...

Never served in the military did you buckeye?
DR Sucher happens to be correct. Right now politicians like Cuomo can grandstand against "assault weapons" and magazine sizes. He just comes out as clueless as every other grandstander.THis is all little more than political gamesmiship. By all means they can pat themselves on the back, but lets be honest, this is going to do nothing to stop further tragedies like Newtown. You want to make a real attempt at stopping this, thn do what the australians and brits did, ban the guns and melt the illegal guns down when involved in crime thereafter. Othewise this is all just politcal fluff PS: By the way that idea goes against hundreds of years of americn precedent and the 2nd amendment. I actually don't subscribe to that idea. I am just sick of tired of people like Cuomo grandstanding on worthless bills to get themselves more votes.