Teen found dead in Atlanta park shot with 'exploding bullets'

[tosh]

ATLANTA (CBS46) -

Just when you thought you only had to worry about guns flooding the streets, consider this nightmare -- exploding bullets anyone can buy.

The bullet is aptly named “R.I.P.” but not for “rest in peace.” It stands for “Radically Invasive Projectile,” a bullet with a tip like a buzz saw, designed to virtually drill a hole on impact and deliver a very ugly ending.

<snip>

Unlike normal bullets that penetrate the body and stay in one place, an RIP round virtually explodes into tiny metal fragments, as the shrapnel opens multiple “wound channels” to “swim through tissue,” in all directions and penetrate crucial organs. Its creators tout its features on the website of G2, the manufacturer out of Winder, Ga.

<snip>

As for the U.S. military, it’s banned from using RIP bullets by the Geneva Convention, an international agreement to conduct humane warfare, as strange as that sounds.

Much more at http://www.walb.com/story/32180435/teen-found-dead-in-atlanta-park-shot-with-exploding-bullets

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Why, oh why is this even LEGAL???

[gejohnston]

1. they don't explode

they simply disintegrate.

As for the U.S. military, it’s banned from using RIP bullets by the Geneva Convention, an international agreement to conduct humane warfare, as strange as that sounds.

It was the Hague Convention. Standard police and self defense hollow points are also banned. I'm not saying the reporters are pulling a Katie Couric, just that the profession doesn't attract the brightest or most curious.

Unlike normal bullets that penetrate the body and stay in one place, an RIP round virtually explodes into tiny metal fragments, as the shrapnel opens multiple “wound channels” to “swim through tissue,” in all directions and penetrate crucial organs. Its creators tout its features on the website of G2, the manufacturer out of Winder, Ga.

There is a good and a bad feature. The good part is that it does not exit and hit an innocent someplace else or go through walls nor ricochet.. The bad thing, based on the tests I have read on it, is that they don't have a shockwave that will incapacitate, which is more important than lethality. Or to put it another way, the home invader is incapacitated and you live to testify against him in court is better than him beating you to death with a baseball bat while he bleeds to death.
It is like the Glaser Safety Slug but with tacky and dishonest marketing.
I some in a store once, and was overpriced. This thing is about two bucks around while the standard HP that cops carry, and most civilians, is less than half that.
This is a typical review.
http://www.gunnuts.net/2014/01/27/rip-ammo-radically-invasive-projectile/
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/02/daniel-zimmerman/g2-researchs-rip-ammo-ballistic-testing-phase-one/

Should it be legal? I have this consistent view that is, no public policy should be based on emotion, and people with more technical knowledge, since this is a technical issue, should have more weight than politicians repeating bullshit some advocacy group gets them to believe. That is how we got things like pot bans, certain breeds of dog bans, and other nonsense.

[KT2000]

2. killing is emotional

selecting the perfect killing device after hours of research is another kind of emotion -not intellect.

[JonathanRackham]

3. The government excels at it.

[Duckhunter935]

5. Facts don't seem to matter anymore

[sarisataka]

9. Gun Control abandoned facts

And truth long ago. Deceit is fine if it advances The Cause.

Assault weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons --anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun-- can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.

http://www.quotes.net/quote/17826

[JonathanRackham]

4. The police use all kinds of alternate frangible ammunition.

Avoid the police.

[ileus]

6. Gimmick bullet, I'll stick with Federal HST for my PSDs.

I also shoot Gold Dot short barrel +P



When are they going to stop letting morons write articles about stuff the know nothing (or less than nothing) about? Stuff like this makes them sound like emotional little girls.

[Eleanors38]

7. Dum-dum and dummer. Stuff like this has been around since the 1800s...

CBS sets the usual tone:

" Guns flooding the street
Nightmare
Is anyone safe?
Send a terrifying message
Too gruesome to imagine"

Sheesh. Talk about "Living In Fear™. Gun and ammo cranks have farted around with stuff like this forever, yet LEOs and civilians for some peculiar reason stay with ye old hollowpoints, generation after generation.

Early descriptons for expanding bullets included Dum Dums, for the Dum Dum Arsenal in India, which supplied ammunition for the British military over a century ago. While there were several designs, the chief characteristic of these rounds was the use of soft lead, sometimes thinly sheathed, with a hole drilled down the lead core from its tip, or by merely removing the sheath from the tip area. The result was to allow the now-weakened lead structure to "mushroom" upon impact, thus making a larger wound channel (when compared with a full metal jacket's non-expanding characteristics), and to impart more of the bullet's energy into the body. Hydrostatic shock (a body is mostly fluid) can thereby "stop" an attack, or cause a large game animal to drop on the spot. The "bleed out" from a wide wound would cause unconsciousness in a short time. This is highly desireable for hunting as animal recovery is greatly assisted, and the round, if even it exits, is greatly deminished in terms of striking power. LEOs use the round for much the same reasons, o significant concern in highly-populated areas. The objective is to cause an attacker to "Stop," not kill the attacker, although this sometimes occurs if a vital srea is damaged, or bleeding cannot be stopped.

Note: Some rounds used for shooting ground-hugging varmints, are so frangible, the projectile shatters upon impact with the body (or anything else) so as to eliminate theproblem of an intact bullet's careening around the countryside. But in no instance does the round "explode" like a charged artllery shell or naval gun shell.

I remember reading a text about deer hunting in which true "exploding" rounds were tested. The author thought them unreliable and ineffective for hunting. The book was written in 1882. Today, many ranges won't allow full metal, non-expanding ammo. They want the round to stop quickly.

[DonP]

8. See, just another example of you Gun Nutz always focusing on technical shit

The fact that they don't feed properly in a lot of semi autos or that other hollow point options deliver the same or better stopping power is all irrelevant to creating the sudden desired moral outrage essential to the desperate and ineffective gun control.

Does somebody want to explain that, the last time I checked, the TSA Sky Marshall's were all loading Glaser Safety Slugs or comparable and fragmenting bullets were an advantage?

Nah, lets just let this try and develop into another "Black Talon"/"Cop Killer Bullets" story circulated by ignorant and ineffective people and "movements".

[benEzra]

10. And most wound ballistics experts consider it *less* lethal than regular bonded-core bullets.

It may have some niche uses, but from this story, it appears that a reporter has fallen for some marketing hype.