David's Wandering Mind

I was tempted to title this "Clueless Morons in Public Office" but not all politicians are this clueless. Former Assemblywoman Patricia Eddington (D) from the NY State Assembly and currently Town Clerk for Brookhaven, NY, gave a press conference in which she showed three bullets of different calibers. The bullets were normal bullets (at least in the film clip I saw from Channel 55, it was not apparent the bullets were anything other than normal full metal jacket (FMJ) rounds). She described them first as incendiary rounds with the incendiary on the tip, then went on to say they were "heat seeking" rounds.

Holy smokes, batman, heat seeking incendiary bullets! Whatever will we do? Has anyone else considered the possibility they would only seek on themselves? Do all anti-patriotic, anti-Constitution, anti-American politicians invent inflammatory nonsensical stupidity to present as "facts" to their constituents.

How about trying actual facts. Tracer rounds contain an incendiary that when fired, will show the bullets trajectory. The incendiary is not on the tip. These rounds are often used by soldiers at night to better see where their rounds are going. They are normally used every 5 rounds or so. The tips are painted either red, orange, or in the case of "dim" tracers, violet, but that's a marking so you know that they are tracers. Apart from the addition of a small amount of incendiary material to show the bullets trajectory, they are just an ordinary bullet.

To my knowledge (gee, I only spent 20 years in the US Army firing all kinds of hand-held and crew-served weapons), no "heat seeking" bullets exist. We have heat seeking missiles, but federal regulations prohibit these types of weapons in civilian hands. Normally, these would be fired at aircraft and seek out the jet engines' heat signature. I guess you can understand why civilians wouldn't normally be allowed to have these weapons. What possible reason would a civilian need to be firing a missile at a jet powered helicopter or jet aircraft for?

The point is, these ordinary bullets are not heat seeking. And if they're incendiary (i.e., tracer) rounds, so what? OK, I wouldn't suggest firing them at fuel tanks. Ditto for firing any rounds at fuel tanks. On the other hand, I don't ever recall seeing tracer rounds on sale at any of the outlets where I purchase ammunition. It's just not necessary. Serves no purpose, so why pay more for something that doesn't do any good (except signal everyone where the round came from)?

Reminds me of another film clip I saw with some US Senator all agitated talking about how these "assault rifles" (rifles now, not machineguns) could fire off hundreds of "clips" per minute. Huh? I've never heard bullets called "clips." I've heard of bullets referred to as rounds. And I've heard some folks refer to magazines (which hold bullets) as clips. So apparently, I'm as confused about what he's talking about as he is.

None of this is necessary. Guns are not dangerous. Clueless idiots spouting nonsense of which they know nothing are much more dangerous. All the more so because their target audience is as clueless as they are and believe them. I wish all these folks would just learn how to use Google, and get their facts straight. But I'm sure that wouldn't be as inflammatory as spouting nonsense to the masses. And aside from being clueless, it is irresponsible and reckless. This behaviour should not be tolerated in politicians. And swearing to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, when they have no intention of doing so it equally intolerable. Hey, Hillary, Australia already has what you want, please emigrate!

David-