Liberty wrote:
This still doesn't support the claim that from G.C. that .223 ammo won't penetrate as much as 00 buck. I stil maintain that under most realistic scenerios that an AR type weapon is a lousy choice. The AR is a fun range gun. the AR/15 M16 was designed to throw a lot of lead in a combat situation. Not for personal or Home defense. I
You are entitled to your opinion and I did say the issue of superiority of one weapon system over the other is debatable. While I think the shotgun is a fine weapon, I'm not above noting that it has it's limitations. Every weapon system has it's problems and is not ideal in all scenarios.
Now, as an example of the evidence you requested, one source that is frequently cited Dr. Gary Roberts' aritcle titled, "Law Enforcement General Purpose Shoulder Fired Weapons: The Wounding Effects of 5.56mm Carbines Compared with 12 ga. Shotguns and Pistol Caliber Weapons Using 10% Ordnance Gelatin as a Tissue Simulant." Massad Ayoob also cited this same source in a March 2001 article for American Handgunnner. I did a google search and found a copy of Ayoob's article
here. If the link does not work, the full link is as follows...
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... tBody;col1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Now, I am not going to say that a round fired from an AR15 that misses it's target is any less of a threat than 00 Buck or a 9mm bullet that has also missed it's target. That would defy the laws of physics. But what I am saying is that when we actually put bullets in their intended targets,
some 5.56NATO/.223 ammo has been shown to stay where we put it rather than continuing downrange with sufficient energy to cause additional injury. One of Roberts' stated conclusions was the AR15 actually poses less danger downrange to innocent bystanders. That was due, in part, to the reduced penetration of these rounds when fired into 10% ordnance gelatin. Roberts article is often cited by police agencies as evidence to support their move away from shotguns and toward AR15s.
Among other reasons, police agencies also cite lower recoil/faster shot-to-shot recovery, greater ammunition capacity, faster reloads, and the ability to accurately place shots with greater precision at any distance from 0-100meters than is possible with a shotgun. Agencies also report that their smaller statured officers, are able successfully engage targets and therefore qualify more often with the lighter recoiling AR15s than 12ga shotguns. And should a suspect wear body armor, AR15s appear to be better at dealing with that issue as well.
YMMV. Everyone is quite capable of drawing their own conclusions from whatever evidence they choose. You asked so I've offered the evidence above and I again point to the fact that shotguns are quickly falling out of favor with the one group of people who face defensive shooting situations on a fairly regular basis. You may or may not agree with my conclusions or my opinions. I personally don't care. I do however think that if you were really interested in the validity of those claims, you could have researched it independently on your own rather than trying to call me out. It took me longer to write this response than it did to find the article I cited above.