RFK Jr. Says He Would Sign ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban if it Reached His Desk

[GtHawk]

It's. Not. Our. Fight.

Not to mention the argument that we would be able to cut defense spending if the current iteration of Russia collapsed as the USSR did in the 80's is spurious at best. I for one don't recall defense spending being cut then, and it wouldn't be cut now even if there was a collapse of Russia because....oh yeah there is that greater enemy than Russia still out there, that little place called CHINA.

[txradioguy]

Not to mention the argument that we would be able to cut defense spending if the current iteration of Russia collapsed as the USSR did in the 80's is spurious at best. I for one don't recall defense spending being cut then, and it wouldn't be cut now even if there was a collapse of Russia because....oh yeah there is that greater enemy than Russia still out there, that little place called CHINA.

The left tried to cash in on the mythical "peace dividend" but things like Bosnia and Somalia applied some brakes to that nonsense.

Carter...Obama and now Biden are the only Presidents I can recall that did their best to slash our military while our enemies were building up.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Not to mention the argument that we would be able to cut defense spending if the current iteration of Russia collapsed as the USSR did in the 80's is spurious at best. I for one don't recall defense spending being cut then, and it wouldn't be cut now even if there was a collapse of Russia because....oh yeah there is that greater enemy than Russia still out there, that little place called CHINA.

It absolutely was.

We went from nearly 6% of GDP being spent on defense in 1989, the yearhe Berlin Wall fell and the Warsaw Pact collapsed,  to barely 3% by 1999.

The "peace dividend" was very, very real.

[sneakypete]

It's. Not. Our. Fight.

@txradioguy

It will ALWAYS be a danger of BECOMING our fight unless we piss this opportunity away by doing nothing.

 NOW is the time to remove the Soviets are a risk,while costing us virtually nothing other than obsolete arms that we would be destroying in a few years if we didn't give them to Ukraine.

Letting Europe save Europe from Communist domination by donating a few obsolete or expired weapons systems to them HAS to be the best money spent since the Revolutionary  War.

[Idiot]

Which doesn't mean jack sh__ when tumpy realizes he has pissed off millions of conservatives and he loses the general.

BINGO!

[txradioguy]

@txradioguy

It will ALWAYS be a danger of BECOMING our fight unless we piss this opportunity away by doing nothing.

 NOW is the time to remove the Soviets are a risk,while costing us virtually nothing other than obsolete arms that we would be destroying in a few years if we didn't give them to Ukraine.

Letting Europe save Europe from Communist domination by donating a few obsolete or expired weapons systems to them HAS to be the best money spent since the Revolutionary  War.

There are other ways of doing it than getting dragged into WW III

I'll say it again...It's. Not. Our. Fight.

[sneakypete]

There are other ways of doing it than getting dragged into WW III

I'll say it again...It's. Not. Our. Fight.

@txradioguy

You may be right. After all,look at how wonderfully appeasement has worked in the past. <sarcasm alert!>

[txradioguy]

@txradioguy

You may be right. After all,look at how wonderfully appeasement has worked in the past. <sarcasm alert!>

Clearly after all these years you don't know me... appeasement is NOT in my vocabulary.

[Idiot]

Just from a practical standpoint I have a hard time listening to RFK Jr. with his raspy voice.  It's like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard to me. 

[Bigun]

Just from a practical standpoint I have a hard time listening to RFK Jr. with his raspy voice.  It's like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard to me. 

I have the same problem with Shawn Hannity. I think it's the Massachusetts thing.

[Idiot]

I have the same problem with Shawn Hannity. I think it's the Massachusetts thing.

Yup, agree.  I haven't listened to him in years. 

[Maj. Bill Martin]

There are other ways of doing it than getting dragged into WW III

I'll say it again...It's. Not. Our. Fight.

Right - it's the Ukrainians' fight, a burden that they have been 100% willing to shoulder.

[mountaineer]

Just from a practical standpoint I have a hard time listening to RFK Jr. with his raspy voice.  It's like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard to me. 

I have the same problem with Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. I want to scream, "Clear your throat!" at him.

[txradioguy]

Right - it's the Ukrainians' fight, a burden that they have been 100% willing to shoulder.

They aren't "completely shouldering" the burden if e and the rest of the world are sending them money to fund their city budgets...their pensions...we're sending them fighting vehicles and ammunition and possibly aircraft.

And at what cost? Biden said the quiet part out loud today on CNN.

We're sending Ukraine cluster munitions because we're low on 155 howitzer rounds.

Meanwhile China is taking note.

[Kamaji]

They aren't "completely shouldering" the burden if e and the rest of the world are sending them money to fund their city budgets...their pensions...we're sending them fighting vehicles and ammunition and possibly aircraft.

And at what cost? Biden said the quiet part out loud today on CNN.

We're sending Ukraine cluster munitions because we're low on 155 howitzer rounds.

Meanwhile China is taking note.

Since when would we be taking on China in an artillery fight at a moment's notice?  The fight between the U.S. and China will not be a slug-em-out artillery fight.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

They aren't "completely shouldering" the burden if e and the rest of the world are sending them money to fund their city budgets...their pensions...we're sending them fighting vehicles and ammunition and possibly aircraft.

It's their burden in the same way the Brits stood alone against the Germans after the Battle of France.  Yes, we sent them critical supplies, but it was their people doing the fighting and the dying.  That's what I meant.

We're sending Ukraine cluster munitions because we're low on 155 howitzer rounds.

Biden's an idiot.

Fact is, if we didn't have enough ammo -- or more importantly, ammo manufacturing capability -- to be just one of Ukraine's ammo suppliers, then we didn't have enough for our own needs anyway.  Better to have found that out and increased our manufacturing capacity now.

One reason we ran low is that for a long time, DPICM were our primary rounds, and that's mostly what we produced.  But we didn't want to send DPICM to the Ukrainians, so we sent them all that older HE.  But the truth is that if we were actually going to war, we'd have used that DPICM in a heartbeat, and we still would.  So we actually do have plenty of ammo -- we just don't have the HE that we were claiming we'd use so as not to offend the cluster munition whiners.

[txradioguy]

Since when would we be taking on China in an artillery fight at a moment's notice?  The fight between the U.S. and China will not be a slug-em-out artillery fight.

You're assuming that there wouldn't be a ground war in other places to tie up forces.

The Korean peninsula for instance. Land based artillery isn't the only gun that fires the 155mm shell.

The Advanced Gun System on the Zumwalt class destroyer uses them.


Taiwan was supposed to buy the M109A6 Paladin howitzer...but cancelled the contract because the 2023 delivery date got pushed back three years.  Why? Supply chain stress because of lack of ammo.


The United States supplied Ukraine with more than 800,000 155mm artillery rounds. From Sept. 28 to Oct. 28, it donated another 100,000 rounds. The September production capacity, meanwhile, was only 14,400 rounds per month.

And that's jsut one example.  There's the small arms ammo we're giving them plus armor we could ned for our own national defense efforts.


Tell me again exactly why and how us supplying the Ukraine while endangering our own national security is a worthy cause?

[txradioguy]

It's their burden in the same way the Brits stood alone against the Germans after the Battle of France.  Yes, we sent them critical supplies, but it was their people doing the fighting and the dying.  That's what I meant.

Apples and oranges comparison.

Biden's an idiot.

Agreed.

Fact is, if we didn't have enough ammo -- or more importantly, ammo manufacturing capability -- to be just one of Ukraine's ammo suppliers, then we didn't have enough for our own needs anyway.  Better to have found that out and increased our manufacturing capacity now.

One reason we ran low is that for a long time, DPICM were our primary rounds, and that's mostly what we produced.  But we didn't want to send DPICM to the Ukrainians, so we sent them all that older HE.  But the truth is that if we were actually going to war, we'd have used that DPICM in a heartbeat, and we still would.  So we actually do have plenty of ammo -- we just don't have the HE that we were claiming we'd use so as not to offend the cluster munition whiners.

DPCIM isn't our primary round.

We aren't sending them "older HE" we're sending them HE that we need for current front line forces.  You are talking about things you have no clue about.

It's absolutely disgusting how you'll explain away our national security to support a regional conflict we have no justifiable reason to be in.

[mountaineer]

RFK Jr. tweeted this:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr
@RobertKennedyJr
Parkland students are right; the NRA is a terror group
6:46 PM · Feb 17, 2018

[Idiot]

RFK Jr. tweeted this:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr
@RobertKennedyJr
Parkland students are right; the NRA is a terror group
6:46 PM · Feb 17, 2018

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Last things first....

You are talking about things you have no clue about.

Is that so? 

I was the primary artillery instructor at The Basic School in Quantico for years, teaching newly commissioned officers about the use of artillery in accordance with Marine and Army artillery doctrine.   I'm also a combat veteran artillery officer who literally game the fire orders for different rounds in combat, I know what our daily loads were for combat, how much of various ammunition types we received, and their effectiveness.  I've got a nephew and a cousin who are both artillery officers, so we have these kind of discussions all the time on current developments, etc..

What's your background?

DPCIM isn't our primary round.  We aren't sending them "older HE" we're sending them HE that we need for current front line forces.

I never said that it is.  I said that it was, for a very long time, because it was the most effective round that we had.  We moved away from using them in the 2000's because 1) they have a higher dude rate and are more likely to cause civilian casualties when used in urban areas, which is where more of the fighting was concentrated, and 2) political pressures against using "cluster munitions" because of the potential from civilian casualties.  But that didn't change the reality that they were still the most effective general purpose round in our artillery arsenal, that we kept millions of them in storage, and that our developmental/procurement efforts are focused on trying to produce DPICM successor rounds with a lower failure rate. 
So, while we moved towards production and use of HE rounds over DPICM because of those political considerations, the general tactical superiority of DPICM/submunition rounds over generic HE rounds is not up for serious debate.  Any professional artilleryman knows that to be the case.

Why else do you think the United States didn't sign the convention against cluster munitions such as DPICM rounds?  If HE rounds are truly equal to or even superior to DPICM, and they are of course much cheaper, why wouldn't we sign it?

Which leads to the point that if we got in a real conventional shooting war, where large scale artillery support was required in our direct national interest, we'd have been firing off DPICM like it was going out of style.  Because that's what you use for maximum tactical effectiveness.

What is really needed for our national security isn't more HE rounds - except for a few mission-specific types -- , but an acceleration of the M999 and C-DAEM/XM10278 projects to get more submunition ammo out there as our basic combat round.  And if burning through the less effective HE gets us to that point faster, I'm all for it.

[Idiot]

Last things first....

Is that so? 

I was the primary artillery instructor at The Basic School in Quantico for years, teaching newly commissioned officers about the use of artillery in accordance with Marine and Army artillery doctrine.   I'm also a combat veteran artillery officer who literally game the fire orders for different rounds in combat, I know what our daily loads were for combat, how much of various ammunition types we received, and their effectiveness.  I've got a nephew and a cousin who are both artillery officers, so we have these kind of discussions all the time on current developments, etc..

What's your background?

I never said that it is.  I said that it was, for a very long time, because it was the most effective round that we had.  We moved away from using them in the 2000's because 1) they have a higher dude rate and are more likely to cause civilian casualties when used in urban areas, which is where more of the fighting was concentrated, and 2) political pressures against using "cluster munitions" because of the potential from civilian casualties.  But that didn't change the reality that they were still the most effective general purpose round in our artillery arsenal, that we kept millions of them in storage, and that our developmental/procurement efforts are focused on trying to produce DPICM successor rounds with a lower failure rate. 
So, while we moved towards production and use of HE rounds over DPICM because of those political considerations, the general tactical superiority of DPICM/submunition rounds over generic HE rounds is not up for serious debate.  Any professional artilleryman knows that to be the case.

Why else do you think the United States didn't sign the convention against cluster munitions such as DPICM rounds?  If HE rounds are truly equal to or even superior to DPICM, and they are of course much cheaper, why wouldn't we sign it?

Which leads to the point that if we got in a real conventional shooting war, where large scale artillery support was required in our direct national interest, we'd have been firing off DPICM like it was going out of style.  Because that's what you use for maximum tactical effectiveness.

What is really needed for our national security isn't more HE rounds - except for a few mission-specific types -- , but an acceleration of the M999 and C-DAEM/XM10278 projects to get more submunition ammo out there as our basic combat round.  And if burning through the less effective HE gets us to that point faster, I'm all for it.

[txradioguy]

Not really...he's in the Adam Kinzinger NAFO group that is doing it's damndest to drag the US into a shooting war with the Russians.

[txradioguy]

Last things first....

Is that so? 

I was the primary artillery instructor at The Basic School in Quantico for years, teaching newly commissioned officers about the use of artillery in accordance with Marine and Army artillery doctrine.   I'm also a combat veteran artillery officer who literally game the fire orders for different rounds in combat, I know what our daily loads were for combat, how much of various ammunition types we received, and their effectiveness.  I've got a nephew and a cousin who are both artillery officers, so we have these kind of discussions all the time on current developments, etc..

Well whoopee dee bleep do!  I guess we're just supposed to fall down and bow and scrape at your...teaching skills?

What's your background?

23 years 7 months and 11 days in the U.S. Army.

I tend to find that the "veterans" that need to give their whole resume on the interwebs...are over compensating for something.

In short...your DD214 doesn't mean dick right now.

I never said that it is.  I said that it was, for a very long time, because it was the most effective round that we had.  We moved away from using them in the 2000's because 1) they have a higher dude rate and are more likely to cause civilian casualties when used in urban areas, which is where more of the fighting was concentrated, and 2) political pressures against using "cluster munitions" because of the potential from civilian casualties.  But that didn't change the reality that they were still the most effective general purpose round in our artillery arsenal, that we kept millions of them in storage, and that our developmental/procurement efforts are focused on trying to produce DPICM successor rounds with a lower failure rate. 
So, while we moved towards production and use of HE rounds over DPICM because of those political considerations, the general tactical superiority of DPICM/submunition rounds over generic HE rounds is not up for serious debate.  Any professional artilleryman knows that to be the case.

Why else do you think the United States didn't sign the convention against cluster munitions such as DPICM rounds?  If HE rounds are truly equal to or even superior to DPICM, and they are of course much cheaper, why wouldn't we sign it?

Because we're not stupid.

Which leads to the point that if we got in a real conventional shooting war, where large scale artillery support was required in our direct national interest, we'd have been firing off DPICM like it was going out of style.  Because that's what you use for maximum tactical effectiveness.

What is really needed for our national security isn't more HE rounds - except for a few mission-specific types -- , but an acceleration of the M999 and C-DAEM/XM10278 projects to get more submunition ammo out there as our basic combat round.  And if burning through the less effective HE gets us to that point faster, I'm all for it.

If we get into a real shooting war we need every round for every tube of every size we can get.

Giving away ANY munitions that deplete our stores that OUR soldiers need...be it HE or DPCIM or LGBTQAIS is dumb.  It's worse than dumb...it's bleep stupid.

Would you give your ball ammo for your self defense weapon in your house to the crackhead trying to rob you because the hollow points you have are better?

Now back on mute you go.  I'm not interested in your dick measuring contest over who did what in the service...and I have no interest in someone who wore the uniform that now sides with the likes of Adam Kinzinger and Alexander Vindman.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

23 years 7 months and 11 days in the U.S. Army.

So what was your MOS?  13A?  13E? 13F?   Presumably something in the cannon field artillery field, right?  Or at least maybe 11A or 19A, and may have had artillery units under your command?  Because otherwise, your opinion on artillery ammunition doesn't interest me.

Giving away ANY munitions that deplete our stores that OUR soldiers need...be it HE or DPCIM or LGBTQAIS is dumb. 

There we go.  To you, they're all just a bunch of meaningless initials that are all just a big joke.  Not surprising.