Jesse Jackson: A Semi-Automatic Rifle Can Take Out A Train
Brian Anderson
January 4, 2016
Not too long ago I told you how The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg thinks an AK-47 can blow up a deer. Of course this is preposterous notion, but by no means the dumbest thing an anti-gun nut has said about semi-automatic civilian firearms. Aging civil rights kook Jesse Jackson has one-upped Whoopi by claiming that the same guns you can purchase at the average sporting goods store has enough power to take out a f*cking train.
Writing for The Chicago Sun-Times, Jackson made this wildly inaccurate claim:
Now weapons designed for the purpose of mass killing in war are available for purchase at gun shows, online and at many gun stores. These weapons are powerful enough to stop trains or strafe planes that are landing or taking off. These are tools for terrorists, easily available for sale in America.
The average train engine weighs around 150 tons. Imagine trying to take that out with .223 caliber round fired from an AR-15, which weighs around 3.6 grams. I don’t even think you could take out a train with an RPG. I’d imagine you’d need some heavy artillery or a cruise missile.
The funny thing is, this statement from Jackson is amended from something he said last year, and he thinks this version is less crazy. Here’s what he said last October:
Too many illegal guns are in circulation, from handguns to military assault rifles. These guns are powerful enough not only to shoot up churches and schools but to bring down airplanes.
Somebody should take Jackson to the range and show him exactly how powerful an AR-15 is. They’re pretty good at punching holes in paper and even people, but trains and planes? Not so much. There’s a pretty good reason why the US military doesn’t employ soldiers armed with rifles that come from Bass Pro Shops to take out airplanes and trains.
But Jackson wasn’t quite done being completely full of shit. In this next passage he wants you to think that “gun violence” is a rich white people problem, not a black inner-city issue:
Gun ownership is higher among whites than among blacks or Hispanics, higher among men than women. Gun ownership rises with income. It is higher among those earning more than $90,000 a year than among those earning less than $25,000.
So if I’m reading this correctly, Jesse Jackson thinks that rich white folks are responsible for all of the gun crime in this country, including all of those terrible tragedies where airplanes and trains were taken out by small arms fire.
And if you think that’s crazy, this comes from an op-ed where Jackson is arguing that we need to give black people more of our money because the billions we currently give annually isn’t enough. It’s always sad to see a fading race-hustler come unglued like this.
This is just another example of how the people who want to ban guns have no idea of what they are talking about. These “assault rifles” are not weapons of war. They aren’t machine guns and they sure as hell don’t have the firepower to take out 150-ton machines. If you think that a semi-automatic rifle is rapid-fire and packs the same punch as 125mm artillery shell, you are not only and idiot, but also your opinion doesn’t matter and you not allowed to talk about guns anymore.
http://downtrend.com/71superb/jesse-jackson-a-semi-automatic-rifle-can-take-out-a-train
