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Lead point bullets creates awfully lot of damage to tissue, and it doesn't surprise me one bit that the head was so severed. Even with a .222/3/* you can get that kind damage with the right bullet. I assume the hunter was using .308 or .30-06 or larger ammunition, which can effectively cut a small sized human in two when hit from the right angle with the right bullet.

Bullshit. Complete, utter bullshit, and the kind that most geeks won't know a damn thing about and simply assume to be correct.

Soft point lead bullets do expand (the term is mushroom) on impact, but the truth of your story ends there. A .222 is a varmit gun, used for shooting praire dogs out west and not much else. The .30-06 is a deer rifle, typically used with hard pointed rounds for accuracy. Soft lead rounds have a flat nose to assist in slowing the bullet, but has the unfortunate side-effect of making it less accurate. To show the differences, let's look at perhaps the two most commonly used rounds for big game hunting in North America, the .30-06 and the .30-30.

The .30-06 round is a pointed high-velocity big game cartridge and looks a bit like this. It's a non-mushrooming hard point even at higher grains for long-distance accuracy. The bullet creates an entry and exist wound of average size and kills mostly by hemoraging. Most .30-06 rifles are bolt-action with a vertical magazine that holds the rounds with their sides touching.

The .30-30 rounds is a soft flat-pointed lead high-velocity big game cartridge and looks a bit like the one on the left. You'll notice the flat-point to allow the head to mushroom on impact and the grey lead in the bullet. Entry and exit wounds tend to be larger with the .30-30 than with the .30-06 due to the mushrooming. Most .30-30 rifles are lever action with a tubular magazine in which the bullets are alid end to end in a spring loaded tube. This is highly dangerous with .30-06 and similar rounds as the possibility of the pointed tip detonating the next bullet's primer is great.

So, as some one speaking who's used both of these rounds to feel whitetail deer, it's bullshit that a shot in the chest will down game instantly. Most hunters go for a chest shot and seek to take out both lungs with one bullet. This causes mortal trama to the game and it dies soon, but not immediately. For this reason, it's recomended that you do not immediately begin tracking game that has been shot in the chest and didn't fall. Deer can run a long way with two collapsed lungs, and they will run further if they detect you following them.

In fact, I've used both of these rounds to kill hogs and coyotes as well. Shots in the chest on these animals never cause immediate death unless you're lucky enough to hit the heart with enough trauma. The only reasonably sure way to down anything instantly is to shoot it in the neck, which is my prefered way of killing as the game almost always collapses immediately. In no case does this sever the head. This is immaterial to whether the bullet is soft or hard, pointed or flat, and I back up those statements with real life experience the likes of which most /.'ers simply can't.

Just remember, it's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

From the legal POV, any weapon at all (including a Mac PowerBook or even bare hands) can be used to threaten someone. I think it's fair to say that 'a reasonable person' can imagine uses for a PowerBook or bare hands other than the crime of assault. There is also, on the linked page, the idea that certain weapons, can be used to commit the crime of assault even if the victim isn't aware they have been targetted. I'd hazard a guess that the same 'reasonable person' would include bow & arrow under the same type of logic - namely, any reasonably accurate ranged weapon can be used to commit assault. Are you really implying that there is no imaginable use of a bow & arrow which is non-nefarious?

In the context of the military definition of 'assault rifle', there are plenty of imaginable uses for a rifle that is chambered for an intermediate caliber round (intermediate, if you didn't follow the link means a round in between a typical pistol round and a typical long rifle [generally speaking a long rifle is the longest/heaviest/most powerfull type of rifle that is practical for a single soldier to use] round) beyond human combat at intermediate ranges. This list may include marginally nefarious uses as well as marginally silly uses, but should also include uses which really are innocent. Just a few off the top of my head: "target shooting", "hunting", "rodent control", "propping open a window", "collecting", "investment", "historical re-enactment", "sunflower support", "mixing concrete", "opening a jar of peach preserves".

In the context of the AWB, which is what I guess you really mean in the context of your message, the same list of imagined non-nefarious uses applies as was given for the military term. In order to truely understand what you seem to be calling for (renewal of the AWB), you should understand first that it was about having more than one of a narrowly defined list of features, and second that it only applied to the sale of weapons made during the time it was in place. On the progun side of the debate, it was generally assumed that the intent of the ban was to reduce the sale of 'scary looking' weapons. As an example, a rifle could be sold with either a bayonet mount or a grenade launcher alone, but couldn't be sold with both. I'm having a hard time imagining a nefarious use for both those features which would be foiled by allowing only one.

Kerry is getting most of the content producers money. Thanks for helping me prove my point.

No problem. You should probably let other people write your posts to slashdot.

BTW - The AWB was largely symbolic

And please back yourself up with some proof about the AK-47 being banned... I'm pretty sure it wasn't, unless it had two or more banned features. Here is a pretty good explanation of the law with the specific weapons listed which does not include the AK-47.

Also, here is a good page about the now-expired ban and assault weapons and automatic weapons and many people here on Slashdot apparently need to be educated on the subject.

OK since I'm not sure where we stand on this, let this website guide us both:
Explaining the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban

Let's see how long this takes to get modded into the toilet.

It's funny that the article mentions that this law bans "military-style" weapons, because "style" is mostly what this law is about.

From the Beeb article - "The move means that ordinary citizens will be allowed to keep heavy assault weapons in their homes."

Bzzt, wrong, thanks for playing.

Take a look at this page for some interesting info.

http://www.ont.com/users/kolya/

--riney

Perhaps you've never been shooting? When I had to qualify with a sidearm, there was one individual who pumped the trigger as fast as he could. Missed the target completely. Shooting takes skill.

I also saw the statistics on how often assault weapons were used in gun crimes and found they were negligible. Now, I am yet to read in detail about the proponents of this ban, so it would not be proper for me to talk for or against this topic anymore.

An intelligent, reseasoned response. You do know you're on Slashdot, right? ;) Keep in mind those crime statistics when you read the anti-gun literature. Most, IMHO, are emotional appeals with statisically questionable studies. YMMV, and I encourage you to look for yourself. You might also be interested in this.

it really doesnt care about the criminals or making sure theres less of them.

Rehabilitation of convicted criminals seems to be a dead issue in US society as a whole. Our society was described as "ensuring everyone can go as high as they want to" as opposed to Europe, which was described as "ensuring no one falls to far". That seems accuracte, although that's just my impression.