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Category: All About Guns
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Sunday Shoot a Round # 123
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The Sharps Rifle and Heavy Lead!
By Magyar Hirlap of Remix News
Barely a month since their delivery, the first German armored self-propelled guns have already ceased service in Ukraine, according to a report by German newspaper Der Spiegel.
The German Ministry of Defense was informed by Kyiv last week that an error message appeared on the cannons and that several of them needed to be repaired. According to the Bundeswehr, the reason behind the malfunction may be that the Ukrainians are firing the guns more intensively than the technology is capable of.
This means that the stress on the loading systems may be too high. Another problem could be that the soldiers reportedly fire the units from too far away with the special ammunition; the smart grenades used by these cannons were meant for shorter-range, precision hits.
The Bundeswehr explained that misuse of the weapons could have contributed to a more accelerated wear and tear. Despite the problems, however, they agreed to supply Ukraine with additional weapons packages.
At the same time, the arming of Ukraine by the West raises several problems. The unlimited flow of weapons can see arms easily end up on the black market or lost. Several European countries have already warned that weapons have on occasion been redirected to other nations. The authorities in Sweden, for example, revealed that anti-tank weapons have already appeared in the circles of criminal gangs in Sweden.
Meanwhile, security policy expert Robert C. Castel drew attention to the fact that Western weapon systems — the Javelin anti-tank missile and the Stinger anti-aircraft missile — can be used against civilian and industrial targets as well as military ones. According to him, it is only a matter of time before these weapons deliveries have unintended consequences. These weapons could still be lurking somewhere in Europe for many decades, as the modern equivalent of mines and air bombs left over from the World Wars, he added.
Reps. Seth Moulton (D-MA) and Veronica Escobar (D-TX) are pushing the “Mass Shooter Prosecution Act,” which would open mass shooters and their “support networks” up to terrorism charges in the event the shooters use guns Democrats typically label “assault weapons.”
Yahoo News quoted Moulton addressing mass shooters, saying, “They are terrorists and they should be prosecuted as terrorists.”
He added, “[The bill] also allows prosecutors to go after the material support networks. Networks that provide aid, perhaps its guidance, instructions maps. Whatever helps these attackers carry out these vicious assaults.”
Escobar said, “My community of El Paso was forever changed by the actions of a domestic terrorist fueled by white supremacy theories. With this legislation, we’re giving law enforcement the tools they need to follow through with investigations into terrorist networks and any individual responsible for attacks against our communities.”
The text of the “Mass Shooter Prosecution Act” defines a mass shooter as “whoever kills 3 or more people in a single incident using a machinegun or a covered semiautomatic weapon in a circumstance described in subsection (b).”
The semiautomatic weapons that qualify under the heading of “mass shooting” are the same types of weapons House Democrats voted to ban last week. Firearms outside those apparently fall outside the parameters of proposed terrorism charges.
The punishment for those who meet the definition of “mass shooter” is imprisonment for “any term of years or for life. ”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at [email protected]. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.