I’m gonna talk to you about guns a very
unconscious topic that nobody has strong
opinions on for me guns have a lot of
good memories when I was young I’d go
skeet shooting with my dad and I’d
proudly take my 28 gauge shotgun out of
the car sling the bag of shells that I
helped reload over my shoulder and take
my spot on the range now if you haven’t
been skeet shooting
shooting a moving targets pretty hard
you’ve got to lead it just right you’ve
got to account for the wind but when you
hit it and you watch it explode it’s a
really satisfying feeling guns have
taught me a lot of life lessons patience
and discipline responsibility safety and
hunting has taught me the value of life
and death as well as given me about 500
good venison recipes so if you’re
interested during the break you know we
can we can swap some stories I talked
about guns so much when I was young that
in eighth grade my classmates names me
most likely to be Annie Oakley in the
NYX Wild West Show and then when I was
adult I became a United States Marine
and gun taught guns taught me a lot of
lessons again as a young officer in
Quantico Virginia training with an m16
was hard and Marines are really
competitive so when I was able to
qualify as an expert with both both the
rifle and the pistol those feelings of
pride that sense of accomplishments
comes rushing back guns were a central
part of our discipline and our
camaraderie and our brotherhood and
sisterhood but for those of us in the
military after 9/11 guns became an
everyday matter of life and death on
deployment
I flew the ah-1 whiskey Super Cobra
attack helicopter it was my job to kill
the bad guys with guns to keep our good
guys with guns safe as a marine in Iraq
this was a common experience the sounds
you just heard a United States Marines
defending themselves with m4 rifles the
m4 is the military’s version of the
ar-15 the ar-15 may be the rifle that is
the most difficult to talk about it
we’ve all seen them on the news and
after every tragic mass shooting they
come rushing back into our national
conversations there may not be a gun in
production today that evokes so much
emotion on both sides of the debate as
the ar-15 but what is the ar-15 and how
did it come to take its place in our
national dialogues the ar-15 was a game
changer for US soldiers in Vietnam
Vietnam was a new type of conflict where
soldiers had to walk miles and miles
through dense jungle and they were up
against an enemy using the Soviet made
ak-47 in contrast our troops had the
heavier World War 2 era m1 garand or m14
rifles these rifles were big bulky
hearts of maneuver and shot less rounds
in less time than the ak-47 our troops
were outgunned
and the army quickly realized that they
needed a new service rifle armalite
ar-50 n– ended up fitting the bill
now the armalite ar-50 n– was never
designed to be a weapon of war but the
characteristics of it that made it ill
suited for hunting and many sporting
pursuits make it ideal for combat the
Department of Defense took this platform
and turned it in to the iconic m16
service rifle so what makes this weapon
so ideally suited for combat what makes
it a near-perfect weapon of war there
are four main things first its light
the m16 was three pounds that’s nearly
30% lighter than the m1 or the m14 now
if you’ve ever carried anything and
walked for a really long time three
pounds add up really really quickly for
football born soldiers this is a
game-changer second it’s shorter the m16
is nearly half a foot shorter than the
m1 this makes it more maneuverable a lot
easier to use when you’re walking
through dense jungle or on patrol third
it shoots smaller bullets now these
smaller bullets have three main
advantages number one
they two are lighter in Vietnam soldiers
were able to carry four times as much
ammunition with the m16 as they were
with their previous service rifles for
the same amount of weight next you can
shoot more rounds in less time previous
service rifles suffered from overheating
and they could shoot for two maybe three
minutes and their heavy weight meant
that there were eight to ten round
magazines the ar-15 platform was
designed to shoot hundreds of bullets
sequentially and the light weight of the
round meant that 30 round magazines
became
very common more time shooting less time
reloading more time killing third small
bullets do more damage on the right is
an x-ray of a larger round similar to
that you would see in the m1 it goes
cleanly through the human body on the
left damage from an ar-15 that upon
entering the shit
the skin starts to ricochet shattering
bones and causing previously unheard-of
damage to the human body finally it’s
the muzzle velocity of the m16 if you
remember from your physics class force
equals mass times velocity squared the
muzzle velocity of the m16 was nearly
three times that of their previous
weapons as a result that square there is
nine times as much killing force in this
weapon by the time the army adopted the
m16 in 1965 it could shoot through both
sides of a standard-issue military
helmet at 500 meters while causing
previously unseen damage to the human
body although being lighter more
maneuverable and easier to use this is a
weapon made for war and since 1965 our
servicemen and women have been carrying
some variant of the AR platform into
combat with them now it’s important to
note that this is not a fully automatic
machine gun this is a semi-automatic
rifle but it can still be shot very
quickly and do a lot of damage just how
that’s how fast someone can chew
30 rounds one magazine from an ar-15 the
faces you just saw are 30 Americans who
have lost their life to a bullet from an
ar-15 inside the border of the United
States shot by another American citizen
when I was in the Marine Corps then
general now our Secretary of Defense
mattis used to always say every time an
American kills another American were
doing the enemy’s job for them and this
the amount of loss of life would nearly
shut down combat operations to figure
out what we did wrong that so many
Americans died it was never too soon to
talk about it so if you want to kill a
lot of people at middle-distance really
quickly this is a perfect tool for the
job
it doesn’t mean it’s the purpose what
perfect weapon for everything that same
damage that the bullets from the ar-15
do to human body they do to animals
making this an ill-suited hunting rifle
that bullet that can travel through a
service helmet also goes through walls
and they go far meaning that if you’re
using this for home defense there’s a
good chance you’re gonna shoot somebody
else in the house and possibly even your
neighbors in many states hunting with
these weapons is illegal for this very
reason so if they are ill-suited for
these purposes why do American civilians
own ar-15s
well according to Bushmaster you may not
be a man if you don’t have one these
weapons are prolific advertised as the
very same weapons our servicemen use in
Iraq since they have been reintroduced
into the civilian market in 2004 they
there’s no record of how many of these
are in civilian hands in fact in many
states it is illegal to keep any record
of gun ownership but the NRA estimates
that there are 8 million of them owned
by civilians these days
8 million there hasn’t been a declared
war on US soil in a hundred and fifty
years and yet we are bringing weapons
specifically designed to kill as many
enemy as fast as possible onto our
streets I went into combat to ensure
that Americans are able to live their
lives freely and they are being killed
by these weapons and we’re still saying
it’s not time to talk about it now the
Constitution gets a vocht every time the
gun debate comes up so it is important
to look at the preamble the foundation
on which every amendment to our
Constitution is built we the people of
the United States in order to form a
insure domestic tranquility provide for
the common defense promote the general
welfare and secure the blessings of
liberty on ourselves and our posterity
do ordain and establish this
constitution for the United States of
America is it a more perfect union that
we are creating when we bring weapons of
war onto our streets is it domestic
tranquility that our students are
engaged in active shooter drills is it a
blessing of Liberty that neither
ourselves nor our posterity can go to
school a church a concert or even a
hospital
without the fear of hearing this some
guns taught me life lessons some guns
brought me closer to my family some guns
helped me make delicious meals for my
friends some are weapons of war shooting
skeet was really fun when I was a little
girl and it’s still a lot of fun now but
killing people watching your friends die
and the emotional and physical trauma
that is with you every day after is not
weapons of war do not belong in American
places of peace
[Applause] you
unconscious topic that nobody has strong
opinions on for me guns have a lot of
good memories when I was young I’d go
skeet shooting with my dad and I’d
proudly take my 28 gauge shotgun out of
the car sling the bag of shells that I
helped reload over my shoulder and take
my spot on the range now if you haven’t
been skeet shooting
shooting a moving targets pretty hard
you’ve got to lead it just right you’ve
got to account for the wind but when you
hit it and you watch it explode it’s a
really satisfying feeling guns have
taught me a lot of life lessons patience
and discipline responsibility safety and
hunting has taught me the value of life
and death as well as given me about 500
good venison recipes so if you’re
interested during the break you know we
can we can swap some stories I talked
about guns so much when I was young that
in eighth grade my classmates names me
most likely to be Annie Oakley in the
NYX Wild West Show and then when I was
adult I became a United States Marine
and gun taught guns taught me a lot of
lessons again as a young officer in
Quantico Virginia training with an m16
was hard and Marines are really
competitive so when I was able to
qualify as an expert with both both the
rifle and the pistol those feelings of
pride that sense of accomplishments
comes rushing back guns were a central
part of our discipline and our
camaraderie and our brotherhood and
sisterhood but for those of us in the
military after 9/11 guns became an
everyday matter of life and death on
deployment
I flew the ah-1 whiskey Super Cobra
attack helicopter it was my job to kill
the bad guys with guns to keep our good
guys with guns safe as a marine in Iraq
this was a common experience the sounds
you just heard a United States Marines
defending themselves with m4 rifles the
m4 is the military’s version of the
ar-15 the ar-15 may be the rifle that is
the most difficult to talk about it
we’ve all seen them on the news and
after every tragic mass shooting they
come rushing back into our national
conversations there may not be a gun in
production today that evokes so much
emotion on both sides of the debate as
the ar-15 but what is the ar-15 and how
did it come to take its place in our
national dialogues the ar-15 was a game
changer for US soldiers in Vietnam
Vietnam was a new type of conflict where
soldiers had to walk miles and miles
through dense jungle and they were up
against an enemy using the Soviet made
ak-47 in contrast our troops had the
heavier World War 2 era m1 garand or m14
rifles these rifles were big bulky
hearts of maneuver and shot less rounds
in less time than the ak-47 our troops
were outgunned
and the army quickly realized that they
needed a new service rifle armalite
ar-50 n– ended up fitting the bill
now the armalite ar-50 n– was never
designed to be a weapon of war but the
characteristics of it that made it ill
suited for hunting and many sporting
pursuits make it ideal for combat the
Department of Defense took this platform
and turned it in to the iconic m16
service rifle so what makes this weapon
so ideally suited for combat what makes
it a near-perfect weapon of war there
are four main things first its light
the m16 was three pounds that’s nearly
30% lighter than the m1 or the m14 now
if you’ve ever carried anything and
walked for a really long time three
pounds add up really really quickly for
football born soldiers this is a
game-changer second it’s shorter the m16
is nearly half a foot shorter than the
m1 this makes it more maneuverable a lot
easier to use when you’re walking
through dense jungle or on patrol third
it shoots smaller bullets now these
smaller bullets have three main
advantages number one
they two are lighter in Vietnam soldiers
were able to carry four times as much
ammunition with the m16 as they were
with their previous service rifles for
the same amount of weight next you can
shoot more rounds in less time previous
service rifles suffered from overheating
and they could shoot for two maybe three
minutes and their heavy weight meant
that there were eight to ten round
magazines the ar-15 platform was
designed to shoot hundreds of bullets
sequentially and the light weight of the
round meant that 30 round magazines
became
very common more time shooting less time
reloading more time killing third small
bullets do more damage on the right is
an x-ray of a larger round similar to
that you would see in the m1 it goes
cleanly through the human body on the
left damage from an ar-15 that upon
entering the shit
the skin starts to ricochet shattering
bones and causing previously unheard-of
damage to the human body finally it’s
the muzzle velocity of the m16 if you
remember from your physics class force
equals mass times velocity squared the
muzzle velocity of the m16 was nearly
three times that of their previous
weapons as a result that square there is
nine times as much killing force in this
weapon by the time the army adopted the
m16 in 1965 it could shoot through both
sides of a standard-issue military
helmet at 500 meters while causing
previously unseen damage to the human
body although being lighter more
maneuverable and easier to use this is a
weapon made for war and since 1965 our
servicemen and women have been carrying
some variant of the AR platform into
combat with them now it’s important to
note that this is not a fully automatic
machine gun this is a semi-automatic
rifle but it can still be shot very
quickly and do a lot of damage just how
that’s how fast someone can chew
30 rounds one magazine from an ar-15 the
faces you just saw are 30 Americans who
have lost their life to a bullet from an
ar-15 inside the border of the United
States shot by another American citizen
when I was in the Marine Corps then
general now our Secretary of Defense
mattis used to always say every time an
American kills another American were
doing the enemy’s job for them and this
the amount of loss of life would nearly
shut down combat operations to figure
out what we did wrong that so many
Americans died it was never too soon to
talk about it so if you want to kill a
lot of people at middle-distance really
quickly this is a perfect tool for the
job
it doesn’t mean it’s the purpose what
perfect weapon for everything that same
damage that the bullets from the ar-15
do to human body they do to animals
making this an ill-suited hunting rifle
that bullet that can travel through a
service helmet also goes through walls
and they go far meaning that if you’re
using this for home defense there’s a
good chance you’re gonna shoot somebody
else in the house and possibly even your
neighbors in many states hunting with
these weapons is illegal for this very
reason so if they are ill-suited for
these purposes why do American civilians
own ar-15s
well according to Bushmaster you may not
be a man if you don’t have one these
weapons are prolific advertised as the
very same weapons our servicemen use in
Iraq since they have been reintroduced
into the civilian market in 2004 they
there’s no record of how many of these
are in civilian hands in fact in many
states it is illegal to keep any record
of gun ownership but the NRA estimates
that there are 8 million of them owned
by civilians these days
8 million there hasn’t been a declared
war on US soil in a hundred and fifty
years and yet we are bringing weapons
specifically designed to kill as many
enemy as fast as possible onto our
streets I went into combat to ensure
that Americans are able to live their
lives freely and they are being killed
by these weapons and we’re still saying
it’s not time to talk about it now the
Constitution gets a vocht every time the
gun debate comes up so it is important
to look at the preamble the foundation
on which every amendment to our
Constitution is built we the people of
the United States in order to form a
insure domestic tranquility provide for
the common defense promote the general
welfare and secure the blessings of
liberty on ourselves and our posterity
do ordain and establish this
constitution for the United States of
America is it a more perfect union that
we are creating when we bring weapons of
war onto our streets is it domestic
tranquility that our students are
engaged in active shooter drills is it a
blessing of Liberty that neither
ourselves nor our posterity can go to
school a church a concert or even a
hospital
without the fear of hearing this some
guns taught me life lessons some guns
brought me closer to my family some guns
helped me make delicious meals for my
friends some are weapons of war shooting
skeet was really fun when I was a little
girl and it’s still a lot of fun now but
killing people watching your friends die
and the emotional and physical trauma
that is with you every day after is not
weapons of war do not belong in American
places of peace
[Applause] you
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