Second Amendment Roundup: Firepower and the Fourth Circuit

The case of Snope v. Brown has been distributed for the Supreme Court's conference for December 13 .

John Sutter : The Fourth Circuit " second -guesses people who say they keep or bear an AR-15-style rifle for self-defense" He says the majority's decision was a sadly-mistaken view of the quite ordinary ammunition that the banned rifle typically fires.

Sutter says the 5.56 can be lethal but in no way does it even come close to "splintering" a human.

John Sutter : Court says AR-15 bullets "hit fast and penetrate deep into the body," create severe damage.

But that doesn't justify banning the rifles that fire them, he says.

Sutter says the court didn't do any real homework and compares wounds from rifles to those from handguns.

He says more powerful rifle rounds would have much more devastating effect, but that's not the case.

As a side note, he knows about firearms, writing: "Speaking from experience, many hog hunters deploy the exact weapons that Maryland bans, including the AR-15 ." David Kopel's post on this blog from last year "How powerful are AR rifles?" provides a detailed review of the issues herein. At a more general level, my book America 's Rifle: The Case for the AR-15 discusses the broader, historical context of the issue..