A discussion of rifle ammunition bans and .223/M855 murders, by the numbers. [View all]

[benEzra]

A poster in one of the M855-ban threads made the following comment, and I think it is worth discussing at length.

" i would like to have a discussion that looks at pros and cons in these situations.
banning rifle ammunition is not at the top of my list for sure. I never actually thought about it until this thread.
But there is no discussion around what lives could be saved or not saved."

We can approach this topic from the perspective of police officer murders (the BATFE's stated rationale for the proposed ban on some popular .223 ammunition), or from the perspective of rifle murders in general.

Police officer murders. One way to approach this question is to look at the police officer murders, and the ability of pretty much any centerfire rifle to shoot through soft body armor like Saran Wrap.

The best resource for understanding the threat to police officers is the annual FBI report on Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted. From this report, we see that in 2013, 27 police officers were murdered in the United States. Of those, the table of types of weapon used shows that all rifles combined accounted for 5 murders. Eighteen officers were murdered with handguns, and three with shotguns.

Of those five officers murdered with rifles, two were murdered with .223 rifles of any type.

Table 41 reveals exactly zero deaths occurred in 2013 because the victim's body armor was penetrated. To reiterate, not one single officer died in 2013 from having her/his vest penetrated by *any* caliber firearm.

In fact, the same table shows that only 3 officers have been killed since 2004 by any .223 or 5.56x45mm round penetrating any type of vest. One death occurred in 2004, one in 2008, and one in 2011, and there is no indication that any of those involved M855 or rifle-resistant armor. During the same time period, 7 officers were murdered through their vests using deer hunting calibers (.30-30 Winchester, 7mm, .308, or .30-06), 5 were murdered through their vests using 7.62x39mm, and 385 were murdered with ordinary pistols and revolvers (almost all of which involved hits to unprotected areas).

Finally, to understand this discussion, it helps to understand body armor ratings. The current National Institutes of Justice armor ratings are as follows, increasing in both protection and discomfort/bulk as you go higher:

Ballistic Resistance of Body Armor - NIJ Standard-0101.06

NIJ Level IIA (soft armor) - rated to stop slow 9mm, .40 Smith & Wesson (handgun rounds)
NIJ Level II (soft armor) - rated to stop fast 9mm, slow .357 (handgun rounds)
NIJ Level IIIA (soft armor) - rated to stop .357 Sig, .44 mag (handgun rounds)
NIJ Level III (usually hard armor) - rated to stop steel jacketed 147gr 7.62x51mm at 2780 ft/sec (substantial rifle round)
NIJ Level IV (hard armor) - rated to stop full power rifle shooting armor piercing ammunition (166gr .30-06/7.62x63mm tungsten-core AP at 2880 ft/sec)

For context, M855 is a 62-grain, copper jacketed, steel-capped lead core .22-caliber bullet at about 2980 ft/sec out of a typical civilian-length barrel.

Note that any armor rated IIIA or below is not rated to stop any rifle. Most police officers wear Level IIIA, which is rated to stop the threat they are likely to face (concealable handguns in pistol/revolver calibers). Some officers add Level III hard inserts in the armor that protect the chest from torso hits with lower powered rifles like .223 and 7.62x39mm (as well as .308), but these plates are heavy and hot. SWAT officers typically wear Level III hard armor (external) or Level IV, which will stop full-on military armor piercing rounds from a .30-06, but they don't have to patrol all day wearing it.

Looking at the above figures, it is obvious that the number of annual police officer deaths that would be averted by banning M855 is zero. .223 is rarely used to murder police officers, and in the rare event it is, it rarely involves vest penetration. If vest is involved, NIJ Level IIIA or below won't stop *any* .223 (or pretty much any other rifle round), and NIJ Level III or IV hard body armor will stop M855 just like it stops 7.62x51mm steel jacketed FMJ. True armor piercing .223/5.56mm rounds (tungsten core M995) would probably penetrate Level III hard armor, but has long been banned, is not affected by this proposal, and has probably never been used to murder a single police officer in the United States.

Murder in general. The other way to address this question is to look at murder in general. The best source for this information is the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, particularly Table 20, Murder by State and Type of Weapon.

According to the UCR, there were 12,253 murders reported to the FBI in 2013 in the United States. According to Table 20, all rifles combined accounted for 285 of them. Back in the late 1980s, I recall the BATF Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Survey might have broken things down more by caliber, but those numbers are now dated and don't shed much light on the current discussion. I have them archived in my journal from the old DU and can dig them up if anybody wants them.

Still, we can certainly narrow it down based on what we know of U.S. rifle ownership. Of that 285, some large portion is committed with .22 rimfires due to their ubiquity, low noise signature, handiness/concealability, or whatever. The remainder are committed with centerfires, which are more powerful than rimfires but also heavier, louder, bulkier, and more costly. By far the most popular centerfire rifle caliber in the United States is .223 Remington, the caliber under discussion here. As I recall, the next most popular centerfire caliber in terms of annual rounds fired are 7.62x39mm, .308 Winchester, .30-06, and .30-30, followed by a bevy of more narrowly focused hunting calibers like .243, .270, the 7mm's, and so on, but no one disputes that .223 is by far the most popular centerfire rifle caliber in U.S. homes. For the sake of argument, let's say 100 murders/yr are committed with .223, 100 with 7.62x39mm, and 85 with everything else; this undoubtedly overestimates both .223 and 7.62x39mm (the old YCGIS data put rimfires at almost half of rifle homicides, I think), but it's probably within a factor of two or so of the true number, and overestimation presents the strongest possible case for the gun-control side, so let's run with that figure for now and see where it goes.

.223 Remington ammunition (aka 5.56x45mm) is a .22 centerfire that shoots small bullets weighing between 40 to 77 grains (2.6 to 5.0 grams) at deer-rifle velocities. By far the most common in general use is 55 grain (3.6 grams), which splits the difference between the light 40-grain small game rounds and the heavier 77-grain long range rounds, and is mostly what you'll find at Walmart or sold as inexpensive target/practice ammo. Based on its overwhelming prevalence, it's reasonable to expect that 80%-90% of murders using .223 are with 55-grain FMJ/JHP/SP. Let's say 80%; that leaves 20 murders with all other weights of .223 rounds.

M855 is a 62-grain load, the extra mass over 55-grain helping it retain velocity better at range (which is why it out-penetrates 55-grain at 600 meters; it is more streamlined and has higher sectional density, so it doesn't slow down as quickly from air resistance). It's by far the most popular of the longer range .223 rounds, so let's assume that 75% of non-55gr murders are with M855. That's 15 murders, out of 12,253 murders annually (and remember, we are overestimating the case here).

Of that 15, how many would have survived if they had been shot with a 55 to 77 grain .223 that wasn't M855? Ironically, although all rifle rounds are quite lethal, M855 has been the subject of harsh criticism (also here) over its perceived lack of lethality in combat, which is why it's popular as a civilian target and practice round but much less so as a defensive or law enforcement round. In short, even if a ban on M855 magically made it vanish completely, to be replaced by ordinary $5/box 55-grain lead core FMJ, it would make no difference whatsoever. M855 is no more lethal than any other .22 centerfire rifle round, and (as discussed above) is stopped by the same body armor that stops other .223.

Addendum: For those who don't have firsthand experience with .223, here's a comparison that may help put this discussion in perspective:



The cartridge on the left is .308 Winchester (7.62mm), a popular hunting and target shooting round that was originally developed for the U.S. military; NIJ Level III body armor is rated to stop a steel jacketed bullet from this cartridge. In the center is a .223 Remington (5.56mm), the most popular civilian centerfire rifle cartridge in the United States; M855 is one particular flavor of this cartridge. On the right is an AA battery to show scale.

Disclaimer: I am a casual-competitive shooter who enjoys shooting a .223 rifle and keeps one at home in lieu of the traditional 12-gauge, so that's my angle.