Pistol grips on long guns, and rifle crime in general.

[benEzra]

46. You *do* have to index a rifle at any realistic distance.

First, point blank range:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-blank_range

It means, in shooting, the distance at which drop due to gravity hasn't become a major factor yet, and in forensics and popular culture it has come to mean ~1 meter from the muzzle, almost a contact shot. Beyond that distance, indexing (coarse, then fine) is necessary as distance increases. And yes, you *do* have to aim a rifle; that bullet is within 1/30 degree of the sight line laterally, and within three inches vertically, for two hundred yards. There is a reason that even when using automatic weapons at inside-the-room distances, the military and SWAT use Aimpoint and Eotech sights.

I've mentioned, I shoot USPSA matches. Due to the layout of our local range, stages are usually *close*, as in 2 to 20 yards, with lots of movement. Blasting away without aiming will make a lot of noise and a big fat zero on your score, but I'd love to take you to the range yourself and let you try it. It doesn't work like it does in the movies. Your scenario has not played out in the real world, and shooting real guns at a range would quickly demonstrate why.

FWIW, if you look at the worst mass shootings in the United States, the common denominators tend to be slow, deliberate shooting (enabled by trapped victims and a long delay for countervailing force to show up), and lots of reloading from a large stash of spare magazines (often low-capacity ones; the Virginia Tech shooter reloaded more than a dozen times). "Surprise trench coat ninja with a rifle at arm's length" just isn't what one generally sees, and there are reasons for that.

So again, we circle back to the fact that rifles, including pistol-gripped rifles, are the least misused class of firearm in the United States. There is simply no getting around that fact; the meme and the facts do not correlate.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10tbl20.xls

[font face="courier new"]Total murders...........................12,996.....100.00%
Handguns.................................6,009......46.24%
Firearms (type unknown)..................2,035......15.66%
Other weapons (non-firearm, non-edged)...1,772......13.63%
Edged weapons............................1,704......13.11%
Hands, feet, etc...........................745.......5.73%
Shotguns...................................373.......2.87%
[font color="red"]Rifles.....................................358.......2.75%[/font][/font]

Or, with the "type unknowns" rolled into the other categories using the same breakdown:

[font face="courier new"]Total murders...........................12,996.....100.00%
Handguns.................................6,950......53.48%
Other weapons (non-firearm, non-edged)...1,772......13.63%
Edged weapons............................1,704......13.11%
Hands, feet, etc...........................745.......5.73%
Shotguns...................................431.......3.32%
[font color="red"]Rifles.....................................414.......3.19%[/font][/font]

Based on that, please explain how protruding rifle handgrips are such a menace in the real world, to the extent that requires banning the most popular civilian rifles in the United States.