New Jersey bans safe, effective ammunition

The Notseez want to make it difficult to purchase ammunition to defend yourself. I wonder why.

The same people who want to disarm and reduce the police want to disarm lawful gun owners. Only dangerous people would be armed. But most of us know that.

How is this news? Hollow point ammunition has been illegal in NJ for DECADES.

Solidly Democrat New Jersey is one of the most restrictive states for legal firearm owners. There's a lot of foolishness afoot in the legislature and governor's mansion there. Forcing citizens to use full metal jacketed ammunition for self defense is crazy. For one thing, even a .380 ACP (9x17mm), approximately half as powerful as a 9mm (9x19mm), FMJ bullet will zip through an attacker's body if it doesn't encounter bone or anything else solid. A bullet that exits the body of an assailant can kill anyone standing behind the assailant, making armed self defense unnecassarily dangerous in the Garden State. Col. Jeff Cooper's fourth rule of gun safety warns the shooter to be aware of anything behind the target. A hollowpoint bullet, if it functions correctly, opens like a parachute, and should not overpenetrate. All of its energy should be expended inside the target. Nowadays, self defenders in New Jersey and eslewhere can buy ammo with fluted, non-expanding solid copper bullets that act like hollowpoints by fluid diversion. Lehigh's Xtreme Defender, a deeply fluted bullet with a tip that looks like a cut off Phillip's screwdriver, especially in cartridges loaded by Underwood, is what many are turning to. .380 hollowpoints tend to be too weak to work properly; .380 FMJs will overpenetrate; 380s with Underwood-Lehigh have been shown to work well, even out of micro-.380s. 9mm is a better choicer overall, but if you prefer .380, use solid coppers like the XTrmD.

Not all at once, just one tiny step at a time. Over and over and over. Their patience is astounding !! Give a man limitless time, a broken screwdriver, put him to work atop the Rock of Gibraltar. In time the rock will be a pile of rough gravel. It will many many take years but the result will be the same - the rock will be destroyed. Just like the Second Amendment. They have been chipping away at it for decades and have NO INTENT WHATSOEVER of quitting or giving up. Stopping them ONCE AND FOR ALL is possible and someday we may come to that solution.

Sorry - 'It will take many many years but the result .....'

Shall not be infringed. Somebody BRAND it on their foreheads!

The 9mm Luger cartridge, also called 9mm Parabellum, was known for most of the first 80 years as a not terribly effective cartridge, because the standard ammunition of those days was "full metal jacket" which is a copper alloy skin over a lead core, and which does not significantly change shape on impact. This means it drills a .356 inch diameter hole, and because of the smooth round nose, the bullet pushes tissues aside, and due to tissue stretch the effective hole diameter is even smaller. And this means less damage to the intended target. It wasn't until the last 20-30 years when effective, reliable expanding bullets were made available that the 9mm became a relatively effective self defense cartridge. Expanding bullets turn into 3/4 inch wide blunt 'mushrooms' which cause much more damage, and don't penetrate as deeply, less likely to exit and injure a second person. So, more effective and safer. This sort of non-expanding ammunition is ILLEGAL to use in hunting big game, because it is ineffective and the animals run off, probably dying a day or two later from infection. Expanding bullets have been REQUIRED by law in hunting for more than half a century. And the same sort of expanding bullets, designed to be more effective, are used by police all over the USA, including in New Jersey. And these expanding bullets are less likely to fully penetrate the intended target and go on to wound an innocent bystander. And yet, the dangerous fools in NJ have made NORMAL expanding bullet self defense cartridges illegal for citizens, while their police use them, of course. Very stupid. But then it's NJ, where STUPID is normal for all politicians.

During the early moments of the awful 11 April 1986 Miami shootout between two heavily armed bank robbers and eight FBI agents, Agent Jerry Dove put a 9mm bullet through Michael Platt's brachial artery, a fatal but not immediately incapacitating wound since the bullet stopped a inch short of Platt's heart. Platt, carrying a Ruger Mini-14 in .223 Remington, went on to kill two agents and seriously wound five more. The FBI abandoned the 9mm in favor of, eventually, the .40 S&W. (The 10mm with 200 grain bullet at 1200 fps, tested first, was too much for most agents to shoot.) Nowadays, three decades after adopting the forty S&W, ammo companies have made so many improvements in all their centerfire ammo that most agencies are going back to the 9mm, which, in almost all circumstances, is a very capable round. The ability to carry from two to seven more rounds per magazine trumps the .40 and .45's lesser capacity.

The gun grabbers, of all types, don't want to eliminate guns to make the world more peaceful, even though that's what they claim. They want to grab guns so civilians cannot defend themselves against government tyranny, pure and simple. That's whole point of the Second Amendment.

I have hollow points for defensive carry but for just general shooting I am quite happy with FMJ or lead solids, depending on caliber and velocity. The hollow points are just too expensive for weekend plinking, and with the price of gunpowder and primers already through the roof, it has become a very expensive hobby even for handloaders.

Relative power of various self defense pistol rounds is approximately as follows: .380 ACP @ 0.50 .38 Special @ 0.75 9mm @ 1.00 .45 ACP @ 1.30 (the venerable .45 ACP is a comparatively low pressure round at 21,000 to 23,000 CUP) .40 S&W @ 1.50 (the .40 S&W is about 35,000 CUP, and is more powerful than .45 ACP) .357 Sig @ 1.80 to 2.10 (a shortened 10mm, necked down to a 9mm; can be very powerful, as well as loud at the range) 10mm @ 2.25 to 2.50 .357 Magnum @ 2.50 (We're starting to get unshootable, especially in scandium revolvers like S&W 340PD, weighing 11.8 ounces.) .44 Magnum @ 4.00 (probably too much kick as a self defense round unless your first shot hits the target) The .38 Special and the two magnums are revolver cartridges. The rest are mostly semiauto, unless your revolver has moon clips. Ammo selection is more important in the less powerful calibers. The more your pistol kicks, the more difficult the follow up shots will be.

Not to elaborate on the obvious comments but nobody shoots premium defensive ammunition at the range (once feeding and function have been verified for the specific pistol and selected round). Just like you don't shoot expensive broadheads at target butts on the archery range. Of course, YMMV.