Coming to a gun store near you: the next generation of mass killing machines

The Department of Defense announced that it has chosen a replacement for the M4 rifle currently issued to soldiers in the Army and Marines.  In April, the Sig Sauer company was awarded a $20 million contract to supply the Army with its new combat rifle, the XM5.  The total amount of the contract is projected over the next decade to amount to as much as $4 billion. The company will produce the rifle and ammunition, a new “medium” 6.8 mm round that is larger than the 5.56 mm ammunition that has been used by the M16, M4 and all of the variants produced for military use since the 1960’s. 

"We should note that this is the first time in 65 years that the Army will field a new weapon system of this nature: a rifle, an automatic rifle, a fire control system, and a new caliber family of ammunition," Army Brig. Gen. Larry Q. Burris, the Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team director, said. 

The Department of Defense press release also quoted Colonel Scott Madore, whom it identified as the “project manager for soldier lethality.”  Madore almost burbled over as he bragged about the new weapon the army will be using in the near future:  "It's a significant change: the way it fires, the way, when you apply the fire control — which was previously awarded back in January — when you apply that to these weapons systems, it improves or increases the probability of a hit for the individual soldier. It reduces aim error, and it's a game changer. That's really what excites me about these two systems as we saw them go through testing." 

Okay, let’s stop right there.  What both of these officers are talking about is the expected increase in “lethality” the new weapons will provide.  The Department of the Army has even instituted a new office for that purpose: “Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team.”

Folks, what we’re looking at here is the model that will be used to produce the next AR-style rifle for sale to civilians.  I give the arms manufacturers maybe a year before they will start advertising a model with XM5 in some way attached to it.  The thing will look like the Sig Sauer rifle produced for the army.  It will fire the same bullet.  It will be capable of the same accuracy – “increases the probability of a hit” in the words of the colonel in charge of “soldier lethality.” 

So remember this when we turn on our televisions and we learn that some “shooter” has entered a school or a supermarket or a nightclub armed with an “AR-5” or whatever the hell they’re going to call it.  Remember what the Department of Defense was bragging about – the increased “lethality” of this new rifle it will be issuing to American soldiers.  Listen to this wonderous word-sandwich of mil-speak about the fire control system that the new XM5 will be equipped with: “The XM157 Fire Control system…will increase accuracy and lethality for the close-combat force. The XM157 integrates, among other things, a variable magnification optic, backup etched reticle, laser range finder, ballistic calculator, atmospheric sensor suite, compass, visible and infrared aiming lasers, and a digital display overlay.”

Got that?  All this stuff was designed for “close-combat” on the modern battlefield.  That translates from mil-speak into being able to kill human beings more efficiently and with greater force.

You know who was close range in Buffalo?  Black shoppers at a Tops Supermarket.  Who was close range in Uvalde?  Eight to ten-year-old schoolchildren and their teachers.  An article in an online magazine identified as a “regional defense publication” called “1945” said this about the new XM5 rifle:  “The 6.8 mm ammunition will travel supersonically longer than the current 5.56mm ammunition which will provide the troops with a more accurate and lethal round as well as a more controllable round than the current 7.62mm in the automatic weapons.”  The 1945 website quoted the army as bragging about not only the XM5 rifle but also the new machine gun designed and manufactured by the Sig Sauer company that is being purchased by the Department of Defense in the same contract: “Both weapons provide significant capability improvements in accuracy, range, and overall lethality. They are lightweight, fire more lethal ammunition, mitigate recoil, provide improved barrel performance, and include integrated muzzle sound and flash reduction.”

There wasn’t any internet when the M16 was first produced and issued to soldiers in 1964, but I’m sure the Department of Defense produced similar press releases making similar claims about the “lethality” of its brand new army rifle, and I’m sure the same claims were made for the M4 when it began to be used by the army in the early 2000’s.  The M4 is the design copied by Daniel Defense, which manufactured the rifle used by the Uvalde gunman, who bought the weapon directly from the manufacturer online and picked it up at a local gun shop as federal law requires.  In fact, all the variants of the AR-15 used by shooters in recent mass killings are copies of the M4 in one way or another, and many, like the weapon sold to the Uvalde shooter, claim to be improvements on the original design.

And now comes the XM5.  It is even more lethal.  It shoots a larger, faster bullet that will travel further with even more accuracy.  It comes equipped with the plethora of “fire control” garbage that the army’s director of “soldier lethality” was good enough to tell us about. 

Coming soon to a school or supermarket near you:  the civilian version of this nightmarish killing machine.  I’m sure it will be all the rage among gun nuts and celebrated by the NRA, and you can bet that owning one will be protected by the Constitution so plenty of 18-year-olds can get their hands on one and put it to use doing the thing it was designed for:  killing human beings.