I was a USAF security police sentry dog handler, one year of which was in Vietnam.

Democrats’ recent effort to ban assault weapons from civilian use provided the impetus for me to inform those without military experience.

The bullet of the M-16 rifle and its shorter barreled AR-15 version work like this: the .222 caliber bullet is driven down the gun’s rifled barrel in a manner that spins it. When it leaves the muzzle, it continues through the air spinning the same way until it reaches its target. Upon entering the target, the spinning changes to tumbling.

This tumbling leaves a small entry hole in the front of the victim but morphs into an increasingly larger blast hole as it passes though. The blast hole out the back can be as wide as your hand. In this way, the shooter need not be particularly precise in his aim. The blast from the bullet can be fatal even if the bullet enters well off center (as designed).

This is an effective battlefield design used to eliminate as many of the enemy in the shortest time with the least effort and with no intention merely to wound or disable. It is not the kind of weapon one would use for dispatching a deer or elk.

Whether Republican, Democrat or independent, voters and lawmakers need to “get it” that this gun is a weapon of war, not a hunting rifle nor something hand held to disable a close range home intruder.

Its use needs to be restricted to the battlefield as is a .50 caliber machine gun or bazooka.

You won’t hear the police describe the blast wounds the Uvalde AR-15 shooter left in the backs of the children and teacher he so effectively killed. But now you know.