Cheney’s Cop-Killer Rap
If you can’t handle the truth, be very afraid of W.’s running mate.

By Dave Kopel of the Independence Institute

hy was Dick Cheney one of 21 representatives to vote against a ban on
so-called ?cop-killer bullets??

Al Gore’s surrogates would have you believe that Cheney supports the
murder of police officers. In truth, the Cheney vote was a vote for truth over
lies, and principle over expediency. There never has been such a thing as a
?cop-killer bullet.? That the issue ever arose in Congress shows that modern
Washington is just as susceptible to believing impossible things as was the
English Parliament that made it a felony to use ?Witchcraft, Inchantment,
Charm or Sorcery, to tell where Treasure is to be found, or where Things
lost or Stolen may be found.?

The story of the nonexistent ?cop-killer bullet? actually begins in 1976 in
Massachusetts, when a handgun-confiscation initiative was defeated in a
landslide. Then in 1982 in California, a handgun ?freeze? initiative also lost
overwhelmingly. The gun-prohibition lobbies began to realize that they would
have to work more incrementally, rather than pushing for prohibition outright.
(Hence the current Gore proposal to require everyone to get a federal license
to buy a handgun. Once the licensing system is in place, it can gradually be
made ever-more difficult, by administrative fiat, for anyone to actually get a
license.)

The prohibition lobbies also realized that the police were one of their worst
problems. While a few police chiefs or sheriffs could always be found to
support prohibition, the vast majority of police ? both commanders and line
officers ? were ?pro-gun,? and extremely skeptical of gun control.
Something had to be done to turn the police (or at least their Washington
lobbyists) against the National Rifle Association.

The something, ironically, was an obscure type of ammunition invented by
police officers two decades before. These bullets were known as KTW
bullets, after the initials of the three persons involved in law enforcement who
invented them for use in SWAT teams. While ordinary bullets have a lead
core, the KTW bullets used denser metals, and therefore had greater
penetration ability. The bullets had not been available for sale to the general
public since the 1960s.

Despite the fact that the KTW bullets were not on sale in any gun store in the
United States, NBC television discovered them in 1982 and announced that
they were a tremendous threat to police lives. The ?cop-killer bullet? scare
was born.

With the kind of self-righteous ignorance that characterizes most of the old
media’s handling of the gun issue, the bullets were described as ?Teflon
bullets.? Supposedly, the Teflon coating allowed the bullet to penetrate a
policeman’s ?bulletproof vest.? Actually, a Teflon coating is applied to the
outside of a wide variety of ordinary ammunition, and has nothing to do with
better penetrability. Instead, the Teflon reduces the lead abrasion caused by
the bullet’s movement down the barrel of the gun.

Penetrability, on the other hand, is based on the kinetic energy carried by the
bullet. Kinetic energy, as every first-year physics student knows (perhaps
nobody in the old media ever took physics) is the product of velocity and
mass. Since tungsten has a higher density than lead, a tungsten-core bullet
will have greater mass, and therefore greater kinetic energy, and therefore
greater penetrability.

As actual police officers know, the vests that they wear are ?bullet-resistant,?
not ?bullet-proof.? The body armor comes in a variety of grades. The higher
the grade, the bulkier and less comfortable the armor is to wear, but the
more ammunition that it can stop.

At the top of the scale is Threat Level IVA armor, which is ceramic, and can
stop even a high-powered rifle bullet. It takes a very strong vest to stop a
big-game hunting-rifle bullet: The bullet travels at very high velocity, due to
the long length of the rifle barrel; and has a high mass, since a hunting-rifle
bullet must be large enough to bring down a moose, elk, or other large
mammal. The main people who wear Threat Level IV or IVA ceramic hard
armor are SWAT team members on high-risk missions.

Far more common for ordinary police use is ?soft? body armor made from
Kevlar, and rated at Threat Levels II through IIIA. Level II armor can stop
some handgun ammunition, while Level IIIA can stop almost any handgun
bullet. Handgun ammunition is much easier to stop than rifle ammunition,
since the handgun barrel is much shorter (less velocity) and handgun bullets
are smaller (less mass).

The gun-prohibition ventriloquists and their old-media dummies had worked
the first stage of the scam: warning the public about the ?cop-killer bullet.?
Never mind that it wasn’t on sale. Never mind that there had never been a
known instance of a police officer being shot at, let alone killed, with such a
bullet.

The bait was set. Now for the switch. Rep. Mario Biaggi (who would later
leave Congress due to felony convictions involving extensive personal
corruption) introduced a bill to outlaw all ammunition that could penetrate
soft-body armor. This could lead to ban on most rifle ammunition, since most
rifle ammo will penetrate soft-body armor. Soft-body armor is designed to
stop handgun ammunition, not rifle ammunition.

When this fact was pointed out, the old media and the gun-prohibition
lobbies sneered that NRA members wanted to go deer-hunting with
cop-killer Teflon bullets.

As the debate continued, the constant repetition of the phrase ?cop-killer
bullet? helped drive a wedge between the NRA and many police officers.
The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) ? the largest rank-and-file police
group in the U.S. ? had been an enthusiastic supporter of the
McClure-Volkmer Firearms Owners Protection Act (FOPA), a bill to
reform abusive BATF enforcement of the 1968 Gun Control Act.

But after the ?cop-killer? controversy, the police group’s director switched
sides, and announced that FOPA was a grave threat to the lives of police
officers. FOPA itself had nothing to do with KTW or Teflon ammunition, but
the FOP director’s broader point was his anger over the ?cop-killer bullet?
issue.

More generally, the issue placed the NRA on the defensive, and impeded the
NRA’s goal of pushing FOPA into law. Many of the NRA’s friends in
Congress and White House quietly insisted that something be done to get rid
of the issue.

Handgun Control, Inc., and the rest of the panic-and-prohibition lobbies (on
many issues besides guns) are quite right to be worried about Dick Cheney.
It’s not primarily about Cheney’s voting record ? which on gun issues in the
House of Representatives was very similar to Rep. Al Gore’s. It’s not even
primarily about banning rifle ammunition, although Cheney’s election would
probably spell the end of that particular issue.

The much greater problem is that Cheney is very smart; he learns the facts;
he doesn’t fall for the old media’s summary of an issue; and (in great contrast
to Bob Dole), his idea of a good law is not ?anything that makes a sufficient
number of lobbying factions happy.? Most dangerously of all, from HCI’s
point of view, Cheney will have the president’s respect and his attention.

Now imagine the situation 18 months from now. The prohibition groups have
just worked the old media into a tizzy over ?laser shotguns? or
?handgun-mounted grenade launchers? or ?invisible ammunition? or some
other nonexistent product causing a nonexistent problem. The president’s
pollsters explain that 84 percent of the public says ?yes? when asked ?Do
you want the government to do something about laser shotguns and invisible
ammunition in the hands of violent criminals, psychopaths, and foreign
terrorists??

If you think this situation is unlikely, just remember the spring of 1989, when
so-called ?semiautomatic assault weapons? were all the rage. Only
cosmetically were ?assault weapons? different from other guns. Indeed, the
1994 federal ban focused exclusively on cosmetics (e.g., accessories like
bayonet lugs, or a second grip on a rifle that protrudes ?conspicuously?). The
guns do not fire faster than other guns, and their ammunition power is on the
low end for rifles. Police statistics show that the guns are rarely used in crime.
But President George Bush III didn’t know any better, so he proclaimed that
he too was against ?automated attack weapons.? Dan Quayle didn’t know
any better either, and even if he had, President Bush wouldn’t have paid
attention to him.

But in 2001, consider what will happen when Vice President Cheney
schedules a meeting with the second President Bush, to explain to the
president that there’s no such thing as ?invisible ammunition? or ?laser
shotguns? ? or ?bubblegum-flavored chewing tobacco? or ?nicotine beer?
or ?a nationwide network of hate groups which specialize in lynching
transvestites? ? or whatever other phony terror some lobbying groups and
their media dupes have fabricated.

For the many prohibition groups who can’t handle the truth, Dick Cheney
could be the worst thing that ever happened to them.

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