LewRockwell By George Hollenback
By now anyone reading this has probably seen the dark, grainy security footage of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson being gunned down from behind by an assailant who apparently has finally been apprehended. After every shot, the killer had to manipulate the action of his pistol, which was equipped with a suppressor; in addition to spent shell casings, live rounds were also disgorged from the weapon. Was the weapon unexpectedly malfunctioning, or were the between-the-shots manipulations a part of its regular operation? What kind of weapon was it? Even the reports of experts have been contradictory and confusing. Let’s try to bring some order out of the chaos.
Suggested reasons for a semiautomatic pistol to jam are “limp wristing,” use of subsonic ammunition, and failure to use a “booster” with the suppressor. When the frame of a semiautomatic pistol is held in a firm grip, the slide flies all the way back, causing the spent casing to be ejected and a new round loaded when the slide returns to its forward position. Held in a weak grip—“limp wrist”—the frame is pushed backward by the recoil, and the slide can’t catch up with the moving frame to reach its full rearward position; the spent casing either doesn’t get ejected all the way out, or if it is, the new round doesn’t get pushed all the way forward into the chamber. The slide has to be pulled back to clear the jam or pushed forward to seat a new round in the chamber.
Some pistol rounds travel faster than the speed of sound, so even if the noise of the muzzle blast is suppressed, there is still a “sonic crack” as the bulled breaks the sound barrier like a miniature jet plane. When the same round is loaded with less powder to slow the bullet to subsonic speed, the round has less recoil, the recoil sometimes reduced to such a level that it can’t push the slide all the way back…
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