You know, Charlie, I have been looking all over for some of those “exploding bullets” I keep reading about, but I am unable to find any for sale. The reason for that is that — cool as “exploding bullets” sounds! — they do not really quite exist.

(This would not come as news to people who understand how bullets work, but never mind that.)


The “exploding bullets” thing is an eternal myth, spread by, among other sources, shoddy public-radio journalism (shout out to KERA in Dallas!). Firearms are, for some strange reason, a subject to which America’s editors are all too content — proud, even — to assign reporters who are utterly ignorant.

The Washington Post published Adam Weinstein’s hilarious defense of this ignorance under the headline “The NRA and its allies use jargon to bully gun-control supporters.”

Imagine: “Scientists use jargon to bully global-warming skeptics,” “Economists use jargon to bully Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” “Zoologists use jargon to bully Adam Weinstein,” etc.


Weinstein — you’ll remember him as the “Arrest climate deniers!” guy — is himself a veteran and presumably knows which end of a gun is which.

And if a pirouetting goofus like that can manage it . . .