[http://www.portal.com/~chan/letters/cnn0327.txt]

							March 27, 1995

News Director 
c/o Ted Turner office
CNN 
CNN Centre 
Atlanta, Georgia 
(via fax: 404-827-1575)


Dear Sir or Madam:

You distributed a piece this morning regarding the New Jersey Post
Office murders in which it was claimed that Black Talon ammunition is
armor piercing.  This is a gross error and deserves to be corrected.
The piece also contained further inflammatory comments based on this
false claim which also deserve to be withdrawn and corrected.

Black Talon ammunition has recently been found by the FBI to be no more
or less effective than other hollow point ammunition.  Attached is a
summary of their report.

Perhaps your reporter and editors confused Black Talon with Black Rhino,
which claimed to penetrate body armor and which the BATF and ABC have
rightly determined to be a hoax.  Quoting from a report about the ABC
Nightline program:

  The results, which were discussed by some of the ballistic experts of
  H.P.  White Laboratory Inc.  (who performed the testing for Nightline,
  is one of the premier ballistic labs in the country, and is recommend by
  the FBI and BATF) gave the inescapable conclusion that the Rhino Hoax is
  appropriately named.  ...  BATF experts also have examined the ballistic
  gel patterns of the Rhino ammunition and have stated that it's no
  different than any other bullet of the same expanding type.
  Furthermore, the BATF doubts that the Black Rhino penetrating ammunition
  even exists.

I hope that your error is simply a gross oversight rather than a
deliberate distortion.  I hope also that you will make an effort to
correct it.  Gross factual errors diminish your credibility
significantly.

Sincerely,

[sig]

Jeff Chan
__

>From a 1/29/95 article from Newhouse News Service bylined by Joe
Hallinan headlined "Black Talon: much ado about little" sub-headed "The
bullet is still available in stores, but the FBI has decided it's no
more deadly than any other ammunition on the shelves".

Includes a photo of Eldorado Starfire, Black Talon, and Winchester SXT
ammo boxes captioned "Winchester dropped the Black Talon bullet (center)
after the uproar about its supposed capabilities, but now it markets a
similar round, the SXT (right), and PMC produces the Starfire.  The
fired rounds show little of the promised "blossoming"".

There's also a large text quote of William E.  Stone who authored the
FBI report on ammunition and who is a professor of criminal justice at
Southwest Texas State University.  "The Black Talon didn't do anything
different from any of the other bullets, and a few of the others did it
slightly better.  It is certainly not significantly different from any
of a dozen rounds that could be available."

Rep.  Thomas M.  Barrett, D-Wis., who along with Sen.  Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, D-N.Y.  had introduced legislation to either ban or levy a
10,000 percent tax on Black Talon and similar ammunition is quoted as
being astounded that Black Talon is still being sold from Winchester
inventory even though it's production has ceased.  Barret said last week
he would re-introduce his restrictive bill in the House.

Winchester spokesman Mike Jordan declined to say how many Black Talons
it produced before stopping their manufacture and is quoted as saying
"As far as we're concerned, the less publicity about it the better".

Dr.  Stephen Hargarten of Milwaukee, spokesman for the American College
of Emergency Physicians stated that to the best of his knowledge no
emergency room physicians or medical care providers had ever been cut by
the Black Talon round while treating a patient.  Dr.  John McCabe,
president of the college had complained that Black Talon's sharp edges
posed great risk to health care providers of suffering cuts and being
exposed to AIDS or other infectious diseases.

Stone, the author of the FBI report found that the average "wounding
value" of handgun ammunition in general improved by 63 percent from 1989
to 1992.  "There is a dramatic increase," said Stone, the report's
author.  Stopping production of the Black Talon, he added, had no impact
on this trend.  "It was meaningless".

Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, a gun
research and advocacy group in Washington is quoted as saying "I think
the Black Talon had the misfortune to have a really scary name."
Sugarmann said that Black Talon's performance was quite similar to other
rounds with more mundane names, such as the SXT, which is also made by
Winchester, and the PMC Starfire.  "The Black Talon focused attention,
sort of, on the fact that you're finding a new generation of
hollowpoints", said Sugarmann.