Feeding Media Junk Like ‘Shooting Ducks in a Barrel
February 20, 2003

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

I begin this column a few days before heading for the 25th anniversary SHOT Show with apologies to readers for the many mixed metaphors that may appear here. But it is largely about the anti-gunners and the media.

First, let’s take note that those busy folks at the foundation-funded Violence Policy Center (VPC) have been burning the midnight oil in confecting a new report with which to slop a ready media. In the past few days they have given birth to another “study” designed to help win the minds of the American public and point lawmakers in the direction preferred by the anti-gun strategists.

The latest report is entitled, “Just Like Bird Hunting: The Threat to Civil Aviation from 50 Caliber Sniper Rifles.” It follows up on a three-year old VPC “report” entitled, “One Shot, One Kill: Civilians Sales of Military Sniper Rifles.”

In large measure there is nothing new in what the VPC is saying, but by re-packaging their message as a “study” and shooting out news releases to the target media, they hope to breathe new life into a campaign that has been foundering for many months. They haven’t been doing to well with their anti-handgun campaigns in recent months, and they haven’t been able to get much traction with their previous attempts to outlaw .50-caliber rifles, even with the much-publicized “Beltway sniper” case. So they are latching onto the public’s fear of terrorism and trying to frighten everybody by repackaging the “sniper rifles.”

Blaming Bush
And to make their press release even more appetizing to a like-minded media, the VPC accuses President Bush of ignoring this particular danger in the “War on Terrorism.”

The VPC “report” allegedly details the “threat of military-bred .50-caliber sniper rifles to aviation and passengers throughout the United States.” The VPC news release claims its “32-page study discusses the range and striking power of the .50-caliber sniper rifle and its ammunition in the context of potential terrorist attacks against civilian airports and aircraft.”

Tom Diaz, VPC senior policy analyst and the study’s named author, claims “Increasingly popular .50-caliber sniper rifles, available at your local gun shop, are a lethal danger to the safety and security of Americans. We ask this Administration to consider the serious consequences of the .50-caliber sniper rifle in terrorist hands.”

The study is larded with claims that the .50-caliber sniper rifle is capable of firing accurately over thousands of yards and can utilize legally-available armor-piercing, incendiary, and explosive ammunition. “The US Army’s manual on urban combat states that .50-caliber sniper rifles are intended for use as anti-materiel weapons, designed to attack bulk fuel tanks and other high-value targets from a distance, using ‘their ability to shoot through all but the heaviest shielding material,’ ” the VPC claims.

It goes on to warn that various models at a wide range of prices are available to civilians from an increasing number of gun manufacturers.

Then VPC says: “Even the leading manufacturer of these deadly terrorist tools, which are easier to buy than handguns, touts their anti-aircraft capability. In a brochure advertising its Model 82A1 .50-caliber sniper rifle, Tennessee-based Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc. states, ‘The cost-effectiveness of the Model 82A1 cannot be overemphasized when a round of ammunition purchased for less than 10 USD (US dollars) can be used to destroy or disable a modern jet aircraft.’ In 1999 court testimony, Barrett Manufacturing head Ronnie Barrett testified as to the .50 caliber’s ability to destroy aircraft: ‘If it is coming directly at you, it is almost as easy. Just like bird hunting. But yes, it is more difficult if it is horizontally, or moving from left to right, yes.’ ”

When the VPC says it has warned Bush, Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and countless other state and federal officials charged with keeping Americans safe from terrorist activities of the dangers posed by .50-caliber sniper rifles, it is not just protecting its behind. It is trying to frighten public officials.

State and Federal
The VPC report is intending to do more than feed the “sky-is-falling” media crowd, eager to stir the pot with another dire threat. It hopes to further legislation at the state and federal levels to regulate these firearms, which have not been used in any domestic criminal acts, or terrorism. California and Connecticut have been active legislative battlegrounds on the issue, and there are also city attempts at regulation in California.

Not surprisingly, anti-gun California Democrat Rep. Henry A. Waxman said he would soon introduce legislation in the US House of Representatives to regulate the .50-caliber rifles. And the VPC is quick to note that Waxman said he had observed a demonstration at which Marines used the rifles to shoot through a three-and-a-half-inch manhole cover, a 600-pound safe and “everything imaginable.”

I assume that manhole cover was three-and-a-half inches thick; otherwise it would make a very small target at the ranges most .50-caliber shooters engage their targets. And while the safe may weigh 600 pounds, no one is saying how thick the steel was.

I’ve also shot .50 BMGs—in heavy machineguns (in the Army) and in rifles (as an average citizen). I will concede that the rounds can reach out over a mile, accurately in the hands of a good shooter. But I apparently wasn’t brought up in the same kind of family as Diaz and the other folks at the VPC. It never occurred to me to want to shoot at, or bring down, an airliner or any other innocent aircraft. Like most Americans, I don’t spend my time worrying about guns.

I find it more useful to worry about the people who worry about guns, such as Diaz and his VPC leader, Josh Sugarmann. Their morbid fascination with firearms seems abnormal to me, just as abnormal as people who have phobias about fast cars, big trucks, long ladders and black cats.

Other Concerns
The people at the VPC are not the only folks that love to make headlines with their fears related to guns, crime or terrorism. Media folks spend a lot of time doing the same thing, even though they will tell you that they “just report the news, they don’t make it.”

That may be partly true, but some reporters have set themselves up as authorities on guns, crime and the like. One of them is Fox Butterfield at The New York Times, to whom, it seems, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which is actively involved in supporting the litigation against gun companies in California, leaked the Ricker deposition covered by Dave Workman on Pages 1 and 7 of this issue.

I am especially reminded of these proclivities as I get ready to leave for the SHOT Show, where judging from my experiences during 23 of the previous 24 shows, the general media will be attending in force, looking for big headline stories, or information that can be turned into big headlines that are intended to damage firearms rights and the firearms industry.

I don’t know Butterfield, but I do know Diaz and Sugarmann, who I suspect will also be walking the Orlando convention center during SHOT. If they have a bone to pick with me, I’ll be among the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) staff at Booth 4289. So will SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, Gun Week senior editor Dave Workman, GW production manager John Krull, Women & Guns magazine editor Peggy Tartaro, and Joe Waldron, executive director of Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. So will a large assortment of our contributing editor, who will drop into the booth from time to time, as they travel the show in search of things that interest them and, hopefully, will be worth telling you about in future issues of SAF periodicals.
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