.50-Caliber Ban Advocates Merely Amusing Bin Laden
June 20, 2005
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
Somewhere Osama bin Laden is laughing.
So, too, is Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, and any one of the thousands of terrorists that have graduated from an al Qaeda training camp.
The joke is simple, one they understand easily, because it is a comedy of misdirection being perpetrated on an American public deeply concerned about their personal, community and national security.
The authors of the flimflamery that is the current, much-publicized campaign to ban the private sale, possession and use of rifles—including single-shot models—capable of firing .50-caliber cartridges are deadly serious, but either totally unaware of their subject or purposely avoiding a thorough examination of their claims.
Most American military men and women and serious firearms and ballistics experts aren’t laughing either, because they know enough about the subject to see why this is not a joke but a public policy mistake. They know that passage of bans on such firearms, like the one enacted in California, will have zero value in deterring terrorists.
However, some well meaning public officials and commentators continue to press for such bans at the federal and state level. To them, it is incomprehensible that the Connecticut and Illinois state legislatures, that are far from averse to enacting more gun control laws, have failed to approve the .50-caliber prohibition measures introduced this year.
Simple Explanation
The explanation is simple: the issue is so complex, and a full discussion may cause the widespread publication of information that could really help professional or budding terrorists. However, there are some aspects of this policy issue which are, or should be, common knowledge.
Let’s start with the claim that “powerful .50-caliber rifles” are more dangerous to American security than all other centerfire rifles, because they are capable of punching a hole in steel a mile away. According to the Violence Policy Center (VPC) and other ban advocates, that makes these rifles capable of shooting down airliners during takeoff and landing, and would make other important targets more vulnerable. They promise that an immediate ban will make us all safer.
That’s the part that has bin Laden and company laughing. As they have been demonstrating almost daily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more recently in Pakistan and Indonesia, terrorists and their ilk don’t need .50-caliber rifles, or any other long-range rifles, to destroy government and civilian targets of opportunity or kill hundreds or thousands of innocent people. They don’t need .50-caliber rifles to shoot down helicopters, or to snipe at individual American military personnel. They also don’t need them to take out armored personnel carriers.
Terrorists have a lot of other options for mass destruction as they proved at the World Trade Center even before Sept. 11, 2001, in Oklahoma City and more recently in several world capitals.
They also know that if they want to target airliners, there are plenty of centerfire rifle cartridges that will do such dirty work out to 1,000 yards or so. Of course, they also know that to be truly accurate at such ranges, whatever rifle they employ will need a very good riflescope.
Terrorists are well aware of the real differences between various rifles and their cartridges. Not every .50-caliber cartridge is the same; there are many different types of .50-caliber ammunition. In fact, not every .50 BMG (Browning Machine Gun) cartridge is the same. Some, particularly those made for long-range accuracy and armor-piercing capability to military specifications, aren’t available on the civilian market.
Al Qaeda-trained terrorists also know something about logistics. For maximum mobility and stealth in urban areas, they don’t want to rely on any weapon that is overly heavy and cumbersome. Given their choice, whatever their target, terrorists prefer easily handled, smaller cartridge, assault rifles or submachineguns. If there’s bigger work to be done, they’ll opt for a shoulder-fired RPG (rocket propelled grenade).
Repeat Demonstrations
Given those tools, or even wire, handy knives or box cutters, the well-trained terrorist has repeatedly demonstrated that he or she is capable of maximum damage to military, government and civilian targets by whatever means employed.
The VPC’s Tom Diaz can appear on television as often as he can get before a camera, and he can even continue to show maps of Washington, DC, irresponsibly instructing where to position one’s self to illegally fire on vulnerable important targets of our government. He can continue to promise those targets will be safe as soon as all .50s are banned. He can get people like Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) to give speeches, issue press releases, have photographs taken with a .50 BMG rifle, but when all is said and done, no one will be any safer if those .50-caliber guns are banned.
That’s what bin Laden is really laughing about. The people he hates so much and is so determined to destroy are wasting their time and their precious resources debating useless bans on guns he has little interest in because of their limited utility to the terrorist cause.
The average gunowner should also be aware that, as Ronnie Barrett, president of Barrett Firearms Co. that manufactures arms for the military, law enforcement and civilian markets, has noted, a ban on a particular class of rifle because it chambers a cartridge that has the ability to penetrate targets is only a precursor to bans on more centerfire rifles and cartridges.
“Now, we are only talking about those powerful .50 calibers, right? That’s what is in the VPC’s direct orders. Now, remember they are banning rifles because specific targets named in our infrastructure are susceptible to damage. Now tell me, what centerfire rifle cartridge won’t penetrate those targets? What centerfire rifle cartridge is not powerful? Not many or not any? So in order to comply with the spirit and intent of the law the Attorney General or State Secretary must add those cartridges to the banned list. The big lie is exposed. They aren’t just talking about .50s. They’re after your hunting rifles, centerfire target rifles—just about any rifle you own,” Barrett noted.
Debate Continues
The debate continues, of course, with many in the media editorializing about the immediate need for bans on .50-caliber rifles. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has already signed such a bill into law. The New York state Assembly has passed a similar measure which is now before that state’s Senate. Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is already blasting Gov. George Pataki and state Senate Republicans for not embracing the ban legislation and other gun-control bills passed by the Assembly.
However, not all lawmakers are ready to duplicate the .50-caliber mistake that California has made. While some states are still weighing similar proposals, others have already decided.
The issue failed to get any traction in Connecticut and Maine. In Illinois, where the issue may be far from over this year, a proposal to ban .50-caliber rifles was narrowly defeated during the regular legislative session.
For those who believe that only the military can be trusted with such firearms as the .50-calibers, I noted that on June 6 a Norfolk, VA-based Navy destroyer inadvertently fired a .50-caliber machinegun bullet into a neighboring barge in the Norfolk harbor, which penetrated the interior of the barge without injury to any crew members.
The Navy said it was an accident.
However, bin Laden is probably still chuckling at the logic of Americans.
Like the great “assault weapons” hoax that was finally passed for a 10-year period in 1994, the .50-caliber ban scheme is an attempt to split gunowners with deceit and emotion, when the reality was that the gun ban did not prevent crime. It made no one safer. And no one has been damaged by its sunset.
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