50caliberterror.com is no good.
I was researching gun laws on the internet one night and I came across this lovely website. You can view this website at www.50caliberterror.com. The idea of the website is to draw attention against the possible damage a 50 caliber rifle could do in the hands of a terrorist. The group who runs the website is dedicated to getting 50 calibers outlawed for personal use. Being a supporter of gun ownership, I thought I would take the time to write about why I don’t like this website.
For those of you not familiar with the 50 caliber rifle, the 50 caliber cartridge was developed in the early 1900s for machine gun use. Years later it has been adapted for sniper rifle use. The round itself travels at about 4 times faster than the average hunting round and delivers about 4 times the amount of energy. It is a very powerful round and outside military use, it is not very practical. That is to say if you shot a deer with this gun it would probably blow it in half and ruin a lot of good meat.
“Why should we be spending billions of dollars on homeland security when a terrorist can buy a sniper rifle that can shoot armor piercing bullets up to 2000 yards with great accuracy?” - 50caliberterror
The main argument made by the people at 50caliberterror is the possibility that a terrorist could acquire one of these weapons and use it to do harm against us. Because of this, the weapon itself should be banned from personal use. I have lots of problems with this argument. Terrorists could use airplanes to do harm against us. Oh wait, they already did that. There is no movement to ban airplanes though, thankfully. It makes me wonder why these people are focusing on the .50 caliber round. There are more powerful guns out there available to the public. There is the .577 T-rex and the .700 nitro express.
The people that run the website have done extensive research and they were able to find about 25 cases in which the 50 caliber rifle was “involved” in crime. I put involved in quotes because about 75% of the cases they found were of authorities finding a 50 caliber rifle when they did a raid. They just found the gun and it was never actually used for crime. The rest of the cases they found were pretty bizarre. There was the case when a guy in Colorado went crazy and drove a bulldozer into a building. The guy attached a 50 caliber to his bulldozer but never got around to firing it. Out of all the cases they could dig up, they couldn’t come up with a single case in which someone was killed by a 50 caliber in the USA.
What I am getting at is there is no evidence, in crime records, to support that the 50 caliber is any threat in the hands of private owners. The only people that buy 50 calibers are gun connoisseurs. A good 50 caliber rifle is going to run around $3,000. The average Joe isn’t going to want one of these weapons because it doesn’t have a practical use. So why would someone buy it? It’s the same reason someone would buy a car that can do over 200mph. People like to collect things and own things that go beyond common convention. People who own 50 calibers are passionate about guns. They enjoy going to the range and firing a round that can travel over a mile.
Why is 50caliberterror picking on this round and not the other more common rounds? The 50 caliber rifle is an easy target because of its power. They have to start somewhere, why not the 50 caliber? Their ultimate goal, undoubtedly, is to ban guns from all private ownership. It’s just as easy for a terrorist to acquire an RPG as it is to acquire a 50 caliber rifle. If you outlawed the 50 caliber in the USA, a terrorist could still acquire one through the black market very easily. Let 50 caliber owners have their fun. The only people being killed by the 50 caliber right now are terrorists by our elite 50 caliber sniper teams.
What I would like to know is what actions are the people at 50caliberterror taking to outlaw the gun that the joker used to shoot down the bat plane.
If it can shoot down the bat plane, imagine the damage it could do in the hands of a terrorist.