SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI
New member
Found this gem on the 50 BMG from a college newspaper. Note the exaggeration and hysteria:
COLUMN: Lawmakers should outlaw military rifles
Updated: Thu, Jun 21 12:00 PM EDT
By Jason Bennyhoff
The Battalion
Texas A&M U.
(U-WIRE) COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- A recent article in Rolling Stone reported an entire subculture of Americans dedicated to sniping and the use of ultra, high-powered, military firearms. In the story, backwoods frontiersmen posing as normal people, take out their adolescent aggression by discharging powerful firearms, evidently for "fun."
They lie on hillsides, peppering steel targets with bullets from nearly a mile away. Among the weapons, they use are the Armalite AR-50 and the EDM Windrunner, both .50-caliber sniper rifles manufactured to kill people and pierce armored vehicles from thousands of yards away. And to do this, they did no more paperwork than an 18-year-old buying a pellet gun at a local sports store. The scary thing is that the story is true, and the weapons of near mass destruction these men use are legal.
A number of lawmakers, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., are working to change that, however. These legislators are promoting a bill that would reclassify these behemoth rifles for military use only, making them nearly impossible for an average citizen to buy. Inevitably, this effort will produce a backlash from conservative gun lovers. Nonetheless, these guns must be banned for the safety of the public.
Gun advocates, including John Burtt, chairman of the Fifty Caliber Shooters Association, say there is no reason to criminalize the use of these weapons. Burtt states, correctly, that there is no record of a .50-caliber sniper rifle, such as the Windrunner, being used in a crime. However, there was a time when there was no record of an assault rifle being used in a crime.
Once upon a time, it was legal to buy and own a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) -- this turned out to be a mistake police departments the across the nation would live to lament. After the invention of the gun, gangsters realized its potential uses, and some of the most colorful characters of the era, including Bonnie and Clyde, used them against police. Granted, large sniper rifles weigh between 25 and 40 pounds, making them much heavier than a BAR, and they fire far slower. However, these facts make it less likely they will be used in an armed robbery and more likely they will be used by a lunatic at the top of a college bell tower.
Charles Whitman did not have a .50-caliber rifle to shoot during his infamous rampage in Austin. He could only shoot passersby with ease, not armored car drivers. But he also did not have an automatic weapon. Whitman used precise shooting with bolt-action, hunting rifles for the majority of his killing. One only can imagine the destruction he could have wreaked had he been using a rifle designed to shoot straight through a brick wall rather than simply fell a deer in the forest.
One would assume that the Brady Bill would have outlawed weapons such as these, but instead it applies only to assault weapons -- what the bill defines in part as "weapons not operated by lever, bolt, slide or pump." Hence, these large bolt-action rifles are exempt from the bill.
Considering the controversy that surrounded the Brady Bill, it is unlikely that this latest measure to restrict firearms will pass, especially with a Republican in the country's highest office. America can only sit and wait, hoping that the .50-caliber's unblemished crime record stays that way.
COLUMN: Lawmakers should outlaw military rifles
Updated: Thu, Jun 21 12:00 PM EDT
By Jason Bennyhoff
The Battalion
Texas A&M U.
(U-WIRE) COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- A recent article in Rolling Stone reported an entire subculture of Americans dedicated to sniping and the use of ultra, high-powered, military firearms. In the story, backwoods frontiersmen posing as normal people, take out their adolescent aggression by discharging powerful firearms, evidently for "fun."
They lie on hillsides, peppering steel targets with bullets from nearly a mile away. Among the weapons, they use are the Armalite AR-50 and the EDM Windrunner, both .50-caliber sniper rifles manufactured to kill people and pierce armored vehicles from thousands of yards away. And to do this, they did no more paperwork than an 18-year-old buying a pellet gun at a local sports store. The scary thing is that the story is true, and the weapons of near mass destruction these men use are legal.
A number of lawmakers, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., are working to change that, however. These legislators are promoting a bill that would reclassify these behemoth rifles for military use only, making them nearly impossible for an average citizen to buy. Inevitably, this effort will produce a backlash from conservative gun lovers. Nonetheless, these guns must be banned for the safety of the public.
Gun advocates, including John Burtt, chairman of the Fifty Caliber Shooters Association, say there is no reason to criminalize the use of these weapons. Burtt states, correctly, that there is no record of a .50-caliber sniper rifle, such as the Windrunner, being used in a crime. However, there was a time when there was no record of an assault rifle being used in a crime.
Once upon a time, it was legal to buy and own a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) -- this turned out to be a mistake police departments the across the nation would live to lament. After the invention of the gun, gangsters realized its potential uses, and some of the most colorful characters of the era, including Bonnie and Clyde, used them against police. Granted, large sniper rifles weigh between 25 and 40 pounds, making them much heavier than a BAR, and they fire far slower. However, these facts make it less likely they will be used in an armed robbery and more likely they will be used by a lunatic at the top of a college bell tower.
Charles Whitman did not have a .50-caliber rifle to shoot during his infamous rampage in Austin. He could only shoot passersby with ease, not armored car drivers. But he also did not have an automatic weapon. Whitman used precise shooting with bolt-action, hunting rifles for the majority of his killing. One only can imagine the destruction he could have wreaked had he been using a rifle designed to shoot straight through a brick wall rather than simply fell a deer in the forest.
One would assume that the Brady Bill would have outlawed weapons such as these, but instead it applies only to assault weapons -- what the bill defines in part as "weapons not operated by lever, bolt, slide or pump." Hence, these large bolt-action rifles are exempt from the bill.
Considering the controversy that surrounded the Brady Bill, it is unlikely that this latest measure to restrict firearms will pass, especially with a Republican in the country's highest office. America can only sit and wait, hoping that the .50-caliber's unblemished crime record stays that way.
