Well, it seems in my home state, California, .50 Caliber rifles can no longer be sold. (If you already own one, you can keep it after registering it, but that was a little too much to put in the thread title.)
Now, this isn’t .50 caliber machine guns and assault weapons, which are already banned—or at least tightly controlled, as I remember. (And are excluded from this new ban.) And .50 Action Express pistol rounds are, as far as I know, not covered by this particular ban. (To say nothing of .50 muzzleloaders.)
Now, I just wonder…what the hell good is this law supposed to do, for? Stop all the murders commited with $5000 rifles fired from two miles away? Force potential terrorists to actually drive to another state to legally buy a weapon to use in slightly illegal terrorist attacks?
Because Californians are immune to .338 Lapua or .406 Cheytac? Yet another stupid feel-good law from the people that seem to be masters of stupid feel-good laws.
Far be it to me to get involved in the regularly scheduled SDMB American gun regs flamefest, but I have to say that I’m surprised the things were legal to begin with. I’ve seen the thing, I’ve spoken to guys who’ve used it, and believe me - the weapon’s not a rifle, it’s field artillary. The damn thing can go through a concrete wall - or a BMP - like it was butter. If you legalize the 0.50" you might as well legalize the RPG-7, because both basically carry the same punch.
I’ve never lived in a California [sub]thank God[/sub], so I don’t really know. How does one “keep registering” a firearm? Fill out a form every year through the mail?
Also, supposing I do end up having to move to California. Do I have to register them even though I never bought them there?
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What a fuckin’ rediculous system. As if registering firearms would prevent them from being used illegally. :rolleyes:
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Tripler
Oh, and this is the pit: Fuck banning the .50.
Yeah, well this ought to stop them Hatfields & McCoys from feuding. Them firing them musketballs all over God’s creation. And that dang blasted rapid 2 shot-a-minute muzzleloaders. What’s that? Wrong state you say? Wrong century? Hmmm…
Ya, it’s stupid. But if the BMG .50 is banned, is the “new and improved” BMG .496?
Wink wink, nudge nudge. They have specifically banned BMG rifles that fire a very specific round. THe casing and projectile are the qualifiers AFAIK, and it’s dimensions are the deciding factor.
Shouldn’t be long until a new cartridge and projectile are invented.
Introducing our newest model the BMG .49999 caliber rifle! Almost as great as the (now outlawed) .50 caliber original, except 50 state legal! Are you stuck owning an illegal weapon? Trade in your old .50 cal version and we’ll give you a new high-magnification scope FREE !
Offer void where prohibited, not available in the UK, conditions apply, blah, blah, blah, more legal stuff.
Ever seen an animal called a grizzly bear? How about a cape buffalo? A musk ox? An ill-tempered sea-bass with frickin’ laser beams (just kidding)? Dangerous animals are just that, dangerous. Hunting them with a .22 would be grounds for a Darwin award. That and big guns are cool and a lot of fun to shoot.
Anyone who has ever shot a gun knows that guns are fun to shoot. I think half the reason Certain People want to ban them is not to keep people from getting killed, but to keep people from having fun…
I guess California ran out of real problems to solve. Must be nice.
How many murders, exactly, were committed in California with 0.50 BMGs? My sources say that there has never been a single murder committed with one in the entire US, but I could be wrong, as my source is dated mid-year 2003.
Historically speaking, soccer matches lead to the deaths of far more people than civilian BMG owners ever have. So I guess we should ban those too. Makes sense. Gottaprotectthechildrenpleasesavethechildrenohnonono! :rolleyes:
Those guns are so cost-prohibitive to fire it’s ridiculous. This says that it costs no less than $1.30 per round. That’s not even to mention that the .50 BMG itself, being so expensive, is limited in quantity, so you’d have a very small pool of people to search for if it were ever used in a murder (which it hasn’t ever been). It wouldn’t be hard to figure out that a .50 BMG was used in a murder (the body parts and the massive hole would give it away immediately), and people who buy these things aren’t exactly poor, so that right there limits your pool of suspects.
The allure of this weapon is its size. I mean, who among us wouldn’t find it cool to be on the shooting end of a weapon that large? It’s the equivalent of driving a Ferrari- almost completely impractical but oh so much fun.
Once again it’s a case of fear for fear’s sake. Anti-gun people thrive on fear to get this stuff passed.
Why the fuck would you want to go hunting for any of these animals? Hunting does serve a purpose in certain cases, but I haven’t heard of anywhere that’s being overrun by Grizzlies, or the dreaded musk ox.
Well, trying to correct real problems before embarking on pointless crusades designed to whup up the domestic safety feeling sure is depeche mode in the US government for the last few years, isn’t it?
I don’t know about California, but here in the Northeast 1000 yard target shooting is a popular shooting sport. The high mass, velocity, and ballistic coeffiecient of the .50 BMG round mean it’s not affected by things like crosswinds as much as other loads, and has a flatter tragectory. It’s just more accurate at long ranges.
A lot of guys use wildcats like the .30-.378 Weatherby, and believe me, you don’t want to get hit by one of those either. Not that anybody ever does.
Really? Nobody’s ever been murdered in the U.S. by a .50. Are you now claiming that nobody’s ever been murdered in a soccer riot? My, what pretty red tinted glasses you have…
They have specifically banned BMG rifles that fire a very specific round. THe casing and projectile are the qualifiers AFAIK, and it’s dimensions are the deciding factor.