Does anyone believe that banning .50 caliber rifles will reduce crime?

Great Debates
1

So you may or may not have heard that the California assembly has passed a bill that would criminalize the owernship of .50 caliber rifles or ammunition:

http://www.fcspi.org/

This is silly for a lot of reasons, some of which are given here:

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2712

And some more are given here, though I’m certanly not claiming it’s an unbiased source:

http://www.barrettrifles.com/news_power.html

I think these source are slightly inaccurate in one respect - they claim that nobody has ever been killed in the US by a .50 cal rifle. If I remember correctly, I once heard someone say that after a very extensive search, they had found that there were actually 3 crimes, one of which involved a death, in the US in the last 50 years in which a .50 caliber rifle was used.

People certanly HAVE been killed in wartime, in other countries by .50 caliber rifles. Or more commonly, by .50 caliber machine guns. Of course, thousands of times more have been killed by .30 caliber rifles and machine guns, since that’s what most armies of the world arm the vast majority of their soldiers with. But I haven’t seen these .50 cal ban people advocating bans on .308 Winchester rifles or ammunition, which is what the vast majority of military snipers use.

Okay, so what’s my point and what’s the debate?

My point is that, although all firearms are inherently dangerous, the 50 caliber rifle is about as safe as a firearm can get, with 3 uses in crime and one death in the last 50 years. Need I state the obvious that plastic buckets caused more accidental deaths due to drowning in the last year than 50 caliber rifles have in the last 50 years?

The debate is, why bother to ban these things? Seems like the people behind the bans are just banning something because they don’t like it. By that logic can we ban country music? I mean, I don’t like country music. Look, if you want to put a dent in crime, BAN HANDGUNS! Criminals LOVE those! But criminals seem to absolutely loathe .50 cal rifles.
BTW, I apologize in advance for starting another @#$%ing stupid gun control thread. :stuck_out_tongue:
-Ben

2

Divide and conquer. High caliber target rifle shooters are enough of fringe group in the world of gun owners. Since not many people can relate personally, they don’t really care. So they chip gun ownership off with specific bans, by lying to scare up some hysteria, and counting on there not being enough support for a fringe group.

Same thing they did with “assault weapons”, and several other things.

It’s not meant to accomplish anything practical - their goal is the entire elimination of legally held guns, and they’re going about it in an entirely practical way. They can’t ban .308 rifles, or they would. They picked a group that doesn’t have much support, and can be easy about to lie and create hysteria.

(I’ve heard that these things can penetrate tanks from a mile away - I’m not even kidding you. Even with the most armor piercing ammo, baby killing, rain forest burning ammo you could find, at point blank range, it can penetrate about 30-35mm of steel. Modern tanks have armor plating that’s roughly equivelant to 1500mm or better of steel.)

Legal gun ownership will continue to be eroded in this fashion - divide and conquer one subset of firearms and/or firearms enthusiasts at a time.

3

Personally, I have difficulty envisioning a firearm less likely to be used in a crime.

A cheap .50 is $1,500, and a small one is three feet long and weighs seventeen pounds. All that I can think of, save the Barretts, are single shots.

Few are available in any real numbers due to the fact they’re essentially hand made, and (again other then the Barretts which have a military contract) in fairly low demand.

Sorry, call me biased, but this legislation is pure anti-gunning for the sake of anti-gunning, at it’s best.

4

They’re not lying. Them badboys will sail right through a gas tank. Or a propane tank. Or a fish tank.

More accurately, they could say they were referring to the old Sheridans, which a .50 will perforate rather handily.

5

Another example of stupid feel-good legislation from the home of stupid feel-good legislation. Add to the large starting costs of the .50 the $1.00 (cheap milsurp) to $5.00 per round, and I don’t think too many hoodlums are going to be using these.

SOCOM is starting to phase-in the .416 Cheytac. Are the congressfools of California going to ban this round as well? Goes farther, hits harder, but it isn’t a evil .50.

They can have my AR-50 when they pry it…oh, you know the rest.

6

Well, we all know where this will go. Anti-gun people will come in saying “There is no slippery slope! Don’t even imply that there is one! Rather, these weapons must go because there is no good purpose for them!”

There is a “slippery slope”, by whatever you call it, for the types of firearms which can be owned. And barring the increase in the number of “shall issue” concealed carry States through the 1990’s, a slippery slope in firearms usage regulation in general.

I’ve not seen a cite for anyone killed, or even injured, with these hyper-expensive specialty weapons. They’re impractical for criminals to use, impossible to conceal, too expensive to shoot, and too heavy and large to carry conveniently.

Allowing the banning of a rifle because it is “too large” leads to a very scary precedent. Then it becomes:

“What about those Weatherby .460s? You know, those so-called ‘Elephant guns’? Well, folks, last time I checked there weren’t any elephants roaming the woods of California. Just to be safe, better make owning one a Class A Felony worth 20 years in prison…”

Then, when all you have left are .30-calibre and smaller weapons, you classify them as mythical “sniper rifles”:

“A 30-caliber weapon? Well folks, I may be a simple person, but I saw soldiers on TV using these 30-caliber weapons to shoot down aircraft. I don’t know about you, but allowing people to shoot down aircraft just ain’t sense…”

Then, of course, we all know about the evil .223 round:

“You must, I say, you must be joshing me! You mean people can buy rifles in the same size that our murdering occupation for-errr…the US military (I support the troops!) use to slaughter those gentle, peaceful al-Queda…errr…I mean 'evil terrorist scum? Well, that can’t be right. There are no al-Queda members in California! OK, OK, not including Berkeley…” :wink:

Finally, when left with .22 rifles:

“There’s a reason these guns and ammunition are so cheap - they are ‘junk rifles’. ‘Throw-away rifles’. Well, folks, I intend by this bill I introduce today to throw them all away!”

7

I imagine that certain folks will be along shortly with a far-fetched explanation of how a .50 ban might be beneficial and demanding proof that the explanation doesn’t hold water.

In any event, I would add that “divide and conquer” aside, one of the driving forces behind these silly laws is that (IMHO) anti-gun organizations and politicians want to look good to their constituents.

8

Oh, the dreaded slippery slope. If we take away bazookas today, then tomorrow we go after the duck hunting shotgun. Yep, you’ve got us figured out all right. Makes about as much sense as reading one half of the Second Amendment.

9

And reading the Second Amendment without having researched the context, intent, contemporary writings of the “founding fathers”, original drafts of the language, and so forth would be ignorant. But this has been debated ad nauseum here on this Board, and I’ve presented thousands of words of arguments and cites to support a the pro-gun interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, and explained in detail the odd language of it. As the Search engine is there and available for use, I’m not going to repeat it unless a new argument comes into play, everything said before still stands.

10

Fortunately, the courts have not bought into the NRA’s myopic reading of the Second Amendment.

11

So tell me:

If you were dedicated to the elimination of all legally owned fireams, but realized a total ban was impractical at this time, what would you do to realize your goal?

So long as there are many people out their who’s primary goal in life is the elimination of all legal gun ownership, then there IS a slippery slope. If they wish to take everything from us, every compromise brings them one step closer.

To say that the slippery slope in this case is a fallacy is to flat out ignore this. The ‘slope’ is created by the will to strive for the elimination of firearms - the ‘slippery’ part is the fact that when you continually compromise with someone or some group who won’t stop until they have everything, you will end up with nothing in the end.

And you haven’t responded to the topic at hand.

12

I assume the resident gun fans equally outraged over state prohibitions on switchblades and brass knuckles, right?

13

Personally, I find this law to be just plain silly. I support the Second Amendment. You can have any guns you want for hunting and the like. And as fair as I can tell, that’s the only thing these .50 caliber guns are used for. Big game like moose. These guns don’t kill people. Or one in the last 50 years.

Now handguns are a different issue. Handguns kill people. Period. Nobody goes hunting with a Glock. I think there should be tougher restrictions on these. We have over 10,000 deaths from gun violence in this country per year. Something has to be done about that. And banning .50 caliber rifles will not help.

14

could you kindly explain how bazookas have anything to do with target rifles? thanks.

15

Actually, Tyler, the number of deaths from firearms may be around the 10,000 mark (a little higher, I think), but about 60% of those will be suicides, if the CDC’s National Inst. of Healt Stats. numbers track with those since 1997.

And if a person really wants to commit suicide, access to a firearm has little impact on the final outcome. “Transferrance of method,” and all that.

Generally: what’s really sad (aside from MSU’s strawman argument) is that myopic gun owners will let the “divide and conquer” strategy prevail, along with the general level of ignorance amongst the general population about gun control laws.

I recently had a converstaion with a woman who approved of renewing and expanding the assault weapons ban because she thought that fully automatic weapons should be illegal.

When I expalined to her the National Firearms Act (1934), The Gun Control Act (1968), and others, she didn’t believe me, until she went and looked it up.

Then she couldn’t believe the unmitigated chutzpah of Congress and how come gun owners haven’t started shooting politicians and judges in job-lots. :rolleyes:

There’s nothing like the zeal of the recently converted to almost any cause.

16

SenorBeef, you present me with a false question. I am NOT dedicated to the elimination of all legally owned firearms. To assume that every person who wants to ban ANY gun has as his ultimate objective the banning of ALL guns makes as much sense as a spinster assuming that any man who wants to kiss her good night has intercourse as his ultimate objecive. Under this logic, you would advocate the private ownership of nuclear weapons because to ban those means the next step would be to ban private ownership of howitzers, then grenade launchers and bazookas, then machine guns, then rifles and shotguns, then handguns, then later spitwads and rubber bands.

17

Probably not, unless there’s a group of people that goes deer hunting with brass knuckles.

18

I sit corrected. However, the statistics are still higher than most developed countries. Even by percentage of people and guns per person. We are a funny country when it comes to guns.

I think we should go back to using swords and bows. Those took some skill if you wanted to kill somebody. And with a sword, you’d have to look them in the eyes as they die.

19

ExTank, the slippery slope IS the strawman.

If you want to look at gun death statistics, why not compare the US and the UK or Canada or Japan? Countries with sane gun control have lower gun murder rates.

20

I didn’t mean to imply that you necesarily were dedicated to it. But there are fairly large, well funded groups that are.

Out of curiosity, do you support the right of the KKK to assemble and speak freely? If so, how would you feel about a ban? In itself, since they only say hateful things, it seems like a good idea - but it would set a precedent about the limits of free speech that would have negative future effects, and it’s worth fighting for their right to speak.

Now, with freedom of speech, there are no large, well funded groups dedicated to the irradication of the right to free speech. Factor that in, as well as a stated willingness to persue any incremental strategy necesary to practically accomplish the goal of the elimination of legally owned firearms, and perhaps that will help you to appreciate the slippery slope at hand.

Or perhaps not.