Is the use of the Browning M2 HB machin gun on personnel against the Geneva Convention?
I’ve heard that it is and that it isn’t. Mostly that it is, but noone can present me with documentation to support the statement. It seems ridiculous to me since the military employs the Barret Light .50 sniper rifle of the same caliber on personnel.
I highly doubt that this restriction exists, but this idea has permiated the military to such an extent that is almost taken as gospel. Can anyone find any info on this?
I suppose that some people could interpret “excessively injurious” to mean automatic weapons, but the Protocols that are stipulated are having to do with mines, incendiaries, and (I’m assuming) nuclear weapons and/or biological weapons, not “guns” as such.
How could the Geneva Convention be “against” automatic weapons, anyway? Isn’t that what Uzis and AK-47s are? They aren’t prohibited, are they?
A quick search turned up a couple of websites, of not subtle agenda, that make the claim, but provide no supporting references. The Geneva Conventions apparently do prohibit the use of expanding rounds, but nothing I found supported the idea that .50 caliber machine guns are “banned” weapons.
It doesn’t make much sense to prohibit the use of .50 caliber weapons and leave it legit to use 20 mm and 40 mm miniguns on personell. To say nothing of lobbing 105 mm HE at 'em.
It’s a military legend that just won’t die; I’ve heard the stories about ‘if anyone asks, you were shooting to destroy their uniforms and not trying to hit the men’, but there’s no backing for the idea that using an M2 on soldiers is in violation of any of the conventions. None of the websites that make that claim can actually point to any part of the convention, and there aren’t any cases of fromal complaints like that being taken seriously by any country.
For that matter, the old saw about shotguns being against international law doesn’t have any merit either - they’re obviously not a preferred battlefield weapon, but they are used in some situations (guarding prisoners and trench fighting to name two). No one making the claim is able to point to a part of the convention forbidding their use, and again there’s no outcry over shotguns being used by the military.
barret .50 cal is used as an anti material rifle. ie against cars rather than people. it would do some serious damage if used against someone, sheesh, doesnt bare thinking about!!
JHP (Jacketed Hollow Point) rounds are rounds which were developed to expand when they came into contact with resistance ie. a person. the reason, to cause excessive damage to tissue, to increase the possibility of the bad guy not getting back up again, however these have been banned for army use cos they are basically too nasty to use against even the worst scum of the earth. they are, however allowed to be used by counter terrorism forces
Now I had heard that the fact that these rounds expand on impact make them more desirable for police or counterterrorist forces operating in an urban environemnt. The idea being that a FMJ round will rip nicely through the target, the wall behind him, a school, etc whereas a JHP will expand and basically get stuck in the wall (thus making it deadlier to the terrorist/criminal but safer for the neighbors). Is there any truth to this? cause it sounds reasonable.
The title of the movie “Full Metal Jacket” came from the rounds allowed by the Geneva Conventions. So-called Dum-Dums are illegal in wafare, in that they expand upon impact.
It is not the weapon that is banned, but the ammunition. 50-caliber unjacketed ammo would be banned, but jacketed would not be.
If I remember my History Channel right, the Browning 50 caliber machine gun was designed originally as an anti-tank weapon about the end of World War I. The American military adopted it for almost everything due to the reliability and stopping power. The placement of a 50 caliber on a tank in WW2 was originally meant as an anti-aircraft and anti-vehicle weapon - much faster to load, aim and fire than the cannon. My uncle was a tanker in WWII, and he said that they routinely used it to shoot up trucks and river barges, wooden bunkers, and dug in machine gun emplacements. The air services saw it as the better choice between the smaller, shorter range 30 caliber machine guns, and the larger, more powerful, but much slower 20 mm cannons. The 50 caliber is very heavy to carry, so the Army and Marines fit it in as supplement to the 30 caliber machine guns of World War II and Korea. I don’t think that many other nations developed their own 50 caliber weapons, although many have simply bought them from us. The original 50 caliber round was the traditional full metal jacket - a plain, old fashioned bullet. Remember that Civil War and Revolutionary War weapons were anywhere from 60 to 80 caliber standard, and they used black powder as well.
I am only slightly right in the above quote, but 99% wrong. I have two cites, one on paper, one online. The book cite is Law Among Nations: an Introduction to Public International Law, by Gerhard Von Glahn, page 591-2 covers The Hague Conference of 1907 at which was signed the Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, which included a “declaration concerning expanding bullets… projectiles and explosives dropped from balloons… diffusing gases”.
The online site, which I’ll admit looks of dubious origin, quotes the text of that declaration:
Moreover, the site says this convention was never signed by the US.
The fact that there is so little other reference available online suggests that this law is dead and irrelevant.
From everything I’ve heard about (Japanese treatment of POWs, Eastern Front atrocities in both major European Wars, etc.) rules of war, based on legal conventions or social mores or other things, are almost never followed. Germans openly used POWs to work in war industries, for example, something explicitly prohibited by the Geneva Convention. So the ‘Rules of War’ are something people on the sidelines, or losing, whine about while the winners simply ignore them.
The Barrett sniper rifle is used exclusively as an anti-equipment weapon. The round fired has far too much power and will tear any human apart. I believe the intent of the Geneva convention was to allow armies to inflict the maximum amount of casualties with a minimum of deaths. Hence, the use of FMJ bullets only and the prohibition of the Barrett as an AP weapon.
The federal government doesn’t mind me carrying hollowpoints, for use against the scum of the earth. They may, however, believe that they are too nasty for enemy soldiers.
Yes, that’s true. This also makes them desirable for self defense.
I’m nearly certain that one shot from a .50-cal, regardless of ammo type, will render you unable to get up for a significant amount of time, if not forever if you hemorrage to death or die of shock. If you are hit with an FMJ round, however, the medics and combat surgeons have a better chance of saving your life (assuming they get to you fast enough).
Humans aren’t robots: The body doesn’t take x amount of damage and keep coming until it takes y amount of damage. It feels pain, loses blood, goes into shock, and finally loses consciousness, even if it eventually lives.
The old Treaty of Moscow (with Russians, before they became Soviets) banned the use of glass or other x-ray-transparent bullets. This was later written into the one of the protocols of one of the “Geneva Conventions.”
There is no prohibition from firing the bad guys up with fifty cal.