Sangamon County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois

Anti-gunners latest boogey-man is the .50 caliber rifle.  Newly elected Senator Dan Kotowski (D-Park Ridge), a well known gun ban zealot, who was once the director of the state's gun control lobby, has introduced SB-1471 to ban them.  This gun grabber is now being paid by the poor Illinois taxpayers instead of the gun control people.  Talk about being cheap.

Many of the press releases and editorials put forth by the anti-gun lobby have many of the hallmarks of hysteria-- overheated rhetoric, distortion, omission of inconvenient facts, and appeal to authority, many of who have no expertise on gun control laws.

One of the myths put out by the anti-gun lobby is that .50 caliber rifles are the favorite weapon of terrorists.  According to Dexter Ingram's, "Facts and Figures About Terrorism", Heritage Foundation, September 14, 2001, statistically speaking, the majority of terrorist attacks are in the form of bombings (90%), kidnapping (6%), armed attack (2%), arson (1%), firebombing  (1%), and other methods (2%).  Of the "armed attacks", the most favored weapons used were fully automatic AK-47 rifles.  A commercial .50 caliber rifle can cost upwards of $10,000 each and the terrorists can buy the favored AK-47's in Pakistan for less than $200.

.50 caliber rifles are heavy (20-35 pounds), expensive (from $3,000 to $10,000 each) as is the ammunition ($2-5 per each round for military quality), impossible to conceal (typically four feet long), most are single shot (slower to reload than a hunting rifle) and impractical for terrorists activities.

A "study" by the anti-gun Violence Policy Center claiming American gunmakers sold .50 caliber rifles to terrorists was inaccurate.  The rifles in question were sold to the United States government.  The U.S. government then gave the rifles to Afghan freedom fighters to defeat the former Soviet Union.  There is no direct connection, and none of the rifles have been used in terrorists actions.

Another distortion of the truth put forth by the anti-gun crowd is that .50 caliber shooters are terrorists in training.  In fact, the average .50 caliber enthusiast is a successful businessman with an annual income of $50,000 or more -- hardly a terrorist profile.  They are law-abiding citizens who use them for target shooting, hunting, and collecting.

Throughout American history guns larger than .50 caliber have been used both by civilians and the military.  The famous Kentucky Rifle was usually .60 to .75 caliber. 

Overheated anti-gun rhetoric from anti-gun zealotss claim that .50 caliber rifles are routinely capable of piercing airline fuel tanks from a mile away.  The trouble with this overblown rhetoric is that first you have to hit the fuel tanks.  Even the most expert long distance shooters cannot hit a stationary target under perfect, windless weather conditions at such distances.  One notable exception to this was Marine Sniper Carlos Hathcock who was a well known Camp Perry target shooter before the Vietnam War.  An ill trained terrorist shooting a high-recoil .50 caliber rifle at a fast moving target - such as a 600 mph airplane has little chance of hitting the airplane let alone the fuel tank. 

Another myth is that the .50 caliber round is capable of piercing light armor at 4 miles.   The fact is that at 35 meters distance (0.5%) of the mythical distance) a .50 round will go through one inch armor plate.  As I have said before it is exceedingly difficult to hit a target, even a large one, on one shot at anything over 1200 to 1500 yards by even highly trained individuals.  The ammo is designed for a machine gun, and is generally only good for 2-3 minutes (fractions of a degree) of accuracy.  That equates to a 30-45 inch circle at 1500 yards with a perfect rifle, no wind or other conditions and a trained shooter.

It seems that Senator Dan Kotowski at a press conference hosted by him was caught telling something other than the truth about a popular brand of target rifles.  In his address, Kotowski pointed to a rifle staged as a prop for the event and described it as being a "military" weapon.  What Kotowski did not know was that Mr. Mark Westrom, President of Armalite, Inc., was in the audience.  Mr. Westrom rose to inform the attendees that his company manufactured the rifle in question, and that his company has never sold the rifle to the military.  Westrom continued by pointing out that the rifle is purchased primarily by civilian target shooters.  Westrom's revelation changed the course of the press conference to say the least.  It wasn't a good day for the rookie Senator.

My thanks to Guy Smith for the information on .50 caliber rifles in his book "Gun Facts 4.0, www.gunfacts.info.


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