Manufacturing a Gun Crisis with the Associated Press

Read this article, and you'd get the impression that there is a tank-killing, airplane-destroying rifle being bought by drug dealers, survivalists, and terrorists en masse.

It is too bad that almost all of what they write is inaccurate hyperbole.

For example:

When U.S. soldiers need to penetrate a tank's armor from a mile away, they count on a weapon that evolved from the garage tinkering of a former wedding photographer.

There is not a single tank made since early in World War Two that could be penetrated by an armor-piercing bullet from a .50 BMG. Not one. Only unarmored vehicles (which can be penetrated by literally any rifle, including a .22) and lightly-armored personnel carriers are threatened by .50 BMG rounds.

The .50-caliber rifle created by Ronnie Barrett and sold by his company, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc., is the most powerful firearm civilians can buy.

Not quite accurate. While the 50. BMG is currently the most powerful centerfire rifle cartridge in wide distribution*, Barrett is far from being the only manufacturer making these rifles. They are offered by Accuracy International, Anzio Ironworks, Armalite, and more than a dozen other rifle manufacturers.

It weighs about 30 pounds and can hit targets up to 2,000 yards away with armor-piercing bullets.

This is accurate, though finding an area where you can see a target 2,000 yards away is somewhat problematic.

That kind of power has drawn a customer base of gun enthusiasts, Hollywood actors and Barrett's most loyal buyer, the U.S. military, which has been buying Barrett's rifles since the 1980s and using them in combat from the 1991 Gulf War to the present.

Also true.

But the powerful gun has drawn plenty of critics, who say the rifle could be used by terrorists to bring down commercial airliners or penetrate rail cars and storage plants holding hazardous materials.

This rifle has drawn plenty of ignorant critics, including, apparently, the Associated Press. A .50 rifle is less likely to bring down a commercial airliner than any other kind of rifle. Why?

The vast majority of .50 BMG rifles are single-shot weapons. The odds of hitting an airplane moving several hundred miles an hour with a single bullet from a 30-pound, handheld or bipod-mounted weapon are extremely remote, and the odds of a single half-inch wide bullet hitting anything of significance on an airborne aircraft verges on the impossible. (Publicola explains in exquisite detail why shooting an aircraft at range with a .50 BMG is highly improbable.)

Rail cars and storage tanks are a legitimate target for a .50 BMG rifle, but it is far easier to acquire or manufacture explosives that would cause far more damage to the targeted structure.

Tom Diaz, a senior policy analyst with the Washington-based Violence Policy Center, says the guns should be more regulated and harder to purchase.

The gun can now be bought by anyone 18 or older who passes a background check.

"They're (.50 caliber) easier to buy than a handgun," Diaz said. "These are ideal weapons of terrorist attack. Very dangerous elements gravitate toward these weapons."

Mr. Diaz, of course, is guilty of extreme hyperbole. .50 BMG-chambered weapons are not "easier to buy than a handgun" except in his fevered imagination.

The Barrett M82 pictured in the MSNBC-version of this Associated Press article retails for $7,500. Most single shot .50 BMG rifles range from $2,600 upwards. For this reason, no national sporting good stores carry this caliber of firearm, nor its ammunition, which costs $3-$5 per cartridge. It is prohibitively expensive for all but the most affluent customers. Only a tiny fraction of gun shops across the nation stock such a firearm, whereas almost all typically stock dozens to hundreds of pistols.

If 50 BMG rifles are the "ideal weapons of terrorist attack," then why hasn't a .50 rifle ever been used in a terror attack anywhere in the world? Not once have I ever heard of an incident reported where a .50 BMG rifle was used in a terror attack, not can I find any evidence of such an attack.

Nor can I find any evidence that "dangerous elements" gravitate towards such a weapon. More people have walked on water than have been assaulted with a .50 BMG rifle.

Mr. Diaz's hyperbole verges on being a bald-faced lie.

The guns are used by most civilians for hunting big game and in marksmanship competitions.

I'd be very interested to see who the Associated Press find who uses such a weapon for hunting. At roughly 30 lbs and five feet, these rifles are far too impractical for hunting purposes based upon size and weight alone. They are simply too heavy to carry afield. In addition, the .50 cartridge is not useful as a hunting round, being vastly overgunned for every big game animal on the planet.

Long-range target shooting with .50 BMG rifles, on the other hand is rapidly growing in popularity, as the existence and growing membership of the FCSA and .50 BMG-capable target ranges proves.

Joseph King, a terrorism expert at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said terrorists could use the weapon to take out a plane.

"I don't understand what good a .50-caliber is going to do you," King said. "I don't understand any civilian use of it. The only thing it's good for is for military or police application. You can't really hunt with it because it would destroy most of the meat."

This has been previously addressed. .50 BMG rifles are very unlikely to successful carry out an attack against an aircraft. While Mr. Jay may claim terrorism expertise, he seems to have gathered his firearms and aeronautical knowledge from Hollywood.

"I don't understand what good" is not a valid legal argument in this country. While not understanding a good use for something might be a reason to outlaw everything from foosball tables to the Wonderbra for Mr. King, his potential fear of Wonderbras and guns doesn't have to ruin the enjoyment of such products for everyone else.

Barrett and gun advocates say the gun's power has been exaggerated and doesn't pose a threat to citizens because the weapons are too expensive and heavy to be used by criminals.

As I've been saying...

The heavy recoil of the Browning made it nearly impossible to shoot without it being mounted on a turret, but Barrett's rifle reduces recoil to the point where it can be shoulder-fired, while the weapon rests on a bipod.

Actually, the 84-pound weight of the M2 Browning all but negated recoil, but made sturdy mounts necessary.

There are enough things in this world to worry about in this world without the Associated Press manufacturing hysterics. Don't you agree?

* The .50 BMG is not the most powerful machine gun cartridge available in a rifle as the Associated Press claims. There are at least three rifle cartridges that have more power. The 12.7mm Russian cartridge uses the same .50 bullet, but has a case length 9mm longer, and therefore can hold more powder (producing more energy, range, and penetration) than the .50 BMG.

The 14.5mm Russian and 14.5 JDJ, while made in smaller numbers and requiring a destructive device exemption, both fire a bullet substantially larger than the .50 BMG, and the 14.5 Russian cartridge generates nearly twice the muzzle energy.

Update As a former member of the British Army's Queen's Own Highlanders reminds me in the comments, A Barrett Light 50 was used by an IRA sniper team between 1992-97, and killed 11 members of the security forces during that time period with single shot attacks.

I would agree with Dave T. that these IRA sniper attacks are indeed terror attacks, they just did not happen to fit the mass casualty definition of terrorism that has become common today and was implied in the AP article.