Fifty-Caliber Fearmongering

Mentioning DPMS in my last post got me thinking about the .50 BMG (since at least one rifle manufacturer uses DPMS uppers in their .50 BMG rifles), and how I had promised in yet another post to share my thoughts on all the fearmongering the Prozac-popping moonbat left likes to squeeze out of the intellectual equivalent of their large intestines.

However, in the interests of maintaining a "kinder, gentler" compassionate conservatism, I will try my best to further use such epithets as "moron," "miscreant," "imbecile," "ignoramus" and the like. Admittedly it is rather hard to avoid calling them on their cranial capacity on this matter, which tends to be on par with a small soap dish.

So, without further ado...my reactions on Leftist, ah, "scholarship?" on matters concerning a very respectable rifle cartridge and the platforms used to deliver it.

Three of the more prominent sites on the web that lament the (accurately reported) power of the BMG and wring their hands over the potential dangers it can cause (people, this is the same paranoia that drove them to their shrinks when Kerry lost the '04 elections) are, naturally, the Brady Bunch, 50 Calibers Make Me Crap My Pants, and the Violated Policy Center.

Did I just break my promise to be less disparaging? Oh, I am sorry.

50 Calibers Incite My Weak Bladder (part of the Wuss Union) and the Bradys (as well as a nice little piece of propaganda the VPC put out) likes to take the "anti-aircraft role" of the .50 and blow it way out of proportion.

In the midst of all this dark fantasy, they fail to mention one thing:

In the 20-something years that BMG rifles have been in existence, not a single U.S. aircraft has been shot down.

But! There's the POTENTIAL! Yeah, and the auto industry has the potential to wipe out the U.S. population in days. Not everyone owns a Barrett, nor wants to own one (I like 'em, myself, but I cannot justify the cost of owning one myself right now), but just about every family in the U.S. owns a car. And that piece of equipment has a far worse track record than a .50.

I wonder how often these people have to change their Depends throughout the day, worrying about dangers that don't materialize?

But wait! There's terrorist and criminal elements using these rifles in other applications!

Now here, they seem to have more stuff to present. Like a .50 that was illegally smuggled out of the U.S. to be used by the IRA against British soldiers. Or the seven conspirators with a pair of .50s arrested in the Carribbean for a plot involving the assassination of Fidel Castro (now, who would really complain about that?)

But, no acts of terrorism committed with a .50 on U.S. soil to date so far. Time to change your diaper again, lefties?

Aha! They might say. There was Waco!

.50s were reported to have been fired at BATF agents during the Waco siege. We all remembered what happened there. Go rent out "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" and learn for yourself a lot of the things the mainstream media didn't report about that debacle. It leads me to conclude that if, in fact, BMG rifles were fired at the BATF, it was done in self-defense.

The Bradys like to point out the "connections with terrorism" that .50s might have had, like some seized from an extremist militia when a bomb plot was foiled. But no .50 shots fired.

In fact, neither the Bradys nor 50 Calibers Vent My Colon bother to point out any shooting crimes committed with a .50 BMG.

VPC does. In scouring reports from 1989 to 2005, guess how many crimes involving the firing of a .50 BMG they managed to find?

1,000 or so?

100 or so?

How about 10?

Try three. In twenty-odd years of BMG rifles, this is the devastating number of crimes that justifies further infringing 2A rights.

192 million arms in this country, probably less than 10,000 Barretts in civilian ownership. Only three actually used in a crime. That amounts to a huge waste of special-interest money and energy for an extremely tiny minority.

But, as I've inferred before, lefties love waste. History has demonstrated that often enough.