Old Dog
Member
Heavy sigh. And wasn't it Donny Deutsch (in his Ted Nugent interview) vehemently claiming there was no liberal, anti-gun bias in the media?
Saturday, November 26, 2005
A .50-caliber rifle -- and it's legal
Gun criticized as potential weapon for terrorists
By ROSE FRENCH
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- When U.S. soldiers need to penetrate a tank's armor from a mile away, they count on a weapon that evolved from garage tinkering by a former wedding photographer.
The .50-caliber rifle created by Ronnie Barrett and sold by his company, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc., is the most powerful that civilians can buy. It weighs 30 pounds and can hit targets up to 2,000 yards away with armor-piercing bullets.
That kind of power has drawn 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.
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.
For years state and federal lawmakers have sought to limit or ban the gun's sale, as California did this year.
Tom Diaz, a senior policy analyst with the Washington-based Violence Policy Center, says the guns should be more regulated and harder to buy. The gun can now be bought by anyone 18 or older who passes a background check.
"They're easier to buy than a handgun," Diaz said. "These are ideal weapons of terrorist attack."
Barrett started tinkering with the .50-caliber Browning machine gun in the early 1980s. The heavy recoil of the Browning made it nearly impossible to shoot without being solidly mounted, but Barrett's rifle reduces recoil to the point where it can be shoulder-fired, while the weapon rests on a bipod.
The majority of Barrett's sales come from military orders, for armed forces and police departments in about 50 allied countries. Every branch of the U.S. military uses the rifles, and the Department of Defense last year spent about $8 million on his firearms. The New York City Police Department recently announced it's training officers to use the rifles.
Barrett estimates about 1,000 of his rifles -- which each cost between $3,500 and $10,000 -- have been used in the 1991 Gulf War and the current war in Iraq.
The guns owned by civilians are used mostly for hunting big game and in marksmanship competitions.
Other manufacturers now make the gun, but Barrett dominates the market. He employs 80 at his 20,000-square-foot gun-making facility in Murfreesboro, about 30 miles southeast of Nashville.
He said sales are up nearly $6 million from last year.
Reports have observed the rifles have made their way to terrorists, drug cartels and survivalists.
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 any civilian use of it," King said. "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."
Saturday, November 26, 2005
A .50-caliber rifle -- and it's legal
Gun criticized as potential weapon for terrorists
By ROSE FRENCH
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- When U.S. soldiers need to penetrate a tank's armor from a mile away, they count on a weapon that evolved from garage tinkering by a former wedding photographer.
The .50-caliber rifle created by Ronnie Barrett and sold by his company, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc., is the most powerful that civilians can buy. It weighs 30 pounds and can hit targets up to 2,000 yards away with armor-piercing bullets.
That kind of power has drawn 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.
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.
For years state and federal lawmakers have sought to limit or ban the gun's sale, as California did this year.
Tom Diaz, a senior policy analyst with the Washington-based Violence Policy Center, says the guns should be more regulated and harder to buy. The gun can now be bought by anyone 18 or older who passes a background check.
"They're easier to buy than a handgun," Diaz said. "These are ideal weapons of terrorist attack."
Barrett started tinkering with the .50-caliber Browning machine gun in the early 1980s. The heavy recoil of the Browning made it nearly impossible to shoot without being solidly mounted, but Barrett's rifle reduces recoil to the point where it can be shoulder-fired, while the weapon rests on a bipod.
The majority of Barrett's sales come from military orders, for armed forces and police departments in about 50 allied countries. Every branch of the U.S. military uses the rifles, and the Department of Defense last year spent about $8 million on his firearms. The New York City Police Department recently announced it's training officers to use the rifles.
Barrett estimates about 1,000 of his rifles -- which each cost between $3,500 and $10,000 -- have been used in the 1991 Gulf War and the current war in Iraq.
The guns owned by civilians are used mostly for hunting big game and in marksmanship competitions.
Other manufacturers now make the gun, but Barrett dominates the market. He employs 80 at his 20,000-square-foot gun-making facility in Murfreesboro, about 30 miles southeast of Nashville.
He said sales are up nearly $6 million from last year.
Reports have observed the rifles have made their way to terrorists, drug cartels and survivalists.
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 any civilian use of it," King said. "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."
