Alphecca

The Silliness Over .50 Cal

Leon Archer is a columnist with the Valley News, an upstate New York weekly. His fine column is titled, "The Sportsman's World" and he had a smart rebuttle to the anti-.50 caliber legislators in last week's issue:

Every year, our New York State Legislature goes to work on one of its favorite wrong headed ideas—gun control. They ignore the fact that guns are already controlled in the state by numerous laws and regulations, and seek to add even more onerous and unreasonable statutes to control all us dangerous gun owners.

Honest, upstanding gun owners bear the brunt of every new piece of legislation that arises out of wrong headed thinking that had the intention of reigning in criminals.

One law that was passed by the Assembly outlaws 50-caliber rifles. The good intent was to keep terrorists from blowing up airplanes with the 50-caliber weapons. Unless I’m mistaken, it is already a felony to even shoot at an air plane with any kind firearm, but even so, these guys must have been watching too many of Hollywood’s terrorist movies.

Airplanes are not as easy to bring down with a rifle as those movies would make it appear. Even if the shooter could hit some critical part of the aircraft, which would be unlikely, it would be even more unlikely to crash. Not many shooters own a fifty caliber rifle other than black powder rifles, but those who do mostly use them in distance shooting competitions.

To illustrate how uneducated or ignorant some of our legislators are, let me quote State Senator Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat from Manhattan: "Unless you have a recipe for splattered deer soup, you’re not going to be hunting with this weapon."

In trying to be graphic and denigrating at the same time, he simply comes off the fool to anyone who knows anything about weapons.

A 50-caliber rifle bullet will not splatter a deer as much as a 12 guage slug, but because the senator is from the heart of New York City I guess he can be forgiven. He probably knows as much about guns as my three-year-old granddaughter. I’d like to see the senator out in a marsh trying to bring down ducks with a 50-caliber rifle; that would be the equivalent of trying to hit a vital spot in a jumbo jet except ducks fly a lot slower.

Oops, he couldn’t do that, because it’s illegal to shoot wildfowl with a rifle. OK, I’d like to see him try to "splatter" a deer with a 50-caliber high powered rifle. Well, what I’d really like is to see him butt out.

And remember, folks, we need to let local newspapers such as The Valley News know that we appreciate writers and columnists such as Leon Archer.