Alphecca

Scary stuff. It makes me want to get myself a .50 before MA gets around to banning them, which I'm sure it will. Want to sell your Serbu? Another thing, You need the chief of police's permission to buy an f-ing bb gun in Jersy? Are you kidding me?

Like most gun laws, a solution in search of a problem.

Jeff,

Two things. First, I only partially agree with your comment "...it IS about gun control and it always will be." I would add "as a means of control over people." That is what politicians are all about these days.

Second: If you can find the "Penn and Teller" on gun control, they interview a manufacturer of rail tanker cars who scoffs at the idea that a .50 can penetrate one of his cars.

Peet

Has anyone pointed out that chemical plants and refineries tend to blow up on a depressingly frequent basis? It's a common enough hazard that they're designed for it. I used to do embedded systems for the pipeline industries and anything that was going to a chem plant or refinery had to be made / programmed with explosions in mind. Mostly to avoid causing them, of course, but also to survive them when they seemingly inevitably happened.

I'll bet if you check the papers that NJ has had at least one 'incident' in the past six months - probably more than that if you could get the details but at least one that got mentioned, albeit on page B-6.

And I can think of a scenario where you could hit a plane in flight with a rifle shot without relying on pure luck. You'd have to be on the centerline of the runway (not necessarily the runway itself, just lined up with it and close by) and tag it just before landing / just after takeoff. Don't think you could do much to a plane taking off that they'd even notice except pop a round through the passenger compartment and scare the folks nearby, but maybe a shot into the cockpit during landing would be enough to cause an 'incident'. Of course if it did you'd be laying right in the path of said incident...

If you really wanted to disrupt commercial air travel you'd be much better off by just being the TSA.

Was that at a range of 11/2 miles, or 1 and 1/2 miles, for this .50 rifle?

Because 11/2=5.5 miles, which would be far beyond line-of-sight for a person standing on a level plain.

Just one more small thing to question in this large, questionable piece.

Can't a .308 penetrate all of those things (tanker cars, petroleum storage containers, police armor vests [minus ceramic plates, or with a few rounds so that the first ones will break the plate, as I understand the process works])?

And if the .50BMG is banned, won't people just put the same weight and powder charge behind a new cartridge based off the .50BMG brass, with a slightly less wide bullet (say a .490"", and thus get around the Evil .50" Ban?

Well, yes, of course they will, but don't bother telling a lawmaker that.

Or that nobody, as far as we know, has ever used a .50BMG in any sort of criminal activity, or that actual terrorists are far more likely to use bombs or RPGs, rather than buying ridiculously expensive .50 bolt action rifles in the US?

I mean, it's not like our borders are so secure it'd be difficult for a terrorist organisation to smuggle in a few RPG-7s. Or acquire/create some high explosives here in the US. And both of those are FAR more dangerous than a .50BMG.

You shoot a .50 AP round into a petroleum storage container and you get... a half-inch hole that oil spurts out of.

Years back, I had an uncle that was Chief of Police in Bayonne.

I can tell you for a fact that he was dead set against civilians having/owning/using weapons of any kind.

Glad I didn't/don't live there.

"This is not a weapon that any sportsman or gun enthusiast needs," said Gregory Paw, director of the Division of Criminal Justice in the Attorney General's office, who said he became familiar with the .50-caliber's power while on an 11-month tour of duty in Iraq two years ago."

Didn't this guy have to take an oath to uphold the Constitution? It's really too bad they don't hang these kind of politicians for treason...

No honest politician needs such publicity...

NJ has been overrun by our enemies, and is lost.

Don't these poeple realize that bullet proof vests really are not bullet proof angainst all things.Besides having worked in law enforcement I always lead to the next question. Even if a bullet proof vest did stop everything. What stops some one from shootting you in the head!!!!Besides this is just an excuse for some one in polotics to think there doing something that matters. Apperently they forget about the bigger issues like the fact that NJ my state is bankrupt. Inpart because of wasting there time with trivial bills such as this. Who cares about paying there teachers and even there cops or better yet worried about paying the poeple that actually run there state. Im not talking about the poloticians ....Im talking about the poeple that really make a difference in New Jersey...