.50-caliber gun ban ill-advised

times union ^ | 4 23 04 | fred lebrun

[freepatriot32]

Most sportsmen I know don't see the need to get worked up over New York State Assembly legislation that would ban the sale and ownership of a .50-caliber gun.

Understandably, since the .50 cal that comes to mind these days is the modern 50-pound, single-shot sniper's rifle our military uses on targets a mile away. Costing anywhere between $2,000 and $11,000, with ammo as hard to find as a unicorn's toenail, the .50 cal is an exotic.

Although there are high-end target shooting competitions for such guns, and they are legitimate, legal functions undeserving of governmental interference.

But I'm also here to sound an alarm for the average New York state hunter. He or she has plenty to be concerned about with Assembly bill 7039. Worried would be too strong a word, but concerned is not.

By attempting to ban a caliber and not specific weapons, the prohibition may apply to guns near and dear to your heart after all, not just the exotics.

Keep in mind that this .50-caliber ban bill was goofy to begin with, arising from the Assembly's hasty need to counter various and equally idiotic anti-terrorism bills from Gov. Pataki and the State Senate.

Assemblywoman Patricia Eddington from Patchogue, Long Island, came up with the idea. She's convinced terrorists want to carry around a 50-pound, single-shot weapon, and Speaker Sheldon Silver has even gone so far as to assert such a gun could bring down an airliner. I have found no credible evidence in support.

"Fifty-caliber guns have no legitimate purpose, and to keep them legal is supporting keeping them legal for terrorists and others," Silver told the Associated Press. This conjures the mind-boggling image of terrorists and their ilk, whatever their ilk might be, lining up at a gun shop, waiting for their Brady checks, in order to purchase a sniper gun.

Please. After speaking with Eddington I am convinced she is sincere and straight with this legislation. She was 17 years a social worker in public schools, and her motivation comes from awful discussions about kids bringing guns to school. But it is also clear to me she knows little about guns and calibers.

Although she does insist she is not anti-hunting at all. She told me her brother-in-law in Poughkeepsie deer hunts, and that's fine with her. She also said she learned that blackpowder .50-caliber guns are something different from what she has in mind, and that an amendment in her bill now excludes blackpowder guns.

But Tom King, director for the New York State Pistol and Rifle Association, one of several gun groups rightly opposed to this bill, brings up an alarming point. At the same time Assembly staffers were briefed on why the legislation should exclude blackpowder guns, it was pointed out that all shotguns of a larger bore than a .410 might be at risk under the ban.

Yet the Assembly amended the bill to exclude blackpowder guns, but not your slug-shooting 12-, 16-, or 20-gauge shotgun. Since we have deer-hunting counties like Albany and Schoharie that allow shotguns but not rifles for deer hunting, this cuts to the bull's-eye of our interests.

"I think we should be scared about that," cautions King, and he's right.

Is it intentional or simply ineptly drawn? In the end, does it matter? There's no reason to get paranoid over this, but King does remind us that going all the way back to various attempts at banning assault weapons, there's been a fever to ban semi-automatic shotguns as well. Why is mystifying, but there it is.

So why does this not rise to worry status for gunning sportsmen? Because the legislation is a one-house bill for now, and sources in the State Senate tell me it is apt to stay that way. However, now would be the ideal time to contact your senator and share those concerns.

Fred LeBrun's outdoors column is published Thursdays. To reach him, call 454-5453

[Army Air Corps]

A .45-70 will also knock you shoulder loose.

[Squantos]

Son of a peach grabbin polidiots and presstitutes still think the second is about hunting..........As that great presidential canidate Al Sharpton stated last month it's about killin enemies foreign and domestic......like seditious politicans !

Stay Safe !

[Travis McGee]

Nice pics! Hey, maybe we could put a table like that about every mile along the border, and stop the illegal invasion once and for all? Just what, 2000 or so Border Patrolmen?

[Travis McGee]

I see the problem in that picture. Your finger's on the wrong trigger. It'll never shoot that way.

[Travis McGee]

Yeah, sooner or later we're going to have to take out the domestic trash.

[Squantos]

And the funny part is that they think "we" need firearms to do it. They seem to have this false sense of security that if they sheer the sheeple of firearms they are safe to herd us into the field of their choice.

Sad day coming for such free thinking fools !....Stay safe !

[Travis McGee]

I always remember your comment to a lady security type: "Thanks for carrying my pistol for me, until I need it."

[Veracious Poet]

Seig Heil!

Ve von't let da civilians haf guns dat can stop the Riech!

[Squantos]

She still calls me Bawanah............:o)

Stay safe !....Pamwe Chete !

[Travis McGee]

Advise her she should consider carrying a backup, so that she will still be armed if TSHTF.

[7.62 x 51mm]

"? WTF ?"

Although I haven't found any .50cal BMG ammo online, my local armorer has plenty and my AR-50 BMG never wants for rounds. Nor does my Beowulf .50cal, which I can readily get from him.

The writer is a lib-dem moron with an agenda.

[TexasCowboy]

THE LIBERALS SECOND AMENDMENT:

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms [for hunting purposes only as long as said arms do not fall into the classification of assault weapons, said arms to be described as those with pistol grips and/or bayonet lugs, and as long as said arms fire a powderless projectile no larger than an English pea at a rate of fire of less than one round every quarter hour and have a muzzle velocity of less than 20 feet per second and a range of not greater than five feet, and as long as said arms will not be used to kill or injure another person, and as long as said arms are registered with the federal government which can confiscate those said arms at any time it feels these stipulations are being ignored] shall not be infringed."

[Travis McGee]

Liberals are such pitiful wretches.

[thackney]

Although I haven't found any .50cal BMG ammo online

TTI Armory Online Store - 50 BMG

[Charles Martel]

Someone should melt them all down into a peace sculpture.

Or something.

On the contrary... they *are* peace sculptures.

:-)

[7.62 x 51mm]

Thank You!

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you soooooo very much!