Back on point, I see the 50BMG as a special purpose cartridge somewhat related to climbing Mount McKinley. Sure you have to have *some* laws, but the activity is so daunting and expensive few would or could do it without any laws.

The original law that declared anything larger than the .50 BMG to be a destructive device was the 1968 Gun Control Act (one of the most aptly named of all the anti-civil rights legislations thus far). The .50 BMG was about 56 years old at that point. It was not and is not a new development. It had been used in places like Korea and Vietnam to take long range shots on distant targets, most famously by Carlos Hathcock. They simply were trying to outlaw calibers that were considered too large to be practical, but stopped at .50 caliber, because it was demonstrably practical and useful.

Attempting to outlaw individual cartridges has absolutely nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with pushing Liberty into a tiny box so that it can be put into a shed and forgotten about until it is thrown away during spring cleanup when no one is looking. It’s about destroying our past, not protecting our future.

Of course the .50 BMG is protected. Otherwise, I suppose we’ll all just have to settle for that ever-popular (In CA) wildcat, the .499 BMG. And so on. This isn’t about Muzzle Energies, it’s about power. State power.

A .30-06 will shoot through a cast iron engine block quite well, I assure you. And an Aluminum block? Forget about it. My Grandfather got a special medal from his unit for shooting down a Mitsubishi Zero with his Model 1903A4 Springfield at Tarawa. He later got half credit for doing the same somewhere else, but insisted it was another guy who fired at the same instant. Got the blood soaked Imperial Japanese flag to prove it. He was also awarded two Silver Stars, so it’s not like he needed to make this stuff up to impress his kids and grandkids, either.

The arguments that the .50 isn’t legitimate because it’s expensive and powerful are the same as arguments made against so-called assault rifles and pit bulls “they’re scary looking, there fore they’re dangerous”. I don’t own a .50 BMG, I think they’re stupid. But I think the .405 Winchester is stupid too, but I don’t want it outlawed, either.

The only people who want to cherry pick certain calibers to outlaw are the same people who only want to burn certain books and ban certain kinds of speech. They only want to prohibit certain kinds of religious thought, and outlaw certain kinds of cars. They only think the government should control certain businesses, and they only think that certain people should pay taxes, and I personally think these certain people should go to a certain place that is neither Heaven, nor Purgatory, but very closely resembles California.

At some point you can’t get around the fact that all small arms can be dangerous in the hands of someone wanting to kill people. You can say the same thing about matches and gasoline too.

I understand that courts have to sort what’s constitutional and what isn’t, which might necessitate lines that don’t make much sense. But I don’t much buy the notion because you can disable vehicles with it, which you can do with many other rounds that aren’t the 50BMG, that it falls out of constitutional protection.

It’s an anti-material rifle and great for shooting engines. If you take out the front and rear vehicle in a convoy of civilian vehicles, the people in the middle are stuck in the middle and easy to kill.

This is a capability that rounds like the 5.56 and 7.62 don’t offer and places the 50 BMG in a different category of weapon.

It’s an anti-material rifle and great for shooting engines. If you take out the front and rear vehicle in a convoy of civilian vehicles, the people in the middle are stuck in the middle and easy to kill.

This is a capability that rounds like the 5.56 and 7.62 don’t offer and places the 50 BMG in a deifferent category of weapon.

I still think the “in common use for a lawful purpose” statement can certainly be taken to mean “incommonly used for unlawful purposes,” as they were trying to give Miller a nod. So, as long as you can show that, say, machineguns are not commonly used in crimes (removing the State’s interest in regulating them), then how do they not pass the “in common use for a lawful purpose” test? We need to stop reffering to it as the “common use” test and start making this distinction, IMHO, otherwise it’s very easy to lose a case because of arbitrary ownership numbers.

They wanted the ability to defend themselves against oppressive government forces – not just burglars.

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. “
Thomas Jefferson