Weer'd World

We’ve all seen and heard the Propaganda:

.50 Caliber Sniper Rifles capable of taking down a commercial jet. We call bullshit, the antis say we lie. Well The Duck links this interesting article.

The NYPD began fitting police helicopters with heavy machine guns to shoot down terrorist airplanes about five years ago, after intelligence surfaced that al-Qaida was considering the use of crop dusters and other small craft for attacks, a senior city law enforcement official said Monday.

But while police officers have been trained to use helicopter-mounted .50-caliber machine guns against light planes, there was no intention to take down commercial passenger jets with such weaponry, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

Now first let’s just briefly mention the stupidity of the Civilian Police force using heavy machine guns. I’m curious how NYPD might be the FIRST to know that a terrorist is doing a light-plane strike. Generally I suspect post people wouldn’t know jack until after the plane crashed. And frankly I think the FAA might be the first to get the idea. No matter who finds out, don’t break out a traffic chopper with a Ma’Deuce and a door gunner. SCRAMBLE THE FIGHTERS!

OK onto the big point. This is what we all know. .50 BMG is a BIG round, but 0.511″ (12.7mm) isn’t shit compared to an airplane. The military used some crazy M2 configurations to attempt to take down aircraft…and most militaries instead opted for the auto-cannon (generally loaded with explosive shells) to take down aircraft. And we’re not talking Boeing 777s here we’re talking little Mitsubishi planes.

A Barret M82 (The Rolls Royce of .50 Cal target/sniper rifles) only feeds from a 10 round box, vs the belt-fed M2 which will just keep shooting until you run out of ammo, or the dork beside you forgets to clip on the next belt.

Can we throw a “The Science is Settled” flag on the play now?

**UPDATE**I only briefly touched on the militarization of the NYPD (among just about every other Police force that issues black fatigues and has a SWAT team and equipment) Thirdpower does an awesome job at expanding on that, give his post a read.

I wanted to expand a bit on my tongue-in-cheek titled post to clarify that indeed I am serious.

A friend sent me this thread from Democratic Underground where a certain anti-gun troll gets berated by the leftists over there.

Of course This isn’t for no-name cellar dwellers, the Huffington post seems to have overwhelming pro-gun support in comments as well.

Of course the anti-gun blogs (all 3 of them), but outside the web also. Robb has a post out about some people attempting to resurrect the corpse if microstamping, which will be met with laughter. Same goes with all the recent attempts at sweeping bans on Assault Weapons or Magazines. Barack Obama is probably the most anti-gun president ever, given the fact that he got his political start in Chicago, and used to work for the Joyce Foundation…but the Joyce Foundation is doing all they can to pretend he ISN’T anti-gun, and certainly no matter how the President feels about guns, he hasn’t dared to make any public statements, and isn’t very forthcoming on private statements made.

The old enemies of the 2nd Amendment are circling the drain…now that doesn’t mean we should ignore them, while they’re still getting funding and politicians, even fringe ones, can publicly speak about gun control without immediate call for their resignation and the ruination of their political career. (Think somebody calling for separate washrooms for different races)

Still let’s look at the larger picture. First I’ll point out we won’t hear shit about gun control for this Presidential race, Calling for tighter restrictions as part of a campaign platform would be career suicide. Still I don’t think we’ll hear much about relaxing onerous, or pointless gun control laws.

Still we have a silent Joyce Board member in the white-house, right now a lot of people are talking about Mitt Romney, who not only authored what later became Obamacare, also made the US Assault Weapon ban permanent in Massachusetts, furthermore he was Governor of Massachusetts and saw NOTHING wrong with our current licensing and restrictions.

We also are getting a lot of press about Rick Perry, and while he is open about how he carries a handgun, and admits to killing a coyote while he’s jogging (and if you carry while Jogging, you likely carry EVERYWHERE), but as Governor of Texas, he’s been against ending campus carry, as well as ending the ban on open carry. Furthermore he’s supported the status quo of the unnecessarily elaborate CCW test in that state.

Also people have been talking about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie entering the race…he’s the Governor of New Jersey…which despite his feelings on Unions and fiscal irresponsibility, Jersey is still a horrible place for those who which to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights.

So while the main front of the antis are weakening, we still must be wary of people supporting laws that are just as stupid and pointless, as well as infringements on our natural rights.

We need to broaden our scope to push the agenda forward.