Officer: "Excuse me sir, is that a Barrett 50 in your pants, or are you just excited that I pulled you over??"
Posted on 11/25/2005 10:02:03 AM PST by BenLurkin
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP) -- When U.S. soldiers need to penetrate a tank's armor from a mile away, they count on a weapon that evolved from the garage tinkering of a former wedding photographer.
The .50-caliber rifle created by Ronnie Barrett and sold by his company, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc., is the most powerful firearm civilians can buy. It weighs about 30 pounds and can hit targets up to 2,000 yards away with armor-piercing bullets.
That kind of power has drawn a customer base of gun enthusiasts, Hollywood actors and Barrett's most loyal buyer, the U.S. military, which has been buying Barrett's rifles since the 1980s and using them in combat from the 1991 Gulf War to the present.
But the powerful gun has drawn plenty of critics, who say the rifle could be used by terrorists to bring down commercial airliners or penetrate rail cars and storage plants holding hazardous materials.
For years some state and federal lawmakers have sought to limit or ban the gun's sale, as California did this year.
Tom Diaz, a senior policy analyst with the Washington-based Violence Policy Center, says the guns should be more regulated and harder to purchase. The gun can now be bought by anyone 18 or older who passes a background check.
"They're (.50 caliber) easier to buy than a handgun," Diaz said. "These are ideal weapons of terrorist attack. Very dangerous elements gravitate toward these weapons."
The majority of Barrett's sales come from military orders, for armed forces and police departments in some 50 allied countries. Every branch of the U.S. military uses the rifles, and the Department of Defense last year spent about $8 million on his firearms, Barrett said.
Barrett estimates about 1,000 of his rifles - which each cost between $3,500 and $10,000 - have been used in both the 1991 Gulf War and the current war in Iraq.
The guns are used by most civilians for hunting big game and in marksmanship competitions. Civilian sales are crucial to business because military and police orders can fluctuate year to year, Barrett said.
"It's like, what does a 55-year-old man do with a Corvette? You drive it around and enjoy it," said Barrett, 51, whose customers include doctors, lawyers, movie makers and actors. "I know all the current actors who are Barrett rifle shooters, some Academy Award-winning people. But they don't publicize it. They love to play with them and have fun. Shooting is very fun."
A 1999 investigation by the U.S. General Accounting Office found the rifles were available on civilian markets with fewer restrictions than those placed on handguns. Ammunition dealers were willing to sell armor-piercing bullets even when an agent pretending to be a buyer said he wanted the ammunition for use against armored limousines or "to take a helicopter down."
Other reports have observed the rifles have made their way to terrorists, drug cartels and survivalists.
Joseph King, a terrorism expert at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said terrorists could use the weapon to take out a plane.
"I don't understand what good a .50-caliber is going to do you," King said. "I don't understand any civilian use of it. The only thing it's good for is for military or police application. You can't really hunt with it because it would destroy most of the meat."
Barrett and gun advocates say the gun's power has been exaggerated and doesn't pose a threat to citizens because the weapons are too expensive and heavy to be used by criminals.
Barrett and other gun advocacy groups heavily lobbied the state of California, the first state to pass a law making it illegal to make and sell the gun. Several other states and some federal lawmakers have introduced similar legislation.
Despite these efforts, Barrett says sales are up nearly $6 million from last year thanks to recent military and police orders.
The New York City Police Department recently announced it's training officers in its aviation unit to use the rifles, which will be on board some of the department's helicopters to intercept potential attacks from boats or airplanes. In 2002, the Army placed an order for 4,200 of the guns, Barrett said.
Other manufacturers now make the gun, but Barrett dominates the market.
In the next few years, he said he plans to more than double the current number of employees, 80, and the size of his 20,000-square-foot gun-making facility located in Murfreesboro, about 30 miles southeast of Nashville.
A lifelong gun enthusiast, Barrett never went to college and worked as a commercial photographer and reserve deputy for years before he started tinkering with the .50-caliber Browning Machine Gun in the early 1980s.
The heavy recoil of the Browning made it nearly impossible to shoot without it being mounted on a turret, but Barrett's rifle reduces recoil to the point where it can be shoulder-fired, while the weapon rests on a bipod.
Barrett says he was nearly $1.5 million in debt at one point trying to get the business on its feet. He sold his first guns to the military in the late 1980s and the long-range weapons gained popularity after they were used to attack Iraqi tanks in the 1991 war.
Barrett's son, Chris, who works with his sister at their father's business, said he watched his dad build the gun in the family garage and is not surprised by the growth and success of his father's business.
"He's worked hard all his life. I think he would do as well at anything he pursued," Chris Barrett said. "He's not one of these big suits, a CEO at the top of one these big money machines. He's not one to back down. He can make anything work, no matter what he's doing."
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Nope! Not a chance. Even if all the rifles were scoped. The dynamics of target velocity, altitude, winds aloft, projectile velocity, projectile profile, etc, all conspire to miss the target. I could go on but even a thousand rifles do not raise the odds of a hit up to 1:1. It is obvious that these "critics" have never hunted desert dove or Canadian Geese on the wing with a 12ga., or they would know the impossibility of hitting an aircraft either close and fast or high and slow.
What I find to be curious about these critics is that they also tend to be against the US having an Anti-Ballistic Missile system based on the issues of "accuracy" and cost.
It would be fascinating to see a first draft of this story before the editors got hold of it. Somehow, I suspect this started out as a profile of Barrett and his rifles, but became aa bigger anti-gun screed with each revision.
Just in general, reducing recoil is a process of "spreading" the rearward recoil impulse, which is only measured in milliseconds duration to some longer period of time by the ingenious use of springs, pads, fluidic damping, etc.
Presumably some of these techniques are used here with this slug-thrower. I once (only) fired a large caliber rifle (maybve it was something like a .458) and I did not want to fire it again.
Ain't fer hunting deer, nor even elephants. They're fer hunting tyrants.
They're militia weapons, as defined by the Surpeme Court in the Miller decision of 1939.
--I don't know where you would have to go to see it but Barrett used to have a simulator at gunshows to demonstrate the recoil of the typical Barrett rifle--
The militia serves both a military and police function, in the latter role it is known as the posse commitatus
---yes--the Barrett is a lot easier to shoot than a Ruger #1 African .458---
--sounds about like the typical "expert"--wonder what else he knows that he doesn't really know --
I would love to see the complete list of shooting toys the Hollywood folks own. They can and do buy anything that is fun. I bet they could put together a small army. Of course, they would be against US owning them.
Probably depends on how loosely one defines a tank. It would be useful against a PTR, or BTR, or for that matter an M113 or even a Stryker. Even the rear or top armor of some true tanks.
But of course these Bozos are just repeating whatever slop they hear from the Brady Bunch.
This surely must be a typo..."
More of case of lib's "Do as I say, not as I do" ethos. Gun control is for the untermenschen, not the intelligenstia & glitterati.
I'm looking at an ad in SGN (www.jgsales.com) as I type. Remanufactured Mil surplus, FMJ, 150 rounds for $199.00.
It goes UP from there. Especially for specialty loadings, AP is a bit higher, some of the others A LOT higher.
How do you figure?
The Miller case determined it was perfectly appropriate for the government to regulate weapons that had no millitary purpouse. They claimed the second amendment only protected weapons with a military purpouse. The case applied that to probably the favored weapon in the trenches of WWI, the sawed-off shotgun.
Therefore, I would suggest, using the same logic, the .50 is perfectly suitable for government bans since it is undeniably used in military combat, it must have no military purpouse...
Of course he's an expert:
Ex = old has been.
Spurt = a drip under pressure.
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