California’s .50 (Caliber) ban to be heard in Committee April 29th! (AB 50)

Fifty Caliber Shooters' Policy Institute ^ | 4-16-03

[Dan from Michigan]

California’s 50 ban to be heard in Committee April 29th! The California Assembly Committee on Public Safety will hold a hearing on Tuesday, April 29th on AB-50 the 50cal ban introduced by Hollywood Democrat, Paul Koretz.

Koretz failed to pass his 50 cal ban last year, when the Committee rejected AB 2222. FCSPI will be attending the hearing to argue against AB 50.

It is imperative that ALL Californians concerned about firearms rights and liberty act now to oppose this legislation.

Even those of you outside of California can help, forward this email to anyone you may know in California who shares your concerns about liberty, post info about this alert, with a link

There are four things you can do right now:

1. Write a letter to the committee opposing AB 50 and email it to:
public.safety@assembly.ca.gov

2. Mail this letter to the Committee (contact info is below)

3. Spread the word immediately
call other gun owners in CA,
forward this email to other gun owners
print out this email and distribute it at gun shops, ranges, etc.

Write an internet post about this alert on your favorite gun web board, you can refer readers to www.fcspi.org/california for the full details about AB 50 and a copy of this alert.

4. Support FCSPI’s efforts by visiting our website and making a contribution, you can do so at www.fcspi.org/wina50.html

Committee Contact Info:

California Assembly Committee on Public Safety
Attention: Chairman Mark Leno
State Capitol
P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA
94249

Neither the Committee, nor the Chairman publish their fax numbers

Important tips for contacting the Committee:

1. Send your letter ASAP, via email and regular mail
2. The facts are on our side, so a firm, fair and polite letter works best, we’ll leave irrational emotion to the opposition

3. Be sure to include your name and mailing address
Talking Points on the 50 Caliber Target Rifle and California’s AB 50 gun ban

1 Those that seek to ban 50 caliber target rifles wrongly suggest that it has no sporting purpose and is a military rifle.

o To the contrary, since 1985, there has been organized 50 caliber target shooting competitions, conducted by the non-profit Fifty Caliber Shooters Association (FCSA).

o The military version of the Barrett 50 caliber rifle is already regulated by California’s Assault Weapon law – AB 50 does not target the military rifle, but only the sporting rifle used by competitive shooters.

2 Those that seek to ban 50 caliber target rifles wrongly suggest that the gun is suited for criminal or terrorist uses.

The size, cost and skill level of the 50 caliber rifle make it unsuited for criminal or terrorist use. This claim is backed up by history – since no American in California or any other state has ever been killed by a 50 caliber target rifle.

3. Fifty caliber target rifles have been manufactured, sold, collected and competed with in California for nearly two decades. This firearm has a proven history of safe and responsible ownership and use in California, there is no evidence to suggest it is part of a credible threat to public safety, and this claim is solidly supported by history.

4. The Committee on Public Safety should focus its attention and California’s tax dollars on real and credible public safety issues – banning fifty caliber rifles, Bigfoot, the Easter Bunny or anything else that has never injured or killed any Californian is an irresponsible waste of the Committee’s valuable time.

[Dan from Michigan]

Good luck and heads up.

[Dan from Michigan]

bttt

[Ford Fairlane]

I wonder who has it worse - California or Illinois

[dufekin]

Isn't this patently un-Constitutional? Wouldn't surprise me--it is California.

[Myrddin]

The libs are coming for your .50's again.

[bethelgrad]

I'm just being honest here so don't shoot me (pun) just yet.
the last time i saw a .50 cal was as a marine rifleman watching our scout snipers marching by us after a week in the field.

unconstitutional to ban it? yeah ok i'll stick to my principles

-but come on!! a .50 cal?

i'll go along with the safe history thingy but don't try selling me on the sportsman aspect.
ok I said it.

[B4Ranch]

Have you ever played darts or shot a bow and arrow?

These are silent games that are no more than a test of your control and skill.

Have you ever shot a .22 rifle at a target? I will presume you have. What did you do when you realized that it was easy to put five shots in the bullseye? You backed away from the target another 50 feet.

Then assuming you continued to regularly shoot at the target, it wasn't to long before you backed away a couple of more times. Pretty soon you were out to 100 yards and that's when you really had top concentrate with every shot. You took note of the wind and it's variances all the way to the target because the slighest breeze would push the bullet an inch outside of the bullseye.

Well, if you continued to hang out with men and women who enjoyed shooting, you went through quite a few rifles and telescopes.

.50 caliber shooters are basically the same group of people you shot with but they have invested three, four, five, even six thousand dollars in a rifle and telescope just to make life more challenging for themselves because they are shooting at 1000 yards with a thirty pound rifle.

I would suggest that if you ever have the chance to see someone shoot at these target matches, get on over there because you'll really enjoy it. Watching a tiny woman shoot one of these rifles, then ask her husband to carry it back to the truck because the darn thing is just too heavy and too long for her to carry easily made me chuckle.

The group of people I first saw at one of these matches were middle range executives, engineers, managers, small business owners, machinests who obeyed every safety rule in the book. They were happy to assist the person shooting next to them, a very polite bunch of people who carried me in my wheelchair up to the range level when they saw me having difficulty with the stairs.

I would be happy to have any one of them as a neighbor. Alcohol was forbidden, cursing just wasn't heard, common courtesy was actually common. Men stood to give their seats to the women at lunchtime. Two men actually offered to assist me to try out their rifles just because I had never fired a .50 before.

I'm not sure what hesitation you have towards .50's but I am positive that it would be erased with a small bit of on-site education.

[SSN558]

"-but come on!! a .50 cal?"

There are plenty of reasons why a person would desire a .50 caliber. The last .50 caliber owner I spoke to summed it up pretty well, "because they don't make a .60, that why."

On the other hand criminals don't use them becuase they are expensive, noisy, big, and to heavy to carry about for more than a couple hundred feet. Fifty caliber shooters usually have to travel some distance to find a place to shoot, and the average shooting club doesn't allow them becuase of the noise factor.

Anti American politicians fear them because they do not trust an armed population period...oh and ahem the legendary 13,000 foot pounds of energy that can penetrate armored limos at 1000 yards.

[Shooter 2.5]

I'm starting to think the only people that should be able to ban anything are the owners themselves. We should make it illegal for anyone to present a Bill that stops anyone else from infringing on other's ability to make a choice on what they own.

Actually that happens every day when an owner finds out they want to sell something.

The law I mentioned is the Second Amendment.

[ought-six]

"I wonder who has it worse - California or Illinois"

I left California many years ago, and now live in Illinois. Illinois is still heads and tails better than California in terms of gun rights (not so in the City of Chicago, though, where, thankfully, I do not live). HOWEVER (and that is a BIG however), King Richard II (Chicago Mayor Richard Daley) has taken out all the stops to railroad through the State General Assembly some real noxious gun bills that, among other things, would not only ban ALL semi-automatic firearms of any make, model or caliber, but would also ban ALL firearms of .50 caliber or more (which, the way it is worded, would ban all shotguns except for a .410, and virtually all muzzleloaders); and, finally, would require ALL Illinois firearms owners to be registered in the same manner as sex offenders. Thus, Illinois is certainly on the road toward catching up with California, or even surpassing it. HOWEVER (again, a BIG however), the Illinis General Assembly is not yet as leftist and rubber-stamping liberal as its cohorts in California, and there are major efforts within the General Assembly to knock out these foul bills. King Richard II has his work cut out for him, but he does have some sycophantic allies in the General Assembly doing his heavy lifting for him, and we do have an anti-gun leftist in the Governor's mansion now, and an even more leftist (and patently unqualified) Attorney General (the young daughter of the Democratic Speaker of the State House of Representatives, who has never really practiced law and who has never tried a case in her young life; but who needs experience when Daddy controls the legislature?).

[Dataman]

I'm just being honest here so don't shoot me (pun) just yet. the last time i saw a .50 cal was as a marine rifleman watching our scout snipers marching by us after a week in the field.

After the Iraqi war, it became very apparent that an armed militia would stand the chance of the Republican Guard against our military might. Even though we still have the constitutional right to bear arms, it seems utterly futile to imagine an armed insurrection against an unjust government. Personal protection has become the primary reason for maintaining the right to bear arms.

Which Bethel? College or Sem?

[Teacher317]

but come on!! a .50 cal? i'll go along with the safe history thingy but don't try selling me on the sportsman aspect.

To be perferctly frank, I want one simply because so many people don't want me to want one. (How much of a rebel am I? LOL!)

Also, there IS a sporting aspect to it. Anyony can pick up a .22 Thompson Center Classic and punch holes in paper relatively close to each other. There's competition there, and a contest of skills. However, NOT everyone has the strength, intestinal fortitude, control, and cojones to grip one of those bad boys and make it sing. The heightened adrenaline, the greatly increased range, the complexity, and the pure machismo of "playing in the Big Leagues" makes .50 sport shooting as different from .22 sport shooting as shark/marlin fishing is different from pond fishing, or 200+mph NASCAR/IRL is from a footrace.

[ought-six]

"Even though we still have the constitutional right to bear
arms, it seems utterly futile to imagine an armed insurrection against an unjust government."

I couldn't disagree with you more. Fore one thing, there are some 85 million gun owners in the U.S. For another thing, we would be fighting for our freedom, a goal the vast majority of us would willingly give our lives for. The Iraqi "Republican Guard" when it came right down to it didn't want to fight for Saddam, and sure as hell didn't want to die for him. If you want to compare "militias" against modern armies, there are a few you may want to consider: The Afghanis vs. the USSR; the Viet Minh vs. France; the NVA vs. the U.S. (true, the NVA constituted an organized army, but the fact remains that it was the VC and the local "militias", if you will, that carried the fight for so long a period of time. But the bottom line is this: militias and non-standard armies, who are fighting for their freedom and their lives, have time on their sides, and fight wars of attrition. Almost all the "unorganized" armies in history have eventually prevailed because the organized forces got tired of the attrition and left. Remember, death by a thousand cuts still kills. And that is how militias and citizen armies, if committed to their cause, fight. I have no doubt that if the unthinkable happened here, and we found ourselves faced with a tyrannical government bent on subjecting us, not only will a good portion of the regular armed forces not fight against the people, many would in fact join them. It is a well known fact that armed citizens serve to keep their governments honest and peaceful.

[Dataman]

YOu make good points, but the armed "militias" like the Afghanis you mentioned were armed with stingers not .45 auto pistols. The army they were fighting against was what the Iraqi army was modeled after. Who would arm us? We could only hope for a friendly few generals who would defect with their armies. There may be 85 million armed but they are not all patriots. Many are loyalists.

[ought-six]

"YOu make good points, but the armed "militias" like the Afghanis you mentioned were armed with stingers not .45 auto pistols. The army they were fighting against was what the Iraqi army was modeled after. Who would arm us?"

More sophisticated arms could be obtained by raids, theft, bribery, you name it. Hell, a lot of damage can be done using nothing more than common household items if employed properly. Where there's a will, a way will be found. The key element is Will. A committed "amateur" force of significant enough numbers can defeat a professional army. Look what the Zulus did to the Brits (the main problem the Zulus had, though, was their mindset: they had no concept of total victory; for them, everything was immediate and local: they were provincial enough to believe that if they kicked some serious butt a couple times the bad guys would just say, "Okay, you thumped me. Now let's be friends and swap wives." They had no concept of protracted war). Now, the Aghanis, on the other hand, soundly defeated the Brits in the 1800s, because they understood protraction and attrition. And they acquired more sophisticated arms from the troops they defeated. They had the Will to win, and they won. I can go on and on citing historical examples, but I think you get the picture.

[vigilence]

It's the same old liberal tactic of "defining the debate" such as "why do you need such and such" (in this case a .50 cal weapon)? The best way to respond is to not play their game, just ask them "what gives you the right to revoke my constitutional rights"?

[bybybill]

What about muzzle loaders 50cal or more?

[risk]

I couldn't disagree with you more.

I agree, and would offer a further suggestion. Tactics are just as important as weapons, if not more so. We should be thinking more seriously about the implications of this. Senators McCain and Bayh have proposed legislation to formalize a civlian volunteer force, which I applaud. This is just the first step in many that should be taken as we ponder the implications of Iraq's fall.

Anyone who argues that there's "no point" in preparing for such an invasion ourselves is acting in bad faith. It's defeatist to think that our citizens, born of the blood of men and women who threw off the chains of the most powerful colonial power in history at its zenith, couldn't strategize and engage an enemy effectively in the 21st century.

We shouldn't underestimate ourselves.

[risk]

So how do we effectively prevent this legislation in California? I don't think E-mail will be enough.

[SSN558]

"What about muzzle loaders 50cal or more?"

Muzzle loaders don't have anywhere near the same poop, but that won't stop the CA anti's from banning them too. I don't imagine criminals have much use for muzzle loaders for much the same reasons. The BATF does not even regulate them.