Posted on 05/29/2005 11:43:58 PM PDT by John Filson
The .50-caliber rifle, one of the world’s best combat weapons, was invented 22 years ago in Murfreesboro, Tenn., by Ronnie Barrett.
How did he come up with the idea? "I was just a 26-year-old kid, and didn't know any better," he says.
But he knew enough to design a weapon that today is used by the armed forces of 35 different countries. He showed 60 Minutes a semi-automatic 82A1 rifle. "This was the first rifle that I designed, and has been our most popular rifle," he says. "This is the one that the United States Army ordered. Matter of fact, this is a U.S. Army rifle here."
Even though the .50-caliber rifle is a military-grade weapon, federal gun laws treat it like any other hunting rifle, and Barrett can sell the gun to civilians. He says he needs to, because military sales vary widely from year to year.
"If it weren’t for the civilian sales, I wouldn’t be here. There’s a lot of defense contractors that would not be here," says Barrett.
He has sold thousands of .50-caliber rifles to private citizens who, he says, want the guns for target shooting and big game hunting.
But he scoffs at critics who claim that .50-caliber rifles are too dangerous in the hands of civilians. "The .50 has an excellent record. You know, as far as the abuses with .50-caliber rifles, they are so few, if any, that all other calibers ought to aspire to have as good a record as it has," says Barrett. "And it's a long rifle. When you hear people say it’s a criminal’s weapon, this is 5-and-a-half feet tall, or something like that. This is not a weapon that a criminal would use."
It’s not convenience store robberies that worry Tom Diaz, a gun control advocate who was an expert witness in the California campaign to ban the gun.
Diaz says the .50-caliber rifle made by Barrett and other manufacturers is a menace in the hands of terrorists. "This gun is designed and built to smash things up and to set things on fire," says Diaz. "It’s a battlefield weapon. Yet it is sold as freely on the American civilian market as a .22 bolt action rifle."
What's wrong with Barrett's product?
"I'm glad Ronnie Barrett makes his rifle for our military forces. I think it's a great thing on the battlefield," says Diaz. "I just think that there are certain occasions when we say in our society, this product is such a threat to our health and safety, and in this case, our national security, we will not allow it."
But isn’t any gun in the hands of a terrorist a threat?
"Well of course any gun is. But it is a gun that is unparalleled by any other small arm available to civilians," says Diaz. "We control every other kind of weapon of war you can think of – machine guns, plastic explosives, rockets. But this thing has flown under the radar for about 20 years."
Why would you need a weapon this powerful if you're not fighting a war? "It's a target rifle. It's a toy," says Barrett. "It's a high-end adult recreational toy. Any rifle in the hands of a terrorist is a deadly weapon."
But New York City’s Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says the .50-caliber rifle is in a class by itself. He agreed to show 60 Minutes just how powerful the .50 caliber is.
First, a police sharpshooter fired the NYPD’s own .30 caliber sniper rifle at a steel target. Downrange, three football fields away, the three shots from the .30 caliber rifle bounced off the half-inch thick steel.
"You can see it hasn’t penetrated it," says Kelly.
Then the sharpshooter fired three rounds from a Barrett .50-caliber rifle at the same target.
"Went right through," says Kelly. "It is clearly a weapon of war, a round to be used in a wartime situation. It’s appropriate for the military. The effective range is about 2,000 yards. It’s a very formidable weapon."
In other words, if the NYPD’s range had been 20 football fields long, instead of three, the .50-caliber rifle – firing ordinary ammunition -- still would have been devastatingly effective.
"Clearly, it is a very powerful weapon. We saw what it could do as far as going through armor," says Kelly. "It would be a weapon that could do a lot of damage – no question about that."
This is exactly what the FBI learned in 1993 at Waco when Branch Davidians fired a Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifle at them.
In response, the FBI deployed Bradley fighting vehicles for protection. But even that wasn’t sufficient, and heavier armor was brought in.
What happened at Waco was one of the arguments made for banning the weapon in California. Other states are now considering a similar ban for fear of potential terrorist attacks.
"If you go through virtually any industrial state, you’ll see right off the highways all kinds of highly toxic and or flammable materials stored in big tanks. These are ideal targets," says Diaz. "The point is you can plan your attack from a longer distance. It’s the combination of range and power."
The standard .50-caliber bullet is four times heavier than the .30-caliber bullet, and 10 times heavier than the M16 bullet.
In addition to the standard .50-caliber bullet, some bullets are designed to pierce armor, some to set things on fire. Those are all legal to buy. But the most devastating .50-caliber bullet is an armor-piercing, incendiary and explosive round sometimes called Raufoss, after the company that makes it.
Barrett says he’s not concerned about Raufoss because it’s illegal. "It's a high-explosive round," he says. "It’s not available commercially. I can’t even buy it."
In fact, 60 Minutes found a number of sites on the Internet that claimed to be selling the explosive Raufoss ammunition. On one site, it witnessed someone making an apparent transaction of the illegal round.
Barrett said he was surprised. "If it is out there and if someone other than our military has it, then it is stolen," he says. "And those people need to be prosecuted. We have laws against that. Passing additional laws, you know, is just a redundancy."
But, according to Diaz, the threat posed by legal ammunition is frightening enough. There are many potential targets, he says, but the most obvious is commercial aviation.
"Do I believe I could shoot an aircraft at altitude? Of course not, but on takeoff and landing, I could take you to places in Washington, D.C., where I’m absolutely certain you could shoot an aircraft with one of these guns," says Diaz.
"Clearly, with the range that it has, and the impact capability that it has, it would put an airliner or an airplane at risk if it hit that plane," adds Kelly.
Could the gun be used by a terrorist to shoot down a commercial airliner?
"It'd be very difficult. It would if it were a tactic that were even remotely possible," says Barrett. "Then our military, who happens to use the rifle, would be training their troops to do such."
But in his sales brochures, Barrett advertises the .50-caliber as a weapon that can take planes down.
"There's some military brochures that we had early on that showed that you could damage aircraft on a runway or Scud missiles and things like that," says Barrett. "Yes, you could if you have a parked target."
But not in the air? "That's correct," says Barrett.
Just this past year, the Rand Corporation released a report identifying 11 potential terrorist scenarios involving Los Angeles International Airport.
In one scenario, “a sniper using a .50-caliber rifle fires at parked and taxiing aircraft.” The report concludes: “We were unable to identify any truly satisfactory solutions” for such an attack.
Diaz told 60 Minutes about other much more specific scenarios in which terrorists might use the weapon, which we chose not to broadcast.
"I consider some of the stuff Tom Diaz lays out irresponsible," says Barrett. "I know a lot of things, but I’m not going to go on the television and tell people what the capabilities of equipment are and possibly give ideas to people."
Is what Diaz is saying accurate? "Yes, it could be. But it also, seeming begging someone to commit this crime. Somebody please commit this crime so I can validate what I’ve been saying so long," says Barrett. "And it’s repeated over and over, and I fear that somebody will answer that call."
Diaz disagrees. "Its kind of a classic gun-industry argument," he says. "First, they deny there’s a problem and then when something happens, they point the finger at people who tried to warn about it and say you guys caused this and you just hoped it would happen."
Federal agencies responsible for preventing terrorist attacks declined to be interviewed about the .50-caliber rifle. But last June, the Department of Homeland Security told the Dallas Morning News, “We remain concerned about any weapon of choice that could potentially be used by a terrorist, including a .50-caliber rifle.”
"Any rifle could be used to engage a target that it might stand a chance of hitting, of course," says Barrett. "You know, you don’t want to shoot any high-speed projectile at an airplane. It’s illegal."
"A terrorist is not concerned about what’s legal or not," says Bradley.
"That’s correct," says Barrett. "And a terrorist is not concerned if you pass, or Tom Diaz passes, another law."
Diaz wants Congress to pass a law requiring, at a minimum, records to be kept of who’s buying .50-caliber rifles.
"The real question here is we do not know who has these terribly destructive rifles," says Diaz. "No one in the United States government knows who has these guns."
"Aren't records kept when a gun is sold," asks Bradley.
"The answer is no," says Diaz.
Under the Brady Bill, centralized sales records of guns used to be kept for 90 days, which enabled the FBI to check the names of gun purchasers against terror watch lists.
A year ago, at Attorney General John Ashcroft’s initiative, Congress reduced the period of record keeping from 90 days to 24 hours. That’s the policy that’s in effect today.
Liberal girly men raping our right to keep and bear arms...one caliber at a time.
Arnold Swartzanegger is the biggest girly man of them all, being minipulated...controlled by the communist demoncrats in California. Proof positive that Moderate = weak and spineless.
"A Senate report said that a bullet from a .50-caliber rifle, even at 1.5 miles, crashes into a target with more energy than a bullet fired at point-blank range from Dirty Harry’s famous .44 Magnum."
Boy the Senate is taking on a lot more responsibility than in years past. Choosing the judiciary, making decisions for the President, and now, firearms experts. I wish I had that report along with a few pages of the Koran as I am fresh out of TP.
This company was discussed on FR not long back:
http://www.serbu.com/
Their single shot is in the $2k range and they have plans for a semi that they say will be around $3k.
Still a bit pricy for me but doesn't keep me from wanting one like yesterday!
Sorry, I mistakenly wrote "group" instead of "practical first shot accuracy". Too late at night, I guess.
The Barrett's recoiling barrel might make for large groups, though, and 1.5 MOA might be about right, at that. Might not, too.
Normal loss of zero could give a first shot 90% "circular area probable" of 48 inches at 3,000 yards, or worse, also. It is rare to see a scope hold a zero much better than 1 MOA through motor transport even over a short period in my experience. Maybe they have better scopes and mounts.
So was interested in talking with guys with first hand Barrett experience. Where does the bullet fully stabilize? You single load, right? What changes gave the greatest increase in accuracy? What made you lose it? Do you notice Coriolis effect? That sort of stuff.
My son is a Marine and he just sent a 30 second video of him firing one of these babies over in Israel. Unlike the NYC targets at 300 yards the Marines start at 600 yards. When you hit someone with this they stay down.
"Koresh was wacked"----What made the situation so dangerous was Janet Reno was also "wacked".
Actually, NO! If they can afford'em, they can have'em. There IS no "size restriction" in the Second Amendment. Private citizens in the past have owned heavy artillery (cannon) and the Navy equivalent of battleships in the past, with no detrimental results.
Don't you have a large border problem that needs your attention? The overly quick response to a truth you do not wish to accept, is telling. There are in the US of A established standards of control of nuclear weapons that have allowed this country to have them for 60 years without any accidents or even very noteworthy incidents.
The controls involve two highly trained and certified individuals to launch or have access, as well as the President of the United States or his living replacement, and there are others concerning security of the weapons that need more people than any private person under the financial status of George Soros, would find extremely difficult to implement.
As long as the required standards of control and use are maintained, there should not be a problem should there, however, because of the nature of the controls it would be extremely difficult and nearly financially impossible, for private individuals in the USA to meet the standards, so your whole line of reasoning is meant more as a gotcha than reality.
Anything the military has, a private citizen should be able to have, providing the standards of established control can be met in the case of nuclear weapons and the ICBM delivery vehicles. You may not regard the "government" as a potential problem, and I don't either as long as righteous people are at the helm, but the Founding Fathers were well aware that righteous people and government are not necessarily synonymous.
The Founders, knew what it was like to be up against a government, out gunned and out manned it was not a fun experience, and hence the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. Although originally this was understood. The need to spell out the Bill of Rights, put it down on paper making things more difficult in this age of document dissection.
The M60 variant you saw is a combat engineer vehicle (CEV) with the main gun replaced with a short barrel gun for blasting through fortifications at close range. Utter overkill in that situation.
Way back in the early 60's my brother bought a 20mm Lahti and several hundred rounds of ammo.Now THAT was a powerful weapon.How times have changed-no permits required back then.
Do you have a source for this info?
Iris7,
I can't speak specifically about the Barrett 82A1 @ 2000 yds, but I have personally consistantly hit bowling pins at 1000 yds.Rig was a Maadi-Griffin with a 10X Tasco Super Sniper scope. Admittedly, this is not a military rig and is tuned for target work, complete with $4/ round target ammo, but my point is that the accurracy required to hit a man sized target at 2000 yds is certainly physically possible.
That said, I've been told that the 82A1 is not a particularly accurrate piece due to it's semi-auto nature. The military also utilizes single-shot .50s for long range work,
As to the question of whether civilians should be allowed to own/posess any and all military weapons, I'd like to put forth an argument I've never seen offered before.
The 2nd states ".......keep and BEAR arms.....".Webster's
defines the pertinant definition of "BEAR" as; (and I quote)
"1. to carry; transport"
Again, that is the only definition Webster offers that is pertinant to the usage of the word "bear" in the Second Amendment.
It seems that the FedGuv may actually have a basis for forbidding their subjects from owning/ possessing any arm that cannot be "borne" (carried).
That said, I am personally in favor of the citizenry's posession of destructive devices. I do think there have to be reasonable limits, but they should not be so low as to prevent the citizenry from being a viable threat to the Fedguv.
Papertyger, could you please direct me to the portion of the Constitution that states "You can't have a private army according to the Constitution". I had always thought the "militia" was origionally envisioned to be comprised of nothing but private citizens.
"...this product is such a threat to our health and safety, and in this case, our national security, we will not allow it.""
How come thse guys never have to actually back up what they say(claim)?
Many opponents of this weapon being available to the public point to its being a military grade weapon. THAT is the reason that it SHOULD ALWAYS be available to the public. Sure ban the howitzers etc but banning this gun is going too far. WE may one day need it to throw off any oppressors who may come along.
Would that include suitcase nukes?
I think that the ONLY reason these politicians are scared of the .50 is that it will defeat an armored limo's armor.
Craven cowards.
For everyone but me.........
On the other hand, the militia part would indicate they wanted citizens to be able to own military weapons. Of course the two views might not be completely in conflict. They might have intended for individuals to own arms appropriate for individual use. Many military arms require group use.
You are ALMOST right. Everything I've read about WACO says that these were tank recovery vehicles that had booms, not guns, short-barreled or otherwise. They were like, or similar to, the vehicle w/boom that was used to help pull down Saddam's statue in Baghdad.
The booms on the vehicles at WACO were used (possibly modified, but I can't remember) to bash through the wooden structure and pump in whatever gas (CS if I remember right) they were using against the men, women, and CHILDREN inside. This gas was forced in as a mist (which I read, was highly flammable in that form) through the boom of the vehicles.
And thus began the wholesale slaughter of largely innocent civilians by our own government jack-booted thugs, led by Clinton, Reno, and the rest of the criminals in charge at the time.
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