These political prostitutes never let logic get in the way of a good emotional appeal to ignorant people. After all, that's how they get in office and stay there.
A .50 caliber ban obviously would include most effective black powder hunting, target-shooting and re-enactment weapons from .54 caliber Pennsylvania Flintlocks and .75 caliber Brown Bess's to .58 caliber Civil War rifles.
A .50 caliber modern rifle is a fine target weapon for long distance target shooting. Can it be used by a sniper? Sure. But so can a .308.
This is incremental dismemberment of the Second Amendment. And before the "Assault Rifle Bans" nobody could own a fully automatic military weapon without a special Federal permit. The "Assault Rifle Bans" impacted only semi-automatic weapons similar to the still legal handguns commonly purchased for personal defence and police work, except the "Assault weapons" happened to be military style rifles.
These people make me sick. They pander to minority communities with high crime rates by trying to abridge the right of the law abiding citizens forced to live in those communities from owning a weapon for their own defense. They instead try to sell them bill of phoney goods that by depriving them of THEIR right to own a weapon, it will in some way impact illegaly owned guns used by criminals. They do this to placate the racialist hucksters like the Sharpetons and "Reverend" Jacksons and radical pacificist sects like the United Methodist Church and their clones who push this anti-gun stuff.
And make no mistake about it, the more types of weapons they succeed in banning, the more they will attempt to ban other types until the Second Amendment becomes in effect, a cheap piece of used toilette paper.
And then the Democrats will spy on those suspected of having guns with out warrants.