Sucked waiting for the picture timer to go off. I cant imagine trying to aim at something up in the air.
Posted on 02/27/2003 9:44:29 AM PST by SLB
The cost-effectiveness of the Model 82A1 cannot be overemphasized when a round of ammunition purchased for less than 10USD can be used to destroy or disable a modern jet aircraft.
—Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc. brochure advertising its Model 82A1 50 caliber sniper rifle
Here is a hair-raising scenario for anyone who has ever sat inside a giant commercial jetliner—fully laden with hundreds of passengers and tons of fuel—as it waited at a terminal gate or taxied to the runway at any of America’s many busy airports:
Peering through scopes atop rifles that can hit a target from better than a mile away, these silent hunters stare at you and your aircraft....As they watch, one of them slips a .50 caliber bullet into the chamber of a long-barreled rifle pointed at the side of the E-3 Sentry aircraft 500 meters away....The fire from the muzzle ignites the evening air as the projectile whistles down range. It punches through the side of the aircraft, ripping through delicate components onboard the plane. A second sniper 100 yards away fires, as does a third, launching rounds into the cockpit and the wing fuel tanks. As the white-hot bullets hit, the wing tanks explode, ripping the plane apart....
Fevered fantasy? Not to the U.S. Air Force. This scenario of a potential terrorist attack with 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifles is excerpted from the Air Force’s official magazine, Airman.
The 2001 article explains that the Air Force has developed a cadre of specially trained countersnipers to respond to the 50 caliber sniper rifle threat to its aircraft, fuel tank farms, control towers, and personnel. The danger emerged over the last 20 years with the invention and proliferation of the 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifle, a weapon that from 1,000 to 2,000 yards away is capable of devastating strikes that can not only punch through armor, but turn aircraft and their fuel into exploding balls of fire. The threat to civilian aviation. The threat to civilian aviation from 50 caliber anti-armor rifles is even more serious than the threat to air force bases. This threat is not a gun control issue, but a national security issue. Civilian aircraft, airports, and airline offices have been prime terrorist targets since the mid-1960s—but they have much less protection than Air Force bases. No countersniper teams lie hidden at the perimeters of America’s sprawling and heavily trafficked commercial aviation facilities to protect them from terrorist attack. In fact, most civilian perimeters are unguarded.
This article from the official U.S. Air Force magazine, Airman, describes how the Air Force has prepared to defend its bases at home and abroad from 50 caliber sniper rifle attacks by terrorists. The 1995 RAND report to the Air Force that inspired much of this concern noted civilian facilities are also vulnerable. Yet civilian authorities show little interest in stopping the unregulated sales of long-range, anti-armor 50 caliber sniper rifles in the civilian market.
Under federal law, an 18 year old cannot buy a handgun from a federally licensed dealer, but can buy a 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifle. For detailed documentation about terrorists, extremists, and common criminals who have bought and used 50 caliber sniper rifles, see the October 2001 Violence Policy Center report Voting from the Rooftops: How the Gun Industry Armed Osama bin Laden, other Foreign and Domestic Terrorists, and Common Criminals with 50 Caliber Sniper Rifles.
The history, range, and power of the 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifle, and the documented vulnerability of aviation facilities to its power, are detailed in Sections One and Two.
In any case, airplanes, fuel trucks, and terminal buildings of most major airports are easily within the striking range of the 50 caliber sniper rifles that the Air Force sees as a threat. This range extends far beyond the fences of most airport security perimeters, and well beyond the defensive fire that any security personnel who might happen to be in the area of attack could muster.
Terrorists and 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifles.
There is no question that these weapons of war are available to terrorists—the Violence Policy Center documented in earlier reports how agents of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Osama bin Laden easily bought 50 caliber sniper rifles on the U.S. civilian market.
It was easy for them and other extremists because 50 caliber sniper rifles are less regulated than handguns on America’s civilian gun market.
They are also one of the hottest items in that market today. Because of lax federal recordkeeping, no one knows for sure how many 50 caliber sniper rifles have been sold to civilians. But the number is certainly in the thousands, possibly in the tens of thousands. And the armor-piercing, incendiary, and explosive ammunition the 50 caliber sniper rifle fires is routinely bought and sold on the unregulated civilian ammunition market with no questions asked. With modest diligence, any serious seeker and certainly any seasoned terrorist can obtain the devastating firepower of this ammunition through the Internet, the mail, licensed dealers, and gun shows. The unfettered sale of these rifles and their incredibly destructive ammunition are the ingredients of a disaster waiting to happen. In contrast, the threat of an attack by rockets against aircraft and airport facilities is well understood.
Government and industry alike work to keep such weapons out of the hands of terrorists. But the 50 caliber sniper rifle—touted by its inventor as the full equivalent in firepower of rockets—is routinely overlooked in discussions of aviation security. This remains so even though anti-terrorism experts have warned, and experienced snipers agree, that the 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifle is ideal for long-range attack against aircraft and airfield facilities—and even though the inventor and leading manufacturer of the 50 caliber sniper rifle has described jet aircraft and helicopters as “likely” targets for what his patent frankly calls an “anti-armor gun.”
Publicly available detailed attack plans. Detailed information—complete with diagrams—explaining exactly how to attack jet aircraft and helicopters with 50 caliber sniper rifles has been published in at least two books by former military snipers. Both of these books and the credentials of their authors are widely praised as authoritative in the community of American sniper afficionados. These books, and other similar information, are easily available to any terrorist, common criminal, or crackpot with a grudge.
A failure of regulation. Incredibly, although other weapons of war—including the 50 caliber fully automatic machine gun from which the 50 caliber rifle is derived—are tightly regulated under the National Firearms Act, the 50 caliber antiarmor sniper rifle is not. This is so in spite of the well-documented civilian purchases by terrorists such as the IRA and Osama bin Laden, and a variety of domestic militias and similar radical groups.
(Excerpt) Read more at vpc.org ...
The Violence Policy Center (VPC) released another new report calling for strict regulation on the .50 caliber rifle. The VPC's new report, "Hotter Than a Heat-Seeker, More Devastating Than a Death Ray", claims that .50 caliber rifles can shoot down U2 spy planes, damage military satellites, and may have played a role in the recent unexplained crash of the space shuttle Columbia.
"These are extremist weapons of nigh-inexplicable power," explained the VPC senior analyst Tom Diaz. "We've fabricated - er - found evidence that this extremist super-weapon, which is shockingly under-regulated, may have fallen into extremist terrorist hands and played a role in the tragic Cold War downing of U2 pilot Gary Powers. These extremist rifles can swat aircraft from the sky just like hunting birds, and pose a great risk for our unprotected International Space Station."
"Look, I'm really quite at a loss for how to deal with these ridiculous claims," began exasperated Fifty Caliber Rifle Association spokesman Johann Brett. "You cannot shoot down a large airplane, let alone a satellite, with any caliber rifle. In World War II, fighters equipped with many heavy machine guns and cannons put hundreds of rounds of incendiary ammunition into slow-flying bombers and they often still survived. No one has ever been killed by a criminal with a .50 caliber rifle. They cost thousands of dollars and weigh more than two bowling balls, but in the end they're just rifles, not super-weapons. And anyway you don't hunt birds with a rifle, you need a shotgun."
Diaz dismissed Brett's response as biased gun lobby propaganda. "These gun industry extremists have long hidden the truth about the extremist weapon's power," he insisted. "For example, there are indications that the asteroid belt was produced by a stray .50 caliber round from a gun extremist's rifle impacting on what was previously a perfectly bucolic and peaceful world. And we suspect that the planet Alderaan, Princess Leia's homeworld, disintegrated under the extremist wrath of an extremist's extreme .50 caliber bullet."
For his part, Brett described the VPC's claims as "lunacy". "The asteroid belt was not caused by the .50 caliber rifle," he insisted. "It took a moon-sized Death Star to destroy Alderaan, and anyway that was a movie, not real life."
"I can't understand why the press considers this constant stream of fantastic,concocted reports credible and prints them," Brett fired back. "The VPC is an anti-gun organization with a million-dollar annual budget from the Joyce Foundation, no actual academic researchers, and a tiny staff of propagandists. Why do you print this insanity?"
"Extremist extremist extremist extremist gun lobby extremist," countered Diaz. "Anyway, the New York Times prints anything we write, so it'll get printed." Diaz noted that the VPC has sponsored new bills to ban the .50 caliber rifle in numerous states. "This threat to public safety cannot go unchecked," Diaz asserted. "The .50 caliber rifle must be banned to reduce crime, or fight terrorism, or, you know, whatever."
Legislative battles involving the .50 caliber rifle are expected to continue throughout the next coming years.
Until they control everything, they won't be satisfied.
But this crap will continue straigh up until the time for teh renewal of the AW ban that GW will sign. I have absolutely no doubt hat .50 caliber guns will be added, as well as other provisions.
If you're talking about taking out an engine at takeoff, that won't do it.
Any aircraft certified under the FARs for passenger service must be able to maintain a positive climb after losing an engine on takeoff at max gross weight.
Chuck Schumer is up front about it, he said "We're going to hammer guns on the anvil of relentless legislative strategy! We're going to beat guns into submission!"
Stay Safe !
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