Before I gave up reading the paper yesterday, I did spot a side article about the school shooting in the US that raved on about an attempt to ban .50 cal rifles in some state or the other. The article stated that they can kill people from a mile away and bring down aircraft.
What a pile of steaming crap.
If the author of that idiotic article bothered to read "Jarhead", he could learn all he ever wanted to know about the use of the .50 cal Barret sniper rifle. For starters, even highly trained Marine snipers, who fired thousands of rounds through it in training, were only getting good aimed shots at 800 metres. OK, that is still a long way away, but it is only half a mile, not a mile. Plus, they needed really good optics (sights) to see that far away, and needed to know how to read the wind conditions, humidity, temperature and all the other factors that affect the trajectory of the .50 cal round. Plus they were using match grade ammunition.
If I picked up a Barret tomorrow, I would be lucky to hit much at 500 metres - even with a scope that could pick out a golf ball on the moon. It would take a lot of practice, including getting the breathing right, the feel for the trigger pull and all of that before I could hit a Hilux at 800 metres, let alone a person.
Yes, I could probably hit someone at a mile - if they were sitting in a sports stadium surrounded by about 50,000 other people - you just aim in the general direction and you'd be pretty sure to hit something.
As for bringing down a plane - yes, if you hit it in a vital spot, like the engine, or the pilot, or a fuel tank (if it didn't have self sealing tanks). A shot through say the rudder won't do much, expect make a hole half an inch in diameter. That won't bring down a plane. And riflemen on the ground generally don't have much luck shooting down planes, especially with single shot rifles, or a semi-auto rifle with a 5 round mag. Especially one that weighs a tonne and would be no fun to wave around in the air. The only way one of these would bring down a plane is if the gunman was sitting in the plane and fired a few rounds into the engine (and I am talking about a Cessna here, not an airliner).
Journalists should just not attempt to write about anything to do with things that go bang. They don't have a clue.
Why do we pay good money for newspapers again?
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