Reply #69: Barretts weren't made to bring down flying airplanes [View All]

[Selatius]

The mentally unstable and would-be terrorists exist, and this should be dealt with; however, if we enforce the laws that are already on our books, we wouldn't have to worry about .50 caliber sniper rifles falling into the hands of religious fundamentalists like Eric Rudolph or Malvo or the angry Timothy McVeighs running around pissed off at the government because it screwed them over or school shooters like Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris of Columbine infamy or even Al Qaida terror agents. Besides, last time I checked, it didn't take a Barrett .50 caliber to blow away doctors at abortion clinics. It just took a hunting rifle with a scope.

Onboard bombs and smuggled shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile launchers are far more dangerous a threat to flying jetliners than sniper rifles. All those helicopters and planes in Iraq in the past three years didn't all crash because of mechanical failure. Some number of them were blown out of the sky by inexpensive shoulder-fired missiles. An Israeli El-Al passenger plane was almost blown out of the sky by a missile fired from the ground a couple years ago.

The point is .50 caliber sniper rifles are far more easily regulated than American-made stinger missiles on the black market or Russian-made Grouse or Gremlin missiles. All three of these missiles are man-portable and capable of bringing down aircraft flying at least as high as 10,000 feet.

You should advocate keeping regulating guns tight, but you should be more worried about missiles being smuggled into the US.