Proposed 50BMG Ban
SayUncle brings up a dead in the water Senate bill to ban the .50BMG
It won’t go anywhere, but it shows that the gun ban folks have figured out a few things. Instead of trying to call for bans on items by name they’re learning that they need to put physical limits in them else the gun crowd will work around them. I have mixed feelings on this but at least they’re putting actual numbers behind their fears instead of just pointing at things they find scary.
In this instance they’re worried about .50BMG, looking to classify it as a destructive device, as well as anything that pumps out 12,000 foot pounds at the muzzle. The 12,000 ft. lb. limit is a direct dig against the .416 Barrett which is just a .50BMG necked down to circumvent the California ban on anything that shoots .50BMG.
Rob Allen, over in the comments at SayUncle, brought up the notion of making a 11,900 ft. lb. round. This makes me wonder.
Is it possible to actually make a gun and a round that will never exceed 12,000 foot pounds? Probably not. Gun makers would have to build chambers that couldn’t possibly accept a round that was loaded high enough to break that 12,000 ft. lb. barrier. That’s not really possible. If it’ll run with a muzzle energy of 11,900 for a lifetime it’ll sure as shit take a few hot loaded 12,000+ ft. lb. rounds before it blows up.
This is just another example of a gun being “too much” of something. We’ve got laws against them being too big. Some are too small. Some are too cheap. Some are too light. For a time some were too heavy.
“Too accurate” is going to get trotted out pretty soon too. The .50BMG is already under fire for that one.