jobu07
Contributing Member
Fella's, I don't even know where to start when it comes to pointing out the inaccuracies in this article... Makes me sick. Anyway, the author's email address was given with this wonderful Buffalo news report, I think you know what to do... 
Peoples supports call for ban on .50-caliber rifles
By LOU MICHEL
News Staff Reporter
5/28/2005
A local state assemblywoman is teaming up with gun-control advocates Friday to try to ban a .50-caliber rifle they say is custom-made for terrorists.
The 41/2-foot, 37-pound steel rifle was likened to a bazooka or shoulder-fired missile launcher capable of shooting down commercial aircraft during takeoffs and landings.
"As a person from a family of avid hunters, I know we have to protect the rights of hunters and target-shooting sportsmen, but this weapon has no place in society," said Assemblywoman Crystal D. Peoples, D-Buffalo.
Earlier this week, the Assembly passed legislation that would ban the rifle from being sold to civilians. The bill is now before the State Senate.
"We're trying to create momentum for the Senate to pass the bill in late June and to educate the public that there's a military weapon available to civilians," said Andy Pelosi, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence.
To underscore how the gun is accessible to almost anyone, Pelosi brought one to a news conference in downtown Buffalo and said it was purchased through an Internet transaction.
"They have to go through a gun dealer, but they can be sold on the Internet and at gun shows. You just have to be 18 years old," Pelosi said. "It's a weapon of war."
Peoples said there already are enough weapons available for illegal purchase on city streets and another, particularly one with this type of armor-piercing fire power, should not be available.
"We're not at war within our own borders," she said.
Bryan Miller, spokesman for the gun control group Freedom States Alliance, said the .50-caliber gun in the hands of a terrorist could be disastrous if it were fired at one of the country's thousands of chemical plants.
"This gun has a range of about 11/2 miles, and it takes one person with one of these weapons to cause a disaster," Miller said.
Miller - whose brother, an FBI agent, was murdered by a shooter in Washington, D.C., in 1994 - said only a small percentage of people support the right to own .50-caliber rifles, which first came onto the market in the 1980s.
"In a civilized society, citizens and legislators accept responsibility to define the lines of what's acceptable and what's not, and I would say this is one of those weapons that is not acceptable," Miller said.
Budd Schroeder, a member of the National Rifle Association's board of directors and a Lancaster resident, said claims by the ban's supporters are exaggerated.
"Unless it is a fully automatic machine gun, the chances of taking down an airplane are at best remote," said Schroeder, who is also board chairman of the New York State Shooters Committee on Political Education. "It would seem that the favored weapons of terrorists in the United States have been airplanes and rental trucks."
He added the bill also would ban rifled-barrel shotguns.
"The rifled barrel allows for shotgun slugs to be shot with greater accuracy, meaning more humane harvesting of deer, and this would turn honest hunters immediately into felons by possessing these guns," Schroeder said.
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