cuchulainn
Member
Well, at least the reporter got a comment from a military guy who said it's a pretty implausible scenario.
from the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/p...00&en=692e836db3081715&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
from the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/p...00&en=692e836db3081715&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
Citing Danger to Planes, Group Seeks Ban on a Sniper Rifle
By MATTHEW L. WALD
ASHINGTON, Jan. 30 — A gun-control group has begun a new campaign against large sniper rifles, asserting that the rifles together with armor-piercing ammunition that bursts into flames on impact pose a serious threat to airliners at airports.
The guns, .50-caliber rifles, sell for thousands of dollars and are primarily purchased by military and law enforcement personnel, but hundreds are bought by civilians every year. Some manufacturers' marketing material emphasizes that the rifles can destroy aircraft and armored personnel carriers.
Tom Diaz, a senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, the gun-control group that has long campaigned for bans on the .50-caliber rifles, said: "This is not just a gun control issue. It's a national security issue."
The center produced a 32-page report that it is distributing this week on the potential threat to aircraft of the rifle, which has a range of more than a mile.
The Transportation Security Administration, however, does not see the rifles as a major threat. Robert Johnson, the agency's chief spokesman, said: "We are aware of it. We have considered it as part of a number of potential threats. We just don't feel it is high on the list of potential dangers."
Manufacturers and many gun enthusiasts say the rifles' critics are overzealous gun opponents who falsely raise fears about terrorism.
Ronnie G. Barrett, a manufacturer, said the idea of shooting down a moving plane with the rifle was "big time ridiculous" because a gunman would have to aim above the plane, to take account of gravity's effect on the bullet as it traveled, and then the plane would not be visible in the scope.
Other rifles could also be used against planes on the ground, Mr. Barrett said.
But a report to the Air Force in 1995 by the RAND Corporation identified .50-caliber rifles as a special hazard to "high value" planes at military airfields. Alan J. Vick, one of the two authors of the study, said that the possibility of using .50-caliber rifles against parked aircraft was worrisome.
"These weapons are heavy, and as a sniper weapon, using a bipod, laying down, shooting at some terrestrial target, they can be very accurate," Mr. Vick said. "I can understand why people would be worried about them as a terrorism weapon."
He and other experts, while sometimes skeptical that the gun could be used successfully against a plane in the air, said it could damage and possibly ignite a plane on the ground.
John Plaster, a retired Special Forces officer who has tutored police snipers, pointed out that such rifles were awkward to maneuver, weighing about 35 pounds.
"It's very unrealistic," Mr. Plaster said. "I have never heard of a commercial plane anywhere in the world that was seriously damaged while in flight by a .50-caliber rifle, ever. It's not by any means a choice weapon."
Sales literature from Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, says of one model, "The compressor section of jet engines or the transmissions of helicopters are likely targets for the weapon, making it capable of destroying multimillion dollar aircraft with a single hit delivered to a vital area."
A competitor, E.D.M. Arms, advertises on the Web that its Windrunner .50-caliber can be used to "attack various materiel targets such as parked aircraft, radar sites, ammunition, petroleum and various thinned-skinned materiel targets."
Investigators for the General Accounting Office called several arms dealers to inquire about ordering the guns and armor-piercing rounds. According to a transcript of a call to a dealer in Oregon, an agent asked, "If I theoretically wanted to use these rounds to take down an aircraft, say either a helicopter or something like that, I should be able to take a helicopter down, shouldn't I?"
The dealer answered, "Yeah, it'll go through any light stuff like that."
Caliber refers to the diameter of the barrel, and .50 caliber is half an inch. At the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Curt Bartlett, chief of the Firearms Technical Branch, said of the .50 caliber, "anything bigger than that would be getting into the range of cannons."
Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said he would soon introduce legislation to regulate the weapons. Mr. Waxman said he had observed a demonstration at which marines used the rifles to shoot through a three-and-a-half-inch manhole cover, a 600-pound safe and "everything imaginable."
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
