With “Powerful Rifle” article, journalist shoots self in the foot
Michael Marks
Director of Legislative Affairs
Fifty Caliber Institute
November 29, 2005

Journalism is a venerable and time-honored profession, steeped in tradition and burdened with the singular responsibility to tell the truth. The very concept of freedom of the press is founded upon the belief that the public need for reliable information outweighs many of the barriers set up by individuals, companies and governments. It is therefore incredulous when members of this ostensibly noble brotherhood are so willing to flush their profession, good name and credibility down the toilet.

Nowhere of late has this been more evident than the slipshod narratives passed on as “reporting” on the subject of .50 caliber rifles. In her piece “Tinkerer hits the mark with powerful rifle” (Indianapolis Star, Nov 28, 2005), AP writer Rose French spools out a line of unfounded alarmist fiction. From her very first line French demonstrates both a dereliction of journalistic integrity as well as an infantile grasp of simple science. While she is quick to quote lobbyists, it does not appear that she bothered to question an expert who might actually have some experience in the field. Let’s consider some of her missed opportunities:

She begins with the bold assertion that soldiers can shoot rifle bullets through tank armor from a mile away. One might think that in making a statement about soldiers and tank vulnerability that a logical source might be, perhaps, the Army? Had Ms. French bothered to investigate she would have noted Army testing on precisely that point, which stated that a 20mm cannon, which dwarfs the lowly .50cal, was required to break the weakest item on a tank’s exterior – a thermal lens cover. (U.S. Army Worldwide Equipment Guide, 7 Nov 2000) Tank armor is designed to stand up to high-explosive anti-tank missiles with warheads the size of footballs, the very reason that modern soldiers are equipped with rocket launchers. A .50cal cannot penetrate that armor from five feet away, much less the ridiculous assertion that it can do this from a mile away.

Suggesting that a tiny, thumb-sized bullet could shoot through tank armor would have been childish enough, but French doesn’t stop there. Without hesitation she rolls right into the claim that the rifle can bring down a commercial airliner. Now mind you, according to the National Transportation Safety Board’s Aviation Safety Database, such an event has never happened in history. In fact there is no record of any plane being shot, much less shot down, by any sort of rifle. It has never even been done in a scientific test. Yet here it is in black and white, presented as fact wholly without substantiation. Perhaps Ms. French was sick the day they taught “research” at journalism school.

French goes on to include the obligatory assertion that a .50 cal rifle can shoot through a chemical railcar -- a toned-down version of the near-hysterical claim of VPC-mouthpiece and Virginia politician Jim Moran, who stated that the rifle could knock a railcar off its tracks. French chooses to attribute this to “critics of the rifle” (translation - “I have no idea who said it”) when instead she might have spoken with someone like Tom Darymple, Senior Vice President of Engineering for the prestigious Trinity Rail Group, which designs and manufactures many of the chemical railcars running today. When asked about the alleged threat of .50cal rifles to his railcars, Mr. Darymple said that they have long tested their cars against almost every form of firearm, to include .50BMG and larger. When asked what happenes when a .50 hits one of his tanks he said with a shrug “It bounces off.” He went on to point out that railcars are designed to survive the force of derailing, and collision with other railcars at travel speeds. By comparison the impact of a bullet, any bullet, is like a mosquito bite.

Stepping down from tanks and railcars, French turns her eye to wild game by quoting Mr. King, a city university “terrorism expert” who states “You can’t really hunt with it because it would destroy most of the meat.” While Mr. King may be an expert of some sort, it is clearly not in hunting — numerous field sports and hunting magazines have featured articles and cover photos of animals as small as deer taken down with .50BMG rifles. Despite “expert assertions” to the contrary, the animals appear to be quite intact. The image at right is the cover of Very High Power magazine, vol 2, 2003, which depicts an altogether unremarkable-looking deer taken down with a .50BMG... by a girl no less! (The last point is offered in jest at the level of French’s gross distortions; depicted on the cover is shooter Wendy Henry, a champion competitor and one of countless women who throughout the year safely enjoys the world of .50 caliber sports.)

In response to the pervasive terrorist angle in the threat to transportation, French might have contacted somebody at the Transportation Security Administration. Robert Johnson, their Chief Spokesman, might have been a good choice, who gave TSA’s official position as “We are aware of what is being said about fifty caliber rifles. We just don’t feel it is high on the list of potential dangers.”

As to the erroneous suggestion that the .50cal rifle is the “preferred weapon of terrorists” one need only consider the findings of the U.S. Department of State. The definitive annual publication “Patterns of Global Terrorism” notes clearly that explosives account for over 62% of all terrorist attack, six times the lump sum of all firearm-related attacks put together. There is in fact no mention of terrorist attack involving a fifty caliber rifle. Bombs are the preferred weapon of terrorists, not 38-pound rifles.

At some point in her research she could have spoken to Ronald J. Hindenberger, Director of Aviation Safety for Boeing, (perhaps the world’s leading manufacturer of commercial aircraft) who ranked the threat to aircraft from rifle fire as falling below the threat of colliding with a duck. Since ducks have downed many planes and rifles nary a one, perhaps Ms. French should turn her attention to the banning of unregistered waterfowl.

Finally, French could have talked with official spokespersons from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, the Department of Transportation or even the CIA and discovered that not one of these organizations has issued a warning or policy about fifty caliber rifles. Based on French’s revealing exposé, it is clear that the nations top experts on the field of transportation, firearms and terrorism have all missed the boat -- but thankfully we have a small lobbygroup- for-hire, funded largely by Barbara Streisand, to set the record straight. I’m sure the boys in and around the Pentagon sleep better at night knowing that Babs is there to tell them how to do their job.

The list continues but to carry on would belabor what is an obvious point. It is not surprising that people may feel that a big rifle is inappropriate, heck there are people who would ban fast cars, fast motorcycles, fast boats, all with the same argument of “who really needs to go that fast?” But somebody’s idea of what I need isn’t the issue – America is about freedom. I can build a bigger house than I need, seeks thrills from skydiving to snowboarding that I don’t need, own a stereo so loud that it hurts my ears if I choose to. The moment we allow someone to villify anything on the basis of “more than we need” is the moment that we set into motion a precedent that could touch anything in our lives. The restriction of personal freedom of any sort is a sober and weighty decision that deserves to be made upon real facts, not hype.

And that is what is perhaps most grotesque about “journalists” like Ms. French -- by passing off a slipshod, unresearched piece of dreck under the guise of news, she adds yet another stick to the fires that threaten liberties both to the left and right of the political spectrum. This is not the work of a journalist, it is the work of a typist. It sullies the name and profession of the countless good journalists who work hard to produce quality articles that are well-researched and question both sides of an issue; people who are sick of being the brunt of integrity jokes, or of having doors slammed in their faces by interviewees fearful of a “hatchet job” like the one written by Ms. French. When that happens the real press suffers, and so do the people that depend on them.

We deserve better Ms. French, we deserve the truth. If you couldn’t cobble together an original thought on the subject then for Pete’s sake, remain silent. I can accept that a writer may not have a clue as to what a fifty caliber rifle could do when first given the assignment. They are big and loud and while that may be scary to some folks, it is a barrel of harmless fun to others. And at the end of the day a rifle is just a rifle, not some comic book “supergun” that can blow up tanks and knock down railcars. Those are insipid Hollywood images passed on by a writer who couldn’t be bothered to do the job right. And that, from someone who holds themself out to be a journalist, is unforgivable.