Useless Gun Laws

New Jersey is busy trying to pass a raft of ill-considered gun laws in the wake of the Newton shooting. NJ is already one of the most hostile states to gun owners. There's a raft of laws that can and have gotten people convicted of felonies just from trying to drive their guns from one place to another, or for using perfectly normal industry-standard self-defense ammo (hollow points are illegal in NJ. Only a bunch of people who know nothing about guns could think that's a good idea).

One of the new proposals is to outlaw .50 caliber rifles. .50 caliber rifles are rare and expensive. You can't touch one for less than about $4,000. They're huge and unwieldy -- they weigh about 30 lbs. and are more than 4ft. long . I don't know if anyone has ever been murdered with a .50 cal. in the U.S., but I guarantee you it's an occurrence more rare than being struck by lightning.

Trying to reduce gun violence by banning .50 cals. is like trying to reduce highway fatalities by banning Lamborghinis. The only explanation is that this isn't about guns (or violence), it's about control.

Note I'm talking about .50 BMG here. That's the scary .50 cal. people think of being used by evil snipers and people "trying to take down airplanes."

You can also get .50 AE and .50 S&W handgun ammo, which isn't nearly as powerful (but still used only in stupidly huge, expensive handguns which are almost never used in crimes -- they're intended for grizzly protection/hunting of big game in remote backwoods areas), or .50 cal. muzzleloaders. I don't think we've been having a rash of muzzleloader violence, but fortunately muzzleloaders are exempted.

There are a few other rifle rounds like .50 Beowulf and .500 Express, but what all these rounds have in common is that they are pretty rare and expensive and almost never used in crime. All would be banned. Banning them is simply pointless foolishness.

The rest of the legislation seems equally pointless and foolish.

It would be pretty funny if Barrett introduced a rifle chambered for a new .495 BMG round.