It's nice to see Tom Diaz (senior policy analyst of the Violence Policy
Center) is still out there trying to frighten the public.  In his recent
op-ed piece "Sniper rifles:  the lethal - and legal - weapons of war"
(August 22) he continues the time-proven tactic of trying to scare us into
believing that banning guns will somehow make us "safer".

I find it fascinating that an organization that calls itself the "Violence
Policy Center" focuses EXCLUSIVELY on violence committed with FIREARMS.  I
guess the recent drownings of five small children by their mother and the
knifing deaths of six family members by a deranged man just don't qualify
for "policy study".  Let's get it in the open - the "Violence Policy Center"
is a group determined to see private ownership of firearms outlawed, and
they will do anything and say anything to reach that goal.  And they're not
shy about it either.  From their own website
(http://www.vpc.org/studies/awaconc.htm) they discuss their agenda:

"...assault weapons are quickly becoming the leading topic of America's gun
control debate and will most likely remain the leading gun control issue for
the near future. Such a shift will not only damage America's gun lobby, but
strengthen the handgun restriction lobby for the following reasons:

 a.. It will be a new topic in what has become to the press and public an
"old" debate.
 Although handguns claim more than 20,000 lives a year, the issue of
handgun restriction consistently remains a non-issue with the vast majority
of legislators, the press, and public. The reasons for this vary: the power
of the gun lobby; the tendency of both sides of the issue to resort to
sloganeering and pre-packaged arguments when discussing the issue; the fact
that until an individual is affected by handgun violence he or she is
unlikely to work for handgun restrictions; the view that handgun violence is
an "unsolvable" problem; the inability of the handgun restriction movement
to organize itself into an effective electoral threat; and the fact that
until someone famous is shot, or something truly horrible happens, handgun
restriction is simply not viewed as a priority. Assault weapons-just like
armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms-are a new topic.
The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully
automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons-anything that
looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun-can only increase
the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons."

Let's see, they couldn't frighten us with "Saturday Night Specials"
(inexpensive firearms even poor people can afford to defend themselves
with), "Cop-Killer bullets" (that were designed by cops for cops and have
never been used in the commission of a murder), "Plastic Firearms" (the
Glock pistol that is currently the "weapon of choice" for police departments
across the country - and that contains over a pound of steel rendering it
easily detected by airport metal detectors and looking just like a gun to an
X-ray machine regardless of the rantings of Sen. Feinstein), "Armor-piercing
bullets" (even though ANY rifle bullet suitable for deer hunting can defeat
ANY "bullet-proof" vest used by any police department today), then the
horror of "assault weapons".

"Anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun".
Translated - the American public is ignorant - let's keep using that to
frighten them into doing what we want.  Well, they had some success with
that, finally, but it's never enough for those who think guns CAUSE crime.

So now they must use the "Sniper rifle" and the "Pocket Rocket".  One is too
big, the other too small - a "homicide waiting to happen," he says.  Like
Goldilocks, is there a gun Tom Diaz thinks is "just right"?  Somehow, I
doubt it.  There are tens of thousands of the .50 caliber rifles Mr. Diaz
protests in the hands of shooters and collectors in this country - in fact,
that's what he's decrying.  Trust me, if there was a single incident that he
could point to demonstrating the evils of this particular design, he would
have.  The "pocket rocket" phenomenon is the outgrowth of the
concealed-carry laws that now some 34 states have passed.  These are small,
lightweight guns in effective calibers, designed for those who wish to carry
a concealed weapon.  Remember, these are the same people who told you that
Florida would become "The Gunshine State" if concealed carry was allowed?
There would be blood in the streets, shootings over sale items at Sears!
What actually happened?  Crime went DOWN - and it has gone down everywhere
concealed carry laws have been passed.  Apparently the "mindless 'more guns
make us all safer' mantra" isn't so mindless after all.

However, Mr. Diaz points out what COULD happen if one is misused, not what
HAS happened.  He's right about that.  But apparently Mr. Diaz is unfamiliar
with the concept of "prior restraint".   Look what can happen if someone has
access to a bathtub, or a knife, or, say, several hundred pounds of
fertilizer and diesel fuel.  You cannot restrict the rights of all based on
what someone MIGHT do.  Mr. Diaz, if you wish to change the gun laws in this
country, stop trying to do an end run around the Constitution.  There is a
written procedure for changing the basic law of the land - try to get an
amendment passed to LEGALLY nullify the Second Amendment.  Until then, stop
trying to scare the public stupid.  We're not buying it.

Quoted:
the anti-'s are just looking for something to single out so that they can ban it. If they start yipping about something and no one raises a fuss the figure they can sneak in a work out a ban.

Anti's probably figured the .50 bmg was easy to demonize, and few people owned it. They also knew that some of those "hunters" wouldn't care if the banned .50's, no one could hunt with it any way.

Quoted:
Does anyone know when the last time a innocent civilian was killed by a "pocket rocket"?
Or the last time a .50 caliber rifle was used to commit a bank robbery?