FBI buying 20mm 4,500m sniper rifle , why?

[technique]

they said they wwanted rifles with supressors??

how the heck do you supress that thing

volume....lots of it.

I shot a 12+in. .338LPM suppressed, the suppressor only had 3 baffles. No ear-pro required at all.

[Cpl. Haas]

Anti-material rifles for HRT would be my guess...

[Scott Connors]

You have some great argument points. I'd rather not be able to have any of those super powerful weapons if it means that those maniacs who are also private citizens can't have them either. TBH, I was extremely surprised to find out about PMC's equipped with helicopter gunships and gunboats. So, these are essentially private corporations that are not a national force, with military grade heavy firepower. If corporations with these arms makes me uneasy, even more so if some wacko organization in the US has them.

I would suggest that the line be drawn at explosive projectiles: they don't always go boom when they're supposed to, and there aren't any civilian ranges with EOD capability (to the best of my knowledge). Also, guns don't go off on their own, but explosives have been known to do so, depending upon how they were stored or handled.
If you want to have a 20mm that fires solid shot or AP, or a M203/M79/M32 that fires the blue practice rounds, or even a LAW sub-caliber (or the RPG sub-caliber that fires a 7.62mm tracer), that's the border. Hell, I knew some people who own 37mm and 50mm AT guns: if RCBS makes a reloading die for these, go at it! Just stick to stuff that goes clang and not ka-BOOM.

[Maddog5150]

hehehheheh.... I think I am proof that people shouldnt own 203s. As soon as I read your post and instant thought went into my head pegging my friends house and cars and painting them orange heheheheheheheh.
What if you and your buddy went like 250 meters away from each other with a 203s and baseball bats and took turns shooting at each other? Like one fires and the other tries to hit the blue projectile lobbing in. If you make contact then WHAM! CHEETO TIME!!!

[plan-b]

Dont worry, they will only use it on terrorists

Terrorist dogs, terrorist children and terrorist pregnant women that will bear even more terrorist children.

[technique]

Terrorist dogs, terrorist children and terrorist pregnant women that will bear even more terrorist children......



to kill later, and for our future generations to kill..

fix it.

[dchang0]

Not trying to play devils advocate here but I am actually truly curious. Where is the line drawn? I ask this to people who say that we (average citizens) should have whatever the government does but I start naming things and they back peddle, "no no! no one should have that!!"
Considering arms, should the crazy rich guy be able to buy a suitcase nuke? Scientology be able to field military watercraft for thier navy (yes scientology does have a navy though its extremely homo) like destroyers? Should the grand wizard of the KKK (kkk has tons of revenue) be able to have an abrams main battle tank?
Just a curious question.

It's a GREAT question, because once a line is drawn, then both sides will begin to argue about WHERE it should be drawn. Obviously, anti-gun people argue that ALL of us are potential wackos and that the line should be drawn so that no private citizens can own guns, and we gunners draw the line quite a bit more in our favor.

But I think the big mistake is in letting the line be drawn in the first place. This backpedaling about "no, no, no one should have that!" is what turns into "common sense gun control laws." What on earth is "common sense?" (Like the saying goes, "Common sense isn't so common.") [Worse yet,] if common sense is the sense of the commons, then we are effectively turning our inalienable rights over to a popularity contest. If the majority (the commons) happens to feel that guns should be banned, then yeah, ban 'em--because it's COMMON sense, right?

That's where I think the Founding Fathers got it right--they recognized that some rights are inalienable and not subject to popular opinion, hence the "shall not be infringed" portion of the 2nd Amendment. And yet we have a bunch of gun owners effectively agreeing to infringe our own right to bear arms, if those arms happen to particularly scary to them. Part of being freemen is having the courage to withstand our fears.

[Maddog5150]

Hmmmm... Interesting perspective and true it is our inalienable right. I am completely pro gun but just curious where people stand on this matter. Again, I like to see what peoples points of views are in any discussion involving our rights. IF we were able to own those things (abrams main battle tanks, apache gunships, destroyers or suitcase nukes) they would in fact be extremely expensive. More expensive than you or me could afford. So only the rich, influential or corperations would be armed and more than likely have a longer leash than lets say the Marines since the Marines cannot violate posse comitatus. So those kookie scientologist could theorhetically get away with SS Xenu Battleship, KKK could get thier Abrams and that crazy millionaire who owns the nuke could of just invested all his money and estate into the next box office flop. Underfunded police couldnt have the hardware to keep the peace from these people should they decide to go awry and us ordinary citizen wouldnt be able to afford anything that could take out an abrams, apache or battleship. US Military wouldnt be able to violate posse comitatus and the tin foil pit would continue to get deeper and deeper.
Next question. Are you comfortable with zero lines what so ever when ultimately it will mean that the rich and influential and sometimes insane extremist orginizations will have weaponry that even police departments will not be able to have/afford?

[patriot_man]

They should have just bought Barrett M109s and used 25mm AP rounds.



That's right. It shoots grenade rounds.

[xibunkrlilkidsx]

There are several SWAT teams that train with the .50 cal. Its not meant for people (although it certainly can be), but as someone else mentioned its for "hard" targets. Vehicles, engine blocks, hard walls, aircraft (on the ground) & etc. It can also be used for psychological reasons (showing suspects who are barricaded how it can punch through things). Even if the 20mm rifle were true that ain't nothing compared to what the other Fed agencies (US Marshall, Secret Service, State Department & etc) have.

what you didnt get the memo. our politicians have heat seeking rounds for anti aircraft that can be fired from a tac50 and take down a landing Boeing 747.

[bayboydray408]

49" barrell? 5000 yard range? damn I want one!!

[5shot]

There are over 100 FBI agents in Afghanistan and Iraq investigating crimes committed against U.S. citizens and businesses. They are doing 6 month tours. One of my friends who is a FBI agent just returned from Afghanistan in February.

[brando]

They should have just bought Barrett M109s and used 25mm AP rounds.

You mean the rifle that had so much recoil that it was removed from testing early at USASOC? I don't think so

[dchang0]

Next question. Are you comfortable with zero lines what so ever when ultimately it will mean that the rich and influential and sometimes insane extremist orginizations will have weaponry that even police departments will not be able to have/afford?

LOL-- Short answer, YES. BUT, there are a few things to note.

1) How is what I just quoted above any different than what we have going on in the gov't today? I mean, our gov't is run by the rich and influential. It doesn't really to give a damn about what the general populace wants anyway (see the bank bailouts, health care reform, etc., under Obama). How is our gov't any different--in effect--than a faceless mega-corporation that's not under our direct control? Sure, the gov't is to some degree bound by the limitations placed on it by our Constitution, but who enforces the Constitution on our gov't? Well, that would be us, and we've been sleeping on the job. AND, I submit, we aren't properly armed to do so.

2) You mentioned money and the high cost of materiel. Yes, economics is a great limiting factor on individuals and organizations alike. Sure, I'd love to be able to buy an Abrams, but by myself, I couldn't afford to. That means I'm going to have to join with like-minded folk and pool economic resources to buy one, which means that I'll have to build or join a consensus. And consensuses have a large moderating effect. So, what I am saying is that the larger the organization, the less "insane" it tends to be. It's the fringe elements, the small groups that are dangerously insane, and they usually don't have the resources to buy professionally-manufactured weaponry.

The times that such fringe groups CAN afford high-grade materiel is when they're supplied by some larger organization, usually covertly, and so how would we be able to tell the difference between whether our gov't gave Osama Bin Laden a Stinger missile or whether, say, Verizon gave Osama a Stinger missile?


You get the gist of what I'm saying, right? That it doesn't matter what name we assign to these giant organizations that can actually afford high-end weaponry. We can call them the European Union, or we can call them Microsoft. We can call them the United States, or we can call them Home Depot. Either way, none of us regular folk are in control, and we're deluded if we think we are.

In the end, there are two ways we do control these organizations:

a) We outnumber them in bodies. This is what the Founding Fathers were counting on--if every American had a rifle, we'd still outnumber all the soldiers and police of the American gov't by a far margin. And I'm sure we outnumber Verizon's workforce, LOL.

b) We can vote with our wallets, even if we can't vote at the ballot box. For instance, Colombian or Mexican drug cartels would not be as powerful as they are if not for our insatiable demand for drugs and all the money we give them to buy those drugs. (Sure, if the USA stopped buying their drugs outright, they'd still be powerful because they'd simply sell to other countries instead, but you get my point--they need our business.) Don't like that Verizon just bought a destroyer to cruise the coast of California? Smash your cell phone and switch to Boost Mobile! That said, I betcha that Verizon is more concerned about public opinion polls than Obama is. I mean, if over 60% of Verizon's customers were polled as saying they want unlimited calling, they'd do it. But hey, Obama and Pelosi don't seem to care that over 60% of Americans opposed the recent health care reform bill.

[CSACANNONEER]

49" barrell? 5000 yard range? damn I want one!!

Can you see 5000 yards? Yea, the projo will go that far but, it sure won't hit a car every time. An average car would be about 3 moa wide and 1 moa high. The projectile does not appear to be capable of better than 2-3moa at best. Once you take into account all the different wind dirrections, thermals, etc., I'm willing to bet that there are only a handful of people who could hit a railroad car at 5000 yards on thier SECOND shot.

That said, it's a fun gun to fondle.