Walter In Denver

CNN Stupidity

Watching CNN recently - was it last weekend? - I saw a sublimely ridiculous segment on the dangers of a commercially available .50 cal rifle. The reporter noted that the gun is illegal in California but that one could buy the gun from a private seller without even going through a background check. So this reporter gets online and finds a site featuring classified ads for firearms, and finds someone in Houston selling the gun. He flies to Houston, buys the gun with cash, and flies back home with it.

He then takes it to a firing range, camera in tow, and proceeds to demonstrate how dangerous the gun is by shooting it at a salvaged airliner emergency exit door. Of course, the bullet passes cleanly through the door, as I imagine just about any rifle bullet would. Then he places a steel plate behind the door, and a round punctures both. Read here for a more detailed look at the segment.

All this is to suggest that terrorists could purchase the .50 cal rifle, plant themselves at the end of a runway, and take out an airliner on approach. Even a novice shooter like me knows what bunk that is. The reporter remarks on the weight of the rifle as he hefts in on camera. It's a bolt action gun, and the ammunition is rather large. I can't imagine that a shooter could get many rounds off as an jet passes close overhead, and trying to hit a fast moving target with that thing would be pretty tough. You would have to have a pivot mount of some kind, probably on the back of a truck, to have much chance of hitting an aircraft. The shooter in that situation would be easy to spot.

Not to mention that even if you hit the airplane, you wouldn't likely do any serious damage. A jetliner can withstand a small puncture fairly easily, especially at low altitude. All this adds up to this weapon being a very unlikely choice for a terrorist, at least for attempting to down an airliner. The CNN piece was designed to scare gullible people, and it had me rolling my eyes as I watched.

What has happened since then has been a joy to watch. If you read the gun blogs you know what I'm talking about. It seems that CNN and its reporter violated one or more federal gun control laws - felonies - as they made the story. The feds have been notified. Normally I'd rather not see a person be prosecuted for violating one of the set of labarynthine federal gun laws. It's too easy for a gun purchaser or seller to commit a felony without even realizing it, and without any criminal intent. It looks like the folks at CNN may be realizing this now.

But they have generally been in favor of more gun control, and this story is one example of the bias they will inject into their reporting in order to advance an anti-gun agenda. So if they get in serious trouble via laws that they support, well, that really is justice.

Posted by Walter at February 23, 2005 03:23 PM