A Maryland county police department has cobbled together an AR lower, other hand-me-downs, and a $2,723 single-shot 50 BMG conversion kit for counter-terrorism operations.
Listen to their pathetic justification.
The problem, Plitt explained, was that the department had few options if a terrorist tried to drive a truck bomb into a local building. County snipers – there are about a dozen – routinely carry .308-caliber rifles. The guns are powerful and accurate, but not great at stopping a runaway truck.
One shot from a .50-caliber rifle, however, can take out a vehicle’s engine, according to Sgt. Jim Phillips, a leader of one of the county’s Quick Response Teams.
So they’re trying to justify using a slow-loading, single-shot weapon against a truck or car bomb, and the whole scenario for the justification for the purchase is that the police will:
- know of the attack far enough in advance to call in the handful of SWAT personnel that have been trained on the weapon
- deploy the shooter and weapon out into the county to the site of the expected attack
- be able to know precisely which side of the building the attack is coming from, and then
- be able to hit the target, with a single disabling shot while it is in motion.
Incredibly, that justification passed muster with the county auditor.
Sounds like the same justification could be used for a whale harpoon. About as useful as what they bought.
12ga slug is capable of penetrating a vehicle door and it very well can disable and engine.
One has to be a leetle bit closer to hit something with a deer slug than with a .50, just sayin’.
I hate to break it to them but a .50 is not going to kill the motor of a truck dead enough to stop the charge. It’s not going to make it across town after the hit, but it’s likely to keep running well enough to finish its last run to the building.
Guns, even big ones, aren’t magic wands.
We talked about this at tank-school. What should we use to stop a truck-bomb if we were stationed at the gate with our tank? The 120mm with a HEAT round. Note we had a .50 machinegun and two 7.62 MG available and the answer was the Big ‘Un.
What a load of bull! I love the list of three “potential terrorist targets”. NSA has it’s own armed police force. Ft. Meade has *ARMY* weapons! And BWI Airport is the jurisdiction of Md. Transportation Police and the State Police. If something was going down at any of those places, the county boys would just get in the way.