Model 82A1 .50-caliber

Despite boasting some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, some Hawaii legislators want to make them even stricter, by outlawing firearms that aren’t even a problem, are never used in crime, and honestly, aren’t owned by very many people. They want to ban .50-caliber guns and ammunition.

A .50-caliber round is the largest available to civilians in the country.

Senator Karl Rhoads told KHON2 News that .50-caliber bullets and the guns that shoot them do not belong in civilian hands.

“It’s a sniper rifle. It can kill a person from, I don’t know, a mile and a half away. They’re too heavy to use for hunting,” Rhoads told the news channel.

In an oddly worded defense of the .50 caliber in the same article, Hawaii Rifle Association president Kainoa Kaku was quoted as saying, “They’re generally handguns, like they are across the country, and they’re acquired illegally by people that usually have criminal backgrounds and records and shouldn’t be able to get them anyway. So, what does this accomplish, really? It’s just another law, like all gun laws. They only affect law-abiding citizens.”

Kaku is right on it’s only a law that affects law-abiding citizens. But gun rights supporters can only hope the first part of his quote was somewhat taken out of context as it alluded to basically it is a gun only criminals use, which isn’t accurate at all and is a questionable statement from the head of what should be a pro-gun rights organization!

First off, Rhoads and Kaku are talking about two very different .50-caliber rounds. Rhoads is clearly referring to the .50 BMG (for Browning Machine Gun), which was technically designed as an anti-material round originally designed for stopping armored vehicles from a distance. It’s also capable of taking a low-flying helicopter out of the sky and turning life forms into pink mist.

.50 BMG

On that line, Rhoads is correct, the .50 BMG is not a suitable hunting round, but then gun rights and the Second Amendment have never been about hunting. So, his argument misses its mark. The .50 BMG, as a civilian round, is a heck of a lot of fun to shoot and is great for long-range targets of the inanimate sort.

Kaku is referring to firearms chambered for .50 AE, the .500 S&W and others, also large, .50-caliber size projectiles, but with a much shorter bullet and case, meaning much less powder as well. These handgun loads are actually suitable for hunting of large and potentially dangerous game, including hogs, which are found in Hawaii. They are not accurate, or at least not designed for use, out to the distances Rhoads cited. And while recoil can be a beast, people do enjoy shooting big caliber guns the same as people like driving fast, expensive cars or collecting rare stamps they will never put on mail or any number of pursuits where aficionados clamor for the extreme, and more rare objects of their hobby.

.500 S&W 400-gr. SJSP Flat by Magtech

Neither the .50 BMG nor any .50-caliber handguns are widely used in crimes. In fact, in a running attempt to refute a 2004 statement from an NRA spokesperson that “The simple fact is that .50-calibers have not been used in crimes.”, the Violence Policy Center lists a long list of criminals and crimes where a .50-caliber was found, but only four cases in the United States, since the early 1990s, where a .50-caliber firearm was actually used to commit a crime…and none of those crimes were in Hawaii.

But then, if anti-gun lawmakers can continue to chip away at gun ownership, in any small, even meaningless, way, they feel vindicated in their efforts at disarming honest Americans.

KHON2 even asked Rhoads why the .50 caliber “should be banned if criminals do not often use them,” a point not even lost on the reporter for the station.

“Because it’s a weapon of war,” Rhoads told the channel. “All these gun bills are drawing lines. There’s a kitchen knife on this side, and there’s a nuclear weapon on this side. So, where is it that you allow civilians to keep having it?”

To a strict 2A constitutionalist, the argument would be the purpose of having these guns are so the people, meaning all citizens, can protect themselves from a tyrannical government. Set in such an argument, the .50-caliber makes more sense than the .22 long rifle cartridge.

With regards to his comparison to nuclear weapons on an interesting historical note, it was near Hawaii that the United States detonated a nuclear weapon in space back in 1962 in the early days of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The 1.4-ton thermonuclear warhead’s explosion 240 miles above the Pacific Ocean was visible to everyone in the Island State. So, I guess in those terms, Hawaii actually has seen something larger than the .50 BMG used, but not in a crime, in a show of Cold War force.

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33 COMMENTS

  1. California banned the .50 BMG years ago, which is why Barrett refused to service police weapons and ultimately left the state. As noted in the article, this caliber weapon is so rarely used to commit a crime as to be statistically zero. But that never stopped our good legislators! (They similarly banned CCW holders from entering any school campus, including colleges and universities, even though not one shred of evidence was presented in the hearings that a CCW holder had EVER committed a crime on a school campus.) Facts do not matter, only the ultimate goal of banning firearms and firearms carry.

    • From what I understand, CA was the reason why the .416 was developed.

      That one will likely be next on the ban list from our frenemies in Sacramento…

      • The pathetic excuse to ban a firearm because it was or maybe used in a crime does not give Gun Control politicans the privilege to infringe on The Second Amendment Rights of the citizenry. Criminal Misuse and The Second Amendment are not in any way connected.

        Talking in circles and trying to explain things to Gun Control zealots always ends up providing cover for an Agenda Rooted in Racism and Genocide. Bottom line…Gun Control zealots know cutting the chase and exposing The Truth About Gun Control is the one thing capable of destroying Gun Control.

        • Just put a sock in it, Deborah, as a black man, I’ve had enough of your constant whining.

          You don’t know jack shit about living black, so just shut the f up about it.

          I suppose now you will attack me, and be exactly what you claim to hate.

  2. Well ILLannoy in it’s infinite wis-dumb has banned 50 cal. Because Dims are stupid🙄

    • Wild that these are still legal in NY unless I missed a new law (possible with the annual attempt to ban more)

  3. A .50-caliber round is the largest available to civilians in the country.
    – Fact Check = FALSE

    Many civilians in the USA legally own 20mm rifles. (Unfortunately, tax stamps are required by the ATF).

      • Oddly may also be NY legal……well stuff to research if actually an option in a decade or so.

    • Fun fact: depending upon which scale you use, the 20mm is either the largest caliber to denote rifle, or the first to denote cannon.

        • Actually, the gun fired from the center of the geared reduction drive below the crankshaft ( the engine was an upside-down vee design ) and NOT through the center of the crankshaft which would be nearly impossible to engineer.

        • unicorn whisperer:
          Since the connecting rods of a piston engine have to pass through the centerline of the crankshaft, “nearly impossible” doesn’t get it. One look at a crankshaft (any crankshaft) will convince the observer that a gun barrel threaded through a crankshaft is not in the realm of the possible in a FUNCTIONING engine.
          I have, however, seen a crankshaft that was center drilled as passage for a pipe. Said crankshaft had been repurposed as the base for a table lamp!

    • Kaku was asked about crime and the law then made to look incompetent by TTAG missing the context of the quote which is provided at the link in the article.

      Whether that context was there when Doug read the article or watched the video is hard to say, journalists aren’t hated enough for their manipulative shenanigans.

      • That’s exactly how he was quoted in the article and I made the statement that we hope or assume his quote was taken out of context. You misunderstood what was written.

  5. All these gun bills are drawing lines. There’s a kitchen knife on this side, and there’s a nuclear weapon on this side. So, where is it that you allow civilians to keep having it?

    That’s so benevolent of our masters to “allow” us civilian peons something that is an enumerated right. And in England, the line is to the left of kitchen knife.

  6. To journalists (aka information activists) and politicians, there is only ONE .50 cal.

    Much like most people think there is one. 30 cal and why does anyone need something so powerful? Some think there is just generic “rifle ammunition” for all long arms.

    I’ve heard dumb arguments about banning .303 but not .308 Winchester because the former is a military cartridge and latter a civilian one. Despite .303 being 10% less powerful.

    I’ve also heard dumb arguments about banning .30 caliber ammunition. I ask which one as I can list a dozen from memory.

    The call to ban .223/5.56 as it is too powerful, tumbles in-flight, and makes even “minor wounds” lethal, make we wonder how stupid people can be.

    Never underestimate the ignorance and stupidity of journalists and politicians.

    • The people perpetrating these arguments are NOT stupid, stop underestimating your enemy. They are terrorists, that’s why they use language like ‘blows the lungs out’ because that language evokes visceral fear and images of carnage. This is the definition of terrorism, they know exactly what they’re doing.

      • That the Constitution Mandates… Keep trying. People who refuse to protect and defend the Constitution. Allow the tyranny under which they whine about. Sound familiar….Whiner.

  8. Glad i didn’t move to Hawaii years ago when offered a job there. These fools would likely want to ban the .50cal, Sharps I have in the collection.
    And, when I see sign of feral hogs on the homestead I do carry my 50cal pistol. Yes, in theory you can kill a hog with a small caliber weapon or even a knife. If someone wants to do that, be my guest. Myself, I’ll use what I know will stop the threat quickly. Feral hogs are no joke and the historic value of the antique rifles is worth more than some gun haters feelings.
    As for the modern 50 cal. rifles, if you want and can afford them and feed them, again, be my guest. The disarmament crowd insists they are weapons of war. So is their grandfathers bolt action 30-06 or their 12 gauge pump shotgun. As is every type or caliber of firearm ever designed. At some point everything, including .22 cal. weapons was used in combat or for training with some military, militia or rebel force somewhere in the world.

    • It’s beyond expensive to live in Hawaii, the Japanese made the real estate market explode…

  10. “turning life forms into pink mist.”. WOW aint that suppin. What if you turn it on it’s side?

  11. It’s expensive to live in Hawaii because everything comes from the US mainland on US ships crewed by US sailors. And these are not very common. Ships crossing the Pacific from the west or south can’t just stop off at Hawaii. They have to deliver to a mainland US port where the cargo is repacked and reshaped to Hawaii.

    • …. and air rifles during the Lewis and Clark Expedition, don’t forget to get all hysterical about those !!

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