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by Paul Markel The .50 rifle is usually thought of in a military context. Few people in law enforcement would normally classify it as a law enforcement weapon. Yet, I submit that this is an example of "common wisdom" that isn't the latter. The virtue that the .50 brings to the law enforcement armory is penetration. .50 caliber rounds — especially the new class of penetrating rounds — will go through materials and barricades that rounds from "normal" law enforcement weapons (handguns, .223 or even .308 rifles, and shotgun slugs) won't. Three examples will suffice — Remember the MOVE house that was destroyed (along with an entire city block) by a bomb dropped on it by the Philadelphia police in 1985, killing 11 people, five of them children? None of the long guns in the department would reach through and stop the shooter from firing on the police, and the position was not safely approachable. Again, a .50 rifle would have ended the situation soon and safely. Finally, if you need to stop or disable a vehicle from a distance, you need to penetrate the engine block. Which long gun on your department can now do that job effectively and reliably? In a military environment, in theory, there are other weapons that can accomplish the same job of the .50, and if that means an escalation of force beyond what the .50 delivers, so be it. By contrast, in a law enforcement situation requiring a .50 rifle, there is little else that will do. We don't have bigger weapons as a rule, and if we did, we cannot accept "collateral" damage — that is, innocents being killed. Thus the .50 caliber rifle has a well defined law enforcement role, and one for which there is really no substitute.
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