In Defense of the .50 Caliber Round

Following the dramatic political upheaval in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt, Libya has been this week's hot-button North African country to rise up against an oppressive regime—in this case, Muammar Gaddafi, the eccentric dictator whose 42-year reign is the longest in the region.

Gaddafi's done a lot of crappy things: he pissed off Ronald Reagan enough to warrant a large-scale bombing in 1986, and in this most recent round of unrest he's banished journalists from Libya and ordered his military to open fire on his own citizens. And according to some reports, the Libyan military—or mercenaries—have fired .50 caliber rounds against protesters.

And that's where the Internet stepped in and took things out of context.

The picture here was featured on a Tumblr post that gave a plaintive admonishment.

You see that bullet?
It belongs to a .50 caliber.
You know how many inches it is?
About 5.
You know who’s taking the hits?
Libyans.
Do you know how much of an impact this is on a person’s body?
It tears them apart.
Gaddafi you are a terrible, terrible man. Subhan’Allah. Words cannot express how I and many others feel about you right now.

It's not wise to give too much credence to any single post on Tumblr (particularly one with such casual disregard for paragraph structure), but this post is different: it has accumulated over 27,800 notes — most of them "likes" and approving reblogs — and the photo even sparked a discussion on Reddit. The alarmist, reactionary responses to the alleged use of .50 cal against people spread like wildfire:

I am going to reblog every single image of this ammunition because it should never, ever, ever be used on a human being. PERIOD. [source]

And also:

I had a discussion with my brother, who’s currently training in the police academy, about weapons that law enforcement/the military uses. Do you want to know what police departments who even have these bullets use them for? Immobilizing vehicles and shooting through walls… These bullets are designed to shred things much tougher than the human body.

Unbelievable. [source]

So: a number of tech-savvy and intelligent people are horrified by a weapon that was developed during World War I. With all due respect to the secondhand expertise of police academy recruits, the .50 caliber Browning Machine Gun (BMG) has been used by the United States military continuously since the early 1920s, and today you can find it on American tanks, Humvees, armored personnel carriers, helicopters and more. The .50 BMG cartridge is also used by most long-range snipers employed by Western militaries because the larger, heavier round is less affected by crosswinds. Expressing shock and outrage that this round is used against humans is like running outside and screaming cancer statistics at smokers.

I am, admittedly, biased for the fifty. As an officer in the Marine Corps, I had .50 BMG attached to the cupola of my M1A1 Abrams tank, and it was by far and away my favorite weapon to fire during my four-year active duty career. On a battlefield filled with distinctive sounds—the concussive WHUMP of artillery, the crack of rifles—nothing made quite an impression like the fifty, slower and lower than the staccato chatter of 7.62mm and 5.56mm machine guns. Anyone who's ever fired a .50 caliber machine gun can instantly recognize its immutable THUB-THUB-THUB. While it may be the bass beat of death, I happen to find it soothing.

During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I used my .50 cal to destroy artillery pieces and trucks that belonged to the Iraqi army. I never fired it at a person, but that's largely because the M1A1 Abrams has a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun that's better suited for that. Our rules of engagement—detailed instructions that took into account the Geneva Convention, the law of war and deference to religious and cultural practices—actually didn't forbid us from using .50 cal against human targets. How could it? The .50 cal is used most efficiently against thin-skinned vehicles like trucks and personnel carriers, and, from a soldier's perspective, it generally makes sense to fire at those vehicles when enemies are inside them.

None of this excuses the practice of firing at unarmed protesters in Libya. But why take issue with the ordnance? Inherent in the argument against firing .50 caliber rounds at protesters is an admission that smaller caliber rounds are permissible. I've seen firsthand what happens to a human body when struck with the sniper's accuracy of the Abrams tank's coaxial machine gun, and I assure you that 7.62mm rounds shred human flesh and end life just as terribly and permanently as .50 caliber. The cold reality is that .50 caliber is just as appropriate to fire at people as a 9mm pistol or a Tomahawk missile or a claymore or a 120mm canister shell filled with 1100 tungsten balls.

Which is to say: absolutely not very appropriate in the vast majority of circumstances.

War is cruel, and I suspect revolutions may be crueler. As communication and technology play key roles in the search for freedom across the Middle East, perhaps, in the safety of this lawful Western bubble, we can lesser the suffering in Libya by sharing information on the Internet. But in order to do so, that information must be correct, and our voices must be fueled not merely with passion, but careful reason as well.

Matt Ufford writes jokes about television at Warming Glow. You can find more of his writing about war here.