The Rocky Mountain Fifty Caliber Shooters Association will be holding their annual .50 BMG Rifle & Machine Gun Shoot this weekend in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado.
It's this Friday & Saturday from 8 a.m. til 10 p.m. & Sunday from 8 a.m til 12 p.m. Admission is $5 per person (under 12 gets in free).
Here are some pics & video clips from previous events.
One really cool thing (aside from seeing the different firearms people bring) is that most people on the firing line will rent you their firearms to shoot. It's either done on a $X per round or an $X per magazine basis. The last two I went to I saw everything from a suppressed full auto Mac-10 & other submachine guns to various assault rifles (real assault rifles) to belt fed machine guns to cannons (20mm, 25mm & 37.5mm). They even had a black powder mortar that shoots bowling balls & to complete the set a black powder muzzleloader that shot bowling pins (bowling balls & pins weren't the target - bowling balls & pins were the projectiles)! There were also some military vehicles that were interesting. My fav (aside from the tank) was the Jeep they had complete with a 1919 Browning on a pedestal mount. Now that's defensive driving!
On Saturday night there will be a tracer shoot just after dark. Imagine the 4th of July but horizontal. & did I mention that a lot of the targets are reactive? Very reactive. They range from buckets filled with blasting dynamite to a junk car or two with full tanks of gas & full propane bottles in the back seat.
& for you recoil-junkies that think the .50 BMG in a rifle will wake you up in the morning, try standing behind a 20mm Lahti or Solothurn when it goes off. Not shooting it - just standing behind it.
But perhaps the coolest part of attending is knowing that these people - the ones who did go through all the bullshit (& I mean bullshit) to possess these firearms (not to mention the expense - do you have any idea what a 20mm round costs to reload?) are exactly what the founding fathers & framers meant by militia. They're ordinary people with martial arms. Now I've seen & heard about the ATF doing a lot fo stupid things. In fact they've taken idiotic to a whole new level. But one thing even they aren't dumb enough to do is to try a full blown "raid" on these people when they're together (Yes, I know they have their paperwork in order & the ATF wouldn't have any reason to "raid" them - but like I said, the ATF is not a group of people whom NASA wanted applications from in the first place).
If you're able then come to the .50 caliber & machine gun shoot. You'll see something that is too damned rare these days - the means to resist in the hands of ordinary folks. These are not government employees who are using government property, but martial arms in the hands of private citizens. Most of these weapons have only two uses, either target practice (really fun albeit expensive target practice) & defense against a military force. All of the people on the firing line follow the law to its letter (despite the repugnance of such laws to the constitution) & you won't find anyone there who isn't a responsible person. They don't act responsibly because they're forced to, but because they want to & that makes a world of difference. I don't doubt that every one of them has given some thought to the political climate that we're in & what they & their firearms could do if things got really bad. That is why they are so regulated: not because they might become criminals, but because they might become freedom fighters. The government (at least a large portion of it) would like nothing more than to ban their firearms that have use only as target guns or military arms. Over the last 70 years the legal status of machine guns has went from unregulated to heavily restricted. That wasn't because of Al Capone or the Cryps - that was because these people who you'll see this weekend are the government's worst nightmare: decent folks who have the ability to protect themselves, their communities & their Rights. Some people just see a bunch of guys enjoying a really expensive hobby. Me, I see the essence of freedom. Not freedom in totality, but an important part of what allows freedom to flourish: the ability to protect it.
If you wish to understand what I'm talking about, or you just want to shoot a firearm that the government has made too burdensome or costly for you to own then come on out.
Posted by Publicola at May 14, 2004 06:22 AM