.50-Cal Hysteria

CNN has an anti-gun article that appears to be an attempt to garner negative public opinion of firearms using the .50 BMG cartridge. I submitted a comment on the article. CNN probably won't post it, so here it is:

While I don't doubt there's a problem in Mexico, in the U.S. there is no recorded case of a .50 BMG weapon being used to commit a crime. The rifles used to fire this round are huge and not easily portable because of the heavy action, long barrel, and the need to otherwise suppress recoil. Since .50 rifles aren't a problem in the U.S., what needs to be questioned is how the guns are getting into Mexico. It's illegal for non-immigrant residents to purchase firearms in the U.S. It's also already illegal in the U.S. to move firearms across borders without declaring them to CBP, and it's probably illegal in Mexico to take firearms across the border as well (I'm not familiar with Mexican law). Someone's not enforcing laws already on the books. Maybe this is another reason to put up that border fence.

Further comments:
.50 BMG is a very expensive cartridge, costing over $4 a round for surplus. Often times surplus comes belted, and must be de-linked before being fired in a non-belt fed rifle. Unless the agents found a real Ma Deuce (Browning M2 machine gun), this statement misleads readers to thinking there was one. An M2 is even less portable than a Barrett, by the way: over 120 lbs without the ammunition!
FN's 5.7x28mm cartridge is a carbine round, not a rifle round, meaning that it's closer to the 5.56x45mm cartridge, aka .223 Remington, used in the M-16. (The M-16 is indeed a carbine, not a rifle, and is maligned at the end of the article for being too weak. That may be true, but then why does the U.S. military still issue them, and why does U.S. law enforcement still buy them? For reference, a .22LR cartridge is 5.7x15mm!) A certain type of 5.7x28mm round is considered to be armor piercing, but it is for military use only and its sale to civilians is illegal. The attraction of the Five-seveN is that it uses the same cartridge as the P90, and has 30-round capacity magazines.
If the Mexican police really captured that much ordnance from criminals, why don't they use that equipment, or use the $200M to buy better standard issue arms?

Overall, this article was very misleading, and should be considered anti-gun propaganda. When it comes to firearms-related topics, CNN is absolutely biased in the negative.