It would appear that four years after the U.S. government started assessing the vulnerability of key airports to the threat of man portable air defense systems, so-called MANPADS, the work is far from done. Or that seems to be the rational behind a request for automated software that will help the Transportation Security Administration calculate the "footprint" of weapons that could threaten aircraft at key airports.

As the solicitation notes: "Since 2003, the Security Assessments Team has been conducting MANPADS Assessments domestically and abroad with limited technical support. The Security Assessments Team has always lacked the use of software that would identify and analyze a specific threat area while interactively considering all the significant parameters of a successful attack on a commercial aircraft."

Well, it's now mid-2007 -- no time like the present to get some help.

The .50 Caliber Sniper Rifle puts us all at risk whenever we fly an airplane.

These powerful sniper rifles which were designed for the battlefield to puncture armor and destroy targets from long range are easier to get than a handgun.

Why should we be spending billions of dollars on homeland security when a terrorist can buy a sniper rifle that can shoot armor piercing bullets up to 2000 yards with great accuracy?

Why do we permit the sale of a weapon that is powerful enough to threaten civilian airplanes taxiing on the runway or during landing and takeoff?

Your safety is at stake because these weapons are so readily available.

.50 Caliber sniper rifles are a terrorist’s dream considering the death and destruction they could inflict.

Facts on .50 Caliber Sniper Rifles
http://www.vpc.org/50caliber.htm

.50 Caliber Sniper Rifles were designed to attack parked or landing aircraft, armored personnel carriers, rail tank cars, bulk fuel storage, and concrete bunkers.

.50 Caliber sniper rifles are powerful enough to puncture armored limousines and can be used as tools for assassination.

.50 Caliber Sniper Rifles have effective ranges up to 2,000 yards, or in other words, 20 football fields laid end to end. Deer hunters generally shoot at ranges of 150 to 200 yards.

Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network bought 25 Barrett .50 Caliber sniper rifles in the late 1980s.

.50 Caliber ammunition is the largest round available on the civilian market and highly destructive armor-piercing, incendiary, and explosive rounds are easily available.

"Any hunting rifle is dangerous to an airplane, but a fifty-caliber would be much more effective," says Ken Cooper, a firearms expert who trains law enforcement and security officials in Kingston, New York. Gal Luft, a former lieutenant colonel in the Israeli army and co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, calls the .50-caliber "lethal against slow-moving planes." Both experts agree that a plane taking off would be most vulnerable to the guns."