What Rachen is implying isn't some sort of justification outside of the 2nd Amendment, but I think Rachen and others realize that those firearms that don't have a loyalist following are apt to be sacrificed to the anti-gunners,
Yep, that was the intent of the post and calls for discussion. While it is obvious that currently, we are not really facing a "state of emergency" to "rescue" the .50 BMG from being banned, (they are still legal in most places), but the chance of them being singled out again and again is quite strong, based on the fact that they had been singled out before.
What inspired this post was just from reading up on the state of football and NFL-related items from the previous two years, and it was clear that there were several attempts made by suburban moms to outright end the playing of football, not just the kiddie versions but the big leagues too. While these voices represented a minority within the larger body of voices calling for ending peewee leagues and reforming the NFL, the extremist voices were still strong and had Twitter/FBook platforms to make them even louder.
From that, I saw that even American FOOTBALL, one of the most watched and most venerated sporting events in the world, can be a target of single-issue crusaders seeking to alter/dilute and even ban it. When it comes to guns, it presents an even more daunting challenge: More people are trying to find as many excuses as possible to ban guns than football. The owners of Browning X-Bolts and traditional Rem 700s might be able to hold out the longest in a protracted "demonization" campaign against guns. Traditional hunting rifles in the minds of antis seem to be just ornaments or toys. Even semi-autos and evil black rifles can hold their own based on the amount of followers they have. However, there are some fringe regions in the gun community that may be the most vulnerable, and if the antis want to launch a well-organized campaign to "chip away" the 2A, they can very well start chipping away at the fringes first.
The main point is that people WILL try to challenge the "necessity of the .50 BMG in the sporting world". And if we were to give the plain, general-purpose answer "oh, we use that to shoot ducks and hunt deer", it would just cause raised eyebrows: "You serious right?".
BUT............The .50 BMG has plenty of uses in the civilian and sporting world, other than that it is just plain fun to shoot these darn things. I compiled a little list of what actual emergencies and life-threatening scenarios that a .50 BMG can be called on to solve.
Oh and BTW, I just came back browsing through HUBEL's "SHOTGUN FROM HELL" thread and I am still in a state of complete awe. Looks like there is a lot more sporting uses of the big old .50 than I initially thought!