OT: Tools of Modern Terror

Quote:

Governments have done little to stop the spread of this class of weapons. Often, as in the case of the United States, they have contributed to it. Acts of crime, terror and oppression with Kalashnikovs and AR-15 descendants, endured by civilians under withering fire, have been hard-wired into our times. There is no end in sight.

Unquote.

This guy's an ass. "this class of weapons". Hell, just about any semi auto will do the same amount of damage. As a matter of fact, most hunting rifles pack more knock down power than either of these. .30-06, .30-30, .308, the list goes on and on. But these don't "look" like assault rifles. I wonder how many of the mass killings with so-called "assault rifles" were done with rifles that had been converted to full auto, thereby qualifying as true assault rifles?

But, the author probably got paid pretty well for this article.

Which of course is, factually, exactly right.

But they don't. Mass killers aren't using Remington Woodmasters. That's the whole point of the article.

Duh...that's why they described AK-47 ammo as "mid-power." They got it technically right, which makes the article quite a cut above typical mass-media articles about guns.

In the US, that's probably part of the reason they aren't used. Mass killers, whether simple nutcases or terrorists, want that mean, nasty, military look -- something like you see on the covers of _American Rifleman_ these days. Mass killings of civilians are best done with the same guns that armies use today to lay down withiring small-arms fire.

It's part of their shtick. After a few beers, most ordinary people who buy those guns probably will tell you that they buy them for the same reason. They want to look kick-ass.

Outside of the US, it's the sheer ubiquity of those guns that's the other driving factor. There are literally tens of millions of AK-47s on the world markets. That's another important part of the story covered in the article.

You could look it up. I think the answer is one -- the converted Mini-14 that was involved in the shootout with the FBI in 1986.

Probably not, even though it was very good.

Something tells me that, despite all your big talk, you haven't actually done much hunting or other shooting.

Any hunter or target shooter who drops his gun in a muddy field and then picks it up and shoots it is someone you don't want to go shooting with again.

Ed, you quite obviously don't know much about guns.

After all one doesn't buy an AK-47 to go traipsing around in muddy fields. No! They are what is called in the hand phone world "augmented reality". One can sit there, in air conditioned comfort, in front of the TV, fondling it and visualizing oneself as "Master of the Universe".

I believe that psychologists refer to them as "penis enhancements"

And on the AR-15, they can always push the bolt with the "forward assist." It's like a hand job with your thumb...

The first AR-15's or M-16's, I don't remember what they were called, issued to the A.F. didn't have the bolt closer, now called by the much more elegant term of "Forward Assist". The first time we qualified with the new "guns" the Range People gave careful instructions "just pull the bolt carrier back and let go of it!" And invariably about half the guys on the line pulled the bolt carrier back and carefully eased it forward whereupon it didn't close :-) The "bolt closer" seemed a great renovation at the time :-)

But, of course, we weren't enthralled with all this bang-bang stuff. It was just another thing to get through before we went back to fixing airplanes :-)

The first ones issued to the A.F. were called AR-15s. That's probably what you had.

I've heard about that. The first ones I encountered were expensive, slicked-up civilian AR-15s used in DCM competition. They had the "forward assist." My wisecrack at the time was that it might be useful if your gun got fouled after mowing down all of your competitors.

Apparently they eventually fixed the things that created a need for it in the first place, but it's still on the guns. To me, it's an artifact of the fact that a gas-operated semiauto rifle may be a great military gun, but it's a p.o.s. as a civilian gun.

I like the "forward assist" on a Remington 700 a lot better. It's called a bolt lever. d8-)

Ah yes, the hand powered, semi-automatic, rifle, with the innovative extractor :-)

But lets face it, absolutely no good as a combat weapon. I recently read that in Vietnam 50,000 rounds were expended per enemy casualty. Given the 700's usual 5 round magazine and a rate of, oh say 20 rounds a minute, disregarding reloading, we are looking at 40 hours per casualty :-)

Given the $15.00/hour that I read Trump is promising everyone that is about $600 per head.

Gas-operated semiauto -- good combat firearm. Bolt-action -- good civilian firearm.

BTW, not to derail the main thought, but my cousin was a sniper in the Marines, in Laos (and a gymnast who could climb trees like a monkey ). He shot a Remington Model 700 in 7.62 NATO in that war.

In the late '80s and early '90s, when I was active in DCM shooting, I fought hard against the AR ban in NJ. The only people I knew who owned them were some National Match-caliber shooters in my club. They put a lot of money into them to make them perform at the long ranges, and I thought the ban was absurd overreach by the anti-gun crowd. What kind of a nut would use them to commit a crime?

When the AR-15 sales took off with the general population, I almost fell out of my chair. Why the hell? I know the gun to a moderate degree. I shot other club members' guns in DCM shoots. They were kind of fun, but I couldn't imagine why anyone would want one unless he was engaged in service-rifle competition. For civilian uses, they're expensive toys, and not particularly good at anything.

But they do look baaaad.... They look good with a digger hat and camo, and a big knife on your belt. And if you're ever attacked by a herd of rabid groundhogs, they're just the right medicine. d8-)

Actually the Remington 700 was a favored sniper rifle:

"The original M40 was a military type-classified version of the Remington 700; it was factory-made, and had a one-piece wooden stock."

In Laos? With the CIA's private army? I wasn't aware that any uniformed U.S. troops were ever stationed in Laos.

Since I've only fired during AR-15 in qualifying I think the furthest range I fired at was probably 50 yards and as I remember it the accuracy wasn't exactly stupefying :-) But as I was on the pistol team I knew the range guys and after qualifying was over they let me fire it full automatic. I remember that I thought it fired way too fast as any sort of 2 - 3 round burst took a lot of concentration, but the fun stuff was literally disintegrating a concrete block at full automatic.

Sort of a fun gun; is someone else was buying the ammunition :-)

1st Marine Div. He was shot out of a tree and sent home for R&R to recover. He stayed with my parents while I was in college. I came home once when he was there, I think it was 1970, and we were watching the news together, when Melvin Laird (then Sec. of Defense) came on and said in some committee hearing, that there were no American combat forces in Laos. My cousin turned to me and said, "That's where I was shot out of a tree."

Marines. Denied by the U.S. government. Laird spun it all around, but it was all phony.

My cousin went back to Laos after recovering. A month or so later, he was grenaded out of a tree. He lived through that one, too, and then got hit by a car while walking across a road in Boca Raton, Fla. a couple of years later, and died . I suspect he was drunk at the time. He never really recovered from the war. I heard he was a very successful sniper. He worked mostly at night, with a starlight scope. He told me his job was to shoot the tall guy at the head or the back of patrols. That would be the Chinese advisor.

He said he preferred shooting at night because he didn't like seeing their faces when he shot, and the starlight scopes didn't have great resolution.

Along about 1965 - 66 President Johnson stated that "No U.S. military helicopters are stationed in Thailand". Which was, I believe was factually true. Of course we had a number of helicopters from our helicopter squadron at Nha Trang, Vietnam, on "Temporary Duty" at Udon RTAFB which is only a few miles south of the Mekong River. But of course there is a difference between "Permanently Stationed" and "temporary duty" :-)

But I doubt that any country tells the whole truth, whether in war or peace. It was widely reported in both the News Papers and radio that on 10 December 1941 Colin Kelly had sunk the Japanese cruiser Natori by diving his B-17 into the ship and had been posthumous awarded the Nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor. The implication was, of course, that 2 days after the U.S. Pacific fleet was nearly totally destroyed that the U.S. had successfully struck back against the Yellow Peril.

Subsequently of course the details have changed.

One of the advantages of being in the Military is free ammunition :-)

Walmart heir John Walton served with SOG in Laos:

--jsw

Free food, free housing, free medical, free gas, free ammo, free targets.

It would be the Marxist dream of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need", except that the government gets to define your abilities very high, and your needs very low, to their own advantage.

--jsw

Marines were in Laos in '70. Our CH-46 squadron flew into Laos numerous tim es. HMM-262. I was a gunner and we knew we were going into Laos when you w ere told to put M60's on the gun mounts instead of the Browning .50 machine guns. The .50 was too heavy to hump out if you got shot down.

Marines were in Laos in '70. Our CH-46 squadron flew into Laos numerous times. HMM-262. I was a gunner and we knew we were going into Laos when you were told to put M60's on the gun mounts instead of the Browning .50 machine guns. The .50 was too heavy to hump out if you got shot down. ==================================

"...by 1966 Long Cheng was one of the largest US installations on foreign soil, becoming one of the busiest airports in the world." "At the height of its significance in the late 1960s, the "secret city" of Long Tieng maintained a population of 40,000 inhabitants, making it the second largest city in Laos at the time, although it never appeared on maps throughout this period."

Lima Site 85 was a CIA army" site not a U.S. Military site although there was apparently a TACAN site there.

Yes a Special Forces "A" Team. They were all over the place. A good friend spent some time interdicting the so called "Ho Chi Minh Trail and other odd places.

But, these guys were not stationed in the country, as I believe I originally mentioned.