Back in the days where men wore fedoras, drove cars that weighed more than a tank, and only mixed whiskey with more whiskey, the Thompson submachine gun was the benchmark for defense needs. The military used it. The criminals loved it. And the FBI considered it standard issue for a while.
And they had to qual with it…
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In Fort Worth, Texas, a troubled man, hearing voices, decided to become an active shooter in a local restaurant. Pulling his handgun and engaging customers and staff alike, his gun malfunctioned every time he pulled the trigger. What happened next was chilling.
Fort Worth Police released video on September 26th drawn from a series of surveillance cameras set up in a local restaurant.
The disturbing video showed a then unidentified subject who tried to go on a shooting spree inside the McDonalds at 4800
South Freeway….yet somehow the gun misfired five times…
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Every grown man needs to own a suit for three reasons: court (which you will hopefully never need), funerals (which are hopefully rare), and weddings. It’s these more formal occasions that you also need to evaluate your firearm choice.
Are you being serious?
Yes of course we are. While you can strike ‘court’ from the list, as you should only be carrying there if you are a court officer, weddings and funerals are almost tailor-made for concealed carry musts. They can be very emotional occasions for their own respective reasons. Furthermore, any gathering of people is a target for criminal elements and others. When I worked for the sheriffs department, one of the main reasons for working funeral details was not traffic control for the procession, but in providing a deterrent in the parking lot of the funeral home so mourners did not have their cars broken into.
Then there is always the possibility that there would be those who would violently want to disrupt the event. In a funeral, there can be estranged family or former business partners who come for one last jab. In a wedding, there is the possibility of jilted exes, spurned former mates, and others who could show up with ill will on their mind.
Sadly, shootings have occurred at both weddings and funerals in the United States in recent months. With that aspect to think of, would you rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it?
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk.com
In a public high school in southern Florida, guns are the subject of the day in one class. Moreover, in the lesson plan, gun control is addressed in terms of sight alignment, trigger control, stance, grip, and range safety rules, rather than some obscure political football.
At Sarasota Military Academy, a publicly funded charter school in Sarasota County, Florida, the students are getting up close and personal with a number of modern firearms. While the school has long had an excellent small-bore rifle team the new class is something a little different.
An instructor who is also a county sheriff’s deputy is teaching this gun safety class, which is not mandatory. In the class, students, who are also enrolled in JROTC, students get hands-on training in weapons nomenclature and manipulation with Glock handguns, Remington 870 shotguns, and other common modern firearms. At the end of the quarter, students live fire the guns under close supervision of firearms instructors and range safety officers.
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Sarasota Military Academy senior, Caitlin Sagirs (teacupping badly) is learning how to use a Glock.
The frozen far north of the continent, most of it above the Arctic Circle, is patrolled by a group of part time soldiers known as the Canadian Rangers. This force of some 5,000 volunteer locals are armed with rifles that in some cases date to the First World War. Canada is now crawfishing on buying them new guns for budgetary reasons.
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Rural Rowan County in the center of North Carolina has had in its possession for decades one former US government owned Thompson submachine gun. Now they want to pass it on for the right price.
An article in the Salisbury Post , the local newspaper for the area, mentions that the Thompson has been sitting quietly in the Sheriff’s department armory since 1966. It is a Model 1928 with US Navy markings that meant it could have been used in World War 2. After the war, many of these guns were transferred later to local state law enforcement agencies who in turn farmed them out to county sheriffs and municipal police forces. No one for sure knows the story of how it was acquired. The article mentions that:
“Officers like Capt. Jerry Davis, a 31-year officer at the department, said the weapon was one of many handed out to rural law enforcement agencies across the Southeast in the 1960s and ’70s as civil rights demonstrations brewed.
“Back then, they had, ya know, a lot of civil unrest,” Davis said. “Most of your sheriff’s offices didn’t have a lot of funding, so the federal government released, like, riot gear, equipment and firearms to local agencies.”
Rowan County SO issued the gun as late as 2000 to its special response team for use in entry team scenarios, but since then has had it under lock and key as it is too valuable to leave the armory.
So if you are an agency that has a collectable early model civilian Tommy gun that still works but is too precious to use? You sell it to buy guns you can right?
Well….about that…
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Ever wanted one of those groovy scatterguns with the abbreviated barrels, just big enough to fit in a shoebox? Well, instead of going the $5 AOW tax stamp route, there is always the old-school avenue that is the Baker Cavalry Shotgun.
In the days predating the US Civil War, the double-barreled percussion shotgun was the ideal gun for home defense, hunting, and sport shooting. It could be stuffed with an ounce of small shot for taking birds, squirrel and rabbit, or filled with a handful of larger caliber pellets for felling deer and feral hogs. Should someone come poking around the homestead with ill intentions, this same load could save the day.
Ezekiel Baker of Great Britain sold one of the most popular types of these guns for export into the US in the 1850s. These guns were sold across the country far and wide in the years before the Civil War and were often found hanging over many a mantle. It should not be surprising then that it was these guns that were reached for when the war broke out. Northern (Union) forces had access to an incredible manufacturing base and could count on new arms coming right from the assembly line. In the more agrarian south however, military arms were few and new recruits showing up for duty often had to BYOG. This meant several appeared with Baker shotguns.
And things soon got shortened up a bit…
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk.com
Its interesting to see that such old school favorites as the AK47 (a design that came just after WWII), the FN FAL (See AK47era), and others are still in use around the world.
Note Greenland, the M/96 is the old Remington made P17 30.06 rifle. Yup, bolt action
