Tag Archives: 2nd amendment
Lawmaker seeks to open the floodgate of South Korean M1 imports
Universal Soldier by Tim Page showing a ROK marine in Vietnam after combat. Note the M1 Garand, the South Koreans have over 87,000 of these in arsenal storage that they have been trying to sell to a U.S. importer since 2009
A measure introduced this week to the U.S. House of Representatives is looking to override the State Department-imposed blockade on thousands of M1 Carbines and Garands coming home from Korea.
The move comes as the latest installment in an effort by Republican lawmakers to force change in the administration’s 2009 decision to block the importation of no less than 87,000 rifles donated to South Korea that are now surplus to that country’s needs.
Previous attempts launched in past sessions to free-up the guns failed to gain traction, however with recent GOP gains in Congress and a seemingly lame duck president in the twilight of his term, one representative isn’t giving up.
An ‘assault weapon’ by any other name…
In 1989 California lawmakers puked up one of the first assault weapons bans in U.S. history and in subsequent years added tweaked it and added such blanket restrictions as prohibitions on .50BMG (because there are so many crimes done with these…). While the California Department of Justice has tried really hard to ban anything that is AR-15ish or AK-47like, all enterprising gun owners have had to do is use devices such as ‘bullet buttons’ and low-capacity magazines to be able to own one today.
Still, between 1989 and 2001, the state allowed the registration by civilians of grandfathered guns. Well through Guns.com I did a public records request to CA DOJ and obtained their list of registered guns, all 145,253 of them. A detailed analysis found some really interesting things.
Here’s a snapshot of the top 25 manufacturers for example:
- 28,259 Colt Mfg, almost all Sporters and AR-15 type rifles
- 16,665 Chinese Norinco/Polytech/Clayco rifles, primarily AK and SKS pattern guns in 7.62mm
- 14,797 Bushmasters, almost exclusively XM-15 series rifles
- 9,158 Heckler & Koch firearms, with Model HK 91, 93 and 94 rifles accounting for the majority
- 4,529 Springfield Armory rifles, primarily M1/M1A 7.62mm guns
- 4,528 IMI guns including 179 Galil rifles and 4301 UZIs of multiple types in 9mm and .45
- 4,199 Armalites including 291 AR-10s and 1046 AR-180s
- 3,124 Eagle AR-pattern firearms
- 2,924 Intratec branded guns, all variants of the TEC-9/AB-10 and TEC-22 pistol
- 2,732 Ruger firearms, mostly Mini-14 and Mini-30 rifles
- 2,199 FN/Browning/FNH with mainly FAL and FNC type rifles listed
- 2,189 SWD guns mostly Cobray and M10/11/12 MAC-style pistols
- 1,876 Arsenal made AK-pattern rifles in 7.62mm
- 1,461 DPMs, all AR-15 variants
- 1,457 Austrian Steyrs, almost all AUG-series 5.56mm rifles
- 1,303 Korean Daewoo firearms in several variants, almost all 5.56mm rifles but also 16 DR300s in 7.62 and 5 DP51 pistols
- 1,170 Franchi shotguns in the uber-scary SPAS 12 and LAW12 varieties
- 1,132 CAI/Century guns, primarily 7.62mm rifles
- 1,082 Hungarian FEG guns, mostly SA85 AK-style rifles
- 914 Auto Ordnance, typically all Thompson 1927 style carbines
- 770 Imbel L1A1 type rifles in 7.62mm
- 693 DSA rifles, all SA58 models
- 526 Enterprise Arms 7.62mm rifles
- 496 Berettas including some 122 AR-70s and 60 rare BM-59s
- 445 SIGs, including 122 P-series pistols and 139 SG550 5.56mm rifles
- 392 Benellis, split roughly between their M1 and M3 tactical shotguns
The rest of the 3,000~ word report over at Guns.com along with a photo gallery of some of the more interesting guns here.
CMP may get into the 1911 business
An add-on to the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act that passed committee includes a plan to transfer the U.S. Army’s remaining stock of .45 ACP 1911A1 pistols to the Civilian Marksmanship Program.
Added as an amendment by Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Alabama, while the NDAA was in debate in the House Armed Service Committee, it could see potentially the largest remaining stock of military surplus World War II-era handguns in government hands sold to the public.
The lawmaker disclosed that the military currently spends about $2 per year to store 100,000 Model 1911s that are surplus to the Army’s needs. While 8,300 have been sold or disposed of in recent years – largely through the controversial Department of Defense’s 1033 Program, which offers eligible law enforcement agencies up to one pistol per full-time officer – the guns still on hand have in many cases been stored since the 1980s when they were withdrawn from service in favor of the then-new Beretta 92F (M9).
A chat with a controversial sheriff
So I write a lot of shit. I do fiction (zombie, military sci-fi books and short stories), non-fiction (firearms and history pieces and books), intelligence analysis, and other papers, articles ad nausea. Well I also write a lot of gun politics/legislation/litigation stuff as well– mainly for Guns.com where I have published, according to WordPress, some 1,042 articles since 2012 .
I typically don’t reblog my Guns.com articles over here as I try to stay non-political on LSOZI but decided to make an exception with a story I covered this week.
You see, in Milwaukee there was a horrible double murder after a tragic accident last weekend. In a nutshell, the a 40-year old man, Archie Brown Jr, with his 15-year old nephew in the car accidentally hit a child with his car at a birthday party. When he stopped to tend for the stricken youth, he and his nephew were shot at close range by a party goer and killed. Three people dead. Just like that.
Then the mayor and police chief of Milwaukee jumped in the issue with both feet and decried how lax gun laws in Wisconsin led to this, to which Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke– a champion of gun rights– took exception.
In the meantime, when the long arm of the law caught up with the birthday party assassin who was hiding out (ironically) in Chicago which has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, he self-terminated. This guy has been in and out of jail since he was 17, was a felon (bank robbery, sexual assault) on parole and prohibited from possessing guns. I guess he didn’t want to go back to Boscobel for the rest of his life and live in a 12×7 with a stainless steel toilet.
So I caught up with Sheriff Clarke and talked to him for 20 minutes or so to get his take on the fall out, and I thought he was very candid.
And if you live in Wisconsin you can donate at your local Associated Bank to the Archie Brown Jr Memorial Fund to help cover funeral expenses.
MILF Rebels give PI Forces back the goods
The horribly abbreviated Moro Islamic Liberation Front, who has been fighting the government of the Philippines for autonomy since the 1960s off and on, has had something of a truce for the past three years. The thing is, with 11,000 heavily armed rebels in the field armed with everything from slingshots to Chinese-made RPGs and Dshk guns, their surplus stockpiles of arms figured in at least one very messy overseas sales scheme that wound up taking down a California state senator, old Leland “Tough on Guns” Yee.
Well the MILFs stumbled across a force of Philippine National Police Special Action Force commandos poking around in their area in January and, in an incident termed a “misencounter” by both sides, some 44 cops were left dead and much of their U.S. supplied (via the War on Terror) hardware, to include M249s, M4s, M60s, M240s, and other goodies, were captured.
This led to the rebels turning over a collection of 16 of these pieces this week in an effort to keep the peace.
Of course, some in the government pointed out that most of what the commandos lost is still unaccounted for, but hey, its the Southern Philippines, mano.
Anyway, for more in-depth, I did a piece at Guns.com yesterday on it.