Weapons Man

So yesterday there was a decision from the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, or, as everybody who doesn’t have to pretend to respect these asshats (because he practices law in their court) knows them, The Clown School.

In the instant case they had a perv who had spent his entire adult life, essentially, peeping, creeping, and shooting pictures up the skirts of women on the subway.

So… being that this is Massachusetts, they decided…

• that the guy had to be acquitted, or actually, the case had to be dismissed.
• and he had to be let go.
• because there’s nothing wrong with what he was doing.
• and so, he can go do it now all he wants.

While this decision has, predictably, drawn some flak, what hasn’t been tied to it as far as we know is the retirement (after the decision was made, but before it was revealed)

Since nobody’s likely to be all that interested in our opinion, we’re glad to give you a few more interesting opinions on Ukraine. And we’ll admit that you might be sick of the Ukraine. We’re not, but we’re pretty sick at the lame American government response. But rather than give you just folks that agree with us, here’s a range of opinion, framed with our opinions about their opinions:

Ilya Somin of the Volokh Conspiracy law-prof group blog, now unfortunately hosted at the Washington Post:

The new pro-Russian regional government in Crimea (which came to power in a coup last week), has scheduled a referendum on independence for March 30 [but see update on the meaning of the referendum below]. Quite possibly, Putin intends to use the referendum as a justification for either annexing Crimea or creating a Rus

One way guerrillas arm themselves, we’ve seen, is by relieving the authorities of their arms. This procedure is not only used by guerrillas, but also by criminals. To be sure, as we’ve seen in our series on Greek Guerrillas throughout modern history, the cutline between insurgent and outlaw is not exactly crisp and clear (think of the Mexican cartels as an even more modern example). Historically, of course, armies and police have been the gun depots not only of insurgents but also of outlaws. The gun you’re looking at here is one of these, which has criss-crossed the country in the hands of the lawless and the lawmen. The lawmen have a pretty good grip on it… now.

The case hinges on John Dillinger, a name which should need no introduction, despite Hollywood’s persistent efforts to make a hero out of this uncommon criminal. On October 13, 1933, John Dillinger and his gang hit the Auburn, Indiana police department for an assortment of short and long guns, including an M1921 Colt Thompson with a 50-round “L” drum magazine.

Gardner does insist that weapons supply was a problem, or more correctly, a limitation on the growth of andartes:

It was not manpower but lack of weapons that limited the growth and size of the Greek guerrilla bands. Weaponless men were understandably reluctant to engage in guerrilla sorties and band leaders were not anxious to recruit more men than could be armed. There were, of course, a great many weapons in the hands of the mountain villagers. Many of the soldiers of the Greek Army had never been disarmed after the surrender — when news of the collapse of formal Greek resistance had reached them, many small units had merely disbanded and the men had returned to their homes carrying their arms. After the bands began operating, additional weapons were obtained by capturing or stealing them from the Italians.

Ammunition was in short supply, as the returning soldiers could carry only a limited number of rounds. Fortunately, Italian cartridges fitted the Mannlicher rifle with which the Greek Army had been equipped, and thefts from Italian stocks as well as the stripping of killed or captured Italians helped solve the ammunition problem.

In addition to Greek and Italian army rifles, the andartes carried other weapo

In honor of the US commitment to assist the Greeks in their Civil War, which took place 67 years ago this week, we’ll be presenting a study of UW in this nation, the birthplace of Western Civilization.

This is the second of four parts, which will run daily:

• The Guerrillas of Greece’s Dawn — yesterday, 4 Mar 14
• The Guerrillas of Greece in the Second World War — today, 5 Mar 14
• The Greek Civil War, 1944-1949 – tomorrow, 6 Mar 14
• Cyprus and other Aftershocks of the Greek Civil War, Friday, 7 Mar 14.

Greece had never been a unitary national state before the events of 1821 to 1833, as recounted yesterday. And Greece continued to have troubles with national unity thereafter (indeed, to this day). While the Greeks were the most unified when being pressed by foreign invaders, even then they were prone to collapse into factionalism.

The classic example of that? Greek factions fighting a Civil War, even while they continued to fight against the Ottomans during the Greek War o

We try to be all tolerant and all that around here. It takes all kinds to make a world, right? But in beautiful downtown Herkimer, New York (best known for being near the Remington plant in Ilion), a couple of guys really test our toleration. The Utica, NY, Observer-Dispatch reported in February:

Michael H. Jones (right), 35, of Cedarville Road, Ilion, and Reid A. Fontaine (left), 31, address unknown, were charged with misdemeanor sexual misconduct, police said.

They were caught on videotape after a local farmer set up a camera in his barn after noticing his cows all of a sudden appeared anxious and were not producing as usual.

An investigation revealed that Jones agreed to videotape Fontaine as he attempted to have sexual contact with several cows.

via Sexual misconduct with cows reported in Herkimer Co. – News – Utic

We didn’t. One more we owe Bob at BearingArms. Turns out that JD Saltzman, whom we do know by reputation*, took to the pages of American Warrior to beat the rhetorical snot out of the sniveling pussy, Lt. Col. Bob Bateman, a Democrat activist in the reserves who uses fake cred as an “infantry officer” (he was once, he ain’t been in a real long time) to push gun bans.

A taste of ye JD:

You average American gun owner is not the idiot Col. Bateman says would pull his gun over any petty disagreement. most gunowners are normal people would like to go about their daily lives without becoming a crime statistic or a soon-forgotten headline.

Defending oneself and others from the threat of personal harm now takes a backseat to ideology in the flawed, utterly absurd moral stance that it’s morally superior to be a defense was victim. Pardon me for interjecting on behalf of my fellow men, but we don’t need to be lectured on personal safety and guns by magazine editors who likely can’t tell the difference between an air 15 and a shotgun, or a semi automatic pistol and a revolver.

It’s not the definition of men that is changed; it’s the self-proclaimed magazine of all

In an article in New Hampshire Business Journal (hat tip, Bob Owens at Bearing Arms.com) Ruger CEO Mike Fifer explained why the company won’t be growing — in New Hampshire:

“We may relieve some of the capacity constraints in Newport (N.H.) or Prescott (Ariz.) in moving existing products,” he said, adding that he would like all the factories – which currently employ a total of about 2,400 – to have the same size workforce.

“If you look at a workforce of 1,000 people in a factory, you might have 800 terrific folks, but when you are stretching that hard, the last 100 people you hired might not be the folks you hired if you had a choice, so if I can over time get manned enough and get enough products in there (North Carolina) to take a little of the pressure off the other two plants, we’ll be better off for it,” Fifer said.

The company had 823 employees in Newport in 2013, ac

A Greek Armatolos of the War of Independence. A Klepht looks exactly the same.

In honor of the US commitment to assist the Greeks in their Civil War, which took place 67 years ago this week, we’ll be presenting a study of UW in this nation, the birthplace of Western Civilization.

This is the first of four parts, which will run daily:

• The Guerrillas of Greece’s Dawn — today, 4 Mar 14
• The Guerrillas of Greece in the Second World War — tomorrow, 5 Mar 14
• The Greek Civil War, 1944-1949 – Thursday, 6 Mar 14
• Cyprus and other Aftershocks of the Greek Civil War, Friday, 7 Mar 14.

We’ll cover the geopolitics, tactics, causes and consequences of each of these phases, and where they fit in the history of the Hellenes and the world. There will be facts, analysis, and pure opinion in here, and we hope to stir a

Meet Thanh Van Quang, 39 — figuratively, that is. If you want to meet him in real life any time in the next 33 years plus, you’ll have to meet him in California prison (if sentences were real in CA, which, as we’ll see, they are not).

On Nov. 30, 2012, Quang was arguing with the manager at the Pueblo Motel in Santa Ana about inviting guests into his room, according to prosecutors.

Authorities said he later walked to a nearby gas station, bought a fuel canister and filled it with a gallon of gasoline before returning to his motel room.

Quang then caused an explosion in the room, which started a fire and damaged his and neighboring rooms, prosecutors said.

So he got 33 to life in the Big House, and a rather laughable $177k in restitution, which he’s going to repay just how? Out of his prison commissary account?

Still, this was amazing and shocking behavior. Out of the blue, as it were. There’s nothing that might have suggested that Quang was a criminal. Well, except for this:

In 1998,

For a long time we didn’t do one of these. But we couldn’t resist the temptation.

Every now and then, some people demonstrate their utility as examples of how not to do something; we tend to concentrate on examples where people rearrange their anatomy or qualify for nomination for the 2014 Darwin Awards… or open the sort of holes in third parties that let air in and blood out, like our poster child on the right side of the page.

And when that happens, we can’t resist doing A Mess of Accidents.

Boardman, Ohio, February 26th. This is why the womenfolk don’t have access the vault, here. (If they were lady gunfolk, that would be one thing).

The 24-year-old woman told police she was dusting when she dropped her husband’s .45 caliber semi-automatic Glock she was attempting to move it. She attempted to catch the gun and grabbed it by the trigger, causing it to fire a

Today we were going to open a four-part story of Greek Guerilla Wars with Part 1, the story of the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire.

It’s taking a bit longer to shape up than we would like so please bear with us. We still hope to launch later today.

The four parts, which will be (God willing) posted over the next four days, cover:

1. The Greek War of Independence 1821-32
2. The Greek Resistance in WWII 1941-45
3. The Greek Civil War 1944-49
4. Echoes of the Greek Resistance 1950-present (including Cyprus).

We don’t mean to imply that the ancient history of Greece or the long periods between the Ottoman Conquest and the War of Independence, or between Independence and the Italian Invasion of WWII, were without irregular fighting in Greece — quite the contrary. But we’re hitting the high points that are of interest to all, and not just Greek or Balkan specialists.

Each of these areas is worth a book on its own (and has produced many), a selection of which grace the UWORL. A list of select references will be provided. One could easily make this a life’s study, and yet it’s a bare chapter in overall UW references.

There might be, if you had one of these:

This was from the SOE equipment catalog, and we pulled the image from the National Archives in Kew, England. You have to admire the level of cultural self-confidence that lets you catalog a device for your spooks that you describe as a “silent, murder weapon.” That’s the cultural confidence that admits that “some people need killing,” and then sets about doing the right thing by killing them.

The needy in this case were Nazis, but this easily-made short range mind changer (it changes a mind into a cooling mass of dysfunctional organic material) has very wide application in a world where tyrants never rest.

The gun needed to be partially disassembled to be reloaded: it was a “one sure shot is all you got” kind of weapon, hence the admonition to get up to contact range to fire. Inside the gun were alternating spacers, discs and wipes, state of the art technology for 1944. This photo, from the Swedish collectors&#

The Jurek Model B, without its holster/stock. Click to embiggen.

Some time ago we featured the beautiful, P.38-derived Webley 9mm Automatic Pistol, a prototype designed by Polish immigrant to Britain Marian Jurek. In that article, we mentioned Dr Jurek’s earlier British designs, two submachine gun models. We were intensely curious about these weapons: given what we knew of Jurek’s machining skills and aesthetics, we wondered if they, too would be beautiful.

Well… ahem… at least they’re interesting. While they’re not terribly revolutionary in design, they have an interesting provenance, a couple of interesting features, and an interesting disposition.

The two guns are known today as the Model A and Model B, but these may just have been terms assigned to them by Major FWA Hobart, in his Pictorial History of the Sub-Machine Gun, from which these photos were scanned. The Jureks w

Any professor will tell you: some students are just flaming 4$$#013s. They probably didn’t mean it literally, though.

The FBI says a Georgia Tech graduate student was burned by a Molotov cocktail at his apartment in the 200 block of 10th Street, not far from Piedmont Park.

Atlanta police spokeswoman Kim Jones said Saamer Akhshabi suffered third-degree burns over 90 percent of his body. Lighter fluid and a charred pillow and mattress were found inside the apartment, along with the Molotov cocktail and several plastic bottles filled with gasoline and kerosene.

via Georgia Tech student burned by Molotov cocktail.

Gee, what could an Iranian-born chap named Saameer Akhshabi want with incendiaries? Well, let’s not stereotype. He could have been the kind of grad-school nerd who gets off playing with forbidden chemistry, the real world counterpart to the Hogwarts kids who monkey with th

In the New York Review of Books, historian Tim Snyder sets us straight on what went on in Ukraine and why:

Interestingly, the message from authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Kiev was not so different from some of what was written during the uprising in the English-speaking world, especially in publications of the far left and the far right. From Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review through Ron Paul’s newsletter through The Nation and The Guardian, the story was essentially the same: little of the factual history of the protests, but instead a play on the idea of a nationalist, fascist, or even Nazi coup d’état.

In fact, it was a classic popular revolution. It began with an unmistakably reactionary regime. A leader sought to gather all power, political as well as financial, in his own hands. This leader came to power in democratic elections, to be sure, but then altered the system from within. For example, the leader had been a common criminal: a rapist and a thief. He found a judge who was willing to misplace documents related to his case. That judge then became the chief justice of the Supreme Court. There were no constitutional objections, subsequently, when the leader asserted ever more power for his presidency.

In power, this leader, this president, remained a thief, but now on

About the two submachine guns designed by Dr Marian Jurek while he served with the Free Polish and British Armies 1942-47. But we are in conference, so the time available has scrolled away from us. The good news is the post will get done today, just not till later.

– your Editors.

The 1973 Jack Nicholson vehicle, The Last Detail. We liked it.

http://weaponsman.com/?p=14208

If Putin continues his sit-in in the Empty Chair behind the Resolute Desk, and the world gets nuked, we’re close enough to a KC-135 tanker base that we won’t have to worry about waking up.

If you want to put eyes on what’s happening in the Ukraine, and you can’t get NGA to read you on, this site is pretty good at graphing open-source reports of the locations of the Russian invaders:

http://cigeography.blogspot.fr/2014/03/invasion-of-crimean-peninsula.html

Nothing will avail the Ukrainians. We have no talent and no gravitas in foreign policy these days, and they are “a land far away, and a people of whom we know nothing.” Not to mention that the nearest US forces are in the Med, where top-level waffling has left them to observe the extermination of pro-Western Syrian rebels, so all that’s left is Putin’s client Assad, and rebarbative Islamists. If we sound like we’re angry at the Russian leader, we’re not. He’s doing what a Russian president should, looking out for Russian interests. Unfortunately, so is ours. The Presidential failure is entirely on our side of the ocean.

It’s the Sudetenland, or maybe the Rhineland. So we have one to four ye

We were expecting this to be a very truncated week, with a lot of posts or words or value for the reader. That’s because we were pressed for time by a real world project.

The good news is we managed to deliver at least an average week; maybe even a better-than-average week. The bad news is, we did that mostly by posting the easy little react-to-headline stories, and not much in the way of real gun contact.

The links will probably be live when the post goes live. If not, they will all be enlivened by Sunday midnight, or we’ll shoot the dog; to find the posts scroll down. Enjoy!

Our article count was 27, but we don’t have a count on last week’s numbers, so there’s no comparisons this week.  Word count was over 23,000, thanks in part to a near-5000 word post from the Ukrainian Church. Six posts were over 1,000 words