Weapons Man

The Last Detail is a military movie with a difference. It’s a peacetime, or at least, a Stateside, story about a sad situation many NCOs and petty officers have faced over the years: serving as a “chaser,” and taking a convicted soldier or sailor to prison.

There was once a very complex and deep system of military prisons, with the Army and Navy maintaining separate hard-time prisons, Leavenworth and Portsmouth respectively, and legions of local brigs and correctional custody facilities for short-term yardbirds. Over the years, reforms have narrowed those incarceration options: the sort of person who’d have got a short sentence is now simply ejected from the service, and the axe murderers and baby rapers go to Leavenworth. (Portsmouth stands in ruins today. It was already closed when The Last Detail was in production). 

An organized attack has killed 27 or 28 people and injured from 109 to 163 more (the numbers disagree) in one of the world’s largest and most aggressively enforced gun-free zones — Communist China. The probable terrorist attack took place in the modern, tidy rail passenger station in Kunming, in Yunnan province in southern China. The most probable perps are Uighur terrorists, practicing the highest sacrament of The Religion of Peace™, to wit, jihad.

Chinese police. On the ground behind them is a dead attacker. SMG appears to be a Type 79.

On the plus side, the cops reportedly whac

In far-off Anglestan, where guns are outlawed and everyone has moved on to the bright sunlit uplands of a gun free zone world, there’s always that 5% doesn’t get the word. For example, there’s the local politician who had the bad judgment to keep an empty old war trophy locked in a cupboard.

A Conservative former mayor and veteran army reservist has been dramatically arrested in an early-morning police raid and charged with owning a live 70-year-old Nazi wartime gun.

Officers with search dogs swooped on the home of Councillor Jonathan Farmer, 56, of Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, and seized a German Walther PPK pistol dating back to the Second World War.

Police said they were acting on a tip-off and had a warrant to search his home for firearms. He will appear in court next Monday and could face a five-year jail sentence if found guilty.

Farmer – whose wife Susanah is acting town clerk of Wisbech – has temporarily stepped down from helping to run the local army cadet force.

Yes, yes! You def

The following is the forward by Lieut. Gen. Sir Frank King KCB MBE, General Officer Commanding-In-Chief, Northern Ireland to FWA Hobart’s Pictorial History of the Sub-Machine Gun. The pictorial history dates to 1973, so it’s over 40 years old, and the submachinegun stood in a different place in history of the time. But Sir Frank’s take on it is quite idiosyncratic:

As a young officer I will remember the introduction of the first British Sub-Machine Gun – the Sten – to the British Army. It was heralded with especial ecstasy in many newly formed Battle Schools, by Senior Officers who extolled its easy production, cheapness, simplicity, and devastating firepower at short range. Indeed, there were many enthusiasts who described these advantages as decisive, and likely to change quickly the course of the war. This did not happen. The Germans possessed a similar weapon. And with its relatively short effective range the SMG became merely one of the family of arms required by infantry to cover the requirements of their particular battle field

Wounded ATF agents leave the field. Waco, TX, 28 Feb 93.

A huge ATF operation in Texas was meant to get a lot of media attention. And it did, just not the way the Bureau wanted. A raid that was planned for television effect was initiated with a rattle of suppressed fire as ATF agents killed the residents’ dogs: an Alaskan Malamute bitch and her four puppies. They didn’t kill them clean, and the agonized yelps of wounded dogs would continue for several minutes. That was the opening round; supposedly, it was written into the operations order, but nobody knows for sure, for as we’ll see, the operations order did not survive.

Good luck figuring this one out. But it seems like one suspect shot her boyfriend, the other suspect; then a deputy shot the lady crook. Bonnie and Clyde both went to the hospital, but they have a date — not with each other, but separate ones with the court system.

BLISS – A Colorado man who was apparently shot by his girlfriend, who was then shot by Gooding County deputies, has been arrested on six felony Ada County warrants.

Ronald Walter Rice, 40, is being held at the Ada County Jail, said Gooding County Sheriff Shaun Gough.

His girlfriend, Hollee R. Johnston, 39, is still hospitalized in stable condition, Gough said.

During a traffic stop about 2:30 a.m. Feb. 2, Johnston shot Rice, then pointed her firearm at Gooding County deputies, Gough said. A deputy then shot Johnston.

The deputy had been on administrative leave but returned to the job Feb. 19, Gough said.

The Feb. 2 incident began when police pulled over a car in Mountain Home for no headlights but the driver fled east on Interstate 84, Gough said. Two Elmore County deputies chased the car to the Y Inn Motel in Bliss, where Gooding County deputies got involved.

Rice got out of the car with his hands in the air, following deputies’ commands, Gough said. That’s when Johnston allegedly shot

Here’s one that spent an unknown amount of time in a river, and then two years in a cop evidence locker without any maintenance. Then, they threw it in a Hornady sonic cleaner. As Hornady posted to Facebook:

“This Glock 27 was found in a river here in Estes and we had it in property hold for two years. We recently purchased the Hornady sonic cleaner and the idea came up to try and clean this gun, after three cleanings here are the results. Although not tested our firearms instructors say it will fire! We are sending it to the Glock Co. for evaluation.” -Cmdr. Eric V. Rose-Estes Park Police Department

It looks pretty good, considering. Most guns look better than Blocks, but not after periods of immersion and neglect. Of course, you wouldn’t want to try this in brackish or salt water.

Best smart ass comment, Brian Kurzynski: “Somebody probably got tired of this thing throwing brass back at t

Hey, they just deleted the records of the problem — including the records of vets who were queued up waiting for their appointments to ripen in the sun for seven years and more.

VA Secretary Rick Shinseki: men follow him, but only out of morbid curiosity.

Employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) destroyed veterans’ medical files in a systematic attempt to eliminate backlogged veteran medical exam requests, a former VA employee told The Daily Caller.

Audio of an internal VA meeting obtained by TheDC confirms that VA officials in Los Angeles intentionally canceled backlogged patient exam requests.

The problem was that many patients had been delayed and delayed, some for years. But VA performance metrics tend to make any delay costly to the hospital or clinic that’s backlogged. The VA’s Los Angeles officials weren’t too bothered with delays in the radiology department that were seven years old or longer, but the

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ATF press release alert!

Government-controlled Narodniy Politicheskiy Radio (NPR) published the following pearls of wisdom, which seem to have derpped right from the silver tongue of ATF’s notorious spokespersons onto the AP wire:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department’s inspector general is conducting a four-city examination into storefront undercover operations run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to assess whether they pose a danger to the public.

The ATF runs sting operations in various cities, often as part of an effort to catch arms traffickers who bring stolen weapons into storefronts where agents act as buyers.

The IG’s office said [last] Thursday it is looking into storefront operations in Milwaukee, Pensacola, Fla., St. Louis, Mo., and Wichita, Kan.

IG Michael

Two flags, one nation; we tried that 1860-65, didn’t work.

Some interesting facts alleged in this New York Times story.

• Yanukovych has fled to Moscow, and called on Russia to restore him to power. (Which seems to be almost a confession that he was a marionette for Putin all along).

• In the Crimea, ethnic Russians clash with the returned survivors of the Crimean Tatars, a Turkic-speaking group ethnically cleansed and nearly exterminated by Stalin. The ethnic Russians are waving the Russian flag and basically running the 1938 Sudeten German playbook. But there are many more of them in the area than Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians put together; and, like the Sudetendeutsche, or the Texans of 1836, they are long-term, multigenerational settlers in the region, w

Part of the deal with Yanukovych (the one from last Friday, that Y. immediately broke) was that the protesters would turn in their weapons. Apparently, Y’s guys flipped sides before that ever happened. No one seems to be taking gun confiscation all that seriously. Unlike, say, Connecticut, where State Police brass is itching for some test case that will let them jail all 300,000 rifle-registration scofflaws. Or shoot all 300,000 — they’re not particular.

They’ve already sent out confiscation demands to a few hundred who attempted to register but whose applications were postmarked late. Thanks for trying to comply with the law — chump. Resistance is futile.

Even the Mounties gave up on long gun registration. In the CT SP, there’s a bit of a divide between the honchos who are enthusiastic about sending the road cops out to round up the guns from the “undesirables” — yellow triangles optional — and the road cops. Most of them do not want to do this, but they will do as they’re told.

On the plus side, they will leak, so we’ll hear about it.

You know, the Final Solution began, not with the Jews and the SS, but with mentally retarded patients and units organized from regular beat cops. They thought that the Army or SS would

Is there any headgear packed with more Francophile symbolism than the beret? The floppy wool hat was a shepherd’s cap, then the height of women’s fashion, and finally became a military “badge of courage, a mark of distinction”  (to quote John Kennedy). The beret went to war in World War II, thanks to the Resistance and the British Commandos. It was so fashionable, but even some Nazis wore them (the Panzer Corps). The French and other Continental armies adopted them later; most nations have different colors for different branches of service, but the French even have different styles of beret for many regiments (and the Foreign Legion clings to the pre-beret képi blanc). In the US Army, it was an illegal hat worn by Special Forces for nine years before being approved by Kennedy in 1961, to the everlasting vexation of the Army Institute of Heraldry. To this day, it is the only article of American military uniform ever approved directly by a president.

National Journal’s Ron Brownstein, in an unusual dual interview with governors Mary Fallin (R-OK) and John Hickenlooper (D-CO), served up a rather obvious question, and got a remarkable answer from Colorado:

States are moving in very different directions on social issues like … gun control. Does this affect who wants to live there or locate a business there?

Fallin: Yes.

Hickenlooper: No.

via Fallin and Hickenlooper Seek Slices of Common Ground – NationalJournal.com.

It was only one “No” in a long-running interview, but it suggests that Hickenlooper is deep in denial over the economic consequences of his anti-gun extremism. At least four companies have left or announced their departure, according to government-controlled NPR:

And they were. Today, Magpul can still legally manufacture high-capacity magazines in the state, but starting July 1, it can no longe

Now, it’s true that DC is kind of a world apart, a world where there’s been no recession and nobody works for a living. They’re just all collecting some kind of no-show or low-show government handout or another. But even though they might be bums, we’ve never questioned their right or ability to drive, which is not an intellectually taxing thing (unless you’re doing it in Ramadi or on the Nurburgring Altschleife). That’s why we’re not making the big bucks like the Special Olympics refugees at the Transportation Security Administration. When they’re not just groping, they’re groping for facts most of us learned in grade school:

According to Brandt, an agent with the Transportation Security Administration took a look at her D.C. license and began to shake her head. “I don’t know if we can accept these,” Brandt recalled the agent saying. “Do you have a U.S. passport?’

Brandt was dumbfounded, and quickly grew a little scared. A manager was summoned, she says. “I started thinki

Maybe not the whole state, but a lot of its citizens seem to be. The headline noted the 65 gun permits revoked for mental illness once SC started comparing its mental health database  with its gun permit database. And the lede was the 12 concealed weapons permit applicants who were denied because they came up hot on the mental health check.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-lJZiqZaGA

But the shocking thing to us was the assertion that the mental health unit of teh State Law Enforcement Division is adding 500 names a week to the database. How many South Carolinians are barking at the moon down there? That’s 26,000 nuts a year! SC has about 4.7 million inhabitants, so just a bit over 1/2 of 1% of them are going bats in a given year.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – The chief of South Carolina’s law enforcement agency says a law meant to prevent the mentally ill from buying guns has already led to 12 people being denied a concealed weapons permit.

What, the guns? These three beautifully engraved guns by the late Indiana engraving wizard Ben Shostle — a Luger, a Mauser, and a Colt — are being auctioned as a lot by Amoskeag Auction Company of Manchester, New Hampshire next month. But as it turns out, it’s not the guns: it’s the grips.

The little .25 hammerless Colt 1908 is out of the woods. As you can see from the picture (and do embiggen it), the Browning-designed pocket pistol’s grips are mother-of-pearl.

But the grips of the other two guns are ivory. We’re reminded of the famous statement by George S. Patton Jr.: “Only a pimp in a whorehouse would have pearl grips on a handgun! My pistols’ grips are ivory.”

Quite.

But as it turns out, there’s trouble with ivory.

Ivory is a natural material, which comes from the tasks of elephants. All three species’ tusks yield ivory, but the pure wh

“Laws are for the little people, not us. Don’t you peasants see we’re important humanitarians?”

Meet Kerry Kennedy (yes, of those Kennedys) — a jet-setting, pill-popping socialite who’s too important to take her knocks for a DUI crash-and-run in 2012. She’s one of the 9 or so of RFK’s 11 kids who wound up as druggies, and would have wound up as bums, if not insulated from that outcome by an immense family fortune. (One brother OD’d — no loss to humanity. At least two more were also heroin addicts, including Chavez-loving RFK Jr., who says he’s off it now. Another rolled a Jeep under the influence, crippling a friend — who was then dropped as a friend for being a cripple. Nice people, not).

Kerry Kennedy may agree to a plea deal over driving while drugged charges stemming from a 2012 accident so she can continue her extensive human ri

Samuel Sheinbein, would-be multiple murderer, is now dead.

The Washington Post has a remarkable story of a murderer’s shootout with the authorities. “What’s remarkable about that?” you might ask. “After all, murderers shoot it out with cops all the time.” True, but not like this: Samuel Sheinbein shot it out with guards at the prison where he was locked up in Israel.

Sheinbein and a buddy committed a particulary gruesome murder in the USA, killing, dismembering, and burning the remains of his victim, before absconding to Israel. As a Jew, they would not extradite him to the USA, but they did try him for various Israeli law violations, and he got a middling sentence (24 years) in an Israeli hoosegow.

As you might expect from a judicial system run by liberals, prison in Israel is apparently a pretty loosey-goosey thing, and he regularly ca

Hey, what have all these paratroopers got in common?

Even if you’ve studied all the combat operations in the European and Pacific theaters in World War II, you might not have heard of the 555th Parachute Infantry Regiment. That’s because the “Triple Nickel PIR” never deployed overseas; the segregated black unit was not wanted in either theater of combat. Army generals said that the problem wasn’t that the black troops wouldn’t perform; it was that white troops wouldn’t accept them.

As a result, the 555th PIR was committed not to combat, but to fight another threat: wildfires in the Pacific Northwest. It wasn’t a combat role, but the men did it, and did it well. In 1947, one of the very generals who hadn’t wanted them in 1944 forced their integration into the American airborne forces, and the name of the 555th vanished.