Weapons Man

Bradley mugshot, October 2013

Sometimes a wound is just a wound, but sometimes it’s a message — maybe a message that it’s time for you to get right with Jesus; maybe just a message to stop doing whatever you’re doing that keeps getting you shot.

In this guy’s, Alexander Bradley’s, case, “whatever he’s doing”  sure has an aroma of “gang activity.”  He’s allegedly an associate of disgraced former pro football player and reputed Latin Kings member, Aaron Hernandez. In fact, he says Hernandez shot him in the face in February, 2013. Cops think Hernandez and Bradley shot a third and fourth guy together in July, 2012, before their falling out — almost a year before Hernandez allegedly shot the fifth guy, for the murder of whom Hernandez is awaiting trial. All these mutts, perps and victims alike, appear to be ganged up. Imagin

These include consequences for our friends — bad ones — and for our enemies, who are delighted in the power vacuum a US Administration uninterested in foreign affairs creates.

Case in point: 30 years after the people of El Salvador fought, and ultimately defeated, a foreign-controlled Marxist insurgency with a very little help from the US (no more than 55 SF advisors on the ground at any one time, one of whom, Greg Fronius, lost his life), they’re about to get a war criminal leader from that same insurgency, thanks to nartcotraficantes’ and Venezuelan money.

A former Marxist guerrilla leader whose party reportedly has ties to Venezuela’s socialist government and drug traffickers is poised to be El Salvador’s next president.

Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a top leader of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) party, nearly garnered 50 percent

These M1s were stored in 1947, shielded against corrosion or mildew in an airtight, dry can. When some of the guns were examined a dozen years later, they were good as new. Click to embiggen.

Garand collectors have long known about these, as stored and recorded by Springfield Armory, but as far as we know, nobody’s found one yet. In 1959, Armory officials told the local newspaper that a few cans recently arrived (of which, more later) were the last survivors of the cans the Armory filled in 1947 and 1948 — apart from a few in the collection of the Armory’s museum.

Right after World War II, the Armed Forces went from something like 12 million men, mostly armed with M1 Garands, to a tiny fraction of the size. Logistical problem: trai

Joseph Johnson, 40, eunuch. Gotta love those hospital room booking photos.

Let’s briefly (no pun intended) consider the dangers of Mexican carry…

A man police said is responsible for a shooting in a downtown parking lot ran from the scene, but shot himself in the testicles as he shoved the gun into his waistband Tuesday night.

Joseph Johnson, 40, has been released from the hospital and booked into the Multnomah County Jail on charges of first-degree robbery, second-degree assault and felon in possession of a firearm.

Robbery detectives said Johnson and the victim, 32-year-old Jordan Merrell, knew each other well and lived in the same apartment building near Southwest 10th Avenue and Columbia Street.

via Police: Downtown Portland gunman shot himself in testicle

The tl;dr version of the Hamid Karzai iterview with the Sunday Times (UK): “Yanqui go home. Leave your wallet.” The President, whose family has scammed tens if ot hundreds of millions of dollars from US aid, sees his gravy train finally pulling into the station, and he’s lashing out.

The Sunday Times is paywalled, but the story is up at Pakistan Today, whose readers must be highly amused, watching two of what Pakistan defines as its enemies fall out:

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Karzai described the Taliban as “brothers” and America as “rivals” as he criticised the record of the West during the 12-year war.

Be a pity if your “brothers” whack your head off when they take power, or string you up from a fruit tree as they did with your predecessor, Comrade Najib.

In contrast to David Cameron’s recent claim that it was “mission accomplished” for troops in Afghanistan, Karzai said that “the US-led NATO mission in terms of bringing security has not been successful, particularly in Helmand”.

Asked whether it wo

AKs you could buy between circa 1970 and 1983: Valmet M62S, Steyr/Maadi ARM, Clayco AKS. All stock except the Clayco has had a Chinese AK-47 grip added. Click to embiggen.

There was a time when you could not go down to your local gun store and buy an AK. In the USA, laws constricting the availability of foreign weapons and automatic weapons were on the rise during the period when AKs transitioned from weapons in first line use in major armies to weapons widely available on the world market.

And the market for military-styled modern weapons was unproven. In the early 1970s, you could buy exactly one civilian equivalent of a current service weapon in the USA: the Colt AR-15 Sporter aka SP1. It sold, but slowly. Many gun shops had no idea who’d want one, except maybe a Vietnam vet who’d liked his M16A1. The phenomenon was familiar from WWII guys who wanted an M1 rifle or M1 carbine. But m

We’re having some problems with images, but expect to solve them presently.

This post is going up at about 1100 and will be backdated to 0600.

The AM post is a technical post. It will be up ASAP and will be backdated till 0800.

The 1100 and 1400 posts will be posted this evening to give the 0800 some time at the top of the site. Please bear with us.

And it’s a Super Bowl we won’t be watching. Why not? Here’s Ginny Simone of the NRA, along with Marty Daniel of premium-AR builder Daniel Defense, and a septuagenarian widow with more physical and moral courage than many younger folks, to tell you why:

Marty is a bigger man than the NFL suits, and he says. “I’m not going to advocate boycotting. I’m going to watch the Super Bowl. But come on, why can’t you play the Daniel Defense commercial?”

The NFL doesn’t say whether they were more offended by the fact that it’s a gun company’s ad, or that the actor in the ad portrays a veteran. Most of the ad is in the NRA video above, but here’s the whole ad:

You can see how that would be offensive — to a certain demographic.

Now, the NFL is cool with running political ads from anti-gun extremist groups, like, last year, Mayors Against Guns. But an ad that’s pro-self-defense? That features a veteran character? That hits them right in the

Interesting developments this week. One was that we kept the blog running despite a welcome ramp up in meatworld work (the kind that lets us rent and reuse these recycled pixels, among other magical properties of money).

We also got a confirmation of our long-tail hypothesis on last week’s comments. While in last week’s TW3 we thought that week’s comments were 105, as of this writing last week’s comments are up to… doing some sums here… 144. Most coming from the discussion in the Lone Survivor post (thanks to the Captain’s Journal, we think).

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

Our article count was 29, up a hair from last week’s 27, but they were shorter articles:  word count was only 16,000 words. Only four posts were over 1,000 words, and they were all just barely over 1,000. No monsters this week

After a long time away from starring in films, Arnold Schwarzenegger came back. And what we learned was this: for all his star power, he’s really dependent on all the people off camera. If the writers and directors drop the ball, Ahhhhrnold can’t carry it all by himself. Maybe that’s because he’s not as young as he used to be; maybe that’s because a life in politics, surrounded by suck-ups, has impaired his judgment; maybe it’s just that this film, which hit theaters unnoticed a year ago, was on DVD a few weeks later, and is on Netflix now, blows for reasons unrelated to its marquee star.  

Schwarzenegger plays a rural sheriff whose small county seat happens to lie athwart the escape route the most violent escaped criminal ever, a Mexican cartel boss, intends to take. He and his laid-back deputies need to find the wherewithal to beat the cartel sicarios – at least, until the cavalry (spelle

Murderer RJ Vanecko essentially got away with it because of Chicago corruption.

Ah, if you’re a Chicagoan you know the answer already: it depends. Not on who was victimized, or the circumstances of the crime, but on this: it depends. And what it depends on is, who’s connected? 

If the crime is possession of some gun or accessory, and the accused is not connected, the answer is a long time in prison. But what if the crime is murder? 

Same answer: It depends. Who’s connected?

When David Koschman was beaten to the brink of death on April 25, 2004, a nice gun-free crime for a nice gun-free zone, there was plenty of evidence. In addition to the physical evidence, there were eyewitnesses aplenty, but what the witnesses and evidence said posed a problem to the Chicago Police Department.

The evid

Tomorrow it will be a year since Chris’s murder, and his friends (such of them as tweet, like actor Dean Cain) have taken to twitter in tribute. The former SEAL and lifelong Texan loved to shoot and share his love for shooting, but didn’t much care for the swimming half of the frogman life. He endured that (much like we endured jumping) because it was the price you paid to do all the cool stuff you did enjoy — like shooting.  

Perhaps more importantly, the parts of special operations that are not fun, the parts that SAS guys call the “sickeners,” are the parts you endure for the sheer delightful privilege of hanging around with the amazing guys who do love to do them, and just happen to be the world’s best at them.

Here’s a short-barreled rifle that looks good, and stands out both as a premium AR and a limited production piece. There will be only 250 of these special “Johnny” rifles produced. They’re .300 Blackout guns with 10.5″ stainless barrels, and they’re unusually finished in Foliage Green — the stocks and grips molded, the receivers hard anodized.

The gun’s well-adapted to being suppressed, of course; it would also make a fantastic short-range hunting rifle. But we suspect most buyers will hang them up and admire them, which is a bit of a pity — this gun was clearly meant to be run hard, and what would Johnny have wanted, after all?

There’s no point in us reprising the specifics which are readily at hand on Noveske’s website. We’d just add that if you’re looking for a .300 BLK, here’s one that comes all sorted out, has a really nice set of quality parts, and has a solid name behind it. Not to mention, since we already have done, it looks sharp!

They&#

Ladies and gents, the good news is, last week (no doubt thanks to our plug here) the touching and clever comedy Enlisted, set on a stateside Army post while most of the troops are deployed, had its best ratings week — over 3 million viewers. That sounds great, and the fact that the show’s up week overt week is good, but it isn’t enough.

This show is what a lot of you guys say you want: it’s a depiction of the military that shows soldiers as real people, and that treats military values with care and respect. The cast and crew worked their hearts out to bring 13 episodes to Fox.

So go out and watch it (or DVR it, for crying out loud, you kids) so that there are more viewers this week, too. And next week… so that the advertisers want to be on this show. And the network executives greenlight next year’s episodes, and all the talented folks who work on the show are rewarded for their efforts and their decency towards us. 

Not from us, but from HK USA’s former Government Sales guy (later, VP of Military Programs), Jim Schatz. Jim spent 20 years with HK, and was on the inside of almost every single significant H&K development during that period. He prepared these slides for an HKPro gathering in 2008. Like Schatz’s presentations at NDIA, it’s direct, informative and has the potential to be controversial. Of course, since it’s six years old, the H&K buffs have wrung all the controversy out of it by now. He calls it The HK Decades(.pdf), but it’s really an insider’s history of the company’s USA growth through its long “Because you suck. And we hate you” period.

During this period, Heckler & Koch went from a supplier of military arms primarily to European

Sergeant Tom Smith, BART PD. End of Watch 21 Jan 2014.

Riddle us this: someone shot a cop, everyone knows who did it, but no one is charged. What happened?

His partner shot him.

A BART police officer was fatally shot by a department colleague Tuesday afternoon during a probation check in the East Bay, according to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.

KRON has confirmed that the officer, Tom Smith, 42, of Hayward, was a 20-year veteran of the BART police department.

“BART has been informed that one of our officers has died from wounds sustained during a shooting earlier today,” BART officials said.

The shooting was reported at 1:03 p.m. at the Park Sierra Apartments at Iron Horse Trail at 6450 Dougherty Rd. in Dublin.

Smith and several other o

This is from a week or two ago, and we’ve been having trouble believing it, but it’s real (.pdf). He’s still on track to get executed, but Nidal Hasan wins: SecDef Hagel has caved on his beard, and on any other extremist Mohammedans, and on any other bizarre religious style, affectation or disfiguration.

So Hasan has beaten the Army twice: once when he shot up dozens of people, and once again when the Secretary of Defense elevated Hasan’s religious whims above good order, uniformity, and discipline. Heartless Hasan has to be laughing his, again bearded, face off.

The Pentagon on Wednesday is expected to announce widespread changes to rules governing religious items and religion-based physical attributes that service members can maintain while in uniform — including beards, some religious tattoos, and turbans.

NBC News obtained an early draft of the new Department of Defense instruction which states that the military will make every effort to acc

This is the time where we address various things that we’ve covered before, but have developed new information on; or that don’t rate a post on their own.

We covered it while SHOT was still going on (our man on the ground says, “Thanks heaps for dissing my photos, you *^$%#%^ ingrate!”). We think that guns like this, and SIG-Sauer selling MPX-SDs in semi to the public, are one wave of the future. Brendan McGarry at KitUp has a nice write-up and includes a video of an HK guy demonstrating the MR556. The gun is manufactured right up the road from Hog Manor, it turns out. We know we want one.

First, the good news: Maryland’s anti-gun, and anti-growth, governor Martin O’Malley can congratulate himself for landing 300 good, high-paying design and manufacturing jobs.

Now for the bad news: trouble is, he landed them in Tennessee. Beretta USA announced a new $45 million manufacturing and R&D facility for Gallatin, Tennessee. All of the jobs are in preference to expansion in Beretta’s HQ in Accokeek, Maryland; some of them may replace Maryland workers, especially as R&D shifts from the hostile state, where Beretta’s products, and its workers, are unwelcome.

Of course, Beretta gets other benefits as well. A harder-working work force, lower taxes and regulation, and lower energy costs will keep the Italian company, which has produced guns  since 1526, competitive in the US market. But the biggest single reason was that the politicians of Maryland were hostile to their business, executives, and employees; and Tennessee has rolled out the welcome mat.

For much of the past year, Beretta has been sco

…and they’re here to help… somebody. Mostly their own employees, managers and contractors. If they help any veterans, well, they’ll crow about it — but it’s incidental to their perception of their mission.

They didn’t do veterans any good with this:

On Friday, 17 January 2014, there was a breach of the eBenefits website that is run by the Department of Defense (DOD)  and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA is conducting an independent investigation. If you are a veteran registered  with this website, you can call the VA directly at 1.800.827.1000 to learn whether your eBenefits information may have been  compromised.

Predictions:

1. Some underling from VA will make an insincere apology, probably in the passive voice, for their lack of security on vets’ personally identifying information. (This is not the first time. Hell, it’s not the 30th time, either).
2. The vets are the ones who take it in the shorts.
3. There will be no consequences