Weapons Man

Forget whether this one has a Hognose story or two in it, think they’re in earlier ones. That means this one’s probably better. These were collected back in the 1990s and published under the auspices of the late Ben “The Plunderer” Roberts, a Vietnam SF soldier turned real-estate entrepreneur.

Press are reporting that two members of the State Police were attacked outside their barracks at shift change by an unknown shooter or shooters, who seem to have escaped. The shots hit at about 11:30PM last night, and a large area remains under intensive investigation with many roads closed, including the east-west Interstate 84 (it may have opened by now).

Got a phone call yesterday from a friend at a range in West Virginia. Three guys including a former SF man, a former SEAL (range officer), and a dealer/gunsmith/armorer without military service cracked the box on a new TrackingPoint .300 WM rifle on a long range.

Geez. Ari was President Bush’s press secretary and was close by him for most of the day. Ari writes (tweets, to be specific):

We’re used to seeing European metal detectors pull up relic guns, but American ones? Well, it does happen. Here’s a kid whose hobby is metal detecting, and at the start of the video, it’s a few days after he’s found a rusted-solid Uzi. So he came back to the same site. What will he find next?

The thing he doesn’t recognize at about 1:30 is the folding stock from a Czech Samopal Sa. 25 (Vz.48). He also finds the rest of it, and more Uzi, Sten, and Thompson parts, and a rusted suppressor. Best guess — he found the remnants of an illegal armory that someone, probably not the original guy who assembled these parts and guns, disposed of. Some of the parts may be contraband; others have clearly been destroyed by the ravages of corrosion.

Oops. This was supposed to kick off at 0600 today. It’s being posted late (1530 actually) and the rest of the day’s posts will be sent at about two hour intervals after that, all slotted into their original intended slots. Embarrassing.

We were going to post about the numerous problems with the President’s speech, but instead we’re going to tell a short, personal story.

The Greater Manchester (England) Police are looking staggeringly inept after a highly publicized raid that seized “gun parts” turned out to be nothing of the sort. Working on a tip, the Manchester rozzers seized a MakerBot Replicator 2 and a number of works in progress that they trumpeted in a media event as “gun parts.”

“Lucky us, we’re dead. At least we were spared this!”

You can find Part 1 here: Adventures with Lange Pistole 08, Part 2

Mauro Baudino, an Italian who lives in Belgium nowadays, is an expert on the very beast we’re currently wrangling; he’s written a book on the Artillery Luger, although his book is aimed more at collectors and historians than on our current role, poor beggars trying to make the thing run like Kaiser Bill intended it to. So Mauro’s website on the Artillery, LugerLP08.com, is of great interest.

This is a weird one, even by People’s Republic of Massachusetts weights and measures. In the gun-free workers’ and peasants’ proletarian paradise, a guy managed to off both himself and his 6-year-old kid without resort to gunpowder.

Timothy McKenna, admitted child rapist. 2010 mugshot. Coming soon to a day care center near you.

The mainstream media have left this behind for now, although another round of ZOMG Invisible Ghost Guns!!1!!!1!! is never too far in the future, and indeed in Calfruitopia a “Ghost gun ban” bill which criminalizes build-your-own firearms is on the desk of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh er, Governor Brown. (We regret the error. They’re easily confused). But printed AR lower designs continue to evolve.

So, everyone has a fantasy of giving a TSA employee ebola. (What, you don’t? What’s wrong with you?) But in Nigeria, home of internet scams, $750/night hotel rooms and dead bodies left in the streets in front of those hotels for days, someone may have actually tried it. In this case, the TSA guy wasn’t one of those dimbulbs you see at the screening line, but a Federal Air Marshal.

These two scanned stories about Britain’s hollow armed forces came from a retired senior special operations officer. He points out that this not only represents the reality of Britain’s weakened defenses today after decades of cuts, but that these stories could have been describing the defenses of the US during their 20th Century period of neglect between the wars — and they could be describing the future of US defense, given the rate at which were making cuts now.

The Artillery Luger has been troubling us with unreliability lately, and Kid really wants to shoot it. So we have to trouble-shoot it first, and with Lugers that seems to be equal parts art, science, and Santeria. (Of the Germanic, Vulcan-logic variety, of course). We don’t think this thing will be cured with a single laying-on of hands and in a single post, but we try nonetheless. Not our hands, at least, and if we will pray for something from His hands, we’ll save that prayer for something bigger than a troublesome toggle.

At least that’s what New Hampshire State Troopers say about Timothy High, 29, who they say fired a Smith & Wesson pistol at a woman on Route 101 in Exeter. Route 101 is a high-speed, divided highway, but has only two lanes in each direction, so there are frequent jam-ups due to people not passing in the passing lane. That produces frustration, which some people can handle emotionally. And some, apparently, can’t.