Posted on 06/10/2018 4:56:45 AM PDT by marktwain
The shooting occurred on the evening of 1 June, 2018, in the Colonial Acres neighborhood."I see my house being ransacked and the dog was still going hysterical in the cage," he said. "When he saw me he notified the other individual that was with him, 'hey, they are here.'"That's the moment he said when the suspected burglars pulled out guns, but he was able to get to a hall closet to get his."I had my own personal AK-47," he said.The homeowner admits it's not the first time there's been a shooting at his home. Police markings show where the home was shot up less than a year ago."I don't know what's going on but I know I'm going to defend my life to the best of my ability," he said.
The paragraph should be ever present in the of a person choosing their home defense weapon and planing their home defense strategy.
The adreline being pumped in to your blood stream during a fire fight is going to make careful bullet placement very difficult. Most of the rounds fired at the bad guy are likely to miss. So where those rounds go is of utmost importance.
If your 7.62 mm round passes through your exterior wall, through your neighbor’s wall and kills his wife you are in for a heap of troubles.
Stupid name “sports utility rifles” obviously coined by some SHOT show drunks.
One has to have neighbors for that to happen.
Agreed. I’m not that big a fan of “modern sporting rifle,” either. Does anyone really think making up euphemisms for our rifles is going to win anyone over?
“Does anyone really think making up euphemisms for our rifles is going to win anyone over?”
They call them “assault weapons”, we call them “modern sporting rifles”.
If you control the language you control the argument.
Never ever accept the premise of your opponent’s argument.
L
Sport utility rifle sounds as stupid as assault rifle to me. Just call them what they are, semi-automatic rifles.
Yeah, stupid name. I also wonder what is a “fighting pistol”?
Yes that is true.
Most of us do
Remember also that most rifle rounds are leathal at a mile or more even if not accurate at that range.
I would say that almost everyone has a neighbor when put in those terms.
Given my choice between a shotgun, even a 20 gauge, and a rifle, the shotgun is gonna win every time, especially if the shotgun is semi-automatic and has a generous magazine.
Then we need to control the language better. No one actually calls them modern sporting rifles, probably because the term is as meaningless as “assault weapon,” and less catchy. I think we concede too much of the argument even acknowledging that that scary-looking black rifles form any unique category of rifle.
“Sport utility rifle sounds as stupid as assault rifle to me. Just call them what they are, semi-automatic rifles.” [mr meyer, post 7]
Everybody appears guilty, of playing fast & loose with nomenclature.
When semiauto arms first appeared - barely two generations after the metallic cartridge hit the market - industry bigwigs, gunwriters, and the shooting public called them auto”loaders”: they extracted and ejected the fired case and reloaded the chamber with a fresh round, without requiring additional manipulation by the user. At the same moment, Colt’s compounded the error, insisting their new sidearms conceived by John M Browning be called “automatic” pistols; perhaps as a cost-saving measure. Roll dies were very expensive and “automatic” is four characters shorter than “semiautomatic”.
The military establishment was of little help: they didn’t call early machine guns that, because since 1884, Hiram Stevens Maxim had been selling the only such gun, his belt-fed self-operating gun. Everybody simply referred to it as the Maxim Gun.
But competitors appeared with their own designs; generic terms were needed. Soon there were “heavy” and “light” machine guns, but the US military termed its first light gun - the Benet-Mercie M1909 - a “Machine Rifle”. They tried the same trick when John M Browning offered his select-fire light gun for adoption in 1917; Army Ordnance called it the “Browning Automatic Rifle” but it was at first called “Browning’s Machine Rifle” - perhaps because in World War One the French had sold Americans large quantities of their “Fusil Mitrailleur Modele 1915 CSRG” (Machine Rifle Model of 1915, designed by Chauchat, Sutter, Ribeyrolle, manufactured by Gladiator) - which the doughboys largely reviled as the “Chauchat”.
As time ground on, “heavy machine gun” came to mean a full-auto crew-served weapon firing from a fixed mount fed by belts, while “light machine gun” came to mean a full-auto weapon sometimes placed on a mount but operated by one troop, fed by detachable box magazines, twice as heavy as the issue rifle but much lighter than a heavy machine gun.
Submachine guns (US parlance), machine carbines (British parlance), or machine pistols (German parlance) were shoulder arms about as big as the issue rifle or a little shorter, but full-auto or select-fire, firing pistol cartridges (hence the German nomenclature).
“Heavy” machine guns got demoted to “medium” guns when the USA adopted its 50 cal machine gun in 1921 - a scaled-up version of John M Browning’s 30 cal belt-fed, water-cooled gun adopted in 1917 (developed and on the shelf by 1901). The 50 cal was developed as an anti-armor gun.
Users were still not happy: there was a gap in capability between the submachine gun (100 yds effective range) and the issue rifle (almost all bolt action, 2000 yds or greater effective range); what was wanted was the controllable firepower of the submachine gun, plus the range, punch, and accuracy closer to a traditional rifle.
Compromises had to be made. The Germans were the first to field one: after some bureaucratic back-and-forth, they called it the Sturmgewehr 1944 - the “Storming Rifle Model of 1944.” More suited to the assault than earlier arms, it became the first assault rifle: individual issue, closed-bolt, select fire, magazine fed, cartridge of 450m or so
effective range. The Soviets, the Brits, the Czechs, the Spaniards and finally the Americans copied it.
Thus, “assault rifle” has a real military meaning. And no rifle sold to civilians in the United States matches it (save the very few real assault rifles owned by civilian collectors and tightly controlled by the regulatory agency).
“Assault weapon” has no rigorous, objective meaning at all and was a scare-mongering term invented by the anti-gun organizations to confuse the ignorant: media buzz. Unfortunately, it’s caught on - to the point where many who ought to know better now use it. Including the military.
Thanks for posting that.
For me, it depends on the circumstances.
Inside the home defense I will choose a pistol; Colt 1911 .45 ACP safety slugs is what I use.
You can hold it close to the body to prevent the assailant from taking it from you, you can hold it around corners and fire from a concealed/shielded place, it is accurate enough at the distances likely to encountered, safety slugs hit hard and are less likely to penetrate interior walls.
“Thanks for posting that.” [MileHi, post 13]
There are other examples of loosely applied terminology.
US manufacturers are guilty: when ArmaLite scaled down their AR-10 from 7.62 NATO to the experimental 22 centerfire cartridges being tested by the US Army Ordnance establishment, they called it “AR-15.” After more development - including a redesign of cartridges - the reworked arm was officially adopted as the M16A1.
Meanwhile, Colt’s had paid ArmaLite (which owned no manufacturing facilities then) for manufacturing rights, and licensed “AR-15” as a model name. They did not apply it to any military guns they made, but they did use it on the semi-only clone they first introduced to the civilian market about 1965. For many years, the rifles were stamped “Model SP-1” on the left side, below the AR-15 logo and the “rampant Colt” trademark.
It’s my guess that the Tennessee homeowner mentioned in the initial posting didn’t use a “real” AK-47: in the strictest sense, those were select-fire and legally owned examples in this country are rare collectors’ items. The Red Army itself dropped that model in 1958 or so, adopting the AKM to replace it (Avtomat Kalashnikov Modificationii, loosely translated as “Automatic Kalashnikov, Modified”). No imports of the “real thing” have been permitted - merely semi-only clones, with a bewildering variety of formal model designations, made by many nations.
The US military establishment itself has gone through many confusing evolutions of small arms design and designation. The War and Navy Depts were not required to standardize either arms nor ammunition until after the Army was formally tasked to be the government’s “executive agent” for small arms, in 1903. Before that, each service developed and adopted its own, though one service would at times take on what the other created, when it suited.
But the clarification of roles and missions (done to comply with public law) in 1903 did not end the confusion.
The US War Dept did not officially adopt its first machine gun until 1904: the Maxim M1904. It was the heaviest Maxim ever adopted anywhere, and the last save one to be adopted (the very last was the Pulemyot Maximova o1910g, adopted by the Imperial Russians in 1910). In so doing, the US War Dept ignored every other machine gun development, including the very functional Colt’s M1895, nicknamed the “Potato Digger,” designed by John M Browning, and Browning’s recoil-operated water-cooled gun.
Driven by apparent personal animus on the part of William Crozier, US Chief of Ordnance, the War Dept did all it could to avoid adopting the light machine gun offered by Col Isaac Newton Lewis (which Lewis himself may have pirated from its designer, one Samuel Maclean) which was used by USMC and - made in large numbers by the British - became the foremost light gun of World War One, widely used for aircraft armament also, into the early days of World War Two.
Caught as if by surprise by the American declaration of war in April 1917, the US Army Ordnance establishment was unable to increase production of M1911 automatic pistols sufficiently, and called on industry for help. After some very imaginative engineering by Smith & Wesson, Army Ordnance officially adopted two revolvers chambered in 45 ACP, designating both the “US Revolver, Model 1917.” One was by Smith & Wesson, the other by Colt’s. About 150,000 of each variant were acquired by the War Dept. Completely different spare parts stocks and maintenance support procedures were required.
No private US gunmaker turned out M1903 rifles during the First World War. Dimensional specifications and parts drawings used by Army Ordnance and private business were found to be incompatible, and there was no time to perform any conversions. All M1903 rifle production during the war was performed by Springfield Army and Rock Island Arsenal. Remington, Winchester, and a satellite Remington facility at Eddystone, Pennsylvania had been producing Pattern 14 rifles in 303 British, on contract for the UK government;’ the design had originally been made for rimless cartridges and proved adaptable to conversion to the US 30-06 cartridge with little delay. So US Magazine Rifle, Model of 1917, cal 30 was adopted as substitute standard, and produced in greater numbers for the conflict.
US Machine Gun Model 1917 and US Automatic Rifle Model 1918 were adopted at the same time in early 1917, but Army Ordnance used “1918” in nomenclature for the latter, to avoid confusion. They must have worried more about long arms than handguns.
Both arms had been designed by John M Browning years before, but had been shelved due to lack of official interest.
We could say that Mr Browning had the last laugh (or would have if he’d lived to see what happened): both guns remained issue items into the 1960s, with almost no modification; together with the M1911 Automatic pistol (designed by Browning, further developed by Colt’s), they rank near the very top of the list of US small arms, when it comes to functionality and longevity.
Indeed, it could be said that John Browning’s legacy is still very much alive, as the 50 cal variant of his belt-fed gun (adopted in 1921, not much more than a scaled-up version of the original 30 cal gun) is still an issue item, while some US Marines and some US SOCOM organizations are using variants of the M1911 pistol, only slightly modified.
Damn, I don’t know if you are a historian, or just know this stuff, but I hope I don’t miss any of your posts.
Even the little I knew, I couldn’t say it so well.
Thanks
Might like this post
Madre jesus chingow ! Good read ..... thanks for the ping !!!
“... don’t know if you are a historian, or just know this stuff, …”
Thanks for the courteous reply, and the interest.
I’m just a dabbler.
Spent 29 years in uniform, 13 of them performing operational tests for a number of systems, and scientific analyses of technical issues for a Joint major command. Interacted with every specialty, every service branch, most of the intel agencies, and people from several allied nations. Had to advise a great many senior officers who rarely had much of a technical background, nor could they spare much time to absorb details before rendering decisions.
All of it put a premium on brevity, clarity, and precision of verbiage. One sharpened the wits, or went under.
After leaving active duty, I worked for over 13 years in gun repair, for a small family-owned dealership that also sold gun parts. Working in the trade demanded clarity and understanding: fixing something properly, or determining which part a customer really did need, had big implications for safety - at least as much as it did for customer satisfaction.
And for some 20 years, I was a member of a historical reenacting outfit portraying footsoldiers of the Continental Army of the period 1775-1783. Historical implements, living conditions, and activities had to be accurately reproduced, or the entire effort would fizzle.
All of it led me to conclusions:
1. Accuracy and precision are central in historical demonstration and narrative.
2. There are bonds connecting all members of all the armed services, living and dead, from the present all the way back to the inception. One of the few things that really does bind the nation together.
Misconceptions and erroneous notions abound. So it’s worth the effort to get the stuff right.
Don’t take my word for it. Everyone is urged to get out there, perform their own research, do their own investigations, scratch their own noggins, and reach their own conclusions.
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