Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Army Base Still Searching for Machine Gun That Went Missing Days Ago
yahoo ^ | 10 Oct 2022 | Drew F. Lawrence

Posted on 10/11/2022 7:33:15 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-56 last
To: Leaning Right

YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT!!!!


41 posted on 10/11/2022 10:13:28 AM PDT by Coffee... Black... No Sugar (“Salute the Marines.” - Joe )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Chode
"and neither of his thumbs are on the butterfly..."


That's the first thing I noticed..
42 posted on 10/11/2022 10:23:40 AM PDT by Bikkuri (I am proud to be a PureBlood.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: Bob434

Yeah, they should have given those to Ukraine instead of depleting what we have left.


43 posted on 10/11/2022 10:35:38 AM PDT by WKUHilltopper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Bob434

Yep and that is how I ended up needing two shoulder surgeries.


44 posted on 10/11/2022 10:39:57 AM PDT by taxcontrol (The choice is clear - either live as a slave on your knees or die as a free citizen on your feet.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: DUMBGRUNT

What about the bozo who left hundreds of thousands of them in Afghanistan?


45 posted on 10/11/2022 10:44:40 AM PDT by US_MilitaryRules
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DUMBGRUNT

Be fun to take it to one of those idiotic “gun buy back” carnivals.


46 posted on 10/11/2022 10:46:30 AM PDT by glennaro (Live life unbullied and unafraid. Choose to ignore or fight the irrationality that surrounds you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Flag_This
”We lost an entire nuclear sub once.” Whose turn was it to watch it?!

Mine.

I am so screwed.

47 posted on 10/11/2022 10:49:44 AM PDT by Lazamataz (The firearms I own today, are the firearms I will die with. How I die will be up to them.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: Bikkuri

right? i know why my dad and uncles never liked watching WWII movies...


48 posted on 10/11/2022 11:07:28 AM PDT by Chode (there is no fall back position, there's no rally point, there is no LZ... we're on our own. #FJB)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: DUMBGRUNT; EEGator; larrytown; CIB-173RDABN; taxcontrol; Flag_This

A biology professor at our college I became friends with said he came up with the down payment for his house by selling an M-60 he had stolen. I would have been skeptical except for the fully automatic M-16 he showed me that he kept in this office. He agreed to take it home after I pointed out that students routinely cleaned his office. We were both Vietnam vets. He with 4th Division infantry and me with a Riverine Navy LST. He always carried a tokarev pistol he took off an NVA he had killed. I said he could keep that, because for some reason people always called me when some unstable person showed up on campus and I liked him to come along for the confrontation. This was before there was so much interest in PTSD. I figured he was just a bit Asiatic, but he scared some people on campus.


49 posted on 10/11/2022 11:29:38 AM PDT by Retain Mike ( Sat Congfwdude)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike

Interesting. I was in the 4th ID when the PVS-4 was lifted. Maybe people in that division are just predisposed to liberate military equipment...


50 posted on 10/11/2022 11:35:18 AM PDT by Flag_This
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: taxcontrol

lol i was just kidding- that skit they always called everyone girlie men- it was a pretty funny skit- they always bragged about how strong they were- with their fake inflatable arms lol


51 posted on 10/11/2022 12:21:13 PM PDT by Bob434 (question)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: DUMBGRUNT
"Army Base Still Searching for Machine Gun That Went Missing Days Ago"

Fort Lewis isn't a base, it's a post. All US Army "forts" are posts, not bases.

52 posted on 10/11/2022 12:35:46 PM PDT by Paal Gulli
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Chode
"and neither of his thumbs are on the butterfly..."

Couldn't, they're too powerful. He'd have bent it. 'Swhy he has to use a pinky. Just one.

53 posted on 10/11/2022 12:42:02 PM PDT by Paal Gulli
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: Retain Mike

—”I would have been skeptical except for the fully automatic M-16 he showed me that he kept in this office.”

We had a supply clerk/scrounge/entrepreneur that would purchase any “found souvenirs”.
Not far from our LZ was an Air Force radar site, the AF guys were TDY for 90 days and flew in and out on Air Force transports and did NOT go through customs or the usual searches. They would purchase almost anything.

He sold a green Swedish K, it was cool. he paid the finder a couple of hundred dollars and claimed to make a hundred on the deal. he was also selling 1911s NEW in the white canvas foil-lined package for $25. One guy bought one test fired it and sent it home, forgetting the full magazine! No
problem????


54 posted on 10/11/2022 1:29:17 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT ( "The enemy has overrun us. We are blowing up everything. Vive la France!"Dien Bien Phu last messa)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: V_TWIN

I have personal experience with a similar case involving a stolen M60 7.62mm machine gun while serving as an officer in a USMC infantry battalion in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I am not going to write out the details as it will take too long and it is only the pattern of circumstances and subsequent events that may be applicable to this case.

The essential element is the thief has been caught without the goods and has provided a story that doesn’t check out. The thief is only “confessing“ because other people have identified him as the person who took the .50 caliber machine gun receiver. He has provided information claiming that the receiver was discarded in a dumpster which, rather conveniently, subsequently has been emptied. So the receiver went to the landfill. It is possible to search a landfill once you know which one to search and have the necessary manpower committed to do it.

So, if the thief was truthful (sure), the receiver will eventually be found OR the story will function as a distraction to probably what is the real location of the missing receiver.

Thieves do pre-mission planning too. Unless they can be fenced, stolen goods , especially a weapon, involves risk and returns no value for stealing the item. So the actual stealing of the M2 receiver was the midpoint of a more complex plan. Considered as a component of the weapon, the receiver is the more valuable part as it contains nearly all of the parts that make a machine gun a machine gun. But an entire receiver may be difficult to dispose of due to its serialization and inevitable questions about provenance. However, if broken down as individual repair parts, the receiver has value when sold into the secondary market.

But to accomplish this, you need secure possession of the stolen item and time to negotiate the fencing transaction. Arresting the thief has probably interrupted the plan. Now, both sides are going to seek to create advantage out of the situation. The thief, once he is convinced the dumpster disposal story is a no sale, may make an offer through defense counsel to return the receiver in exchange for a lighter punishment. The Army probably will be okay with that as long as the receiver is returned. The question is how long the process will take since military courts can, when necessary, be nearly as slow as civilian courts. In the case of the stolen M-60, pre-trial confinement lasted 18+ months before the return plea bargain was laid on the table.

So where is the receiver? In my opinion, the receiver was either immediately taken off base by a friend to be hidden and probably buried or it is buried somewhere on base. The branch in the action tree as to which location it is at is how much time elapsed between when the receiver was taken and the thief was apprehended. Since this theft was probably preplanned and some hours passed before the thief was identified and detained AND on-base searching has not turned up anything yet, my money is on it being buried off base.

To give you an idea of how quickly such a move can be put together, the M-60 machine gun theft was a true crime of opportunity. The thief (a courts-martialed DD scum bag waiting for his discharge paperwork to process after serving his brig sentence) just stumbled on it unguarded in the barracks. Using regular dial telephones, he called a friend to come with his car to pick the weapon up and take it off base - where it was subsequently buried for additional security. In reconstructing the crime, CID estimated the whole process of getting it out the front gate took about one hour from the time the thief’s friend was called.

With pre-planning and cell phones, how long do you think it would take to get a wrapped up M2 receiver into the trunk of a car/back of a van and off base?


55 posted on 10/11/2022 2:15:14 PM PDT by Captain Rhino (Determined effort today forges tomorrow.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Paal Gulli

he thinks he’s Chuck...


56 posted on 10/11/2022 4:17:16 PM PDT by Chode (there is no fall back position, there's no rally point, there is no LZ... we're on our own. #FJB)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-56 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson