[AnAmericanMother]

Just watch out for your thumb. Deadly. :-D

Speaking of M-1 Carbines, my dad has a story. He was in Italy in WWII, participating in shooing the Germans out of a small town. He was in the combat engineers, so he had been issued the M-1 carbine.

He runs around the corner of a building, and literally bumps helmets with a German soldier. He swings up his carbine, goes to hit the safety, hits the clip release by mistake, and drops all his bullets in the street.

Fortunately Fritz had not waited around to see what was up and was making tracks for Heidelberg too fast to hear the pitter-patter of little fat cartridges.

But dad threw away the carbine, picked up a Garand from a dead GI, and carried it the rest of the war. He doesn't have anything nice to say about the carbine.

"But, daddy," the children cried, "Why did you have your safety on?"

"Didn't want to shoot myself in the foot," harrumphed Dad.

[Shooter 2.5]

Great story.

The only time I had a mishap with the bolt on my Garand was when I pulled the bolt back and didn't lock it. The bolt was resting on the follower. When I started to feed the cartridge into the chamber with my thumb, I pressed down on the follower and the bolt slammed shut. Luckily, the way my thumb was angled, the bolt hit my thumb out of the way so there wasn't any damage.

Garands are fun and great collectables, but I believe they are outdated for any other use.

[Frohickey]

The correct way to load the enbloc clip into the M1 Garand is using your thumb to press down on the clip against the follower. To avoid getting the 'Garand Thumb' you place the blade of your hand (the part of your hand you use to give karate chops) against the op rod. This way, your hand is holding back the op rod, and you can't slam the bolt shut on your thumb.

After you put the clip in, and it clicks into place, you then rotate your thumb out of the way, and let go of the op rod. If it doesn't go forward, you can help it with the heel of your hand, but your thumb should be already out of the way.

Anyway, everyone should go sign the petition anyway. The M14s in storage, are ours. We, the taxpayers, paid for that stuff. Why should we pay yet again to get them destroyed. Just sell it to the citizen-soldiers. ;)