IF ATTACKED, DON'T RESIST. CALL 911.

A national tragedy. Thousands killed. Millions watched with disbelief the breaking news on that day 9-11-2001 as the World Trade Center Towers, the symbol of America's might, hit by two passenger aircraft collapsed in front of their eyes.

Something went terribly wrong. Despite all the draconian safety measures at commercial airports and years of "zero-tolerance" anti-terrorist policy to protect American public from vicious attacks, a group of fanatics managed to hijack four jetliners and apparently had no trouble in using three of them as guided missiles in their suicidal mission against the targets of their choice in the very heart of American Empire.

One can only imagine the astonishment of the horrified passengers of the hijacked planes. They did follow the FAA mandated rules that were supposed to guarantee their safety. They left at home whatever means of personal protection they might have and trusted their lives to professional skills of airport security personnel. Armed with cellular telephones and false sense of safety in a gun-free vessel flying over the most civilized country of the 21-st century, they must have been caught by a complete surprise when they saw the terrorists bluntly stabbing the crew and taking over control of the aircraft. Perhaps they remembered the idiotic advice often given by some law enforcement officials - one of them even managed to call 911. The help did not arrive, though. So, 60+ people, many of them young men capable of subduing their predators, watched helplessly as they were flown into deadly encounter with some of the finest artifacts of our civilization.

One's safety, like one's freedom, is to serious a matter to be left to professionals. The idea that not resisting an aggression is the best survival strategy is as idiotic as it is dangerous. It is not a coincidence that terrorists of all trades consistently steer clear from places where law abiding citizens may defend themselves with deadly weapons, while not showing much respect for gun-free zones. Although school shootings, church massacres, airplane hijackings, just to name a few, make headline news on a regular basis, any of these horror stories still

remain to be seen in places like gun shows and rifle ranges. Today's world is a dangerous place to live. Those who call for disarming the American public when a call to arms is very much in order are equally responsible for the lost lives of the victims of terror as those who sponsor and harbor the terrorists. It's time for Americans to see the disastrous consequences of "gun control". The tragedies like the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers don't happen despite the constant struggle of some of our elected officials to keep firearms away from The People. They happen because of it.

IF ATTACKED, DON'T RESIST. CALL 911.

Yeah! Right! I believe I'll call on Mr. Browning's P-35 "Hi Power"
Faster, Safer, Much more effective.
Just one finger operation as opposed to the three in dailing 911 on the phone
Ahh. Instant gratification
So Nice....
Have a good day J

Couldn't agree more. Mr. Browning's GP has provided personal security services for me since 1969, and on a couple of odd occasions before then, and I'm still around to testiufy to the efficiency and reliability of that service. I'll happily admit to also often having some additional support from another of John Moses Browning's subsidiaries, and it's real easy for me to *accidentally* depend on M1911A1 rather than 911 for family assistance in time of need.

And as a matter of fact, both my maternal grandfather and my own dad both carried their Army .45s home from their respective terms of service, as I did. That's three generations effectively protected by those Browning brainchildren, and it's getting to be about time for the fourth. A new year is a-coming, and with it all the joys and happiness that can come in the span of a year-IF the misfortunes and sorrows are fully overcome or avoided.

The tools Mr. Browning developed continue to provide that service as well as they did in his day; they require only the appropriate input of will and skill from the user to continue to do so. There are other tools for other purposes, some more or less suitable for the individual user [my paternal grandparent preferred a 5-inch barrelled S&W .38 revolver backed with a Colt .25 auto, and that equipment served him well enough through one hostile encounter well before I was born.] but for a balance of power, controllability and reliability, it's difficult to fault Mr. Browning's contributions. They've worked for me for more than 40 years since I first had a .45 in my hand knowing I might well have to use it.

I harbor no ill, evil or criminal intent toward you, so hope that such service will be as effective for you as it has been for me. It is likely that those who would have you disarmed have something nasty intended for you, that would be more convenient if you are unable to resist.

If the new owners of the venerable Smith and Wesson wanted to try to get back into my good graces they could start by introducing a .45ACP pistol about the size of a small 9mm.

45ACP is a wonderful caliber for military use, for personal defense, and for competition, but it'll never be the equal of 9mm for deep concealment simply because it's a low-pressure cartridge. It depends for its power on mass, not velocity; but to get the 230gr mass of a 45ACP bullet up to a velocity where it can cause a significant amount of damage (for example, to open the hollow point of a Hydra-Shok bullet), you have to spend a fair amount of time ramming it down a pretty long barrel. The short barrels required of tiny deep-concealment handguns just don't give the 45ACP enough time. Compact 45s always have power problems.

9x19mm, on the other hand, is a high-pressure cartridge containing fairly fast powder. The bullet is only about half the weight of the huge 45, but it can get up to expansion velocity in a pretty short barrel.

If you insist on the bigger, heavier bullet, you might check out some of the less-popular derivatives of 45ACP that have been designed specifically to overcome this weakness. I believe one is called 45 Super, and another is called 460 Rowland. Both of them, if I am correctly informed, involve cartridges that look an awful lot like 45ACP and fit in the same magazines, but are loaded with more and faster powder and fired from guns with better-supported chambers and heavier recoil springs. Generally, you can take a gun chambered for 45ACP and buy an inexpensive kit to convert it to 460 Rowland or 45ACP.

But don't bet your life on a short-barrelled 45ACP unless you have explicitly explored its terminal performance. Try it for yourself: don't believe the marketing hype.

All of John Moses Browning's inventions have stood the test of time. He was a most prolific inventor. A true genius and a great man.
(I like his 1911 too, btw)

P.S. I've had my Hi Power for almost 40 years

Indeed. I first started using one *for real* in 1967, when a military job as a driver and de facto bodyguard came my way, for which we were required to wear civilian clothing and carry non-issue personal handguns- most of the USAF commo folks with us brought along S&W .38 revolvers similar to their USAF-issue .38 Combat Masterpieces; the Army folks on the project were a bit more varied in their choices.

I was on the lookout for a steel-framed WWII-issue Walther P.38, rather than the then-available alloy-framed P.1 that the German Army was using. Instead I got a very nice deal on a Browning G.P. [as they were known in the former francophone colony where we were at work, and which I've called the things ever since.]

Despite newer and *more modern* designs, the GP/Hi-power/P.35 fits my hand particularly well, and I still prefer a steel-framed handgun with an external hammer for serious use. And of course those who snicker at the designation of the 9mm as being a *high-powered* handgun cartridge are doing so without the viewpoint of the users of earlier-issue weapons such as the M1922 Browning and Ruby .32/7,65mm autopistols or the French MAS 35A and .35S handguns, also in a French-developed .32 chambering. My suspicion is that the Browning GP pistols purchased by Finland for their air force prior to the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939 were likely the first to see combat usage [along with their army's Finnish-design p/35 Lahti handguns] though a few may have seen service during the Spanish Civil War, and it's been reported that some prototypes may have seen action during the 1928-1935 Gran Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, during which the American Thompson SMG also made an occasional appearance in the hands of knowledgable users. But they've been around a good long while, and have satisfied a good many other folks since then, all over a troubled globe:

BROWNING'S HIGH-POWER

The last semi-automatic pistol John Moses Browning designed is said by many to have been his best. In reality, he died nearly a decade before it was perfected and actually placed into production. Known variously as the P-35, High-Power and by that term's French translation, the Grand Puissance, its development began in the early 1920's and continued following Browning's death in 1926; finally coming to market in its now familiar form in 1935.

When Browning died, there remained a number of components that had yet to be refined before it would be ready for production. Work on it was continued by his protege', Dieudonne' J. Saive, whose most significant contribution to the project was the design of a double-stack magazine that permitted the pistol to be loaded with as many as five more rounds of ammunition than the pistol might have accommodated with an ordinary single-row magazine design. By virtue of this extraordinary capacity it became the first of the pistols now known as the "Wonder-Nines."

Production of the High-Power was originally planned to begin in 1929, but the collapse of the American stock market triggered an international monetary crisis and the resulting depression affected the entire civilized world. The original manufacturer, Fabrique National d'Armes de Guerre, of Liege, Belgium, employed more than 9,000 people in the summer of '29. Over the course of the next five years the work force was radically reduced by the loss of more than 6,500 jobs. It took until 1934, when the prospect of military contracts for the pistol began to show promise, for it to finally be made. The Belgian Army was the first military force to adopt it. They dubbed it the Modele 1935 pistolet automatique, Grand Puisance. With variations and adaptations to accommodate a variety of languages, the name has stuck.

The High-Power attracted international attention very quickly. By the end of 1938 it had been sold to such diverse nations as China, Estonia, Lithuania and Peru. But the clouds of war were once more looming on the European horizon. The Belgian government and the management at FN began making plans to evacuate machinery and personnel, but when the Germans finally invaded on May 10th, 1940, they moved so swiftly that Liege fell to them just two days later. There hadn't been sufficient time to get out.

The Germans took the FN arms complex over immediately and began bringing in employees of their own munitions industry to oversee production. Along with the manufacture of Model 1898 Mauser rifles, the invaders continued production of the High-Power under their control. The pistol was produced for the Heerwaffenampt and designated the Pistole 640(b). More than 319,000 units were to be made while the plant was in German hands.

Here begins one of the more interesting stories of World War Two. In deepest secrecy, a number of FN's senior personnel left Belgium for England. In order to get there they had to travel through France, which was by that time also occupied by Nazi forces. They were smuggled over the Pyrenees mountains to Spain, which remained neutral through the war, but was sympathetic to Germany. From there they made their way through Portugal, also neutral, but a hotbed of international intrigue that was virtually crawling with Nazi spies. Upon arriving in England they went immediately to work for the British Armaments Ministry.

The German invasion of Belgium didn't prevent the High-Power from contributing to the Allied war effort. Early on, half a dozen pistols were smuggled out of Belgium and taken to Canada. There, the John Inglis Company, headquartered in Toronto, used those pistols to construct the necessary blueprints for manufacture. By war's end nearly 152,000 had been made and issued for service in the armed forces of Britain, Canada, China and Greece.

The pistol acquitted itself so well, on both sides, during the course of that conflict that its subsequent adoption by, literally, dozens of nations and hundreds of police agencies throughout the world should come as no surprise. It proved itself one of the finest handguns of this century.

Fabrique National continues to make the P-35, although assembly is now done in Portugal. Yet, copies of it have been made, under license, by pirating or by virtue of expired patents in so many places throughout the world that it has been standard military issue in the armed forces of at least 64 different nations.

More than sixty years have passed since its introduction to the public and its popularity continues apace. It remains the choice of many military units, lawmen and individuals for sport and personal protection. Close copies of it are currently made in Argentina and Hungary. Even the Israel Defense Force, one of the most modern and best equipped armed forces in the world, has chosen it for use in the form of the Kareen II.

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