Free Republic

“If a firearm is in common use today, it cannot be banned,” a group of Marylanders and national gun rights groups said in a filing before oral argument Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. “The rifles banned by Maryland are among the most popular firearms in the country.” Maryland’s prohibition on “assault weapons” was passed in the wake of the 2012 massacre of 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. The state banned less-common semiautomatic “assault pistols” in 1994. The laws cover some but not all semiautomatic rifles, including any...

Greetings Me Droogs and Droogettes! Time for another round of Sergeant's Time Saturday! Because of my birfday gift, we'll go over one of the more common small arms in the military's arsenal. The older M203 and the newer replacement, the M320 40mm Grenade Launcher. The M203 is a rifled, single-shot 40 mm under-barrel grenade launcher designed to attach to a rifle. Thusly:

Federal authorities on Wednesday announced a terrorist case against a metro Atlanta resident accused of plotting to destroy the White House and other Washington D.C. government buildings. Hasher Jallal Taheb, of Cumming, was arrested in Gwinnett County and appeared briefly in court in downtown Atlanta in the case brought the FBI.

What do you think the consequence should be for losing a grenade launcher? A 40MM Abrams Airborne Mfg Inc Less Lethal Multi-Launcher and related ammunition fell from the back canopy of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) vehicle during the early morning hours of July 23. It is believed the items were lost in the vicinity of the Golden Ears Bridge in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. A passing motorist alerted the Integrated Emergency Response Team officer to his open canopy, at which point it was discovered several items, including the grenade launcher, were missing. The grenade launcher is commonly...

Grenade! Everybody loves grenades, things that goes kaboom including the Gunny. But there are usually two separate groups you can fall into when talking about these awesome balls of explosives. One group is that: people whose only experience with grenades comes from video games like James Bond, Call of Duty, and Halo. Realistic, no, but enough to know they are super cool and effective. The other group, of course, consists of military servicemen and woman who have been specially trained and taught on all the actual ins and outs of grenades and anything that will launch them. (M-203) Most people...

Three months after the first five XM-25 grenade launchers arrived in Afghanistan, and after only 55 25mm rounds were fired in combat, the troops don't want to give these new weapons up. The XM-25s work as advertised, firing "smart rounds" that explode over the heads of Taliban hiding behind rocks or walls, or hiding in a cave or room. Enemy machine-guns have been quickly knocked out of action and ambushes quickly disrupted with a few 25mm shells. Encounters that might go on for 15 minutes or longer, as U.S. troops exchange fire with hidden Taliban, end in minutes after a...

In the damned if you do, damned if you don’t category, the Army’s new M320 grenade launcher is facing stiff criticism over one of the principle advantages of the system requested by Soldiers and touted by the Army. There were lots of M320s among Joes in the 3rd BCT of the 101st Airborne — in fact I don’t remember seeing a single M203 among them. But just about everyone I asked about the new H&K-made M320 was that they miss the 203. I got the sense that this was mostly a reaction against changing from a tried and true system...

BRANCHBURG -- Somerset County investigators seized a cache of weapons including a grenade launcher and hundreds of rounds of ammunition today from the Branchburg motel room of a Virginia man, who also had maps of a U.S. military facility and an out-of-state civilian community. Lloyd Woodson, 43, whose last known address was Reston, Va., today faces multiple offenses, including second-degree unlawful weapons possession and fourth-degree possession of prohibited weapons, Somerset County Prosecutor Wayne Forrest said. At the time of his arrest, Woodson was wearing a military-style ballistic vest with a reinforced steel plate and carrying a .223-caliber assault rifle that...

A Virginia man who once spent eight years on the run from naval investigators was arrested in Somerset County early today with a trove of high-powered weapons, including a grenade-launcher and two assault rifles, along with maps of a U.S. military base and a civilian neighborhood, authorities said. The federal government’s Joint Terrorism Task Force quickly joined the investigation into Lloyd R. Woodson, 43, who had been staying at a Branchburg motel since last week. Woodson, whose last known address was in Reston, Va., was wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying one of the assault rifles — customized to shoot...

Yesterday at work, a coworker claimed that he had seen an AK-47 that had a grenade launcher mounted under the barrel. I've never seen such a configuration and was wondering if anyone can tell me if such a weapon exists, and if so what its designation is.

Saw this pic posted as part of a Reuters article and didn't recognize the weapon. Looked it up - looks like a useful little tool. Video: rtsp://real.gannett.speedera.net/real.gannett/atpco/blackwater/2005/MGL-140.rm Info: http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,SoldierTech_060323_mgl140,,00.html?ESRC=soldiertech.nl

British soldiers training for Iraq are saying "bang bang" instead of firing their grenade launchers because the Ministry of Defence did not buy enough, defence sources said yesterday. The MoD did not have the money to order sufficient Under-Barrel Grenade Launchers for the SA80 rifle, so all those available have had to be sent to Iraq. British soldiers stationed in Basra They also failed to buy any training rounds so soldiers cannot be trained on the weapon until they reach Iraq. They are having similar problems with the Minimi Light Machinegun because there are no blank attachments, which allow blank...