Previously Gunsite Gossip
Vol. 1, No. 1 June 1993
With this issue, I am abandoning the
editorial "we" along with reference to Gunsite in the title since I
no longer exercise control over the output of the Gunsite Press.
What may henceforth appear as "Gunsite Gossip" will be a
censored and abbreviated version of my periodical commentary. Times
change, and secretarial assistance, along with access to the class
room and the firing range, is now denied me. I must work on a
somewhat different basis. However, I will attempt to keep the
commentary coming and we will see what turns up.
I have in hand a pretty fascinating
document from New York entitled "A Firearms Discharge Assault
Report, 1991." It is so thick that tabulation is impractical but it
is certainly interesting to note that the law enforcement
establishment seems to have forgotten about the use of sights,
providing they ever knew about the use of sights. Again and again
we have reports of shootings at ranges of 5 feet and under in
which many shots were exchanged with no hits.
I suppose it must be accepted that the majority of people who opt
for a job in law enforcement are not interested in marksmanship and
only people who are interested in marksmanship can be counted on to
hit what they shoot at. This is hard for me to accept. I can
sympathize with Simon Bolivar, when on his death bed, he sighed, "I
have plowed the sea."
Not long ago it was easy to tell who the
bad guys were. They carried Kalashnikovs. Now it is much more
complicated, but one thing is sure - any man who covers his
face and packs a gun is a legitimate target for any decent
citizen.
As time passes we discover that there are
a good many readers who have not been to school and who are puzzled
by our reference to "The Mozambique Drill."
I added The Mozambique Drill to the modern doctrine after
hearing of an experience of a student of mine up in Mozambique when
that country was abandoned. My friend was involved in the fighting
that took place around the airport of Laurenco Marquez. At one
point, Mike turned a corner was confronted by a terrorist carrying
an AK47. The man was advancing toward him at a walk at a range of
perhaps 10 paces. Mike, who was a good shot, came up with his P35
and planted two satisfactory hits, one on each side of the
wishbone. He expected his adversary to drop, but nothing happened,
and the man continued to close the range. At this point, our boy
quite sensibly opted to go for the head and tried to do so, but he
was a little bit upset by this time and mashed slightly on the
trigger, catching the terrorist precisely between the collar bones
and severing his spinal cord. This stopped the fight.
Upon analysis, it seemed to me that the pistolero should be
accustomed to the idea of placing two shots amidships as fast as he
can and then being prepared to change his point of aim if this
achieves no results. Two shots amidships can be placed very quickly
and very reliably and they will nearly always stop the fight
providing a major-caliber pistol is used and the subject is not
wearing body armor. However, simply chanting "two in the body, one
in the head" oversimplifies matters, since it takes considerably
longer to be absolutely sure of a head shot than it does to be
quite sure of two shots in the thorax. The problem for the shooter
is to change his pace, going just as fast as he can with his first
pair, then, pausing to observe results or lack thereof, he must
slow down and shoot precisely. This is not easy to do. The beginner
tends to fire all three shots at the same speed, which is either
too slow for the body shots or too fast for the head shot. This
change of pace calls for concentration and coordination which can
only be developed through practice.
Mike Rouseau was later killed in action in the Rhodesian War. May
he rest in peace!
"Look out, they've guns!"
"Who, the wackos?"
"No, the Feds!"
Perhaps you have noticed the warning from
SIGARMS which insists that the hammer on the Sig must always be
dropped by the decocking device and never by the thumb. This is
curious in view of the fact that for many years the Walther people
always recommended that the weapon be decocked with the thumb and
not with the hammer dropper. This is still more evidence of a world
in which we are to depend on machinery rather than upon ourselves.
Dropping the hammer with a decocker is usually safe. (Just be sure
the weapon is pointed in a safe direction when you do it.)
Lowering the hammer with the thumb is always safe if the operator
is safe. Of course, if you must assume that the operator is inept,
then decocking with the thumb is not safe. We dinosaurs prefer to
put our trust in our own abilities rather than in any reliability
of a mechanism which can fail.
I learned from Bill Buckley's National
Review that a new technique that store owners are using to
cleanse the atmosphere is the broadcast of good music at high
decibel levels. It appears the Brandenburg Concertos at full blast
are quite sure to keep the scene free of street people.
I suppose nothing can be done about the
erroneous assumption that hand held fully automatic fire is somehow
more efficient than aimed fire. As I used to demonstrate, when I
had a teaching job, quick semi-automatic fire is far more likely to
produce results than bursts. Thus the preoccupation of the Feds
with the idea that is it somehow an offense against God and man to
convert a semi-automatic weapon to a fully automatic capacity is
simply a manifestation of ignorance. If a man is shooting at me, I
would much prefer that he were on full auto than carefully holding
and squeezing. The automatic option is the greatest encourager of
the spray-and-pray technique, which I have long done my best to
discourage.
Note that among the other changes
instituted here at Gunsite, I no longer have any control over the
products of the gunsmithy. You're on your own!
"The society of late twentieth century America is
perhaps the first in human history where most grown men do not
routinely bear arms on their persons and boys are not regularly
raised from childhood to learn skill in the use of some kind of
weapon, either for community or personal defense - club or
spear, broadsword or long bow, rifle or Bowie knife. It also
happens to be one of the rudest and crudest societies in history,
having jubilantly swept most of the etiquette of speech, table,
dress, hospitality, fairness, deference to authority and the
relations of male and female and child and elder under the fraying
and filthy carpet of politically convenient illusions. With little
fear of physical reprisal Americans can be as loud, gross,
disrespectful, pushy, and negligent as they please. If more people
carried rapiers at their belts, or revolvers on their hips, It is a
fair bet you would be able to go to a movie and enjoy he dialogue
from the screen without having to endure the small talk, family
gossip and assorted bodily noises that many theater audiences these
days regularly emit. Today, discourtesy is commonplace precisely
because there is no price to pay for it."
Samuel Francis
As Heinlein put it,
"An armed society is a polite society."
Note that in Israel today the Israeli
region of IPSC prescribes the training necessary for the
acquisition of a pistol permit.
According to Health Magazine the
most popular assault weapon in the United Kingdom is the beer
glass. Naturally, there is now a move afoot in Britain for "beer
glass control."
You may recall I reported a few issues
ago on the activities of the "Mad Bambiist" who has apparently been
roaming the woods of the Mid-West murdering hunters and fishermen.
One Thomas Lee Dillon has now been apprehended and indicted in
Noble County, Ohio. Police suspect he may have slain as many as ten
outdoorsmen in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. That will be an
interesting case to follow.
There appears to be a movement afoot now
in Southern California to drive the regulators wild by observing
the speed limit. When Tina VanCuren was passed on the freeway in
her Alfa Romeo by a Yugo, she decided the time had come and
organized the National Civil Obedience Day. There may be some merit
In this sort of action, but there certainly is a danger of being
rammed from behind if you drive less than about 70 on the freeways
of the LA basin.
J.D. Jones, the prominent advocate of
pistol hunting, dropped by the other day to show us a most curious
ballistic development. He has taken the 223 case, blown it out to
30 caliber and installed a match bullet inside which takes up
practically the entire case. A pinch of the proper powder pushes
this bullet out the muzzle at subsonic velocities, thus permitting
silent fire. There have been similar endeavors in the past, one of
which I developed myself, but this one is unusual in that it is
adapted to the M16 rifle, hence the finished cartridge will work
through the magazine system of the M16. J.D. assures me that when
the piece is fitted with the proper noise suppresser, a full
magazine of 30 rounds may be sprayed out the muzzle, with good
short range efficiency in dead silence. I am not clear about the
tactical niche of silent full auto fire, but there it is, if you
want it. It sounds like the sort of thing the BATmen would
be Interested in.
A while back I queried the family
about the origin of that quotation, "I speak of Africa and golden
joys," with which Theodore Roosevelt opens his classic work on
African hunting. It was gratifying to receive a whole sock-full of
answers from readers of these pages. It turns out that line comes
from Henry IV by Shakespeare and is attributed to one
"Ancient Pistol." Curiously, the statement has nothing to do with
the "golden joys" that Roosevelt was talking about, but TR
certainly picked the right statement for the right place.
"The government and Its lap-dogs in the media are
naturally focusing everyone's attention on David Koresh. That is a
red herring. The attention should be focused on the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, as well as on the Federal Bureau of
Investigation."
Charley Reese, from the Conservative Chronicle.
Last year I received a most interesting
letter from an Irish mercenary in Croatia discussing the situation
in that land. He said he found the work fascinating, the country
beautiful, and the people charming. He noted that while the English
language was not common amongst the men, all the girls he met
seemed quite fluent. Mostly, of course, these were militia-types.
He could not give me a return address because he naturally did not
know where he would be, but just this last week I got another
letter from him in Ireland, whither he had gone at the expiration
of his contract. The soldier home from the wars clearly wanted a
bit of rest and recreation in his green and pleasant homeland, but
it was not to be. He discovered at once that one cannot breath free
In the UK nor in Ireland. In effect, personal weapons are outlawed
and a man who is any sort of a man cannot live without his personal
weapons. After going the rounds at great length attempting to
obtain a 6mm rifle for deer stalking, our correspondent has about
given up. He intends now to emigrate to Israel. The situation in
Israel may not be of the best - especially for a goy, but at
least in Israel one is permitted and encouraged to fight
back. Israel may be a lock-step theocracy where one must speak
Hebrew, but at least one is permitted to fight back and that, in
the last analysis, is the absolute measure of liberty.
Certainly we live in "interesting times."
The following illuminating epistle was
prepared by one Raymond Bonner and passed along to us by George
Mandes. You might keep it at the ready for any situation when you
may run into a hunter-hater:
"From a conservation perspective it can be argued that
hunting should be promoted over tourism. While researching a book
on conservation in Africa, I discovered that ecologically tourists
do more damage than hunters, and not because there are so many more
of the camera clickers. They speed across the plains in their
minivans tearing up the grass, creating dust bowls and cutting ugly
ruts. Then they surround a lion pride or rhino, reducing the
animals to fright, boredom or what sometimes seems like tears. In
effect, man-as-tourist is taking the "wild" out of the wildlife of
Africa."
The heroic recitation held at the sconce
at the time of the last GAS was such a great success that I am now
looking for a method of repeating it. In order to see if this is
indeed a good idea, I would much appreciate your interest in the
proposition. As of now, I think that Theodore Roosevelt's birthday
would be the appropriate occasion and I would be glad to set up a
time and place if the faithful want to participate. Let me
know!
In connection with the numerous incidents
with American deer over the past year, we note that one
Mr. Popeye Golossi was recently run over by a herd of kudu not
far from Port Elizabeth, suffering bruised ribs, bruises to face
and head and some loose teeth. The press first suggested that he
was attacked, but kudu do not attack people. These were simply
trying to get from point A to point B in a
hurry and found Popeye in the way.
That piece I reported about a restaurant
owner in Marysville, Indiana who smoked a goblin with a
cylinder-full of 357s without result, has been criticized by a
couple of correspondents as being unbelievable. Interestingly
enough, my friend just called the other night to ask me some more
questions about the kind of weapon he should use to protect his
establishment. I told him that people had been expressing doubts
about his story and he said that all they had to do was to check
with the records of the Marysville Police Department. Among other
things, his story was so bizarre that I couldn't possibly have
invented it myself - nor could he.
"The dead take with them to the grave only that which
they have given away."
Anonymous