Month: September 2023
Rogue federal agencies are probably the greatest threat to the liberty of the American people. They present more of a threat than drug cartels or terrorists because they operate under the pretext of law and have a legal monopoly on the initial use of force to compel compliance.
Now, Dr. John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author of “Gun Control Myths,” is exposing how the FBI may well be deliberately misleading the American people on how often armed Americans really do stop active shooter incidents. Dr. Lott points out that there are a number of problems with how the FBI gathers and presents this data, starting with how shootings are defined and categorized.
The FBI defines active shooter incidents as those in which an individual actively kills or attempts to kill people in a populated, public area. But it does not include shootings that are deemed related to other criminal activity, such as robbery or fighting over drug turf. Active shootings may involve just one shot being fired at just one target, even if the target isn’t hit.
To compile its list, the FBI hired academics at the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University. Police departments don’t collect data, so the researchers had to find news stories about these incidents.
Did you get that? They relied on a third-hand source to gather data, data that will be presented to try to influence policy. To call this sloppy work is the grossest of understatements. Dr. Lott’s organization did its own research and, unsurprisingly, came up with a different result.
Unfortunately, the news media unquestioningly reports the FBI numbers. After 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken used his legally-carried concealed handgun to stop what would have been a mass public shooting, an Associated Press headline noted: “Rare in US for an active shooter to be stopped by bystander.” A Washington Post headline proclaimed: “Rampage in Indiana a rare instance of armed civilian ending mass shooting.”
The CPRC’s numbers tell a different story: Out of 440 active shooter incidents from 2014 to 2022, an armed citizen stopped 157. We also found that the FBI had misidentified five cases, usually because the person who stopped the attack was incorrectly identified as a security guard.
We found these cases on a budget of just a few thousand dollars. Though we found that armed citizens had stopped eight times as many cases as the FBI claims, I make no assertion that we unearthed all of these stories. It is quite possible that the news media itself never covers many such incidents.
I would say that it’s not only quite possible but indeed quite likely that the news media never covers many such incidents, but not having done my own research, I will defer to Dr. Lott on this. But it’s undeniable that the FBI and the legacy media are badly underestimating and under-reporting the numbers of active shooters taken down by armed citizens, just as they do other incidents of defensive gun use.
This is another example of the FBI’s ongoing deterioration, devolving from what was once a premier law enforcement agency to a barely concealed advocacy group for ever-more-intrusive government policy. They have acted in many cases as the political Left’s enforcement arm against such disparate groups as Catholics and elderly protestors. The FBI has arguably gone rogue, and the answer may well be to simply defund the agency, disband it, and start from scratch. There is, after all, already a Federal law-enforcement arm that predates the FBI by many years – the U.S. Marshals – and they do not appear (yet) to suffer from the failures in leadership that are plaguing the FBI.
Dr. Lott concluded:
The FBI data on active shootings is missing so many defensive gun uses that it’s hard to believe it isn’t intentional. Errors can happen, but the failure to fix past reports shows a troubling disregard for the truth. The reality is that armed, law-abiding citizens are unsung guardian angels.
Dr. Lott is correct; it is difficult to believe that these omissions, this sloppy data-gathering—these misleading conclusions—are not deliberate. It staggers the belief that the Federal government, through the FBI, is concocting favorable data to try to push certain policies. This is absolutely anathema to the very idea of a free country inhabited by free people. We should be able to rely on a federal agency, funded by our taxpayer dollars, to conduct honest, rigorous analyses of subjects within their purview and to report the results of these analyses honestly. It is becoming abundantly clear that this is no longer possible. Fortunately, we have private groups, like Dr. Lott’s CPRC, to take that task on.
While Dr. Lott’s presentation of more believable data is useful and important, it’s important to remember that there is only one piece of data we need when it comes to considering firearms policy:
A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Ward Clark hails from Alaska’s Susitna Valley, where he maintains his rural household in one of America’s last free places. Ward is a twelve-year veteran of the U.S. Army including service in Operation Desert Storm and Operation Joint Endeavor, and today is a staunch minarchist libertarian, along with being an author, self-employed small businessman, woods bum and semi-professional bad influence.
Remington Arms has survived for more than 200 years, through some painful financial times. The company’s foundation is built solidly on tradition and a number of iconic designs, a fact that has allowed it to weather each of those storms. There’s a good reason the brand is a favorite among enthusiasts.
The firm was rolling out some classics in the ’50s and ’60s, including the now-iconic 870 pump-action shotgun that appeared in 1950 and went on to claim the “best selling shotgun of all time” title. The Model 700 rifle arrived in 1962, and there are many others. The list wouldn’t be complete, however, without including the semi-automatic Model 1100 shotgun.
The first Model 1100s came out of the factory in 1963 and were available in several versions, all of them 12 gauge. The Field Grade had a vent rib and plain barrel—$149.95 at the time, if you’re wondering—Magnum Duck guns could chamber 3″ shotshells and a High Grade, with F Premier and D Tournament versions. Models chambering 16- or 20-ga. shotshells hit the market the next year.
The response was a warm one, and sales were good. By 1966, more models were added to the lineup, including one for deer hunting, another for skeet and commemorative versions embellished to celebrate the company’s 150th anniversary.
It became available in 28 gauge and .410 Bore in 1969. The gas-operated semi-auto gained such a sterling reputation for performance, reliability and clean operation that by 1972, the millionth Model 1100 had been sold. That number reached 3 million by 1983, in an era when firearm sales pale by comparison to today’s numbers.
Then, in 1987, the company introduced the Model 11-87. It was an elegant solution for waterfowl hunters facing non-toxic shot requirements. It quickly gained traction among enthusiasts, and the subsequent drop in Model 1100 sales was likely anticipated by Remington.
Despite that fact, both shotguns were a popular choice well into 2000s. In 2016, the company even made a limited-edition Model 1100 to commemorate its 50th anniversary (seen above). Two years later, the corporation that owned Remington Firearms reorganized and, in late 2020, what remained in the gun business was sold in parts during bankruptcy proceedings.
Thankfully, the gunmaking legend is back at it at the Ilion, N.Y., factory, employing many of the same craftsmen, supervisors and management. The company is concentrating initial efforts on manufacturing Model 870s, but plans including bringing back Model 1100s. Variants slated for production include a Sporting 12, Sporting 20 and Sporting 410, each with a high-gloss finish on semi-fancy American walnut furniture (with checkering), blued receivers and barrels, gold-plated triggers and twin bead target sights. MSRPs—along with when we can expect them at sporting goods dealers—are not currently available.
The Battle of Montcel-Frétoy — History’s Last Fight Between Mounted Lancers
“The action was quickly overshadowed by greater events, just as the traditional role of the cavalryman was overtaken by the realities of modern warfare.”
By Alexander Zakrzewski
ON THE morning of Sept. 7, 1914, Lieutenant-Colonel David Campbell, commander of the British Army’s 9th Lancers, was reconnoitering with about 30 men near the French village of Montcel-Frétoy, when he heard rifle fire in the distance.
It was the second day of the Battle of the Marne, the massive Allied effort to blunt the German drive on Paris and thwart the Kaiser’s plans for a quick and decisive victory on the Western Front. The trench war had not yet begun, and cavalry on both sides still had a crucial role to play.
Campbell was the epitome of the swashbuckling cavalry officer. A champion jockey and polo player, his nickname was “Soarer” after the horse on which he had won the Grand National in 1896. Just days earlier on Aug. 24, he had led the 9th Lancers in a costly and futile charge against German guns at Elouges, surviving unscathed.
Campbell positioned his tired men behind a haystack then rode out alone towards a nearby wood to see for himself what was going on. It was only 7:45 a.m., but the temperature that September day was already scorching hot; the heat haze made visibility difficult.
As he approached the wood, he spotted beneath the trees over a hundred Prussian Guard Dragoons. The enemy spotted him and gave chase. Campbell wheeled about and raced back to the haystack to alert his men. “Follow me, gentlemen,” he ordered coolly, and galloped towards the Germans, well ahead of his men.
From the village, the American journalist Frederic Coleman watched what was happening from the safety of his motorcar. He marveled at the way the German horsemen, “magnificent in the morning sun,” rode in a perfect line as though “mechanically propelled.” He also noted Campbell and his men, “riding like mad, full tilt” at the enemy.
As the two sides neared each other, the Germans lowered their lances to form, what Coleman described as a “disagreeable-looking wall” of steel blades. Campbell made straight for the troop leader and shot him down with his pistol, but was himself almost immediately knocked off his horse.
A furious melee ensued as his men smashed into the left side of the German line. Horses collided and reared, sending their riders crashing violently to the ground. One British trooper later told Coleman that he ran his lance into a German with such force that “his hand touched the doomed man’s breast.”
For the last time in British military history, lance met lance in bitter mounted combat. Sergeant James Taylor narrowly dodged the lance of the first Dragoon he met, cutting him down with his sword. As he watched Corporal Bolte skewer a German a few feet away, he was stabbed in the back and knocked unconscious. He survived, waking in a horse ambulance after the fighting.
The speed and surprise of the British charge shook the Germans, but their superior numbers soon began to tell. After about 15 minutes of fierce fighting, Major Beale-Brown rallied his Lancers and made for the village. The Germans initially gave chase but soon withdrew towards their own lines.
British casualties were three killed and five wounded. Among the dead was Lieutenant Allfrey, who perished while trying to a pull a German lance from the shoulder of Captain Reynolds. Reynolds survived despite his grievous wound.
German casualties are unknown, but based on eyewitness accounts, are likely to have been much higher. Brigadier-General Henry de Lisle, commander of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, arrived on the scene to find a trooper pulling his bloody weapon from the German he had impaled.
“Look, there is even blood on me ’and,” the trooper exclaimed proudly. Nearby de Lisle noticed another dead German literally pinned to his horse by a lance, the poor animal trying desperately to shake him off.
Campbell was found by a medical officer sprawled out in a field of clover with a pistol wound in his leg, a lance wound in his shoulder, and a sword wound in his arm.
“I am sorry to find you like this, sir,” said the officer. But Campbell, true to his reputation, was ecstatic: “Not at all, my boy! Not at all! I’ve just had the best quarter of an hour I’ve ever had in my life!”
The action at Montcel-Frétoy was quickly overshadowed by greater events, just as the traditional role of the cavalryman was overtaken by the realities of modern warfare.
However, the action understandably has a special place among British cavalry regiments to this day. In 2014, the 100th anniversary of Montcel-Frétoy was commemorated in a ceremony in France. The following year, the 9th Lancers were amalgamated with other regiments to form a single armoured cavalry regiment, the Royal Lancers.
Alexander Zakrzewski is a Toronto-based freelance writer with a passion for military history. He’s currently working on a book about obscure First World War battles and stories. Find more of his MHN contributions here.
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