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Month: July 2024
Gov. Janet Mills’s office referred critical social media posts to the police. The FPC pushed back.
Talk about your thin-skinned politicians! Apparently, it doesn’t take much more than an insult from critics these days to get the governor of Maine to scream for the police.
Since When Is Criticism a Crime?
Back in December, during an interview with a local NBC affiliate about blunders by official in the lead-up to the Lewiston mass shooting, Maine Gov. Janet Mills left the door open to tighter gun restrictions, including a ban on so-called “assault weapons.”
That segment was picked up and publicized by The Maine Wire, a conservative-leaning news site. That outlet’s post, in turn, drew a pungent comment from the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), a pugnacious self-defense rights group that pulls no punches when it comes to defending individual liberty. So, of course the governor’s office went crying to the cops.
The Rattler is a weekly newsletter from J.D. Tuccille. If you care about government overreach and tangible threats to everyday liberty, this is for you.
“Documents obtained by the Maine Wire via a Freedom of Access Act show that Gov. Janet Mills’ personnel referred social media posts from the Firearms Policy Coalition and the Maine Wire to the State Police, flagging them for the governor’s Executive Protection Unit,” The Maine Wire‘s Steve Robinson reported last week.
The posts in question were entirely unthreatening, except perhaps to sensitive feelings. The Maine Wire added nothing to the video clip except for a short summary of the content: “Governor Mills is leaving the door open for a possible assault weapons ban following the Lewiston shooting.”
The FPC was, characteristically, a little sharper: “Hey @GovJanetMills, Three words: Fuck you. No.”
That’s short, to the point, and perhaps a bit sharp, but it implies no threats whatsoever.
Nevertheless, The Maine Wire found emails showing that Mills’ press secretary passed a link to the post around the office, and that “another staffer immediately forwarded the post to the Maine State Police employee responsible for protecting the governor.”
According to Robinson, this isn’t the first time officials in the Democrat-led state government have tried to get the outlet in legal hot water. Emails revealed the office of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows questioning if an article illustration depicting a stylized presidential ballot featuring only the Joe Biden–Kamala Harris ticket qualified as a “fake ballot” since it showed the state seal. This happened after Bellows tried to boot Republican Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot.
Part of a Pattern of Weaponized Law
The Maine spat is part of a flurry of cases across the country involving government officials attempting to misuse the legal system and regulatory power to punish political opponents. While not as high-profile or as high-stakes, it’s reminiscent of NRA v. Vullo, a case recently given new life by the U.S. Supreme Court, in which Maria Vullo, the former head of New York’s Department of Financial Services, very clearly used the power of her office over banks and insurance companies to twist their arms until they denied services to the National Rifle Association.
“Six decades ago, this Court held that a government entity’s ‘threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion’ against a third party ‘to achieve the suppression’ of disfavored speech violates the First Amendment,” Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote for the court in the unanimous opinion. “Today, the Court reaffirms what it said then: Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.”
Such coercion came in the form of the abuse of regulatory power over financial institutions in the Vullo case. But it can come as old-school referrals to the police of anybody who criticizes government officials and their policies. Anything like that violates free speech rights.
The Firearms Policy Coalition Fights Back
“The disdain for natural rights by government officials like Maine Governor Mills and Secretary of State Bellows bolsters our commitment to our mission to render them irrelevant,” the FPC responded to the dust-up over the X post referral.
In a July 18 letter to Mills and Bellows, FPC President Brandon Combs vowed, “we take First Amendment-protected rights just as seriously as we do others.”
“You must surely be aware that our X post responding to Governor Mills’s discussion of an immoral ban on protected arms is clearly protected speech as there is absolutely no uncertainty about the law regarding this form of speech. If not, some education is in order,” the letter continued. “Naked authoritarianism, such as efforts to chill free speech, is not acceptable to FPC and our members. We strongly encourage you to learn more about protected speech and arms.”
For what it’s worth, the first letter of each line of the letter, read vertically, spells: “Fuck You No.”
The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
The state police commissioner was copied on the letter. That seems a handy shortcut given the propensity of the governor’s office to share mean messages with the cops. It cuts out the middleman and ensures police get a timely heads-up about sharply worded criticism of government officials.
A Practice That Needs To Stop
The weaponization of law, the courts, regulatory agencies, and tax collectors is despicable, but nothing new. The IRS has been used by presidents at least as far back as Franklin Delano Roosevelt to torment political enemies. Operation Chokepoint put federal regulatory pressure on banks to cut off access to financial services for legal but politically disfavored industries. The practice is extralegal and destructive of whatever remains of respect for government. It’s also becoming increasingly common.
When abusing the power of the state to punish critics becomes the norm, it erases the line between people who have committed actual criminal acts, and those who have just pissed off the powerful. That’s what lands us at the point when the office of a state governor refers insulting social media posts for the state police to do something about.
We’ll discover the hard way what that something is, unless those on the receiving end push back the way the FPC did. That means mocking thin-skinned government officials, calling them out publicly, and taking them to court. Intolerant officials want to hurt their critics with powers that were never meant to be used that way. That can only be discouraged if such abuses come with high costs of their own.
WRITTEN BY JOHN CONNOR
It happened again, and I can’t stand it anymore — the muffled whispers and furtive pointing; the sidelong slitty-eyed glances and snide snickering. I have to confess; get it off my chest and out in the open: I don’t shoot by The Book!
I was at another GunWriter Group-Grope — one of those wingdings put on by arms and ammo makers where a buncha real gunwriters and a couple fellow hacks like me are invited to burn up a ton of somebody else’s ordnance and fondle their firearms.
Anyway, I was merrily makin’ mayhem on innocent cardboard targets when, once again, I became aware of weighty stares and rancid repugnance radiatin’ from an assembly of The Anointed. They were horrified at my heresy. See, I don’t worship at any particular Temple of Technique or follow any “School of Shootery” du jour. I have what I call “evolved practices,” born of experience, and they’re still evolving. But in the eyes of the Keepers of The Book, my sins are many and mortal, it seems.
In an attempt to avoid co-pay costs for sessions on a shrink’s sofa, maybe I’ll just spill my guts to you guys …
The Seven Deadly Sins
I don’t do “tactical speed reloads” with pistols or mag-fed rifles. I don’t hit the mag release and kick empty magazines out on the deck with my weapon hand while reaching for a fresh one with the other. I do “sure & certain combat reloads” as fast as I can without fumbling. That means keeping an unchanged granite grip on the weapon, hitting the mag release with my off-hand and assisting that empty mag out if necessary. Then I’ll fetch a fresh mag and shove it in.
Yeah, I know. This might cost you critical points in a match. But in my experience, doing otherwise could cost my life in a fight. Pristine mags should fall free from a clean mag well, but just add mud/blood/beer, sand/sludge/grit, twisted positions or damage to the equation, and “drop-free” mags often don’t. I could practice “tactical speed reloads” just for matches or to “fit in with the boys,” but I won’t, because I know me under fire, and I want just one absolutely reliable reloading drill in my head when somebody’s trying to blast my butt off.
My slide release ain’t a “slide release,” it’s a “slide STOP.” I don’t thumb that lever to feed first rounds on reloads. I crank the slide back briskly to its limit either overhand or “slingshot style” because I want that slide driven home under full spring-plus-paw power. Again, it’s all about keeping that granite grip, plus absolute certainty the round is fully chambered and the slide is in battery. It ain’t slick and stylish, but it’s survivable. If you can chew gum, whistle and play with your GameBoy whilst shooting for your life, good for you. I can’t.
I don’t “ride the safety” on a 1911, keepin’ it held down with the master thumb to prevent it from bein’ bumped up and engaging unintentionally. I confess I never heard much about it until recently, but I’ve read several experts’ opinions that this practice separates the pros from the poseurs.
I guess I’m a heavily-experienced poseur. Riding it just doesn’t work for me. If I use too high a thumb-over-thumb grip I lose rigidity, and I’m not installing shelf-sized safety levers. Maybe a tad wider than standard, OK. I like my slides slick and “service-issue” for all kinds of clumsy Neanderthal reasons.
Plunging Into Purgatory
I am a profligate expender of ordnance, operating under the premise if anything needs shootin’ once (besides game) could probably benefit from a barrage of bullets until its inherent threat potential is absolute zero. Kinda like the difference between water “kinda-sorta-maybe conditionally” freezing at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, versus complete cessation of quantum activity at minus 459.6 F or zero Kelvin. I’ve seen too many guys who were “technically dead,” but who apparently didn’t receive their termination telegram, so they kept fighting. That kinda thing scares me.
I respect my own Fear Factor. For me, the quicker that dude is deader, the sooner I’m less scareder.
I don’t like feather-light triggers that “break like a thin, glass rod.” Not on firearms for Serious Social Work anyway, so I avoid them entirely. I want to know when I’m “on” that trigger, and it will require deliberate pressure to go bang — not when Adrenaline Overdrive decides to drop the hammer for me. What I want is a clean break after a tad of take-up. So I’m not a connoisseur, so crucify me, OK?
I’m not a straight-up shooter. The Book says a handgun should be held at zero vertical and, as much as possible, zero horizontal. I think this sprang from the days when first, shooting positions were dictated by geometry-driven military martinets, second, when a lot of pistols wouldn’t feed and function when held off-axis, and third, when all training and practice shooting was done on black-ball bull’s-eye targets.
It made for a prettier sight picture — but I’ve never had to fight a bull’s-eye target. Two-handed or single, strong or weak hand, I shoot best when side-canted about 10 to 15 degrees. You might shoot better that way too, but watch out for angry mobs of The Anointed bearing pitchforks, tar and feathers.
I don’t “index” nice, or “UTM” per usual. When you’re not actually “tappin’ the trigger with intent to pop caps,” your index finger is s’posed to be rigidly extended straight along the frame. Mine doesn’t “rigid” very well, and “straight” went off the table with some fractured mitt-bones and nerve damage a while back. The tip of my crooked trigger finger parks on the side of the triggerguard in Condition Orange, and it’s on the trigger in Condition Red. Note: I go Red real easy (another reason for favoring sorta stout service triggers).
Dang, I feel so much better now! And I didn’t have to lay on a couch or pay a guy in Gucci loafers to listen to me!
Connor OUT
Categories
THE KAISER’S SECRET WEAPON
THE WWI-ERA GERMAN 9MM “ARTILLERY LUGER”
DELIVERED FIREPOWER AHEAD OF ITS TIME.
WRITTEN BY WILL DABBS, MD
The world in 1917 was a hemorrhaging wound. Like toddlers wielding hand grenades, world leaders commanded armies numbered in the millions in a pitiless war of attrition that claimed human life on a magnitude previously unimagined. Countless lives were ruined, and immeasurable blood was spilt. Thus we as a species received our gory introduction to warfare on a truly industrial scale.
Desperation inevitably spawns innovation. Nations suddenly shocked by their battlefield losses struggled to improve weapons and equipment in an effort at offering their combatants some tactical advantage on killing fields like Ypres, Verdun and the Somme. The resulting mad dash for the latest military technology brought us armed aircraft, poison gas and the combat submarine. On scales both small and large the world saw unprecedented innovation in military hardware.
In the latter years of the 19th century, the state of the art in military handguns was some variation on Rollin White’s bored-through cylinder. Mr. White worked as a contract gunsmith at Colt in the years preceding the American Civil War, and his revelation that a revolver cylinder could be loaded with cartridges from the rear revolutionized handguns. He subsequently sold his invention to Smith & Wesson in exchange for a 25-cent royalty on each pistol produced. By the late 1800’s, however, it was time for something new.
In 1893 Hugo Borchardt designed the Borchardt-Selbstladepistole while working for the German firm of Ludwig Loewe & Cie of Berlin. Compared to the competition, Herr Borchardt’s magazine-fed repeater was a quantum leap forward. The resulting handgun was bulky and expensive and, remarkable though it was, failed to generate any significant military sales.
Georg Luger, one of Hugo’s fellow engineers, was granted a patent for an improved version of the Borchardt-Selbstladepistole in 1898. Evolutionary improvements resulted in the 1900 pattern pistol sold in quantity to the Swiss military through the newly formed Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken (DWM). In 1903 the Imperial German Navy accepted the design and in 1908 the Kaiser’s army followed suit. Hence was birthed the Parabellum P08, arguably the most iconic handgun in human history. Today it is simply called the Luger.
The Artillery Luger Lange Pistole 08 was a specialized adaptation
of the standard P08 Parabellum pistol to better optimize it for close
combat applications. As such, it became one of the world’s first
“personal defense weapons.”
The action of the Parabellum is an inspired adaptation of the
human knee joint. The upper portion of the pistol slides freely
within a track in the frame. A cam milled into the frame geometry
pushes the toggle lock upwards and unlocks the action during recoil.
Human Anatomy Meets Martial Efficiency
The action of Herr Luger’s eponymous pistol reflects an inspired adaptation of the human knee joint. When fully extended the human knee will support a person’s body weight without any significant muscular involvement. This extraordinary design allows us to remain standing throughout tedious political oratory, graduation ceremonies and moving wedding nuptials without having to expend undue metabolic capital. However, once the knee’s angle advances past a certain tipping point the joint breaks, and the associated musculature assumes responsibility for the limb’s structural integrity. Luger and Borchardt envisioned within this phenomenon a gun’s mechanical action.
If you’ve never before appreciated the genius of Luger’s Parabellum, grab up a copy or Google a close-up photograph and follow the action through its cycle. It embodies mechanical elegance. The cam governing the action is machined into the frame of the gun such that the mechanism is fully on display to the outside observer.
The toggle component locks the action closed when fully extended. Newtonian physics dictates the recoil force counteracting the expulsion of the projectile presses the upper half of the gun backwards against counter-pressure exerted through the firer’s arm. The P08’s upper half is designed to slide freely in a linear track along the frame, allowing the central hinge of the toggle to impinge upon the cam defined by the frame and push the joint upwards until it unlocks. Momentum then drives the action up and open against spring pressure so the extractor and ejector can rid the gun of its spent cartridge. The coil-shaped recoil spring in the grip then reverses the process, stripping a round from the gun’s magazine and returning the action to its locked state. The simplicity, sophistication and mechanical grace of the process are — quite literally — inspired.
The trigger is not as crisp as it could be given its single-action design. The externalized nature of the mechanism also leaves the gun susceptible to fouling in the face of grime and filth, something found in abundance in the trenches of the Great War. However, the gun is accurate for its dimensions and in its pedestrian form gives its operator eight rapid fire rounds on tap. With the standard 3.74″ barreled version as a starting point, German engineers redesigned the pistol into something that could better serve as a serious close combat tool.
The longer barrel and specialized sights of the pistol made
it theoretically capable of long-range performance, although
the 9mm chambering limited its capabilities.
The Artillery Luger combined art and martial efficiency
into one amazing beautiful and specialized package.
Find A Need And Fill It
The intimacy implicit within a grunt’s personal weapon has fascinated historians and military buffs for time immemorial. However, it is actually the Field Artillery that is the apex predator on the modern battlefield. The art of the cannonade has evolved from crude massed saturation fire to the precision application of high explosive encased in steel. As a result, an Army’s artillery assets are critical elements worthy of protection.
The World War I-era artilleryman managed a remarkably complicated piece of precision machinery in unbelievably austere conditions. The guns and their associated support structure required a great deal of technical expertise for effective use. Redlegs, as they are called in US Army parlance, must manipulate and manhandle heavy equipment and projectiles while calibrating guns and sighting gear to ensure they drop their rounds on time and on target. Friendly lives hang in the balance. In this environment, cumbersome full-sized personal weapons are not ideal.
In a perfect world an artilleryman’s individual weapon is simply ballast. It is the cannon with which he engages the enemy. If combat exigencies demand this soldier engage in close fight, then something has gone desperately wrong. However, on a fluid modern battlefield an enemy offensive might conceivably penetrate into an army’s rear areas with sufficient speed to threaten artillery units. Under these circumstances, artillerymen needed a compact weapon that remained capable of providing close-range firepower. German engineers in the early 20th century appreciated their artillerymen needed what we have now come to call a “Personal Defense Weapon.”.
The Lange Pistole 08 was a product of a different engineering
ethos from the one we follow today. Using relatively primitive
machine tools, gunmaking artisans conjured these weapons using
experience and intuition rather than computers and digital code.
Single stack 8-round box magazines fed through the butt of
the weapon (here shown partially inserted). Early versions sported
wooden floorplates. Drum magazines designed specifically for the
Lange Pistole 08 carried 32 rounds and ran off of complicated clockwork springs.
The Lange Pistole 08
The requirement for a pistol carbine with which to arm German artillerymen was actually recognized in 1907, and several different handgun chassis were evaluated towards this end. In 1908, Captain Adolf Fischer was tasked to work with DWM to finalize the design. The resulting Lange Pistole 08 (literally “Long Pistol 08”) was a pistol carbine version of the basic Parabellum action that is now universally referred to as the Artillery Luger. Kaiser Wilhelm II personally approved the design on June 3, 1913.
This adaptation of the toggle-joint P08 sports a 200mm barrel, an eight-position tangent rear sight rather optimistically calibrated out to 800 meters, a detachable shoulder stock cut from simple board stock and a complicated 32-round snail drum magazine designated the Trommelmagazin 08. Considering a 115-grain 9mm round drops around 35 feet at 500 meters the long-range sight is fairly superfluous. The entire affair was issued with a dedicated leather holster to manage all the ancillary bits. The earliest Artillery Lugers sported micrometer adjustable front and rear sights that required a dedicated two-pin tool for adjustment. This superfluous feature was deleted in the 1917 production.
The Artillery Luger’s support equipment was issued in a dedicated wooden storage box called a P-Kasten. This case carried five drum magazines along with the magazine loader and 12 boxes of ammunition. Complete versions of this kit are rarer than unicorn horns today.
The tangent adjustable rear sight was based on the
notion the Artillery Luger could be used out to 800
meters, which was optimistic.
Note the exquisite workmanship machining of the Artillery
Luger and also note the slot cut between the toggle handles
to allow visual access to the rear sight.
In 1917, Germany engineering and manufacturing were
the professions of artists. Copious proof marks attest to
quality assurances and government acceptance.
the professions of artists. Copious proof marks attest to
quality assurances and government acceptance.
The barrel of the Luger is tapered with a front
sight situated on an enlarged band.
Practical Tactical
Though the Artillery Luger was originally intended as an artilleryman’s close quarters combat tool, its other applications were readily appreciated. Once the First World War battlefield stalemated into a classic trench fight, engagements frequently distilled down to small unit commando-style affairs. These actions involved small groups of highly trained shock troops that would infiltrate enemy trenches to snatch prisoners, gather intelligence, or foment local breakthroughs. In such a battlespace the appeal of a lightweight, maneuverable pistol-caliber carbine with a large magazine capacity became apparent. Dedicated units formed for this task within the Kaiser’s army were called Sturmtruppen or Stormtroopers.
The Sturmtruppen carried medieval-style steel shields and entrenching tools with cutting surfaces ground to a razor’s edge. They frequently adorned their helmets with a stylized death’s head to better intimidate their opponents. Their weapons included both the Artillery Luger as well as the revolutionary MP-18 submachine gun, the world’s first successful dedicated pistol-caliber automatic weapon. Such stuff went on to define the small unit tactics of the subsequent War to End All Wars some two decades later.
The Lange Pistole 08 was also evaluated as a weapon with which to arm combat aviators. The earliest tactical heavier-than-air aircraft used in World War I were flown little more than a decade after the Wright brothers’ first flight, and aviation technology was far from rarefied. In this case these earliest military aviators would take potshots at one another using variations of the same small arms used by their ground-bound brethren. The Artillery Luger was tested specifically to assess its utility within the confines of an aircraft’s cockpit as well as the effectiveness of the 9mm round against the aircraft engines of the day. Such technical research was obviously rendered superfluous after the first belt-fed machine guns designed to fire synchronously through an airplane’s propeller arc became widely available.
Classic German attention to detail is exhibited throughout. Note the
excellent machine work on what was a wartime-production pistol.
The sights of the sample pistol consisted of a notch rear
on a sliding tangent that mated with a fixed front sight
(earlier models featured an adjustable front).
The safety of the Luger pistol is a thumb lever easily accessed
by right-handed firers. Gesichirt is German for secure or “safe.”
Pressing this lever forward puts the gun on “fire.”
by right-handed firers. Gesichirt is German for secure or “safe.”
Pressing this lever forward puts the gun on “fire.”
The safety of the Luger pistol is a thumb lever easily accessed
by right-handed firers. Gesichirt is German for secure or “safe.”
Pressing this lever forward puts the gun on “fire.”
by right-handed firers. Gesichirt is German for secure or “safe.”
Pressing this lever forward puts the gun on “fire.”
Tools Of Tragedy
The Artillery Luger variation of the P08 Parabellum pistol was a timely adaptation driven by the exigencies of total war grown out of control. The machines that produced these firearms were conceivably still driven by steam. Wielding nothing more advanced than a ruler such luminaries as Hugo Borchardt, Georg Luger and Adolf Fischer conjured weapons with an elegance seldom equaled today even in the era of computer-aided design and CNC milling machines.
History has a tendency to overlook the misery of the battlefield. The timeless pathos that is modern war is frequently ignored in favor of technical treatises on a soldier’s tools or the general’s strategic cerebrations. That young soldiers fighting and dying far from home clutched these guns makes the ownership of such treasures as much responsibility as privilege. While mankind seems incapable of learning any grand moral lessons from the horrors of modern war, we nonetheless appreciate the elegance of the tools.
In the elements of Adolf Fisher’s adaptation of Georg Luger’s magnificent mechanical knee, we can glimpse a bit of military necessity bordering upon art.
Special thanks to www.worldwarsupply.com
for providing the photography to support this article.
Lange Pistole 08 Artillery Luger
CALIBER: 9mm Parabellum
BARREL LENGTH: 7.87″
OVERALL LENGTH: 12.87″
WEIGHT: 2 lbs.
STOCK/GRIPS: Wood
SIGHTS: Tangent rear, blade front
ACTION: Toggle-lock short recoil
FINISH: Blue
CAPACITY: 8-round box magazine or 32-round drum