Categories
Category: A Victory!
BOULDER, Colo. — Peering over his white picket fence, wearing a red flannel shirt, Stetson, and leather boots, retired Sgt. Maj. Michael Wilson, now a small business owner in Colorado, reports that life after the military has “shattered the very foundation” of what he “believed to be true about freedom in America.”
“When I was a new private, only seventeen, I remember my drill sergeant putting his boot on my head, pushing my face into the mud, and telling me that I had no rights, that I was his bitch, and that I had to earn my freedom,” Wilson said with a hint of nostalgia.
“For 35 years I believed freedom was earned, not given,” Wilson continued. “But then I retired and discovered the truth: freedom is free for everyone in America, and it’s fucking awesome.”
Wilson, who recently opened a marijuana smoke shop called “Float To Blaze Town,” spoke while stroking a wild, unkempt beard.
He says every night he lounges in his backyard, rips “dabs off his domeless titanium nail,” and tries to focus his bloodshot eyes on the Rocky Mountains.
“Man, I wish my family had cued me in on reality when I was seventeen,” Wilson said while tearing into a box of Honeybuns. “I’m Rocky Mountain high every night and no one cares. I can do anything. For the first time in my adult life I’m equal to everyone around me. It’s amazing.”
Eager to share his revelation with the world, Wilson insisted on demonstrating his newly acquired freedoms.
“Check this out,” he said, while taking a whiz on the public land behind his home. “Not enough? Well, what about this?” he goaded before shouting, “Fuck my old commander and his stupid training meeting!”
“See, nothing. I’m free.”
Lionel Madison, Wilson’s neighbor and frequent customer, reported that at night he often hears Wilson howling at the moon, smashing bottles, and firing his Desert Eagle .50 AE into the darkness, while screaming that the “MPs can come get me if they have the balls!”
“So what he gets a little wild? He’s a real hero, and I want him to know he’s welcome. Although, I’d really like him to mow his lawn,” Madison said.
“Mow my lawn? What’s babyface going to do? Order me to do it? I’d like to see him try,” Wilson said before lighting his blowtorch, ripping another dab, and then launching some darts at a picture of his old division commander.
18-year-old Marcus Williams was electrocuted while allegedly attempting to break into an ATM using a metal pry bar. According to reports, surveillance video showed Williams approaching the ATM late at night and trying to force it open. During the attempt, the metal bar reportedly contacted internal electrical components, causing a fatal electric shock.
His family later filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the bank, claiming it was responsible for his death. The court rejected the lawsuit, ruling that Williams’ death resulted from his own criminal actions and that the bank was not liable. The judge dismissed the case and ordered the family to reimburse the bank for the cost of repairing the damaged ATM.
by Lee Williams
Travis E. Smith and a friend spent Sunday, July 5th shooting at his grandma’s rural property in Southwest Florida, about an hour north of his home in Pinellas Park.
It was a good day, he thought. The pair set up their own targets and shot Smith’s two Glocks, a 12-gauge shotgun, a SAR USA 9mm pistol, a Ruger .22 pistol, an AR-10 Smith had built himself, and what he believed was a Springfield AR pistol.
After dropping his friend off, Smith said he was nearing his home around midnight when he was stopped by a Pinellas Park police officer. Smith pulled into a restaurant’s parking lot.
The officer told Smith he stopped him because he had a “dim tag light.” Smith didn’t say anything to the officer at the time, but he strongly disagrees. His station wagon is nearly 40 years old and uses a bulb as its tag light instead of a modern LED, which are much brighter.
Smith’s buddy, who has a valid Florida medical marijuana card, had left an empty marijuana container on the back seat, which the officer saw. He told Smith the container was his “probable cause,” and that he was going to search the vehicle with or without Smith’s consent.
Smith, 28, was ordered out of the vehicle and told to take a seat on the curb.
“He began to search and I was sitting there for nearly three hours,” Smith said. “I wasn’t worried. I had nothing to hide.”
The officer called for backup. Over the next several hours, nearly a dozen more officers arrived. Most wore uniforms except for one who wore civilian clothes, a face mask and a ballcap.
They ran the serial number of every weapon through their dispatcher to make sure none were stolen. None were.
Things changed when the officers found Smith’s AR pistol. They measured the weapon and the barrel with a tape measure. They opened it up, which Smith believes was to make sure it had not been converted to full-auto. It hadn’t.
After the officers had talked for hours, one walked over, handcuffed Smith and placed him in the back of a squad car.
“They read me Miranda and asked me a bunch of questions about the AR pistol,” Smith said. “I answered some. I didn’t know what the problem was.”
Smith had owned the AR pistol for nearly seven years. He found it on a website and had it shipped to his local gun dealer. He had mounted a red-dot sight and what he thought was an aftermarket brace.
“I was under the impression it was totally compliant,” Smith said. “The brace was actually smaller than the one it came with. I thought it was a brace, not a buttstock.”
An officer then told Smith he was under arrest for possessing an unlicensed short-barreled rifle, or SBR, as the other officers loaded up all of Smith’s remaining weapons.
“They took them all,” he said. “And all the ammo too.”
Before he was hauled away to jail, Smith said one of the officers told him: “Man, these are nice guns.”
At the county jail, Smith was stripped, searched, given a towel, a thin sleeping mat and sent to a cell.
While in jail, Smith said he heard from four other inmates who said they too were stopped for either a “dim tag light” or window tint that officers claimed was too dark.
The next day, he was represented by a public defender at his first court hearing.
Smith was charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana for his friend’s empty container, and possession of an unlicensed SBR—a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He also received two traffic tickets, one for not wearing a seatbelt and the other for “no tag light.”
All of the charges are for violating Florida state law. None were federal charges.
Before the hearing, Smith had no criminal history only a traffic ticket.
“I have never been in trouble with the law,” he said. “I’m a Christian. I believe in Jesus. I wasn’t rude to the officers. I was ‘yessir,’ ‘yessir’ the whole time.”
Pinellas Park Police Chief Adam Geissenberger was not willing to be interviewed for this story.
Chief Geisenberger tried to pass multiple interview requests to his Public Information Officer, Lt. John Shea, but a lieutenant is not responsible for the overall conduct of the department’s officers, which ultimately, is the responsibility of the chief-of-police.
“I have passed this along to Chief Geissenberger, and he has no statement on the incident,” Lt. Shea said in an email.
Brace or stock?
Chris Brooks is a longtime gunsmith and firearm expert who has held nearly every job in the retail firearm industry.
Smith works for one of Brooks’ friends, who texted him soon after Smith’s arrest.
“They reached out to me because they thought the cop was mistaken, that this was just a brace. They believed that Smith was in compliance. I may have burst their bubble, unfortunately,” Brooks said. “I can understand why they thought it was a brace, but it has some things that make it a stock. However, it’s a very grey area.”
Brooks classifies firearms and firearm parts for a major online retailer, but even he isn’t 100% sure that Smith had an SBR and not a pistol with a legal brace.
“I am not convinced that stock is a stock. It has an angle that makes it unique, brace-like. The portion that makes contact with your shoulder isn’t any larger than other braces. I am not convinced it could function like a stock. It’s more like a pistol brace,” Brooks said. “This arrest was not fair. It’s unusual. It seems like something that an officer would resort to if his intention was to make an arrest. I have never even heard of this. This gun was not altered in any way. It just has a different piece of plastic on back that can be removed without tools. I’ve probably sold more than 30,000 braced pistols over the years and this has never even come up.”
Brooks also took issue with the state charges.
“I wasn’t even aware of the Florida SBR statute until after all of this happened. The intent of the Florida law was likely to canonize the federal statute into state law, but they are a good three or four iterations behind federal law,” he said.
Reaction
Sarasota County (Florida) Sheriff Kurt Hoffman is also an attorney who served as general counsel for the department from 2005 until he became sheriff in 2021.
Hoffman believes that regardless of whether Smith had a legal AR pistol or an unlicensed SBR, the issue is whether his encounter with Pinellas Park police should have ended in arrest.
“When you have a citizen with no criminal history, who is not using firearms in an unlawful manner and you find what could be perhaps a technical violation, and it takes you three hours to determine whether you have a crime or not, perhaps the best thing to do is to take the offensive firearm part off the gun and then send the non-criminal on his way,” Sheriff Hoffman said. “I would like to think that law enforcement, when encountering someone who is not acting in a nefarious capacity, that we should not be going to the extreme. Certainly, the other firearms there were not illegal, so I don’t know what the intent was to seize them. Sometimes we’re our own worst enemy.”
Alan M. Gottlieb founded the Second Amendment Foundation more than 50 years ago and serves as its executive vice president.
Said Gottlieb: “This young man’s life as he knows it may be over. Even if he doesn’t serve a full 15 years in prison, he will become a convicted felon and unable to legally possess firearms, which he very clearly enjoys shooting. I was extremely surprised when I learned that this happened in Florida and not California, New York or New Jersey. Law enforcement needs to understand the harm that can come when they act so overzealously. By charging this young man with a second-degree felony they have ruined his life. That is the real crime here. I certainly hope there is a judge in Florida who sees it this way.”
Travis’ brother just created a Go Fund Me account, which he will need. Here’s a link: https://tinyurl.com/3yjenrsf
The Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project wouldn’t be possible without you. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support pro-gun stories like this.
The Vasa was built to project Swedish power, terrify rivals, and dominate the sea. Instead, this lavish 1628 warship barely made it off the dock before tipping over and turning into one of naval history’s most spectacular disasters.
A GunsAmerica History Detour That Reaches Back to 1626
If you’ve followed these history articles for very long, you come to appreciate that there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to any of them. I send an example in once a week, my editors work their magic, and then something shows up most every Monday. I have no idea how they decide what runs when. I’m just as surprised as you are.
I try to craft everything around a military or firearms-related theme. It is called GunsAmerica, after all. Some of these are drawn from the latest headlines. Most spawn from WW2. That was the most expansive conflict in human history, so it stands to reason. I can’t recall how far back we have reached, but today’s project might set some kind of record. Our tale begins in 1626, when the world was a very different place.
A Brave New World of Sail, Steel, and Imperial Ambition
The 2003 Peter Weir epic Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a perennial favorite. Drawn from a couple of Patrick O’Brian books that chronicle the adventures of Royal Navy sea captain Jack Aubrey, Master and Commander stars Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany and is a simply magnificent watch.
I’ve read a few of O’Brien’s books, and they were great. The movie, however, is indeed a masterclass in naval filmmaking. It cost $150 million to produce and still made a decent profit. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. You’ll thank me later.
There is a timeless allure to naval combat in the era of sail. Like submarine movies, it is easy to find drama in that space. It is tempting for modern students of military history to speciously lump all that together as a single era. Nowadays, military tech evolves so quickly that war in 2026 is fundamentally different from combat in 2003 and unrecognizable from the same stuff in 1944.
By contrast, the era of sail spans from the battle of Lepanto in 1571 all the way up to the mid-19th century and the development of steam-powered warships.
In fact, a relative of mine commanded the USS Lanikai during the frenetic evacuation from the Philippines at the beginning of WW2. The Lanikai was a hastily commissioned schooner press-ganged into service in 1941 during a particularly harrowing period in US Navy history.
To my knowledge, the Lanikai was the last US Navy sailing ship to participate in combat operations. Once I have a chance to reread my cousin’s exploits, we will likely explore that in this space as well.
Master and Commander was set in 1808 during the Napoleonic Wars. The ship we will discuss today was launched in 1628. The point simply being that this period in military history spanned centuries.
Sweden’s Age of Greatness Set the Stage for the Vasa
Nowadays, Sweden is best known for IKEA, Volvo, ABBA, and lots of hot Viking women who look like the elves from The Lord of the Rings. Back in the 17th-century, however, Sweden was a major military superpower. They called this period Stormakststiden or the “Age of Greatness.”
The Swedes had not quite shaken off their Viking heritage, so they were quick to get into everybody else’s business. With a powerful central government, Sweden developed an exceptionally efficient military organization. That meant a formidable land army as well as the capacity for some pretty serious power projection at sea.
Naval Engineering Before Computers Was Art, Nerve, and Guesswork
In the Information Age, computers design our weapons. Every single piece of a modern warship is electronically crafted to optimize its function. Today’s military hardware is exhaustively tested in the digital realm before a single component ends up cast or cut in steel. However, that was obviously not always the case.
As an example, some of the first combat submarines were designed in the 1870’s by an English pastor named George Garrett. These vessels were powered by steam. The rub was that any sensible person knows you cannot make a steam-powered vessel go underwater. As soon as their crews tried to fire a torpedo or maneuver these things, they promptly rolled over and sank. That didn’t stop Garrett and his investors from selling these deathtraps to Turkey, Greece, and Russia.
Back in the 17th century, shipbuilding was as much art as science. Massive ocean-going vessels hundreds of feet long were designed and built using nothing fancier than a ruler and a lot of on-the-job experience. The amazing thing is that some of them actually worked.
Meet the Vasa, the Swedish Warship Built to Terrify Rivals
In the early 1600’s, Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus was heavily engaged in an existential fight against Poland and Lithuania. Then as now, mighty warships both projected military power and embodied national pride. Whoever had the biggest ships with the most guns commanded the most respect. At a time when naval battles were won with withering broadsides and iron-willed men swinging on ropes, brandishing cutlasses, King Adolphus aimed to dominate all comers. His newest dreadnaught was christened the Vasa.
The Vasa was indeed a formidable beast. Spanning 226 feet long and 38 feet wide, she ran 152 feet from the bottom of her keel to the top of her mainmast. The Vasa sported 13,720 square feet of sail and displaced 1,210 tons.
The entire ship was configured for combat. This massive vessel was crewed with 145 sailors and carried around 300 soldiers, what we might call Marines today. She sported 64 serious guns. Forty-eight of these were massive bronze naval 24-pounders arrayed across two gun decks. She also included eight 3-pounders and two 1-pounders for close-range antipersonnel work.
Modern weapons are fairly utilitarian. The B2 Spirit stealth bomber is both beautiful and elegant, because that is the nature of its design. The A10 Warthog ground attack plane is so bug-ugly as to be attractive in its own weird way. Back in 1628, however, shipbuilders invested a little effort just making their warships look awesome.
As a result, the Vasa was richly decorated in a manner befitting her King’s royal ambitions. Her heavy oak hull sported almost feminine curves. At the time of her completion, the Vasa was one of the most heavily armed warships in the world.
The Vasa Looked Glorious, but Trouble Was Already Brewing
The Vasa took two years to build. She was crafted by a Dutchman named Henrik Hybertsson or “Master Henrik.” Hybertsson was under contract to build four warships for the Swedish regent. He laid the keel of the Vasa in February of 1626.
Throughout her construction, the Swedish king hounded Hybertsson to hurry. There was a war on, and Adolphus needed the firepower. However, Master Henrik fell ill soon after the project began. Construction duties were passed on to another Dutch shipbuilder named Henrik Jacobsson. Hybertsson subsequently died in the summer of 1627. Thankfully, for reasons we will discuss directly, he never got to see his massive creation take to the sea.
The Swedish industrial base was inadequate to source the materials needed to rig out a vessel of this magnitude. As a result, her flax sails came from Holland, and the hemp used to craft the ship’s extensive rigging originated in Latvia. Most of the oak timber was sourced from Swedish estates. The Vasa was astronomically expensive.
Before Launch, the Vasa already felt dangerously top-heavy
The Vasa was soft-launched in the spring of 1627, about the same time Master Henrik died. That bit went swimmingly. Shipbuilders finished out the sterncastle, the upper deck, and the beakhead while the big ship was afloat.
The beakhead was the ornate bit up front just above the figurehead. Ships of this era were extravagantly decorated, and the beakhead made the first impression on other ships, both enemy and otherwise. Curiously, that’s also where the ship’s latrine was located. When modern sailors hit the head for a little quality time, that’s where the term comes from.
Visitors to the ship commented that she seemed a wee bit top-heavy. Her draft when fully loaded was only 16 feet, and all those bronze cannons were pretty darn massive. In mid-1628, Captain Söfring Hansson arranged to demonstrate the ship’s stability to Vice Admiral Fleming. Captain Hansson had thirty members of his crew run back and forth across the upper deck to get the ship rolling. However, the admiral grew uneasy and put a stop to the test after only three cycles out of concern that the ship might capsize.
The Vasa’s Maiden Voyage Turned Into a Catastrophe in Minutes
On 10 August 1628, Captain Hansson took his place on the bridge and gave orders that the Vasa cast off her moorings. Draft animals on shore began the process by tugging on the anchor. The day was bright and clear with the tiniest breeze from the southwest. However, with so much sail to help her along, they did eventually get the big ship moving.
This was a big day, and most of Stockholm came out to watch. To commemorate the event, Captain Hansson had the gun ports opened and fired the main batteries in salute as soon as it was safe to do so. Then a proper gust of wind hit the ship from the side.
The Vasa suddenly and severely heeled to port. In response, Captain Hansson dropped her sheets, and the massive ship righted herself. However, at the next break in the nearby bluffs, a stronger gust hit the vessel and pushed her even farther over. This time, the sea poured into the lower gunports, flooding the first gun deck. In short order, water filled the hold, and the hulking warship promptly sank. She was only 120 meters from shore. Thousands of spectators watched the whole sordid scene in horror. Thirty of her complement drowned.
Blame, Salvage, and 333 Years on the Bottom
There resulted the obligatory recriminations. The crew blamed the builders, and the builders blamed the crew. Eventually, everyone decided that the fault must lie with Henrik Hybertsson, mostly because he was dead and couldn’t defend himself.
Though the Vasa was a total write-off, her guns remained quite valuable. More than fifty of them were recovered using primitive diving equipment between 1663 and 1665. And there she sat on the bottom of the Stockholm harbor…for some 333 years.
The Vasa Rose Again and Became a Museum Time Capsule
In 1956, an amateur archaeologist named Anders Frazien used a homemade gravity-driven probe to discover a large wooden object in about the right spot. Divers subsequently spent two years excavating half a dozen tunnels underneath the wreck using high-pressure water jets. That operation required more than 1,300 separate dives. Over a series of eighteen sequential pneumatic lifts, the old wreck eventually broke the surface. The wooden structure then had to be soaked in polyethylene glycol for some seventeen years to stabilize it fully.
The Vasa museum officially opened for visitors in 1990. Since then, some 45 million people have enjoyed the exquisitely restored old warship. Period clothing, shoes, money, privately purchased items, and sundry ephemera were shockingly well-preserved and lend fascinating insights into naval life during the 17th century. The Vasa’s one and only voyage carried her a whopping 1,300 meters from her mooring. However, the Vasa nonetheless remains a time capsule offering a priceless connection to a very different time.