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.243 Explained – The Gun Shop
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Mossberg 590 A1 vs Bowling Pins
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was an Iranian scientist born in 1958 in Qom, Iran. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, he joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In 1987 he earned his BS in nuclear physics from Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. Literally translated Shahid Beheshti supposedly means “Martyr Paradise.” I would find it a bit unsettling to attend “Martyr Paradise University” myself. If nothing else I doubt it was much of a party school. He later earned a Ph.D. in nuclear radiation and cosmic rays.
Fakhrizadeh technically taught physics at the Imam Hossein University. However, in 2007 the CIA announced that this was simply a cover story. Apparently, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was actually scrambling madly to build a nuclear bomb.
The AMAD Project ran from 1989 until 2003 and was suspected of being the cover for an Iranian nuclear weapon program. The Iranian government denied its existence, but keep in mind that these are some sneaky rascals. Fakhrizadeh subsequently founded the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND). I have no idea how they got that acronym out of that name. I don’t read Farsi. Fakhrizadeh was SPND’s director from 2008 until 2011.
Fakhrizadeh also chaired FEDAT, the Field for the Expansion of Development of Advanced Technology. That acronym I can understand. I’m pleased to see that the creation of bizarre acronyms is not solely an American disease. While the Iranian government has claimed throughout that their nuclear program is entirely peaceful, apparently somebody else felt otherwise. This all came to a head one fateful day in November of 2020.
The Attack
Fakhrizadeh was a strategic national asset for Iran, and everybody involved knew that there were forces at play in both the US and Israel who felt that the world might be better off without him. Donald Trump came to a similar conclusion about Qasem Soleimani and blew him straight to hell. Soleimani was known locally as “The Shadow Commander” due to his propensity to skulk about killing people, equipping terrorists, and generally fomenting chaos. Good riddance.
In the year leading up to November 20, 2020, tensions escalated between Iran and the US as well as Iran and Israel. There were rumors of a pending assassination attempt, but these reports got lost in the mind-boggling clutter that is intelligence gathering in the Information Age. There has been some fairly impressive retrospective self-flagellation in Iran as a result.
Fakhrizadeh’s security team begged him not to travel. However, he had an important meeting and claimed he also needed to lecture his students. He was traveling on a rural road in his Nissan Teana near Absard between Tehran and his weekend villa. His Nissan was part of a three-vehicle convoy. He had eleven trained security operatives in tow and sat alongside his wife. Along a deserted stretch of road, the little convoy approached a Nissan truck parked on the shoulder. During a subsequent debriefing, the security forces claimed it looked like the pickup truck was carrying a load of wood.
The attack lasted less than three minutes. Fakhrizadeh was shot a total of thirteen times from a range of 150 yards. His chief security officer purportedly threw himself on top of the Iranian scientist and caught four rounds for his trouble. Fakhrizadeh’s wife was sitting some ten inches away and was unharmed. Apparently, Fakhrizadeh was hit, climbed out of the car, and was then cut to pieces. The gun clearly tracked him as he moved. Once the attack was complete the Nissan pickup truck simply exploded.
In the immediate aftermath, the Iranian government spun an elaborate yarn about multiple attackers and a suicide bomb. They claimed that three bodyguards died while either three or four of the attackers were killed. They even dredged up a few witnesses who corroborated part of the story, claiming that the suicide bomber lingered on for a bit after the blast before succumbing to his injuries. Apparently, all of that was made up.
The Fars News Agency later reported that Fakhrizadeh had actually been killed by some kind of killer robot. They stated that a remotely-controlled machinegun linked to Israel by satellite and utilizing both Artificial Intelligence and facial recognition had identified Fakhrizadeh and gunned him down. A subsequent article in The Jewish Chronicle quoted unnamed intelligence sources claiming that the attack was indeed the work of the Israeli Mossad using a remote-controlled automatic weapon. Holy crap.
The article went on to state that the entire system weighed about a ton and was smuggled into Iran in small components before being assembled and deployed. They asserted that it was Fakhrizadeh’s predictability in going to his villa every Friday that ultimately killed him. The operation purportedly involved some twenty individuals between Mossad operators and disaffected Iranian resistance fighters. The Chronicle article claimed that there were actually operatives onsite but that the explosive destruction of the gun was adequate to cover their escape. We’ll likely never really know the details.
After his untimely death, the Iranians even announced that this Ph.D. physicist with a specialty in nuclear radiation and cosmic rays was actually the primary force behind the Iranian COVID-19 test and vaccine. Iran’s Defense Minister Amir Hatami went so far as to say that Fakhrizadeh had made “great strides in the field of developing COVID-19 vaccine.” He added that the center led by Fakhrizadeh went through the first phase of clinical human trials in the field of developing corona vaccine and “did great things for our dear people.” I struggle to believe that, however. The Iranian government lies a lot.
I’m no scientist myself, but in my experience, nuclear physicists do not develop vaccines. Those are two very different disciplines. It would be like having an auto mechanic regulate your cardiac medications or your plumber cook your meals. Once again, consider the source.
The Weapon
The 1997 thriller The Jackal starred Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, and Jack Black and orbited around a shadowy international assassin who used a remote-controlled machinegun to try to take out a high-value target. This was one of Jack Black’s first major roles. Though the critics were not kind to the film, I thought it was awesome. At the time it seemed fairly far-fetched. Nowadays it appears technology has caught up with the filmmaker’s vision.
The CROWS (Common Remotely Operated Weapon System) is a fixture on US military vehicles operating downrange today. The CROWS will host a variety of automatic weapons and allows the operator to deliver effective fires while under armor. Whether it is an Mk19 automatic grenade launcher, an M240 GPMG, or a Ma Deuce .50-caliber machinegun, the CROWS allows more accurate fire while keeping the friendly operator safe.
The Talon gyrostabilized weapon mount from Paradigm SRP takes things one step farther. The Talon compensates for movement to provide a stable and accurate firing platform even from a maneuvering vehicle. The mount accepts a variety of conventional rifles and machineguns and has an effective range in excess of 700 meters. The Talon was originally designed to operate off of helicopters, though it is comparably at home on ground or maritime mounts as well.
As soon as mounts like the Talon could be operated wirelessly they could be managed from anywhere in the world. A system like the Talon could be placed in an ambush position and left for a protracted period of time before a target or vehicle came within range. Solar cells could even free you from battery constraints. Powerful long-distance cameras allow the host weapon to be accurately and precisely targeted.
Remotely operated weapons are actually becoming more and more common in the internecine conflicts that seem to define the Middle East and elsewhere. I couldn’t find any specific references to the weapon system used in the Fakhrizadeh hit beyond that it might have been built around a modified FN MAG gun. However, I did find images of a wide variety of improvised remote-controlled gun stations.
The current term is “teleoperated weapon systems,” and they are rapidly becoming commonplace. Several companies make commercial versions like the Paradigm SRP Talon and Smart-Shooter Smash Hopper. However, the most impressive to me are the homebuilt improvised DIY versions. The ready availability of inexpensive servos, immensely capable high-resolution cameras, and widespread cell coverage make improvising these things ever easier. Anyone with an Internet connection and a credit card can track down the components.
I found references to improvised mounts using SVD Dragunov sniper rifles, FN FALs, PKM light machineguns, MG74 LMGs, and AKM rifles. All that is required is to construct a gimbaling mount, equip it with a remotely accessible video camera, and rig a solenoid to the trigger assembly. Surplus rifles can be used to build these things up on the cheap. The most compelling example I found came out of Syria and was built around a WW2-era MP44 assault rifle.
Syrian rebels purportedly captured around 5,000 of these vintage weapons from Syrian government stocks. A friend who has been over there recently tells me that these classic guns sell for between $25 and $50 apiece. However, he said magazines are rare and 7.92x33mm ammunition is all but nonexistent. Suffice to say that transferable examples on this side of the pond are quite a bit spendier.
Ruminations
Whoever carried this out covered their tracks beautifully. Without a literal and figurative smoking gun, Iran cannot retaliate without risking a massive international outcry. Meanwhile, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh remains quite very dead.
It is only a matter of time before the Iranians do indeed complete an operational nuclear weapon. It may yet take a while, but the fateful day is coming when Iran joins the rarefied ranks of nuclear-capable nations. Let us hope that when that time comes cooler heads prevail and the Iranians do not opt to exercise their sparkly new plaything. If recent events are any indicator, however, the Israelis, or whoever it was that actually ganked Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, will be thoroughly prepared come what may. Lord help us all.
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.338 Winchester Magnum
Washington, DC – -(AmmoLand.com)- A week before the House of Representatives approved a ban on “assault weapons,” a federal judge in Denver explained why such laws are unlikely to pass constitutional muster.
House Democrats either were not paying attention or did not care because they view the Second Amendment as an outmoded provision that imposes no meaningful limits on gun control.
Unfortunately for them, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held otherwise, ruling that the government may not prohibit law-abiding Americans from keeping handguns at home or carrying them in public for self-defense. The Court also has said the Second Amendment covers bearable arms “in common use” for “lawful purposes,” which presents a problem for Democrats who want to ban many of the most popular rifles sold in the United States.
On July 22, 2022, U.S. District Judge Raymond P. Moore, an Obama appointee, issued a temporary restraining order that bars Superior, Colorado, from enforcing its ban on “assault weapons.” The city defines that category to include semi-automatic center-fire rifles that accept detachable magazines and have any of four features: a pistol grip, a folding or telescoping stock, a flash suppressor, or a barrel shroud.
Two gun-rights groups argued that Superior’s ordinance, which also bans magazines that hold more than ten rounds, violated the Second Amendment. Moore concluded that they had “a strong likelihood of success on the merits.”
Moore noted that the plaintiffs had cited statistics to support their claim that the guns and magazines targeted by Superior’s ordinance “are commonly used by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” He also mentioned an earlier case in his court where both sides had stipulated that “semiautomatic firearms are commonly used for multiple lawful purposes, including self-defense,” and that “lawfully owned semiautomatic firearms using a magazine with the capacity of greater than 15 rounds number in the tens of millions.”
Under the Supreme Court’s test, Moore said, those facts mean that “the right to possess, sell, or transfer” the arms covered by Superior’s ordinance is “presumptively protected.” The burden is therefore on the city to show that its ban is “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
That will be a formidable challenge, Moore suggested. “The Court is unaware of historical precedent that would permit a governmental entity to entirely ban a type of weapon that is commonly used by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, whether in an individual’s home or in public,” he said.
Like Superior’s ordinance, the bill that the House narrowly approved on July 29 covers “large capacity” magazines and includes a general definition of “assault weapons,” although its list of prohibited features is slightly different. It also bans many specific models by name.
During the debate over the bill, Democrats said the rifles they want to ban are “the weapon of choice for mass shooters,” which is not true: Most mass shooters use handguns. Democrats said the features targeted by the bill make rifles especially deadly, which also is not true: With or without those features, a rifle fires the same ammunition at the same rate with the same muzzle velocity.
Even while implying that the rifles covered by the ban are good for nothing but mass murder, Democrats emphasized that the bill would exempt the 24 million or so “assault weapons” that Americans already own. They refused to grapple with the constitutional implications of banning guns that millions of people use for lawful purposes.
When confronted by that reality, Republicans noted, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said, “The problem is that they are in common use.” Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the bill’s sponsor, likewise had no patience for Second Amendment arguments, saying, “Spare me the BS about constitutional rights.”
Unlike Nadler and Cicilline, federal judges like Moore cannot ignore the constitutional issue raised by this sort of legislation. Democrats will have to comply with the constraints imposed by the Second Amendment, no matter how much they might wish that it did not exist.
About Jacob Sullum
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine. Follow him on Twitter: @JacobSullum. During two decades in journalism, he has relentlessly skewered authoritarians of the left and the right, making the case for shrinking the realm of politics and expanding the realm of individual choice. Jacobs’ work appears here at AmmoLand News through a license with Creators Syndicate.
Smith & Wesson has fired back in a letter against the House Oversight and Reform Committee Democrats’ subpoena against the firearms manufacturer, Breitbart News can exclusively reveal.
On August 15, Smith & Wesson, represented by Schaerr Jaffe, sent a letter to House Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) regarding the committee’s subpoena, which was issued on August 1.
Smith & Wesson CEO Mark Smith said this subpoena amounts to nothing more than politicians and the media attempting to “disparage” Smith & Wesson. He elaborated in a statement on Monday:
A number of politicians and their lobbying partners in the media have recently sought to disparage Smith & Wesson. Some have had the audacity to suggest that after they have vilified, undermined and defunded law enforcement for years, supported prosecutors who refuse to hold criminals accountable for their actions, overseen the decay of our country’s mental health infrastructure, and generally promoted a culture of lawlessness, Smith & Wesson and other firearm manufacturers are somehow responsible for the crime wave that has predictably resulted from these destructive policies.
But they are the ones to blame for the surge in violence and lawlessness, and they seek to avoid any responsibility for the crisis of violence they have created by attempting to shift the blame to Smith & Wesson, other firearm manufacturers and law-abiding gun owners.
It is no surprise that the cities suffering most from violent crime are the very same cities that have promoted irresponsible, soft-on-crime policies that often treat criminals as victims and victims as criminals. Many of these same cities also maintain the strictest gun laws in the nation.
But rather than confront the failure of their policies, certain politicians have sought more laws restricting the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, while simultaneously continuing to undermine our institutions of law and order. And to suppress the truth, some now seek to prohibit firearm manufacturers and supporters of the 2nd Amendment from advertising products in a manner designed to remind law-abiding citizens that they have a Constitutional right to bear arms in defense of themselves and their families.
Mark Paoletta, a lawyer at Schaerr Jaffe representing Smith & Wesson, noted Smith & Wesson has tried to accommodate the committee’s request for information about its modern sporting rifles (MSRs) sales figures.
The left mistakenly often refers to these rifles as “assault weapons.”
As documented previously by Breitbart News, Smith & Wesson already divulged to the committee that MSRs comprise a majority of its sales, and that less than ten percent of its advertising focuses on MSRs.
Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., asks a question during a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing to examine the practices and profits of gun manufacturers, Wednesday, July 27, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP)
The firearms company also said it cannot track deaths or injuries, crimes attempted or carried out with semiautomatic rifles.
In a missive to Maloney, Paoletta explained the court precedent already details how Congress does not need very specific information about exact units sold or revenue.
The letter details many court cases to back up its legal argument, in what could be the foundation of a legal argument against the committee Democrats should they want to pursue a court case against Smith & Wesson:
And, in fact, Congress recently proved that it does not need such very specific information about exact units sold and revenue to do its job. On July 29, 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives (the House) passed a ban on what you erroneously call “assault weapons.” This only confirms my prior argument that the Committee does not need “every scrap of potentially relevant” information to legislate. Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, 140 S. Ct. 2019, 2036 (2020); accord Comm. on Ways & Means, U.S. House of Reps. v. U.S. Dep’t of Treasury, No. 21-5289, 2022 WL 3205891, at *8 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 9, 2022) (“[T]he legislative process does not necessarily require full disclosure of all the facts in the way that criminal proceedings do.”)
Smith & Wesson Response Letter 8-15-22 by Breitbart News on Scribd
Paoletta also notes that court precedent, which includes legal opinions from now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, that there is no constitutional distinction between semi-automatic handguns and semi-automatic rifles:
“There is no basis in Heller for drawing a constitutional distinction between semi-automatic handguns and semiautomatic rifles.” Heller v. District of Columbia, 670 F.3d 1244, 1286 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting) (discussing District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 628–29 (2008)). See TRO at 10, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners v. Town of Superior, No. 22-cv-01685- RM-NRN (D. Colo. July 22, 2022), ECF No. 18, where a Federal Judge issued a temporary restraining order enjoining the town from, among other things, banning MSRs: “The Court is sympathetic to the Town’s stated reasoning. However, the Court is unaware of historical precedent that would permit a governmental entity to entirely ban a type of weapon that is commonly used by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, whether in an individual’s home or in public.”
Paoletta also wrote “Congress must clearly spell out with even more specificity why it needs the granular level of information,” citing an example as the Supreme Court’s decision in Americans for Prosperity Foundation. v. Bonta.
The lawyer representing Smith & Wesson noted the committee Democrats did not assuage any fears from Smith & Wesson that they would keep the company’s proprietary information confidential:
Unfortunately, those protocols did nothing to assure us that my client’s proprietary information would be kept confidential by the Committee. Quite the contrary, those protocols state merely that the Committee pledged only to confer with my client, to the extent practicable, regarding the possibility of disclosure, and that the Committee reserves the right to disclose such information, regardless of any objections my client might have. And, in fact, our concerns were justified evidenced by the Committee’s decision to release similar proprietary, business sensitive information from other firearm manufacturers, despite their objections.
Paoletta also noted Maloney allowed Sig Sauer, one of the largest firearms manufacturers, to settle for less information than what Smith & Wesson divulged to the committee. Sig Sauer “refused” to divulge any revenue totals and only told the committee that MSR sales amount to less than three percent of its total revenue.
In contrast, Smith & Wesson already told the committee that MSR sales comprise a majority of the company’s annual net sales.
Smith & Wesson has already tried to comply with the committee’s request for a hearing; however, the company did not want its CEO, Mark Smith, to be the only firearms executive present at a hearing discussing gun violence and potential gun control proposals.
Paoletta contended the subpoena is only meant to punish or embarrass Smith & Wesson::
In Mazars, the Supreme Court said, “Investigations conducted solely for the personal aggrandizement of the investigators or to ‘punish’ those investigated are indefensible.” Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, 140 S. Ct. 2019, 2032 (2020) (quoting Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 187 (1957)). Based on the Committee’s actions, my client further objects to providing this additional information because, to any reasonable observer, the Subpoena is meant to punish Smith & Wesson for declining an invitation to testify at the Committee’s recent hearing. Finally, my client objects to Request 4 because it is only meant to punish or embarrass Smith & Wesson. Indeed, the information requested is simply not relevant to legislation as there is nothing that any of my client’s senior executives or directors could have said following those horrific shootings that would be relevant to any legislative purpose, and even more so since the House has already passed a ban on MSRs. The Committee already knows which MSRs were used in those shootings. It already knows how they were obtained. And it already knows what can happen if MSRs—or any firearms for that matter—are misused by criminals. Nothing more— especially the thoughts that my client’s executives may or may not have expressed among each other about particular tragedies—is needed to legislate.
Maloney, who has portrayed herself a strong advocate of gun control reform, was not present in person to vote for gun control in late July. Instead, Maloney voted by proxy, instead choosing to fundraise in Manhattan.
Suraj Patel, a primary opponent against Maloney, slammed her for voting by proxy. He said she is “grandstanding” on the issue of gun control.
“I would have 100 percent been there for the vote if I was in Congress,” he said.
“We will continue to work alongside law enforcement, community leaders and lawmakers who are genuinely interested in creating safe neighborhoods,” Smith concluded in his statement. “We will engage those who genuinely seek productive discussions, not a means of scoring political points. We will continue informing law-abiding citizens that they have a Constitutionally-protected right to defend themselves and their families. We will never back down in our defense of the 2nd Amendment.”
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.