Category: A Victory!
I think it would be great fun to blast off into space to save the world with my wife by my side. She inexplicably disagrees.
Inspired by an actual conversation …
It was Tuesday night. The two empty nesters had not yet been blessed with grandchildren. He kept busy writing for gun magazines in lieu of sleeping. She loved a cozy British mystery.
They sat in their respective chairs in the living room, quietly engrossed. Life was peaceful. They both embraced the routine.
“I got an interesting email today,” he said. She did not answer right off.
Looking up from her book, his wife said, “Great. I assume it was something other than another desperate plea from one of your editors or notice of yet another gun auction.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Nothing like that. It was actually from NASA, of all places. You remember back in ‘94 when I applied for the astronaut program?”
Of course she remembered that. It was one of literally countless foolish, silly, ill-advised things her husband had done since she had married him. He had come shockingly close to being accepted.
The astronaut assessment is run every other year. Had it not been for the kids and then medical school, he likely would have tried again and gotten in. Would have served him right … to get launched off into space. She smiled thinly in spite of herself.
“I certainly do remember,” she said. “What about it?”
“Well,” he said, “You know that asteroid that’s been all over the news, LV-426?”
“Yes,” she said. “I am indeed familiar with LV-426. Folks have been squawking about little else for the past three months. There’s currently a 27% probability it could strike the Earth and end life as we know it. As I said, what about it?”
“It seems NASA is planning to do something about that,” he said. “Apparently, the probability has gone up. It’s 53% now, so the government is launching a space probe to go deal with it.”
She placed her book in her lap and stared at him.
I can think of worse things than spending the rest of my natural days floating about in space with my soul mate.
“OK,” she said. “What did NASA want?”
“About that,” he continued. “Apparently, it needs to be a manned mission. They are going to launch a spaceship equipped with a massive 102-megaton thermonuclear bomb with the intent of redirecting the trajectory of LV-426.
The problem is that the thing isn’t completely predictable. They need someone on board to tweak the guidance solution. They’ve only got one shot at this. It has to be done right, or everybody on Earth could die.”
“And your point would be?” she asked.
“That’s the thing,” he said. “It seems they have been scrubbing old applications, and they wanted to see if I would be willing to do it.”
The woman stared silently at her husband. The quiet became uncomfortable.
“They’re serious,” he continued. “The email said it’s actually a two-person mission. They know all about me and my background from my previous application. This is the government, so they obviously have access to your academic records. Your superlative performance in the hard sciences apparently got their attention as well. What do you think?”
There was yet another uncomfortable silence.
“That’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard,” she said. “You and I are both nearly sixty years old. We’re both healthy, I’ll grant you that, but there have got to be better candidates than the two of us. I hate riding in a car. There’s no way I’d voluntarily climb up into a rocket.”
“Hear me out,” the man said. “It’s an open-ended mission. They need somebody our age, because it’s not coming home. The ship is nuclear-powered. It recycles air, water, and food … though I’m not sure exactly how they pull off the last one. The email said it would run indefinitely. After we deal with LV-426, our mandate would be to simply sail out into space and see what we could find.
They would send us off with digital copies of every book, movie, and television program ever created. There’s plenty of space on the ship to move around and exercise. I think it would be kind of cool. It’d be just the two of us out in space forever. I can think of way worse things.”
By now, the woman had turned in her chair to face her husband.
“That is ridiculous,” she said. “What would they expect us to actually do out there?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Push a button or something. The email didn’t say.”
“AI could do that,” she said.
“Apparently not,” he countered. “The email was real. They need an answer by Friday.”
Once again … stunned silence.
“What would we do out in space for the rest of our natural lives?” she asked rhetorically.
“I don’t know,” he said. “After we pushed the button and saved the world, presuming we still had communications, I can see them making this into some kind of reality TV show or something. They could call it Marriage Among the Stars. I think you’d look awesome floating around in zero gravity.”
“And there it is,” she said flatly. “When I started dating you at age sixteen, it was on the expectation you might someday mature past that point.”
That bounced right off.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I’m genuinely interested, but they won’t take me without you. It’s a package deal. We’d be saving the world, saving our kids … it’d be awesome.”
The words hung in the air as the woman stared at her husband. Turning back into her chair, she lifted her book, adjusted her glasses, and said, “Nope.”
Row upon row of small arm munitions ready for shipment to battle zones during WWII.
At the start of World War II, the United States wasn’t prepared by any means. There was a vast shortage of weapons. But within a year and a half, the U.S. was tooled up and pumping out everything imaginable for fighting a war. Tanks, trucks, jeeps, battleships, aircraft carriers, along with small weapons and munitions, were cranked out at an astounding rate. It was a classic example of what America could do once her mind was set on an enormous task.
Ammunition factories spread across the country were producing billions of rounds a year. Civilian factories making civilian products stepped up to the plate to manufacture the small arms our soldiers needed.
Women filled the gap making arms and contributing any other way they could during WWII.
The 1911s
Factories such as Singer, Remington Rand, and Union Switch & Signal retooled to make 1911s for our soldiers. Remington Rand produced the most, making between 878,000 and 1,000,000 pistols. Colt produced 400,000-629,000 guns. Ithaca produced 335,000- 400,000 units. Union Switch & Signal produced about 55,000 pistols. And Singer Sewing Machine Company produced around 500.
These five companies were the main contractors for WWII-produced 1911A1 pistols. Remington Arms produced 1911s during World War I, which were pulled from storage and reissued during World War II. Experts estimate that approximately 7 million 1911A1s were produced during WWII.
Inspecting Victory models before shipment.
Victory Model
Smith & Wesson stepped up their game, producing both the Victory Model .38 Special, a specially made and modified Model 10 double-action revolver. The Victory Model differed in its subdued matte Parkerized finish, designed to speed up production for soldiers to carry during wartime.
Approximately 800,000 revolvers were manufactured between 1942 and 1945. They were issued to the US Navy, the Marines, the Army Air Force, and British/Commonwealth forces via Lend-Lease.
The guns are distinguished by a “V” prefix, for Victory, in the serial number. Generally, 4-inch-barreled guns were issued to U.S. troops and 5-inch-barreled guns to British forces using .38/200 ammunition. The guns were considered very reliable and used primarily by air crews and security forces.
Collection of arms after the WWII.
Typical sales ad of the time after WWII.
1917
While the 1917 was manufactured during WWI, it saw plenty of service during WWII, being reissued to tankers and artillerymen, and also served in Korea and Vietnam, particularly with “tunnel rats” in close-quarters combat due to its reliability.
The 1917 was a large-framed revolver firing .45 ACP ammo through the ingenious design of half-moon clips and was manufactured by both Colt and S&W. Roughly 300,000 1917s were built during WWI, with both Colt and S&W producing around 150,000 each.
Sadly, surplus guns getting melted.
Civilian buyers inspecting the goods before purchase.
Ammunition
The U.S. produced over 41-45 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition and 47 million tons of artillery ammunition by 1945, in addition to around 300,000 aircraft, 100,000 tanks, and billions of rounds of ammunition, described as a “miracle” of production. Between 1940 and 1942, they built a huge network of manufacturing plants, with expenses exceeding $ 1 billion.
Remington Arms, Chrysler and other manufacturers were the primary producers of ammunition. Due to brass shortages, industries developed steel cartridge cases for .45 ACP ammo. Most factories ran 24/7 to keep up with demand. Milwaukee Ordnance Plant produced 28 railroad boxcar loads of ammo per week.
Hardware stores were a popular place to sell surplus guns.
Post-War Problems
WWII ended as fast as it began, leaving a surplus of the same trucks, Jeeps, small arms, and ammunition. Storing ammo costs money, takes up space, and poses a real danger that never goes away. Much of the ammunition was in remote areas like the South Pacific, and it was cheaper just to leave the equipment on site. Ammunition was simply dumped in the ocean.
Surplus Victory models being shipped.
The small-arms and munitions surplus presented a great opportunity for savvy businessmen who bought large quantities and sold them to the civilian market. Companies like Sears & Roebuck, J.C. Penney’s, and small mom-and-pop gas stations and hardware stores sold guns and ammo, often displayed in large barrels in their stores.
Veterans were able to buy the same guns they carried in war.
The Civilian Marksmanship Program also bought many of the guns for members. Members who qualified based on their shooting skills were eligible to buy discounted guns at good prices. Sadly, many of the guns were melted down for their steel content and recycled into other products, such as steel beams, car parts, and other metal products.
A crowd forms waiting to enter a surplus store.
The U.S. showed it had what it took to manufacture what was needed to win WWII. The term “The Greatest Generation” is overused and rightfully so. While men were eager to fight for their country, women stepped up to fill the jobs men left behind. Families sacrificed food, gas and other commodities for the war effort. It was a time when the country pulled together.
Unfortunately, many surplus guns ended in the scrap yard to be recycled.
Typical post war J.C. Penney display for 1911A1’s.
Golden Era
With the end of the war came the surpluses. As our own John Taffin used to say quite regularly, the 1950s were the greatest era of the United States. We were united and proud, and not embarrassed or sorry to be so. You could buy a surplus GI 1911A1 for $8 at a local Sears, Wards, or Penney’s, buy single rounds of ammo by the bagful for pennies a round, and all was good. I sure wish those days could be revisited.
Here is what the poor guy looks like. Col. Long was a commissioned officer of the United States Army from 1814 until his retirement in 1863. He served in the Corps of Engineers and, after the 1838 reorganization that created the Corps of Topographical Engineers, in that separate corps until its merger back into the Corps of Engineers in 1863.
Major Long meets with the Pawnees at Council Bluffs, Iowa (1819).
Much of Long’s work on internal improvements and early railroad surveys was performed on detached duty or through federally authorized engineering boards. During the American Civil War, he remained in Federal service and held the rank of colonel at the time of his retirement.
It turns out Joe Biden’s second choice to lead the ATF, Steve Dettelbach, wasn’t lying when he told his Senate confirmation committee that he wasn’t a firearms expert.
Dettelbach appeared Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation, accompanied by Agent Chris, whom the ATF Director described as one of his “leading experts.” From a public relations perspective, neither man did their agency any good. From a civil rights perspective, the interview was extremely worrisome.
As someone who commands armed agents and a take-no-prisoners SWAT team, Dettelbach demonstrated zero command presence. He came across as a typical up-tight bureaucrat who likely irons his PJs before he goes to bed. Rather than a top cop, he looks like the type of guy you’d expect Golden Corral to send to your table after you complained about a roach in the coleslaw.
Dettelbach appeared very nervous, even though this was a friendly show-and-tell interview and not a hostile interrogation. He gestured constantly with his rat-like hands and even started repeating himself, a lot. During the 21-minute interview, Dettelbach used the word right a total of 37 times. In fact, my good friend Mark Walters, host of Armed American Radio, turned Dettelbach’s nervous tic into a drinking game, jokingly telling his listeners they should take a drink every time the ATF Chief uttered the word, right?
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Agent Chris wasn’t much better. He struggled mightily just to remove the slide from a Glock – from several Glocks, actually. It’s not as if his boss handed him an 8mm Nambu, a Luger or a Broomhandle. You’d think ATF’s leading expert could remove the slide from the country’s leading pistol.
CBS host Margaret Brennan was quite reasonably concerned for her safety when she saw the table covered in guns that Dettelbach and his leading expert had assembled.
“They’re not loaded?” she asked.
“They’re not loaded,” Agent Chris assured her. “We checked them all before you came.”
“Okay,” Brennan said nervously. In my humble opinion, she should have demanded some plates.
Dettelbach explained that the guns were grouped in pairs. One of the firearms was an NFA weapon; its partner, he said, was an “attempt to get around NFA that ATF has been dealing with through rulemaking and enforcement.”
Agent Chris pointed to a select-fire AK, which was paired with a semi-auto AK equipped with a bump-stock.
“These two things are the same. They operate the same. Both of them can shoot right through this 75-round clip,” Dettelbach told Brennan, while holding up a 75-round drum magazine, which Agent Chris had described just seconds earlier as a 75-round drum magazine. Someone should explain to the good Director the difference between a clip and a magazine, and that there’s a world of difference between a select-fire AK and one with a bump-stock.
Next, Dettelbach showed off a 9mm SBR and a similar weapon equipped with a pistol brace.
“The two weapons are designed to be fired from the shoulder, identically,” he said. “So, we’re treating them the same. That’s all that rule says.”
Dettelbach never mentioned that the manufacturers of the pistol brace, which was originally designed for disabled veterans, received determination letters from his ATF that said the brace was not subject to NFA. He never told Brennan that if 40 million pistol braces were suddenly classified as Short Barrel Rifles by ATF, their owners could have faced federal felonies if they didn’t immediately register their weapons as SBRs. He never disclosed how ATF’s zeal to write and enforce its own laws began in earnest under the Biden-Harris administration or how the ATF – under his leadership – is getting its butt kicked in court as a result.
The two feds showed 3D printed auto sears for the AR and a Glock switch, which converts a semi-automatic Glock to full-automatic. They talked about how easy the sears were to print but never mentioned they are also highly regulated and illegal to possess under most circumstances.
Picking up one of the ARs, Agent Chris said, “This is a privately made firearm,” which his boss quickly corrected. “That’s also a ‘ghost gun,’” Dettelbach said.
After turning their attention to a privately made Glock clone, which had a switch added to the slide, Dettelbach said, “When you have a switch, when you have one of these firearms that’s converted to being fully automatic, that’s not a shoulder firearm, right, that’s a pistol like this, right, I’ve seen these fellows fire them at the range. There’s a huge kick-up. You see people inadvertently shoot up the ceiling at the range, right.”
Kick-up?
Throughout the entire interview, there was an M249 SAW with a para stock sitting on the table, perched on its bipod. It was never mentioned. If I had to guess, I’d say it was included because it looks lethal and, to the uninitiated, scary. The SAW could have been a metaphor for this entire dog-and-pony show. Clearly, it was Dettelbach’s intent to scare viewers – to misinform them of the dangers bump-stocks, pistol braces, and “ghost guns” pose. Thankfully, his message missed the mark. All he accomplished was reinforcing what’s becoming a frequently asked question: Do we really need the ATF?
Right?
This story is presented by the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and wouldn’t be possible without you. Please click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support more pro-gun stories like this.
About Lee Williams
Lee Williams, who is also known as “The Gun Writer,” is the chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Until recently, he was also an editor for a daily newspaper in Florida. Before becoming an editor, Lee was an investigative reporter at newspapers in three states and a U.S. Territory. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a police officer. Before becoming a cop, Lee served in the Army. He’s earned more than a dozen national journalism awards as a reporter, and three medals of valor as a cop. Lee is an avid tactical shooter.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government has paid out over $ 18 million (of YOUR money) in settlements for various workplace disputes, including harassment claims, against congressional offices.
Getting them ready for Vietnam, I guess
Of course I had a pair and the holster to boot. It was a glorious moment for me! Grumpy