Category: A Victory!
The NSSF estimates based on numbers from the National Instant Check System that 1,265,311 firearms were sold at retail last month. That’s a decline of 11.3% compared to October 2021, but it’s also the third highest number ever reported for October sales, trailing only 2020 and last year. A closer look at the data going back to the year 2000 shows that while sales are off of their two-year highs they’re still far above the levels we saw between 2000 and 2012.
NSSF director of public affairs Mark Oliva says the NICS figures “continue to reflect a steady interest by law-abiding Americans to exercise their God-given Second Amendment rights,” adding that “despite the claims of some elected officials that crime is not a national concern, these figures reflect the true sentiment of America. These gun owners are choosing to protect themselves.”
Despite the best efforts of anti-gun activists, I might add. On Tuesday, voters in Oregon will have the chance to weigh in on a ballot measure that would create a “permit-to-purchase” system for all handguns; one that would allow law enforcement to deny someone the ability to buy or possess a pistol even if they’re able to pass a federal background check. San Jose, California’s city council wants all gun owners to pay a fee to own a gun as well as shell out the money for an insurance policy before they can legally possess a gun inside the city limits. And in towns across the country anti-gun activists are trying to block gun stores from opening, explicitly trying to interfere with an individual’s ability to exercise a fundamental constitutional right.
Those are just a few examples of a much broader attempt to curtail our Second Amendment rights through legislation, regulation, and even cultural indoctrination, and yet month after month we’re seeing hundreds of thousands of Americans embrace those rights; many for the first time in their lives. Michelle McGhee is one of those folks. The Arkansas teacher bought her first gun two years ago, and recently spoke to NPR’s Scott Simon about her decision.
MCGHEE: I originally bought a gun – I was recently divorced and a single mom to a 17-year-old. And I wanted it for peace of mind and protection for my family. And also, I live in the rural area of Arkansas, and I travel quite a bit where there is not always phone service or cell towers. That was the main reason why I purchased my first one.
…
SIMON: Michelle McGhee, would you rely on the police if something – God forbid, some kind of terrible shooting broke out into your school?
MCGHEE: I think I would want to be proactive. I would also support doing anything that we needed to do to keep our kids safe and our colleagues and our faculty safe until police can arrive. If there is a – you know, a well-trained staff member who volunteers and would want to carry and our board supported that, then I would be I would be for that.
SIMON: Do you – and if you don’t want to answer, I am prepared. Do you bring your gun to school?
MCGHEE: I actually do not. I live in town. I’m about four minutes from my house to the school building. So it’s a straight shot. So I do not carry mine. But if the board approved and I decided that that’s a responsibility that I wanted to take on and if I went through proper training, I don’t think I would hesitate.
Personally, I’m glad that someone like McGhee is a gun owner, but I know that gun control activists don’t feel the same way. According to them we have too many guns and too many gun owners, and the only way to protect the public from violent criminals is to prevent people like Michelle from being able to protect herself.
Americans have been voting with their wallets, and on Tuesday I have a feeling we’re going to see that same energy directed at the ballot box. Gun control activists are already trying to provide a pre-election spin on what could be a disastrous evening for their movement, proclaiming that it’s now “safe” for Democrats to tout their support for gun control because public polling shows Americans want more gun laws. That argument flies in the face of the latest poll out of Oregon, however, which shows majority opposition to the magazine ban and permit-to-purchase system that’s on the ballot. As it turns out, the more voters get to know the devil in the gun control details, the less likely they are to back supposedly innocuous “gun safety” proposals. And of course, the more gun owners there are, the more likely they are to care about these issues. A million guns sold every month doesn’t translate into a million new Second Amendment advocates every four weeks, of course, but there’s a sizable number of voters who’ve become personally invested in protecting the right to keep and bear arms and I think their presence will be felt in the midterms.
Petty Officer Michael Thornton was a highly decorated career Navy SEAL who distinguished himself in combat in Vietnam.
Michael Thornton was born in 1949 in South Carolina. He graduated from high school in 1966 and immediately enlisted in the US Navy.
SEAL training is legendarily grueling.
In 1968 Thornton was one of sixteen BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL) graduates out of a starting class of 129.
The fictional war hero John Rambo had nothing on real-world Navy SEAL Mike Thornton.
Four years later on a bullet-swept beach in North Vietnam, Petty Officer Thornton made John Rambo look like a Sunday School teacher.
Naval Special Warfare soldiers were still pulling covert missions at the very end of the war in Vietnam. Mike Thornton is in the center. Note the blue jeans.
The war in Vietnam was winding down, and Michael Thornton was one of only a dozen Navy SEALs remaining in the country. On October 31, 1972, Thornton formed a team along with a SEAL officer named Thomas Norris and three South Vietnamese Special Forces operators.
Vietnam-era Navy SEALs were masters of unconventional warfare.
Their mission was to gather intelligence and capture prisoners for interrogation from the Cua Viet Naval Base north of Quang Tri. Thornton had worked with his three South Vietnamese counterparts before and trusted them as brothers.
SEAL stands for Sea/Air/Land. Waterborne insertions are their specialty.
The plan was to insert via rubber boat launched from a South Vietnamese junk. At dusk, they launched their small boat and then swam the last mile to reach their objective. In the darkness, they found that they had made a navigation error and landed well within North Vietnam. Advancing inland past numerous enemy positions they simply continued the mission.
Though the mission was a quiet reconnaissance and prisoner snatch, Thornton’s SEAL detachment was loaded for bear.
Their intelligence gathering complete, the small Naval Special Warfare team encountered a pair of North Vietnamese soldiers patrolling on the beach and attempted to capture them. When this operation went awry one of the NVA troops escaped and ran toward the jungle to alert his comrades. Thornton gave chase and was forced to shoot the man with a handgun, drawing the attention of some fifty NVA regulars located nearby. The result was a simply epic firefight.
Aggressive fire and maneuver kept the enemy confused concerning the size of Thornton’s small unit. The effective use of LAW (Light Antitank Weapon) rockets by the South Vietnamese SEALs helped slow down the attacking NVA troops.
Thornton picked up a load of shrapnel in his back from an NVA grenade early on but kept on fighting. The five allied warriors fired and moved constantly to keep the attacking NVA troops confused about the modest size of their small detachment.
Thornton attempted to call in friendly naval gunfire from American destroyers offshore but return fire from NVA shore batteries pushed the warships out of range. Over the next four hours, the five frogmen kept around 150 enemy troops at bay. With the coming dawn, however, things began to look bleak.
Only courage and implacable force of will got Mike Thornton and his team off that hostile beach.
The five sailors charged toward the water’s edge with Thornton in the lead and Norris taking up the rear. In the process, the unit commander took a round to the head and was presumed dead. When one of the South Vietnamese operators informed Thornton he ran back through blistering NVA fire to recover the body of his fallen friend. He arrived to find four NVA soldiers gathered around Norris’ inert form and killed them all.
As he lifted the limp man to his shoulders he observed that the whole side of his head seemed to be missing. Norris was, however, still breathing.
Thornton killed several of the pursuing NVA soldiers by firing his CAR15 assault rifle one-handed while carrying his severely injured commander to the water’s edge.
Running four hundred yards under fire carrying Norris on his shoulders, Thornton still managed to effectively engage the attacking NVA soldiers by firing his CAR15 assault rifle one-handed.
Mike Thornton’s extraordinary feat of heroism is memorialized in bronze outside the Navy UDT/SEAL Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida. Mike Thornton is on the left. Tommy Norris is on the right.
Tom Norris had previously called naval gunfire in on his position from a nearby heavy cruiser requesting a five-minute delay on the fire mission. When he was struck in the head and immobilized the timeline for the extraction fell apart. The supporting cruiser ultimately fired 104 five-inch high explosive rounds onto the beach.
When Naval gunfire support finally impacted, the two SEALs were blown fully twenty feet into the air. Petty Officer Thornton regained his senses, again hefted his buddy, and charged for the ocean. Once at the water’s edge Thornton found that one of his South Vietnamese comrades had been shot through the buttocks and was unable to swim.
Mike Thornton was not the sort of man to quit just because he was peppered with shrapnel and abandoned on a hostile Vietnamese beach.
Shoving both the severely wounded Norris and the South Vietnamese soldier into the surf, Thornton dragged them both out into open water. Once out of small arms range, Thornton bandaged Norris’ head wound as best he could. He subsequently trod water, keeping himself and his two injured comrades afloat for another three hours. The supporting vessels had presumed the patrol lost and retreated to safety.
Tommy Norris had an AK47 strapped to his body as Mike Thornton carried him into the surf. Thornton used this weapon to alert friendly troops in a South Vietnamese junk.
One of the South Vietnamese frogmen was eventually picked up by a friendly junk and reported both Americans killed. In desperation, Thornton fired Norris’ AK47 into the air and got the attention of an American SEAL onboard. Once taken aboard the South Vietnamese junk, the team was transported to the USS Newport News, the heavy cruiser that had recently fired in support of their extraction.
The heavy cruiser USS Newport News provided fire support to the beleaguered SEAL detachment. Surgeons onboard the vessel were the first to treat injured SEAL Thomas Norris.
Mike Thornton personally carried his friend Tom Norris into the big warship’s operating room only to be told that the severely injured man was beyond saving. Thornton insisted that the surgeon try his best regardless.
Mike Thornton was awarded the Medal of Honor roughly one year after his actions that saved his fellow operators.
A year later Michael Thornton was presented with the Medal of Honor by President Richard Nixon.
Thornton went on to a long and distinguished career in US Navy Special Operations.
Mike Thornton eventually served as an instructor at the BUD/S course in Coronado. He also did an exchange program with the elite British Special Boat Squadron and became a founding member of SEAL Team Six. Thornton was eventually commissioned and left the Navy as a Lieutenant in 1992.
Mike Thornton saved Tommy Norris’ life in 1972 on a beach in North Vietnam.
Tom Norris’ story did not end in the operating room of the Newport News in 1972. He survived his ordeal after a nineteen-hour emergency surgery. Multiple surgical procedures and many months of hospitalization later he was medically discharged from the Navy.
Tom Norris went on to complete training at the FBI academy despite the grievous nature of his injuries.
Not satisfied with medical retirement Norris applied for and received a waiver to attend the FBI academy at Quantico, Virginia. He went on to serve twenty years as a special agent in the FBI.
Tom Norris was eventually awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on a previous mission. The details of his exploits were memorialized in the movie BAT21.
Tom Norris was himself awarded the Medal of Honor for an extraordinary mission to rescue downed American pilots some six months prior to his wounding on that North Vietnamese beach. His exploits were immortalized in the book and movie BAT21. Thornton and Norris were two of only three Navy SEALs to be awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War. Norris’s MOH mission was incredible in its own right and will likely be the focus of our efforts at some point in the future.
The Guns
Vietnam-era Navy SEALs carried a variety of unconventional weapons. Note the Stoner Light Machine Guns and AK 47 rifles in this team photo.
Vietnam-era Navy SEALs had great latitude in selecting their personal weapons.
Navy SEALs in Vietnam occasionally obtained their weapons from some unconventional sources.
A good friend who served as a SEAL in Vietnam in 1970 carried an M14, a Colt 1911A1, and a Browning pump 12-gauge shotgun stoked with buckshot whenever he went downrange. The shotgun carried a total of nine rounds onboard and was the product of a particularly successful night of poker soon after he arrived in the country. He cut the wooden buttstock down into a pistol grip and slung the gun over his shoulder on a makeshift single point sling.
The SEAL on the right is packing a Stoner 63 LMG. The one on the left has a highly modified M60 machine gun.
While the Stoner 63 light machinegun was a SEAL favorite, Michael Thornton carried a COLT CAR15 during his MOH mission.
The technical designation for the CAR15 was the XM177E2 Colt Commando. Issued with two slightly different barrel lengths, this stubby little carbine eventually evolved into today’s M4.
This compact carbine was a shortened version of the standard M16A1 that armed most of the conventional troops deployed during the war.
The CAR15 was popular for its modest weight and fast handling characteristics.
Sporting either a 10 or 11.5-inch barrel, a telescoping aluminum stock, and a sound moderator, the 5.56mm CAR15 was popular among aircrews, dog handlers, and Special Forces troops. By the end of the war, there were only about one thousand 30-round magazines available for these weapons in Vietnam. Special operators like Navy SEALs typically got first dibs.
The AK47 saw its first widespread use against American forces during the Vietnam War. American soldiers developed a healthy respect for the gun’s extraordinary reliability and exceptional firepower.
Tom Norris carried a captured AK47 during this mission. Special Forces troops frequently employed enemy weapons on clandestine operations. This practice would minimize the possibility of hostile troops distinguishing them by the sound of their gunfire. The AK47 was a rugged and effective assault rifle that was readily available in the latter stages of the war.
Mikhail Kalashnikov developed the most widely distributed combat rifle in human history as he recovered from wounds incurred fighting the Germans on the Eastern Front during World War 2.
Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov developed the gun that would become the AK47 during the waning months of the Second World War. Firing a true intermediate 7.62x39mm cartridge via an unnaturally reliable long-stroke gas-operated system, the AK47 found its way into the hands of communist soldiers and insurgents around the globe. With more than 100 million of these tough guns in service, these weapons will be found anyplace men kill each other for untold generations to come.
Denouement
Mike Thornton’s dedication to country, mission, and teammates was awe-inspiring. He is shown here along with Tommy Norris, the SEAL whose life he saved during his MOH operation. If that picture doesn’t move you then something about you is broken.
Michael Thornton’s superhuman display of courage and stamina eclipses anything depicted in a Hollywood epic. That the man he rescued did himself earn the Medal of Honor on an unrelated mission simply speaks to the caliber of the warriors that served with the US Navy SEALs during the protracted war in Southeast Asia.
Mike Thornton is a legendary American hero.
While the causes and prosecution of the war in Vietnam are certainly open for debate, none could dispute that Michael Thornton’s actions on that dark Vietnamese beach were the stuff of legend. Mike Thornton was and is a true American hero.
Navy SEALs in Vietnam pioneered unconventional warfare in an asymmetric battlefield.
New York clergymen aren’t allowed to carry licensed handguns in their own churches under the state’s new law.
So, they went to court and found a friendly federal judge.
The elections are over, but the dust certainly hasn’t settled on the legal battlefield where gun control has collided with the Second Amendment and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
As Insider reported last time, the Second Amendment Foundation went to bat for a couple of New York State clergymen — Bishop Larry A. Boyd of Buffalo and Rev. Dr. Jimmie Hardaway, Jr., of Niagara Falls — who have been fundamentally disarmed by the state’s new and hastily-manufactured concealed carry law which declared churches to be “sensitive places.”
When SAF and the California-based Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc. filed suit in federal court challenge back on Oct. 13, we noted it, as did the daily firearms news media, but it got very little notice outside of those circles. But then things began to happen.
Four days later, SAF et.al. filed what is called a memorandum in support of their earlier motion for a temporary restraining order against the state’s enforcement of the sensitive places designation for churches. That designation prohibited Bishop Boyd and Rev. Hardaway from packing hardware in their respective places of worship as a means of defending their congregations in the event some nut might try to commit a mass church shooting.
Two years ago, an armed citizen named Jack Wilson, a volunteer member of the security team at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, fatally shot Keith Thomas Kinnunen after the latter opened fire, killing two people. The whole incident was live streamed as part of the service, and Wilson made an extraordinary shot across the church sanctuary, as detailed in a BBC report at the time.
Back in New York, three days after the memorandum was filed, U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra, Jr., granted the TRO. The swiftness of Sinatra’s smackdown caught SAF’s Alan Gottlieb — and everybody else — by surprise.
Gun rights guru Alan Gottlieb was surprised at the swiftness a federal judge
applied to grant a temporary restraining order against enforcement
of New York State’s new carry law that applies to churches as no-gun zones.
New York’s Bum Luck
If there is one thing anybody could say to a Democrat politician in Albany, N.Y. without fear of contradiction right now, it would have to be “It sucks to be you.”
They scrambled to write a more restrictive law for citizens seeking a concealed carry license in the Empire State, and early last month, a federal district judge named Glenn Suddaby struck down several “key elements” of the new law as unconstitutional, as reported by PBS.
Suddaby, a George W. Bush appointee (elections really do matter!) with a sharp pen, included this blistering remark in his ruling: “Simply stated, instead of moving toward becoming a shall-issue jurisdiction, New York State has further entrenched itself as a shall-not-issue jurisdiction. And, by doing so, it has further reduced a first-class constitutional right to bear arms in public for self defense … into a mere request,” the PBS report detailed.
It may not be so much a case of bad luck as it is of bad faith and bad politics. Generations of anti-gun politicians and administrations in Albany have made the current crop of lawmakers stubborn. They simply do not want to let go of the power to squelch, or at least discourage, New York residents from exercising their right to bear arms, according to various critics.
Pols in neighboring New Jersey, down in Maryland and out in California are watching this drama intently because, if the courts continue ruling in the spirit and according to the letter of the high court’s Bruen ruling of last June 23, their efforts will fail as well.
If anything can be said about the Bruen ruling, authored by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, it would have to be this is the gift that will keep on giving for a very long time. It has thrown the doors open to challenges of gun control laws literally all over the map.
Strange news from Washington State: a federal judge has allowed a gun control group
to intervene in a lawsuit challenging a magazine ban, as a defendant!
And Then There Is Stubborn
When it comes to stubborn, politicians may not hold a candle to the gun control crowd, which simply cannot stand to lose.
Still, here’s a warning to readers: You’re not gonna believe this!
Out in Washington State, where Gottlieb’s SAF, the Firearms Policy Coalition, a gun retailer and two private citizens are challenging a ban on so-called “large capacity magazines,” a federal judge has given the okay for the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility to intervene in that lawsuit … as a defendant. The group’s request was submitted months ago, not long after the law took effect July 1.
The lawsuit names Democrat Attorney General Bob Ferguson and State Patrol Chief John Batiste as defendants. Ferguson had pushed for a magazine ban for several years, and this year he finally scored. The Alliance gun control group threw its weight behind the measure, which was part of its 2022 legislative wish list.
Gottlieb released a statement, which provided an interesting perspective.
“Apparently the Alliance is worried Ferguson isn’t capable of defending his own magazine ban in this lawsuit,” Gottlieb said. “Obviously, after the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision last June, the gun ban lobby fears the state may not be able to defend any of its gun laws, including a couple passed by initiative campaigns the Alliance financed.”
A Very Thoughtful Letter
We get notes occasionally about something we’ve written, but a message from Ken Angst of Nevada — in response to the Oct. 20 “Trim Length” column — was so well-thought-out, it deserves to be printed in full.
“Dave: Have been following your writings for years as you do a great job.
Reference your article “Trim Length,” let me start by saying that I have been reloading since the late 1950s. Started out with an old used Pacific press circa the 1940’s, Lachmiller dies and STP for sizing lube. Have never had a stuck case with STP and still use it for heavy military cases. This was back in the day a one-pound can of 3031 or Unique and Bullseye was $2.50. A 100-pound canister of surplus IMR 4895 was $50.00 plus Railway Express fees. Of Course as a high school kid working part time in a gas station I didn’t have $50.00 plus shipping to buy powder.
I have worked up through a Star press, multiple RCBS press’s (sic) and Dillon progressives along with some electric commercial reloading machines during my law enforcement career. Those were the days of loading thousands of rounds of .38 Spl. at one sitting.
Here are some things that I have learned over the years you may wish to consider. Case length is an issue that can cause serious pressure issues, especially in bottleneck cases, rimmed and rimless. A long case may cause chambering issues but a heavily crimped case may not, “squeezing” the bullet when fired as it enters the bore between the case neck and the barrel throat causing extremely high pressure. In effect the long brass is trying to size the bullet down, acting like the forcing cone in a revolver on the bullet. This is usually not a problem in straight case rimmed pistol cases such as the .38 Spl. or .45 Colt.
The chambers in most revolvers in my experience are reamed a little long. As you mentioned the .45 Colt loads that were “swelled”, that sounds like it was caused during the crimping stage where the brass was forced downward and outward instead of inward because of excessive case length. .44-40 cases have thin walls and you can actually crush a long case or even a correct length case if the crimp does not go into the crimping groove. I have found that the Star Line .44-40 brass is much more rugged than Winchester or later post balloon head Remington brass. There are good case length gauges available semi reasonably priced such as the ones by Wilson or Dillon that drop over the case which give a visual min and Max.
Then there are the autoloading cases such as the 9X19, .40, 10mm and the .45ACP that headspace on the case mouth. Although these do not stretch a lot it may be a good idea to check the overall case length since a long case may prevent the slide from closing.
Around 2010 Winchester marketed a quantity of their “white box” .45 ACP that had cases up to approximately 1/10th of an inch over max case length that would not allow the slide to go into battery. I still run into some of that brass.
Dave got a thoughtful, albeit lengthy, reader response to a recent column and felt it necessary to share it.
To trim or not to trim, that is the question. First, as to your point to always check the case length after they have been sized. That is very important. If I’m about to load a couple thousand 5.56mm or .30-06 rounds, do I want to trim them all to the same length? Even with a Dillon electric or RCBS electric trimmer this is a time consuming PITA project. I have found that most once fired bottle neck cases come out of my sizing dies about .003″ or .004″ inches short of the max overall length recommendations. That may differ from one chamber to the next that they were fired in. When at or over max those cases are set aside to be trimmed later.
One thing that I have found important to ensure quality reloads is to crimp the case last in a separate stage from bullet seating. I have been using the Lee Factory Crimp Die for years now for rifle cases. As the case comes up the crimp is pressed in from the sides the same way factory ammo is manufactured. The closer that the case lengths are to the same, the closer the crimp is to identical on all loads. For a match quality load use the same lot of brass with identical case length and crimp. Have also switched to their pistol crimp dies also and get good results without bulged cases on heavy crimps. This is the one product that Lee excels with.
Closing on 65 years of reloading I have learned things that work well for me. One thing a person new to reloading with straight wall pistol case should give thought to is a carbide sizing die. The few dollars more will be well worth it if they become a serious reloader. One of the best all around loading manuals in my opinion is the NRA Publications “Handloading” circa 1981 & 1986 if you can find one. Great publication for the novice or veteran handloader. Some loads may be out of date however, some of the technical information contained you may not find elsewhere.
Having to pull a couple of hundred rounds is not fun. I once loaded 1,500 plus rounds of 9X19 using the data for Dupont 700X which had been taken over by Hodgdon and produced as IMR 700X which I assumed would be the same. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Load looked to be too hot for the IMR 700X. Not something to shoot in a DWM 1916 Luger. I ended up giving the loads to a friend who spent his afternoons in the garage for weeks with an inertia puller.
Wheel guns, 1911’s and M1 Garands forever.
Dave replies: Ken, you’ve offered a life’s worth of experience at the loading bench, a “gift” to other readers and we’re grateful. I’ve been knocking together my own rounds for the better part of 50 years, and it is a never-ending educational process. Thanks for your longtime attention to my byline, and for your kind remarks.
Pyramid of WWI German helmets at Grand Central, 1919.
This interesting picture, taken in 1919, shows employees of the New York Central Railroad at a celebration in Victory Way, showing off a pyramid of recovered German helmets in front of Grand Central Terminal. There were over 12,000 German Pickelhaubes on the pyramid, sent from warehouses in Germany at the end of the war.
Victory Way was set up on Park Avenue to raise money for the 5th War Loan, and a pyramid of 12,000 helmets was erected at each end, along with other German war equipment. There is a hollow supporting structure underneath the helmets.
While many of the image’s details have been confirmed, the figure that was placed at the top of the pyramid is still subject to speculation. Some sources believe that it’s Nike, the Goddess of Victory. There are also two cannons located at the left and right of the helmet pyramid.
Beyond a well-framed shot, this photograph is interesting for its symbolism, sociological impact, and historical significance. Many people may find the sight of so many enemy helmets too macabre with each helmet representing a dead or captured soldier.
And how does such a public display affect the psyche of citizens? To be located near Grand Central Terminal means it would have been seen by a lot of people. The cannons in the foreground, the numerous flags, the eagles atop the pillars; the symbolism in this shot is very powerful.
There is a hollow supporting structure underneath the helmets.
All helmets produced for the infantry before and during 1914 were made of leather. As the war progressed, Germany’s leather stockpiles dwindled. After extensive imports from South America, particularly Argentina, the German government began producing ersatz Pickelhauben made of other materials.
In 1915, some Pickelhauben began to be made from thin sheet steel. However, the German high command needed to produce an even greater number of helmets, leading to the usage of pressurized felt and even paper to construct Pickelhauben.
During the early months of World War I, it was soon discovered that the Pickelhaube did not measure up to the demanding conditions of trench warfare. The leather helmets offered virtually no protection against shell fragments and shrapnel and the conspicuous spike made its wearer a target.
These shortcomings, combined with material shortages, led to the introduction of the simplified model 1915 helmet, with a detachable spike. In September 1915 it was ordered that the new helmets were to be worn without spikes, when in the front line.
Beginning in 1916, the Pickelhaube was slowly replaced by a new German steel helmet (the Stahlhelm) intended to offer greater head protection from shell fragments. The German steel helmet decreased German head wound fatalities by 70%.
War exposes the best and worst humanity has to offer. Armed conflict has been a catalyst for some of the most egregious human behavior. It has also been the engine behind history’s most compelling examples of selflessness and valor.
The heroes that wars create are typically venerated by the societies they protect. We rightfully respect and admire those who were willing to risk everything for a cause or, more commonly, for their friends. Humans are tribal creatures. There is little we would not do for our tribes.
There is something visceral about the last stand. A small forlorn band bereft of support arrayed against insurmountable odds fighting to the last simply strikes a primal chord. Examples are well-documented. The Hot Gates at Thermopylae, Custer’s slaughter, and the Alamo stand out. These many tales of selfless bravery are profound and powerful. One lesser-known example is the siege of Bukit Kepong.
The Setting
Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia with a current population of around 32 million people. That makes Malaysia the 43rd-most populous nation in the world at present. Today Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy consisting of thirteen states and three federal territories. Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
The Malayan Emergency was a rare example of a sweeping fight by a recognized international superpower against a dedicated guerrilla insurgency that ended fairly well for the superpower. In Vietnam once and Afghanistan twice the insurgents ground the superpowers down over time until they eventually took their toys and went home. In Malaya, the pro-independence Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) communists were arrayed against the military forces of the British Empire and the Commonwealth. The MNLA fought to eject the British and establish a communist regime in Malaya. Commonwealth troops fought to resist communist expansion and preserve British economic and colonial interests. The MNLA called the conflict the Anti-British National Liberation War.
Interestingly, the British referred to this sordid fight as the Malayan Emergency. They used this terminology because had they declared it a war British insurers would have failed to pay damages. Then as now, acts of civil war were not typically covered under insurance policies.
The Attack
Bukit Kepong is a small village on the Muar River some 59 km from the town of Johor. During the Emergency, MNLA guerrillas enjoyed a great deal of support among rural villagers who long felt themselves to be oppressed by the colonials. To combat the insurgency the government established a series of police stations in these small communities. The police station in Bukit Kepong was a wooden frame structure housing both the local constabulary and their families. On February 23, 1950, there were 25 police officers present.
A group of between 180 and 200 insurgent fighters under the leadership of one Muhammad Indera staged around the quiet station in the predawn darkness. Indera was also widely known as Ahmad as well as Mat Indera. The local police commander was SGT Jamil Mohd. Many of the officers’ wives and children were also present in and around the facility.
The communist attack was ferocious and sudden. Several police officers fell in the early exchanges, but SGT Mohd quickly got organized. Outnumbered 8 to 1 and taken by surprise, the policemen fought back valiantly.
After the initial exchanges the police force was heavily blooded. Muhammad Indera called for a brief ceasefire and demanded the police officers surrender. Mohd categorically refused. In fact, two of the newly-minted widows took up their dead husbands’ arms and continued the fight.
Time was not on the side of the attackers. With each passing hour, the possibility of an official government relief force grew more troublesome. Now desperate to crush the official resistance, Indera grew more ruthless.
The communist forces captured the wife of one of the defenders and threatened her at gunpoint to force a surrender. The surviving policemen responded that they would never surrender no matter the circumstances. Indera then captured Fatimah Yaaba, another policeman’s wife, along with her young daughter. When the defenders still remained resolute the communists executed both the woman and the child.
After an exchange of fire that had by now gone on for several hours only three policemen and a village guard remained alive. By this point, the insurgents had gotten close enough to set the wooden structure alight. The police station and adjoining barracks were soon fully involved. Two women and their children died in the blaze.
Unable to withstand the searing heat any longer, the four surviving policemen charged out of the burning structure, guns a’blazing. They assaulted through the communist positions, killing three insurgents in the process. Now five hours after the initial shots were fired Muhammad Indera and his band of terrorists melted back into the jungle.
The Guns
It was tough to determine precisely which weapons were used in this fight. Period photographs showed an eclectic mixture of World War 2-era Allied weapons in use by both sides. An alternative, obviously less reliable, source was a 1982 movie produced about the incident titled, appropriately enough, Bukit Kepong.
Surviving photographs of the police officers showed them armed with American M1 carbines as well as Mk V Sten submachine guns and British Lee-Enfield rifles. The Lee-Enfields were both Mk I and Mk IV versions. The movie also included Bren Mk I light machineguns and M1A1 paratrooper carbines.
Per the movie, the policemen all carried Enfield No 2 Mk I revolvers. The communist leader Muhammad Indera is armed with an American M1911 pistol. The final assault involves the use of British-issue Mills bomb hand grenades as well. While the attention to detail in the film appears to be laudable, I have no way to know if the specifics of the weapons were truly spot on or not.
The combined combatant nations produced enough small arms ammunition during WW2 to shoot every man, woman, and child on the planet forty times. In the years following the end of the war, much of the world was covered in a thin patina of surplus small arms. These weapons found their way into countless brushfire war zones like that of the Malay Emergency. Particularly in places like Malaysia where the world’s superpowers were involved, literally countless WW2 surplus rifles, pistols, SMGs, handguns, and machineguns were pumped into the fight.
The Aftermath
The noise of the firefight carried for kilometers across the dank jungle valleys, alerting nearby police outposts of the attack. A neighboring village chief named Ali Mustafa led thirteen lightly-armed auxiliary policemen from Kampung Tui to investigate. These auxiliaries were little more than poorly-trained villagers with sporting arms like single barrel shotguns. Mustafa’s modest force was ambushed about 500 meters from the flaming police station by communist guerillas.
Two of the auxiliaries were killed, and Mustafa ordered several of his troops to retreat while the remainder held the line against the communists now threatened from two directions. While they were prevented from relieving the besieged defenders of Bukit Kepong, their presence did help hasten the communists’ retreat.
A second relief force arrived via sampan from nearby Kampung Durian Chondong soon after the communist retreat. They moved to render aid to the survivors and secure the area. Their arrival at around 10 am–nearly six hours after the initial shots were fired–signaled the end of the exchange.
Only four policemen out of the original twenty-five survived the battle. All four were wounded. Nine family members ultimately survived the blaze. Some forty of the attacking communists died during the firefight.
In the aftermath of the guerrilla attack, the British authorities placed a bounty of M$75,000 on his head, a substantial amount for the day. On the evening of October 14, 1952, roughly two and one-half years after the attack, Indera was invited to a meeting of several acquaintances in Kampung Seri Medan. While there he was served tempeh, a traditional Javanese food made from fermented soybeans, and coffee laced with datura. Datura is a genus of poisonous plant in the nightshade family. The psychoactive substance in datura can cause respiratory depression, cardiac arrhythmias, delirium, hallucinations, and even death in sufficient doses. Once unconscious, Indera was given over to the British authorities.
Indera was charged with coordinating the Bukit Kepong assault and convicted. The following January he was hanged at the Taiping Prison. In August of 2011, a controversial Malaysian politician named Mohamad Sabu controversially claimed during a speech in Gelugor, Pelang, that Indera had been a hero for fighting with the communists to throw off British rule.
Sabu’s speech ignited a firestorm of controversy and was rightfully interpreted as an attack on the legacy of the heroic policemen who had died in the assault. The following month unknown assailants splashed Sabu’s home with kerosene and set it alight. In September of 2011, Mohamad Sabu was formally charged with aggravating the image of the police and their families pursuant to Section 500 of the Malaysian penal code. He was released on bail pending legal proceedings. If convicted he was eligible for up to two years imprisonment for his inflammatory statements. I was unable to ascertain the outcome of his trial. By contrast, over on this side of the pond you can be an ill-informed jerk and get your own talk show. Free speech is an amazing engine indeed. It’s a weird old world.
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“This ruling will have enormous implications – especially here in California and across the US,” said Sam Paredes, speaking on behalf of the Board of Directors of Gun Owners Foundation and as the Executive Director of Gun Owners of California.
Paredes continued his comment on the stunning victory against New York’s poorly named “Concealed Carry Improvement Act.”
“Legislators be warned – introduction of any bill that will strip responsible gun owners of the right to carry a concealed weapon is unconstitutional. Any attempt to override the courts will be met with robust legal opposition.”
See below for the complete press release:
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 7, 2022
Washington, D.C. – Today, Gun Owners of America (GOA) and Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) secured a preliminary injunction in federal district court against most of New York’s poorly named “Concealed Carry Improvement Act.” This follows GOA and GOF securing a temporary restraining order against the law in October, which was frustratingly blocked by a federal appeals court.
The ruling from Judge Glenn Suddaby, who indicated this law has imposed “unprecedented constitutional violations,“ enjoins the following provisions:
- Requiring good moral character
- Requiring the names and contact info of spouses and other adults in the applicant’s home
- Requiring applicants to disclose social media accounts for review
- The restrictions on carrying in public parks, zoos, places of worship, locations where alcohol is served, theaters, banquet halls, conferences, airports and buses, lawful protests or assemblies, and the prohibition on carrying on private property without express consent from the owner
The injunction will take effect immediately, despite the State of New York’s attempt to delay the injunction.
Erich Pratt, GOA’s Senior Vice President, issued the following statement:
“Just like we warned politicians after the Bruen decision, fall in line, or we will force you to. We are excited to see Kathy Hochul finally served a plate of humble pie, and we are fully prepared to continue the fight should she again attempt to disarm the citizens of her state at a time when her party’s policies are only escalating the danger that everyday citizens face.”
Sam Paredes, on behalf of the Board of Directors for the Gun Owners Foundation, added:
“This is very exciting for the citizens of New York, as today liberty won and tyranny lost. GOF and our allies remain fully prepared to defend this ruling from the foolish appeals that the anti-gunners in Albany will inevitably bring.”
GOA spokesmen are available for interviews. Gun Owners of America is a nonprofit grassroots lobbying organization dedicated to protecting the right to keep and bear arms without compromise. GOA represents over two million members and activists. For more information, visit GOA’s Press Center.