As you may already know, global thermonuclear war is nearly upon us, but while that may cause some people to feel depressed, you may be happy to know there are some surprising upsides.
The Babylon Bee is here to lift your spirits with the following list of perks to living through the upcoming nuclear holocaust:
No more jury duty: You may have to worry about roving gangs of mutant cannibals, but definitely not jury duty.
Your wife will have a whole new glow: You won’t be able to put your finger on it, but she’ll just seem… brighter.
You’ll probably lose a ton of weight: Ozempic can’t hold a candle to radiation poisoning.
Your morning commute will be much lighter: Hooray!
It will be much easier to get a tee time at the golf course: Just watch out for the zombies on hole 12.
Nuclear winter will finally get rid of that awful global warming: We did it, Greta!
You won’t have to brush your hair any more: This just keeps sounding better.
No more mowing the grass: Thanks, apocalypse!
You can just set your microwave oatmeal out on the patio: What a perk.
You’ll develop special mutant abilities, but some people won’t appreciate your powers and will want to enact some sort of mutant registry and then a nice bald man in a motorized wheelchair with an underground airplane hangar will take you in and show you it’s ok to be yourself: Awesome!
See? The oncoming onslaught of nuclear weapons raining down upon civilization won’t necessarily be all bad. Chin up, soldier!
The year was 1919. The shrill of hounds broke the night’s silence on Abbotts Creek. A huntsman followed their barking on horseback through the Carolina brush. His gun dogs, Cash and Mean, had just bolted to chase what he thought was a racoon. Gun in hand, he dismounted and made his way through the cockleburs to see his dogs barking frantically up a tree.
The huntsman thought he’d found some unexpected dinner. He only planned to ride to his father’s house, but didn’t hesitate to chase his dogs when they broke for the creek. When he held his lantern, turning its light to search for the animal’s eyes, he was left petrified. His dogs whined and recoiled in terror. There were no eyes staring back at him. There was no animal at all. An iridescent vernal light retreated from the canopy as he regained himself, shouldering his shotgun to shoot. But it was too late. Whatever he saw disappeared back into the darkness — and his dogs refused to give any pursuit.
This huntsman was not alone in his experience. Newspaper articles of the time and local lore identify dozens of other hunters, hounds, and local passersby who experienced strange occurrences on Abbotts Creek. All these legends attribute these supernatural encounters to the same entity, leftover spirits of the American Revolution.
A Sportsman’s Ghost Story
Some 140 years earlier, British General Cornwallis stood on the shore of Abbotts Creek. Behind him was a track record of frustration as he failed to destroy General Nathanial Greene’s Patriot Army. Tired, outmaneuvered, and desperate, he scavenged the surrounding area for food and supplies.
But Abbotts Creek was teeming with patriotic support. Local militias chased the loyalists away three years prior, after a Tory gang hanged the pro-independence preacher of the local church. Cornwallis was surrounded by wilderness, a hostile populace, and an increasingly burdened supply train.
As he stared into the water, deep in thought, Cornwallis decided to trade weight for speed to catch up with Greene’s army. Turning around, he ordered his men to start digging into the sloping bottomland.
There on the muddy creek banks of North Carolina’s piedmont, his soldiers buried barrels of silver and gold. “Better to carry food we eat than gold we can’t spend,” he thought to himself. Besides, once he caught up with Greene, he could recover the treasury.
But that wasn’t the only thing Cornwallis hid on Abbotts Creek. Patriot skirmishers constantly harassed his Army, resulting in more than a few casualties. So along with his payroll, he buried his dead — postmortem guards of the king’s gold.
Cornwallis’ Last Guard
For the next century, Cornwallis’ ghosts roamed the creek, making sport of sportsmen and their hounds. Hunters following their dogs became lost in the dark hardwood forests of the rural Carolina foothills, led away by flashing orbs of otherworldly light.
The best hounds treed these specters, mistaking them for game. Old timers even brought axes on their hunts to chop down the treed ghosts. But the specters always slipped away, wasting the huntsman’s pursuit. Few hunters returned to the creek a second time.
Local newspapers, books, and historians kept the stories of Abbotts Creek’s ghost alive into the middle of the 20th century. Some folks even claimed they found the treasure.
But the tales eventually died out. Modernity and development crept up on North Carolina, and as progress grew the traditions waned. The hunters’ forests became housing developments and strip malls. Nowadays newcomers dismiss these stories as hoaxes, tall tales designed to keep people away from moonshine stills and prime game land.
But the specters don’t care what modernity thinks about them. A century after Cash and Mean chased Cornwallis’ ghosts, two local boys went hunting on Abbotts Creek.
With their grandparents’ old shotguns, they aimed to bag some woodcock. As the December sun hid behind the foothills, they left the bottomland empty handed. Sitting on the tailgate of their truck, they felt the fog roll over the heights above the creek. An eerie silence followed. They grabbed their guns and listened. No wood ducks whistled, no deer grunted.
Then, from the canopy, they saw a green, iridescent orb of light flicking through the dormant trees. There were two of them, floating without sound at a steady pace as if on patrol. Stunned, more by curiosity than fear, the two boys watched motionlessly. After a few minutes, the specters disappeared back into the darkness as quickly as they came.
You won’t find this in any news stories today. I know because I was one of those young boys. The land we hunted was on my family’s 300-year-old farm, ground Cornwallis marched through on his way to Guilford Courthouse. So, is there actually any treasure? Do Cornwallis’ ghosts still haunt the Carolina countryside? I don’t know if any treasure lies beneath Abbotts Creek. But I do know that Cornwallis’ last guard is still on patrol.
At Christmastime in 2019, one man reckons with a childhood filled with toy guns.
Peter Billingsley sits on Santa’s lap in a scene from “A Christmas Story.” [ MGM ]
Sounds of the season are in the air: Merry Christmas, Peace on Earth, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.” Fans of the movie A Christmas Story will recognize that last statement as the curse of young Ralphie, a Hoosier kid in the 1940s who wants, more than anything, a BB gun for Christmas. And not just any BB gun. He wants the Holy Grail of BB guns, a Red Ryder special.
Ralphie has grown up fueled by cowboy adventures on the radio. Grownups have no desire to blunt Ralphie’s imagination, but they are alert to real world dangers. First his mom, then his teacher, and finally a department store Santa all deliver the same crushing blow: “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.” No one wants to lose an eye for the shallow pleasure of BB target practice.
My brother Ted was born with vision in only one eye. My brother Vinny lost an eye to an infection after surgery. I remain the only Clark brother with two working eyes. And yet I have decided to fulfill my own childhood dream. I’ve purchased a BB gun, at Walmart, for $24.99, a Red Ryder model, almost identical to the one Ralphie’s dad delivered on that cinematic Christmas morning. I want to be just like Ralphie and shoot imaginary bad guys right in their saddlebags.
Christmas on Long Island, 1959
I remember in living color the glorious Christmas of 1959 when I was 11. I grew up on Long Island, but my fantasies were of the West. The cowboy adventures of radio and film had migrated to television. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, the Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy and countless other heroes galloped in black and white across a 15-inch screen. Horses, big hats, spurs, stage coaches, sheriff badges, lariats, saloons, cattle rustlers and gun fights, lots of gun fights, propelled the action.
Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger. [ AP ]Western heroes were great marksmen (or women, if you count Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane), but they were portrayed as reluctant sharp shooters. They used their weapons for protection, often shooting a gun out of an outlaw’s hand rather than shooting to kill. On the big screen — or the small one — the good guy wore a white hat and rode a beautiful horse.
He was the quickest draw in the West. He could deliver a bullet to the bad guy and leave him lying in the dust without ever spilling a drop of blood. Western heroes were brave, they were virtuous, and from the perspective of an 11-year-old boy, they were so, so cool.
Their guns were cool, too. Each television hero had a special weapon, which became toy merchandise, like Ralphie’s Red Ryder rifle, which is still being sold by the Daisy company in an 80th anniversary edition. Under the tree in 1959 I got a derringer, like the one Jock Mahoney kept up his sleeve in the series Yancy Derringer.
I got a replica of a Colt .45 pistol. I got a Fanner 50, a Mattel toy that allowed rapid shooting by fanning the hammer. I got a Buntline Special, a handgun with a long barrel and breakaway holster used by Hugh O’Brian to portray Wyatt Earp. Steve McQueen played the bounty hunter in Wanted: Dead or Alive with a cut-down, lever-action rifle — the Mare’s Leg — strapped to his side.
But the treasure of all treasures was a toy replica of the fast action rifle used by Chuck Connors on one of the best written and acted Westerns of all time, The Rifleman. Connors raised his TV son, played by Johnny Crawford, and helped protect a small Western town from the weekly invasion of shady and dangerous characters.
In the classic “A Christmas Story,” all young Ralphie Parker wants for Christmas is a Daisy “Red Ryder” BB gun. [ MGM ]
Caps for sale
All of the toy weapons I received in 1959 were made to seem more realistic by the use of a tiny paper explosive called a cap. A BB gun fired an actual projectile. You could shoot someone’s eye out. Not with our arsenal. I was quite satisfied by the sight, sound and smell created by the percussion of a toy gun’s hammer against a roll or ring of caps. If I close my eyes, I can still smell them.
Caps were sold in variety stores in strips or discs. Containing a small amount of gunpowder (potassium perchlorate, sulfur and antimony sulfide) they created the snappy sound, pungent smell and puff of smoke we took for real weaponry. If a kid did not have a cap pistol or rifle, he or she could just sit on the sidewalk and strike caps with rocks. For weeks your winter coat would smell like you had just been caught in the crossfire of the shootout at the O.K. Corral.
If you didn’t have caps for your gun, you knew what to do to make your playtime come alive. You could have great fun imitating the sounds of gunshots and ricochets. Kerchow! Kerching!
Going outside to play
This reminiscence reminds me how much I enjoyed playing outside, even in cold weather. If we weren’t eating, doing homework or watching TV, we were outside playing seasonal sports and imaginative games. I realize how different my play life would be if I were a kid today. I’m sure that my game life, even in good weather, would be inside. A PlayStation console would gain me access to vivid point-of-view shooting games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Rainbow Six Siege, all favorites of my grandson.
If I were holding a toy gun today, it would be manufactured by law to look unrealistic, even if it shot foam projectiles across a room or a backyard. Every toy gun must have an orange plastic cap in the barrel so that it can’t be mistaken for a real gun.
One of the dangers of toy guns is that they can be perceived as real. A child that brings one to school to show a friend can get in big trouble. Sadly, children carrying toy guns have been shot and killed by police, a particular danger for children of color.
Not long ago I went into Best Buy to see what toy guns looked like these days. For about $7 I purchased a Hasbro Nerf Micro Shots Rough Cut 2X4. “Got to have one of these,” I said to the young clerk. It is approved for ages 8 and up. It is white, orange and black, more like a space blaster than a Saturday Night Special. It fires two foam projectiles with this warning: “Do not aim at eyes or face.” The clerk explained I could build a full arsenal of Nerf weapons, some that suggest automatic weapons or bazookas.
“This will do for the squirrel in my yard,” I joked, holding up my new toy.
“No,” he said, “for a squirrel you need a BB gun.”
Be careful where you point that finger
I remember a zealous mom who insisted that no son or daughter of hers would ever get to play with a toy weapon. This well-meaning resolution lasted until the moment she realized that her son could turn any object into a weapon, including his own hand. A fallen tree branch could be retrofitted as a rocket launcher. Want to play Star Wars or Harry Potter? A resourceful tyke could find lightsabers and magic wands in any garage or tool shed.
I have now read the opinions, pro and con, about purchasing toys weapons for children. I have come to believe that, in a culture saturated with guns, toy weapons are, with a little supervision, a good thing. They are, in general, a harmless expression of childish aggression. They help separate in a practical way what is real and what is imaginary. They can prepare the way for serious conversations about gun safety.
If my 11-year-old Christmas was my best, my 12-year-old Christmas was my worst. My parents assumed, or wanted to think, that I had outgrown my toy guns. They bought me a winter coat. An ugly one. One that I came to detest wearing, especially at the school bus stop. It was the kind of coat that bullies would rip off your back and throw out the bus window. In short, the coat turned out to be more dangerous to my interests than my toy weapons.
Home at the range
I provide absolute proof that a youthful affection for toy guns does not foreshadow a shoot-’em-up lifestyle or membership in the National Rifle Association. Unlike my son-in-law, an ex-Marine, I did not experience military service. Unlike my dad, a U.S. customs officer, I was not required to keep and show proficiency with a weapon. (Dad kept his gun in a locked box on a high shelf in a closet. I never saw it.)
It might surprise you to learn that I never fired a real gun until I turned 70 years old. My son-in-law Dan took me to an indoor firing range in Clearwater. It was an eye-opening, if ear-shattering, experience. The place was run with meticulous care for safety, and after signing some papers, donning a pair of noise blockers and picking out a paper target, we entered the shooting area and posted a target at a distance of 30 feet.
Although they were available, I did not choose targets with a human form, opting instead for a traditional target with concentric circles and a bull’s-eye. I hit the bull’s-eye just three times in about 50 shots. The recoil was stronger than I had imagined. That was the first of several surprises.
Marksmanship was harder than I thought. The noise in that confined space, even with ears covered, was deafening and scary. It made me think of the sound terror that must be part of mass shootings. A semiautomatic spit out hot empty shell casings like popcorn. If an adult Ralphie used one, a shell might hit him in the eye. I am glad Dan took me to the range. I hope to return.
This may sound controversial, but in American culture some familiarity with firearms seems like a civic benefit, maybe even a responsibility. You may not want to own one. But what if you find one? Or find yourself in a place where someone — for good reasons or ill — is determined to use one?
Ralphie’s mom was right
When Ralphie went out into the snowy backyard on Christmas morning and aimed his new BB gun at a target, the projectile ricocheted, broke his glasses and bloodied his cheek. Prophesy fulfilled, Ralphie had but one recourse: to lie his little ass off. Yes, of course, Hoosier mom, it was an icicle that hit me.
The headline on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission alert reads: “BB guns can kill a person. High-velocity BB guns, which have muzzle velocities higher than 350 feet per second, can increase the risk. The CPSC has reports of about four deaths per year caused by BB guns or pellet rifles.”
Here are typical warnings attached to BB guns, which turn out to be something quite different than the weapons I received in 1959: Not a toy; adult supervision required; misuse or careless use may cause serious injury or death; may be dangerous up to 350 yards; recommended for use by those 16 years of age or older.
That led me to re-read the warnings across the box containing my Red Ryder carbine: This product can expose you to lead, which is known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. Warning: Do not brandish or display this airgun in public. It may confuse people and may be a crime. Police and other may think this airgun is a firearm. Do not change the coloration and marking to make it look more like a firearm. That is dangerous and may be a crime. Warning: for ages 10 years or older.
OK, I get it, I get it. My new plan is to resort to the land of make-believe. In my mind, my new rifle will be a toy, a cap gun. No BBs will be fired in the yard, the garage or the house.
If any of those bad guys show up at the ranch, I will aim and fire at the varmints, using the best voice gunshot noises ever created: KERCHOW! KERCHOW! BAM BAM BAM! PCURR! PCURR! KERCHOW! KACHING! Take that, Dangerous Dan, you desperado!
The earth is full of anger,
The seas are dark with wrath,
The Nations in their harness
Go up against our path:
Ere yet we loose the legions—
Ere yet we draw the blade, Jehovah of the Thunders,
Lord God of Battles, aid!
High lust and froward bearing,
Proud heart, rebellious brow—
Deaf ear and soul uncaring,
We seek Thy mercy now!
The sinner that forswore Thee,
The fool that passed Thee by,
Our times are known before Thee—
Lord, grant us strength to die!
For those who kneel beside us
At altars not Thine own,
Who lack the lights that guide us,
Lord, let their faith atone.
If wrong we did to call them,
By honour bound they came;
Let not Thy Wrath befall them,
But deal to us the blame.
From panic, pride, and terror,
Revenge that knows no rein,
Light haste and lawless error,
Protect us yet again.
Cloak Thou our undeserving,
Make firm the shuddering breath,
In silence and unswerving
To taste Thy lesser death!
Ah, Mary pierced with sorrow,
Remember, reach and save
The soul that comes to-morrow
Before the God that gave!
Since each was born of woman,
For each at utter need—
True comrade and true foeman—
Madonna, intercede!
E’en now their vanguard gathers,
E’en now we face the fray—
As Thou didst help our fathers,
Help Thou our host to-day!
Fulfilled of signs and wonders,
In life, in death made clear—
Jehovah of the Thunders,
Lord God of Battles, hear!
It’s easy to get carried away with home defense weapons these days. I’m obviously kidding. It is physically impossible to get carried away with home defense guns. (Photo provided by author.)
Congress passed the National Firearms Act of 1934 in response to the scourge of the motorized bandit. Dillinger, Barrow, Van Meter, Capone, and others both captivated and terrified the American public. In the face of the media-fueled canard of hypothetical machinegun-toting criminals lurking behind every bush, legislators decided that something simply had to be done.
That something leveraged the taxation powers of the US Congress to effectively end commerce in machineguns, sound suppressors, short-barreled long guns, and destructive devices like cannons and hand grenades.
There is some curious cognitive dissonance at work here. The astute observer will note that the 1st and 2d Amendments to the US Constitution are next door neighbors. The 1st Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The courts have interpreted the 1st Amendment to protect, among many other things, pornography in most of its many-splendored Information Age forms. Leave the kids out of it and use consenting adults and images depicting rape, assault, and violent dismemberment distributed via the world’s most advanced digital media are all constitutionally armored up against puritanical molestation.
By contrast, there are places where an American citizen’s constitutional right to own a firearm is restricted into irrelevancy. If we applied the same filters to the 1st Amendment that we do to the 2d, the only speech that would be truly protected would be whatever you might be able to conjure up using an 18th-century steam-driven printing press.
For the sake of discussion, let us ponder a different world—a world that is truly free and unfettered as the Founders clearly intended. Let’s imagine a scenario wherein you don’t need some kind of government writ to drive a car, build a shed, buy a gun, or cut somebody’s hair.
Let’s visualize a hypothetical America without the recognized fifty-four volumes of US Code with its more than 300,000 individual federal laws. In short, let’s fancy firearms without the artificial restrictions imposed by the NFA. What would the ideal home defense gun look like if there truly were no rules?
The Mission
This represents the current state of the art in home defense tools in Information Age America. This AR15 pistol and Springfield Armory Echelon are about as good as it gets within the confines of American firearms law. (Photo provided by author.)
There are 148 million total housing units in the United States. There are roughly one million reported home invasions each annum. That means there is a 1-in-148 statistical chance that your home will be violated in any given year.
The current life expectancy for an American male is 78.4 years. Women live longer than men for obvious reasons. Their life expectancy is a bit north of 81 years.
Statistically speaking, half of all Americans will experience a home invasion over the course of the lifetimes. Some neighborhoods are obviously worse than others, but those are the numbers.
As such, home defense guns are not just marketing hype. Precious few among us can afford a 24/7 live-in cop. How on earth would you keep him in doughnuts? As a result, free folk assume responsibility for our own security. That means a proper home defense arm.
Unlike carry guns, this hypothetical weapon need not be concealable. Weight is a consideration, but not a big one. You won’t be humping this thing on a 15-mile ruck march. It just needs to be sufficiently maneuverable to move easily within the home. So, let’s get started.
Cartridge and Caliber
Shotguns have been used forever for home defense. However, they are heavy, imprecise, and difficult to manage for small shooters. (Photo provided by author.)
Caliber selection is not as straightforward as you might think. While there are hundreds if not thousands of options ranging from .22 rimfire up through .50 BMG, caliber selection for the ideal home defense weapon really distills down to either 9mm Para or 5.56mm with a few die hard .45ACP acolytes sprinkled over the top for flavor. The performance of these cartridges in a home defense scenario is a bit counterintuitive.
The concern is typically overpenetration. The reason so few folks opt for the .50BMG round as a home defense tool is that John Browning’s massive counter-balloon cartridge will penetrate end-to-end through most shopping malls. When precious people might be hiding behind a few flimsy sheets of drywall, overpenetration becomes a concern. To a degree, modern technology actually makes that worse.
The HK MP5SD is close as-is. However, this is a relatively antiquated design that could be improved upon nowadays. (Photo provided by author.)
Most modern high-tech pistol-caliber social bullets spawn from research driven by Law Enforcement. The ideal cop bullet expands reliably but is barrier blind. This means that these souped-up bonded projectiles remain intact when passing through such stuff as clothing, glass, or wall board. That can result in excessive penetration for the responsible home defender.
Recommended
By contrast, those zippy little high-velocity 5.56mm rounds typically go insane upon contact with common building materials, spending their energy expeditiously without punching too deep.
The downside is muzzle blast and noise. Rifle rounds of any sort, particularly when fired out of short barrels, will reliably produce an earth-shaking report while lighting up the night. These are all simply data points in our decision tree. However, I’d still opt for 9mm myself and just maintain my situational awareness.
Barrel Length and Buttstocks
Short-barreled rifles have much to commend them in the CQB (Close Quarters Battle) arena. However, they are stupid loud and a bit bulkier than their 9mm cousins. (Photo provided by author.)
We’ll start with a long gun, because pistols are horrible. Most of us carry them regularly, but a traditional handgun is the toughest of all common firearms to run safely and well. It is innately imprecise in the hands of anyone but a trained professional. We use handguns because rifles are tough to hide underneath shorts and a t-shirt. For home defense purposes, we will start with something that has a decent buttstock.
The original text of the 1934 NFA purportedly included handguns for that onerous $200 tax. Realizing that enterprising Americans would simply cut down their long guns if handguns were banned, the barrel length restrictions were codified in the law.
Handguns were dropped to get the vile thing passed, and nobody thought to get rid of the barrel length dicta. That’s why you can walk out of your local gun emporium with a pocket pistol cash and carry, but cutting the barrel down on grandad’s single-barrel 12-bore to 17 inches can get you ten years in the Big House. If none of that existed, home defense guns would all have short barrels.
How short that barrel gets is always a compromise. The shorter the tube, the slower the bullet and the more egregious the muzzle flash. Longer barrels are more accurate and hard-hitting but tougher in tight corners. Ideally, I’d say eight to ten inches for a pistol-caliber gun is a good compromise.
Sound Suppressors
Removeable muzzle suppressors like this one mounted on a MAC10 capture muzzle racket but do nothing to slow down those zippy little supersonic bullets. (Photo provided by author.)
Of course the ideal home defense arm will have a sound suppressor. It is asinine that we encumber suppressors with so much artificial legislative baggage. You can buy rimfire cans without any ancillary registration in France, of all places. That’s just embarrassing.
Sound suppressors on a gun that is intended to be used indoors are simply intuitive. Nothing about a sound-suppressed tactical firearm is truly silent, but the inclusion of a quality suppressor makes it easier to communicate. The diminution of muzzle flash also enhances both accuracy and control.
Suppressors can be either integral or removable. Removeable cans are just that. Integral suppressors in a 9mm platform often incorporate ported barrels that drop standard supersonic rounds into the subsonic range. In the world of sound-suppressed pistol-caliber firearms, this is as good as it gets.
Giggle Switches
In the absence of any serious rules, all proper defensive long guns should be selective fire. (Photo provided by author.)
All serious close combat weapons should have selective fire capability. A four-position selector offering a three-round burst option is even better. That having been said, while the option should be there, serious gunmen almost never use it.
The 22d SAS operators who cleared Princes Gate in London in 1980 purportedly terminated most of those Iranian terrorists with a full auto mag dump apiece from their MP5’s. That means not having to say you’re sorry in any of the world’s recognized languages. However, not many of us can run a gun quite so well as might your typical SAS operator.
Serious professionals nowadays train to put semiauto double taps onto their targets in an expeditious fashion. So long as Level III body armor is not in play, this will reliably do the deed. However, retaining the full auto option, especially in a placid pistol-caliber gun, is a no-brainer.
It is Alive!
The ideal home defense gun would be the arithmetic mean between the HK MP5SD (top) and the HK UMP. (Photo provided by author.)
So, what does that hypothetical ideal home defense weapon actually look like? I would propose that it doesn’t actually exist. In my experience, the HK MP5SD is the most controllable, most precise CQB tool on Planet Earth. However, HK launched the MP5SD in 1974. The gun is overly complicated, it’s old, and it doesn’t readily lend itself to optics or accessories.
The HK UMP launched in 1999. If you haven’t had the pleasure, the UMP (Universal Machine Pistol) is the Glock of submachine guns. It sports a polymer chassis and weighs about five pounds. The UMP is readily configurable between 9mm, .40S&W, and .45ACP while offering a sedate rate of fire and superlative ergonomics. However, it is not integrally suppressed. The UMP will take a can, but only the detachable muzzle sort.
The HK UMP is a fine defensive weapon as-is. However, it could be tweaked just a little bit better. (Photo provided by author.)
So, in a world without rules, I would approach our buddies at Oberndorf and ask them to build me an integrally-suppressed UMP in 9mm with a ported barrel that rendered standard 9mm rounds subsonic. I’d outfit that hypothetical gun with a combination white tactical light/green laser and a top-flight red dot or Holosight.
I’d secure it against little fingers and stage the gun alongside a couple of spare magazines where I could get to it quickly. Then I’d sleep well knowing that my castle was defended by the finest home defense weapon mankind could contrive.
Driving from deer camp is always relaxing. Winding my way back through the mountains of West Virginia and western Maryland, along the same trails Meshach Browning did over a hundred years ago, gives me the perfect time to reflect on past and present hunts.
I recently spent a few days with my cousins, their sons-in-law, and even a grandchild. Seven men ranging in age from 66 to 17 crammed in a small two-bedroom, one-bath cabin was a great way of getting closer in more ways than one.
Here’s a buck caught on a trial camera
a few years ago in West Virginia.
New Traditions
The West Virginia hunt started back in the late 70s. My cousin Barrel’s dad, my uncle, was killed in a farming accident during a blizzard. My uncle Jerry took Barrel to West Virginia that year to do something different while spending time together. Over the years, more people started going, including myself. As people got older and stopped going, there was always someone younger to step in. It’s the revered cycle of life.
After almost 20 years, the unexpected happened. Uncle Jerry died on the very mountain we hunt. He was only 50. Barrel, Brent and I were there. The saying misery loves company was never more apparent. The experience drew us closer together, and the WVA hunt became almost sacred.
A few years later, our Uncle Gary, Brent’s dad, started coming to WVA. Being older, he didn’t venture far from the road but loved hunting and being outdoors. When walking out of the woods, I’d sometimes smell cigar smoke. I’d follow the aroma and see Gary sitting on a log, enjoying the last light of day, a big grin on his face.
He truly loved the outdoors. During Pennsylvania’s deer season, he’d sit all day, dark to dark, in his tree stand every day of the season. Farmer tough, rain, sleet, snow, cold or wind didn’t deter him. And he made the ride to his stand on his ATV. He did this up until last year when he died at age 80 after having dinner with my cousins.
My cousin Barrel with last year’s buck using his dad’s Savage 99.
Current Day
Now, Barrel and I are the “camp elders.” How’d that ever happen? Looking in the mirror, the answer is obvious. Barrel’s taken over Uncle Gary’s log, shooting a buck last year using his dad’s old Savage 99. Talk about a little family magic happening on that hunt! I used to hunt Uncle Jerry’s hollow for years, but now I hunt from a closer spot.
A young Tank and Barrel are now the camp elders.” Fluorescent orange hunting coats were the thing back then.
During this year’s hunt, Tank is evaluating
a gun for a future article
New Research
To hell with this thing called climate change! Scientists need to research mountain inclination, combined with oxygen dissipation, as the hills and hollows are surely steeper, and the air noticeably thinner from years ago. I know it’s true! It’s even affecting the deer! Somehow, they’re heavier while looking the same size.
A nice W. VA. buck taken a few years ago.
Cock-a-doodle-doo Do!
Sleep is fitful the first night in camp. Anticipation, as well as our own rendition of the Walton’s saying goodnight to each other is more akin to the campfire scene in Blazing Saddles and the large bean pot. Between laughs, giggles, and a last (hopefully) expenditure of methane gas, a few winks are caught … maybe …
Opening day has us up at 3:45 to start the bathroom rotation. The rule of the cabin is first come, first served. I start the coffee and get the pork loin, sauerkraut and taters ready for the crockpot supper. Nothing’s better than having the aroma of a hot meal welcome you when opening the cabin door after hunting all day. It’s the perfect cure for being cold, tired and hungry.
Lunches are packed, and it’s out the door a little before 5:00. Most are in the stand well before first light. I was especially excited as I was toting a new lightweight rifle in a new caliber to write about down the road. Opening day was beautiful, but our gang only got one deer. Jeremy was the lucky hunter. Our usual spots were taken over by 5 or 6 other hunters, so adjustments were made. Ah, the perils of hunting the National Forest.
Heads on the porch after a successful hunt.
Supper
When everyone’s back, we eat together. The bantering picks back up, followed by laughs, insults, jokes and old stories. We tell and retell stories of our uncles, Paps, and other family and friends no longer with us. There’s no place like deer camp. After supper, it isn’t long before people start heading for bed. Since most didn’t sleep much the previous night, it comes much easier after the day’s hunt.
The year after our Uncle Jerry died. We still felt his
presence on the hunt. Barrel, Tank, and Brent.
Bill Bane
Telling these stories reminds me of stories a buddy told me when he was young. He was bunked up with a friend of his dad’s, an older fellow named Bill Bane. Sleeping in the top bunk the night before opening day, he’s awakened by hot water dripping on his forehead. Looking over his bunk, he sees Bill Bane boiling something in a large pot.
“What’s ya cooking, Bill?” he asked. “Turnips! Want some?” came the reply. “Bill, it’s 2:30. Get some sleep,” he told him. “Sleep? I been busting deer all night long in my sleep!”
My best buck from West Virginia and the same trip
I found out Camille was pregnant with Samantha.
The Bane Load
Bill was a character. He had an innovative, unusual way of loading his .30-06. In his high-pitched voice, he explained it to my buddy. “My first load is a 180-grain soft-point roundnose, to buck brush. Next comes a 165-grain spitzer to reach out a little bit in case I miss with the roundnose. Lastly, is a Remington 150-grain bronze point in case he makes it a long way. I figure I got my bases covered when loaded like this.”
Bill wore a heavy florescent orange coveralls over his regular hunting clothes. Next came a thick leather belt with about 60 cartridge loops, and he had them all filled with the above bullets he mentioned. Next came a hatchet, hunting knife and bone saw. He may have even had a cast iron skillet because my buddy said something sure clanged when he walked.
His last piece of specialized equipment was a pair of linemen spikes, the kind linemen wear while climbing telephone poles. Sure enough, Bill climbed the straightest tree he could find to hunt from high above perch. Funny thing was, he always complained about getting hot, overheated and tired when getting to his tree.
The man who started the West Virgina tradition, our Uncle Jerry.
Immortal Tales
Hunting stories are as natural and traditional since the beginning of man. Most cave drawings depict hunting tales from the beginning of time. These tales bring joy and are even comforting as we hear about long-lost loved ones’ exploits or mishaps, which make us laugh. One thing is certain: hunting camp and hunting stories have a way of warming the soul and binding kindred spirits like no other.
