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Former NRA executive pleads guilty to fraud, agrees to testify ByAaron Katersky

Post author By Grumpy
Post date January 11, 2024
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Former National Rifle Association operations director Joshua Powell has settled civil claims of fraud and abuse brought by the New York Attorney General’s office.

The admission comes hours after Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, announced his resignation ahead of a trial scheduled to begin Monday. LaPierre cited health reasons, according to the NRA. The resignation will be effective Jan. 31.

Powell was employed by the NRA from 2016 through January 2020 and in that time “Powell breached his fiduciary duties and failed to administer the charitable assets entrusted to his care by using his powers as an officer and senior executive of the NRA to convert charitable assets for his own benefit and for the benefit of his family members,” the settlement agreement said.

“Joshua Powell’s admission of wrongdoing and Wayne LaPierre’s resignation confirm what we have alleged for years: the NRA and its senior leaders are financially corrupt,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement Saturday.

The attorney general is suing the NRA, which is registered in New York as a non-profit charitable corporation, and its senior management for misappropriating millions of dollars to fund personal benefits, including private jets, family vacations and luxury goods.

The NRA tried to file bankruptcy in 2021 but a federal judge rejected its petition, saying “the NRA did not file the bankruptcy petition in good faith.”

James’ lawsuit seeks an independent monitor to oversee the NRA’s finances.

As part of his settlement, Powell admitted he breached his fiduciary duties of care, loyalty and obedience by using the NRA’s charitable assets for his own benefit and the benefit of his family. He also admitted he failed to administer the charitable assets entrusted to his care properly.

He agreed to pay $100,000 in restitution and accept a permanent bar from serving as an officer in a nonprofit. He also agreed to testify against LaPierre and others at trial.

LaPierre previously said the New York AG’s lawsuit was an “unconstitutional, premeditated attack aiming to dismantle and destroy the NRA — the fiercest defender of America’s freedom at the ballot box for decades.”

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All About Guns You have to be kidding, right!?!

Guess that I am going to the Gunshop in the morning

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Post date January 11, 2024
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Original Springfield Trapdoor Officer model meets original Ideal 45-70-500 tool

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Post date January 11, 2024
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Soldiering This great Nation & Its People War

Clyde Childress: WWII Guerrilla in the Philippines

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Post date January 11, 2024
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Papers of Colonel Clyde C. Childress, USA

Colonel Clyde C. Childress served as commander of the 107th Division, 10th Military District, during World War II. Serving in the prewar Philippines with the American 31st Infantry Regiment, Childress was chosen to help train the new Philippine Army when it was called into service under Douglas MacArthur’s new United States Army Forces Far East (USAFFE) command in July 1941. Shipped to Panay, where he became a battalion commander in the 61st Philippine Infantry, Childress was there when war erupted with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and Clark Field on December 7-8, 1941.

Though still green and untrained, the 61st infantry was shipped to the southernmost island of the Philippines; Mindanao. Positioned on the south coast of the island, the unit was to guard the air field and coastal region near the town of Malabang. The 61st was quickly overrun with the Japanese invasion of the Cotabato region in April of 1942. Childress was cut off from his command being on the right wing of the defenses when the Japanese routed the 61st. Along with his men Childress retreated by jungle trail to the north coast of Mindanao. During their eight day trek north, the Philippines were surrendered. Childress and his men were now unsurrendered fugitives. Most of his men came from Panay Island and that is where they were headed. Childress, on the other hand, needed to hide.

Physically destroyed by his jungle trek, Childress took refuge with American expatriates on the Zamboanga Coast and recuperated. Like all the Americans that went into the jungle, Childress would not have survived had it not been for the hospitality and complete selflessness of the Filipinos and Americans that helped them. Not all Filipinos, however, were friendly. At one point during his recuperation Childress got word that the local Philippine Constabulary officer was going to come with his men and disarm him. Childress was not one to wait for trouble and instead went looking for it. He showed up at the Filipino’s headquarters. As he approached he noticed the constabulary soldiers smiling at him and knew they were on his side. Childress walked right up to the officer and basically told him to make a move. The officer balked and Childress disarmed him. He would have no trouble from anyone else.

After four months, the “bamboo telegraph” brought word that an American General had arrived in Mindanao by submarine. Childress made the trek by foot along the north coast of Mindanao from Zamboanga to Misamis Occidental. Upon arrival in Jimenez, Childress found the “General.” It was a reserve U.S. Army engineer officer, Lt. Colonel Wendell W. Fertig. Fertig made up the ruse of being a general to gain the support of the local populace and set up his own guerrilla kingdom. Looking like the “wild man from Borneo,” Childress was taken in and cleaned up by the Ozamis sisters of Jimenez, women who risked everything to give support to the guerrillas of Mindanao. Given a shave, bath, and a new uniform, Childress met in conference with Fertig on 20 November 1942.

Much to Childress’s surprise, he was meeting with Fertig and Major Ernest McLish, who had been a fellow battalion commander in the 61st regiment. Childress and McLish had not seen each other since being overrun at Malabang in May 1942. At Jimenez the agreement was made with Fertig that McLish and Childress would go east and organize the eastern areas of Mindanao. McLish, who had already started a guerrilla in the Bukidnon region, was designated as commander of the 110th Division of Fertig’s 10th Military District command on Mindanao with Childress as his Chief of Staff. Fertig felt he could use the two to further his end of being the top guerrilla of not only Mindanao by all the Philippine Islands. He thought Childress the stronger of the two, and would never see eye to eye with McLish. McLish and Childress left by sailboat for the two day trip to Balingasag and the Misamis Oriental region of Mindanao. They wondered “what was the story” with the guy who was calling himself a General.

The 110th Division encompassed a wide area of western Mindanao encompassing the Misamis Oriental, Agusan, Surigao and Davao regions. It was populated with bands of guerrillas all acting on their own initiative and in many cases as bandits. McLish and Childress, with the help of a host of unsurrendered Filipino and American fighters brought order to these areas by supporting legitimate guerrillas and suppressing the bandits. By March 1943, most groups in the Misamis Oriental and Agusan regions were under the control of the 110th Division. The question became, “What do we do now?” It didn’t take long to come up with an idea.

In March 1943, Major Luis Morgan, Chief of Staff of the 10th Military District and the real muscle behind the establishment of Fertig’s guerrilla organization, arrived in the 110th Division area. At odds with Fertig, Morgan had been sent on a tour of Mindanao and the Visayan Islands trying to bring all guerrillas together in purpose. Morgan was a former constabulary officer from the Lanao region of Mindanao. After the American surrender, Moslem bandits began raiding the Christian coastal areas of Lanao. In a brutal campaign of bloodletting, Morgan put a stop to it. He liberated the north coast of Mindanao for Fertig, and was always up for a fight. Going into conference with McLish and Childress, who were just itching for some payback against the Japanese, they came up with a plan to attack the Japanese garrison at Butuan at the head of the Agusan River.

The attack on Butuan was a lesson in working with untrained guerrilla fighters, most of who were unarmed and ran at the first shot. Initially the town was taken, but the Japanese garrison took defensive positions in a concrete schoolhouse. Lacking any heavy weapons to assault the schoolhouse, the attack became a stand off and the guerrillas had to retreat before Japanese reinforcements could arrive. The guerrillas captured a number of ocean going boats and freed future Leyte guerrilla leader Ruperto Kangleon from the Butuan prison, and though they could not take the town, the Japanese garrison was removed a short time later.

March 1943 was when everything changed in the guerrilla war on Mindanao, for this is when the first submarine from Australia arrived on the south coast of Mindanao. Carrying Lt. Commander Charles “Chick” Parsons and Captain Charles M. Smith, a dozen radio sets with generators and a few tons of supplies, the arrival of the submarine USS Tambor on 5 March was the first sign to Filipinos and Americans on Mindanao that they had not been forgotten and “the Aid” was finally going to come. The “bamboo telegraph” was again active and it didn’t take long for word to reach the 110th Division. Childress set out for Fertig’s headquarters at Jimenez to find out what was going on and what supplies might be available for the 110th. Childress arrived only to be volunteered to accompany Parsons on his trip across Mindanao and up to the island of Leyte.

Parsons and Smith had not just come to Mindanao to bring supplies. They had come to assess Fertig and his organization and to establish coast watcher stations on the islands of Mindanao and Leyte. Lt. Colonel Charlie Smith knew Fertig fairly well, having hid in the jungles of Mindanao with him after the surrender, and he was convinced of his ability. (See New Acquisitions, RG-106, Papers of Lt. Col. Charles M. Smith) MacArthur’s headquarters, however, was staffed with career U.S. Army soldiers who were disgusted at someone promoting himself to General. They needed reassurance that Fertig was stable. Parsons, like Smith, had no problem with Fertig and found him most capable. That established they began the next leg of their journey. Smith went to Davao, Mindanao to set up a coast watcher station and Parsons travelled to Leyte to do the same. Childress and a few of his men acted as Parsons’ guide and muscle.

Up until June 1943, 10th Military District guerrillas roamed at will right out in the open. Once the Philippines had surrendered, most of the Japanese forces moved on to the Southwest Pacific fighting in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. Mindanao became a backwater and the Japanese did not have the forces to put large garrisons in the towns. Once a submarine from Australia landed, however, that changed the whole dynamic and the Japanese decided to move against Fertig’s organization. On June 30th they moved into the Misamis Occidental region in force and Fertig’s men scattered before the onslaught. Fertig had to move his headquarters to the area of Lanao that was to the east of Misamis Occidental. By November 1943, however, the Japanese pressure on Lanao was growing and Fertig again moved his headquarters. This time he moved to the Agusan region of Mindanao, which was the area controlled by McLish and Childress.

After the success of the USS Tambor mission that brought Lt. Cmdr. Parsons and Captain Smith to Mindanao, submarine supply missions became more frequent to the Philippine islands. Once the U.S. Navy saw the benefit of the coast watcher stations set up by Parsons and Smith, they were more than willing to provide more submarines for guerrilla supply. Two of the biggest submarines in the U.S. Navy, the USS Narwhal and USS Nautilus, began regular missions to the Philippines and it was in the Agusan region of the 110th Division that they made most of their runs in late 1943 and early 1944. McLish and Childress, therefore, became the supply quartermasters for Mindanao. They would receive the supplies, store them in safety, and then make sure they got to the other guerrillas on the island.

By early 1944 the area controlled by the 110th Division became too great and it was decided to create a new command to oversee the southern regions of Mindanao surrounding Davao. The new command was to be the 107th Division and Clyde Childress, now a Lt. Colonel, was given command. His main objective was the protection of Fertig’s new headquarters deep in the interior of Mindanao at the town of Waloe on the Agusan River. It was in this pursuit that Clyde Childress won the Silver Star Medal for gallantry in action.

In March 1944 the Japanese forces made a huge push into the Agusan region of Mindanao. They had learned that supply submarines had been arriving there and also that Fertig had moved his headquarters to that area. Pushing up the west bank of the Agusan River they were met by the forces of Major Khalil Khodr, a regimental commander of the 110th Division. On March 17th, Lt. Col. Childress arrived with some forces of his 107th Division. There at the battle of Vitos Hill, Childress singlehandedly manned a 37mm artillery piece and drove off the Japanese as his and Khodr’s men captured the hill. Childress was awarded the Silver Star for this action.

Throughout the guerrilla war on Mindanao, Colonel Wendell Fertig leaned heavily upon the talents of Childress and McLish, but as the war progressed he developed a deep distrust of them. It was a process he would repeat with many of the men he led on Mindanao. His reports on the two men were always glowing, yet in his diary he would gripe or demean things they did. Face to face, Fertig was friendly, but behind their backs he “bad mouthed” them to headquarters and other guerrillas. After MacArthur’s return to the Philippines with the landing on the island of Leyte in October, 1944, many of the guerrillas wanted to rejoin the American forces and leave the stress filled life of a guerrilla; always looking over your shoulder, eating next to nothing, and always suffering from some tropical ailment. McLish and Childress both opted to leave Mindanao shortly after the return of the Americans. In December 1944, both Childress and McLish left Mindanao by PT boat for American headquarters at Leyte. Both arrived on Leyte to find that Fertig had stabbed them in the back. He had sent reports saying they were disloyal, incompetent, and had done little for the effort in Mindanao. It was a bitter pill to swallow for the two men who had done more for the guerrilla effort on Mindanao than perhaps any other soldiers.

All About Guns Allies War Well I thought it was neat!

The Yangtze Incident – Britain’s Last Battle in China 1949

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Post date January 11, 2024
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OLD WEST CCW BOOT GUNS AND BABY DRAGOONS WRITTEN BY MIKE “DUKE” VENTURINO

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Post date January 10, 2024
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TOP: Colt Richards Conversion .44 with barrel snubbed to 3″.
SECOND FROM TOP: Colt Sheriff’s Model .44-40 with 3″ barrel.
THIRD FROM TOP: Merwin & Hulbert .44-40 with 3.5″ barrel.
BOTTOM: S&W Model 1881DA .44 Russian with 4″ barrel.

The Colt Baby Dragoon .31 (bottom) was a scaled-down version
of the huge 4-pound Colt Dragoon .44 (top).

Hollywood would have us think that back in the “Wild West” every man went about his daily affairs packing a big sixgun in a leather holster on his belt. NOT! Drovers, Frontiersmen and Indian Scouts likely did, and of course Texas Rangers and all sorts of other lawmen certainly carried handguns openly.

Not so town and city dwellers. Pocket pistols were a hot item in the Old West. Town dwellers and well dressed travelers also packed iron, at first actually in pockets. As the trend progressed to bigger and more powerful they were often concealed in a holster under a coat. Consider this; Colt and S&W alone produced well over a million concealment-intended handguns between 1848 and 1900. That’s amazing considering the population of the United States in that era.

Concealable handguns were so hot an item that it’s a fact when Sam Colt got his firearms-manufacturing business up and running the second time in the late 1840s, one of his first concerns was coming up with good “pocket pistols.” That was in 1848 and those little babies were only .31 caliber, and five-shooters to boot. Collectors even call them Baby Dragoons, after the huge 4-pound horse-carried Colt Dragoon revolvers they were based upon. Even by modern standards a Baby Dragoon was light at only 22 ounces with a 4″ barrel.

Lawmen certainly went openly armed. This turn of the century Texas Ranger was named Jules Baker. Photo courtesy Herb Peck Jr. Collection.

Merwin & Hulbert offered their Pocket Army .44s with twin barrel sets.
They were 3.5″ and 7″ and could be changed in seconds.

Cowboys and outdoorsmen likewise went openly armed.
Photo courtesy Herb Peck Jr. Collection.

The Bad News

That was the good news. The bad news was they were punch handicapped. With really hot loads, they were popping to break 700 fps with a 48-grain round ball. In foot-pounds of energy that’s sort of in-between a .22 Short and .22 Long. After those five pipsqueak charges were fired it would take an experienced shooter about 10 minutes to get them up and running again. The gun had to be broken into three pieces for reloading. I doubt if many wayfarers gave up their Bowie knives upon buying a Baby Dragoon.

But get this — Sam Colt sold 15,000 of those little .31s in only a year or so and then upgraded to a Model 1849. It used the same frame but with a loading lever beneath the barrel. Reload time was cut at least in half. Hear this too. The Colt factory turned out more than 325,000 of them before production ceased in 1873. That’s 24 years. It took Colt 68 years and several government contracts to produce 357,000 Colt Peacemakers. Who says people in the old days didn’t carry concealed?

Those gun-toters weren’t stupid either. They knew the little .31s were puny. Using the rebated cylinder design Colt eventually put five-shot .36 caliber cylinders on the little Model 1849 frame and called them Model 1862s. (Collectors named them Pocket Navy and Pocket Police depending on their exact configuration.) Those would push an 80-grain round ball all the way to 850 fps. That brought pocket pistol power up to .32 ACP ballistics. Things were humming then.

This Colt Richards Conversion may be snubbed off, but it would still
look dangerous from across a card table.

These are Model 1862 .36s. Front is Pocket Police. Rear is Pocket Navy.

Metallic Magic

Now think in terms of metallic cartridges. S&W actually got their business up and rolling in the 1850s and 1860s with concealed-carry-type handguns. This was their No. 1, which actually was the introductory vehicle for the .22 Short. Between 1857 and 1881 they sold over a quarter million of those itsy-bitsy little SAs.

Today’s cowboy-action shooters would be perfectly happy with those puny popguns. Heck they even try to make their big .45s recoil like .22 Shorts. But, back in those days when you didn’t smoke up your assailant’s sorry butt with the handgun, a knife fight likely commenced. People really wanted more power from their CCW guns.

For that reason, in 1876 S&W introduced the .38 S&W cartridge for pocket handguns and the revolver introduced along with it has always been known as the Baby Russian. (Gun people of the late 1800s sure liked that “baby” moniker.) It was so called because the design was scaled down from large frame revolvers the company was making for the Russian Government. A year later Colt came up with their idea of a concealed carry, cartridge firing handgun and this one was even DA! The Colt Model 1877DA was made in .38 Colt and .41 Colt calibers. Somehow they then became dubbed “Lightning” and “Thunderer” respectively.

None of these new concealed weapon calibers struck like lightning. The .38 S&W had loads with 145- to 150-grain bullets over 14 or 15 grains of black powder, while the .38 Colt load used 150-grain bullets over a whopping 19 grains of the same. The .41 Colt was loaded with 200-grain bullets and about 21 grains of black powder. None of these loads could have given over 750 fps, even from a long barreled revolver. Still they were better than a .22 Short. At last people started leaving the Bowie knives at home.

These mid-sized concealed. concealables were introduced in the
1870s. Top to bottom: Merwin & Hulbert Pocket .38, Colt Lightning
.38 and a Colt Thunderer .41.

The rise of trouser belt loops actually made it possible for larger more powerful handguns to be holstercarried while These mid-sized concealed.

Early concealment handguns were meant for pocket carry.

Little Big Guns

Another trend in CCWs got started circa the late 1870s and early 1880s. That was when gun-toters began packing short-barreled versions of big revolvers in holsters under their coats, instead of a diminutive one in their pocket. A for instance would be the so-called Colt SAA Sheriff’s Model with 3″ barrel and no ejector rod or housing. By this time S&W was also making its SA New Model No. 3 with short barrels, and their Model 1881DA was simply the No. 3 adapted to a DA trigger mechanism. It was common with 4″ barrel.

Why the change about that time? Because trouser belts for men became common. Now, I’m no expert on Old West clothing, but my seamstress wife does have some antique pattern catalogs from that era showing men’s pants starting to have belt loops Hence there was finally something to hitch a revolver holster onto without giving obvious notice the wearer was packing iron.

Old West gunmen were also known to have gunsmiths aid them in their quest for concealable handguns, and also to find innovative ways to pack them. For instance around 1881 El Paso City Marshall Dallas Stoudenmire was known to pack a Colt Richards Conversion .44 with its barrel shortened from 8″ to only 3″. Then he had a special leather-lined pocket built into his trousers to house it. By the 1890s shoulder holsters were common. Reformed outlaw John Wesley Hardin was packing either or both a Colt Lightning and S&W Model 1881DA in
such a rig when he was gunned down in an El Paso saloon.

After its five tiny round balls were fired the Colt Baby Dragoon .31 had to be dismantled to three pieces for reloading.

As concealed-carry handguns got more powerful, fighting knives got smaller.
Left: Colt Baby Dragoon .31 & Steve Brooks Bowie knife. Right: Colt Sheriff’s
Model .44-40 with dagger by unknown maker.

Other Ideas

Some companies got downright brilliant about concealed-carry and self-defense handguns. Merwin & Hulbert for instance offered a Pocket Army .44. It was a normal-sized sixgun and much too large to carry in a pocket. But, they offered the option of two pre-fitted barrels. One was 7″ long and the other 3.5″. They could be switched in a matter of seconds. The idea was for the long barrel to be worn openly on the trail, and then the short one replaced for concealed carry. Then M&H took matters one step further. The revolver’s butt came to a point called the “skullcrusher” for when altercations became more intimate. Wouldn’t lawyers have a field day with that now?

Over the years I’ve managed to add an assortment of Old West concealed carry weapons to my shooting collection of handguns. A Baby Dragoon .31 and both versions of Model 1862 .36s are from Colt’s second generation of cap & ball revolver production of the late 1970s and early 1980s. There’s also an S&W Model 1881DA .44 Russian, a Merwin & Hulbert Pocket Army, and a Colt SAA Sheriff’s Model. Both of those are .44-40s. Some years back I even went to the trouble of having Wisconsin gunsmith Kenny Howell build me a facsimile Richards
Conversion .44 with snubbed-off barrel similar to Dallas Stoudenmire’s favored concealed sixgun. It’s in the original .44 Colt caliber.

The little S&W No. 1s and Baby Russians have eluded me so far but there is a “Baby” Merwin & Hulbert .38 in my collection that is of similar size and power to the S&W Baby Russian. Also, about this time someone is likely thinking, “What about derringers? The dummy is forgetting them.” No I’m not. I’ve just never been interested in them, and won’t blow smoke up your wazoo and say someday I’ll do an article covering derringers. Somebody else can do that. This is a revolver article.

The puny Baby Dragoon .31 penetrated two 7/8″ boards and lodged in the third.

The point of a Merwin & Hulbert’s butt was called “The Skullcrusher.”

Duke’s Opinion

So here’s my take on Old West concealed-carry handguns. The little .31 caliber Colts were better than nothing, but if you had to take on someone with one you better hope they weren’t wearing a lot of clothing or a heavy leather vest. I shot mine into a baffle box and it went through two 7/8″ pine boards and lodged in the third. I think it was these pipsqueaks that gave rise to the legends
of pocket bibles or a sheriff’s badge stopping a bullet. Ditto in spades for the S&W No. 1 .22 Short.

The S&W Baby Russian and M&H .38s were a great step up. They were still compact enough to actually be pocket-carried, and yet have a modicum of pistol power. There are plenty of accounts about wounds from guns like that causing death from infection days or weeks after a gunfight. Unfortunately, often it was the bad guy that expired weeks later while the good guy was beaten or knifed to death at the scene. They weren’t stoppers.

That leaves us with the short-barreled, big-bore revolvers meant to be holster-carried. Actually they were pretty good self-defense handguns. The .44 Russian would have had a 246- to 255-grain bullet over 23 grains of black powder. From a 3″ or 4″ barrel that load gives 725 to 750 fps. The .44-40 load would have a 200- grain bullet over a full 40-grain charge. It was snorty! Even from a 3″ or 3.5″ barrel it will break 800 fps. If none of that impresses you “modern” guys then just think again. In terms of muzzle energy those ballistics pretty much equal a .45 ACP from one of the compact Model 1911s.

Personally, if I had been walking the streets of a tough town in the 1880s, and had my choice of what to carry concealed, it would be a toss up between the S&W Model 1881DA .44 Russian, or the Merwin & Hulbert .44-40. The Colt Sheriff’s Model .44-40 is attractive but it would be my third choice just because of the slow reload factor. Both the S&W and M&H offer simultaneous cartridge extraction.

And then I would have slipped an S&W or M&H “Baby” .38 in a pocket for backup — and had a knife in my boot too. And if you were a bad guy after me then, you might keep in mind I might have a good friend nearby equally ready. Like Clint Smith says, “Always cheat, always win.”

A COLT ANACONDA WITH a 4 INCH BARREL in the manly caliber of .44 Mag.

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Post date January 10, 2024
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Was I Wrong About The 357 Magnum Carbine? ?

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Post date January 10, 2024
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