“What do you need all those guns for, anyway?”
Many the gun nerd’s dreams have been crushed by that simple query. I have myself fielded that very question on numerous occasions. I like to think I’ve gotten fairly good at it.
Have you ever worked on a car? A box wrench is a lousy tool for removing screws, and a hammer renders suboptimal service cleaning your battery terminals. When it comes to automotive maintenance, there are different tools for different tasks. So it is in the gun world as well.
If you are scooting out to the local Shop-n-Grab to pick up a gallon of milk and some unmentionables for your wife, then you need a pocket gun you can drop into your cargo shorts. If you want to kill a lazy Saturday afternoon transforming .22 into noise then you need a handy rimfire and a bunch of empty Coke cans. If you’re securing your hacienda against bipedal predators, then a SAINT AR-15 is your go-to iron. But what if zombies show up driving cars?
It’s not as ludicrous as it sounds. The 5.56mm is a proven social cartridge, but it doesn’t pack a great deal of downrange horsepower. If you live way out in the sticks as do I then it might be half an hour between dialing 911 and having the cavalry roar up the drive. To help me pass those 30 long minutes I want something with some reach that will reliably punch deep. That means .30-caliber power and Springfield Armory awesome. I fill that niche with a tricked-out M1A SOCOM 16.
Origins
The 7.62x51mm M14 served on the front lines for about a decade. An interim design between John Cantius Garand’s World War II masterpiece and Gene Stoner’s space age wondergun, the M14 offered a proven reliable autoloading action fed by a detachable box magazine. The inimitable ergonomics and downrange horsepower made it a true rifleman’s rifle while keeping it in military service in one capacity or another for more than half a century.
Springfield Armory offers the basic M14 platform in a bewildering array of configurations as the semi-automatic M1A. The most advanced in my opinion is the SOCOM 16 CQB. Featuring John Garand’s classic action nestled within an optimized Archangel polymer stock, the SOCOM 16 CQB makes this venerable rifle competitive with any modern iron.
My SOCOM came with a Vortex Venom red dot sight and a flared magazine well for fast reloads. The safety is still a pivoting tab in the front of the trigger guard that doesn’t care which hand you favor. The charging handle reciprocates with the bolt so you can manhandle the thing in the profoundly unlikely event of a stoppage. M-LOK slots allow copious accessorizing, while generous sling sockets enhance portage. With this as a starting point, I took my SOCOM to the next level. You know, for those zombies in cars.
Tactical Enhancements
I have a Silent Legion Multi Caliber Suppressor Kit that includes a high-efficiency .30-caliber sound suppressor and four different mounts for both 5.56mm and 7.62mm weapons. Thread mounts affix directly, while proprietary flash suppressor mounts make quick attachment and detachment a snap. The problem is that the threads on the SOCOM muzzle are a bit non-standard.
The muzzle device on the SOCOM is a stubby little ventilated thing that does a splendid job of mitigating the chaos up front. However, I wanted to mount up my quick-detach flash suppressor. That took a little searching.
You can find most anything on GunBroker. A professionally executed muzzle adapter that fits painlessly onto my gas block and sports standard 5/8×24 threads set me back $60. Mounting the thing up took maybe 10 minutes, even swapping over the luminous front sight blade. Tighten it down and the gas plug keeps everything snug. A spot of thread locker and the flash suppressor mount is there for the duration.
I added a Magpul hand stop and a Streamlight TLR-8 combination light and laser to complete the ensemble. The hand stop puts my weak hand in the same spot every time, while the TLR-8 dispels the darkness and keeps me on target day or night. Thus equipped, I am ready for any reasonable threat as well as most of the unreasonable sorts as well.
Ruminations
My tricked out SOCOM 16 sits alongside my favorite 5.56mm black rifle as well as a 9mm carbine ready to defend the household, come what may. Just like car maintenance, I grab the best tool for the task. Keeping sharp on them all takes practice, but it’s not like that’s work. If you live in the sort of place where the zombies might wear soft body armor and show up in a caravan, a nicely accessorized SOCOM 16 is just the right tool — or just a really cool gun to own. I’ll leave it to you to decide.
Now do not get me wrong from reading what I wrote above. The 28 was & is one hell of a great pistol. Especial with my Custom Shop 29 that my Old Buddy Bill Chun gave me a few years ago.
Just do not ask me to fire full load Magnum rounds with it. But if I am allowed to shoot 44 specials with it. I think that I can still do all right with it at the range!
Radek Kucharski courtesy Flickr
President Joe Biden (D) has long made his anti-gun goals clear on his path to the White House. Now, just before the midterm election on Nov. 8, the White House is saying that the president will “do everything in his power” to bring his gun-control agenda to fruition.
In a statement released late in the evening of Nov. 1, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “Gun violence in this country is an epidemic that will not end with thoughts and prayers alone. President Biden will continue to do everything in his power to reduce gun violence, including by calling on Congress to increase community violence intervention funding, ensure universal background checks, and send legislation to his desk banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”
Let’s break this statement down.
To start, Jean-Pierre peddled the false claim that firearms ownership is somehow a sickness of sorts. The exercise of a constitutional right is hardly an illness. Charles C.W. Cooke aptly summed this up when he wrote, “Politicians who don’t believe you should have Second Amendment rights have often tried to hide their gun-control laws in arguments for ‘public health.’ The idea is to turn a matter of elementary liberty into a crisis that mandates instant action.”
Anti-Second Amendment politicians have repeatedly claimed that there is a “gun-violence epidemic,” which, according to them, necessitates curtailing the rights of law-abiding citizens. In actuality, firearms are simply tools.
Jean-Pierre then said that President Biden will “do everything in his power” to enact “universal background checks” and to ban so-called “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines.”
These proposed background checks on private gun loans, gifts and sales would never be “universal,” as the criminal element in our society—which is the actual problem, by the way—will not comply to mandated background checks. Only the law-abiding will. Therefore, control of lawfully armed citizens is actually what this entire legislative idea is about.
As for “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines,” these are also (surprise!) loaded terms invented purely for political purposes. It seems that Biden is attempting to revive a version of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which was found to have had a negligible effect, if any, on crime according to a congressionally mandated study.
We’ve detailed and debunked these policies numerous times, and repeatedly explained the danger of using these falsified terms. The “assault weapons” Biden seeks to ban are simply semi-automatic firearms, of which there are reportedly more than 24.4 million rifles alone in circulation. Then there is arguably the most popular self-defense handgun—the 9 mm semi-automatic—which numbers in the tens-of-millions, and which Biden has also referred to as “assault weapons” and called for banning. As for “high-capacity magazines,” Biden likes to say nobody needs 100 rounds in a magazine, but then labels magazines holding 10 or more rounds as “high capacity.” More recently, he seems to have changed his definition of “high-capacity magazine” to one that holds more than eight rounds. A 2021 estimate from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) reports there are over 300 million of these magazines in circulation already.
Rather than address the criminal element within society, this administration once again seeks to punish the law-abiding. Though the call for gun control from the Biden administration isn’t new, the renewed effort to “do everything in his power” to pass what is clearly an unpopular and unconstitutional agenda is troubling.
Jean-Pierre, like her predecessor and president, is ill-informed about American freedom. Voters will have the chance to tell them as much on Nov. 8.