WAS YOUR PRIVATE INFORMATION LEAKED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE?
IF SO, PAY ATTENTION TO THIS URGENT ALERT AND UPDATE
REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED? On June 28, 2022, it was reported that California gun owners had been put at risk by the Attorney General’s office after a new “dashboard” disclosed the personal data of CCW holders and applicants for the past ten years, as well as those on the Assault Weapons Registry, plus the entire Dealer Record of Sale database and those on the Gun Violence Restraining Order list.
WHAT STEPS WERE IMMEDIATELY TAKEN? Gun Owners of California as well as other Second Amendment groups immediately got to work informing gun owners of this egregious and illegal release of private data, and began to collect information as to what would be the most effective way to hold the DOJ responsible. Research on how to proceed with a class action lawsuit was set in motion and it was ultimately determined that this path would not stand up in court as the damages from the leak would vary between affected individuals.
WHAT IS THE STATUS NOW? An out-of-state Second Amendment group filed a class action lawsuit last summer, but this was recently dropped, which means that there is no legal action currently being pursued against the DOJ for the release of confidential data.
THESE ARE THE NEXT STEPS FOR THOSE WHOSE DATA WAS LEAKED: We know – this is frustrating, but it is important. If you want to protect your right to pursue legal action in the future, it is imperative that you fill out an Administrative Claim Form (link to form below). An Administrative Claim Form puts the state on notice that a claim may be filed.
DOES THIS MEAN I WILL BE OBLIGATED TO PURSUE LEGAL ACTION? NO, it simply preserves your right should you want to pursue it in the future.
WHAT GOC RECOMMENDS: As infuriating as this is, this is the most appropriate legal recourse at this time. We strongly believe every single person whose confidential data was leaked to the internet and beyond should protect their future interests and fill out the form. There is a cost of $25 and there is no binding obligation, but it is important that the State of California hears from all of us. This is a small cost to pay to preserve your rights.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE CLAIM FORM MUST BE FILED BY DECEMBER 27, 2022. It is self-explanatory, is fillable online and includes details where to send it.
If you are, however, interested in pursuing an immediate lawsuit against the Department of Justice for this extraordinary violation of privacy, the legal team at Michel and Associates have provided a draft legal complaint HERE.
Remember, the deadline to preserve your right to sue the Department of Justice is December 27, 2022.
Even though California lawmakers are sure to take a swipe at the right to bear arms when they return to Sacramento to kick off the 2023 legislative session, gun owners in one of the state’s most hostile environments for the Second Amendment are still flocking to their local sheriff’s office to apply for their concealed handgun permit.
The high demand has left many departments unable to keep up, including in Contra Costa County, where sheriff’s department spokesman Jimmy Lee says the surge in applications has been overwhelming.
Prior to this decision, the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office would typically receive about 20 concealed carry weapon applications each month, which would be processed by one employee, Lee said.
Since the decision in June, the Sheriff’s Office has been receiving “several hundred” applications a month and now has a backlog of over 1,000 applications.
The reason why applications were so low before the Bruen decision is simple; folks knew they stood little chance of being approved. Contra Costa County had about 500 active concealed handgun permits before the Supreme Court decision was handed down; an absurdly small number considering more than 1-million people call the county home. And some gun owners in the county say that even after the Bruen decision, it doesn’t feel like much has changed.
Scores of hopeful applicants recently resorted to Reddit and online forums to complain about the situation in Contra Costa, while arguing that officials there should do more to hasten the application process. Many complained that they’ve received few responses from sheriff’s offices to even the most basic inquiries about the process.
“There’s a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding with the actual process because the information on the sheriff’s website is so vague,” said Alex Urikh, 21, of Walnut Creek. He accused the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office of “dragging their feet,” while lamenting that other gun owners across the state had experienced similar delays.
Other Bay Area-counties are seeing similar delays. The East Bay Times reports that there are currently about 1,500 applications waiting to be processed in Alameda County, where only 300 residents possessed a carry permit before the Bruen decision was handed down. Lt. Ray Kelly with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office says the department is now considering letting local police departments handle applications in the hopes they might be processed in a more timely fashion.
Simply put, the sheriff’s office doesn’t have the resources to handle the crushing demand for permits, Kelly said. Of the roughly 1,500 applications received by the agency, only about a couple dozen have been granted due to the paperwork and bureaucratic difficulty of processing each request, he said.
“We’ve never seen this number before,” said Kelly, adding that other law enforcement agencies in the Bay Area have encountered similar increases. “It’s a massive change in the way we do business, based on the Supreme Court ruling.”
In contrast, the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office said Thursday it plans to hire a sergeant and at least one more specialist to help process applications. Exactly when that backlog will begin to ease, however, remains unclear. The agency did not respond to messages seeking how many permits it had approved since the Supreme Court’s ruling in June.
SCOTUS warned in the Bruen decision that while “shall-issue” licensing laws were constitutional, if they resulted in lengthy delays for approvals or tacked on outrageously high fees in an attempt to dissuade citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights then those policies could rightfully be called into question.
Given the glacial pace of issuing gun permits in these California counties (San Francisco, for example, has received just 65 carry applications since June but has yet to approve a single one), it might be time to haul these officials into court to force them to comply with the Bruen decision. A right delayed is a right denied, and there are thousands of Californians right now who are being deprived of a fundamental civil right because of the toxic mix of government bureaucracy and anti-gun ideology.
Throughout the human experience, there has been any number of weapons that fundamentally changed the way wars were fought. The Roman pilum and gladius, skillfully wielded, subdued the civilized world and poured tribute uncountable into the city-state of Rome. The British Brown Bess musket helped spread the Pax Britannia around the globe. In the 1930s, the Germans secretly contrived a gun that changed absolutely everything about infantry combat. The MG 34 started a revolution that burns brightly even today.
The German MG 34 general purpose machinegun revolutionized infantry tactics.
Root Causes
Before the MG 34, the infantry was organized around the rifle. Hundreds of thousands of Americans on both sides died during the American Civil War lined up in massive vulnerable formations designed solely to maximize the effectiveness of their slow-firing percussion weapons. In the hemoclysm that was World War I, it was the infantryman with his rifle who fought to seize and hold terrain. With the man-portable MG 34, however, a single mobile machine gun team could transport serious supporting automatic fire anyplace a man could walk. Warfare would never be the same.
Recoil-operated, air-cooled and portable, the MG 34 delivered devastating mobile firepower.
Origin Story
The MG 34 was developed in 1934 and issued to combat troops in 1936. A recoil-operated, air-cooled design, the MG 34 was an absolute nightmare to build. Everything about the gun is meticulously machined out of big chunks of forged steel. However, in the Einheitsmaschinengewehr (or “Universal Machine Gun”) we see the face of the future.
The MG 34 provided a remarkably lightweight machine gun that could lay down serious firepower.
During World War I, the world received its rude awakening to total war in the Industrial Age. Before it was finally over in 1918, some 16 million people perished. No Man’s Land was dominated by belt-fed German Maxim and English Vickers, guns both driven by a common action designed by the American-born Englishman Hiram Stevens Maxim.
The MG 34’s portability represented a conceptual quantum leap in machine gun design.
These heavy machine guns fired from fixed positions and were water-cooled to facilitate protracted firing. In fact, in one 1916 engagement, the British 100th Company of the Machine Gun Corps fired a million rounds through ten Vickers guns in one 12 hour period. They burned through 100 barrels but purportedly did not have a single stoppage.
The two-position trigger on the MG 34 offered instant access to either semi-auto or full-auto fire.
As devastating as these revolutionary weapons were, however, they were just not portable. The German MG08/15 was a legitimate effort, but at nearly 40 lbs. without ammo or water for its cooling jacket the MG08/15 was still grueling to carry, particularly in rough terrain. The MG 34 was the world’s first successful effort at producing a belt-fed light machine gun that could conceivably be hefted, moved and fired by a single gunner on a modern battlefield.
The MG 34 features an integral bipod for prone firing.
Details
The MG 34 weighs 26.7 lbs. empty and fires the German standard 7.92x57mm round at a cyclic rate of around 900 rounds per minute. The gun runs from the open bolt to enhance cooling and can be fired offhand or off of its integral bipod, a collapsible Lafette tripod, or an antiaircraft rig. Dual two-gun antiaircraft mounts were also used to enhance firepower.
The MG 34’s rear sight was slide adjustable out to 2,000 meters.
The gun is selective fire via a novel two-stage trigger. Pressure on the top part of the trigger produces semi-auto fire. Pulling the bottom bit is full-auto. The gun typically feeds from 50-round non-disintegrating reusable steel belts that can be hooked together as needed. There is a two-drum spring-loaded saddle magazine contraption that can feed the gun as well, but this requires a dedicated top cover adaptor. The gun was frequently equipped with a small sheet steel 50-round drum that kept the ammo out of the dirt.
The conical recoil booster mounted on the muzzle helped power the gun’s complicated mechanism.
The MG 34 featured a novel quick-change barrel mechanism as well. To swap out the barrels you lock the bolt to the rear and press the receiver release catch at the base of the barrel jacket. Rotate the receiver assembly clear and the barrel can be removed from the rear. Care must be exercised when the barrel is hot lest you roast your fingers.
The MG 34 includes flip-up sights both front and back as well as a detachable antiaircraft ring sight of dubious effectiveness. The Lafette tripod weighs 44 lbs. and is more complicated than the space shuttle. But, it was undeniably effective. The Lafette system included an optical sight and a cool spring-loaded soft mount that helped dampen the gun’s recoil.
The exquisitely made MG 34 operates from the open bolt position.
Trigger Time
At 900 rounds per minute, the MG 34 is a bit feisty for my tastes. American M1919-series machine guns cycled at a sedate 500 rounds per minute to facilitate sustained searching fire. By contrast, the German MG 34 and the equally revolutionary MG 42 that followed fired fast on the assumption that targets on the modern battlefield would be fleeting and rare. The end result is that the MG 34 can seem a bit of a handful.
The bipod on the MG 34 has an annoying tendency to collapse backwards under recoil. Lean into the gun and this can be avoided. However, that is one more thing to try to remember when folks are shooting at you.
Precisely machined from steel forgings, the MG 34 was a machinist’s nightmare to produce.
Every MG 34 I have encountered has been relatively finicky. They are all at least 75 years old nowadays and were originally built like sewing machines. Getting a surplus MG 34 to run reliably and well takes a bit of a jeweler’s touch along with a fair amount of experience and quality ammo.
Prior to the MG 34, grunts would engage in fire and maneuver based solely upon the capabilities of their rifles. After the advent of the MG 34, infantry operations orbited around the portable machine gun. Individual riflemen, therefore, existed to support and defend the machine gun team. So it remains today.
The MG 34 fed from non-disintegrating 50-round linkable belts. This drum helps keep crud away from the ammo in dirty conditions.
Conclusion
The MG 34 was expensive to produce, difficult to maintain and a bear to hump. However, it also changed the way the world fought wars. To paw over a vintage copy today is to touch a piece of history. Used from the beginning of World War II all the way through the Syrian Civil War today, the German MG 34 is one of the most influential machine guns in history.
Special thanks to www.worldwarsupply.com for the vintage reproduction gear used in the preparation of this article.
TG-638 stacked alongside his peers in the tight passageway of the Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer Devastator. The pursuit of the Rebel blockade runner Tantive IV had seemed interminable. However, now that the Rebel ship was secured inside the destroyer’s hangar bay it was showtime. TG-638 had trained since childhood for this moment. TG-638 was an Imperial Stormtrooper.
TG-638 and his mates from the 501st Legion were in the first wave. His breath came in furtive spurts as the engineers placed line charges on the sealed airlock. Not all of his anxiety, however, spawned from the Rebels lurking behind the bulkhead.
The BlasTech E-11 Stormtrooper Blaster armed the Imperial legions throughout most of the “Star Wars” films.
The Dark Lord of the Sith stood alongside silent and implacable, his lightsaber hanging inert in his right hand. TG-638 had never before seen Vader, but his reputation preceded him. Between armed Rebel troops and Vader’s saber, TG-638 would choose to face the Rebels any day.
The blinding flash momentarily overwhelmed his visor, and blaster bolts illuminated the passageway. The point man went down, a smoking hole in the center of his white chest armor the size of a Mynoch egg. TG-638 was number six through the breach.
The E-11 Blaster props from the “Star Wars” movies were crafted from British Mk IV Sterling submachine guns.
The lead fire team clearly couldn’t hit the broad side of a bantha. TG-638 raised his issue BlasTech E-11 Blaster, thumbed off the safety and liberally sprayed the passage with directed energy bolts. Then he heard the distinctive throb of Vader’s lightsaber. TG-638 stepped over the bodies of his comrades just as the Dark Lord strode past like a specter, his saber absorbing and deflecting incoming Rebel fire. Despite the cold synthetic nature of his Stormtrooper armor, TG-638 shivered.
The Phenomenon
I really like Star Wars. In 1977 when Star Wars hit theaters I was 11. Playground intel told of some amazing new science fiction movie. The Bad Guy was this big dude in a space suit. I envisioned Kareem Abdu Jabbar dressed in Neil Armstrong’s NASA moon rig. Then I actually saw the film. Wow.
Will is a huge fan of “Star Wars”, and that led to the project you see here.
Of course I collected the ships and figures. Most everybody did that. George Lucas purportedly forewent a substantial percentage of his salary in exchange for the marketing rights. That guy was brilliant. My obsession went somewhat deeper, however. How deep might you ask?
Well, the skeletal beast that the droids pass in the Tatooine desert is that of a Greater Krayt Dragon. Han Solo’s operating number when he was traipsing about the Death Star in stolen Stormtrooper armor was TK-421. The princess was being held in Cell 2187, Sub-Level 5, Detention Block AA-23. When finally I came of age and accumulated a few resources, it was time to take everything to the next level.
Will’s “Blaster” features extruded aluminum cooling fins on the barrel shroud that were formed from U-channel stock from Home Depot.
The Apex Predator
Per the back story, the BlasTech E-11 Blaster is the standard issue weapon for the Imperial Stormtrooper Legions. The E-11 features settings for kill, stun and sting, and the onboard power cells are good for about two hundred rounds. The telescopic sight includes a built-in rangefinder, while the collapsible stock has three positions. Despite their fearsome reputation, Stormtrooper marksmanship always seemed underwhelming. Perhaps there was a dearth of available range space onboard the Death Star.
Original WWII-era M47 tank optics are rarer than honest politicians. Will was fortunate to trip over this example on an online gun auction site.
The studio work for Star Wars was undertaken in England. In the 1970’s in the UK movie production companies had access to fairly current military weapons. The movie props used in the original film were standard Mk IV Sterling submachineguns outfitted with a little gratuitous window dressing.
The first Star Wars prop weapons were produced by Bapty and Co., the same British movie weapons concern that provided the guns for Aliens. Standard issue Sterling submachineguns were fitted with six linear grips running down the barrel shroud made from rubber T-Track. This same material was used to form the grip on Luke’s lightsaber, itself originally a Graflex flash gun from an antique camera.
You can see the M47’s markings here with 1942 manufacture date.
The scope was a 1942-era M47 telescopic sight from a Sherman tank mounted backwards. A Hengstler Corporation industrial counter box was affixed near the magazine well along with two small cylinders and a handful of random coiled wires. 34-round Sterling magazines were cut down to make the stubby versions used in the film.
There were both blank-firing blasters and inert dummy versions made for the first movie, Episode IV. The astute Star Wars nerd can catch sight of empty cases ejecting out of the weapons during the combat sequences. There were also minor variations from gun to gun as pieces fell off or were added during production.
Will crafted the stubby magazine for the Blaster from an inexpensive Sten mag rather than the more rare and expensive Sterling magazines.
A Live Blaster
I have actually built two of these weapons. The host for this example began life as a 9mm Sterling. The cooling fins on the barrel shroud are formed from aluminum U-stock from Home Depot mounted with machine screws and small wing nuts.
I could not bring myself to destroy one of those magnificent Sterling magazines for this project, so my stubby mag is fabricated from that of a Sten. The Sterling was designed from the outset to accommodate Sten mags as well. The left-sided magazine means that Stormtroopers carry their weapons in a holster on the left thigh. Many troopers in the movie fire their weapons left-handed as a result.
You can see an original curved Sterling magazine next to the cut-down Sten mag.
My first effort used a cheap Chinese red dot on an improvised aluminum mount. However, I serendipitously tripped over an original WWII-vintage M47 Sherman tank sight on GunBroker and did what it took to make it mine. I finished out the whole rig with bake-on ceramic engine block paint from my local auto parts store.
One of these guns is not like the others — but they all fire!
The gun weighs 6 lbs. and is fairly miserable to shoot off-hand. It seems I also can’t hit the broad side of a bantha. However, when run from the hip at the local firing range, my BlasTech E-11 Imperial Blaster does reliably draw a crowd.
