Categories
Good News for a change!

Gary Plauche: The Raw Reality of Revenge by WILL DABBS

What possessed the brain damaged art director for this cheesy 1980’s action movie to affix Arnold Schwarzenegger’s grenades to his web gear by their pins? Methinks these guys have likely never handled live grenades. Wow.

“Somewhere, somehow, somebody’s going to pay,” was the tagline for the 1985 Schwarzenegger action movie Commando. This classic stylized bloodbath orbited around a retired special operator named John Matrix whose daughter is kidnapped. The archetypal evil mastermind takes the little girl in an effort at motivating Schwarzenegger’s super-soldier character to overthrow a small island nation-state on his behalf. The central theme, should you wish to think this deeply about it, explores the limits to which a devoted father might go to protect his child.

This was one of my favorite scenes from the movie. A dumpy Vernon Wells accuses the utterly shredded John Matrix of getting too old to fight. Incidentally, Wells also played the lunatic villain Wez in the Australian post-apocalyptic classic The Road Warrior.

According to www.moviebodycounts.com, for his era, Arnold Schwarzenegger was Hollywood’s deadliest actor as determined by total on-screen kill count. Commando was his bloodiest movie by the same metric. His record has since been eclipsed by more modern fare, but he was the unchallenged 1980’s king of gory vengeance. As an aside, one scene that was proposed but later cut had Schwarzenegger chopping a henchman’s arm off with a machete and then beating him to death with it. His dialogue was to have been, “Thanks for lending me a hand.” Sheesh…

The M202 FLASH launcher fired 66mm incendiary rockets and was intended to replace WW2-era flamethrowers. FLASH stood for FLame Assault SHoulder. It must have been a slow day in the US Army’s overworked acronym generation office.

John Matrix logged seventy-four kills in Commando. Among them fifty-one people were shot, seven were blown up by emplaced explosives, and five others succumbed to hand grenades. Another five met their gory demise thanks to an M202 rocket launcher.

A 13-year-old Alyssa Milano catches a ride aboard her perambulating battleship of a movie dad.
Alyssa Milano has come a long way since her big-screen debut as a helpless teenaged girl in the Schwarzenegger kill-fest Commando.

Two faceless disposable bad guys got cut into pieces by thrown circular saw blades, one person was stabbed to death, and one particularly unfortunate rascal was impaled on a hissing steam pipe. As an aside, Schwarzenegger’s youthful daughter Jenny was none other than 13-year-old Alyssa Milano, the modern face of the Me Too movement.

How would you like to wake up to this every day before class? It worked for me while I was in college.

Commando was actually a pretty silly movie. The guns were cool, but the dialogue seemed like it was penned by a Third Grader, and the acting simply reeked of cheese. I’m nonetheless not too proud to admit that I had a life-size movie poster from the film plastered on my dorm room wall back when I was a college student. However, a year before Commando hit the big screen, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, saw a very public example of just how far one real guy might actually go to avenge a crime committed against his child. That guy’s name was Gary Plauche.

The Setting

By all accounts, Gary Plauche was just a normal dude. He coached little league and supported his community.

Leon Gary Plauche was born on November 10, 1945, in Baton Rouge. He served in the US Air Force and attained the rank of Staff Sergeant. After leaving the military he became a heavy equipment salesman and also worked as a cameraman for a local TV station. Though he had a temper, he was known for his affable demeanor and quick jokes. Plauche fathered four children—three boys and a girl. Gary was separated from his wife June in the early 1980s. This was predictably hard on his kids.

In case you were wondering exactly what a real monster looks like, this is it.

In 1983 Gary’s 11-year-old son Jody began taking Hapkido lessons from a 25-year-old ex-Marine named Jeffrey Doucet. Jeff Doucet had humble beginnings. He dropped out of school in Ninth Grade and, as a child, lost a sister to a rattlesnake bite. The discipline and exercise intrinsic to the martial arts seemed good for Jody. Doucet took the kid under his wing and cultivated a bond that appeared to be therapeutic given the circumstances. Doucet was a regular visitor at the Plauche home and frequently gave Jody a ride to the dojo for training.

Jeff Doucet abducted this young man when he was 11. Doucet was later suspected of molesting numerous other local children as well.

Authorities later determined that Jeffrey Doucet had been molesting the young man for more than a year. In February of 1984, Doucet kidnapped Jody and took him to a motel in Anaheim, California, near Disneyland where he sexually assaulted the kid repeatedly. Meanwhile, the authorities scoured the country looking for them both.

Yeah, that’s creepy. Jeffrey Doucet was a master manipulator.

Doucet eventually allowed Jody to make a collect call to his mother. The cops traced the call to the motel and staged a raid. Law Enforcement officers hit the hotel room, rescued the child, and took Doucet into custody without incident.

When faced with an unimaginably horrible circumstance Gary Plauche didn’t really know where to turn.

Jody was returned home on March 1, 1984. Once he was safe the details of the protracted abuse came to light. Gary, who was 39 at the time, was interviewed by a news crew in a ghoulish effort at ascertaining his feelings on the situation. He told the interviewer that he did not know what to do and just felt helpless.

The Setting

It took a little planning to pull off Gary Plauche’s hit. The event in all its gory detail was captured by a local TV news crew.

Two weeks after Jody returned to Louisiana, Jeffrey Doucet was extradited from California to Louisiana to stand trial for child molestation and sexual assault. Doucet’s Flight 595 out of Dallas landed at Ryan Field in Baton Rouge, and Doucet was led through the terminal in handcuffs. Meanwhile, wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses, the aggrieved father Gary Plauche stood nearby at a bank of pay phones speaking with his best friend. He cryptically whispered into the phone, “Here he comes. You’re about to hear a shot.”

Local TV news crews captured Jeffrey Doucet as he returned to Baton Rouge to face justice for pedophilia.

In the immediate aftermath of what was to come it was assumed that local Law Enforcement officers had tipped Plauche off regarding the timing and location of the transfer. Plauche enjoyed friendships with many of the local cops, so this was not an unreasonable assumption. It was later determined, however, that a former co-worker from the local ABC television affiliate WBRZ-TV was Plauche’s source of intel. Then as now tragedy sells, so the media slathered the sordid story with attention.

Though he did not realize it, Jeffrey Doucet was mere moments away from some serious frontier justice.

This bit is all pretty unsettling when you think about it. Humans in the Information Age are drawn to calamity like politicians to other peoples’ money. Throughout this whole ghastly episode, TV crews hounded the major players in search of that Pulitzer-grade image that might graphically capture one man’s anguish in the face of something so epically horrible. At 9:30 pm with the manacled child molester Jeffrey Doucet passing just behind him, Gary Plauche gave the world those images.

The Killing

Sheriff’s Deputy Major Mike Barnett took Plauche down immediately.

Plauche retrieved a small revolver of unknown make from his boot, stepped alongside Doucet, placed the gun to the right side of his head, and fired a single .38-caliber hollowpoint round. The cops subdued him immediately. Plauche’s friend Deputy Sheriff Mike Barnett can be heard on the tape asking him, “Gary, why? Why, Gary?”

Plauche tearfully answered, “If somebody did it to your kid, you’d do it, too!”

The Aftermath

I don’t myself care much for Michael Moore’s work.

The sex criminal Jeffrey Doucet fell into a coma and died in hospital the following day. Video footage of the horrific scene has taken on a life of its own. Michael Moore used it in his anti-gun documentary screed Bowling for Columbine. The clip also featured prominently in an unsettling compilation of real-life video killings titled Traces of Death 2 released in 1994. It was viewed more than 20 million times on YouTube prior to its removal.

This is still America, so Gary Plauche’s tragedy naturally graced a t-shirt.

Gary Plauche was charged with murder in the second degree but subsequently pled no contest to manslaughter. He was given a seven-year suspended sentence along with five years’ probation and 300 hours of community service. He completed all of this in 1989.

The public was naturally mesmerized by this whole horrid tale.

Opinions were mixed on the outcome of the Plauche case. Some felt that shooting a man in the head in cold blood in an airport warranted more than probation and community service. Others believed that the circumstances surrounding the crimes committed against his child absolved him of responsibility. Plauche’s defense team made a compelling argument that Doucet was a charismatic manipulative predator who had used Plauche’s family challenges to take advantage of his son.

Gary Plauche had no criminal record prior to his gunning down a child molester in the Baton Rouge airport.

Psychological assessments alleged that Plauche was so traumatized by these events that he was unable to discern the difference between right and wrong at the time of the killing. Any parent can imagine the unfettered anguish this might precipitate. The judge in the case, Frank Saia, ultimately agreed and opined that Plauche represented no risk of further criminal behavior. He felt that sending Plauche to prison would serve no material purpose for the state.

This guy was just a freaking sociopath.

It was later revealed that Doucet and Plauche’s wife June were having an affair at the time. This revelation just served to muddy the waters further. However, forensics determined that Doucet’s assault on Jody occurred just as had been alleged.

Jody Plauche has since parlayed his horrible experience into an effort at helping others similarly traumatized. Good for him.

In 2019 Jody Plauche released a book titled, Why, Gary, Why? The Jody Plauche Story. The book was described thusly, “Through his own incredible story of using his past for good by helping others, he shares how any reader who has suffered great trauma can move on and not let the past define him or her.”

Jody went on to letter in four sports before finishing high school.

I’ve not read it myself, so I can’t comment on its contents. However, the excerpts I have found do yield insight into Jody’s subsequent attitudes about the shooting.

This horrible episode inevitably brought the Plauche family a great deal of attention. Here Jody and Gary are shown alongside Geraldo Rivera.

He wrote, “I think for a lot of people who have not been satisfied by the American justice system my dad stands as a symbol of justice…My dad did what everybody says what they would do…Plus, he didn’t go to jail. That said, I cannot…condone his behavior. I understand why he did what he did. But it is more important for a parent to be there to help support their child than put themselves in a place to be prosecuted.”

Here is Gary later in life attending a Saints game. He lived out the rest of his days in relative normalcy.

In his final interview prior to his death, Gary Plauche showed no regret for killing Jeffrey Doucet and stated that he would do it again if given the opportunity. In 2011 Plauche had a stroke as a complication of diabetes and was placed in a nursing home. He died in 2014 at the age of 68.

Though Jody was angered by the killing in its immediate aftermath, he subsequently understood and appreciated his father’s motivations. Interestingly, he later said his dad’s implicit willingness to kill anyone who harmed his family was an impediment to his coming forward to report Doucet’s abuse.

Of his father, Jody wrote, “A lot of people remember the guy who shot somebody. I remember someone who would pick up stray animals…someone who was just a kind soul, a gentle person.”

Categories
Gear & Stuff

The Curious Origins of the Ghillie Suit by WILL DABBS

This scumbag guy becomes eligible for release from prison in 2038.

In May of 2017, a father of three named Troy Johnson donned a ghillie suit and stalked a 12-year-old girl as she was heading to school in New South Wales, Australia. The 31-year-old abducted, subdued, gagged, and raped the child. Police searched his home and seized several items of evidence that supported the resulting charges. There were allegations of other assaults and attempted assaults as well. This freaking loser supposedly suffered some kind of medical episode after his arrest and was subsequently hospitalized. He appeared in the Wyong Local Court after his discharge and was ultimately sentenced to 28 years in prison.

Behold the face of the monster.

I struggle to comprehend what could drive a person to do something like that. Not meaning to sound uncharitable, but whatever his “medical episode” was, I can only hope it was something fairly agonizing. Most anything involving a power drill, a propane torch, or an intractable intestinal blockage would be OK with me. What makes this whole sordid tale pertinent to today’s discussion, however, was his attire. The ghillie suit has a long and fascinating military history.

Origin Story

The Gille Gubh was some sort of primitive Scottish forest spirit.

Gille is a Scots Gaelic term that describes a young man who works outdoors. Gille Dubh translates to “Black-Haired Youth” or “Dark-Haired Lad.” The Gille Gubh is some kind of bizarre earth spirit adorned in moss and leaves that figures prominently in Scottish mythology. The general understanding is that ghillie is a poorly-translated version of this term.

The yowie is the Australian version of our own Sasquatch. I find this image surprisingly disquieting.

Our Australian comrades call their ghillies “yowie suits.” This is a reference to the yowie, a mythical aboriginal creature akin to the Sasquatch. While there are a dozen or more local names for this thing, they all describe a hairy ape-like hominid that stands and walks upright. I rather suspect the yowie accounts for more than a little lost sleep among Australian children.

Factory-made ghillie suits will reliably transform a human being into a big pile of sphagnum moss. This one sells on Amazon.

The ghillie suit is simply a camouflage outfit designed to meld a sniper into the background vegetation and leave him essentially invisible on the battlefield. In years past, ghillie suits were handmade as part of sniper training. Traditionally, this involved sewing strips of burlap of various colors onto an old camouflage uniform until the end result was adequately leafy and bulky.

The original Lovat Scouts were formed from a cadre of skilled woodsmen.

The first recorded use of the ghillie suit in combat was by the Lovat Scouts during the Second Boer War. This Scottish Highland Regiment was mustered by Simon Fraser, the 14th Lord Lovat. The first batch of troops for this motley band was drawn from gamekeepers, professional stalkers, and similar men of the earth who toiled on Scottish estates.

The Lovat Scouts established a well-deserved reputation for effectiveness in combat.

The Lovat Scouts were initially commanded by the Honorable Andrew David Murray with Lord Lovat as 2IC. After 17 months in action, Murray was killed and Lord Lovat took command at age 29. He served until the end of the war in 1902.

Changes to warfare at the dawn of the 20th century were fairly transformational. These 1900-era Lovat Scouts look like a fairly manly group of guys.

At the dawn of the 20th century military tacticians were still trying to define themselves in the age of long-range repeating rifles, high explosives, smokeless powder, and belt-fed machineguns. In the Lovat Scouts we find soldiers well informed in fieldcraft and marksmanship. When combined with some innovative leadership these rugged men ultimately changed the way wars were fought.

The Black Watch was a legendary Scottish combat unit.

The Lovat Scouts were attached for a time to the Black Watch, but that relationship ended in the summer of 1901. A year later the Lovat Scouts returned to England and were disbanded. With chaos on the horizon in Europe, the Lovat Scouts were reformed in 1903 as two regiments. From these troops were drawn a group of dedicated sharpshooters that became the British Army’s first operational battlefield sniper unit. The unit was dissolved and reconstituted another time or two before finally finding itself deployed as two separate regiments in September of 1915 to Gallipoli.

The First War to End All Wars

These WW1-era Commonwealth snipers were armed with a variety of precision rifles, most of which sported offset optics.

The WW1-era Lovat Scouts Sharpshooters were formed into ten platoons. Each platoon was led by a commissioned platoon leader and consisted of 21 soldiers and NCOs. That first sniper unit totaled 220 specially-trained men. In a fairly prescient bit if tactical acumen, each platoon was subsequently attached to a particular Army Corps to be tasked out to subordinate units as needed.

The Lovat Sharpshooters were skilled at collecting tactical intelligence.

These sharpshooters were indeed renowned for their facility behind a rifle. Their weapons were typically variations of the standard-issue Short Magazine Lee Enfield (SMLE) that equipped most of the British Army. The SMLE was itself exceptionally capable for its day. However, it wasn’t necessarily their facility as snipers that so endeared the Lovat sharpshooters to their supported units.

Early ghillie suits were improvised affairs.

These early snipers were highly esteemed for their covert intelligence-gathering skills. On a battlefield bereft of drones and spy satellites, the accurate establishment of enemy locations and dispositions made the difference between success and failure. While using little more than 20-power spotting scopes these skilled warriors could offer great detail on enemy movements within ten miles and still offer reliable insights out to twenty. Major Vernon Hesketh Prichard, a legendary soldier and adventurer whose story we will no doubt explore eventually in this venue, was quoted as having said of the Lovat sharpshooters, “Keener men never lived…if they reported a thing, the thing was as they reported it.”

The Guns

The SMLE is a capable bolt-action infantry rifle. The addition of a low power optical sight optimized the long-range effectiveness of these weapons.

When faced with the prospects of protracted trench warfare, the British set out to equip their sharpshooters with precision rifles worthy of their mission. At first, these dedicated marksmen were equipped with a motley array of repurposed scoped hunting weapons. However, by 1915 the British government began mounting 3x and 4x scopes atop SMLE and P14 Enfield rifles. During the course of the war roughly 10,000 rifles were thusly converted. The optics on these weapons were not standardized until 1918.

These awkward offset scope mounts were designed to allow access to the stripper clip guide. This optic is built by the Periscopic Prism Company.

Though the SMLE fed from a detachable 10-round box magazine, most loading was still undertaken by stripper clips from the top. As a result, early scopes featured offset mounts to allow access to the rifle’s action from above. Later versions were center-mounted to facilitate a more effective cheek weld. These weapons had to be either loaded from the bottom using magazines or loaded from the top one round at a time. A skilled rifleman was expected to fire between 20 and 30 aimed shots per minute.

The SMLE was a popular British infantry rifle.

The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk I was first introduced in January of 1904. The SMLE’s 25.2-inch barrel represented the sweet spot halfway between that of the original Lee-Enfield rifle and the carbine version. The SMLE was distinguishable at a glance by the stubby little bayonet boss protruding just below the muzzle. The subsequent WW2-era Mk IV sported a small length of barrel at the nose. The definitive WW1 version of the rifle was the slightly-modified Mk III introduced in 1907. British Tommies affectionately referred to the SMLE as the “Smelly.”

The Suit

It is amazing how the guys in these staged wartime photos always look so happy. They seem to be saying, “Hot dog! Another fetid miserable day of crawling around in filth trying not to get our heads blown off.” These are WW2-era snipers armed with Lee-Enfield No4 Mk I (T) rifles.

The basic ghillie suit changed very little for nearly a century. If properly executed such a contrivance was almost unnaturally effective. However, those traditional burlap ghillies had their downsides.

A traditional ghillie suit burns easily. Apparently, this one also attracts snakes.

Frayed burlap is notoriously flammable. On a battlefield contaminated with such vile stuff as white phosphorus, incendiary rounds, smoke grenades, and similar pyrotechnics the ghillie suit can be a simply epic fire hazard. Two snipers assigned to the 11th ACR burned to death during combat operations in Iraq when their ghillie suits were set ablaze. Additionally, burlap soaks up moisture like a sponge. Once a burlap ghillie suit gets wet it becomes unnaturally heavy. Wet burlap close to the skin for long periods in cool climes can precipitate hypothermia as well.

Thermal imagers cut through battlefield concealment day or night.

Modern sensors rely upon thermal detectors and IR imagers that can significantly degrade the effectiveness of traditional visual camouflage. While a generation ago such gear had to be mounted in the nose of an attack helicopter and cost as much as my hometown, nowadays thermal sights of surprising effectiveness are within financial reach of your typical middle-class pig hunter. As regards thermal technology, with each passing year the prices go down and the capabilities go up. Traditional ghillie suits don’t do much to conceal a person’s thermal signature.

A ghillie suit collects sticks and battlefield debris like lawyers attract money.

While this might not seem like a big deal, a ghillie suit also attracts burrs and twigs like some kind of magnet. Once you’ve rolled around in the brush in one of these things for a while it becomes a gigantic mass of prickly crap. Most normal people wouldn’t care, but it’s impossible to keep a field-worn ghillie suit tidy.

The Next Generation

The latest US Army ghillie suit is safer and more effective than previous versions.

We Americans have a well-earned reputation for smothering our problems in science and technology. In 2007 the US Army Soldier Systems Center undertook a program to develop an enhanced ghillie suit material. Where burlap or jute had all those detriments described earlier, this new stuff was purportedly water-repellent and fire-resistant. After extensive field testing at the Sniper School at Fort Benning, this new material was incorporated into the FRGS (Flame Resistant Ghillie System). Testing began in 2018 on the IGS (Improved Ghillie System), a modular design intended to be even safer, more comfortable, and more effective.

The ghillie suit is a critical component of modern sniper operations.

Though they have really changed very little over the past century, the ghillie suit remains an integral part of the modern sniper’s kit. Wherever men institutionally kill each other there will be precision marksmen decked out in fluffy earth tones creeping about in the brush visiting death upon their enemies. Born in South Africa in the late 19th century, the ghillie suit remains a timeless sniper tool even today.

Categories
All About Guns

Smith & Wesson S&W M1917 .45 ACP US Army Issue Revolver – Cool History!

Categories
All About Guns The Green Machine Well I thought it was funny!

Our junior officers at work

Categories
All About Guns

Liberal, female and minority: America’s new gun owners aren’t who you’d think By David Culver

Several times a week you can hear gunfire echoing from Brandi Joseph’s scenic Southern California property. A licensed firearms instructor and dealer, Joseph decided to open Fortune Firearms in December to serve a growing and rapidly changing clientele.

“There is a huge uptick in female owners,” Joseph said. “Women are getting trained; women are carrying… liberal and conservative.”

Proof of that change pulled up Joseph’s long, dusty driveway in the San Jacinto Valley just before 10 a.m. for a Saturday social, of sorts. A group of seven African American women stepped out of their cars seemingly eager to start their first firearms training session.

NAAGA

Gun sales rise among Black people as they look for firearm training and education

“Our society and climate is changing… it’s just better to be prepared for your own safety and protection. That’s how we feel,” Laronya Day, who organized the outing, said.

Now in their early 50s, the women have been friends since they were kids in Los Angeles, about two and a half hours from Joseph’s business. And most of them acknowledge they lean left politically.

“Do you have some friends who would be totally turned off by this?” we asked Charlean Ward. “Absolutely,” she responded. “That’s their choice; I’m exercising my choice.”

Jamie Beverly looked less certain, if not uneasy. “Seeing all the guns on the table, I was like ‘ugh,’” Beverly said. “Would you ever want to carry?” we asked her. “I don’t think so,” she whispered.

At the firing range at Fortune Firearms, in Hemet, California.
At the firing range at Fortune Firearms, in Hemet, California.

Jason Kravarik/CNN

Over the course of nearly two hours, Joseph led a detailed instruction, teaching the women about everything from the types of handguns best suited for self-defense to how to load and disarm a firearm. Only after the women had repeatedly loaded the cartridge, inserted the magazine, chambered the gun, and then doing it all in reverse, did Joseph determine they were ready to fire at their paper targets.

Echoes of gunfire rippled through the rural valley as the women pulled their triggers.

‘I definitely am more closeted being a gun owner’

About an hour east of Los Angeles, Yessica Mendez and her wife Crisia Regalado met with their instructor Tom Nguyen at Burro Canyon Shooting Park. But Regalado, 25, admits she at first wanted nothing to do with guns.

“Just the sounds… the vibrations of each impact… made me very jittery and shaky and I had to excuse myself out of the range,” Regalado recalled. “I don’t know, it just triggered something inside of me and it made me scared.”

Mendez, 30, was equally disinterested in guns at first. But in recent years she’s felt a growing need for self-protection.

“I’m a Mexican woman in a same-sex relationship; I need to feel safe. I need to feel protected,” Mendez said. “And right now the laws and the things that are going on don’t make me feel safe and don’t make me feel protected.”

Crisia Regalado and Yessica Mendez.
Crisia Regalado and Yessica Mendez.

Jason Kravarik/CNN

She convinced her wife to join her for a training session with Nguyen, who began LA Progressive Shooters in 2020.

“I never intended to become an instructor, but the need from the community was there,” Nguyen said. “And there’s also folks from my own liberal community who see me as, ‘oh you like guns you must be a gun nut.’ But that’s not really it at all.”

Nguyen says his clients are mostly liberal and from all backgrounds, genders and sexual orientations. He prides himself on creating an inclusive student base.

“The more I educate those who are formally anti-gun the more they actually realize that there’s more nuance to it,” he said.

Both Mendez and Regalado now have their own guns and are working toward getting their concealed carry permits. But they avoid talking about their guns with friends, who they say are firmly anti-gun.

“They’re really not open to understanding,” Mendez said. Adding that she feels more comfortable discussing her same-sex relationship with friends than her guns. “I definitely am more closeted being a gun owner, for fear of retaliation.”

Finding common ground at the range

Both Mendez and Regalado at first worried about the type of people they encounter at the gun range, many of whom, they say, advertise their conservative politics in what they’re wearing or listening to.

“It’s mostly all men, mostly all white men, older men like 70s, 80s,” Mendez said. “Seeing people looking at us, and kind of just staring… It always makes us more uncomfortable. Because we’re like, ‘oh my God are they going to come and tell us, like, get out of here… you don’t belong here.’”

Instead, they’ve gotten a different reaction.

“They’re like, ‘Hey, you’re doing well, but can I show you something that might help you more?,” Mendez said.

Mendez says not only has it changed her impression of those individuals, but she also believes it’s given some a different perception of people like her.

“When I (came) back the next day, (one of the men) was like, ‘Hey! I saw your wife out there – she looks nice. Tell her I said ‘hi’.”

Still, as a Mexican-American immigrant in a same-sex marriage Mendez feels pulled in different directions politically.

“But at the end of the day I have to choose. Am I going to choose guns? Or am I going to choose my relationship? And I will always choose my relationship, but it’s just like a shame that we can’t come together and feel safe,” she said.

De-stigmatizing lawful gun ownership

Gun sales in one of the country’s few black-owned gun shops, Redstone Firearms in Burbank, California, soared post-pandemic and have remained steady, according to co-owner Jonathan Solomon.

“It’s not just one demographic. It’s not just one ethnic group. There’s just not one level of income… it’s a wide variety of folks that come in here now,” he said.

While white men have the highest rates of gun ownership in the US, one survey shows that in the first half of 2021 roughly 90% of retailers saw a surge in gun sales to African Americans. The same survey found that about 80% of retailers reported an increase in firearm purchases by Hispanic and Asian Americans.

Solomon, a former police officer, opened the shop about nine years ago with his wife Geneva. He says his new, diverse customers are primarily buying their first gun for a shared reason: self-protection. But he warns them to pay close attention to the rapidly changing regulations on firearms.

“It’s a consistent education when it comes to gun laws, especially in California,” Solomon said.

California is consistently rated among the states with the toughest gun laws. There are strict policies aimed at dissuading hasty gun purchases, including a 10-day cooling off period from when you buy a gun to when you can take it out of the store. And getting a concealed carry permit in places like Los Angeles can take more than a year and include background checks and interviews.

“It’s really convenient to think that if we just ban an object, if we just ban guns, then all of our problems would be solved – all of society’s problems would be solved – but that’s not true,” said firearms instructor Nguyen.

Nguyen said more and more residents are willing to put in the time and go through the hurdles to legally buy and carry a gun. And he says most of his clients support tough gun regulation so long as there’s clarity, consistency and still a path toward legal gun ownership. He only hopes they incorporate education and training into that process.

“I want to de-stigmatize lawful and responsible gun ownership,” Nguyen said.

‘I just feel liberated’

After completing their two-hour class at Fortune Firearms, most of the group of seven childhood friends were noticeably more comfortable in their new-found knowledge.

“I just feel liberated,” Ward said. “I feel like, let’s move to the next step: license to carry, get the concealed weapon.”

Data from Harvard found that more than half of new gun owners are likely to be women. Joseph says many of her clients are more liberal women who don’t advertise that they’re carrying.

“Most people have (in mind) the cookie-cutter firearm owner… right-wing…. But then there’s the other side that is quiet. They own guns. They’re buying them. They’re stockpiling ammo. It’s just not on their Facebook pages and it’s not their profile pictures,” she said.

This group of friends took instruction on using firearms at Fortune Firearms.
This group of friends took instruction on using firearms at Fortune Firearms.

Jason Kravarik/CNN

Day is now planning to move forward with carrying after Joseph’s class. “With all the things that you see on the news, things are happening more… in so many public areas, movie theaters, Walmarts, grocery stores…. It’s like there’s no limit now,” she said.

But gun ownership is not for everyone. Even after their course, within the close-knit group of friends there are differing opinions toward firearms.

“I think it’s great that more people are being educated and taking steps to protect themselves and protect their families,” Beverly said. “But for me personally, I’m still leery. I don’t think I would purchase (a gun).”

Categories
Allies

Taiwan under threat

Categories
All About Guns Allies

The Marine Corps has a weapon maintenance problem by Travis Pike

I can’t speak for the other military branches, but the Marine Corps has a weapons-cleaning problem. When I say that, I mean we clean our weapons too much. Too much, and often incorrectly, to adhere to the strict standards of the Marine Corps. The problem is complicated and tied to both the lower enlisted and the higher-ups. If the Marine Corps wants its Marines to be the most lethal warfighters, it’s a problem it needs to solve. As it’s known in the Marine Corps, weapon maintenance needs to be revised.

THE PROBLEM WITH MODERN WEAPON MAINTENANCE

Keeping a rifle, machine gun, handgun, well, any gun, working relies on proper maintenance. Weapon maintenance is critical to the function of a weapon, especially in austere environments. We’ve fought for two decades in deserts, on snow-covered mountains, and in the worst places possible for modern weapons.

weapon maintenance in the military

However, the extent the Marine Corps engages in weapon maintenance can be completely detrimental to the weapon. Marines find themselves using improper tools to reach a standard. For example, Marines will often use hard, stainless steel brushes to clean their weapon. When used enthusiastically, these brushes will eventually destroy the finish of the inside and outside of your weapon.

A good finish protects the weapon and helps prevent rust. Without a good finish, the weapon’s long-term reliability will be in question. My issue M9 was almost more silver than black since the finish had been rubbed off over time due to excessive cleaning.

Your average lower enlisted will likely lose or break his issued cleaning kit. This will, in turn, cause them to purchase one, which is often the cheapest one out there. These cheap cleaning kits will often have stainless steel bore brushes that can damage the rifling, making the weapon lose accuracy and consistency over time.

Marines should use bronze bore brushes mixed with bore cleaner in their weapon maintenance.

KEEPING IT SHINY

weapon maintenance in the military
Troops cleaning up their weapons.

Even Marines who keep their issued cleaning kits will find them lacking and may supplement them with tools to speed up the chore. This includes Q-tips and baby wipes. I’m guilty of this, as was every infantry Marine I knew. However, Q-tips and baby wipes come with their own problems.

Q-tips break easily and can break off or deposit little bits of cotton in areas that can disable the weapon. They can get stuck in all manner of areas in rifles, but especially in machine guns. However, Q-tips do make weapon maintenance faster, and they can reach into the spots that fingers and AP brushes can’t.

Baby wipes provided the quickest means to remove dirt, dust, and carbon. The problem with baby wipes is their low concentration of alcohol and very high concentration of water which creates rust and oxidation. In time, this gathers in small cracks and pits and eventually causes rust. Rust creates more little places for water and alcohol to gather and rust. The use of baby wipes creates a vicious cycle that will wear the weapon down sooner, creating a need for more weapon maintenance.

Finally, Marines will often turn in their weapons completely dry causing them to rust in the armory. A light coat of CLP prevents rust but can also be the reason a Marine fails inspection as CLP is slightly brown, so the weapon appears dirty when an inspector uses their finger, glove, or white patch.

WHY IS WEAPON MAINTENANCE A PROBLEM?

Cleaning guns on ships
Everything must be cleaned!

First, the Marine Corps culture demands perfection. If something can be cleaned, be it a humvee, a weapon, or a barracks room, it must be cleaned. This creates strict requirements for cleanliness. A weapon must be inspection-ready at all times. You never know when the commandant himself might bust into the armory and inspect the weapons.

To tap into that, lance corporals and PFCs can be lazy. Without the demand for perfection, things might be really slack. Give ’em an inch, and they’ll take ten clicks.

There is also a lack of education and clear objectives regarding weapon maintenance. You learn a little in boot camp, but it’s often sidelined in favor of drills, classes, and other training. Those cleaning methods are not retained in the feet, especially when the weapons go from rifles to machine guns, heavy machine guns, shotguns, pistols, missile launchers, and more.

HOW TO FIX IT?

preventive weapons maintenance
Soldiers from the 414th Civil Affairs Battalion clean and perform preventive maintenance on their weapons at the Robert L. Poxon Army Reserve Center in Southfield, Michigan, Oct 19, 2019. Equipment maintenance is an essential task performed by Soldiers to ensure the Army Reserve maintains a high level of combat-readiness. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Robert Torres)

The Marine Corps needs to revamp and re-evaluate its weapon maintenance program, tactics, and techniques. It needs to provide modern equipment and do so in bulk. Cleaning kits are cheap, guns are not, and neither is losing a firefight due to a broken weapon.

The Marine Corps should consult with the firearms industry on the most effective means to maintain weapons. They should also ensure that the troops and command are educated on what’s important in weapon maintenance and how to achieve proper weapon maintenance. No one ever told me not to use baby wipes, steel bore brushes, or Q-tips. I learned it from higher-ups.

Ultimately, the Marine Corps needs to accept that parade-ready weapons should be reserved for parades. Additionally, Marines need to accept responsibility for the tools of their trade and treat them as such. It’s a problem that starts at both the bottom and top of the branch and should be fixed before we worry about adopting new weapons.

 

Categories
All About Guns

A Smith & Wesson Model 34-1 , 2in barrel Nickel Steel with a Flat Latch in caliber 22LR

Smith & Wesson Model 34-1 22LR, 2in Nickel, Flat Latch, MFG 1960, C&R OK, NO RESERVE .22 LR - Picture 2
Smith & Wesson Model 34-1 22LR, 2in Nickel, Flat Latch, MFG 1960, C&R OK, NO RESERVE .22 LR - Picture 3
Smith & Wesson Model 34-1 22LR, 2in Nickel, Flat Latch, MFG 1960, C&R OK, NO RESERVE .22 LR - Picture 4
Smith & Wesson Model 34-1 22LR, 2in Nickel, Flat Latch, MFG 1960, C&R OK, NO RESERVE .22 LR - Picture 5
Smith & Wesson Model 34-1 22LR, 2in Nickel, Flat Latch, MFG 1960, C&R OK, NO RESERVE .22 LR - Picture 6
Smith & Wesson Model 34-1 22LR, 2in Nickel, Flat Latch, MFG 1960, C&R OK, NO RESERVE .22 LR - Picture 7
Smith & Wesson Model 34-1 22LR, 2in Nickel, Flat Latch, MFG 1960, C&R OK, NO RESERVE .22 LR - Picture 8
Smith & Wesson Model 34-1 22LR, 2in Nickel, Flat Latch, MFG 1960, C&R OK, NO RESERVE .22 LR - Picture 9
Smith & Wesson Model 34-1 22LR, 2in Nickel, Flat Latch, MFG 1960, C&R OK, NO RESERVE .22 LR - Picture 10

 

 

Categories
All About Guns

The AK-12: Russia’s New Combat Rifle

Categories
All About Guns Soldiering This great Nation & Its People

MG Maurice Rose: The Division Point by WILL DABBS

This chiseled-looking stud was a born soldier.

Maurice Rose was born in 1899 in Middletown, Connecticut, the son of Samuel and Katherin Rose. The son and grandson of rabbis from Poland, MG Rose was ultimately the highest-ranking Jewish officer in the United States Army. From the very beginning, Maurice Rose was a warrior.

As soon as he was able, Maurice Rose tried to enlist in the military.

Rose edited his high school paper and enjoyed a stellar academic career. In the yearbook published the year of his graduation a cartoon of the paper staff depicted him carrying a rifle. Soldiering was in his blood.

Maurice Rose’s first military stint lasted all of a month and a half.

Rose lied about his age and enlisted in the Colorado National Guard hoping to participate in the Punitive Expedition against Pancho Villa. Six weeks later when his commander discovered that he was only sixteen he was discharged. Rose then worked in a meatpacking plant until he turned seventeen and could convince his parents to sign an enlistment waiver.

Maurice Rose earned his commission just before he deployed to Europe during the First World War.

Once on active duty Maurice Rose’s natural leadership qualities became apparent. He was selected for officer training but had to illicitly alter his Army records to reflect a birthdate of 1895 so he would be old enough to be considered. In August of 1917 Rose graduated from the Officer Candidate Course at Fort Riley, Kansas. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant just in time to deploy for World War 1.

LT Rose Goes to War

2LT Rose’s baptism by fire occurred during the legendary Meuse-Argonne Offensive. This hemoclysm spilled a veritable ocean of blood.

Rose made First Lieutenant in short order. His battalion assumed defensive positions in the vicinity of Toul, France in 1918. Soon thereafter Rose and his comrades found themselves in the thick of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. This ghastly 6-week operation ultimately claimed a quarter-million casualties on both sides. More than 26,000 Americans were killed.

This was the world Maurice Rose fled the comfort and safety of a military hospital to find.

Rose, for his part, was in the thick of it throughout. He caught a load of shrapnel from a German mortar and suffered a concussion from nearby artillery fire. He refused the medics’ orders to evacuate until he eventually collapsed from exhaustion and blood loss. After a few days in the hospital, Rose slipped away to rejoin his unit.

LT Rose served as part of the military occupation in Europe after the war.

This tidy bit of subterfuge resulted in his parents being informed that he was killed in action, an error that took a few days to rectify. Rose eventually recovered and served with the occupation troops until the summer of 1919 when he was discharged.

His True Calling

Now a Captain, Maurice Rose returned to military life in 1920.

Rose worked as a traveling salesman for a time but returned to the military in 1920, as soon as the Army would allow it. By now he was a Captain and served in a variety of operational and administrative positions. At some point, he altered his military records once again and claimed to be Protestant. Though some biographers attribute this to a religious conversion, more than likely he simply felt that no longer being Jewish would help his career.

Major Rose found himself in the right place at the right time with the right skills to thrive in the wartime military.

By the onset of World War 2 Rose was a Major and a graduate of the Infantry and Cavalry Officer Courses as well as the Command and General Staff College. He was soon promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. A preternaturally handsome man by the standards of the day, a newspaper reporter described him in print as “probably the best looking man in the Army.” That couldn’t do much for a guy’s humility.

Colonel Rose fought the German Afrika Corps in North Africa.

In 1940 the US Army was a growth industry. The American military had to expand in an unprecedented fashion, and it needed experienced commissioned officers and NCOs desperately. By the time he saw combat in North Africa Rose was a full Colonel. He negotiated the surrender of German forces in Tunisia under Generalmajor Fritz Krause.

Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, provided the Allies with invaluable experience staging, executing, and supporting an amphibious invasion.

Operation Husky saw Rose promoted to Brigadier General during operations in Sicily. When the commander of the 3d Armored Division, MG Leroy Watson, was relieved in the summer of 1944 General Rose took his place and thrived.

The Character of the Man

Once while serving as Division commander, General Rose dove out of his jeep with a Thompson submachine gun to capture a group of Wehrmacht Landsers.

MG Rose was known as an aggressive and effective combat commander. He once drove his jeep across a mined bridge to ensure it was safe for his men to follow. On another occasion, General Rose spotted a group of Germans running across a field and dove out of his jeep brandishing a Thompson submachine gun.

MG Rose sought out the action and was respected by his men.

Along with his driver, his aide, his DivArty Commander, and a handy PFC this motley band promptly captured a full dozen German soldiers. The Division Commander subsequently marched his POWs back and turned them over to the MPs. Such antics endeared Rose to the troops in his command.

Unlike many famous Allied Generals, MG Rose preferred to keep a low profile and just do his job. Smoking is very bad for you, guys.

MG Rose indeed insisted on leading from the front but also eschewed the publicity, fame, and glory so many of his counterparts feasted upon. Unlike Generals like Patton, MacArthur, and Montgomery, Maurice Rose was satisfied to avoid the limelight and just do his job. This exceptional military ethic ultimately killed him.

Combat is a Chaotic Thing

As usual, MG Rose was at the front of his Division as they punched into Germany.

On March 30, 1945, just over a month from the end of the war in Europe, MG Rose and his staff were traveling in jeeps at the head of a column of his 3d Armored Division near the city of Paderborn, Germany. The Germans were fighting on their home turf, and the situation was desperate. Armored units on both sides fought back and forth, creating a fluid, chaotic battlefield. When word reached Rose that certain of his units had been cut off by the Germans, he pressed forward to investigate.

German tank and small arms fire tore apart the lead elements of MG Rose’s division.

Before they could react, Rose and the men of his armored vanguard began taking fire from German tanks, antitank guns, and small arms. The lead Sherman of his column was hit by an enemy tank round and destroyed. In response, Rose and his command team mounted their jeeps and attempted to flee cross-country.

This is a Panzerkampfwagen Mk VI or Tiger I. It was one of the most feared armored vehicles of the war.

The German tanks soon had the Americans outflanked, and they moved to seal off their escape. The lead jeep accelerated and narrowly avoided a Wehrmacht panzer to reach safety. MG Rose was in the second jeep and found himself cut off. The German Tiger pinned Rose’s jeep against a tree, forcing him to dismount.

The back end of a Tiger I sports these distinctive twin exhaust stacks.

While Allied troops had a tendency to describe all German tanks as Tigers, these were the real deal. Surviving American GIs identified the vehicles based upon their distinctive twin exhausts.

A nameless German tank commander gunned MG Rose down on a chaotic battlefield in Germany.

The German tank commander opened his hatch and emerged with an MP40 submachine gun. As the Wehrmacht soldier covered Rose and his small party, the American General reached for his sidearm. Whether or not MG Rose was attempting to surrender or intended to fight the German officer has been lost to history. The panzer commander leveled his 9mm SMG and shot Rose fourteen times in several bursts. The American General was dead where he fell.

The Gun

The original MP38 was built around a relatively expensive milled tubular receiver.

The German MP40 began life as the MP38 designed by Heinrich Vollmer in, you guessed it, 1938. The MP38 was an evolutionary development of the previous MP36. Not more than a couple of MP36’s survived the war. The MP38 featured a machined steel receiver and bakelite furniture. It can be differentiated from the subsequent MP40 by the longitudinal ridges in the receiver and a small hole pressed into each side of the magazine well.

The MP40 was the world’s first mass-produced submachine gun to eschew wooden furniture.

The MP40 was a very similar design and enjoys essentially complete parts interchangeability with the MP38. Both guns feature a novel but unnecessarily complicated telescoping recoil spring system that makes the guns exceptionally smooth in action. The MP40 was the first general-issue Infantry weapon truly optimized for mass production. Around a million copies rolled off the lines before it was supplanted by the MP44 assault rifle. The MP40 soldiered on until the very end of the war.

The MP40 in Action

Though bulky and front-heavy, the MP40 was exceptionally controllable thanks to the relatively anemic 9mm Parabellum round and the gun’s sedate 500 rpm rate of fire.

I have a friend who was walking point with a buddy on a patrol through a German village in the final days of the war. Coming around a corner he and his pal came face to face with a German soldier armed with an MP40. The kraut soldier loosed a burst into the chest of my friend’s comrade. My buddy killed the German with a burst from his Thompson.

Both Americans retreated into a nearby building. The wounded American then leaned heavily against the wall, slid to the floor, and died. Even well into his nineties that remained a difficult story for my buddy to tell. At close range, the MP40 was a proven man-killer.

The Rest of the Story

In the final analysis, MG Maurice Rose died simply because he was a superb General.

The victorious Allies undertook an investigation to determine if MG Rose’s death might constitute a war crime. He was the highest-ranking American soldier to be killed in action in Europe, and his Jewish heritage made the circumstances of his killing immediately suspect. However, the light was dim at the time, and when his body was recovered the following day his codebook and maps remained unmolested.

This is the helmet MG Rose was wearing when he was killed. Note that the exit holes are in the front.
The impacts from the 9mm rounds fired at close range tore off part of one of his stars.
Forensic analysis later determined that Rose’s helmet was hit after it was knocked off of his head.

MG Rose was ultimately shot with four separate bursts from that German tank commander’s MP40. The first burst knocked Rose’s helmet off. Four rounds from the third burst struck him in the head and killed him. His helmet was recovered from a nearby ditch about ten feet away. The holes in the helmet resulted from its having been hit as it spun in the air behind the dying General.

MG Rose’s elderly parents both survived to see the loss of their son.
MG Maurice Rose was buried alongside his men.

The determination was simply that MG Rose tragically fell victim to the fog of war. German troops were frequently inexperienced and terrified at this late stage. That nameless Wehrmacht tank commander likely just saw Rose move for his pistol and fired reflexively. MG Maurice Rose, known to his men as “The Division Point” because of his penchant for leading from the front, was buried at the US military cemetery at Margraten, the Netherlands. 3d Armored Division commanders rendered honors at his grave until the early nineties when the division was disbanded.

The 3d Armored Division commander and staff rendered honors at the grave of MG Rose until the division was disbanded in 1992.
This Dutch school was named in honor of MG Maurice Rose, a true American hero.