Defense Articles

Two police officers from Raleigh, North Carolina, traveled to Wilson, North Carolina, to conduct a class on submachine gun handling. But when they arrived, they found that their bags– containing a handgun, a machine gun, and several clips of ammo-had fallen out of the back of their pickup. Motorists found the guns along the highway and handed them over to authorities.

Presumably, the next time the police conduct a course on machine guns, they’ll have a section on proper transport and storage.

This book explores the early development and evolution of the machine gun and submachine guns as weapon systems, and provides a reference to the significant machine guns and submachine guns of the world. The history recounts early attempts to devise a mechanical machine gun, the development of the Maxim machine gun, and the seminal role played by the machine gun during World War I. The second half of the book provides black and white photographs and specifications for each machine gun model, arranged by decade and country.

Police forces in 28 of Japan’s 47 prefectures will get 1,379 submachine guns by the end of March next year to combat terrorism, the National Police Agency (NPA) said Friday.

It will mark the first time for conventional police to be equipped with such arms.

Special antiterrorism units had been the only forces equipped with submachine guns. They are used by the 200-member Special Assault Team, which has personnel in Tokyo, Osaka, Hokkaido, Kanagawa, Chiba, Aichi and Fukuoka prefectures, the NPA said.

The agency said riot police guarding U.S. bases and nuclear plants in the 28 prefectures will be equipped with the guns. Associated expenditures are included in the NPA’s 9.04 billion yen request for appropriations in a supplementary budget for this fiscal year.

Of the requested sum, 7.54 billion yen will be earmarked for emergency measures to fight terrorism. The agency said it plans to procure more flak jackets, bulletproof helmets and armored vehicles with the money.

The NPA will also establish special units to combat terrorism involving nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in six prefectures by the end of next March, NPA officials said.

Similar units have been set up in Tokyo and Osaka, but new teams will be launched at prefectural police headquarters in Hokkaido, Miyagi, Kanagawa, Aichi, Hiroshima and Fukuoka prefectures.

The units in the eight prefectures will be equipped with detectors for biological weapons for the first time, the NPA said.

Simplified detectors for such weapons will also be provided to conventional forces in the 28 prefectures, including the eight, that will be armed with submachine guns.

In addition, the agency will purchase bomb detectors and high-performance explosive ordnance disposal devices with the counterterrorism budget, they said.

Machine guns; an illustrated history of their impact.

Willbanks, James H.

ABC-CLIO

2004

267 pages

$85.00

Hardcover

Weapons and warfare series

UF620

This book explores the early development and evolution of the machine gun and submachine guns as weapon systems, and provides a reference to the significant machine guns and submachine guns of the world. The history recounts early attempts to devise a mechanical machine gun, the development of the Maxim machine gun, and the seminal role played by the machine gun during World War I. The second half of the book provides black and white photographs and specifications for each machine gun model, arranged by decade and country.

Police forces in 28 of Japan’s 47 prefectures will get 1,379 submachine guns by the end of March next year to combat terrorism, the National Police Agency (NPA) said Friday.

It will mark the first time for conventional police to be equipped with such arms.

Special antiterrorism units had been the only forces equipped with submachine guns. They are used by the 200-member Special Assault Team, which has personnel in Tokyo, Osaka, Hokkaido, Kanagawa, Chiba, Aichi and Fukuoka prefectures, the NPA said.

The agency said riot police guarding U.S. bases and nuclear plants in the 28 prefectures will be equipped with the guns. Associated expenditures are included in the NPA’s 9.04 billion yen request for appropriations in a supplementary budget for this fiscal year.

Of the requested sum, 7.54 billion yen will be earmarked for emergency measures to fight terrorism. The agency said it plans to procure more flak jackets, bulletproof helmets and armored vehicles with the money.

The NPA will also establish special units to combat terrorism involving nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in six prefectures by the end of next March, NPA officials said.

Similar units have been set up in Tokyo and Osaka, but new teams will be launched at prefectural police headquarters in Hokkaido, Miyagi, Kanagawa, Aichi, Hiroshima and Fukuoka prefectures.

The units in the eight prefectures will be equipped with detectors for biological weapons for the first time, the NPA said.
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Simplified detectors for such weapons will also be provided to conventional forces in the 28 prefectures, including the eight, that will be armed with submachine guns.

In addition, the agency will purchase bomb detectors and high-performance explosive ordnance disposal devices with the counterterrorism budget, they said.

It being a good day for kind sentiments and messages of love, and so on, I thought it would be nice to ask you to spare a thought for the following: Johnny May, Frank Gusenberg, Pete Gusenberg James Clark, Adam Heyer, Al Weinshank and Reinhardt Schwimmer.

Do the names ring any bells?

They probably won’t, unless you are a quiz fanatic.

Here is a clue. They all died on the same day, in the same place, 77 years ago. Today.

I am afraid that is all the clues you are going to get, because if you haven’t already guessed that they were the victims of the St Valentine’s Day massacre, you never will.

Yes, 77 years ago today Johnny, Frank, Pete and the others were in a big warehouse waiting for a lorry full of illicit whisky to arrive from Detroit. They were all (except one) employees of Bugs Moran, Al Capone’s chief rival in the moonshine business, and Al Capone knew that they were going to be there on that day, with Bugs in charge, and this seemed like a good opportunity to do some Bugs spraying.

So what actually arrived outside the warehouse was not a lorry but a police car full of policemen, who went into the warehouse and told everyone there to stand against the wall for a routine check, which they did. Only, these guys weren’t policemen. They were employees of Al Capone, dressed up as policemen. And when the Bugs Moran gang were standing up against the wall, the fake policemen drew tommy guns and gunned them all down as they stood there.
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Nobody survived. Except for Johnny May’s dog. Johnny May was a crook who had been hired by Bugs Moran as a mechanic, and he was actually working on the engine of a truck when the fake policemen arrived. He had brought his dog to work with him and tied it to the bumper. Al Capone’s men apparently had no instructions covering dogs working for Bugs Moran, so they spared him. Thanks, guys.

In a way, you can’t blame Al Capone for organising a massacre like this, because Bugs Moran had previously tried to do the very same for Al Capone. A year or two before, Bugs had organised a drive- past of several cars, going very slowly past Al Capone’s HQ, riddling the place with machine-gun bullets, hoping to eliminate Capone.

Not only did they not get Capone, they did not get anyone. As gangland massacres went, it was a total failure.

But that seems typical of Bugs Moran. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but Bugs Moran was never in danger of being called the brains behind anything. Brawn, yes, brains, no. There was one time, for instance, when he had ambushed a much-feared rival, Johnny Torrio and, as Torrio lay riddled with bullets, Moran stood over him to deliver the coup degrce in the head. The story is that his gun jammed. Or he ran out of ammo. Either way, Torrio survived.

And the reason that Bugs Moran survived the Valentine’s Day Massacre is that he turned up very late for the rendezvous. By the time he got there, the fake policemen had already arrived, and, from his car, Moran spotted them going into the building. He skedaddled. For once, his inefficiency had saved him.

The oddest thing about the whole business is that one of the victims was not a criminal or gangster at all. That was the one called Reinhardt Schwimmer, whose day job was involved with making spectacles and who is variously described as an optometrist, or an optical mechanic. Dull work, I guess, which is probably why he fell in love with the life of the Chicago mobsters, who had a much more glamorous job than he did.

He got to know them, he hung out with them - and, on the morning of 14 February 1929, he asked if he could come along to be there when the whisky shipment arrived from Canada, via Detroit. “Sure, why not?” was the answer. It was the wrong answer. The right answer was: “No, you can’t because you’ll be shot dead, along with the rest of us.”

On that cheerful note, a happy Valentine’s Day to everyone.

Al Capone’s men apparently had no instructions covering dogs working for Bugs Moran, so they spared him. Thanks, guys

Yeah, right. I’ll admit there’ve been a few free ones in the past 25 years. Very few. More often you get nagging letters and phone calls from the gun companies because you are overdue on the 90- or 120-day consignment period. Once, someone called and asked for a gun back before it had even arrived. Always nicely, but they do ask you to pay up or send back a loaner gun. I always have. By the way, that return shipping is almost always at your own expense.

Free ammo? Yes, and I’ve always tried to not overdo my requests–usually they are only for two boxes of any type at one time. But, get this, a couple of years ago, after 25 years of dealing with Remington, they turned me down. Some young MBA-type there told me if I wanted to do articles on the cartridges THEY wanted publicized, like their Ultra-Mags, they would send something, but otherwise take a hike. I don’t shoot much Remington ammo anymore since I don’t shoot those fancy magnums.

Back to the real question: What does it take to be a gunwriter? It helps to know guns. I mean really KNOW them, which means a lifetime of studying them in detail. A fantastic memory is a great boon. Through high school and college I studied guns, not exactly what those palaces of learning thought I should study. Perhaps that’s the reason I’ve had some success at writing but graduated from college with a 2.11 grade point average.
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However, really KNOWING guns isn’t always the requirement it should be. So many of today’s writers have proven what you really need to know is only a little more than the editor you’re writing for. (Luckily at these digs the editors DO know guns and it keeps me hopping!) It also helps to own a great big cowboy hat, regardless of what part of the country you live in. (Duke doesn’t wear a cowboy hat ’cause he can’t find one to fit that inflated head he has/John Taffin.)

Being able to write is a benefit, but it isn’t absolutely necessary. Few people know less about punctuation and grammar than Clint Smith does, yet I consider him the best natural writer I’ve ever read. I majored in journalism in college so editors don’t have to work too hard on my material. I think that’s why it started to get accepted in the first place–lazy editors.

Good Shot?

Some would say being able to shoot well would be a great benefit. A few friends have chided me saying, “If you could shoot those teeny-tiny groups some other gunwriters always do, you would go farther in your career.” Maybe they’re right. I’ve been sent the exact same handguns as many other writers and yet they wouldn’t shoot as good for me even when mounted in my machine rest. I guess its one of my failings.

Having a desire to shoot does seem to help, even if you’re not real good at it. I’ve been to “gunwriter get-togethers” at seminars and such, and its amazing how many of them will pass up all that free ammo. You would almost think they don’t like to shoot in front of one another. I’m not so inhibited. At one seminar an ammo company put some H&K MP-5 sub-guns out with cases of 9mm shells. I stepped forward and said to one of our hosts, “Show me how to run one of these things.” And brother did I have a ball then! But, all by myself.

Thickish Skin

Being a gunwriter takes patience and sometimes a thick skin. I’ve written over 1,200 articles concerning almost every type of firearm, from .17 HMRs to .58 caliber Civil War rifle-muskets in long guns, and .22 rimfires to .454 Casulls in handguns, yet I’ve had editors tell me I must be more versatile so their advertisers will like me better. Funny how those same editors never worried much about what the readers liked. Luckily our editors here realize no one ever bought a gun magazine to see what Mike Venturino had to say about some sort of Super Short Magnum, or the .500 S&W for that matter.

Thick skin? You bet. Occasionally readers will write telling you how stupid you are because their favorite load will shoot better than what you listed. Once in a great while there will be death threats because you said something derogatory about someone’s favorite gun or cartridge. No one’s made good on that yet.

So why do I do it? When in New Zealand a few years back I was asked that by one of their Ministers of Parliament. I told him it was because I was too lazy to work, and too dumb to steal. After he laughed politely, I told him the real reason–I failed as a bikini designer, although I do claim credit for inventing those thong types. But nobody knows that and I swear I don’t get the credit I deserve for it either.

In grade school my goal was to become a Mexican bandit, but my West Virginia accent didn’t fit there. In junior high I wanted to be a P-51 Mustang fighter pilot but literally grew too big to fit in their cockpits, and learned they weren’t in use anymore anyway. In high school I decided to be a cowboy and later actually went west and tried that for a bit. It’s really HARD work and dangerous too.

In college I finally decided to become a gunwriter. My parents thought that was absolutely ridiculous because they knew I was obviously lawyer material. There’s no telling what Yvonne’s parents thought when we began making marriage plans and she told them my dream was to become a “gunwriter.”

The classic Browning .50-caliber machine gun enjoys preferred status with American troops for many reasons, not the least of which that it is a straight shooter.

Part of the reason for that preference is the superior accuracy and easy cleaning that results from the bore geometry and surface finish of barrels made by UKbased Sabre Defence Industries. Since installing a Sunnen HTB tube hone from Sunnen Products Co. (St. Louis, MO) at its Nashville, TN plant, test fire groupings from sample barrels have tightened up nearly 100% over the Army’s requirement.

“We have been making military .50-caliber barrels and guns since 1979, as well as commercial rifle barrels for various companies over the years,” explains Charles Shearon, general manager of the Nashville plant, which was acquired by Sabre in late 2002. “The new owner, Guy Savage, planned to reposition our operation to be about 50/50 military and commercial,” says Shearon.

The Nashville plant was to be a launch pad for US production of Sabre’s XR15/16 rifles, a premium variant of the AR15/16 for the civilian and police markets. The start of the Iraq war in early 2003 changed that.
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“We received military orders for our .50-caliber machine-gun barrels, 7.62-mm M60 machine gun barrels, M134 minigun barrels, and M6 weapons mount. The demand for .50-caliber barrels grew in the next few years from about 100 per month to 1200 per month and employment at the plant was ramped up from 15 to 85,” says Shearon.

Sabre makes two variations of the 50-caliber barrel: the heavy barrel for the M2 Browning gun and a lighter, shorter version for the M3 aircraft machine gun. Both have a Stellite liner for the chamber throat and first few inches of rifling. The liner and a retainer for attaching the barrel to the receiver are both shrink-fit. The Stellite liner (75% cobalt and 25% chrome) withstands the intense heat and gas erosion of the initial discharge better than any ordnance steel.

The heavy barrel starts as a 45″ (1143-mm) piece of bar stock 2.625″ (66.7 mm) in diam, that weighs about 73 lb (33 kg). “For the heavy barrel we use MIL-S46047, a special alloy with extra vanadium to increase life,” explains Shearon. The aircraft barrel is MIL-S11595, which is also used on Sabre’s commercial guns. Steel is bought by the mill run, cut by the mill, and heattreated when received.

“We do some preliminary operations to prep it, then gun-drill the chamber end with a 0.75″ [19-mm] diam hole about 11″ [279-mm] deep. A temporary liner is then installed and the rest of the barrel is gundrilled with a 0.490″ [12.45-mm] diam hole. We ream after drilling and have a hole size tolerance of ±0.001″ [0.03 mm] at that point, but the next step is to stress relieve and that often changes the bore.”

Honing allows Sabre to control final geometry and hole size of the bore to a fraction of the allowable MIL-Spec, which is helpful because of the small variations introduced later by burton rifling and chrome plating.

Sabre had been using a manual lapping machine to finish bores, but the increase in military orders resulted in a bottleneck of work at that operation. “We consulted with Ron Williams, Sunnen’s senior field engineer in our area, on how current technology could improve our processes,” says Shearon.

The result was the installation of a Sunnen HTB-2000 tube hone system in early 2006. Equipped with Borazon CBN stones, a traveling steadyrest, and whip guide bushings, the PLC-controlled machine has an output of 10-12 barrels an hour compared to about one an hour with the old process.

“The load-sensing system on the machine automatically adjusts the stone feed for optimum stock removal without tool crashes, which reduces our labor and helps improve output,” explains Garry Hogan, Sabre’s plant manager. “More important to us is the automatic gaging system. The machine gages the bore after every stroke, allowing us to control hole size, roundness, and straightness to 0.0005″ [0.013 mm] without operator intervention.

“Even after button rifling and plating, we are able to stay well below the MIL-Spec of ±0.004″ [0.10 mm] on bore dimensions, which is quite a feat on a bore length of 33″ [838 mm]. Tool life for the process varies with the amount of stock removal, which typically runs 0.002-0.004″ [0.05-0.10 mm],” Hogan explains.

The crosshatch pattern that honing leaves on the bore surface aids in rifling the barrel by maintaining a consistent lubricant film. To create the rifling, a 0.517″ (13.1-mm) carbide button is pushed through the bore, which is 0.503″ (12.8 mm) at this stage. The button has the rifling form in high relief on it, and is rotated at the correct twist rate. Lands on the button engrave the grooves in the bore.

“The very round hole we get with the hone helps prevent high and low spots in the rifling, and keeps the grooves concentric with the bore, all of which aid accuracy,” Hogan adds, “We’re unique in the business in that we make our own buttons, too, which gives better control of our quality.”

I am trying to write a story about guns, about their power.

I have talked to more than a dozen people who are passionate about this power. They collect it, they depend upon it, they draw energy from it.

But when I look at the blued metal barrel of a Smith & Wesson .38 or the molded black rhombus of a Glock’s grip — all I feel is fear.

Desperate for a way to begin writing, I ask the photographer, who is a good friend and who is coping with the visual side of this story, what her impressions are. She admits that she, too, feels the recoil of a knee-jerk liberal who was raised to associate guns only with violence.

Then she looks at me sidelong. “The other part of it is I’m afraid that if I shot one, I’d enjoy it.” She tells me about an essay she wrote in college for a women’s studies course. The professor asked the students to describe a time when they felt “empowered.” My friend wrote about a road trip: being behind the wheel, driving fast, out in the middle of nowhere, unbound by anyone’s expectations.

But now, as she composes still-life photos of semi-automatic pistols, black powder rifles and pump shotguns, she’s guessing that firing one of them might give her the same sensation of power. Pure physical power. The adrenaline rash of commanding a potentially lethal force.

We laugh about how rarely we’ve felt such power. Neither of us is exactly a born athlete, nimble on a judo mat or easy in the saddle of a horse. Only by the joining of our soft, unruly bodies to a mechanized object can we transform them.

Later this conversation haunts me. Already bored by the guns, I pry apart the borders we’ve set, expand the definition of power beyond the physical. When have I felt any kind of power in my life?

Sex flies first into my mind. Not the physical aspects, but the psychology beneath them. I do not want to admit this. The power to arouse someone beyond rational constraints is the stuff of Eve and Satan. As a young woman chastened by Catholicism, I came fresh and eager to the lures of seduction, and I did not withstand them for 40 days in the desert. Arousing, then denying permission was a marvelous game.

It was followed, in short order, by the game of making someone fall in love with me. Granted, I succeeded only rarely, but when I did, I felt a cool rush of power.

Then I felt miserable. Because to win the game, I had to remain unmoved. And that meant guilt, one-sidedness and messy extrication.

AFTER the attack on Dunblane school by a homicidal maniac, all the politicians rushed to ban the innocent use of firearms. It became a universal wisdom overnight that we did not wish to be like the United States, by which it was understood that we did not want to have gun battles on the streets, hoodlums shooting one another with submachine guns, innocent teenagers being killed, and so on.

Since the Dunblane killings, and the draconian new gun laws, the number of gun crimes has doubled. All that legislation has done is to make it difficult for farmers and sportsmen and legitimate members of gun clubs to get licenses for those weapons which they would not dream of using to shoot children.

Meanwhile, as the police in our big cities know only too well, it is possible for any little would-be Al Capone to go into a pub and buy an AK-47 for a few hundred pounds.

This is a very good opportunity for the Conservative Party, if it had any guts, to distance itself from the Government and to offer an alternative gun policy. From what the police are telling us, it would seem as if the gun situation is out of control and that there is very little that anyone, least of all Tony Blair and his babes sitting in the High Court of Parliament, can do to avoid repetitions of the recent tragedy of the two girls shot at a party in Aston, Birmingham.

We have now moved into a gun-dominated society whether we like it or not.

The only thing which a responsible government can do is to allow responsible and law-loving citizens to protect themselves. We should all be allowed to own guns, and, when our livelihood or property is threatened by criminals, we should be allowed to use them.

Street crime is high in the United States, but burglaries and crimes against domestic property are low - because householders are allowed to shoot burglars. In Switzerland, where they have a comparable law, there is almost no crime at all, since, as well as fully-armed householders, they have also excluded the poor by making it too expensive to live there.

Ken Livingstone is trying to do his best in this department and make London unaffordable for anyone earning less than pounds 100,000 per annum, but it won’t work unless he allows the propertied classes to arm themselves.