Articles by Herschel Smith

We Are The Mighty:

In WWII, the Tommy Gun gave American troops a lot of firepower in a small package. Paratroopers could easily carry them on planes, tankers could keep them handy in case anyone got too close, and infantrymen could maneuver through cities with them with ease. It was often copied but never outdone. It and its sister weapon, the M3/M3A1 “Grease Gun,” were mainstays throughout the Korean War and into the early parts of the Vietnam War.

The submachine gun, however, wasn’t able to hold up long in the jungles of Vietnam when the M16’s durability, range, and 5.56mm ammunition outperformed it in nearly every way. This, however, wasn’t its death rattle.

The SMG’s maneuverability in close quarters didn’t go unnoticed by law enforcement — primarily by SWAT teams. Additionally, SMGs are often chambered in 9mm or .45 ACP, meaning that targets struck by rounds are more often incapacitated than killed. In the hands of law enforcement, an armed assailant could then be taken into custody.

First of all I don’t believe in SWAT teams as you know, or any kind of home invasion by law enforcement.  As a corollary, nor do I believe they should have machine guns.

But this seems like a strange argument to make.  I have to believe that many a soldier was killed by submachine guns in WWII, although I wouldn’t know how to research something like that outside of say the library at Leavenworth (US Army Command and General Staff College).  I do know that the vast majority of military deaths have occurred from crew served weapons, not small arms.

But I also have to believe that if there was any under-appreciation of the capabilities of the submachine gun in Vietnam or elsewhere for CQB, it must have been due to the fact that they were shooting ball ammunition.

I don’t have the time to research this, and hopefully some reader (more educated than I am) will help fill in the blanks, but it is my understanding that PD rounds (hollow point) are prohibited by treaties to which the US is signatory.  If so, I think that’s stupid and ignorant.

Nonetheless, I can see the submachine gun falling out of favor eventually due to the advent of the pistol caliber AR-pattern pistol.  With the necessity for protracted engagements, I can see the need to avoid wasting ammunition with automatic fire.

My son (and his fellow Marines) virtually never had their M4s in automatic.  They shot so many rounds in CQB preps that they learned to squeeze off three rounds as fast as the gun could in automatic if they needed that rate of fire.  They only time he ever shot fully automatic fire was with his SAW or M2.

I prefer the pistol caliber AR-pattern pistol because after having shot an AR pistol in 5.56mm, I consider it to be unstable with the sight picture (for rapid follow-up shots) due to recoil, at least for me.

With all of that said, I still want a Grease Gun.

Andrew Ross Sorkin writing at NYT:

The usual suspects of potential buyers are circling, including rival gun manufacturers like Sturm, Ruger & Company and some small financiers willing to accept whatever criticism would come from buying Remington.

More tantalizing is a pie-in-the-sky idea: whether a beneficent billionaire, like Michael R. Bloomberg, could buy the company and either try to transform it or shut it down — a sort of philanthropic euthanasia in the name of gun control.

Yet all of those options have challenges. So here’s a practical idea that should be considered more than just a thought experiment:

What if the big banks that have provided financing to Remington during its bankruptcy were to back — and partner with — one or more of the big private equity firms in an effort to transform the company into the most advanced and responsible gun manufacturer in the country?

After all, virtually all the banks have a “social impact” unit or at least an initiative meant to “do good.” And so do many private equity firms, like TPG and Bain Capital.

And they would not be out to kill the business; quite the opposite: They could create a profitable model for the rest of the industry using technology and sound sales policies to reinvent the modern-gun manufacturer.

A reimagined Remington with a new management and mandate could develop smart-gun technology. It could back fingerprint technology meant to prevent anyone who is not the gun’s owner from shooting it, a measure that could greatly reduce suicides and the potential for guns to be stolen. It could add an identity stamp to ammunition fired from any of its guns. It could also establish and standardize responsible sales policies for retailers to sell its firearms.

What would happen, for instance, if a consortium were to come together so that the banks offered the buyer a below-market loan, giving a socially responsible investor the advantage of a lower cost of capital? What would happen if one of the big retail chains like Walmart and Dick’s — both of which have already established that they only want to sell guns in a responsible way — were to guarantee distribution, sales and marketing support?

Yes, Andrew, in your world little girls like puppy dogs and purple unicorns throwing pixie dust in the air as they fly across the sky spreading cheer and happiness to all.  It’s a nice vision – for a little girl.

The reality is that Remington would quickly go out of business, the “smart gun” wouldn’t sell, and no more people would buy guns from Walmart or Dick’s than do now.

This is what happens when social planners who know nothing about what they’re trying to plan collide with more capital than should ever be under the control of one man.

So here is a suggestion, Andrew.  Take the challenge.

Perform a fault tree analysis of smart guns.  Use highly respected guidance like the NRC fault tree handbook.

Assess the reliability of one of my semi-automatic handguns as the first state point, and then add smart gun technology to it, and assess it again.  Compare the state points.  Then do that again with a revolver.  Be honest.  Assign a failure probability of greater than zero (0) to the smart technology, because you know that each additional electronic and mechanical component has a failure probability of greater than zero.

Get a PE to seal the work to demonstrate thorough and independent review.  If you can prove that so-called “smart guns” are as reliable as my guns, I’ll pour ketchup on my hard hat, eat it, and post video for everyone to see.  If you lose, you buy me the gun of my choice.

To date, no one has taken me up on the challenge.  That’s disappointing, because I’d like a free gun.  If you don’t like that challenge, here’s another one.

Talk law enforcement into taking a smart gun.  All officers, no exceptions.  Find a department somewhere in a large city to agree to arm all of their officers with smart guns.

See if you can pull this off, Andrew.  I’m watching and listening.

Postscript: Poor Remington.  What an awful time to be in bankruptcy.

Washington Examiner:

Parts of the United States would be starved of electricity, water, food, internet service and transportation for a year or longer by the smallest electromagnetic pulse attack on the electric grid, according to a newly declassified report from a federal commission.

The so-called EMP Commission report said that the threat is real, jeopardizes “modern civilization,” and would set back living conditions to those last seen in the 1800s.

And as a result of the chaos, millions would likely die, according to the report titled “Assessing the Threat from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP),” from the recently re-established Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack.

“A long-term outage owing to EMP could disable most critical supply chains, leaving the U.S. population living in conditions similar to centuries past, prior to the advent of electric power,” said the July 2017 report provided Secrets.

“In the 1800s, the U.S. population was less than 60 million, and those people had many skills and assets necessary for survival without today’s infrastructure. An extended blackout today could result in the death of a large fraction of the American people through the effects of societal collapse, disease, and starvation. While national planning and preparation for such events could help mitigate the damage, few such actions are currently underway or even being contemplated,” added the executive summary.

[ … ]

In “Life Without Electricity,” he said the results would be:

• Social Order: Looting requires dusk to dawn curfew. People become refugees as they flee powerless homes. Work force becomes differently employed at scavenging for basics, including water, food, and shelter.

• Communications: No TV, radio, or phone service.

• Transportation: Gas pumps inoperable. Failure of signal lights and street lights impedes traffic, stops traffic after dark. No mass transit metro service. Airlines stopped.

• Water and Food: No running water. Stoves and refrigerators inoperable. People melt snow, boil water, and cook over open fires. Local food supplies exhausted. Most stores close due to blackout.

• Energy: Oil and natural gas flows stop.

• Emergency Medical: Hospitals operate in dark. Patients on dialysis and other life support threatened. Medications administered and babies born by flashlight.

• Death and Injury: Casualties from exposure, carbon dioxide poisoning and house fires increase.

I didn’t need the list, nor am I persuaded I need to spend any time studying the report.  I’ve pointed this out before, and it was only after I began to point out the weakness of the main step-up / step-down transformers at power plants that the FedGov or corporations began to focus on thinking about those key aspects of our critical infrastructure.

So let’s paint the picture.  Power goes out.  It won’t return for a very long time.  There is no power to run pumps to get gasoline out of tanks and into automobiles.  There is no fuel delivery truck to bring the gasoline to market because pumps don’t work, and drivers are all at home taking care of their families.

Hospitals have no power except for urgent and critical care, and what little they can get comes from diesel generators (which will stop running when the fuel runs out).  Traffic lights don’t work.  Emergency responders don’t respond.  EBT cards don’t work because food stores are empty, and there is no cash register to run the cards.  We’ve seen how that goes before in Atlanta.

Pumps to bring water to urban and suburban centers don’t run.  Every family is about 72 hours (three days) away from impending starvation.  Looters hit the streets, violence becomes a way of life.

This doesn’t just happen with an EMP event, whether solar or weaponized.  It happens on a smaller scale with terrorist attacks on the electrical grid.  I’ve discussed this at length, so you know this and have been warned, just as I know (and have failed completely to prepare for).

Prior:

A Terrorist Attack That America Cannot Absorb

Surviving the Apocalypse

Electrical Grid Attack

The Electrical Grid Is Still Vulnerable

See also CBS Chicago, Electrical Grid Vulnerable To Attacks, Natural Disasters

Via Reddit/r/Firearms.  Liberty Magazine, May 1994.

Specifically, Reddit has the episode as:

Larry King Live: Season 4, Episode 17

Oliver North; comedian Bill Maher.

Show: Larry King Live

Episode number: 17

Air date: January 26, 1994

Some Redditor will eventually get this (even if from a library) and put it on YouTube.  It will be even more embarrassing than it is now, but the damage is done.

So I suspect that Oliver North, a figure head, is in place to encourage military and former military membership in the NRA.  It’s all about money.

The NRA is hoping that folks will remember “War Stories,” the Fox News series.  Most people the NRA should be after don’t watch TV any more, and none of them remember the scandal in which he was embroiled during the Reagan administration.  All they see now if that North wants to take their AR-15s.  That sounds like a real winner in the gun community.

In reality, we have another Charlon Heston.  I’m sure the NRA is comfortable with him, even if the Redditors aren’t.

Charlotte Observer:

Rather than weaseling out with the excuse that this deal (and who knows how many more) was already in the works, Bank of America must pull out of this agreement and deal with the consequences. The bank can use this moment to show true corporate leadership and create a template for bringing about real change in a post-Parkland world.

[ … ]

There is a reason this editorial was sent to The Charlotte Observer and they printed it.  The Charlotte Observer is progressive, and BoA executives all live in this area since the BoA home office is in Charlotte.

It’s never enough, is it?  A progressive corporation who hates liberty deals a blow to gun manufacturers, and yet the controllers want more, and more and more, until BoA is illegally reneging on contractual obligations, banning all gun makers, and purveying bigotry towards gun owners as well.

You see where this is going, do you?  Semi-automatic weapons is just the latest boogey man.  They want them all, bolt action rifles, handguns, everything.  Everything.

This particular controller is being a little impatient, but he wants to strike while the iron is hot.  Even if it doesn’t work out for him, it’s just another lesson in the fact that there is no point of intersection for us, no point at which we can compromise, nothing in common, and nothing worth giving away to the controllers.

This is all-out war with them.  See it that way, whether you want the war of not.  It has come to your doorstep.

David Codrea:

Uncontrolled degenerate control freaks like Mel Reynolds have no say on my rights and never will.

Well yes, I grok the sentiment.  Oftentimes, control freaks are morally degenerate in all kinds of ways since in order to be a consistent control freak, one must jettison belief in God and His moral law.  The statist god is the collective, which ultimately finds itself in “the one” (as I’ve said, for the best study on this, see Rousas J. Rushdoony, “The One and The Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy”).

But the fact is that there are also control freaks out there who aren’t quite so morally degenerate as Mr. Reynolds, at least to the naked eye, and yet they are just as dangerous as Reynolds.  Being a control freak is a morally malady, a sin-sickness that finds its rivers of evil in the soul.

So it is with all controllers – gun controllers, tax-and-spenders, war-mongers, proponents of state medicine – all of them.

Whether it’s worth it to the reader notwithstanding, I’m going to give some initial thoughts on the Islamic ambush on the SOF (Green Berets) in Niger in 2017, and then conclude with a few thoughts on guns and generals.  I expect pushback, just as I got with A Marine Corps View Of Tactics In Operation Red Wings, a very well visited post, and also a very controversial one.  With this former post, not very many commenters understood what I and my son were saying concerning the boundary conditions for the fight, i.e., we were questioning not just the weapons and staffing of the operation, but why it was conceived the way it was to begin with.  I expect SF and SOF to disagree with elements of my assessment here too.

First of all, let’s dispense with the preliminary necessities of acknowledging that the operation had a very sad ending, in spite of the heroic efforts of some brave men.  Let’s also stipulate that it was very sad that men had to sustain this sacrifice for an army is Islamists created by George Soros and the CIA (along with DynCorp, the CGI, the deep state and others appurtenant parties).  Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, we need to learn from the operation in a clinical manner.

First of all, read this CNN article, and then read this Military Times article (which is better) for background.  For a redacted DoD assessment, read this document (PDF).  I’ll embed a video later, but for the time being, this is necessary reading in order to understand the context.  Now for my assessment.

[1] There is absolutely no question that they “continued to engage the enemy” throughout the event.  That is stated a number of times in the formal report, and the report is correct and honest about that.

[2] The SOF soldiers had M4 carbines with EOTech holographic sights, not scopes with magnification.

[3] A larger caliber weapon would have been irrelevant without long distance sighting capability.

[4] The M4s they deployed with were sufficient to the task given the distances they were shooting.

[5] A small caliber weapon (5.56mm) was the best choice for the engagement anyway given that they were having to lay down very quick fires and needed rapid recovery of sight picture.

[6] The entire operation was poorly conceived and poorly planned.

[7] It isn’t clear to me why they chose to engage the enemy when they did via dismounted operations rather than evasion, egress and escape more quickly.  The vehicle they were using was driving very slowly, leaving them exposed with no cover or concealment.

[8] When they were laying down the only suppressive fires they could, with M4s, there was no coordination of fires.  One soldier was shooting while another was waving for the driver to hurry, and vice versa.  I understand conservation of ammunition, but this was a high intensity rather than a protracted fire fight.

[9] There was no combined arms fires because there were no combined arms to deploy.

[10] They needed a suppressive weapon and didn’t bring one.

[11] The presence of an M249, while perhaps not changing the outcome, would have made it much more difficult for the enemy.

[12] None of the soldiers in the video had an M203, which has a long range of somewhere around 400 yards and an effective range of somewhere around 150-200 yards.

[13] The presence of an M79 would have made it much more difficult on the enemy.  I understand that M79s are still in use.  It has an effective range of somewhere around 400 yards, which I estimate to be within range of the cover and concealment used by the enemy.

[14] Sadly, they were vastly outnumbered.  Furthermore, the enemy had combined arms.  More specifically, they had a crew served truck mounted machine gun.  This was likely determinative for the engagement.

[15] Finally, the M4s didn’t jam.  They functioned well, they were able to shoot within the range of the cover and concealment used by the enemy, and given the rapid sight picture recovery of the weapon, they were probably the best choice if all you had was a rifle.  This was a high intensity engagement.  There was no time for designated marksmen or snipers.  They needed to break contact more quickly, evade, find concealment, and ensconce with a suppression weapon (which they didn’t have).

In my opinion, the video you are about to watch, combined with the reports I cited, bear out much of what I’m saying.  This video was from a helmet camera, confiscated by an Islamic fighter, and now on YouTube.  I don’t vouch for it’s presence on the internet for any specific length of time.  I cannot say how long it will be available.

Again, this is all so very sad that these men perished the way they did.  It should serve as a warning to American politicians on the dangers of open borders for our own country, but it won’t.

And in spite of all of this, Major General Bob Scales indicated this.

He pointed to lives lost due to small arms and other infantry equipment holes from Vietnam to Afghanistan to last year’s deaths of special operations soldiers in Niger.

He is specifically saying that having a rifle of his own choosing would have changed the outcome of the engagement in Niger.

He is an awful man.  Not only is he an idiot and ass-clown, he’s cravenly using the deaths of soldiers in an operation-gone-wrong (because it was conceived wrong) to push his own agenda.  He’s blood dancing on the graves of those soldiers to get his way.

Bob … Scales … has … no … shame.  He is incapable of shame and has no scruples.

Prior: Wait, Defense Secretary Mattis Put Bob Scales In Charge Of WHAT?

Guns.com:

Ohio-based MKS, whose products include Hi-Point Firearms and Inland M1911s, have announced they won’t sell to Dick’s and their affiliates on Second Amendment grounds.

MKS said the recent move by Dick’s to hire a government affairs group for the purpose of gun control lobbying, coupled with the big box retailer’s past choices to destroy their existing inventory of AR-15s and refuse firearm sales to those under age 21 put the two companies at odds when it came to the right to keep and bear arms.

“In recent months, Dick’s Sporting Goods and its subsidiary, Field & Stream, have shown themselves, in our opinion, to be no friend of Americans’ Second Amendment,” said Charles Brown, MKS president. “We believe that refusing to sell long guns to adults under age 21, while many young adults in our military are not similarly restricted, is wrong. We believe that villainizing modern sporting rifles in response to pressure from uninformed, anti-gun voices is wrong. We believe that hiring lobbyists to oppose American citizens’ freedoms secured by the Second Amendment is wrong.”

I doubt MKS sells that much inventory to Dick’s.  But this next one hurts.

NORTH HAVEN, CT – O.F. Mossberg & Sons, Inc., a leading American firearms manufacturer, announced today its decision to discontinue selling products to Dick’s Sporting Goods, and its subsidiary, Field & Stream, in response to their hiring of gun control lobbyists in April 2018.

Effective immediately, O.F. Mossberg & Sons will not accept any future orders from Dick’s Sporting Goods or Field & Stream, and is in the process of evaluating current contractual agreements.

“It has come to our attention that Dick’s Sporting Goods recently hired lobbyists on Capitol Hill to promote additional gun control.” said Iver Mossberg, Chief Executive Officer of O.F. Mossberg & Sons. “Make no mistake, Mossberg is a staunch supporter of the U.S. Constitution and our Second Amendment rights, and we fully disagree with Dick’s Sporting Goods’ recent anti-Second Amendment actions.”

I have written a note to Mossberg Media Relations as follows.

I have no doubt my readers will ask about whether this decision is determinative and controlling, or just applies to firearms ordered from Dick’s bypassing distributors.  Or another way to ask the question is this.  Will Mossberg enforce this decision with distributors too, requiring them to refrain from selling to Dick’s?

As of this writing I have not received a response.  But it appears as if these two manufacturers aren’t so worried about “a conspiracy in restraint of trade.”  What is Dick’s going to do – fight the lawyers from every gun manufacturer in America?

Good for MKS and Mossberg.  Let’s keep piling it on with other gun manufacturers.  I hope Mossberg’s lawyers can work out not supplying them with existing contracts.

TFB:

Back in April TFB reported that the USMC was finally moving to replace the venerable M40 Sniper Rifle. The Corps has confirmed this in a press release announcing the adoption of the Mk 13 Precision Sniper Rifle which will replace the M40A6 currently in service.

The Marine Corps is set to begin fielding the Mk 13 Mod 7 in late 2018, with infantry and recon battalions, as well as scout snipers receiving the weapon. The Mk 13 Mod 7 is already in service with the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC).

[ … ]

The Mk 13 Mod 7 is chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum and features a “long-action receiver, stainless steel barrel, and an extended rail interface system for a mounted scope and night vision optic.” The new rifle and round will bring the Marine Corps capability into alignment with that of the US Army’s snipers and those of Special Operations Command.

[ … ]

While the Corps’ press release does not state how many of the new precision rifles have been purchased as we previously reported the USMC’s FY2019 Budget Estimates Justification Book indicates that 356 rifles will be purchased during the 2018 fiscal year at a projected cost of $4.287 million. This puts the per rifle cost at around $12,000.

Excuse me?  $12,000 per rifle?  I could field three times that many rifles for the cost simply by purchasing parts and doing the build myself.  This is a .300 Win Mag with a tactical chassis, bipod and scope.  Good Lord.  The Marine Corps was taken in this deal.  This is why it’s so costly to arm the U.S. Military.  We make idiotic decisions.

One good note, however.  Heretofore the Marine Corps only shot with the .308, and anything stronger usually involved the deployment of the .50 Sasser.  Deploying the .300 Win Mag is a good intermediary step, one that should have been taken long ago.

Reddit/r/firearms:

From dictionary.com:

The Three Percenters are a national group that was loosely organized in 2008 by Mike Vanderboegh, the late militia leader and author of the controversial novel, Absolved. Their central ideology is a strict reading of the Second Amendment’s clauses of a ” well-regulated militia” and “right of the people to keep and bear arms,” feeling these protections permit armed insurrection in the face of governmental power grabs.

The name Three Percenters is based on a false theory that, during the American Revolution, only 2.96% of the US population actually served in George Washington’s army. Historians have estimated the percentage was closer to 15–25%, but Three Percenters are persistent in citing the debunked statistic as evidence of the US federal government as tyrannical from the start.

Since their founding in 2008, the Three Percenters have been aggressively opposed to (and armed against) any potential gun-control laws, along with other areas where they believe the federal government—particularly under their then-frequent target, Barack Obama—is becoming too large and powerful. For instance, Vanderboegh was recorded arguing for armed resistance against the 2009 Affordable Care Act, rallying fellow Three Percenters to “break windows” at the offices of the Democratic National Committee. Despite Vanderboegh’s cry, the group’s official website states that they do not condone violence and prohibits members from committing “first use of force.”

Hmm … sounds like they’ve copied and pasted from the Southern Preposterous Lie Center.  Here’s more from a commenter.

Dictionary’s numbers for the size of the continental army appear to be off.

According to the Smithsonian 100k men served in the continental army over the course of the war (inclusive, not peak size) with potentially another 200k militiamen that did not general get mobilized for more than 90 days at a time.

Using an estimated population of 2.5 million in the vollonies as of 1776, this puts the continental army employing 4% of the overall population and 12% of the population being under arms (including millitia).

Peak size of the revolutionary men under arms (including militia) at any one tine was estimated at ~89k by the sources I’ve been able to find, which would be ~3.6% of the total population.

In short, the 3%ers might be hanging onto one particular statistic which is relevant but incomplete, but I can’t find any credible source that supports the 15-25% claim by Dictionary, unless they’re only counting colonial males, or something.

This is closer to the truth.  I would bet MBV is chuckling in heaven as he watches his legacy continue.  I’ll drop this post into the “personal” category.