SITREP – Small Arms Review

SITREP: V17N3

SAR Staff — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 15:00:00 +0000

By Dan Shea

I am continually amazed at how gullible people are, and how quickly they take refuge in rumor or falsehood when presented as convenient fact. Dan Quayle, as Vice Presidential candidate, corrected a child during a spelling bee – Quayle spelled “Potatoe” as he was taught in his classical education. I know this, and knew it at the time, because I personally was taught to spell it as “Potatoe” in the fine U.S. public schools of the 1950s and ‘60s. So, when people start talking about “Common Knowledge” and mock Dan Quayle for this event, dismissing him as an intellectual lightweight for adding the ‘e’ to the spelling of potato, I’m skeptical of the depth of their understanding of the lynching tactics of modern media. As reference, this quote from the Oxford Dictionary:

“The spelling of potatoe, while not terribly common, existed for almost the entire 20th century. For example, the New York Times was still occasionally spelling potato with an –e in 1988. In fact, one can easily find spellings of potatoe all the way up to 15 June of 1992, at which point they suddenly drop off or become used in an ironic way, referencing this incident.” – Ammon Shea, Oxford Dictionaries.

So, one of the most common misconceptions in “common knowledge” is total baloney, concocted and driven hard by the media in order to destroy a conservative Vice Presidential candidate during the re-election campaign. A very successful disinformation campaign, it worked to make a laughingstock out of Dan Quayle in the eyes of the uninformed. Read that as “most American voters.”

My point in this example? Only that people are damn gullible. They read things, and are easily led. Thus, we come to “gun control” in the U.S. A complete nut, maybe on too many meds or off them and destabilized, gains access to a firearm, and massacres some innocents. Most of the time the killer is avowedly anti-Christian, has lots of leftist beliefs, might be into Satanism, and damn sure is not a typical American firearms owner. So, who gets blamed by the media? The basic, rock-solid gun owning public of America. What’s called for? Is it more control over the proven mentally ill so they’re not allowed to purchase firearms? Nope. Is it perhaps arming people in the schools so they can defend against the actions of a crazy person? Nope.

We have to ban different classes of firearms so that law-abiding, morally grounded, properly trained, responsible American firearms owners can’t enjoy their Second Amendment Right to be armed in a modern fashion. That’s the vast majority of us. Typical, isn’t it?

Thankfully, this time the silly, pointless, and impotent laws that were proposed, that would never solve the problems, were defeated without having to go through ten years of ridiculous impositions on firearms owners. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be more attempts, and very soon at that. We need to discuss reasonable, rational solutions to the problems of a crazy person with a weapon – how to protect our children in the schools – with real solutions, not theatrical pronouncements and impositions on the Rights of citizens in misguided efforts at gun banning. The first step in trying to accomplish this is to understand that the gun-banners are irrational first, dealing only with emotions and misinformation, and that they are NOT the majority of Americans. It’s best to offer real solutions, to deal with these issues head on, not just hope they’ll forget about us for a while, because they won’t, they’re just backing up to regroup.

-Dan

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V17N3 (September 2013)

SITREP: V19N9

SAR Staff — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 20:14:00 +0000

By Dan Shea

With this issue, our Senior Editor Robert Segel moves on into semi-retirement. For 11 years, he’s devoted a huge amount of time and energy to helping both Small Arms Review and Small Arms Defense Journal stay on track and become what they are today. We’re grateful for all of the work that he’s done, and he will be missed. Fortunately for the readers, Robert will be continuing his column “Emmageeman’s Corner: Machine Gun Memorabilia” and writing historical articles for us. Robert traveled the world with SAR and was in on many adventures from England’s hidden historical museums, to live firing machine guns in Serbia, to Southeast Asian military shows. His unique, lifelong search for knowledge about machine guns and specifically his work with the Golden Age (1870-1922) of these weapons has impacted the knowledge of all of us in the small arms community. He has plans to work on books regarding his memorabilia collections, and early machine guns, and we look forward to those as well.

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V19N9 (November 2015)

SITREP: V19N1

SAR Staff — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 18:36:00 +0000

By Dan Shea

Evolution Cover:

Photographer: Michael Balasko
Art Director: Gracie Wingert

Location: The Mob Museum, Las Vegas, www.themobmuseum.org (special thanks to Brenda Hengel).

Background: St. Valentine’s Day Massacre wall at The Mob Museum in Las Vegas.

FBI G-Man Rocco Loisi: Suit; Mastroianni Fashions Las Vegas, www.mastroiannifashions.com. Hat; The Doctor in Black, Goorin Bros. at The Linq, Las Vegas, www.goorin.com (special thanks to Yeisenn DelToro). Machine Gun; original Colt 1921AC Thompson Submachine Gun in .45ACP, with 50 round New York “L-Drum,” from Zangaro Ltd. He’s removed the buttstock to keep it compact and sports a Colt 1911A1 in .38 Super caliber (hidden on his belt) for shooting through bad guys’ cars.

The Mob Museum

The Mob Museum is a world-class destination in downtown Las Vegas dedicated to the story of organized crime and law enforcement. True stories of Mob history are brought to life through interactive, high-tech exhibits and over 600 artifacts, the largest collection of Mob and law enforcement memorabilia under one roof.

Museum hours are Sundays through Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. For more information, call (702) 229-2734 or visit www.themobmuseum.org. Connect on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/themobmuseum and on Twitter: @TheMobMuseum.

The Museum has acquired some of the most iconic artifacts in Mob history including the barber chair Albert Anastasia was sitting in when murdered in New York City, and the brick wall from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago in 1929. The Museum opened on Valentine’s Day 2012, the 83rd anniversary of the Massacre where seven men affiliated with Bugs Moran’s gang were lined up along the wall, shot and killed by Al Capone’s South Side Italian gang.

Today’s Operator Josh Holzer: Today’s operator has a massive technical arsenal available to him for his close quarter battle and unusual needs. Gear from Operation: Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Sunglasses; WileyX. Hat; Voodoo Tactical. Machine Gun; POF USA P308-FA piston-driven select fire 7.62x51mm rifle with 16.5î barrel and Magpul P-Mag 20 round magazine. This system is augmented with a Trijicon TA11 optic with the 7.62 reticle and an ATN Mini-Thor Thermal weapon site. The Mini-Thor can be quickly installed or left off for straight daylight mission use. On the right side forward, the Vingtech VarioRay with visible laser aperture, non-visible IR laser aperture, non-visible IR illuminator and a powerful LED flashlight with strobe capabilities. The Trijicon RMR sight mounted on the VarioRay allows for a very, very fast target acquisition by simply rolling the rifle into the cheek and clearing the opto-electronics out of the way. All of this leads up to a whole lot of options for the modern operator to use at his choice.

Makeup: None. Our manly cover models refused even Chapstick.
Hair: None, but Josh combed his goatee.

Artifacts integrated throughout the Museum’s interactive exhibits provide an insider’s look into many of organized crime’s biggest names, including, Al Capone, Dion O’Bannion, George Moran, Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Ben Siegel, Sam Giancana, Joe Bonanno, Frank Rosenthal, Mickey Cohen, Tony Cornero, Whitey Bulger and John Gotti to name just a few. The Museum is located in what many consider the ultimate artifact, the former federal courthouse and United States Post Office. Completed in 1933 and listed on the Nevada and National Registers of Historic Places, it houses the courtroom where in 1950 one of 14 national Kefauver hearings was held to expose organized crime in America. Meticulously rehabilitated for The Mob Museum, the building is significant not only for its neo-classical architecture reminiscent of the period in which it was built, but also for the historic events that unfolded inside of it.

In addition, items and artifacts relating to law enforcement’s role in helping to eradicate and control the Mob, such as weapons, wiretapping tools and tactics and crime scene photos, are also shown.

The Museum has accumulated numerous accolades since opening in 2012, including being named one of “10 World Landmarks You Haven’t Seen – Yet” by NBC News, “20 Places Every American Should See” by Fox News and Budget Travel magazine, “Las Vegas’ Best New Attractions for 2012” by Travel + Leisure magazine, “9 Reasons to Visit Las Vegas” by CNNgo, a finalist for the “Best Wider World Project Award,” by the British Guild of Travel Writers and “Best Museum” by Nevada Magazine and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Trijicon TA11 optic with the 7.62 reticle and an ATN Mini-Thor Thermal weapon site. Vingtech VarioRay with visible laser aperture, non-visible IR laser aperture, non-visible IR illuminator and a powerful LED flashlight with strobe capabilities. Trijicon RMR sight.

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Wall

The Mob Museum has acquired some of the most iconic artifacts in Mob history including the brick wall from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929 in Chicago. Seven men affiliated with Bugs Moran’s gang were lined up against the wall and shot to death by Al Capone’s gang.

In 1967, the wall was torn down, and a Vancouver businessman bought the bricks which were still full of bullet holes from the massacre. Over the next 42 years, the bricks were featured in a traveling exhibit, housed in a short-lived crime museum and displayed in a nightclub restroom. They finally found a permanent home at The Mob Museum.

From their first sale in 1967 the bricks were lettered and numbered, allowing The Mob Museum to assemble and display the wall in a manner very close to the original. At some point, some of the bullet holes in the bricks were enhanced by red paint. (No, it’s not blood!)

Original Colt 1921AC Thompson Submachine Gun in .45ACP, with 50 round New York “L-Drum,” from Zangaro Ltd.

Repeal Day celebration at The Mob Museum
Party Like It’s 1933

Party like it’s 1933 at the 3rd Annual Repeal Day Celebration from 6 p.m. to midnight as The Mob Museum marks the anniversary of the end of Prohibition (December 5, 1933).

Highlight of the evening will be the Boss of the Bars Competition. Guests also will be able to enjoy signature drinks, VIP Party, casino table games, Costume Contest, cabaret dancers and jazz swing band.

Toast Repeal Day with former Mayor Oscar Goodman 7 p.m. on the steps of The Mob Museum

$60 VIP Party 6-midnight

The Mob Museum’s Speakeasy Party will be a soiree for classy dames and stand-up fellas. Speakeasy tickets grant you entry to the VIP Party beginning at 6 p.m. Activities include 1920s Dance Lessons, Special Music from the age of crooners, a Commemorative Repeal Day Flask and two free drink tickets. VIP guests also will enjoy all the events of the Repeal Day celebration including the Boss of the Bars Competition, signature drinks, cigars, casino table games, Costume Contest, cabaret dancers and a jazz swing band.

$40 Repeal Day Celebration 7-midnight

Admission includes Museum access, Boss of the Bars Competition, signature drinks, cigars, casino table games, Costume Contest, cabaret dancers and a jazz swing band. Roaring 20s costumes are encouraged and prizes will be awarded.

SAR realizes that one of the optics on the Operator’s machine gun needs to be raised. We apologize, the part we needed did not arrive in time for our photo shoot and we were out of duct tape.

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V19N1 (January 2015)

SITREP: V18N5

SAR Staff — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 15:00:00 +0000

By Dan Shea

(Written 19 May, 2014)

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” — President Ronald Reagan

It was 19 May, 1986 – In a very different United States: Ronald Reagan had America back on its way to strength because it was “Morning in America.” There was no World Wide Web, the Internet was just a big thought in a small group of minds… fax trees were just starting up and wouldn’t really affect anything until the 1992 Presidential elections… communications that were not part of the big picture for the media were done by word of mouth and U.S. Mail.

MACs cost only hundreds of dollars, so did M16s. HK machine guns were the expensive ones at $700, and there were virtually no factory parts for them. Machine gun collectors gathered at small shoots around the country, and were basically ostracized by the rest of the firearms community; the crazy old uncle you tried to not introduce to anyone you cared about. ATF ran rampant and harassed gun dealers and owners at many levels. To buy ammunition, well, you had to register in a book dealers kept and show ID.

The FOPA (the Firearms Owners Protection Act), as it was named by Congress, was passed, signed by President Reagan and became law on 19 May, 1986. It’s often described as the only Act of Congress passed specifically to protect the public from a government agency, and ATF institutionally will never use the FOPA title.

There were some great things in the law: the right to travel unmolested through areas that had onerous firearms laws, as long as you were legal at your start and finish and kept the firearms locked up, was a huge deal. Travelers lived in fear of local laws, and were in fact jailed. Second, we won the first “give back” on a firearms law that anyone could remember – the silly ammunition record books had been proven to be pointless, having helped solved no crimes and only been used to annoy and impede ownership. We got rid of that 1968 dinosaur, yet, many of us realized that in a lot of ways it was a Paperwork Reduction Act thing to save trees in the eyes of Congress, more than a victory for us. Typical.

ATF was forbidden to harass gun dealers by having multiple inspections in one year; only one was allowed unless there were special problems found. There were many allegations that ATF was targeting firearms dealers and harassing them with frequent “Compliance” inspections for the purpose of wasting so much time the dealer went out of business. The government was also forbidden to create registries of Title I firearms, not that this has stopped them from trying. Much has been written about the treachery of the Hatch Amendment, banning the further manufacture of machine guns for private ownership. Most is pretty accurate, some a bit hysterical, some glosses it over. Basically, at the last possible second, machine gun owners were tossed under the bus by the regular firearms owners and there’s still a lot of resentment on that count. Absolutely unconstitutional, but it stands as the law until fully, properly challenged.

So today, 28 years later, where are we?

Machine gun values have skyrocketed due to the artificially created tight supply of pre-1986 registered machine guns, and the popularity driven by the Internet. Owning NFA firearms is almost expected in most areas, or at least “Black Rifle” ownership is. The old way of doing business – having a store, going to gun shows and showing your customers the machine guns they can buy, has gone away. The vast majority of sales are done online, and the few remaining of the large old MG dealers have gone online or been replaced by a new generation of NFA dealers that usually function without a store, and work entirely online. The arcane rules and regulations that were understood by few, have been parsed so many times on the Internet, and get-arounds figured by outhouse lawyers dispensing advice, that it seems like we have a flushing of deluded dealers/collectors about every 18 months or so. Meaning, someone thinks they have a loophole, they use it for a while, then it gets promoted online, lots of people do it, and finally it gets enough traction that the government stomps on it.

Now, we dealers are restricted to one “dealer sales sample” of a model due to the massive abuse in 1998-99. It’s also now almost impossible to do minor, sensible changes to firearms because a small group set up a wholesale operation to turn cheap MACs into expensive, rare machine guns by simply moving the serial number onto newly made receivers- read that “contraband ones.”

We’ve come close to having an Amnesty several times, but it always gets killed by politics – a change in President, a change in focus at ATF; simple things stop us from getting our rights back. Most of us want to go back to pre-1986, or pre-1968, or pre-1934. However, we never get the funds, the opportunity, or the momentum to drive it. We seem destined to fight for little things, to stop one out of ten of the “Death by a thousand cuts” that we face.

I’m personally not encouraged by the signs I see politically and in the courts – at least not for a major sea change. I still don’t think of NFA Firearms as an “investment” even though they have enriched many with their increasing values: they are a speculation if you want to make money. I still feel the way I always have: buy them because you want them and can afford them and if the value drops you have something you wanted anyway and if it goes up, you’re pleasantly surprised (or your heirs are, at least).

That is not a reason for not continually working hard for change, but as noted by many old soldiers; “Hope is not a Plan.” We can’t just sit and hope that things will change, we have to plan, and work for it.

-Dan

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V18N5 (October 2014)

SITREP: V18N4

SAR Staff — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 15:00:00 +0000

By Dan Shea

“A man may fight for many things: his country, his principles, his friends, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I’d mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a stack of French porn.” -Sir Edmund Blackadder

Those who know our Usual Suspects will be aware that our esteemed and revered Senior Editor bears a striking resemblance to Sir Edmund in both physical appearance and inter-personal relationship skill-sets. It is with a light heart that we present the above quote as a tribute to him, and to open the discussion below.

In the 1980s, there was a T-shirt being worn at some of the machine gun shoots which stated, “Please don’t tell my mother I’m a Class 3 Dealer, she thinks I own a string of Whorehouses in Texas.” While this is amusing, the underlying thought was that not only in the general population, but within the firearms community itself, the Class 3 enthusiast was looked at with suspicion and some trepidation. There just HAD to be something wrong with people who had silencers, pen guns and (shudder) machine guns.

It takes a lot to overcome stereotypes, and since the 1980s, we NFA type owners have evolved into almost a majority. Nearly every firearms owner has a “Black Rifle” of some type, semi-auto though it might be, as well as some “hi-cap” pistols. Suppressors are now downright common. This is a victory for us, but we have to be wary of the sway of public opinion. There are, in fact, large, powerful groups looking to run us over, and deny us our rights. They look to divide us, and whittle away at our God given, constitutionally guaranteed right to own military type firearms.

In the end, this is our unique birthright as Americans – the Rights guaranteed by the Constitution. It’s difficult to find a serious person who questions whether the founders of the United States of America were discussing ownership of military type firearms, and the ability to use them in defense of life, home and country. Political hacks, lobbyists and crusaders against firearms ownership might all say it’s not about that, but even the most liberal based scholar, working without agenda, will usually confirm the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is exactly that.

The quibbling begins with the discussions regarding what restrictions can be placed on a Right, especially when it states that the Right “Shall not be infringed.” For instance, the Right to Freedom of Speech; does that mean you can knowingly tell harmful lies? Can you shout “Fire” in a crowded place and cause pandemonium and harm to people? Can you orchestrate and operate a crusade of lies against people on the Internet and simply call it “Free Speech” and not have consequences?

The courts have been unraveling the cowards who hide behind the “Freedom of Speech” shield, but at times they are still protecting some. Having been through this a few times, I have zero tolerance for those types of cowards. How we went from a world of rugged individualism and personal responsibility to a world of sleazy backstabbers and liars having free reign, I’ll never understand, and fortunately, the courts are starting to swing back at the darkness.

It appears we have a similar situation with the Second Amendment. There are abusers on both sides of this – violent criminals who gain access to military firearms are not entitled to do so by our Constitution as they have surrendered that Right due to their choices and actions against society. By the same token, there are people who actively attempt to steal that Right from Americans who were either born with it or partake of it by becoming citizens. Our readers from other countries have their own unique issues to deal with and are frequently puzzled by the intricacies of our arguments. When it is not their Right and obligation to defend their home and country, our fervent discussions can seem antiquated or oblique.

However, we Americans are adamant in our positions in this regard. You will find far more defenders of a flag burner in a group of combat veterans than perhaps in general population – those men and women having paid dearly for the Right to Free Speech… and they also will defend to the death the right of some old WWII vet to express himself with a fire extinguisher when that flag burner lights a match.

Personally, I’ll defend the Right of any person to say “I don’t think you should have guns.” They can say what they want, wherever they want, because America is still a free country. However, when they try to enforce their wishes and prevent us from exercising that Right, they need to be met with whatever it takes to prevent that. It is our fervent desire at Small Arms Review that this can be met at the ballot box, and that we can get the pendulum to swing back to the purity of Paine’s “Common Sense” for national direction.

-Dan

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V18N4 (August 2014)

SITREP: V18N3

SAR Staff — Sun, 01 Jun 2014 15:00:00 +0000

By Dan Shea

“There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.” – Thomas Sowell

And thus, if you’re reading this, the brilliant Mr. Sowell has handed you the key to better understanding our current firearms laws.

I’ve often noted that the anti-firearms ownership advocates want one law: No one may have a firearm. (Exception: Themselves, their bodyguards and their version of government). On the flip side, we hold the view most of the firearms community has – we need one law – commit a violent crime with a firearm, go to jail for a very long time.

If it’s so simple, then how did we end up with over 20,000 assorted firearms laws, and a bureaucracy that can barely keep up with the endless, convoluted and arcane laws as well as the burdensome regulations they evoked? Situations where people go to jail for laws that even top lawyers can’t figure out? There are enough “High IQ” people out there who’ve gone to jail by gaming the firearms law system and thinking they could parse the language, let alone the ones who really couldn’t figure out what was legal, and what was not.

Smart people did this to the laws. People with agendas other than upholding the Constitution, or the agendas they tell their constituents. Take the 1968 Gun Control Act: basically, three assassinations of high profile Americans – Jack Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. The common thread was that supposedly the assassinations were committed with firearms bought mail-order over state lines. Thus, a system of Federal Firearms Licensees who would be the only ones who could deal in firearms interstate was established as the keynote of the GCA-68, to keep a record of who, what and where firearms went. The Commerce Clause was invoked as a source of authority for the federal government to do this. Yet, a lot of other things were put in that law as well. Smart people in the firearms industry who had their own agenda managed to block importation of inexpensive military surplus firearms and small self-defense firearms, leaving excellent business opportunities for their companies. In the process, they ended up blocking the individual American’s freedom of choice in these firearms.

Downstream from that, the “Sporting” tests they created on importation were applied to shotguns like the USAS-12 and Striker-12, and they were banned from importation as “Non-sporting.” Since the potential importers did not fight this, the rulings were left standing, and in 1993 Bill Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury unilaterally declared that the domestically made variants of these shotguns were “Destructive Devices” requiring registration with the NFA Branch, and requiring a $200 tax stamp and signature from the Chief Law Enforcement Officer in the owner’s area. While the government thought this was about 18,000 affected firearms, it turned out to be over 80,000, and over a ten-year period of being allowed to register these, not even close to all were registered. And for the first two years, “smart people” on the firearms ownership side (yours truly included) negotiated that the owner had to get that CLEO signature for this property he legally owned, and for the first two years, “smart people” on the firearms ownership side negotiated that Type 10 Manufacturer of Destructive Devices could accept these firearms in and register them on a Form 2, because so many owners could not get a CLEO signature and this was unfair. Then, miraculously, the ATF decreed that these could be registered by the owners without the CLEO signature, creating animosity between the Type 10 manufacturers who had registered these firearms for people, and the owners who wanted to take them back and file their own Form 1 to “make” these into the NFRTR. Well, if they were already registered by the Type 10 FFL, in order to remove them from the NFRTR they had to have the barrel removed, and the owner could not receive the original barrel on registering his shotgun with the Form 1. Thus, the citizen incurs the costs of a new barrel, and installation, and his firearm is no longer original.

All because people with high IQs parsed some language and bent things to their agenda, using the 1968 act, add the 1980s rulings, and a confusing 1993 firearms categorization ruling by a newly installed Secretary of the Treasury who was hell-bent on doing SOMETHING against firearms owners. Anything.

This mess continues today. The current fiasco of the “NFA Trust” situation was brought to us by smart people (Once again, yours truly included) who back in the early 1990s tried to resolve the problem of reluctant CLEO signers, then there were “smarter” people who figured out how to game the system and explained wholesale online how to “get machine guns without background checks” and then finally, due to the high visibility of the aforementioned blogging, the “Even smarter” component of the current administration slammed it all down, creating discord and mayhem in the firearms community.

Wouldn’t all be simpler if we had one law, perhaps something backed by our Constitution, maybe “The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” And, if you committed a violent crime with a firearm, you went to jail for a long, long time.

– Dan

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V18N3 (June 2014)

SITREP: SAR V18N2

SAR Staff — Tue, 01 Apr 2014 15:00:00 +0000

Above: Generations at the 85th Gala Birthday Celebration Dinner in Izhevsk. Left to right: General Kalashnikov’s daughter Elena, General Kalashnikov, Granddaughter Jevgenija, Granddaughter Alexandra (Sasha) and Great-Granddaughter Ilona.

23 December, 2013. It is with great sadness that we bid farewell to General Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, age 94, who passed in the afternoon in a hospital in Izhevsk, in the Udmurt Republic. The Father of the AK47 affected just about every person on the planet; who hasn’t heard of his weapon systems or had their lives affected in some manner?

The Great Designers of the 20th Century – Browning, Stoner, Nambu, Hotchkiss, Lewis and Maxim include the Sergeant from Kurya as one of their own.

Kalashnikov was born on 10 November, 1919, in Kurya, the Kuryinsky District, Altai Krai, Russia, just after the Red Revolution of 1917. He fought in The Great Patriotic War against the Nazi Germans, and was wounded. In his 20s, while recuperating, he designed what became the AK47 Assault Rifle.

While Small Arms Review counted the General as one of our heroes, and we’ve devoted much of our editorial space to his designs and the offshoots thereof, it seems like everyone remembers him simply on his weapon designs. The personal anecdotes will flourish in the press as writers vie to tell their stories. We would like to take a moment to remember Mikhail Kalashnikov as the family man he was in the photo above during his 85th birthday party. In his expressions to us, he was the father/grandfather first, then a Patriot of Mother Russia, and then the inventor of weapons.

He was surrounded by his family and friends for the balance of his life. The Western Press frequently quotes the General as saying he regretted his weapon inventions, but that would be patently false, simply a ruse by apologists to paint over his legacy. As a patriot of Russia, and a staunch Communist of the old school, Kalashnikov believed firmly in his contributions as protecting his beloved Russia and the Russian people as well. He was always close friends with the designers at Zastava in Serbia, and communicated with weapons designers and friends around the world, including Eugene Stoner. The only regret that this writer is familiar with Kalashnikov expressing, was related to certain terrorists using his weapons, never a regret regarding professional soldiers.

-Dan

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V18N2 (April 2014)

SITREP: V18N1

SAR Staff — Sat, 01 Feb 2014 15:00:00 +0000

By Dan Shea

“There are no American troops in Baghdad!” – Baghdad Bob. Recently re-iterated by our Commander-in-Chief.

I couldn’t resist starting this issue’s Sitrep with the above quote. If you get it, you get it. If not, well… It made me smile, so I figure it will for a lot of the readers as well. Especially if you’re active duty and over in…. well, never mind.

“Training is not the responsibility of one party in the Armed Forces. No one can say that training is the responsibility of this party, or this person. It is the responsibility of all levels in the Armed Forces.” – Saddam Hussein, Fearless Leader & President of Iraq (retired).

That recently retired Head of State had a point there. It’s everyone’s responsibility to ensure that all persons are properly trained. This is regardless of whether we’re discussing a military unit like a squad, a platoon, or a company, or if it’s just taking someone to the range to shoot machine guns. If you’re taking them, even if you just meet them there, you should be acting responsibly and trying to help with safety, and passing on the knowledge of arms to them. Our readers tend to be knowledgeable on fully automatic weapons among others, so I’m focusing on that. Yes, I was just at a range and watching a “Gun Guy” pass on this martial pastime and history to some youths, and that always makes me happy. You hear so much negativity towards firearms in the media, almost always it’s not factual, and almost always it’s completely divorced from the reality of who the people in the firearms community are. Sure, we’ve got our share of idiots and hate-mongers, but there isn’t any community that doesn’t. Just go to YouTube for the “Hey Bubba, Watch This!” moments and look online at the trash spewed by a few people wherever they can make posts. That’s not the majority though, and I really enjoyed watching the discipline of arms, and the history being shared by that gentleman.

If you’re new to SAR please understand that this section is the place where I get to say a few personal things, opinions about the state of military small arms, collecting, or our community. We’ve hit the newsstands again pretty hard starting with this issue with our new makeover. We didn’t even have to go on Reality TV for that. We had to trim the number of newsstand issues down and go quarterly for a while as we built the online magazine – like most other magazines have done. Now that we’re back, we’re giving readers six issues a year, plus the massive online resource.

Primarily, we’re giving our take on current small arms and accessories, keeping some intriguing historical articles, but moving most of the newly written historical articles on rare and arcane weapons onto SmallArmsOfTheWorld.com so they can reach a wider audience. The website is around 100,000 articles, photos, manuals, test reports, historical documents and other related items now, and growing exponentially.

If you have libraries of documents you want preserved in this manner, please let us know. A lot of our older readers are beginning to realize just how important The Archive Project is, and are participating. Essentially, we’ll scan the manuals and documents properly, make them searchable, and put them online so the information will last forever, for future generations. This is a “Pay” site after the first free month, it’s only $2.97 per month, charged automatically monthly and included with a subscription to SAR. This helps amortize the cost of the people working, scanning, and presenting this information online. A project like this takes a lot of effort, time, and money to continue building, so please help out if you can.

Also with this issue, Jeff Zimba moves on from doing the layout. After almost 18 years of being “On the Mag” once a month, he’s gotten a real job with Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine (SAM), an organization that he’s devoted himself to for many years. About 20 years back, Jeff was awarded the prestigious “Doc Garcelon” award for his activism and service to the community regarding Second Amendment Rights. It’s nice to see him working full time with SAM now, and he’ll be a regular contributor to SAR as well.

–Dan

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V18N1 (February 2014)

SITREP: V17N4

SAR Staff — Sun, 01 Dec 2013 09:00:00 +0000

By Dan Shea

It’s hard to believe we’re ending our 17th year of Small Arms Review. However, that’s the fact, and we keep on providing the best coverage of military small arms for our community. Like most magazines today, we’ve had to adapt to a tough economy, inflation in all levels of production, and a readership that migrates back and forth with the Internet. We saw Newsweek go completely digital, and many other old mainstays are only found online as well.

We knew we had to increase our presence online and adapt to the changing environment. We took a two-year breather while we went to quarterly issues with a much larger edition, and evolved the online presence into what is now one of the best resources on the Internet. The library of files available online to subscribers grows more massive every day and we have even larger expansions planned.

It’s a difficult transition all the way around. Many of us really enjoy the tactile feel of books and magazines. I know I do. There’s nothing like sitting back with an old book, or the newest one that has the latest info. That said, I search online all the time, and seldom meet a person under 40 who isn’t wired online most of the time for their information. If we can’t bring our historical and martial interest to them in a format they use, then we never get to share it.

For well over 20 years, I’ve been taking my family to Leeds Castle in Kent, England on summer holidays. It’s a wonderful place, started in the 12th century and modernized many times. When you tour the castle, there is the library – a great old library with high ceilings and bookshelves filled with wonderful tomes dating back to the 1600s. There is a book there that I’ve always wanted to read written by Lord Paget in the 1800s. Lord Paget owned Leeds Castle, and in his service to the Crown was the leader of the Third Line of the Light Brigade in their famed charge during the Crimean War. He calls it Crimean Journals, published in 1881. Sometimes, I daydream about sitting in one of the big chairs in the library on a summer evening, cheroot in hand (unlit of course, I don’t smoke) and reading his stories of the Crimean War. Recently, I Googled that title and found it online. I read a bit, then stopped, because I very much want to sit back in that chair, and feel the paper in my hand and let my thoughts run with his story.

I get it, we like our physical books and magazines. However, we have to keep up with the new people or we’ll fail to pass on our interests, the lore and wizardry of arms dying off with us as we age. I hope the rest of our older readers will make it online to see the massive resource we’re building at smallarmsoftheworld.com so they can evolve with us.

Now that we’ve had time to analyze the changes we all face, firearms magazines seem to be one of the few magazines that can still sell on newsstands. We have some more changes to make that will benefit our readers. As of Volume 18, Number 1, we’ll be going to a bi-monthly format, and going back onto the newsstand, in force. We’ll keep our wonderful historical articles, but now we can expand the more arcane and narrowly focused ones into the online presentation, giving our readers access to much expanded versions of those articles. The print media only allows for a few pictures per article, and to expand the articles online, making them searchable, helps preserve the knowledge. This also allows us to present more of the marketable new products our readers want to know about.

Thus, the respite we had to take to back up and regroup, we had to take SAR to 4 times per year, and now we’re building back up to 6 times per year. We’re working towards some special editions, and an annual, but that’s another story for another day.

Debbie, Robert, and I, with the rest of the Usual Suspects of Small Arms Review, would like to thank you, our loyal readers, for sticking with us through these modern, changing times.

-Dan

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V17N4 (December 2013)

SITREP: V17N2

SAR Staff — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

By Dan Shea

We’re pleased to bring you this issue of SAR. The quarterly format has allowed us to stretch our legs a bit, expanding the article base, and as we looked this issue over we had a lot of happy editors and writers. We know we’re fulfilling our mission.

The balance that we’re now able to achieve by bringing two new articles every week online and one complete back issue from our archives online, combined with the thousands of manuals, test documents, historical documents, photos, and factory flyers we’re building online, is the perfect complement to the issues of SAR. In a world where the vast majority of people are getting their information online, we’re able to provide a verified, peer-reviewed, edited resource for small arms users and collectors.

Each new issue of SAR is instantly online when it leaves the printer, so those who can use computers can access it immediately. That is the majority of our readers. We are well aware that some readers have dial-up modems, have no Internet access, or choose to not read anything online. That’s why we kept publishing the physical magazine- for you.

We’ve had some questions lately about, “Why do I have to buy two subscriptions; for the magazine and for online?”

That’s a bit backwards. The subscription to Small Arms Review includes access to SmallArmsOfTheWorld.com as well. You pay $49.95 per year for four large issues of SAR and access to the massive archives online, as well as all the new articles every week. Those archives are very, very deep; just try searching for something like SPIW, or Thompson, or Maxim. You’ll get piles of articles, photos, manuals, test reports, and factory brochures. Go and try it. Most of the archives are behind the paywall, for our subscribers’ use, but you can see what is there.

The reason that there are subscription choices is for the people who either can’t or won’t use one of those two services. We’re being proactive and giving them a choice. They asked us to not make them buy the online if they can’t use it, so we gave a discount for just buying the magazine. Likewise, many overseas readers want access online; they don’t want to pay the extra postage. A lot of readers are modern in their reading habits and online is perfect for them – they don’t need a magazine. So, if you are “opting out” of one or the other, you pay $39.95 for just the physical magazine, or $19.95 for just online access. In effect, you get a discount for buying the regular subscription, $49.95 per year.

A subscription to our magazine is $49.95 per year, and it includes unlimited access to our archives online, as well as the new articles and archives every week. As a service to some of our readers, we offered different subscription programs, and that has been a source of confusion.

We’ve actually started relying on the archives online as opposed to my filing system, and as we progress into our second year, and thousands more of our manuals, photos, catalog sheets, test reports, etc., are digitized and searchable, I hope to be set even more free to do my research through digital means – it saves a huge amount of time and I can do it from anywhere on the planet that has Internet.

The vision of digitizing millions of small arms related manuals, photos, test reports, catalogs, etc., moves closer every day. We’re getting requests from people around the world to see how they can help archive the data they have access to, and we’ve been traveling to museum libraries to scan rare documents as well.

In short, if you have a way to access this resource, you should try to participate. We’re building this for future generations, so that the knowledge pool is accurate, and getting deeper every day.

–Dan

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V17N2 (June 2013)