Invasion

[BBill]

Originally Posted by Bluntforce

I have a pet theory that silencer/suppressors were included in the NFA to starve subsistance poachers during the Depression.

The position that short barreled shotguns were not common in military usage was perhaps the boldest faced lie any branch of this government ever told up to that point. It ranks with the Indian treaties. Blunderbusses being used on ship deck predated our Independence by two centuries and was a common weapon on American naval ships for the same purposes other navies used them, to repel boarders.

Muskets of any length loaded with shot was common in American military usage until dedicated shotguns came along. In military use they (shotguns built for the military) were always shorter barreled than rifles.

If Miller had appeared before the court the chances of successfully defeating that arguement was excellent.

In THE AGE OF THE GUNFIGHTER the author Dr. Rosa (do not remember first name, University of Oklahoma Press) asserts the full automatic weapons used by the notorious bank robbers were mostly BARs stolen from National Guard armories. If true, the NFA did next to nothing to address the criminals that made the FBI famous outside the cities. The Thompson was not popular because of its great weight, tendency to jam and comparatively (to the .30-06 BAR) underpowered round. City gangs and their preferences in weapons was not discussed that I recall.

(He also claims no town in the Old West was ever held in thrall by an armed gang because armed citizens simply would not put up with it.)

Was that why they had "Duck Bills" on shotties...for the trenches??

[Bluntforce]

Yes. As soon as the self contained cartridge came along the U.S. wanted to eliminate the bayonet. Figured you could shoot them again, club them or stab with a proper knife or employ other novelties.

Theodore Roosevelt nixed the perfunctory rod bayonet on the 1903 Springfield and conventional bayonet mountings were part of the cartridge related upgrades in 1906.

The bayonet for the shotgun and American bayonet doctrine came from study of field conditions in WWI before deployment.

Don’t take my word for it, go to YouTube channel Forgotten Weapons and watch the video on the original 1903 model Springfield rifle and his video on the trowel bayonet in which the American desire to drop the bayonet altogether is discusssed. Between the two videos or in related the Krag-Jorgensen bayonet development is covered.

In one of his Civil War trilogies Bruce Catton discusses the reluctance of American soldiers on both sides to destroy the baseball bat ability of a heavy musket by affixing the bayonet to it and the scarcity of bayonet wounds. One of the charges that rebuffed the Confederate assault on Little Roundtop was done by men with empty rifles without bayonets smashing into the Confederates and clubbing them back.

I don’t have the books ready to hand but Doc probably does and both items are by way of Bruce Catton.

[Bluntforce]

Buck n’ ball was a preferred load in American muskets and requested by George Washington to increase hit probability by line infantry.

One northern unit had buck n’ ball at Gettysburg. Their commander had them disassemble the loads and load small shot instead. They were in the center and were able to employ the inherent devastation on the unfortunates in Pickett’s Charge when they miraculously made it through the artillery.

Article in American Rifleman, should be able to find in their website archives.

I would not expect European militaries to follow suit but the case for common military usage in United States practice was well known and easily established (Civil War veterans were still alive in the 1930s and could verify). Common military usage in Europe and the British Empire was likely beyond the sheistery of that court but I may not be giving due notice to their bastardy by aspiration.

[Doc]

I have most of Bruce Catton's books including his trilogy of, Glory Road, A Stillness at Appomattox and Mr. Lincoln's Army.

At the battle of Carthage in southwest Missouri near where I was born, 2,000 confederates, mounted, were totally unarmed. They were used as diversionary troops. The rebels won the battle armed mostly with squirrel rifles, shotguns and a couple of cannon. That was one of the first battles fought in the War of Northern Aggression.

William B. Edwards in his, Civil War Guns, talked of Useless Weapons from a passage by Carlton McCarthy of the Richmond Howitzers, Army of Northern Virginia:

"Revolvers were found to be about as useless as heavy lumber. . . The infantry found out that bayonets were not of much use, and did not hesitate to throw them, with the scabbard, away. . . Artillerymen gave their heavy sabers to the cavalry and finally sabers got very scarce even among cavalrymen, who relied more and more on their short rifles."

Catton again, from, This Hollowed Ground:

"There was a fog that morning. . ." Lee, at Fredericksburg, watching from a high point, said, "It is well that war is so horrible, lest we grow too fond of it. . ."

"The fighting was sheer murder. Coming out from the town, Burnsides's men crashed into the stone wall and were broken. Division after division moved up to the attack, marching out of the plain in faultless alignment, to be cut and broken and driven back by a storm of fire; for hour after hour they attacked, until all the plain was stained with the blue bodies that had been thrown on it, and not one armed Yankee ever reached even the foot of the hill. . ."

At Gettysburg on the first day of battle, General John Buford with his dismounted cavalry and a section of three-inch rifles, range 4,700 yards, held for General Meade, rapidly arriving.

The cannon was the Queen of Battle during the Civil War. After Pickett's Virginians got their 15,000 men in line at Gettysburg, Winston S. Churchill, in his magnificent 4th Volume set of, A History Of The English-Speaking Peoples, The Great Democracies, said, "For a week, the Confederates stood at bay behind entrenchments with their backs to an unfordable river. Longstreet would have stayed to court attack; but Lee measured the event. Meade did not appear till the 12th, and his attack was planned for the 14th. When that morning came, Lee, after a cruel night march, was safe on the other side of the river. He carried with him his wounded and his prisoners. He had lost only two guns, and the war."

Doc

[Stalky]

Buck and ball shells are still offered commercially like the buckshot strung together for defense.

[Doc]

I'm not sure what loads Miller had in his short, double barreled Stevens, but SCOTUS did not rule the National Firearms Act, 1934, repugnant.

The 1968 repugnant Gun Control Act is even worse.

[Bluntforce]

Trowel Bayonet vid Forgotten Weapons December 2017, three minutes in the wish to ditch bayonet discussed. Development branched into knife/shovel tool indtead of bayonet/shovel tool.

Rod Bayonet vid Forgotten Weapons October 2016, one minute in American aspirations to ditch bayonet discussed.

[aviator]

Originally Posted by Doc

However, as I noted above, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution says:

"Congress shall have Power to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions."

Doc
Semper Fi

Definition of Militia, Laws of the Union, Insurrections and Invasions may change according to the color of the lens you are looking through.

One may argue that "A well armed militia" trying to defend their homestead, for instance, could be considered an Insurrection and therefore Congress could and will have the authority to call on the Armed Forces to deal with them...as we have seen done several times already.

We can not longer depend on the protection of The Constitution when the Government doesn't abide by it.

Just my view.

Good articles Doc.
Semper Fi.

[Doc]

Of course, you are right, Aviator.

As suggested by your motto, unum de multis, one of many, we are individuals owning our own body and being. Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Sir Thomas More and many others argued from a theological base. More lost his head for his refusal to recognize that Henry VIII was head of the Catholic Church.

Some of us argue that our rights are natural rights as a fact of birth and those rights preceded the Constitution. An obvious example comes from the 1st Amendment that among other rights, "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech." The most important word being, "the," "the" meaning the right preceded the Constitution. Where did our rights come from, then? They are natural rights, or, if one prefers, they are theological rights as stated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration . . .

Ortega y Gasset said, "I am myself plus my circumstance." Shakespeare commented, "Aye, there's the rub." The rub, in our circumstance began in 1803 when Marbury and forty-one others tried to get their commission to become a justice of the peace. John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court took the opportunity in that case to take all power for the court to decide what the Constitution means and that power would rest with the SCOTUS. He ruled that a law passed by a legislature that is repugnant to the Constitution is null and void.

That is what I have been talking about. A repugnant law passed was repugnant then as it is now and in all cases is null and void.

The court system deals mostly with mundane matters regarding repugnant such as whether horse meat should be sold in the public square.

Constitutional matters such as, "shall not be infringed," remains hushed.

Doc

[Bluntforce]

Found what I was referring to i.e. bayonets and WWI.
C&Rsenal Primer 064 of Nov. 20, 2017 on the Springfield from 14:30 to 17:00 talks about the first rod bayonet and its reemergence on the Springfield. At 28:00 it covers TR’s rejection and his suggestion of taking note of developments in the Russo-Japanese War.

The bayonets seemed to draw interest. C&Rsenal also has a primer on the Remington 10 Trench Gun episode 052, June 5, 2017.

[Bluntforce]

I’d post these videos if I knew how from the iPhone.

[10 Bears]

I have a "Spike" bayo in my small collection.
Traded for it on the Internet.
Have no idea of it's use, other than stabbing small trees.

[Stalky]

If firearm suppressor building is regulated why are mufflers on vehicles required?

[cerberus]

Originally Posted by Stalky

If firearm suppressor building is regulated why are mufflers on vehicles required?

Funny, they were both invented by the same man.
cerberus

[Stalky]

Originally Posted by cerberus

Funny, they were both invented by the same man.
cerberus

Yes Sir. They were.
So can I put a glass pak muffler on my 308 Savage Tactical 308 and be GTG?
?