Sipsey Street Irregulars: Some interesting stuff from the NRA convention.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Some interesting stuff from the NRA convention.

In no particular order of importance, but here's some stuff I liked at the NRA convention:

Having a need for such a little device, I picked up a Magna-Arm pistol magnet. It is well made and won't scratch the surface of your handgun when you hide away in some easy-to-get but highly unexpected place in case of some surprise encounter within your home (or when out in your vehicle).

Steyr Arms had an excellent display. I used to own, back in the day, a Steyr SSG in 7.62 NATO. The Steyr platforms have gotten even better since then.

There was an interesting product from Flambeau, the T1400 gear box. It seemed quite tough and adaptable.

On Saturday there was a fascinating seminar entitled The Men & Guns of the “Battle of the Bulge.” Some of the most astounding photos presented, however, were of the collections at the National Museum of Military History in Luxembourg.

Check this video out.

The museum has life-sized dioramas, an incredible collection of small arms and, in the back, a reserve collection that includes rack after rack of WWII infantry weapons, including scores of near new MP-44 Sturmgewehrs! And they are all functional. It was enough to make the most cynical arms collector salivate. It is reputed to be the finest military museum in the world.

Here's another video.

Later that afternoon I got to meet MAJ John Plaster after he gave a seminar on "Secret Commandos: The Men and Guns of SOG." One interesting tidbit was that like yours truly, Plaster was a great fan of rifle grenades for initially engaging the enemy. They would have a rifle grenade on the ends of their M16s with a grenade blank in the chamber and a loaded magazine full of ball ready to go beneath it. You would fire the grenade, cycle the action and let fly with ball and tracer. Rifle grenades. Huh, go figure.

I met a number of Three Percenters at the convention (and at the Bundy Ranch, and the Knob Creek shoot before that) and it was a great honor and pleasure to do so. I couldn't do what I do without the support of my readers and it was gratifying to meet so many of them all in one place (well, three places, actually). Thanks, guys. You did wonders for my morale.

4 comments:

Dan said...: First, it was good to see you again. Didn't realize you'd been at "Guns of the Bulge".

The MACV-SOG presentation had a lot of interesting tactics, techniques, and procedures that can be upgraded for small units working alone in denied areas. Everything old is new again sometimes.; May 3, 2014 at 11:08 PM
Anonymous said...: Morale? Well, Partner, you are the best for keeping up my morale. Thank you for all and may God continue to bless your every move.; May 4, 2014 at 5:37 AM
Anonymous said...: I gotta hand it to whomever shot this video for being able to pick their lower jaw up off the floor and hold that camera steady. Well done! One question. You say all this stuff was functional? Was the ATF standing guard nearby?; May 4, 2014 at 9:31 AM
Anonymous said...: I have nothing good to say about Plaster. He pumped a friend of mine for material for his SOG book, used his personal pictures he took while part of those units and gave him no credit for the pictures.; May 4, 2014 at 10:30 AM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Some interesting stuff from the NRA convention.

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