"Four Steps Toward Ending Gun Violence" and one giant leap into bloody civil war.

A collectivist ninny in the "field of Peace and Conflict Transformation" has a modest proposal: "Repeal the Second Amendment." My comment (although I doubt it will stay up long.

Starting a bloody civil war seems an odd way to "fight gun violence." In fact, if you want to see what real "gun violence" is, try to repeal the Second Amendment and watch the carnage that results. C'mon. We'll make it easy -- we won't fire the first shot. Your side, if you want to get what you want, must do that. Of course, given the ironclad Law of Unintended Consequences, intellectual apologists for tyranny such as yourself are unlikely to survive such a conflict, so does that make you brave or stupid? I'm leaning toward suicidally stupid, but you tell me. Follow through on your logic at least and tell us how many uncompromising firearm owners' deaths (and of their families) do you require before you would consider such a benighted, benevolent proposal requiring the iron hand of state violence against its own citizens to have been worth it? A hundred thousand? A million? Six million? Ten? If you want to get your way, you will have to kill us first. Just tell us how many of our deaths you require, you bloodthirsty collectivist. How many? Think it through and give us an answer now. -- Mike Vanderboegh, Pinson, AL

I figured this was coming. Collectivists push their propaganda advantage on the Confederate flag hysteria.

Confederate Ideology and the Second Amendment

LATER. See also, reference current hysteria: Alabama Governor Caspar Milquetoast Removes Confederate Flag From State Capitol. Bentley always was a statist weenie.

Sun Tzu, Napoleon and Barack Obama: Legitimacy, the Limits of Military Power and the Credible Capacity to Coerce.

As I wrote before the event, the authorities were not going to interfere with the Arms Expo because to do so would have been a strategic mistake of colossal proportions. (Thus making the local Facebook commandos -- who publicly declared their chicken little predictions and warnings to others not to attend -- the instruments of their own outing as cravenly cowards.)

Stuck as I was at Dallas-Forth Worth waiting for planes that never came in, I had many a conversation with other passengers in purgatory. I was amazed at how many people freely shared their own fears for the future and, more importantly, their very specific preparations to meet the events of economic/socital collapse, three-sided race war, civil war against a tyrannical government or some combination of all three.

What came through these conversations was this: There is some considerable slice of the citizenry who are psychologically and physically prepared to resist tyranny in any form -- far more than the tyrants are prepared to deal with them. It is also plain, as I have written and said many, many times, that the Obama regime has thrown away its legitimacy, its "Mandate of Heaven," with an ever increasing number of its citizens. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO OVER-EXAGGERATE WHAT THIS MAY MEAN IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE.

In my blocks of instruction that I taught at the Arms Expo this weekend, I hit these points pretty hard. I also recommended to all that they obtain a copy of Dr. Joe Strange's book Capital 'W' War. Strange illustrates one example of this process and how failed legitimacy and the limits of military power combine to produce a strategic failure of the "credible capacity to coerce" that have particular relevance to the discussion about a possible American 4th Generation Warfare civil conflict in the 21st Century. (Fusion center analysts please take note.)

In 1807 Napoleon's empire was very impressive, but England -- the hated enemy -- remained undefeated and defiant.  To weaken England by economic warfare, Napoleon sent part of his army into the Iberian Peninsula to compel Portugal to participate in the Continental System.  Even though Spain was his ally in this affair, Napoleon took advantage of the presence of French troops in Spain (ostensibly on their way to Portugal) to convert the Spanish Monarchy into a "more reliable" ally against Britain.

After considering a few options, Napoleon decided to place his own brother, Joseph, on the throne, and issued 'secret orders for the arrest of the Spanish Royal Family.  This 'secret' soon sprung a leak, resulting in a spontaneous popular uprising in Madrid on the 2nd of May 1808 (the Dos de Mayo) and the deaths of many 'surprised' French soldiers.  But the French contingent in Madrid quickly rallied and retaliated with ruthless countermeasures.  Shortly thereafter, Joseph entered Spain along with the bulk of the French Army (which for a time was led by Napoleon himself).  Over the next several months, the French smashed one Spanish Army after another (with few exceptions).

  When studying the Peninsular War, we often tend to focus on the military assistance provided to the Portuguese and Spanish by the British (first under Moore and then Wellington).  This emphasis does not do justice to the resistance offered by the Portuguese, or the vast majority of the Spanish people who were lead by local partisan leaders, by army generals who here and there still commanded small numbers of regular troops, and by hundreds of priests and monks.

The Portuguese used scorched earth tactics under the direction of Wellington.  In Spain, the French occupation armies encountered guerrilla and partisan warfare, the nature and scale of which has seldom been seen in modern military history.  That resistance was characterized by a vicious cycle of brutality.  In sieges reminiscent of the Middle Ages, whole towns and cities fought to the last man, woman and child.  Moreover, these towns and cities were surrounded by thousands of square miles of rugged terrain ideally suited for partisan/guerrilla warfare.

There are many typical anecdotes; here is just one:  Four French soldiers (perhaps stragglers) were foraging for food.  They came to a small house.  Inside was a woman and her small child.  The woman said she had no food, but the soldiers found some 'hidden' in the attic.  still not trusting the woman, they made her feed some of the food to her own child, which she did.  The soldiers then ate.  Soon (but too late for them) one of them noticed the child turning blue.  The mother had poisoned her own child for the purpose of poisoning for enemy soldiers.  Before they died, the soldiers brutally bayoneted both mother and child.

Partisan warfare throughout Spain was so widespread and so intense that it required an escort of 4,000 French cavalry just to get a message from Madrid to Paris and vice versa.  The French occupation army, including allied units, lost 50,000 dead per year (to fighting and disease) for six years before it retreated back into France early in 1814.  After his exile to a small island in the South Atlantic (after his final defeat at Waterloo), Napoleon called this six-year nightmare "His Spanish Ulcer."

The Peninsular War was just the opposite of the kind of war he had successfully waged against earlier conventional opponents such as Austria and Prussia.  It was partisan-guerrilla war of truly national proportions.  It took on elements of a class war between the Spanish upper and lower classes.  And it took on a religious character that Napoleon never appreciated.

THE ROOT OF NAPOLEON'S FAILURE.

What lay at the root of Napoleon's failure in Spain? . . . Napoleon the statesman had set Napoleon the soldier an impossible task . . . (A)lthough the immediate military means were more or less achieved, the long-term requirement of winning popular support for the new regime was hopelessly compromised.  The lesson was there for the world to read: military conquest in itself cannot bring about a political victory.  This was by no means a new lesson, but seldom in history has it been so amply demonstrated.  -- David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, New York, Macmillan Publishing, 1966, p. 660.

LEGITIMACY.

  Napoleon, his brother Joseph, and the French armies had none -- NONE AT ALL -- in the minds and hearts of the Spanish people.  How about the credible capacity to coerce?  There is a difference between the capacity to "kill" and the capacity to "coerce."  Depending on the political context and the methods of killing, killing can be a productive component of coercion or it can be counter-productive.  "Credible Coercion" is defined by the target of the coercion; that is, by the WILL of the target.  The Spanish people decided that their will demonstrated that French Army's great capacity to kill did not translate into a credible capacity to coerce.

THE LIMITS OF MILITARY POWER.

The French occupation army numbered roughly 300,000 troops more or less throughout the six year war.  Given Napoleon's failure to admit that he had made a fundamental political mistake, given his refusal to compromise, and given his penchant to blame his generals for every military setback, and given that Napoleon the Emperor had created a problem that no general could solve with military power alone -- 300,000 troops were not enough.  There were many French victories, but no peace.

FATAL ASSUMPTIONS

Napoleon made four poor assumptions, the consequences of which were fatal.  In that sense, Napoleon the Emperor was the worst enemy of Napoleon the General.

(1)  The Emperor assumed that because members of the Spanish upper class supported Joseph as King, the Spanish masses would offer only passive resistance, if any.  Instead, the war in Spain took on elements of an ugly class war.

(2)  The Emperor assumed that there was a modestly large Spanish bourgeois (middle) class which would welcome the secular reforms and economic benefits of the French Revolution, as had been the case in France when the Revolutionary Government confiscated and sold Church lands to raise money and lower taxes on the middle class.  Therefore . . .

(3)  When Catholic priests and monks actively opposed the French to preserve Church lands and influence in Spanish society, Napoleon assumed that all Spaniards would see their actions as self-serving (as he did) and therefore that calls for popular resistance by the priests and monks would fall on deaf ears.

(4)  Finally, those three assumptions led Napoleon the Emperor to a seemingly logical fourth assumption: all Spanish resistance will end with the defeat of Spain's conventional armies.

NAPOLEON THE EMPEROR WAS WRONG ON ALL FOUR COUNTS.  He misjudged the Spanish people, the extent of their pride, the tenacity of their religious faith, and their loyalty to their own (Spanish) King.  He thereby underestimated the severity of the military task facing him.  "If I thought it would cost me 80,000 men I would not attempt it," he blandly asserted, "but it will cost me no more than 12,000."   The price he paid for his arrogance and ignorance was not 12,000, but 300,000 French and allied soldiers, and ultimately his own empire and throne.  -- Capitol "W" War, Dr. Joe Strange, 1998, pp. 187-191.

"The price he paid for his arrogance and ignorance was . . . ultimately his own empire and throne." Today's tyrant wannabes, especially Barack Obama, ought to remember that.

My apologies to the armed civil disobedience resisters of the state of New York. I've been saying that their noncompliance with the SAFE Act is 90%. Turns out it's more like NINETY FIVE PERCENT!

"You can eat a turd if you have enough ketchup." -- Grandpa Vanderboegh.

State Police hands over SAFE Act data

PDF.

Meanwhile, the antigunners are trying to eat this particular turd and smile by covering it with a liberal dose of ketchup: Statement by New Yorkers Against Gun Violence on Assault Weapons Registrations

I'm working on a plan to bring the armed civil disobedience to New York state in a very public manner later this year. More on that later.

Requiem For An American Dream

Whether we like it or not, our country is in the latter stages of this drastic change as an atmosphere of revolution has been deliberately forced upon us just as it was in 1773.

Here they come again.

Manchin, Toomey both interested in reviving gun control push

LATER: But we have this from Charles Cooke -- Don’t Blame the Second Amendment

But, for all their admonitions, it will remain a fact that nobody in a black robe or a powdered wig is instructing the American public to buy record numbers of guns, to apply for millions of concealed-carry permits, to demand the liberalization of their state laws, to take up shooting for the first time, or to tell pollsters that they side with the Second Amendment rather than with the sort of restrictive legislation that we see abroad. For better or for worse, the lion’s share of the pro–Second Amendment energy that has marked the last 25 years has come not from the judge’s gavel but from political shifts at the local and national levels. The quandary that the reformers face can be summed up simply: Were we the sort of culture that would be willing to repeal the Second Amendment, we would be the sort of culture that would not need to do so.

Red Diaper Baby. Judicial Watch: "FBI Files Document Communism in Valerie Jarrett’s Family."

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) files obtained by Judicial Watch reveal that the dad, maternal grandpa and father-in-law of President Obama’s trusted senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett, were hardcore Communists under investigation by the U.S. government.

Back. Exhausted but back.

My flight out of Dallas Forth Worth kept getting delayed until when we finally boarded at a little after three. Then, a seat arm rest fell apart and had to be duct-taped together by maintenance before the plane could leave the ground. I kid you not. Finally got in to Birmingham around 5PM and Rosey picked me up. We went to celebrate a successful trip with a bite to eat and then went home where the day's end hit me like a ton of bricks and I just now awoke to try to play catchup.

Stuck in Dallas overnight after flight cancelled. Proceeding on this morning.

Will try to post some links this am from the hotel where American Airlines put me up last night. This has been a most productive trip, accidents of the journey notwithstanding (including a broken tooth that I did to myself).

LATER: Well, the hotel computer is not cooperating with cut and paste so I'll have to wait until I'm home.

Praxis: Guerrilla Reloading -- Berdan to Boxer Conversion, Ammonpulver and Reusing Spent Pimers.

Berdan to Boxer Conversion Method

"Thanks to the excellent instructions published by M.Chandler at http://web.archive.org/web/20090109164453/http://users.ameritech.net/mchandler/primer.html, I finally found a practical method of converting .217" Berdan brass to take .210" Boxer primers. The tools I used are an RCBS primer pocket swager, a good loading press, a drill, a spare shellholder, and a ball bearing about 1/2 inch in diameter. The process is simple and quick, requiring under two minutes per case once everything is set up. It works very well for me. Once I'd made up a dozen cases, I loaded and fired 150-grain bullets with charges of WC852 from 43 to 55 grains, then reloaded and fired one case 7 times with the stiff 55-grain load. There were no gas leaks at all and the primer pocket was just about as snug after 7 load/fire cycles as it was immediately after conversion."

Ammonpulver

Ammonpulver is a very energetic powder with an energy content about equal to powders like 2400, Blue Dot, or Bullseye, which are all quite powerful. Its burn rate is controlled the same way as other powders by changing the grain size, and I found that the ammonpulver I made ranged in burn rate from about IMR3031 or IMR4895 down to around IMR4350 in granulations about like corn meal on down to Cream of Wheat, the finer the granulation the faster it burns. It is also flashless as well as a truly smokeless powder, the combustion products are nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and water in the form of steam; all of which are clear colorless gases. Because of the inevitable ash from the wood charcoal, a very tiny amount of smoke in the form of a colloidal dust is briefly seen, and when the temperature is low and humidity high the condensed steam is also seen as "smoke" that very rapidly disappears.

As has already been mentioned, ammonpulver is simply a finely ground mixture of carefully dried ammonium nitrate and charcoal (ammonium nitrate is highly hygroscopic and readily absorbs moisture from the air and when left out in the open it turns into a soupy puddle), the range of proportions that prove useful are from about 80% ammonium nitrate and 20% charcoal, to 90% ammonium nitrate and 10% charcoal. The chemically balanced equation gives very close to 86.96% ammonium nitrate and 13.04% charcoal (87% and 13% are close enough). However, I did all my experiments with the most commonly used proportions of 85% ammonium nitrate and 15% dead-burnt charcoal. It is of utmost importance to use dead-burnt charcoal since the creosotes left from partially roasted wood make the powder unstable and possibly subject to spontaneous ignition. The partially roasted wood charcoal that was used for canon powder by the U.S. Navy in the 1890s is probably what blew up the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba in 1898, setting off the Spanish American War. At the time in 1898, it was rumored that a Spanish torpedo or sea mine was responsible for the Maine sinking, however later problems with auto-ignition of the so-called "cocoa powder" made using partially roasted charcoal that was still a reddish-brown color is most likely what ignited the canon powder magazine aboard the Maine, blowing it up and sinking it in seconds. Anyway, to be safe, the charcoal used for making ammonpulver should conduct electricity, ensuring that it is dead burnt and has no creosote left in it.

What if you can't buy primers for handloading, DIY ammo option

Elites agree: Firearms in the hands of the common folks are bad things.

Anthony Martin comments: Enemies of liberty tip their hand

Karl Rove: Only Way To Stop The Violence Is To Repeal Second Amendment

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/pope-says-weapons-manufacturers-cant-call-themselves-christian-184139430.html

Compelling reason to reconsider gun laws

A great success. We stuck our thumb in Bloomberg's eye and got away with it.

Exhausted but will try to have more tomorrow.

Patriot Group Hosts Arms Expo Despite New Gun Law

"We've always been forbearing in this. They passed a law and we backed up. Grudgingly, but we backed up. What we're saying here today is, we're done backing up, deal with it!" Says Mike Vanderboegh.

Statement by Mike Vanderboegh at the opening of the Arms Expo, Yakima WA, 20 June 2015

I'd like to speak to you about the uniqueness of what we are doing here today and the efforts we are making to deal with this unprecedented event and how it effects the way we're handling the competing interests of the participants and the press.  First of all, I'd like to thank y'all for coming and taking your courage in your own two hands and braving the uncertainties to be here.  In looking out at you I see the Founders descendants, only the Founders didn't have to deal with the modern surveillance state.  There were no cameras at the Boston Tea Party, the Green Dragon Tavern where the Sons of Liberty met was not bugged by the secret political police of Ministry of Homeland Security, the Committees of Correspondence did not have their communications photographed by the Royal Mail, General Gage did not possess surveillance drones and Captain Parker was not plagued by agents provocateurs within his own ranks working for the King and determined to discredit the Patriot cause by goading them into firing first.  It is fortunate for us that King George did not possess these instruments of tyranny.  But the fact of the matter is that Barack Obama and his minions do possess them.  So when you come here today, you are, I believe, exhibiting every bit as much courage as the Founders, for you do face these threats and still you refuse to comply.  By your very presence here today, you are sending the message: WE WILL NOT COMPLY WITH THE INSTRUMENTS OF OUR OWN SLAVERY.

But how does this new reality impact us?  You are here.  The press is, or will be, here.  But the fact of the matter is that there's gonna be some good old fashioned Sons of Liberty tyranny-breakin' goin' on here today and the event organizers are doing their best to balance the competing interests of the participants and the press.  How?  Well, first of all we have a First Amendment area set up for the press.  We will be providing folks for them to interview throughout the day but they will not be allowed to roam freely in the event area.  They will, I am sure, try to interview folks going in and coming out of the venue.  Whether you talk them or not is strictly up to you.  But I would urge caution because remember, there's going to be some tyranny-defyin' goin' on here and anything you say, your identity, even your presence, may later be of interest to an unscrupulous state prosecutor who wants to enforce unconstitutional laws.  The other thing is that there are groups out there -- and the Southern Poverty Law Center comes first to mind -- who specialize in masquerading as press, or who circulate through crowds at these events, asking provocative questions whose answers they can later use out of context to discredit people.  Pretending to be participants, they take surveillance photos that they will later provide to their symbiotic agents of social control in the FBI and the DHS.  This should come as no surprise.  It is what they do.  It is not for nothing that we in Alabama call them the Southern Preposterous Lie Center.  But you should expect that.  They are collectivists therefore they are liars.  It is who they are.  You might as well blame a rattlesnake for biting.  But the thing is, they are not as noble as the rattlesnake because they give you no warning before striking.  These folks are copperheads, people, pretending to be what they are not, so be advised.

As for the real press, this situation puts them at some risk as well.  Anything they do here today, interviews, picture taking, video, may later haul them before a grand jury.  This is a direct danger to their First Amendment rights to do their job without threat or interference.  So as much as they might chafe under the restrictions of the First Amendment zone, I hope they understand that we're trying to look out for their own interests as well as yours.  After all, at the Bundy Ranch the press agreed to a First Amendment zone so it's not the first time they've experienced this.  So it's not as great a challenge as, say, asking Hillary Clinton a serious question about Benghazi, or anything.

So, that being said, we will proceed as best we can to have a great event today, to celebrate our rights and responsibilities as free American citizens, and to nullify with our defiance Mike Bloomberg's hateful unconstitutional law, purchased at the cost of his millions.  American jurisprudence has long held that an unconstitutional law is null and void.  But by your presence here today, you will nullify I-594 more directly and immediately.  If it is later found to be "officially" unconstitutional, it will be redundant -- FOR YOU HERE WILL HAVE NULLIFIED IT LONG BEFORE.  And may God bless you for having the courage to be here.  Somewhere, Sam Adams and all the Founding generation are smiling.

Praxis: "My very first RF burn."

Doing that last little tweak to the final tank circuit, ~130 watts going out, the blade got lose in the shaft, rotating, and making the contact between finger and the trimmer. Carbon fiber sheet IS CONDUCTIVE.. amazingly so... and my body jumped backwards several feet away from the radio and bulkhead, I rolled in a muscle-jerk backwards somersault, through an open engine bay door and down into the engine hold 5 feet below. The GMC 6-71 diesel engine I landed on did a wonderful job of stopping me, and ruining my clothes with a coating of nasty smelling carbon loaded oil.

'Time to put money under the mattress".

High profile fund managers explain how to prepare for a 'systemic event'

Obama's contempt for Second Amendment on full display at press conference/

The Founders bequeathed us the Second Amendment because they knew perfectly well that the likes of Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter; Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter; and Dylann Roof, the accused South Carolina church shooter, could just as easily have ended up wearing the uniform of the SS, the Khmer Rouge, or the NKVD, and done far more damage than they did as private citizens. That’s a lesson we ought not forget as the braying for more gun control begins in the media.

More proof of the futility of firearms confiscation. (But enough to make a careful handloader shudder with fright.)

Thanks to a devoted reader in New York, I received a copy of a book I have long been looking to add to my collection: American Guerrilla in the Philippines.

In preparing for my presentations on improvised munitions tomorrow and Sunday, I ran across this description by David Iliff Richardson of ammunition production behind the lines during world War II. It is more proof, if any were needed, of the futility of firearms confiscation.

After the battle of Baybay our army's first problem -- more immediate even than establishing a civil government and getting paid -- was ammunition. They had shot off almost everything they had. Besides, they had been using battery separators and battery terminal lead as well as other soft metals for their bullets. With soft metal like that, you fire a few times and the rifling of the barrel fills up. Then you get a recoil that knocks you ten feet.

The whole ordnance problem became my baby. I had made a deal with Colonel McLish (another guerrilla unit leader, before leaving him, for four thousand empty .30 caliber cartridges. We'd load them and give him back one thousand loaded cartridges in exchange. I found a kid named Kuizon to organize an ordnance factory for us. We scrounged around and got a hand forge, some hack saws, and a file. That was the small-arms factory.

This boy Kuizon did all the experimenting. He was about twenty-one, the son of a pharmacist from Bato. He had never been in the army before, but I made him a third lieutenant because he was so ingenious and willing.

We foraged in schoolhouses for the bullets to fill the shells. The brass curtain rods there were made of a good hard metal just a little thicker than a .30 caliber bullet. We cut the rod up into appropriate lengths, then filed the end down to point it. There was an old broken-down Springfield rifle there, and they'd stick the bullet in this, thake a rod and try to run it through, If it went, it fit. If it didn't, they'd file some more.

For the primer, we used sulphur mixed with coconut shell carbon. Later we were able to get hold of some antimony and add it to the mixture. Then it worked 80 to 90 percent efficiently. Our main source of powder was from Japanese sea mines that we would dismantle, We;d mix in pulverized wood to retard the burning because mine powder is too violent for a rifle bullet. It took us blowing up about five rifles -- blowing off the firing pins, the extractors, and the bolts -- to find out about that.

All measuring was done rudely, by thumb and by guess and by God. You'd pour the powder into the cartridge with a little homemade funnel sort of thing until you thought you had enough. Then you'd put the piece off the brass curtain rod into the cartridge and crimp the cartridge around it with a pair of pliers. Presto, you had a bullet. Each bullet had to be tested for fit because all our cartridges had been fired once or twice or four times before. We'd load and extract each bullet. If the shoulder was too big, we'd crimp it down. If it was too small, we'd say that was fine.

Getting the right measure for the mixture was Kuizon's business. It was all trial and error. When there was an error, the cartirdges would blow up in the gun. Powder flashes would come out between the bolts and burn his hands. One morning he broke three rifles in succession, burning his hands three times and jolting his shoulder so badly his toes ached.

"Sir, I do not like to do this work, sir," he admitted finally. "I will put the rifle on the table, sir, and test by long distance, sir."

Finally we managed to dragoon an apothecary's scales and after a few more tests "by long distance" no more rifles blew up. Using this ammunition was hard on our guns, but it worked and killed a Jap to beat hell. The boys liked them because the mine powder gave the bullets so much power they never had to figure windage.

Our ordnance factory never filled more than a one-room house, about twenty feet by ten. But we expanded it to making extractors and firing pins out of such steel as we could find -- usually spring steel. These weren't very successful, but they worked fine for a dozen rounds. I put sixty soldiers to work in the ordnance plant, but the filing of the brass curtain rods to fit took so long that our production never got better than an average of 160 bullets a day.

So, dear readers, the next time you are tempted to complain about the price or availability of ammunition, remember the guerrillas of the Philippines. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but to those who are constrained by an absolute poverty of means, necessity can be a mother.

More news of the stirring dragon.

Report: China Orders Civilian Ships Adapted For Military Use

China's Irregular Warfare in the Cyber Domain

Special Ops Forces Fuel Demand for Ultralight Vehicles

When it comes to ground vehicles, U.S. Special Operations Command is embracing the notion that lighter is better. SOCOM wants platforms that can traverse difficult terrain and deliver special operations forces to their targets quickly, sacrificing armor protection for greater mobility. Toward that end, the command will jettison much of its heavy fleet, according to officials. “We’re basically on a mission to divest ourselves of most of those vehicles,” said Duke Dunnigan, deputy program manager of the family of special operations vehicles at SOCOM. “We’re looking at more ultralight and depending more on speed and agility versus armoring up so much that the suspensions don’t last long and I can’t negotiate the terrain.”