The Small Arms Thread, Part 8: 2018; ICSR to be replaced by US Army with interim 15mm Revolver Cannon.

[LoooSeR]

Lobaev's new rifle. Bolt action VSS? 

 

http://lobaevarms.ru/products/dvl10-tactical-sniper-rifle/

 

.308 Win caliber, 10 round mag.

 

 

[Toxn]

Keep in mind, Zumbo would have called both of those "terrorist rifles". He was the product of another age...

 

 

Don't think it's just the Right; that's a big mistake. If anything, the Left is more guilty. Blame it on our Calvinist ancestors, if you must.

I definitely wasn't pointing fingers, so much as castigating all of you and then commiserating over the fact that once the trend is set there are very few ways to reverse it. And, as always, blaming your entire country for the dreck of your culture wars that inevitably washes up on our shores (Afrikaans race realist nationalist libertarians actually exist here ffs)

 

The Left (god I wish there were better terms for this) is certainly to blame, just as the Right is. But now the game is on, and if anyone from either side moves towards reconciliation then they will be cast out from within and ridiculed from without. You're stuck, in other words.

 

Worse, the problem with driving the debate in two directions is that both sides slowly lose the middle. Eventually there is a danger that it'll just be a tiny pool of hard-core extremists making noise at each other while something infinitely worse moves among the people at large.

 

Edit: On Zumbo, I hope they at least let him store his rifles and shotguns somewhere before forcing him to don webbing and an over-accessorised AR-15 <this is hyperbole>

[Belesarius]

I'm kinda stunned that they pulled the article.  That's a little weak.

[Sturgeon]

I think in retrospect it was in bad taste. I'm not sure the public apology did anything but stir the pot more, though.

[Belesarius]

and LOL WTF... Writer is on sick leave?  That's just weird.

[xthetenth]

The worst thing is that the fight in and of itself a win for the extremes of the spectrum, because that gives them leadership. Once the fight starts happening, attacks tend to get concentrated on what the extremists are doing and saying, so the moderates give up control over the course of the process because they're under attack too, until they're angry enough to support the extremists, because look at what those crazies from the other side are doing, we can't compromise one bit or we lose everything ever.

 

At least it isn't something like the continual erosion and destruction of any chance of peace in a war-torn region or some other examples of similar things happening in other places I can think of.

 

 

Don't think it's just the Right; that's a big mistake. If anything, the Left is more guilty. Blame it on our Calvinist ancestors, if you must.

 

You know I'm contractually obligated to arch my eyebrows when you say stuff like that.

[Sturgeon]

 

and LOL WTF... Writer is on sick leave?  That's just weird.

On Monday, before I ever posted the article, I asked for a couple days off.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Don, you're absolutely right, but nevertheless I have more to add.

Note the date I got "gunny". 2004. That was the sunset of the "assault weapons" ban. So I'm coming from that angle, first off.

I think "sporting purpose" got redefined, hard. Zumbo types were convinced "sporting purpose" meant "something that looked like something Mauser or Browning designed", but actually lots of guns have a sporting purpose. I'd contend the AR-15 is more uniquely suited to certain significant sporting purposes than other rifles, including Mausers and Browning-designed leverguns by a mile. Maryland, for example, had at least until recently (didn't bother myself to familiarize myself with the Chesapeake AWB Mk. II, Electric Boogaloo much) a specific exemption on HBAR AR-15s, so well-suited to Hi Power competition were they. Likewise, the .223 caliber is uniquely suited to "varmints" and even medium game with heavier bullets, a spectrum which you may note makes up a majority of the hunting sports. And, of course, the sportsman can always use more versatility, accuracy (the AR-15 provides possibly as much as an order of magnitude more than the Winchester 1894/ Marlin 36), and reliability. So it wasn't so much that people switched to liking evil, purposeless guns as they did recognize the utility of evil black rifles. They were ugly, they weren't traditional, but god did they perform!

Imagine if Twinkies were the epitome of nutritious and habit-forming; that's basically the AR-15. Definitely an improvement over the previous paradigm, but highly subject to "over-doing it".

And the final word is... Donward's exactly right when he says the scary guns were easier to make. In fact, that's probably the scariest bit about them, and something I'm hoping to stamp into the popular consciousness with my writing. Assault rifles, which form the basis for "modern sporting rifles"/"evil black rifles" (both terms subject to equal quantities of derision and rejection from me), are a halfway point between the traditional repeating rifle and the submachine gun, yes, but they're most importantly more mass producible than the bolt gun (thought probably not quite as cheap as the SMG). Naturally this carries over to the "modern sporting rifle", which, while accurate, is still an infuriating euphemism. Seriously! A military-spec M4 clone costs less than a grand; someone willing to compromise could get something that looked almost identical for $700, easy. How on earth is even the most popular "traditional" levergun supposed to compete with that!?

No, you never will, Fudds, so give up on it. The days of the fine Mauser and elegant lever-actuated repeater are gone for a time; they may return but not today, tomorrow, or the next decade. Keep your dogs, your falcons, your class. Pass that on; it's what really matters. The next generation may foxhunt with an ugly black gun with a collapsible stock, but make sure they do!

 

Is "cowboy action" shooting dead?

 

And I also am not anti-AR, I'd own one if California wasn't rife with retarded gun laws. I bought the M1A because the 18 inch barrel version strapped right on top of the roll bar of the jeep for off road adventures, and it had a removable magazine. Last time I checked, the only ARs you could buy had to have a 'tool' to remove the mag.

See in Cali the assault weapons ban never went away because we passed our own. Before it, I had a Colt Hbar, and a Mak-90, I got rid of both because you were going to have to register to them and then could never sell them. I ended up selling the AK, and trading the AR to a guy for a an 84 K5 Blazer.

Back in the days of cheap ammo it was super fun to go blast away with an AK or AR at the range, but then ban came and I had car problems.

 

I’d love to own a nice M4 style AR, with a classic built in handle receiver, and A2 sights. It would we be a fun little rifle. Too bad California gun laws suck.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Jeeps_Guns_Tanks

[Sturgeon]

 

Is "cowboy action" shooting dead?

 

And I also am not anti-AR, I'd own one if California wasn't rife with retarded gun laws. I bought the M1A because the 18 inch barrel version strapped right on top of the roll bar of the jeep for off road adventures, and it had a removable magazine. Last time I checked, the only ARs you could buy had to have a 'tool' to remove the mag.

See in Cali the assault weapons ban never went away because we passed our own. Before it, I had a Colt Hbar, and a Mak-90, I got rid of both because you were going to have to register to them and then could never sell them. I ended up selling the AK, and trading the AR to a guy for a an 84 K5 Blazer.

Back in the days of cheap ammo it was super fun to go blast away with an AK or AR at the range, but then ban came and I had car problems.

 

I’d love to own a nice M4 style AR, with a classic built in handle receiver, and A2 sights. It would we be a fun little rifle. Too bad California gun laws suck.

CAS is not dead. Go to any two-bit gunshow and marvel at the old farts with no fashion sense cosplaying as Wyatt Earp.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

Oh, I figured, are they like the furry's of the gun world?

[Sturgeon]

Oh, I figured, are they like the furry's of the gun world?

 

More like the cosplayers/otaku of the gun world.

[Sturgeon]

A more cunning aspect of the black gun craze is that scary looking ARs and scary looking polymer handguns are dirt cheap to make (I would wager) compared to more traditional weapons.

 

Never forget that gun makers are also out to make a buck. And if you can get people to fork over more money for a product that is less expensive to build than that is a good thing. For the gun maker.

 

The consumer has wizened up a bit, and the result has been hilariously cheap evil black rifles.

[xthetenth]

Please tell me that the black rifle market has at least been spared the indignity of a race to the bottom like the PC market had to endure.

[Sturgeon]

Please tell me that the black rifle market has at least been spared the indignity of a race to the bottom like the PC market had to endure.

 

Why do you think the AR-15 has such a shoddy reputation, hmmm?

[Donward]

I've had to do real life stuff but getting back on the prior conversation.

 

I came of shooting age in the 1990s. It's funny Sturgeon is characterizing this as a "We had to kick the Fudds to the curb" since it was "The Fudds" who opted for the "Not One Step Back" Order 227-style defense in the 1990s and early 2000s in combating the assault weapon bans. It was recognized quite clearly that if scary black rifles and "high capacity" handguns were taken today, traditional handguns, shotguns and rifles would be next.

 

Ungrateful ingrates! Kids these days. Don't know nuthin about their own history.

 

*Rocking chair creaks*

 

Now you might still have those of us who smile inwardly, watching their friends go hunting with a 10 or 12 or 14 pound FAL or AR that has been fully kitted out with every doo-dad and gadget (except a sling) and listen to him as he lugs the thing around like it was a cranky toddler on three-mile march up and down a logging road because the warm winter has kept all the deer high up in the mountains. But that doesn't mean that we think that those people shouldn't be allowed to own such a contraption or that we wouldn't want one ourselves just for the LOLs.

 

The Zumbo types are and were a very rare breed.

 

To be continued...

 

Edit: One of the main turning points that one can point to is the 2000 U.S. Presidential race where Democrat Al Gore lost to Republican George W. Bush in his own home state of Tennessee because of Vice President Gore's commitment to gun control legislation. The Brady Bill and the ban on assault weapons in the 1990s flipped the South from staunchly Democratic strongholds to swing states and - eventually - bastions of the GOP.

[Sturgeon]

I've had to do real life stuff but getting back on the prior conversation.

 

I came of shooting age in the 1990s. It's funny Sturgeon is characterizing this as a "We had to kick the Fudds to the curb" since it was "The Fudds" who opted for the "Not One Step Back" Order 227-style defense in the 1990s and early 2000s in combating the assault weapon bans. It was recognized quite clearly that if scary black rifles and "high capacity" handguns were taken today, traditional handguns, shotguns and rifles would be next.

 

Ungrateful ingrates! Kids these days. Don't know nuthin about their own history.

 

*Rocking chair creaks*

 

Now you might still have those of us who smile inwardly, watching their friends go hunting with a 10 or 12 or 14 pound FAL or AR that has been fully kitted out with every doo-dad and gadget (except a sling) and listen to him as he lugs the thing around like it was a cranky toddler on three-mile march up and down a logging road because the warm winter has kept all the deer high up in the mountains. But that doesn't mean that we think that those people shouldn't be allowed to own such a contraption or that we wouldn't want one ourselves just for the LOLs.

 

The Zumbo types are and were a very rare breed.

 

To be continued...

 

Edit: One of the main turning points that one can point to is the 2000 U.S. Presidential race where Democrat Al Gore lost to Republican George W. Bush in his own home state of Tennessee because of Vice President Gore's commitment to gun control legislation. The Brady Bill and the ban on assault weapons in the 1990s flipped the South from staunchly Democratic strongholds to swing states and - eventually - bastions of the GOP.

 

So I think you've taken what I said in a bit of a different direction (not necessarily a bad one). I'll try to be a little clearer. First, look at hunting legislation right now. It's going out of control, and hunting and other outdoors sports are steadily dying, starting with things like falconry and foxhunting. "The gun community" is doing basically zip about this. Second, look at where the marketing focus is right now (all tactical crap). Third, it's natural for a political issue to result in a "you're either with us or against us" mentality, which means that you not only had to support gun rights all the way, but it would behoove you to go hunting with an AR-15 or something. The end result of that is that nobody cares about hunting, everyone cares about tactical crap, and the Fudds who remain are left out in the rain.

The South changed from Democrat to Republican with Nixon's Southern Strategy, BTW. I don't think gun control had a lot to do with it, but then there was the 1968 GCA, so I might be wrong.

[Donward]

Nixon's "Southern Strategy" is one of the biggest repeated myths in politics and is generally used to further the whole "Republicans are racist cause they're trying to attract Southern voters" trope.

 

If you look at the election results and exit polling from the South in Presidential and off year elections from 1968 on, one would find that if there was a GOP "Southern Strategy" then it was an abysmal failure. 

 

The issue is that George Wallace split the Southern vote in 1968 and won 5 Southern states outright and basically screwed the pooch for Hubert Humphrey. In 1972 Nixon won the South but, then again, he won everything because George McGovern was a terrible candidate and no one wanted to vote for an anti-War hippy. Contrary to popular opinion, now days, the anti-War movement was reviled by the majority of Americans throughout the Vietnam War. 

 

In short, the racist Dixiecrats of the 1960s and 1970s kept right on voting Democrat or - in the case of Wallace - the "purer" of the two choices.

 

Taking things further, Carter swept the South in 1976. No surprise. Obviously Reagan and Bush Numeral Uno won the South in 1980, 1984 and 1988 but if you care to look, you'd find Democrat politicians winning Gubernatorial, Senate and Congressional seats in the South throughout this period. Bill Clinton won 4 southern states in 1992 and 1996, including Florida when running against Dole. 

 

That was more than I cared to write since I'd rather talk shooting stuff. Damn...

[Sturgeon]

Nixon's "Southern Strategy" is one of the biggest repeated myths in politics and is generally used to further the whole "Republicans are racist cause they're trying to attract Southern voters" trope.

 

If you look at the election results and exit polling from the South in Presidential and off year elections from 1968 on, one would find that if there was a GOP "Southern Strategy" then it was an abysmal failure. 

 

The issue is that George Wallace split the Southern vote in 1968 and won 5 Southern states outright and basically screwed the pooch for Hubert Humphrey. In 1972 Nixon won the South but, then again, he won everything because George McGovern was a terrible candidate and no one wanted to vote for an anti-War hippy. Contrary to popular opinion, now days, the anti-War movement was reviled by the majority of Americans throughout the Vietnam War. 

 

In short, the racist Dixiecrats of the 1960s and 1970s kept right on voting Democrat or - in the case of Wallace - the "purer" of the two choices.

 

Taking things further, Carter swept the South in 1976. No surprise. Obviously Reagan and Bush Numeral Uno won the South in 1980, 1984 and 1988 but if you care to look, you'd find Democrat politicians winning Gubernatorial, Senate and Congressional seats in the South throughout this period. Bill Clinton won 4 southern states in 1992 and 1996, including Florida when running against Dole. 

 

That was more than I cared to write since I'd rather talk shooting stuff. Damn...

 

That's an interesting perspective. To decide what shall go in the history books, you shall fight Collimatrix in the Deciding Pits.

[Donward]

That's an interesting perspective. To decide what shall go in the history books, you shall fight Collimatrix in the Deciding Pits.

 

I shall wear my Codpiece of Veracity for a +1 to my Charisma bonus.

[Donward]

So I think you've taken what I said in a bit of a different direction (not necessarily a bad one). I'll try to be a little clearer. First, look at hunting legislation right now. It's going out of control, and hunting and other outdoors sports are steadily dying, starting with things like falconry and foxhunting. "The gun community" is doing basically zip about this. Second, look at where the marketing focus is right now (all tactical crap). Third, it's natural for a political issue to result in a "you're either with us or against us" mentality, which means that you not only had to support gun rights all the way, but it would behoove you to go hunting with an AR-15 or something. The end result of that is that nobody cares about hunting, everyone cares about tactical crap, and the Fudds who remain are left out in the rain.

 

 

The issue is one of votes and money or rather money and votes in that order of priority. Old people vote. Old people have money. Old people have money to get people interested in voting. from 1994 to 2004 the gun guys who had the money to fight the battle were the old scutters who donated heavily to your favorite 2nd Amendment racketeering groups and who worked to elect pro-Second Amendment candidates. These old scutters were your traditional hunters and sportsmen.

 

Now 20 years have passed. Most of those old scutters are dead or wasting away in retirement homes, never to return. All I'm saying is give a tip of the hat to the guys who did most of the heavy lifting in getting us to where we are today.

 

To be continued again...

[Donward]

OK. Now this is the meat of where I really want to be.

 

The Revolution of the Black Rifle has been with us now for a decade with all of the aforementioned advances in technology, modular ease and marketing. Furthermore we have fought two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with hundreds of thousands of veterans who used AR-15 rifles successfully in combat.

 

Like all good soldiers, the weapon that they trained with is the best because it is the only weapon most of them ever knew combined with the fact that many of these guys have gotten hours upon hours and thousands of rounds of trigger time on the AR and the revelation that the AR family of rifles are pretty damn good for what they are. The Jam-o-matic of the Vietnam War is a thing of the past. (Coincidentally this time span has also seen the 30-year long mystique of the "AK-47" come to an end but that's a separate story).

 

At the same time you have had the "militarization" of the police who - after a series of once in a lifetime events like the North Hollywood Shootout - have universally at their disposal a broad array of impressive hardware from New York City all the way down to the smallest hick town with one blinking stop light along with state and federal agencies. This has all come to pass mainly because of spending on Homeland Security which (again) is another issue. As a caveat, I don't have an issue - per say - with the "militarization" of police given the proper oversight. But it is safe to say that the days of Officer Friendly wearing a cap and blue uniform and carrying a revolver with a scatter gun in the patrol car are long over.

 

So to recap. We have cops and soldiers with fancier, advanced weaponry. Who do gun owners look up to the most? Cops and soldiers. Who do they want to emulate in their firearms purchases? Cops and soldiers. Which is why firearm companies have gone out of their way to market to those two entities knowing they'll make a windfall of profits on civilians. (See Glock and the debate over the Army's next handgun).

 

Manufacturers like selling products that they can then sell accessories to and lots of ammunition for. It does them no good for someone to buy a hunting rifle and maybe a scope or sling and only have them fire a box of ammo out of it a year. This is capitalism. Capitalism is good.

 

Couple this with politics and the buying frenzies over potential bans. Add to the mixture that high capacity pistols like Glocks and ARs are damn good firearms which are great for the purpose that they were designed for. Compound this with gun magazines, websites and YouTube celebrities who are provided fancy tactical hardware to market to the masses. Exacerbate this with video games and the phenomenon of first person shooters. Teenagers aren't stalking the marshlands hunting ducks anymore. They're spending hours behind a screen shooting noobs. And when they are finally of age to buy a gun, they want one of the ones on Call of Duty or whatever and not a .20 gauge dove and quail gun. 

 

Which brings us to the crux of the problem. It seems that the majority of firearms these days are being marketed to do one of two things. Close Quarters Combat. Or fantastic long range sniping. (Or both...). A stack of eight SWAT team guys clearing a room with AR pistols or submachine guns looks cool. Snipers are freaking cool, let's make a movie about some. Seal Team 6 is awesome. Let's make some movies about them. Let's buy the guns that SWAT team members, snipers and Seal Team 6 use because they're the best and if you want to fight like a warrior you must emulate a warrior. Never mind that the average civilian will never need to clear a room like a SWAT team guy. The fantastical long range shots by snipers in Afghanistan are just that and really don't pertain to anything in the United States. (Go through your average day, how many 1000 yard shots would ever even present themselves?). And Seal Team 6 is that good because they spend all their time doing nothing but training.

 

You see much of the same thing in Four Wheeling. You can't just hop in your pickup truck or jeep, stick in four wheel drive and bomb around the logging roads or throw up mud on the back 40. You are expected to throw tens of thousands of dollars into rock climbing or mud bogging behemoths. And they're fun. Don't get me wrong. But there is a certain level of practicality that they lack and most of us can't afford them.

 

Back to guns. ARs are great. High capacity full size handguns are awesome. There is so much more to firearms than that. And that is what is being forgotten and ignored. There are so many niches to be filled which black rifles and high capacity pistols can't fill.

 

To be continued...

[Sturgeon]

That's precisely the way I feel about things; we need to not let the other areas of the hobby slip past us.

[LoooSeR]

Syrian soldier with MTs-116M sniper rifle.

 

 

 

Dat optics bodyshape.

https://www.sigsauer.com/CatalogProductDetails/bravo-4.aspx

 

 

 

 

Steiner ICS 6x40 with build-in laser rangefinder and ballistic computer, rifle is ARX-160. 

[LoooSeR]

Iraqi sniper with Chinese Communism^tm rays emitter.

[Sturgeon]

It was only a matter of time I suppose until the appendix-esque OOW HCAR appeared in a video game:

 

It even comes complete with a horrible theme song by The Worst Band!