Posted on 11/17/2017 4:32:30 AM PST by marktwain
Opponents of an armed population often claim that semi-automatic rifles are a new phenomena in the United States. That is false.
One of the first successful semi-automatic or self loading rifles was the Remington Model 8 above. It was patented in 1900 by John Moses Browning.
Commercial production started in 1906. It was a successful design, used in the hunting fields, in law enforcement, and had limited usage in the U.S. military. The model 8 was modified a bit in 1936 and become the model 81, which was produced until 1950.
You can see that some of the design features were copied in later designs such as the AK-47. The AK features full automatic capability, which was not part of the Model 8, or its improved brother, the model 81.
Many have remarked on the eerie resemblance of the safety lever on both rifles. The models 8 and 81 had rotary locking lugs, as does the AK-47.
The power of the cartridges used in the AK and the model 8 are similar. The Model 8 and 81 cartridges tend to be a little more powerful than the 7.62×39 cartridge of the AK-47. The Model 81 was chambered in the .300 Savage cartridge, which is considerably more powerful, while the .25 Remington, the .30 Remington, the .32 Remington and the .35 Remington bracket the power of the 7.62×39 cartridge, from a bit less to a bit more.
The .300 Savage and .35 Remington cartridges are still available commercially, and would be my choice for a Model 8 or 81. Brass is available for the other calibers. They can be handloaded. There is no reason not to use one of these fine rifles if you have one.
After the Model 8, semi-automatic designs proliferated.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Mass Shootings have been rare for 80 of those years.
Considering the state of medical care in the pre-penicillin era, it was even more deadly than a modern semi-auto. Nearly every muzzle-loader wound to the torso was fatal, and half of wounds to the limbs became fatal due to infection.
A maniac in the colonial era could have wiped out a church with two blunderbusses, but this never happened. What changed was not the weaponry so much as the modern mind, jammed with ultra-violent images from movies, TV and especially first-person-shooter video games from childhood on.
I beleive the biggest change is in the mass-media virtual promotion of mass killing with the copycat effect.
It is not a change in weaponry, as you correctly say.
It is a change in the mind set of the population.
Look at literature before 1900 in Western Civilization. Everything is considered from a Christian perspective.
Look at literature today (your books a notable exception).
Everything is considered from an atheist/neo-pagan perspective.
The phenomenon of mass shootings goes along with the collapse of the education system, the government sponsored destruction of Christianity, and the rise of Alinski Leftism. It is not coincidence that the number of police killings went up under Obviously-the-police-acted-stupidly Obama. He and other Leftist politicians have essentially advocated and approved of violence. Their use of the bully pulpits and their well financed “resistance” movements are clearly designed to trigger their followers to greater levels of violence. The greater level of violence is supposed to make the electorate force the government to be more forceful and to concentrate more power in the government so they can “protect” us from the very thing the Left created.
>>What changed was not the weaponry so much as the modern mind, jammed with ultra-violent images from movies, TV and especially first-person-shooter video games from childhood on.
The thing that changed in the modern mind was the end of cultural Christianity and its replacement with Humanism. The FPS video games and movies followed from that.
In Humanist ideology, each human is the pinnacle of morality and that is situational. So when some nutjob decides to end his life, the morality of taking 30 innocent people with him is easy: “It’s what I want. I have the means. I will do it because there is no higher authority than me that can touch me after I’m dead.”
Every mass shooter has this basic philosophy, whether they call it Humanism, Existentialism, Nihilism—even Islam is really Humanism with a thin veneer of religion applied to cover the political goals of the ideology.
btt
One of my favourite gun control memes was one I saw in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting that had the caption “Semi automatics have been around for 100 years”, complete with vintage ads and then mentioned that “What has changed?” with pictures of the “Hollywood” sign and images from violent video games.
Part of my gun collection includes a lever action Marlin made in 1910 that belonged to my great-uncle, and for sure that would have been even more a lethal item in the hands of a disturbed person back then.
According to Inspector Colin Greenwood, Victorian England averaged less than five armed robberies a year.
Prior to 1919 there were no gun controls at all in Britain other than one. You had to purchase a stamp at the post office to buy a handgun. The stamp was issued as routine, just like a postage stamp.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about more crimes than were actually committed.
I have seen photos of Scottish Soldiers home on leave. They brought their Lee Enfields home with them.
And a mass-media that offers instant, persistent, world-wide publicity for the killer.
Liked the history of the Model 8.
How many of these people committing mass shootings would have been in the loony bin 50 or 60 years ago? Drugs, both legal and illegal are also a big factor in some of the crazy behavior we see today as well, I think.
I like to call them self-loading guns, since semi-auto seems to have become such a negative connotation these days.
I think the guberment breeds these crazy people to do mass murders so that the populace will accept the fact we need 100% guberment controls. At least that’s what a paranoid person would think. “We’re from the guberment and are here to help you”
It’s the same scenario on a smaller scale as when they say “You need us to protect you from the ( ) insert, commies, muzzies or whatever you are scared of.”
http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2014/10/gun-registration-and-confiscation-in.html
The link has an article with relevant Colin Greenwood quotes and links.
Holy crap....
That thing is wicked...
“Prepare to Repel Boarders”, indeed...
Thanks, I believe Colin Greenwood was one of the clearest thinking writers on Gun Control, I have ever read.
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