H&K MP5
credit: de.wikipedia.org
The recent and tragic accidental death of an “instructor” in Arizona has caused quite a stir. Thirty-nine year old Charles Vacca was teaching a 9 year-old girl to shoot–of all things–a Mini-Uzi, a fully automatic submachine gun. Predictably, she was unable to control the recoil of the little subgun, and accidentally shot Vacca in the head, killing him.
That sad accident served as a reminder that most Americans know little about submachine guns. Most of what they think they know is due to the dramatic ministrations of Hollywood. In other words, they know nothing of the actual abilities, employment, and functioning of submachine guns. Most aren’t aware that they fire pistol cartridges.
With that in mind, the good folks at Bearing Arms asked me to write a submachine gun primer to address this lack of common knowledge. And so I have. If you have a few minutes, you may find it interesting. It has many photos of interesting firearms. The article also contains a link to additional information about the aforementioned accident.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
This incident is a clear expression of the level of lunacy that your gun laws (and the idiotic fantasy that drives them) have reached.
You need to look at the Australian experience and learn.
Australians are twelve times less likely to be shot – accidentally or otherwise than Americans.
We have twelve times more freedom from fear than Americans.
The US is a long way from being the “land of the free”.
Americans are slaves to fear.
I get it, mate. You’re trolling us with all of your cocky America bashing. But the effectiveness of the gun laws Australia enacted beginning in 1996 is highly debatable.
Cf, http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1736501,00.html (Firearm homicides in Australia were declining before 1996 and the decline simply continued at the same rate since.)
“But the effectiveness of the gun laws Australia enacted beginning in 1996 is highly debatable.”
What is not debatable is the statistical evidence – http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/gun-ownership-gun-deaths-study
Answer me this –
How many gun massacres have occurred in Australia since 1996?
How many in the USA?
How many Americans were confined to their homes under threat of deadly force?
Dear Paul:
I doubt we’ll ever know the true number, but tens of millions, certainly. Abroad, even more.
I guess there is plenty of reason to ask, “Do more guns really make us safer than fewer guns do?” I have read all kinds of stories about where the bad guys with guns have actually overcome good guys with guns putting a lie to some of the claims being made by some of the more enthusiastic gun nutties.
You have READ stories. Typical Liberal. Never had the character building experience of being in a fight, being attacked, under fire.
Sir, when You need a gun – like a fire extinguisher or parachute – nothing else will do.
So remain gun-less, just don’t attempt to disarm me….because I’ll give you a whole new outlook.
I am an honorably-discharged U.S. military veteran of the Vietnam Era with 7 years and 3 months of service and have had extensive training in weapons and their use and maintenance . . . so what is your point again?
“Typical Liberal. Never had the character building experience of being in a fight, being attacked, under fire.”
I don’t know what your experience is, but I did a tour of Vietnam in an Australian Infantry unit in 1970.
I carried an M1A1 (SLR) during that time, and was trained on the M-60, M-16, M-72 and M-79. We lost 1KIA, and 2WIA in an encounter with a bunker system on the Song Rai in 22nd April, another WIA in a friendly fire incident, and had another digger die from heat exhaustion. We also had your countrymen lob 175mm artillery rounds on us from a permanent FSB because they were too high on marijuana to pay proper attention to the situation of friendly units.
This experience has taught me that I never again want to have anything to do with firearms.
So forgive me if I regard your nation’s cowardly obsession with guns with contempt.
I am fortunate to live in a country where we are free from fear.
God help your benighted country – under the thrall of the NRA, your very own version of the Taliban.
Dear John:
Good question. May I suggest John Lott’s seminal book “More Guns, Less Crime”? Anti-gun activists routinely excoriate Lott, but no legitimate academician has ever been able to fault his methods or data. The book is in its third edition, and for those willing to accept fact and logic, answers the question decisively: More guns do make us safer. Short of Lott’s book, one need only consider three facts:
(1) Violent crime rates have been steadily declining for several decades. Simultaneously, gun ownership rates have steadily climbed. More Americans own guns, and by an enormous margin, than at any time in American history.
(2) Every state now has some form of concealed carry, and most have quite liberal laws. Millions of Americans are carrying concealed weapons every day. They are among the most law-abiding citizens in America. All of the anti-gun predictions of blood in the streets have been conclusively proved false and alarmist. Also, see #1.
(3) In deciding the Heller and McDonald cases, even the dissenting Supreme Court Justices could not point to evidence that guns are a societal detriment. They would have loved to have been able to do so.
Thanks for your question.
I do not view guns as a societal detriment either and I do in fact support the Second Amendment. But I am also fascinated by some claims made by some Austrailians about their experiences which sometimes seem to be counter to our own. Have you noticed this at all and what do you think of it if you have seen it?
Dear John:
Another good question. It is essentially fruitless to compare such things from country to country. America is unique in so many ways that comparing our experience to Australia or any other nation is comparing apples to elephants. Our experience provides more than enough objective evidence to make public policy in full accord with the Constitution. The laws of other nations can have no bearing on our own, if the Constitution is to be the supreme law of the land.
Those living in other lands imagining Americans to be barbarians living in a savage land may keep their delusions. The truth is that most Americans live quiet and rather tranquil lives while all but surrounded by those that safely own, carry and enjoy firearms. For Americans, the fact that their government can–and does–disarm the law-abiding, says all that need be known.
“Do more guns really make us safer than fewer guns do?”
The answer is pretty easy to find.
Take a look at the statistics –
Australia – .14 homicides per 100000 – ownership – 15 firearms per 100
USA – 2.97 homicides per 100000 – ownership – 88.8 firearms per 100
The US rate is 21 times higher than the Australian rate.
Answer is “no”. The “more guns make us safe” story is a fable.
QED
Well, ask your Aborigines if no guns made them safer, or if they would have preferred to have a few machine guns when your ancestors hunted them for sport and slaughter. Each land has its own history and its own peoples. You are fortunate that you had a disarmed owner of the land you were transported to.
“when your ancestors hunted them for sport and slaughter”
Not a patch on what your ancestors did to native Americans.
From Wikipedia –
“Indians were generally disliked in the United States, as they got in the way of American “progress” and manifest destiny. The “Indian Removal Act” of 1831 attempted to move roughly 50,000 Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and others from their home to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma). The U.S. government did not provide any means of transportation, forcing them to walk the 2,200 miles. One cannot reasonably argue that the U.S. government did not fully expect many of them to die on the way — especially children and the elderly. The U.S. government recorded 4,000 deaths on just one of many re-location marches among the Cherokee alone; estimates of the total death toll range from as low as 5,000 to has high as 25,000. Ironically, missionaries traveled with the Indians of their own accord, to attempt to provide better provisions to the people.”
And it has absolutely nothing to do with current gun laws – another red herring.
You are right. You pitched another red herring, if you failed to notice.
Do more guns in the hand of honest citizens make us safer? The statistics say yes. Every state where concealed carry is the rule rather than the exception, the crime rate drops.
In Australia, if your government decides it doesn’t like you you have little recourse. Here, in the wild west of America, we do. As Mr. Franklin said a long time ago, “Those who would surrender essential liberties for a little safety, deserve nether”.
I suppose we will come over and recuse your sorry asses again the next time a Hitler arises.
“I suppose we will come over and recuse (sic) your sorry asses again the next time a Hitler arises.”
You have never “rescued” Australia.
Australian troops stopped the Japanese on the Kokoda Track – the first troops anywhere in the world to do so.
You used Australia as an aircraft carrier in WW2.
It had nothing to do with “freedom”.
You were interested only in self-preservation.
Australians enjoy much more freedom than Americans.
“Every state where concealed carry is the rule rather than the exception, the crime rate drops”.
Our rate of gun homicides is one twentieth of yours.
That’s the bottom line – everything else is a red herring.
Yes, your gun homocides have gone way down since your gov. basically through permits disarmed you.
Wonder why your knife homocides have risen 41% in the last decade?
Hmmmmm……….. could it be because people have always killed other people since the days of Cain and Able and always will?
Lets examine some Aussie mass murders:
2011 The Siege at Hectorville: Mass shooting, three killed a child and two police officers wounded.
2011 Quaker Hill Nursing home: 21 people killed in a deliberately set fire.
2009 Churchhill fire: 10 people killed in a deliberately set fire.
2002 Monash University shooting: Mass shooting two teachers killed five students injured.
2000 Childers Palace fire: 15 people killed in a deliberately set fire.
I’ll say it again, for effect, people have always killed other people, with sticks, rocks, knives, fists, feet, fire, cars and yes, with guns. And will continue to do so. In the USA and shockingly, Australia too. So get over it and if you can, get over yourself. Bask in the warmth of your safety and revel in the fact that the rest of the world is envious of you.
P.S. Noticed your tourism (other than the Chinese) has been declining over the last decade, tourism in our savage nation is doing just fine. Tourism being visitors from other nations……. including yours.
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Mr. Vaccaro exhibited extremely poor judgment.
Dear Paul:
Indeed he did, and paid for it.
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