Guns and Hunting Thread (12-9-2012)

Costas

The big gun news last week surrounded Bob Costas' idiotic remarks on Sunday Night Football. Here are links to the HQ's related posts:

• A Must-Read Rejoinder To Costas & Whitlock
• Bob Costas, Bien Pensant
• Costas Stupidly Stands By Gun Control Remarks
• Bob Costas Attempts Walkback, Displays Ignorance
• Bob Costas: Gee, Maybe My Twenty Second Easy-Bake Gun Control Screed Wasn't Appropriate
• Bob Costas: I Wasn't Talking About Gun Control. People Just Inferred That. Do I Support Gun Control? Why, Um, Yes I Do.

As far as I know, he hasn't opened his pie hole any more on this, but if he does, we'll be all over it.

Cooper's Commentaries

Thanks to moron 'kpayne' for this link to an archive of Cooper's Commentaries. Jeff Cooper was a huge figure in the "gun culture" that limousine liberal Bob Costas abhors. He was a retired Marine Lt. Col., inventor of the modern handgun combat technique, an NRA board member and editor-at-large for Guns & Ammo, where summaries of his commentaries appeared in a column called Cooper's Corner.

A taste, from November 2000:

I find it wearisome to hear people describe the attack on the USS Cole as one of "terrorism." We are free to use whatever words we wish to describe whatever we wish, but the attack on the Cole was not a piece of terrorism, it was an act of war. Terrorism may be described as homicidal coercion - an attempt to change national or political behavior by threat of force. The men who attacked the Cole were not attempting to coerce the United States, they were attempting simply to kill Americans - for theological, rather than political, reasons. It may be true that no recognized nation has declared war upon the United States, but Islam has officially described us as The Great Satan, and thus made us military adversaries in a Jihad or Holy War.

It is childish to discuss any attempt to discover who is responsible for this act of war. If there were such a man it would be the Sultan of Islam. Osama bin Laden does not hold that title at present, but clearly he would like to.

Common sense that we continue to ignore at our peril. If you haven't read Cooper's Commentaries, they're worth adding to your list. The historical references might be a little dated, but the themes are timeless.

Gun of the Week

Identify this rifle (answer appears at the end of the thread):

Marksmanship Award

Hero of the Day - Oregon: Aloha man cleared in slaying of would-be robber - sfgate.com/news/crime/art… #NRA (via @sfgate)

— Cam and Company (@CamAndCompany) December 8, 2012

Gun of the Week - Answer

That, of course, is the StG 44 in 7.92x33 Kurz. Developed by the Germans in WWII, the StG 44 was the world's first assault rifle (the real definition of the word, not the sloppy media definition applied to every Evil Black Rifle) and directly influences military firearms design to this day.

The inspiration for this week's selection comes from Connecticut where, unbelievably, someone attempted to hand over an StG 44 in one of those feel-good gun buyback programs. Fortunately the Hartford police officers running the program recognized it for what it was and returned it to the owner so they can sell it for something approaching its estimated $30,000 market value.

Note to self: Set up a gun buyback program.

Poll

Pupster from the Splitters sends this question.

I thought a topic for the gun thread might be M1A/M14 vs M16/M4 for a zombie apocalypse rifle. I am struggling with this choice. Main concerns are ease of maintenance and availability and price.

What say you, horde, on this eternal debate?

Tips

If there are topics you're interested in seeing in the gun thread, please send them to AoSHQGunThread at gmail. You can also send them to me on Twitter at @AndyM1911.

posted by Andy at 10:50 AM

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