Interesting Tidbit of Trivia

They just popped up this bit on Information....

And I'm liking the History Channel. They have a lot of specials on about guns.

This one says:

The gun has played a critical role in history. An invention which has been praised and denounced... served hero and villain alike... and carries with it moral responsibility. To understand the gun, is to better understand history.
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We had a then LT decide to check out his Kevlar helmet and see if it works. He shot it at close range with IIRC, a .357. It worked. He paid for the Kevlar, though.
 
Supposedly, there's a second incident, but details are lacking.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcfullau.html

Crime with Legally Owned Machine Guns

In 1995 there were over 240,000 machine guns registered with the BATF. (Zawitz, Marianne,Bureau of Justice Statistics, Guns Used in Crime [PDF].) About half are owned by civilians and the other half by police departments and other governmental agencies (Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, Walter de Gruyter, Inc., New York, 1997.)

Since 1934, there appear to have been at least two homicides committed with legally owned automatic weapons. One was a murder committed by a law enforcement officer (as opposed to a civilian). On September 15th, 1988, a 13-year veteran of the Dayton, Ohio police department, Patrolman Roger Waller, then 32, used his fully automatic MAC-11 .380 caliber submachine gun to kill a police informant, 52-year-old Lawrence Hileman. Patrolman Waller pleaded guilty in 1990, and he and an accomplice were sentenced to 18 years in prison. The 1986 'ban' on sales of new machine guns does not apply to purchases by law enforcement or government agencies.
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Thanks to the staff of the Columbus, Ohio Public Library for the details of the Waller case.

Source: talk.politics.guns FAQ, part 2.

The other homicide, possibly involving a legally owned machine gun, occurred on September 14, 1992, also in Ohio

http://members.cox.net/arporro/photos/Shooting.pdf
 
I love watching The History Channel. One of my favorite shows is "History of the Gun" and on Military Channel "GI Factory with Kelly Perdew". First episode I saw was when he went to where they make M1's and then later to Baretta USA.
 
I found the Modern Marvels one on The Magnum fairly interesting. The bit I liked the best: the .357 Magnum was became popular during the Great Depression when "Motorized Bandits" were able to shield themselves with their car doors against the cops' ineffectual .38 Special revolvers. S&W rose to the challenge and developed a round that demoted car steel from cover to concealment.

Nice!

I remember seeing old movies where cops 'n robbers would shoot it out in running battles around the streets of Chicago (or somewhere) I always wondered how anyone in those tin cans survived without being perforated. I guess the .38 Spec. just wasn't that tough back in the day, and the bullets didn't get through.
 
C-pher said:
Yes it is. They had a special on the other day on how they make the helmets for the army.

That was really cool.
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I saw that one, too. Wasn't it the same one that showed the Hummer factory and the M16 factory? Good show.
 
That was always the excuse, but I think the history was actually a bit different. Elmer Kieth and a few others had been hand loading .38 Special rounds way past the standard factory levels and getting great results. Even without gangstersrunning around hiding behind car doors, these guys would have been doing the same thing. The ammunition manufacturers were reluctant to produce similar loads, since some of the older .38 Special handguns around weren't built to take the pressure. With the pressure on (pun intended) for what were effectively +P+ loads, S&W was finally convinced to take the plunge. S&W had already started producing heavier frame .38s, marketed as .38-44 HDs (When S&W went to numbering, this became the Model 20 until it was finally discontinued.). Some were then modified with cylinders 0.1" longer than spec, and Remington and Winchester started producing hot .38 loads with longer cases, which would only fit in the new guns.

Ken
 
Jeremiah said:
I found the Modern Marvels one on The Magnum fairly interesting. The bit I liked the best: the .357 Magnum was became popular during the Great Depression when "Motorized Bandits" were able to shield themselves with their car doors against the cops' ineffectual .38 Special revolvers. S&W rose to the challenge and developed a round that demoted car steel from cover to concealment.
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Wrong round. The .38 Super was developed for that purpose. The .357 Magnum came much later.
 
Scrivener said:
Wrong round. The .38 Super was developed for that purpose. The .357 Magnum came much later.
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Six years separates the two rounds: the .38 Super round was introduced in 1929, nine years into Prohibition. The .357 Magnum round was introduced in 1935, 2 years after Prohibition ended.

Thus endeth our trivia lesson for the morning. Thanks for the springboard, Scrivener!
 
Split the difference. S&W originally came up with the .38-44HD, which hit the market in 1930, firing a load essentially identical to a modern 158gr .357. About the same time, Colt loaded its .38 ACP round up to higher pressures and modified the M1911 for the smaller cartridge, hitting the market with the .38 Super a few months earlier.

Ken
 
I can't say I've done any hard research to back this up, but I have heard from a few sources that Jim Brady had the largest civillian owned Class III collection in the US.
 
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