"Let's not forget the Tommy guns smuggled into Ireland in the 1920s . . ."
And the M60's stolen from the Danvers Armory in the late 70's/80's and smuggled to the IRA with help from Whitey Bulger if I remember correctly. Inoperable? Hardly! bolts are always stored separately from M16's.
"An armory employee came into work on Monday morning and discovered the robbery, which occurred sometime over the preceding weekend. Among the trove of weapons taken were 92 M16 rifles, 7 large M60 belt-fed machine guns, a .45 caliber pistol, two grenade launchers, several flak jackets, infrared binoculars, and a “Redeye” missile launcher. It was enough to outfit a small army."
"Originally, Federal authorities noted that the firing pins for the weapons were not taken by the robbers, and therefore declared the guns “useless.” As a precaution, the firing pins were stored separately at Danvers Police Station. But, the guns were far from useless." Bullshit!
The IRA had many M16s from Danvers and elsewhere, but the larger M60 machine guns were a boon to the insurgents. The enormous weapons looked menacing and were more powerful than what the British soldiers typically carried. The Danvers M60s were first displayed in January 1978 during a commemoration in Derry to mark the anniversary of British paratroopers killing unarmed civilians on “Bloody Sunday,” and the weapons were met with cheers by the crowds. After this unveiling, a Northern Ireland newspaper headline blared: “I.R.A. IN POSSESSION OF NEW AMERICAN SUPER WEAPON.”
(Picture from January 1978 when the IRA first revealed the M60s from Danvers. Source:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/c...y-ira-for-years-it-was-dictatorship-1-6797214)
These large weapons were first used in 1978, when British soldiers on patrol were fired upon. Later that year, the British Army recovered two M60s from the IRA that came from the Danvers Armory. More of the weapons surfaced in 1979 during a roadside bomb ambush that killed 18 British soldiers – the single deadliest incident of the conflict. The IRA also claimed that it used a Danvers M60 machine gun to shoot down a British Army helicopter.
The story returned to Massachusetts in April, 1980 when firefighters in Walpole responded to a house fire. They entered an empty house and found a burning chair next to two barrels full of M16s. It appeared as though the fire was deliberately set to destroy the weapons. The FBI and the ATF recovered 46 M16s, and later the owner of the house, Charles A. Gallant Jr., was arrested and charged with possessing the stolen weapons from the Danvers Armory, though he was not involved in the robbery itself.
(In the Danvers Herald March 21, 2019) (The Danvers National Guard Armory in February, 2019) On a hot August weekend in 1976, a group of men approached the 7-foot-high chain-link fence behind the D…
spectersofsalemvillage.com
www.independent.ie
![[rofl]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/013.gif "ROFL [rofl]")
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