Large Fierce Mammal

I read an article the other day written by Josh Makuch and published last Friday to Vice  with the title, “I’m a Veteran In Favour of More Gun Control — Gun owners could learn a lot from how the Canadian military treats their firearms.” This was, of course, trendy because the Trudeau government is only this month rolling out the latest federal tweak to Canadian firearms laws in keeping with a campaign promise to combat “gun violence” by revising, yet again, the laws governing those who legally own, or wish to legally own, firearms.

This time, the motive is allegedly to stop gangsters from engaging in firefights over drug turf — read Gang murders bucking trend toward a less violent Canada, summit told,
Fewer Canadians are shooting each other than a generation ago — but gang life is as violent as ever, published by CBC News on 7 March 2018 — and the means of doing that appears, for the most part, to be by reversing certain aspects of the previous government’s amendments to firearms legislation. Remember, because governments never forget, that those predisposed to obey the laws of the land, no matter how onerous, misbegotten, and demonstrably worthless those laws may be in accomplishing their stated purpose, represent the lowest of the low hanging fruit when governments want to be seen to “do something”.

My first reaction to the main title of the Vice article was, “So what?” To the subtitle about how much gun owners could learn from how the CAF treats its firearms I contributed a snort of derision and an utterance of, “Bullshit.”

Normally I would read something like this — or not — and ignore it — or not. Not, in this case.

In fairness, this is an opinion piece written from Mr. Makuch’s personal perspective as a Canadian combat veteran, but notwithstanding the respect he has earned and is owed from that, his status as a Veteran does not bestow any particular enlightenment in the area of firearms management beyond that required of him by his former employer.

Why should Mr. Makuch give a shit what I think of his opinions? No particular reason beyond what two Men may respectfully argue over beer, and my only reason for even addressing it today is that in addition to its timing, this particular piece was couched in terms evocative of a few pet peeves of mine. So I felt compelled to read it more than once, and eschew silence thereby.

First, making the assumption that a Soldier’s opinion should hold more weight than that of the average citizen in the matter of laws governing civilian firearms ownership will make perfect sense if you don’t think about it too much. (more…)

LFM Photo (click to enlarge)

When last we convened in the matter of musketry, I closed with reference to how, “The care and feeding, proper shooting, and maintenance of a wooden stocked rifle, particularly one of this vintage, requires dedication to what it means to be a Marksman.”

As you will know from having read the first installment in this series, my training in Marksmanship and the Hunter’s Art came by way of:

• The Man or Men forever unknown to me, by whose diligent care in the service of their Nation one battle scarred Lee Enfield No.4 Mk.1* rifle made its way, intact and serviceable, to the quiet racks of a surplus store in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia;
• Understanding and supportive parents; and
• A willing and eminently qualified WW2 veteran.

In keeping with our stated purpose here today, let’s go back to the rifle itself, and talk about history. History and decisions actually, because decisions, good and bad, are what history is made of. A warning first that while there are parallels with the efforts of other nations, my focus will be on the Lee Enfield rifle, its various heirs and successors.

Since the inception of center fire ammunition, and the design of standardized repeating rifles for general issue to military forces who would shoot it at each other, old school military rifles issued to British and Commonwealth soldiers were classic examples of the gunsmith’s art. Those built outside periods of open warfare often approach contemporary sporting arms in fit and finish, albeit veering more toward the utilitarian in the latter. Built from forged and milled steel components mounted in precision inlet wooden stocks, much relied on hand fitting by experienced craftsmen so each rifle, while seemingly identical to its brethren, was distressingly unique. As a result, parts interchangeability between rifles absent more skilled hand fitting was a dream for decades, compensated for by demanding that weapons built for soldiers be the very antithesis of fragility.

Notwithstanding the brutish circumstances in which it was meant to be applied, the SMLE (Short Magazine Lee Enfield) Mk.III that saw service in the trenches of World War I (precursor to the No. 4 and No.5 rifles of World War II to which we will return presently) was literally a finely tuned instrument of purpose. Each specimen came from the factory with its own unique marriage of wood, to steel, to ammunition, in order to predictably control harmonics in the barrel during firing.  You see, the barrel of a rifle, any rifle, is not so rigid a thing as you might think. Held horizontally in a firing position, it suddenly springs into a sinusoidal “barrel whip” as the bullet travels its length from chamber to muzzle. While not as rubbery a phenomenon as Bob l’éponge demonstrates here, you’ll get the picture if you imagine his arms are the barrel from the moment of firing at stage right until the bullet leaves the barrel stage left. (more…)

AC-130 Gunship expressing its nation’s displeasure. (Source: breakingdefense.com)

Knock Knock

By LFM

Our foe believed his camp well hid,
But OPSEC, his was slack.
We knew exactly where it was
And gave his bivouac.

Maple leaf, still afloat though sweating from the effort. (Source: Getty Images)

If you ain’t from around here, you probably won’t know how many tweaks and revisions the national anthem of Canada — O Canada — has undergone since it was first performed, as a French poem set to music, on 24 June 1880. As with any popular patriotic song, it went through a series of translations, rearrangements, and rewrites until the first verse was adopted, in both official languages, as the national anthem of Canada by way of the National Anthem Act in 1980. That’s right — 1980. I mean, some of us old folks were even alive when that happened!

As recently as this very year, the Canadian Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has put its own mark on l’hymne national by changing the line, “‘True patriot love in all thy sons command’ to ‘True patriot love in all of us command,’ ensuring gender parity.  No change was required to the French version.” That last bit about the French version is because, well, Québec.

Even with his fixation on gender neutrality, inclusiveness, and diversity; each of which he utters with such wide eyed regularity as to render all three references meaningless, I still find Justin Trudeau inspiring. So much so that he inspired me to give you this.

Gods help us, every one.

Ode to an Anthem

By LFM

An anthem is a song that tells
The story of a land,
From birth up to the day it’s sung
Right where you proudly stand.

We’ve governments rewriting ours
So that’s not what it does,
Ours tells the nation’s history
The way they wish it was.

To make it gender neutral,
More inclusive and diverse,
By governance of wishful thought
It just keeps getting worse.

They’ll labour day and night to add
Another word or two —
Diverse and all inclusive rhymes
For LGBTQ!

A tempest in a teapot though,
And worthless great to-do —
Most asked to sing O Canada,
Will have no fucking clue.

No.4 Mk.1* rifles manufactured by Savage for lend lease were marked with the squared “S” ahead of the model number, and clearly emblazoned as “US PROPERTY” even though nobody expected or wanted them back. (Source: JoeSalter.com)

The first firearm I came to own was a Lee Enfield No.4 Mk.1* service rifle built in 1942 by the Savage Arms Company as part of the U. S. lend lease programme in aid of the British war effort against Nazi Germany. In 1973, at the age of 16 and with the approval of my parents, I spent over an hour carefully selecting it with the aid of WW2 veteran Lester Beck, owner of Vet’s Surplus in Lunenburg, from among his extensive stock. I can still remember the scent of Mr. Beck’s stock room, and the way handling those old weapons made my hands smell. A heady mixture of gun oil, grease, and history.

Choice made, I paid a hard earned $25.00, bid Mr. Beck good day, and set off to carry my rifle the four blocks home in the middle of a business day that invited the kind of vehicle and pedestrian traffic one would expect in what was then an exceptionally prosperous town. As I walked I carried the rifle in my right hand, and in my left a paper bag containing its bolt and five rounds of ancient .303 British ammunition — the cartridges a gift thrown in because Mr. Beck had a policy of never letting anyone walk out of his shop with a firearm absent means of making it go bang.

My trip was uneventful with the only interruption being another store owner who charged out his door wanting to take a look at the rifle. No police intervened or were even alerted. No shots were fired. No lives were lost.

A condition of parental permission to acquire a rifle that had been the primary service weapon of British and Commonwealth armies through both world wars was that I learn to use it safely, and in this endeavour I was more than amply served by living next door to, and being held in the esteem of, a Gentleman of whom I have previously spoken. Charles Kenneth Knickle, known to his friends as Bill, served throughout WW2 in the Royal Canadian Army, finishing his service as a small arms instructor to war’s end. If ever there was a Man qualified to teach a lad the musketry of the Lee Enfield, he was it. To this day I never handle any firearm, load or fire a shot without hearing his voice, and with the express intention of being True to what he taught me.

I still have that rifle, and while I would be surprised if in its time in service in the hands of other Men it wasn’t used to end the lives of enemy soldiers, all I can speak to with certainty is that it and I have been instrumental in respectfully taking those of four Deer.

With the exception of Canadian Rangers serving in northern regions who still use it to this day due to its superiority over more “modern” options under arctic conditions, Canada retired the Lee Enfield as an item of general issue in favour of the semi-automatic FN FAL after its service in the Korean War. The result was many tens of thousands of Lee Enfields pouring into the civilian market. Some were mere relics unsafe to even consider firing, others like mine, remained in their well maintained though battle scarred and eminently fireable condition, but many of the low mileage examples were commercially modified into effective big game rifles either through having most of their all encompassing military wood furniture removed to make for a lighter sportier package, or by being fully refinished, tapped and drilled for scope mounting, and rebedded in beautifully checkered walnut Monte Carlo stocks. To this day, the .303 British cartridge, fired from some variant of Lee Enfield, can be seen in the field in any big game season in Canada.

The care and feeding, proper shooting, and maintenance of a wooden stocked rifle, particularly one of this vintage, requires dedication to what it means to be a Marksman. More on this as we progress in these considerations.

I had cause this morning to reflect on how often I begin a statement with the words, “Nothing annoys me more than ….”

As it turns out, a great many things annoy me, and they all appear to be vying for the position of top dog.

The most fulfilling moments in my so far 37 year career as a security consultant have involved engineering nasty surprises for miscreants, mostly human but occasionally from other tribes, who thought they were smarter than everyone else but weren’t. Oh, sure, along the way we’ve saved a few lives, but that was just collateral un-damage from the real objective — having fun at the expense of every maliciously self-indulgent shithead who comes into our sights, and getting paid for it.

Every year, and in some cases every month, puts even more sophisticated toys and games at our disposal, not least of which is a constantly broadening array of surveillance platforms and analytical tools offering target identification and behavioural pattern analysis that it would be an insult to refer to using such passé references as “eagle eye” and “fine toothed comb”. Add to that the mind of a truly black hearted analyst, and it doesn’t get more fun than that.

This is all well and good as long as you’re operating under near perfect first world conditions, but it must never be forgotten that over-reliance on 21st century technology and its supporting infrastructure is comparable to enjoying the affections of the woman or man of your dreams while ignoring the knowledge that she or he is only mostly faithful to you, and so one day may be gone forever.  The average mind is self-deluding in the enjoyment of having something wonderful, so that even faced with periodic temporary examples of how life would be without it, these are viewed as brief inconveniences instead of lessons, so thought dwells instead on anticipation of the wonderful thing’s return as though this too shall inevitably pass. A sense of entitlement and false permanence is thus engendered, and latent disaster guaranteed.

The real life lesson here is to enjoy and exploit every advantage these advanced technologies can provide, but to do it with purpose. To make life easier while you earn a living, and position yourself so that when the day comes it all stops working, you’re far ahead of the throng with a well entrenched, down and dirty, Plan  B.

Here’s an intellectual exercise for you. Next time the power and/or communications grid goes down, instead of letting your mind run straight to trying to find out how long the outage will last, take it down a different track: Is this it? Then light some candles and enjoy a spirited discussion over what you’re going to do if it is. If you need some comfort to fortify you against averting your eyes from the very thought, look at the bright side; if this isn’t actually “it”, you may not even be alive when that day comes, or its onset may just kill you outright, so why worry?

In the spirit of that sentiment, let’s turn our attention to the word that is the title of today’s article — Pervertibles. (more…)

The year I got my first coveted pair of snowshoes for Christmas, we had over half a meter of snow on the ground before school closed for the holidays. I was stoked! Then the rain and springlike temperatures came, starting Christmas Eve and persisting until all the snow had melted. I recall watching it vanish from our backyard with a sad and pathetic snowman as the benchmark. Looking out boxing Day morning, the yard was bare and all that was left of him was a nub the size of my head. He’d been taller than me.

Still the rain fell. In an hour he looked like a cup of grey slush. The rain fell harder. The wind blew warmer. When he was finally gone, still the rain and wind persisted another hour; I felt, just to be sure my hopes were dashed.

And then the wind changed to the north, the temperature plummeted, and winter became a snowless deep freeze until spring couldn’t stand it any longer and stepped in to put an end to the shenanigans.

A year later, the forests were denied to anyone on foot who didn’t have snowshoes or cross country skis. I was in my element, and the Forest Spirits laughingly whispered that last Winter wasn’t about me at all.

The present one either, come to that.

Our title today paraphrases G. K. Chesterton’s observation that, “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” The poem was inspired by a combination of current meteorological realities here in Nova Scotia, and some reading I’ve been doing on daily life of British and Commonwealth soldiers in the trenches of World War 1. You may enjoy an example of the latter here.

Our unofficial Clan motto is that you can always tell how much fun you had doing a thing by how dirty you got doing it. There’s a dose of that here too.

More Mud Than Glory

By LFM

Late O-seventeen
Was a big freeze and blow,
That turned dirt into concrete,
With bugger all snow.

With twenty-eighteen
Came a warm spell and rains
That tore a small thaw as
It choked all the drains.

By the time the rain stopped
All the earth was laid bare,
Slicked over with mud
Under warm humid air.

While some folks complained
How the water and mud
Turned their yards into lakes
And their basements to flood.

Stiff drinks in our hands
We looked out from our lair,
And instead of mud ugly
Saw ambience there.

So we bought some provisions,
And invites were sent
To twelve hearty guests
For our “war themed” event.

Then we buried some mines
And we dug a latrine.
We added some trenches
With barbed wire between.

Had six vet’ran soldiers
For three hours, non-stop
Firing live ammunition
Straight over the top.

We served bully beef
Eaten straight from the can,
And “rat-au-van” — rat
That’s been killed by a van.

The doneness of bacon
Was never in doubt.
It was cooked with a candle
That kept blowing out.

The tea that we served
Flavoured water abused,
Delivered in petrol cans,
Most of them used.

When armistice came
To our trench of delight,
We called for some cocktails
To round out the night.

Brought up to “the front”
By the Rum Ration bloke
Was a jug of rough trade,
And we all took a choke.

Then our guests were demobbed
And drove home on a lorry
That bore on its sides
The words, “More Mud Than Glory”.

Nova Scotia is currently swaying like a drunken sailor under an assortment of winter storm warnings including snowfall warning, heavy rainfall warning, extreme wind warning, and storm surge warning. Mostly rain in our area, falling on frozen ground leading to nearly instant ice formation on paved surfaces. Winds are expected to increase in intensity through the day and overnight with gusts forecast to be between 100 and 140 kilometers per hour. Heavy rain is also expected with predicted high volume runoff over frozen ground..

Caught flat footed by the Christmas Day wind storm that included mere 110 kilometer per hour winds and left some areas off grid for nearly a week, Nova Scotia Power announced it has mobilized 1000 people, including crews from New Brunswick and Quebec, to address outages this time — allegedly the largest mobilization the the company’s history. Notwithstanding that, they are warning the customers should be prepared to be without power “through the weekend”.

As of a few minutes ago, the NSP outage map shows 17,000 addresses without power, with causes listed in the majority as “bad conditions”, the next greatest number as “salt contamination”, about a dozen as “poorly seasoned”, three as “ennui”, and one simply as “nap time”. (more…)