Large Fierce Mammal

She taught me the art of conversation. How to listen, and how to appropriately respond. She taught me of social rank, and how one must be deserving of it. Of discretion in all things.

I learned the importance of a cup of tea, and that it must never be refused if matters of any size or urgency are to be discussed. That alcohol is normally reserved for the time when urgency and danger are past, but that it may, on occasion, be called upon to ceremoniously steady the hand. That no Man worthy of the name would go to it as a substitute for courage or moral fortitude.

My Grandmother was of a generation wherein pregnant women were often advised to take a pint of Stout daily as a tonic, and after bearing six children had maintained the practice. Two PM each afternoon was “stout time” and this was taken seated at the window that overlooked the street in front of her flat. When I was visiting, I was invited to join her, and this was a time to learn to sip and converse. As I grew, so too did the size of my glass, and in this I learned not only the give and take of respectful conversation, but the timing of things, and most importantly, how and when to be silent without bringing awkwardness into the room. ~ Wordly Wisdom Wednesday – Education

This week I wish to draw more detailed attention to something I touched on last week, and that appears in the excerpt above – The True Arte of Intelligent Discourse. It isn’t formally taught anymore unless a teacher is intentionally sought, or one is fortunate enough to know a Master from whom one may learn by example. Alas, few people now living even know what it is, let alone how it’s done. Notwithstanding their ignorance of its nature, they know it when they see it, and often find it unsettling – even annoying – when confronted by it because nothing in their experience has prepared them to even stay in the room with it. Sadly, though not surprisingly, this unease is also observed among the teaming throng of the Great Unwashed – the “GU” as I like to call them – in the face of that larger Discipline of which The True Arte of Intelligent Discourse is but a subset – I am speaking, of course, of Manners.

At its foundation, The True Arte of Intelligent Discourse – and let us today, for the sake of brevity, respectfully shorten that and simply refer to it as “The Arte” – is built upon a very few simple and specific rules, listed here in no order of importance for they are all equally so:

1. That no opinion is too lofty to be assailed, nor too base to be brought into the light, although the choice of topic must be intelligently weighed against the time, place, and audience.
2. That words uttered within the context of The Arte must be chosen wisely, for upon that field they carry the same responsibility and invitation of consequence as physical acts.
3. That silence, properly expressed and in proper timing, is itself a statement (see Rule 2).
4. That an argument directed at the words of another is not an attack upon the good character nor the intelligence of that worthy other.
5. That only demonstrable Education, not the mere badges alleging its acquisition, holds meaning to practitioners of The Arte.
6. That unless clearly willful in nature, demonstrated ignorance of facts pertaining to a matter of discussion shall be treated as an oversight, and as such, courteously corrected without ridicule or hint of rebuke. They shall likewise be courteously received and not treated as a slight.
7. That he who demonstrates evidence of willfully flawed thinking, resorts to personal attacks upon those present or otherwise, brings anger to the field, or lays claim to knowledge or standing that cannot be substantiated, disqualifies himself from all trust in the veracity of his words and, shall upon exposure, yield the field lest he be assisted therein, and thereby also yield what remains of his honour.

In this age, many indulge daily in Discourse, Intelligent and otherwise, often and regrettably with others who may be as much as half a world away, and from this has come an equating of distance with safety in ignoring these rules. Yet even as he who hurls taunts at a comely pedestrian from the perceived safety and anonymity afforded by a moving automobile may come to learn, Manners are shed at your peril, for even the best tuned of engines may fail, one can only run so far and so fast, and the world is only so big.

Study and meditate upon today’s lesson Good Reader, and bring what it teaches to all your social intercourse from this day forward.

These men have REAL assault rifles with bayonets attached, and they know how to use both. While more than capable of killing, military firearms are intended to cause casualties. The bayonet has no such purpose – it is either an instrument of control, or of death. (click the image to enlarge)

The blade strikes more primal fear into the hearts of men than the bullet. Possibly this is because few people have ever been shot, but sooner or later everyone will cut themselves to a greater or lesser degree. Thus there is a clearer understanding of just how bad things can get when the blade is delivered to flesh in the heat of an adrenalin rush, but who really cares? It works.

Since the inception of reliable repeating firearms as the primary weapons of the soldier, its gleaming, bloodthirsty companion, the bayonet, has remained a constant. A crowd faced by resolute soldiers who pause to fix bayonets is far more likely to disperse – and quickly – than one faced with conventional riot batons and shields. In recent military history, the British Army has won the day with bayonet charges in the Falkland Islands (1982) and Iraq (2004). In each case, a smaller force pinned down by enemy fire, outnumbered and at risk of being overrun, fixed bayonets and charged. What might be considered a bravely suicidal last ditch tactic instead resulted in a victory of amazing proportions with casualties massively skewed against the superior force. A line of determined, fiercely screaming men intent on slicing you to ribbons is just as demoralizing now as it has always been – even more so in this ‘modern” age of computer game mayhem, action movies, fantasy fiction, and over confidence in the almighty gun. ~ Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 6: Cold Steel

Lessons learned from the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich coloured security policies and procedures that would be put in place when the games came to the City of Montreal in 1976.  Security at Montreal was a combined police and military operation, and in the past 30 years, I have come to know and work with three men who trained for, and were deployed as part of, the Canadian military contingent at those games.

Crowd and riot control was subject to some thinking and associated doctrine back then that would send people into flights of fanciful panic at their mere mention today. Notwithstanding that, what I’m talking about here is history, not fancy, and it speaks both loud and clear to the mindset of the rifle and the blade, as perceived from both ends of the weapon. (more…)

The most recent article in my Short, Easily Digested Firearms Education Lecture series referred the reader to the first two items in this parallel one.  If you haven’t read any or all of that material, I suggest you do so before you continue here because those articles explore the historic and practical precedents for the shape of the modern assault rifle as it Truly is, and not merely as defined by ideology. Bashing on then, having defined in detail what an assault rifle is, let’s take a look at what it isn’t. An easy job because the press is only too happy to help.

As a Canadian living with firearms legislation applicable solely to Canada, this discussion will take a Canadian slant. Nevertheless, in doing that I must also deal with U. S. law because a disappointingly large number of seats at Tim Hortons shops across the Great White North are filled with bums attached to people who think the news item they just saw on TV about the proposed “assault weapons ban” applies here.

So turning to the U. S. for just a moment, let’s begin with an illuminating video of Texas Senator Ted Cruz in a recent Senate Judiciary Committee debate on the subject of gun control, and most specifically on the concept of the “assault weapon”. This is an excellent illustration because it touches on the mindset of many Canadians.

Senator Cruz makes a number of vital points about firearms reality vs. skewed interpretations prevalent among people who have little to no experience with or desire to own firearms, but let’s pause here a moment to reprise something specific that he said in that clip:

I was having a conversation recently with a loved one in my family who asked a very reasonable question. She said, “Why do regular people need machine guns?”

And, you know, one of the things that happens in this debate is the phrase “assault weapons ban” gets a lot of people really concerned, and they assume – much like the phrase, “military style weapons” – that we’re talking about ordinary citizens running around with M16’s and Uzis that are fully automatic.

Fully automatic machine guns are already functionally illegal. Ordinary citizens cannot own them absent very, very heavy regulation. This entire discussion does not concern machine guns; and yet I would venture to say that a large percentage of Americans do not understand that.

Now, this refers to the situation in the United States of America, but it has successfully duplicated itself here in Canada. For an example of this, I need look no further than recent news from my own back yard. (more…)

Speak the word “education” and the most common image conjured is that of a set of knowledge and skills conveyed under the auspices, and bearing the stamp of approval, of some official grantor of credentials. People seek to learn by enrolling in classes so they can emerge bearing a certificate or diploma they can display as evidence of accomplishment. Their children are over committed in extra curricular classes ranging from karate, to dance, to piano, and everything in between. Everywhere we see a population that has abandoned self-education through diligent and rigorous application of the mind to research. To books. To exploration and calculated risk. To experiment and practice. That no longer trusts itself to know when the time has come to go forth in search of a Teacher.

Yet some of the greatest accomplishments in history were achieved by the self-taught, and then as now, woe be it to a society that devalues tried and tested capabilities in one who but lacks the stamp of official doctrine. After all, knowledge and skills either work within the context of the real world, or they don’t, documentation of official recognition notwithstanding.

I was blessed with a very rigorous Education that was delivered to me both in and outside of the formal classroom setting, but the greater part of what I consider most important in my Education did not come from the official halls of learning, at least not directly. Born in 1957, and growing from infancy into young adulthood in small town Nova Scotia, I was literally surrounded by people of the Olde School, and it is to those of my immediate community that I knew outside of school that I will be speaking today. (more…)

When she chooses to be seen, the beauty of the incomparable Mrs. LFM is not masked by her Wilderness wardrobe. (LFM photo – Click the picture to enlarge.)

The title of this item is an English translation of an Arab proverb that has always been one of my favourites. It packs a lot of realism into a very small package.

It was called to mind by reading a thread on a bushcraft forum I visit periodically in which the original poster asked how readers felt about meeting other people on their wilderness outings. Mrs. LFM and I have specific attitudes about this subject that I’ll discuss today.

I constantly speak here to how important it is to conduct your activities everywhere, but most particularly in the Wild, to be in keeping with the Way of the Wild. Watch, study, and learn from the other creatures of Nature that you share the space with, understand your role in the scheme of things, and behave accordingly. Our approach includes being vigilant to truly observe what is going on around us, as well as what has recently gone on as evidenced by the signs left by the presence of others, whatever their species. We choose our clothing to blend with our environment, even as others clothed by Nature will blend, know when and how to be still, and to move with care to cause the minimum of disturbance and afford the maximum in sure footedness. We speak in hushed, respectful tones. We choose our footwear for stealth and minimal distress to what comes to be beneath our tread.

You will find that this practice will be rewarded with sights and experiences that would otherwise never have revealed themselves to you. You will also find that you will detect the presence of others before they become aware of yours, and these will include other Humans.

We choose the venues for many of our jaunts to avoid other people because, quite honestly, if we want to see you in the woods we will invite you to come with us. Otherwise, well, we don’t go deep into a moonlit forest for a picnic at midnight to engage in conversation with passers by, however pleasant or comely they may be.

I was in my early teens when I first began to spend weekends alone in the woods, testing my Wilderness living skills against reality. As my experience grew, my trips lengthened in duration, and people who knew me often asked why I didn’t get bored. Even back then, I had long since learned that I don’t get bored alone or in the company of animals, and while it certainly can’t be said that I despise Human company, for properly chosen companions can lend spice to any endeavour, it can be said that my sole source of boredom, whenever it occurs in my life, comes exclusively from my interactions with people and the things they have wrought.

Over the years in my jaunts I, and now we, have tended to go ever further afield, even as other animals have, to get away from even the sounds of Human activity, and I have always joked that this practice benefits any interaction that may come to pass between me and any person I may meet there – if they’re where I am, they either know what they’re about and want no more to do with me than I with them, or they are so totally lost that I have a moral obligation to them, and everything else around us, to point such a wayward soul in the right direction and send them hence as quickly as possible.

No. It’s not.

Figure 1: A Maschinengewehr 08 (MG08) air cooled light machine gun of the World War 1 (1914-1918) era. This weapon was based on the “Maxim Gun”, designed by Hiram Maxim in 1884. Note the ventilated barrel shroud that protects its operators from the inevitable heat generated by firing. (click the image to enlarge)

This is the second in my Short, Easily Digested Firearms Education Lecture series – the first being my article on the clip and the magazine.

If you’ve read the first two installments in my What in the Name of Hell IS an Assault Rifle Anyway? series (part 1 here, and part 2 here), you will know that what is being widely touted today as new news in firearms development is anything but. And so it is with the topic of today’s discussion – the “barrel shroud”.

It’s interesting that people involved in writing legislation aimed at regulating civilian access to certain types of firearms have included the barrel shroud as one of the attributes that defines the line between freely available and absolutely not. The concept has been around for a long time, and far from contributing to the power or lethality of the weapons to which it has been attached, a barrel shroud is nothing more than an extension of a firearm’s receiver (the receiver is the framework all the other parts attach to) that extends over and surrounds all or part of the barrel. In many applications it’s no more than a heat shield, and depending on the firearm, may also double as the fore-end of the stock (this being the portion of a gun stock that lies under the barrel, but ahead of the trigger, and in long guns is supported by the hand that is not engaged in firing). Keep that in mind as we go forward here – a barrel shroud is either a protective cover, a forward hand hold to support the barrel during firing, or both. In modern firearms it may also serve as a platform for mounting accessories like lights and special sights, but in itself it does nothing to change the way a firearm operates or increase its lethality.

Barrel shrouds originated about the same time as rapid firing firearms, most particularly the machine guns that made their appearance en masse in the battlefields of the War to End All Wars, otherwise known as World War 1  (1914-1918). A weapon that fires repeatedly, and in rapid succession, gets hot, and fast. In the excitement and confusion of combat, it’s easy for human flesh to come into contact with hot gun barrels, with predictably ouchy results. It should be pointed out that this heating effect isn’t limited to self-loading (semi-automatic or fully automatic) firearms. On the range I’ve received and observed burns occurring in bolt, lever, and pump action firearms, and expect that I will again.

Figure 2: The Fokker Dr.I Dreidecker (triplane) was armed with a pair of MG08 machine guns. (click the image to enlarge)

An early representative example of a barrel shroud can be seen in air cooled versions of the Maschinengewehr 08, or MG08 (Figure 1), which was the standard machine gun of the German army through World War 1, and until it was finally withdrawn from front line service in 1942. This weapon saw extensive use both on the ground and in the air, and was used to good effect by such notables as Manfred von Richthofen who had two of them bolted to the front end of his famous Fokker Dr.I Dreidecker (triplane) (Figure 2). (more…)

Charlie Allen of Saor Patrol – If you’re gonna pipe in th’ Haggis, PIPE IN TH’ HAGGIS!

T’is said that a man in a kilt is a man and a half, but whatever faith ye subscribe to, today is Robert Burns’ Day, whether ye like it or not.

If you’ve ever belted out your drunkest rendition of Auld Lang Syne as the clock struck midnight at the climax of a New Year’s Eve, you owe the man his due. So today is the day to pay the piper, in every sense of the word, pipe in the venerable Haggis and celebrate a communion with sips of that most heavenly nectar of Scotland – SCOTCH – oh, lusty, inspiring, and wondrous libation that may justly give answer to the name of History in a Bottle!

Pour yourself an appetizer, and enjoy this charming toe tapper by Saor Patrol. I’ll raise my own glass to you all, and leave you with a heartfelt toast –

Here’s tae us!
Wha’s like us?
Damn few,
And they’re a’ deid
Mair’s the pity!

Misleading Vividness is a fallacy in which a very small number of particularly dramatic events are taken to outweigh a significant amount of statistical evidence. This sort of “reasoning” has the following form:

1. Dramatic or vivid event X occurs (and is not in accord with the majority of the statistical evidence) .
2. Therefore events of type X are likely to occur.

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because the mere fact that an event is particularly vivid or dramatic does not make the event more likely to occur, especially in the face of significant statistical evidence.

People often accept this sort of “reasoning” because particularly vivid or dramatic cases tend to make a very strong impression on the human mind. For example, if a person survives a particularly awful plane crash, he might be inclined to believe that air travel is more dangerous than other forms of travel. After all, explosions and people dying around him will have a more significant impact on his mind than will the rather dull statistics that a person is more likely to be struck by lightning than killed in a plane crash.

It should be kept in mind that taking into account the possibility of something dramatic or vivid occurring is not always fallacious. For example, a person might decide to never go sky diving because the effects of an accident can be very, very dramatic. If he knows that, statistically, the chances of the accident happening are very low but he considers even a small risk to be unacceptable, then he would not be making an error in reasoning. ~ The Nizkor Project

A few years ago, three motor vehicle accidents occurred involving cars parked in the customer parking lot of a shopping mall in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. They occurred within a period of a few months, and every one began the same way: a parked car with either an unapplied or malfunctioning parking brake somehow overcame its transmission and coasted down the sloping parking lot until it hit something. In two cases, the stopping influence was another parked car, in another, the rolling vehicle crashed through the front windows of the Zellers department store, ultimately stopping after colliding with store shelving. No one was seriously injured in any of these events, and although they occurred within a period of several months, they were unconnected and accidental, and there have been no incidents that were remotely similar at the location since then. (more…)

Ammunition comparison (cartridges shown larger than actual size, and for relative size comparison only – note that the 5.56 x 45mm NATO cartridge fired by the AR15 has a bullet diameter of .223 inch as opposed to .30 inch for the other three shown here ). You’ll want to refer back to this picture as you read what follows. Left to right: 5.56 x 45mm NATO (AR15/M16), 7.62 x 39mm (AK47), 7.62 x 51mm NATO (M14/FAL), and .30-06 (M1 Garand)

Yesterday we looked at how lessons learned in the course of World War 2, the ingenuity of German military weapon designers, and the whims of Adolf Hitler gave birth to the first “assault rifle”. In bestowing the name, Hitler was referring to the concept of “assault” in the military meaning. As in assaulting an enemy position. Combat, particularly on the Eastern Front had shown that, in the absence of mitigating circumstances, victory generally went to the side that could bring the most firepower to bear, and that was the most mobile in positioning their forces to deliver it. In this, the assault rifle was ideal. Instead of deploying infantry armed with bolt action rifles, supported by a small number of heavy and less mobile machine guns (fully automatic and capable of delivering heavy covering fire in an assault, but nowhere near as portable as an individual soldier’s weapon), every member of an attacking force could be equipped with a handy, compact rifle with which he could deliver accurate, aimed fire in semi-automatic mode out to at least 600 meters, and with the flip of a switch provide withering fully automatic fire when covering or defensive action was called for.

In the wake of WWII, a variety of weapon designs emulated the German model, and in the present day, two are most prominent – derivatives of the U. S. designed AR15, and those of the Russian designed AK47. Because of all the media attention on the AR15 at the moment, I will focus today on that particular rifle, and in doing that we’re going to have to delve into history once again. (more…)

In our ongoing quest to disinfect the world of misused, and sometimes even meaningless, firearms terminology, today I’m going to focus on one that’s particularly topical at the moment if the combined brain trust of news media and facebook are any indication. That most dreaded thing in existence today (besides “Pit Bull type” Dogs) – the ASSAULT RIFLE. As with the “Pit Bull type” Dog, the definition of “assault rifle”, or by extension the “assault weapon”, is confused in the minds of the public because there are three flavours of each:

1. The actual historically documented item;
2. The government generated “legal” definition, if there is one; and
3. The interpretation of item 2 that gets reported by the media, as well as other sources that may not actually be all that interested in Facts.

We have the first because of what actually happened in history. The second came into existence because governments need to come up with legal definitions of things before they can write laws intended to regulate or ban them. The third exists because fear sells newspapers – it’s not for nothing that the term, “If it bleeds, it leads,” came into use. Today we’re going to limit our discussion to item 1 – the actual historically documented implement that is, without even  a smidgin of doubt or ambiguity, a bona fide assault rifle. We can thank World War II era German weapon designers for the object and Adolf Hitler for its name. (more…)