Slate Horrified to Discover That Guns Can Last a Really Long Time

There was an Article in “National Geographic” in the 1990’s of a elder Afghan Tribesman proudly posing with his trusty Pattern 1800 Baker Infantry Rifle that one of his ancestors “somehow” acquired in 1842…

“American ingenuity and industrial capacity in the 19th century kick-started an arms race among the countries of Europe.”

So are they praising America here or condemning it?

Either way, the European states had centuries of rivalry and warfare, and the Continental arms makers – personal, large, and supporting industrial trades like chemical companies – were quite adept in their own right. Nobel, for an example.

“American ingenuity and industrial capacity in the 19th century kick-started an arms race among the countries of Europe.”

Oh what a crock. Excellent attempt at blaming America for literally anything. But the “arms race” in 19th century Europe had everything to do competing European rivals and newly developed means of production. Leftists really don’t understand a damned thing about history.

Have there been any lab tests on the shelf life of a Glock?

Most firearms if given a modicum of care,will out last their owners and be ready to serve the original owners descendants.

A recent example would be the Bunker Hill rifle,the famous command given to Revolutionary War soldiers at the Battle of Bunker Hill – “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” – resulted in forever identifying the musket credited with the first shot fired against British troops on that fateful day in June of 1775. John Simpson, a Private in the 1st New Hampshire Regiment.

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2019/10/15/bunker-hill-first-shot/

The reality versus the civilian disarmament proponents irrational dreams and wishes.

You mean we’re not supposed to toss them in the trash once empty?
Oh, shit.

You know who didn’t ‘up-arm’? European Jews in the 1930s.

“put themselves and their fellow citizens at greater risk of gun-related injury or death than in any other industrialized nation.”

Yes, my fellow citizen burglar is at greater risk of gun-related injury or death because I own a gun.

My guess is that with a little TLC most guns made throughout the last 600 years around the world could be in working order in a month at most. This includes everything from derringers to battleship guns.

Let’s not even start on all the millions of hammers floating around, unregistered, that are who knows how old and have been used who knows how many times for treachery…

The fundamental error that Slate is making is the same old tired narrative that the gun did it, the gun is the cause, the gun is responsible. The person is ignored, the human thought and deed and ability to act for good or evil is lost in the hoplophobia of the moment.

Guns do nothing, there is no mind there, no character, no intent, no decision making and no willpower.

As for the longevity of guns, this is true of a great many human invented and constructed things. It is not insightful of Slate to have suddenly discovered that guns last longer than their makers and owners anymore than saying that Jay Leno’s garage has automobiles older than any living human.

Slate has made a bunch of salient points that are meaningless and common knowledge. With all of it coming from the same tired old narrative that the violence only exists because the gun made it happen.

The Author in the article talks as if european civilians had ready access to firearms. They never have. Europeans have always been restricted to the number of guns. The type of gun and the caliber of the gun.

This is the best part of the article where he reveals himself to be uncomfortable with civilian gun ownership.

“In North Africa, Peabody-Martinis found their way into Bedouin hands, who would revolt during World War I. In Albania, proud freedom fighters highly valued the American-made rifles for their ease of maintenance and stopping power. And in the 1903 Ilinden Uprising against Ottoman rule, Macedonian insurgents deployed Peabody-Martinis against the regime that they had been commissioned, a quarter-century earlier, to preserve.”

I’ve studied the North African Bedouin Rif War. Tribesmen with bolt action rifles on horseback destroyed a 10,000 man european army with tanks, aircraft and other armored vehicles. The Spanish and French used poison gas supplied by the germans to finally defeat the bedouin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rif_War

If anyone finds mention of the use of poison gas against non white civilians before WW2 in the jewish holocaust museum, I would be very surprised. We have already discussed on TTAG how the museum doesn’t discuss civilian ownership regarding the nazi take over of germany.

Eventually, those arms fell into the hands of individuals in North Africa, the Balkans, and elsewhere, as they decided their governments lacked the will or capacity to defend their citizens. They opted to take on that role by arming themselves with military-grade technology.

Wow, way to gloss over the massacres perpetrated by repressive governments against those they had previously disarmed.

“At the start of the 21st century, it is American civilians who are up-arming, preparing to fight one another and any government, including their own, that intrudes on their cherished ideas of autonomy. They look to secure themselves against all comers, and in so doing, put themselves and their fellow citizens at greater risk of gun-related injury or death than in any other industrialized nation.”

The risk of gun-related injury or death is small relative to the threat of tyranny as the 20th Century proved.

Which would you prefer: around 30,000 deaths per year in a nation of 330,000,000 (0.1%) or the risk of another “Great Leap Forward” or Bolshevik Revolution with 100,000,000 dead?

“Any other industrialized nation?” Really? Mexico is an industrialized nation and it is a sh*t hole. The cartels and the government are basically one in the same. I bet there’s huge amounts of people down there that wish every able bodied citizen in town had an AR-15, handgun and an ample supply of ammunition plus the ability to legally use and carry them for self defense.

“they’ve still got a lot of death left in them.”

Hey, agree with the article or not that’s a clever turn of phrase. Good writer, I like him.

Slate is leftist garbage.

How long a gun will last depends on how well and how often you clean and properly lube it and the amount of ammo shot out of it. The only guns that last a long time (decades) are guns that are not shot a lot in competition. Ask any professional competitor about longevity and if he is honest he will give you a long list of parts that he personally had to replace after shooting large amounts of ammo out of it even if it was properly lubed and cleaned often. I used to be a competitor and some guns do last longer than others but none last forever if heavily shot.

“They opted to take on that role by arming themselves with military-grade technology.”

Few anti-2A catchphrases irritate me as much as “military-grade.”

The article ignorantly claims about the AR-15, “This civilian variant became popular for its military look, ease of use, high rate of fire, and its durability.”

High rate of fire? It fires one shot per pull of the trigger, the same as every other semiautomatic rifle.

Then it says, “We don’t know for sure how many [of today’s selective-fire M16 and M4 rifles] will get into civilian hands [after they’re retired from military service] or how they may be used.”

Yes we do. The answer is exactly zero. Machine guns made after 1986 cannot be owned by civilians or transferred to civilians.

Then it says, “Whatever its motivation, Colt’s decision has material as well as moral and political dimensions.” And then, of course, they say that guns are immoral and say that America’s guns (inanimate objects) put gun owners “and their fellow citizens at greater risk of gun-related injury or death than in any other industrialized nation.”

This is why the Left has gone from pretending they don’t want to take our guns to openly stating they want to take our guns. They’ve realized they’re a durable good and won’t just go away on their own. If they want the populace disarmed, they are going to have to get their hands dirty. They can’t just ban sales and wait a while.

Good luck with that.

I have a 1906 savage pump 22 s-l-lr. Was past down from great grandpa. I learned on this gun. Still shoots minute of squirrel within 100 yards. It will be past down the generational line in time. If the barrel gets shot out within my lifetime, it will get put on the lathe for a rifling insert. If not, my crotch goblin (son) will be taught how to do such things as he gets older.

Worthwhile to read the whole article. It brought to mind the futility of gun-control.

On the one hand, governments strive to implement gun-control so that their subjects remain disarmed.

On the other hand, governments buy guns in volume to arm their own soldiers and police. This is to say nothing of arming their paramilitary forces (Brown Shirts) and the subjects of other governments that they wish to overthrow. All of these government demands bring forth a supply. And, that supply eventually trickles out of the control of the governments which paid list price. Gun-control is a struggle of bailing water from a leaky boat. It can’t ever succeed.

Governments committed to gun-control must – increasingly – rely upon people-control to achieve their goal. I say “increasingly” because the facility of hand-crafting, low-scale manufacturing, theft and smuggling are continually-developing phenomena. Today it’s so much easier to hand-craft a gun, or smuggle a container of guns, than it was in 1776.

So, if governments can’t succeed in controlling the guns themselves they must control their subjects. More vigorous enforcement of laws prohibiting possession, longer prison terms. Now, let’s turn to the impact of such people-control measures.

On the law-abiding citizen, they are effective. Those who just want to raise their families will eschew gun ownership because it is too tedious and the penalty for an infraction is too onerous.

On the criminal, they are only marginally effective. The criminal won’t give-up his tool-of-the-trade easily. He will only shift tools according to penalty. The NFA`34 made machine guns, and short-barreled long-guns, prohibitive to possess, and a handgun was very nearly as effective (if not more so) for the purpose at hand. If gun-control is effectively imposed on criminals they will use knives.

On the politically minded (i.e., those few who would effect regime change), neither gun-control nor subject-control is effective. Those determined to achieve regime change can acquire any desired gun in quantity. Impoverishment is the only prophylactic. (You have to have enough money to buy guns.) These people are committed; they will not be dissuaded by any enforcement.

So, in a relatively democratic regime, the wishes of the majority become vulnerable to the determination of a few – who are well armed – committed to effect regime-change. A dis-armed general militia of the body of the people can’t stop regime-change with pitchforks.

These few politically determined insurgents won’t have to defeat government forces in head-on battles. They will win using tactics of insurgents. Undermining the government’s security efforts and the will of the voters to support its government of choice. Eventually, voters and government will cave to the pressure of terrorism and insurgency.

The law-abiding, peaceable man who just wants to raise his family – who is unable to respond to the threat of force – will be unwilling to hold-out support for his government at the ballot box. He will surrender to restore peace.

“responding to the brand damage created by the AR-15’s deployment in school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012 and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in 2017” – Brand damage isn’t from the use, it’s from the media constantly harping endlessly on those mass shootings where AR-15s were used and forgetting the others.

When I saw this, I thought this has got to be the Onion 😆

“A few of these military rifles are already in museums […] Many more are not. We don’t know for sure how many will get into civilian hands or how they may be used.”
I found this part funny. I don’t think any select-fire gun could be surplused. What free-acting criminals do with government property is…well, already illegal.
Somewhere else in the article it was stated that perfectly functioning rifles are still replaced every few years, suggesting that there are warehouses full of grade-A guns the military doesn’t want to use anymore. Does that sound right to you? Haha.

-it doesnt matter if he really said it or not-
its true:
if somebody invaded america…
there *would be*
A RIFLE
behind every blade of grass
>with 10 standard capacity mags to feed it
thats the way it is
and thats the way it ought to be

“…and in so doing, put themselves and their fellow citizens at greater risk of gun-related injury or death than in any other industrialized nation.”

This is simply not true. I submit, for example, Brazil. A country with a higher firearms related death rate even when including suicide as these folks are wont to do. Brazil is sufficiently industrialized that many Americans own guns made there.

The gun control advocates continue to believe (or at least to claim) that the number of guns in the U.S. is a determining factor in the homicide and/or suicide rates when, if this were the case, we should have an order of magnitude or more greater count of firearms related death than we have. Further, given that the number of guns in private hands has been increasing steadily for decades on end, we should be seeing some sort of proportional increase in firearms related deaths when, in fact, such deaths are on the decline. Given the huge number of guns in this country and the relatively middling firearms death rate, if we calculate the firearms death rate as a function of the number of firearms, not the number of people, a given firearm in the U.S. is actually dramatically less likely to be an instrument of death than in many of the supposedly utopian societies often cited by these folks.

For instance:
U.S. 120500 guns per 100,000, 12.21 firearms deaths (suicide + homicide) per 100,000
120500/12.21 = 9869 guns per death.

Denmark 9900 guns per 100,000, 1.47 firearms deaths per 100,000
9900/1.47 = 6735 guns per death

(data source: Wikipedia. I know, I know. It was fast and is close enough)

A given gun in Denmark is nearly 50% more likely to be used to kill someone than a given gun in the U.S. In fact, the rate of firearms deaths PER GUN in the U.S. is approximately equal to …

Wait for it …

Japan
(600/0.06=10000 guns per death)

Brazil, by the way – 393 guns per death – A gun in Brazil is 25 times more likely to be a killing machine than a gun in the U.S.

“The history of weapons technology suggests that arms often escape the control of their makers.” (Subtitle of the article)

Uh, that’s close to 100% of production because they sell them…
F150s often escape the control of Ford Motor Company!
Stratocasters often escape the control of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation!

It would be nice if someone made an after market replacement for polymer grips made of metal. It would be heavier but would also be given a new lease on life.

Thank you very much for this insightful post. I have recently published a post on my blog about the school shootings in America. My perspective comes from someone living outside America looking in at the crisis and what my opinion is. If you have the time I would be very interested to hear your thoughts and opinions on my article! Thank you 🙂