During the NRA national convention here in the Gateway City last year, I stopped by the booth of an organization dedicated to preserving drilling guns. Pronounced “drelling”, the name comes from the German number “drei” – three in English. A typical drilling gun consists of two shotgun barrels and a rifle barrel, but they can be configured any way the shooter wants. Most drillings were made by small custom manufacturers. On display was Benny Goodman’s drilling. Goodman had an eye-dominance issue that the gunmaker addressed with a special cheekpiece to allowed Goodman to sight with his dominant eye . . .
Fast forward: in a conversation with a hunter I had the other night, the subject of gun control came up. He was of the opinion that an assault weapons ban might be OK with him, since he didn’t think and AR-15 was much of a hunting rifle anyway. I’m not a hunter, but I know people hunt with an AR’s all the time. Central to his premise, though, is that if “assault rifles” were banned, his hunting rifle would be spared.
What’s the connection between gun control and drillings? The collection of drilling guns on display at the NRA convention was made up predominantly of arms that had been imported into the US as spoils of war. After Germany surrendered in 1945, the Allies began disarming them. Many infantry weapons were seized and destroyed, firearms like the MG42 machine gun and machine pistols like the MP38. They also confiscated their bolt action Mauser rifles which were functionally identical to any hunting rifle available at the time.
But the confiscation didn’t end with just military arms. Seized hunting rifles that weren’t sent back to an Allied country were destroyed, including an untold number of these wonderful drillings. The pleasant man at the booth told me that hundreds upon hundreds of hunting arms were set up on the curb and then driven over with a tank.
The lesson of the drillings is that when a centralized authority decides to disarm citizens, hunting arms won’t be spared. That magnificent Browning Citori 725 over/under you hope to pass on to you daughter one day will go the way of those heirloom German drillings that were crushed or shipped out after the they were taken from their owners.
My new friend meant well, but history shows that — no matter how much reassurance the disarmers may give — gun control never excludes hunters. Those who love bagging ducks, shooting skeet or stalking deer would do well to remember that there’s no historical evidence that gun controllers have any more respect for hunters than they do other gun owners. Those beautiful heirloom hunting arms will eventually be tossed on the heap right alongside those ugly black rifles.
A Drilling has been a personal long-time obscure object of desire.
These 4x are simply magnificent: http://www.famars.com/famars/famars-guns/-four-barrel-/famars-rombo.html
As I will likely never posses one, I’m slightly ashamed to admit it is why I’m drawn to the Chiappa 3x… though I feel somewhat dirty about it.
Ummm no joke, CA is trying to ban any combination rifle and shotgun right now.
Check number 4:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/08/1561281/california-democrats-propose-strictest-gun-regulations-in-the-nation/?mobile=nc
They are seriously out to ban two shot break open rifles if one barrel is a rifle and the other is a shotgun.
There’s your lesson.
I have to continually discuss this with other hunters. A) the grabbers want your guns too. B) You can use an AR to hunt with, that’s why I own a 5 round magazine in the “free state” of MI it is the magazine limit for hunting!
They said so in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Feinstein was one of them. She said she would ban and collect everything if she had 51 votes.
It’s rather simple, really. If you’re okay with gun control, you’re okay with gun control. All it will take is a convincing argument, and you’d seize a single shot .410 for being too dangerous for the proles to own. You’d think people who put food on the table with their gun would be leery of any disarmamnet measures (and to be fair, all the ones I know personally do).
Yep illegal in new york too it holds 8 shots instead of 7
All that education and dumb as a brick. What a waste.
My Neighbor: Don’t Ban Semi-Automatics
Educated beyond his intelligence.
Why are pump action shotguns the cuddly bunnies of the firearm world? Newtown could have easily been carried out with a pump action shotgun.
I guess he’s never heard of the expression “a brace of pistols”? The BG will literally show up with a gym bag full of cheap revolvers. I mean, yuo’re going to die anyway, why not empty the bank account on a passel of Tuarus and Charter Arms wheelguns?
This guy is from MIT? Sad commentary then on MIT, because his ideas are world-class moronic. I’m not trying to be incendiary for its own purpose, but truly his ideas are all tripe.
Gun buyback? Scholarly peer-reviewed research – like from the British Journal of Criminology – concluded it didn’t have any effect in Australia. Would it work here? While not attempted at a national level, local level attempts have yielded poor results. By what reason do we conclude it’s likely to produce better results nation-wide? Then there’s the question of how to pay for it all. Estimates in 2009 held there were 310 million guns. There have been millions purchased since. CNN reported in December 2012 alone there were more than 2.8 million NICS checks. True not every NICS check results in a sale, but many checks result in more than one firearm purchased. Semi-automatic handguns and rifles have been around since 1903 according to the Wall Street Journal. They are widely popular. Perhaps at MIT they haven’t heard that the U.S. government is in fiscal crisis. Our soldiers overseas are only being fed lunch & dinner (no breakfast) because of our nation’s budget woes. So besides being ineffective historically it’s also likely infeasable fiscally.
His real problem is the legal challenge. The Supreme Court ruled in U.S. vs Miller (1939) and in D.C. vs Heller (2008) that what is protected are weapons “in common use at the time” (not at the time of ratification, in the current time). The Supreme Court website has PDF for download of the decisions. In D.C. vs. Heller, pages 5, 6, 8, 18, 19, 20, 21, 26, 55 & 56 hold particularly relevant information to this problem’s with Knittel’s ideas. Hunting is not the primary purpose of the 2nd Amendment, per the Court; self-defense is. The Court ruled that weapons “in common use at the time” are protected, and in D.C. vs Heller stated prohibition of an entire class of arms “overwhelmingly” and “popularly chosen” for self-defense is unconstitutional. While the scope of the ruling in D.C. vs Heller is focused on semi-automatic handguns, the rationale would extend to semi-automatic rifles regarding prohibition of an entire class. Further, regardless of whether my last sentence is valid, semi-automatic rifles are “in common use”, upheld by both cases.
The last challenge is idiocy of the policy from a solution standpoint. Assault weapons ban didn’t work before, or in Australia, or in the UK. Gun violence and homicides (both raw number and rate per 100,000) have dropped in half since 1991 according to the FBI uniform crime reports. Our homicide rate is less than it was in 1900. That’s not a typo…. since 1900. Mass shootings are not on the rise, according to James Alax Fox, a widely respected criminologist from Northeastern University in Boston. Fox says they have averaged 20 per year sinc 1976.
In short, a guy with research and a passion for the truth (me) just decimated Mr-High-and-Mighty-I-work-at-MIT, Knittel’s arguments. So personal agenda and politics aside, Mr. Knittel, you don’t have a leg to stand on.
There’s nothing interesting or even surprising, much less controversial, about this man’s article. Why? Well… just read it through this filter:
“Liberal economist from liberal state publicly supports objectively unconstitutional legislation, exposing true goal of liberal gun grabbers, on well-known liberal rag while offering services as textbook example of blatantly disregarding the scientific method.”
Really? That’s what they’re swinging with now? Wouldn’t make it past the pitcher’s mound, much less the wall beyond left field. We should be celebrating this. Spread this man’s message far and wide. Let the fence sitters see the true face of the anti-2a movement.
P.S. To anyone who feels like calling me out for my use of “liberal,” please don’t. All uses were appropriate, given the context, and not intended to be divisive.
There you are with the blondes again.
Finally, a real man’s rifle and not a poodleshooter. I think a study needs to be done. How many dogs were shot by cops before they got the AR’s and how many after. Could be interesting stats.
As for the giggle switch on an M14. My own experience with a government issued M14 was with 1 that had already been altered to semi auto only. My own opinion is that the rifle is to light for the average shooter to get the besteffect from full auto. That’s just an opinion. If the rifle had a straight stock and pistol grip with a bipod it might serve the same function as a BAR.
It’s not often that I leap to the defense of anyone remotely connected with the current POTUS or his administration, but….
It’s not like Kyle was killed in action, or even died on active duty. He wasn’t a Medal of Honor recipient. Why does he rate someone like FLOTUS, POTUS, VP or SECDEF at his funeral? He served four tours in Iraq (as has damn near everyone in my office). I’ve done funeral details for WWII and Korean War vets who had far more time in combat (btw, a SEAL tour is 6 months, not 12-15) who had a lot more medals, and served longer. At most of them this lowly Lieutenant Colonel was the highest ranking military official there.
I honor Kyle for his service (not so much his self serving book…there’s a reason why Special Operations troops are called “Quiet Warriors”), and I’m glad that there was a huge turn out, but really, what makes him more special than any other vet?
Glad she didn’t attend, she would have just used it as an excuse to push her husbands bullshit gun legislation and spreading the liberal plague. Im sure shed fit childhood obesity in there somewhere too as she always seems to when she’s allowed to speak.
Weapons like these may have turned the tide during WW2
“…right now.” says all that need to be said. He’s a political opprotunist, not a believer.
Excellent “Spies Like Us” reference 😉
For the record, here’s the cabin on Google Maps: http://goo.gl/maps/ngQmr
FOAD, Mr. President.
#3 Is pretty vague and offers no way of achieving that goal.
This may compliment my next rifle nicely….whatever that ends up being. Good thing that promotion’s coming in May….of course for this I might want to wait for my 2015 promotion.
This of course assumes I remain single…
Paul you talk bollocks utter bollocks.
I shoot in several disciplines which require semi automatic rifles but because ‘sportsmen don’t use semi auto’s’ my experience and my sport means nothing. Cut the crap you are falling into the trap that people pushing band rely on. My home, the United Kingdom had their last few bans rammed through with no real oposition because if your attitude. Beach each little block rallied to protect their ‘sport’ and eagerly threw everyone else under the bus to protect their fiefdom.
You are a bigot who labels an entire group because of the actions of two or three people they have seen. No better than the men who went out in white sheets of a night. Based on my experiences if I made judgements like you do I could say every East main er is an opinionated bigot who doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.
Background checks encroach more and more as time goes on from the original no felon to drug users and alcoholics to the ex post lautenberg ammendments retroactive punishments to clarification that all drug use counts for addiction even prescribed meds. To nee calls for intentionally vague labels of mental illness and prod. When some medical groups call wanting a gun an illness in itself
It will end like it has here with the background check requiring references and memberships In ‘legitimate’ clubs with requirements that you prove a need for the firearm you wish to purchase. Restrictions on the ammo quantity you can store and purchase and limit you to what the state say you can have. Want a second .22 no dice. Want more than one hunting rifle in different calibres beg for them.
May your chains rest lightly.and when your efforts cause the guns I use to be banned and my sports destruction don’t come begging for my voice when they move to take yours because like other posters here once min have been taken and the bans were called for by you I will just remind you of that when they come for yours.
two drilling were brought into my gunshop and i can not enplane the workmanship involved in the skill and
workmanship it took to create these fine rifles, all i have to do now is remove the rust and THEN appraise
them . wow what workmanship.
JACK.
I’m gonna be the odd man out and say I’d have absolutely no problem killing an aggressive dog. Don’t have a dog, but I keep small livestock. Threaten me, or my property and the dogs dead, no questions. Actually keep a 20ga SxS loaded and handy for such a thing, cats as well (chickens and what not). Hawk, owl, raccoon, etc, same reaction.
There’s gonna be someone that gives the “my dog is family” line. Fine, but it’s still a dog. If it runs around the area being an a-hole, it deserves what it gets.
Had a friends dog snap on me once. Ran up all happy, was petting her, then totally out of the blue it flips a 180 and tries to bite me (not playfully) and this dog was very familiar with me. So, almost instinctively I draw and pop it. Friend later tells me it had been acting funny and doing that lately. Apparently I saved him the problem of putting it down.