Oh, spare me your anti-M14 snobs

The "Everything New Is Bad" Mindset - The Firearm Blog

Frankly, I think a lot of people who seem to know what they're talking about ...  haven't a clue.

Speaking specifically about the AR16 and the M14:  I was there.

In 1969 in III corps (RSVN), First Infantry Division, we actively searched for M14 rifles to perform a very important mission:   arm "Point Men" to defend themselves.

Sure, the M16 was great for laying down a volume-of-fire, but for the guys who stalked the jungle one step at a time, trying to watch for trip wires, bunkers, snipers, spider holes, and ambushes ... it wasn't much fun to multi-task when the .556 cartridge was not worth a damn when you're shooting through dense foliage at an L-shaped ambush.   This was the duty of our point men; all volunteers, and among the bravest of us.

True fact, the M16 rounds were great for wounding the enemy, but not so great trying to beat a path through the cover and concealment (foliage) which protected the ambushers.

We looked for M14's so our guys out on the bleeding edge might have a small edge of their own; the enemy was protected against M16, which couldn't reliably break through the cover they used to protect themselves.  The NVA and VC didn't need a lot of cover when first-reaction rounds from American troops came their way.

And our point men knew it.  So we gave them M14s; 50 pounds of hardball that would go through leaves, trees and vietnamese.  (I exaggerate the weight of the M14; but if you carried one, all day and every day ... when your day began it was lighter than a feather; by the end of the day, it was heavier than a mountain.)

Maybe the M14 didn't have QUITE the penetrating power that we told them (our point men) it did, but nobody had any doubts that it was better than trying to back out of an ambush zone with nothing better than an M16 to make Charley duck and cover.   And we willingly lied to our point men; whatever it took to convince someone to lead us through the jungle.

The thing is ... our brave men who knew they were expendable booby-trap trippers also knew that we equipped them with the finest infantry rifle ever invented: the M14.

Nobody else in the company/battalion/division had The Hog.  It weighed too much, it carried awkwardly (you couldn't grip one by the 'center of balance' because it didn't have one!), and it was nearly impossible to get magazines, Level one maintenance, or even ammunition.  But these men were the eyes and ears of the squad/platoon/company/battalion.   They were BY GOD deserving of the best weapon available!

Charley opens up on you?  Shred the jungle with 20 rounds of 7.62 and let their mothers weep.

Think Charley is thinking about opening up on you?  Recon by fire with heavy metal which has been designed to push through leaves, trees and vietnamese.   Don't worry about the Ammo, Private; there's lots more where that came from

(Truth is, it was almost impossible to get M14 rifles, magazines or ammunition.  Every round the point-men fired meant that the company had to take up a collect to bribe some REMF supply officer to order in a shipment.   But we didn't tell them that.   Until the Patrol Leader  could bribe a case of 7.62 from Saigon with six bottles of Jack Daniels and introduction to a new Saigon whore, whatever those guys carried on their web-belts and Alice packs was all the 7.62 ammo in the world.)

YOU CAN MAKE  your own decision whether Point Men in Vietnam were the most naive, or most ignorant, or the bravest men in that hideous war.  What you cannot deny is that many more of us would have come home in a box except for their willingness to learn a trade which no man should become 'good at':   willfully walking into a trap, for the good of his brothers.

We gave him the best weapon we had ... the M14 7.62mm select fire "Assault Rifle" (Ptui the term! but my understanding is that it replaced the B.A.R. --- Browning Automatic Rifle) and wished them luck, and then cowered behind them in hopes that their MUCH MORE POWERFUL weapon could confuse and thin the enemy when they attacked; at least long enough that the rest of us could find cover and concealment to return a 'volume of fire' from our Poodle Shooters (which worked as well as you can expect from the lowest bidder).

Yes, this is nostalgia.  The thing is, nostalgia is the luxury of someone whose life, and the lives of his friends, have been saved by a gullible infantryman who busted up an ambush which could have / would have killed all, or most of them.

So AC97: I recognize that you are speaking as a person who looks at the question objectively.
Also, I perceive that you haven't lived your long life because someone who was armed with an M14 stood his ground for his brothers.

But if you have never had the luxury of a long life because of a brave man with an M14 who broke up an ambush purely because of his more-effective arms, I respectfully request you to STFU!

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AC97  Cordite • 3 hours ago

And speaking of the M14, that thing shouldn't have even existed, let alone get adopted. Literally the only reasons that rifle is thought of positively in any way is because of nostalgia and the fact that the M16 had problems caused by cutting corners in vital areas, which have long since been solved.

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  Kivaari  AC97 • 2 hours ago

  
  

  People forget that it was withdrawn from production because the companies building them couldn't keep them shooting. It was an unreliable and inaccurate rifle much of the time. Only today, 60 years later, has it been made into a shooting machine, it never was during the Vietnam era.

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

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    Gary Kirk  Kivaari • 2 hours ago

    
    

    You talking about the 16 or 14 brother? Because the same can be said about both..

    
    

    
    
    
    
    

     

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      AC97  Gary Kirk • 2 hours ago

      
      

      There's a difference in that the M14 was a bad idea to begin with. Just look at all of those exposed locking surfaces. The FAL and AR 10 were (and are) more than capable of being better in every meaningful way.

      
      

      
      
      
      
      

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        Kivaari  AC97 • 2 hours ago

        
        

        AND the top army brass screwed up by insisting on both the M14 rifle and the rifle using 7.62x51mm.

        
        

        
        
        
        
        

         

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      Kivaari  Gary Kirk • 2 hours ago

      
      

      The M14 was stopped and replaced by the M16 (then M16A1). Winchester, TRW and H&R had difficualty keeping the stocks from warping and stopping the proper function and accuracy issues. McNamara pulled the M14s plug. The M16 issues are well known and mostly came down to high level Army officers not knowing a damn thing about the new rifle.

      
      

      
      
      
      
      

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A Public Health Approach and a Call to Action to End Gun Violence

A Public Health Approach and a Call to Action to End Gun Violence | Observer:
Ann Twomey is the founder and president of Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE).

When public health advocates first proposed mandatory seat belts, or restrictions on sales of tobacco, some screamed that we were taking away their freedoms.  But years of reduction in car fatalities and tobacco use and related diseases have proven the advocates correct.  We need to tackle gun violence the same way, with research, education, prevention and common-sense reforms.

Ann,

Tobaco, cars these are not objects which save lives.   Firearms will always be with us, and most of the people who use them to take lives are criminals who will not be daunted by any law you can get passed.   Firearms have been used more often to save lives and property than to take lives; cars and tobacco are either a great convenience or a recognized vice.   They have not 'saved lives' as often as have firearms ... in defense of owners themselves; or homes, family, property.

 To address these and other critical questions, Congress must finally restore funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for gun violence research, which was cut off in 1996 at the behest of gun rights advocates. We need to let the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco (ATF) do its job, which is maintaining a centralized database on gun sales, tracking multiple sales, and working with other federal agencies to track the use of guns in violent incidents. Much of the traditional work of the ATF has been gutted in recent years due to lobbying by the NRA. Because of NRA lobbying, we aren’t doing research that could tell us how, when, where and by whom guns are acquired and used. 

Ann, that's a bald-faced lie, and you know it.

The NRA pointed out that the CDC was not doing its job; the CDC had a political agenda, and was slanting its reportage to suit its agenda ... not to educate the American public or to point the way to a better understanding of the way firearms fit in the American culture.  The leaders in the CDC had already decided that the NRA was not the way they wanted America to progress, so they did everything in their power to undermine the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

All on their own.

They can't even blame anyone else for influence; they (CDC) took full responsibility for their political Lies, Half-Lies, Omissions and Obfuscations.

When Congress investigated the NRA claims, they discovered that they were accurate; the CDC was violating the terms of its congressional mandate: they were not reporting the truth about guns; they were reporting a jaundiced and politically driven bias which had originated in the CDC ... not in an external agency.   That's why Congress demanded that ... while the CDC was free to research and report on any health-and-epidemiology issue they desired (which was the original charter ... NOT treating firearms as an "Epidemiological issue"), they could no longer receive federal funding for research which was deliberately slanted against civilian possession of firearms.

The CDC brought the slashing federal funding upon it-selves, so please do not blame the whistle-blowers!

We could test the truth of the claim that people who have guns in their homes gain protection from the weapons, rather than put family members at greater risk. We could also tell which state and local gun control measures are most effective and examine whether access to mental health services and bans on gun sales to those at risk of violent behavior would reduce incidents of gun violence.

Ann, you twit, that's exactly what CDC was originally mandated to do, and they demonstrated that they could not be objective were unwilling to do it when the issue of firearms ownership was involved.

Now you make this great heroic plea to allow the CDC to 'do its work', suggesting that without funding their hands are bound.

In truth, the CDC has recently received funding from the state of California to conduct a study (completed, I believe), to prove that firearms are harmful to American Society.  They did so, and the resulting report was less anarchaic than the reports which they submitted under Federal Funding.

I submit that the CDC has learned that biased 'scientific research reportage' is not part of a profitable future for them, at least under Federal Funding, and they are finding other funding.
(Not that the report doesn't sway toward the results which California was looking for.  A successful prostitute, once bought, stays bought.)

HONOR IS A SACRED thing, and once it has been compromised, it's almost impossible to regain.
The CDC has violated its own honor.  It has proven itself not worthy of the trust which once was its shield.

ABOUT ANN:

Ann. I've read your resume.
We are not swayed by your facile arguments.
When the CDC gave up it's integrity, America quit believing it.

There are few .. if any ... arguments you could make at this time to sway the taxpaying pubic.   Why should we support an agency which lies to us?

Perhaps someday the CDC will be less disingenuous.  Maybe someday we can trust them to look at BOTH sides of an issue (and that won't happen as long as CDC treats the second amendment as a 'cancer'!)

But this is not the day.
And yours is not the persuasive argument

And as long as you, with your thinly disguised quest for GUN CONTROL remain a spokesman for the renewed politicization of the CDC, it's unlikely that America will find it in its heart to accept the federal agency (which I, and every American, are paying for) as an agency whose reports we can trust, honor, and accept.

Trust is easy.    You expect it from your friends.

Trust, when violated, is nearly impossible. Your friends find it impossible.

The mere fact that time has passed since they (CDC) last time they stabbed us in the heart is insufficient grounds for us to accept the "common-sense reforms" which you have asked of us.

There is a crude, but appropriate, response  to the leniency which you have asked of us:

"Pound Sand"

The Sound Of One Hand Clapping

Judge denies UT-Austin professors' attempt to block campus carry | The Star-Telegram:

A federal judge has denied three University of Texas at Austin professors’ initial attempt to keep guns out of their classrooms under the state’s campus carry law.

University of Texas (AUSTIN) faculty are uncomfortable with a new law which allows students (and staff, and faculty) to carry guns on campus.

College and University faculty have always been an insular bunch: from TA's (Teaching Assistants), to Instructors, to Professors, to "Full" or"Tenured" Professors ("you can't fire my ass ... nana nana boo-boo!") they have become accustomed to the rights and respects due them by their position and experience.

So when someone tells them that they "MUST" allow students to carry arms into the classroom, they are righteously indignant:

 U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel ruled that the professors, who had sought a preliminary injunction to block implementation of the law, had failed to establish their likelihood for success. UT students resume classes on Wednesday, and the professors' case will continue to work its way through the court while the law remains in effect. ... In the suit, the professors said the possibility of guns on campus could stifle class discussion in their courses, which touch on emotional issues like gay rights and abortion. They argued that was a violation of students' First Amendment right to free speech.

Why am I not convinced that their objections had anything to do with the student rights?
Why do I think they just don't trust their students?
Why do I think they're a bunch of ostriches, with their heads buried in ... the sand?

These Academicians have been insulated for their entire professional career from the cares of  'normal' social interaction.   They have been told and trained to enjoy their prerogatives to control their classrooms as they see fit.

They have ignored, generally, the inconveniences of campus massacres:

From the Enoch Brown massacre of 1764 (attacked by Indians; Brown and nine children were killed. Two scalped children survived their wounds.Four children were taken as prisoners ) to the El Centro College massacre of July 17, 2016 (Dallas, Texas: Five police officers were fatally shot and seven others wounded Thursday on and nearby the campus of El Centro College in downtown Dallas during a protest over recent police shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana) ... students, police and instructors have always been vulnerable to violence. In America ... well over 100 before 1970 alone!

And then it got really bad.

Why is that so?

Why do so many people attack schools, in a country which loves its children and which believes that the road to success leads through education of the masses?

The reason is, of course, because we have never felt it 'appropriate' to protect our children with guns.  Nobody is armed at a school.  It might frighten the little children ... or the collegiates.

But now, today, everyone knows that it's not a question of "if", but "when" some insane agenda-driven madman person (I'm trying to be Politically Correct in my terminology so as to initiate any "Triggers")

[Trigger: U. Alberta definition]
(See what I mean?  You can't talk to these people unless you understand their definitions.)

Unfortunately, the people in your classroom who are likely to be armed are less likely to be those who attack you.   Yes, it's possible that they will be ... see Virginia Tech.   Which only makes the case:  

If Seung-Hui Cho had opened fire in his classroom and a few of his classmates had been armed, then it would not have been possible for him to successfully assault the "... advanced hydrology engineering class taught by Professor G. V. Loganathan in room 206... [where he] first shot and killed the professor, then continued firing, killing nine of the thirteen students in the room and injuring two others."

Do you see the part where he shot the professor first?   Don't you think that Loganathan wished that someone had shot Cho first?

Personally, I think the University of Alberta definition of "Trigger" which I referenced 4 paragraphs before is much less important than the definition that Cho was using.

Thus Endeth The Lesson: Sic Transit Gloria Magister.