When you consider the amount of vitriolic debate that goes on amongst gun enthusiasts, considering caliber selection and firearms selection, in regard to the “ideal” survival firearm paradigm, it’s no surprise that someone wrote a book to help narrow the selection. Between the hundred year-old debate on the weakness of the 9mm Parabellum, versus the manliness and obvious lethality of the .45ACP, and the current, equally absurd arguments regarding the Kalashnikov platform versus the AR-15/M-16 platform, these conversations go on, and on, and on, ad nauseum. So, we have two notoriously famed books, considered by many to be the ultimate references on the subject: Survival Guns by the late, famed survival writer Mel Tappan, and Boston’s Gun Bible (BGB) by “Boston T. Party,” of the “Free State Wyoming Project, in attempts, decades apart, of solving the dilemma of “what is the perfect firearm?”
(I never got the opportunity to meet Mel Tappan, as he died when I was a very, very young child. I have met Boston, in passing, at the range, although I haven’t seen him shoot, as he seemed far too busy telling the shooters how to shoot, instead. So, my implied critique of their work, in this article, is not intended as a personal attack.)
Boston, to his credit does state, in the book, that BGB is “a catalog of one civilian’s experience and opinions.” Unfortunately, he then goes on to demonstrate that, he knows exactly nothing about personal combat. After explaining his lack of professional credentials in the military or law enforcement, he asks, “So, what? Did you learn to drive from Al Unser?”
How is this a demonstration of ignorance? Driving your personal vehicle, in daily traffic, in accordance with the rules of the road, is not at all comparable to racing a Formula One racecar around the track at Indianapolis Speedway at 200-plus miles per hour. The skills necessary are similar, but the level of expertise required is not at all similar.
On the other hand, shooting a roomful of MS-13 home invaders, confronting a barricaded active shooter at your local shopping mall, or repelling an armored, jack-booted swarm of Stasi-wannabe storm troopers at a VCP, requires not only the same skill sets, but at the same level, as those required by a Ranger Regiment gunfighter kicking in a door in Khandahar, or an SF soldier clearing a cave complex in the Hindu Kush. Ultimately, while many of the political and philosophical arguments laid out by Boston, and Tappan, for that matter, are inarguable, their dogma surrounding firearms selection is flawed, due largely, to their lack of real-world experience.
There is a reason that this type of manual is not being written by veterans of Special Operations units. It’s simply not necessary. The arguments concerning caliber and weapon selection are, ultimately, nothing more than gun tabloid marketing nonsense. An 18Bravo, Special Forces Weapons Sergeant learns to operate, maintain, and train others to operate, a broad variety of individual small arms from around the world (as a personal example, over the course of my career in SF, I worked with the M9, P35 BHP, 1911A1, Glocks, SIG-Sauers, Makarovs, Tokarevs, and several variations of different revolvers; Uzi, Skorpion, M3 “Grease Gun,” Thompson, M12, PPSh41, MP5, and other sub-machine-guns; and HKG3, FN/FAL, M14, AK-variant, M1/M2 carbine, Enfield .303, and 1903 Springfield rifles, amongst a host of others). When conducting UW or FID missions, an 18B will learn, quickly, that the caliber of individual small-arms really does not matter. The manufacture and model of the weapon can make a difference, but ultimately, the only thing that matters is the man holding the weapon and his level of training.
No comments:
Post a Comment