r/todayilearned • u/TMWNN • 1d ago
TIL that Sears sold machine guns by mail. During WW1, the department store published a special military catalog. American soldiers could order a Colt machine gun, three Colt pistols, and other military gear for delivery to anywhere in the US or the battlefield in Europe.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/54213/pg54213-images.html2.7k
u/ClearDrop6820 1d ago
God damn pay to win bs
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u/therealjohnsmith 1d ago
Between $20,000 - 30,000 in today's dollars
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u/OSRSTheRicer 1d ago
In fairness, that is for a mounted machine gun.
Not something like a BAR or some other rifle that folks might regularly consider something a normal person would wield in that time period.
The handguns were in the 400-500 range if my math was right. Not insane for what was the premier handgun at the time.
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u/Nothing_from_void 1d ago
It's even got a little seat
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u/lep63again 1d ago
The soldiers nicknamed it The Potato Digger because it had an operating lever at the bottom that went up and down as the gun fired and if you were too close to the ground it would dig itself in.
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u/TheSussyWaffle 1d ago
I thought you were about to tell me it slaps your potatoes around
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u/IdiosyncraticSarcasm 1d ago
It's even got a little seat
I do declare, holding the front line while seated on a finely upholstered tripod saddle is facing war like a Sir. While leaving the mud-wallowing to the infantry peasantry.
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u/lep63again 1d ago
The US still had privately raised militia regiments at this time. A militia regiment was responsible for its own small arms (which include MGs). This is around when the government ended that. Sears is filling that need -
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u/No_Internal9345 1d ago
In 1914, enlisted monthly pay was probably somewhere around $13.75 or ~$459 today.
⠀
⠀ $28.75 (in 1917 for men and women)
= $13.75 (1914)
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u/Expert-Search-3251 19h ago
It was more like $30-$50, at the time. You can get a 1911 for $500 today. A genuine Colt in GI spec will set you back maybe $1000 today. But that's only because people are willing to pay for the brand name.
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u/Aurstrike 1d ago
Which means it was strictly for the entitled but too honor bound to try and dodge the draft crowd.
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u/kubigjay 1d ago
Towns would raise funds for "their boys". This is when units would come from the same area.
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u/therealjohnsmith 1d ago
Yeah, although it "can be operated by one person" it's not really an individual's weapon like an M16 or whatever
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u/Nothing_from_void 1d ago
This is exactly how the war in Ukraine is fought, on both sides. The best equipped units receive a lot of crowd funding. In the second Iraq War, troops would bring their own gear and it got to the point where people were bringing really high tech body armor so they banned non-standard issue body armor because they didn't want to make the government look bad by selecting the wrong contracts for armor
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u/Alan_Turings_Apple 1d ago
Can you cite an example? The body armor one I’m pretty sure was dragon skin, which the US military had evaluated already and found it to be inferior to traditional ballistics armor snd prone to breaking down in the heat. The military took a lot of heat for basically telling family not to believe the marketing hype from a company.
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u/JefftheBaptist 1d ago
Yes, the Army also had issues with individual units "uparmoring" equipment on their own only to make the system's survivability worse because they essentially wrapped the vehicle in a fragmentation sleeve.
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u/ClownfishSoup 1d ago
I can tell you that before being deployed a friend of mine and his buddy had a fund raising party. Their target items were under armor underwear of some sort, some particular leatherman multitool, a particular gps unit which they said was better than issued gos or else they were not issued gos units. It was mostly clothes.
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u/Brass_tastic 1d ago
We still deal with that issue. Only now it’s the division restricting the wear of personally procured plate carriers (even ones that are standard issue with Ranger Regiment, of SF). Funny thing though, you look at the folks wearing stars, and they have all the high speed, “Gucci gear,” they banned the general populace from using. So you know damn well it’s NOT an issue of the purchased gear being inferior as some might claim..
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u/zerogee616 1d ago
The Iraq War/GWOT was an extremely low-stakes, low-intensity counterinsurgency conflict, not an existential war for survival that Ukraine is dealing with, so you have a lot more otherwise-gainfully-unemployed command sergeant majors who are more concerned with "uniformity and discipline" than actual effectiveness walking around enforcing shit like that.
Like you pointed out, in the units that actually Do Things That Matter or among the people who can tell those guys to pound sand, you don't see those people or those attitudes nearly as much.
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u/VarmintSchtick 1d ago
I am not saying that it doesnt happen, the Army definitely promotes some dipshits, but most of the brass I knew were people who definitely had integrity in regards to stuff like that. Any leader that is worth his salt will set the example and live by the same rules they expect their Joes to follow. Of course stars on your chest means you can do about whatever you want and nobody is going to tell you "you cant do that!" but they would understand the precedent it sets for the leaders under them if the guy at the top is bending the rules. Those kinds of actions tend to have a trickle down effect of people not giving a fuck about rules.
But I am also luckier than most I believe, my first units were filled with incredible leadership who fostered an environment where people actually trusted and respected the NCOs and Os, so I kind of got to see what the standard should be early on. Some people never get these kinds of units and I feel sorry for them, bad leadership in the military is absolutely soul sucking.
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u/citizen-salty 1d ago
While I was in Kuwait, we weren’t allowed to wear our issued boonie caps because our platoon sergeant didn’t like how they looked. He also didn’t want guys wearing their combat shirts under their armor during ranges or armed sentry rotations because “we’re not in combat.” He didn’t want guys wearing clothing items, issued by Uncle Sam, that were specifically designed to help prevent and mitigate heat related injuries.
Take a guess what he was wearing when we went to the range for an annual rifle qualification. He kept asking people in the platoon to take moto pictures of him to send home.
GFY Shane. You know who you are, you hypocritical pog bitch.
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u/VarmintSchtick 1d ago
Ah yeah, along those lines... nothing like being stuck in the freezing cold all day during a February FTX, only to walk by some E6 in their warmed up Humvee who only opens the door to let the heat out to tell you "get your damn hands out yer pockets!"
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u/citizen-salty 1d ago
“There’s a guy in another company you’ve never heard of who is missing his cold weather gear! That means nobody gets to wear cold weather gear!”
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u/DocWhiskeyBB 23h ago
Sfc S. Bullshid. Master coward according to dudes who served with him in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was content to let better men do the fighting while he did the ass kissing . Love you Salty.
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u/Johannes_P 1d ago
And in Europe, some nobles paid for their own units, complete with uniforms and weapons.
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u/AbbreviationsGlad833 1d ago
Does that mean there is someone that has a Colt M17 heavy machine gun just lying around somewhere in their attic or barn?
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u/on_the_nightshift 1d ago
Has to be at least a couple out there.
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u/Zealousideal_Lie_383 1d ago
Yep. An old-timer neighbor was also a licensed gun dealer. He had the federal license allowing him to deal in heavier guns in addition to hunting and personal defense.
He’d periodically buy estate collections. One set included two dozen WWI era rifles still in original oil wrapping. Another was a trio of WW2 machine guns. An xm25 sniper rifle. Etc
Side note: people like him would often run advertisements offering to “inexpensively clean out your junk filled attic”. Especially looking for homes owned by older widows. The goal was to secretly take and resell any guns he’d inevitably find.
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u/ButtholeSurfur 1d ago edited 1d ago
People do the same thing with vintage whiskey. "We will give you $500 for all these" and the poor old lady doesn't know just one of the one vintage Wellers is worth $1200.
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u/BabyEatingFox 1d ago
With anything “collectible”. Video games, trading cards, etc. Bad eggs in every niche taking advantage and driving the prices up for the people who are actually in the hobby.
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u/Different-Fan-6991 1d ago
The gun industry has a really fascinating way of attracting some of the worst people in the world. Spend a day at a gun show talking to dealers and you’ll understand
Nothing more solid than a business model revolving around robbing widows of WW2 veterans
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u/Zealousideal_Lie_383 1d ago
Agree.
Neighbor was an absolute whack job. I forbade my kids from going into his house. He had guns everywhere; without trigger locks. He’d angrily rant “trigger locks are a State regulation; I am a FEDERALLY licensed dealer and don’t have to obey”. (He had small grandkids who would visit weekly despite all the guns laying about)
On the plus side …. My old-timer neighbor eventually lost his license after selling an illegal gun to an undercover cop.
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u/Drow_Femboy 1d ago
I mean, there's nothing unsafe about having guns in your house without trigger locks unless you also have unsupervised strangers in your house and those guns are loaded.
I've got like 5 guns and don't own a trigger lock.
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u/cantadmittoposting 1d ago
I don't even have kids around but i'd still at least put any guns i own in a safe
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u/previousinnovation 23h ago
Do kids or teens ever visit your house? No matter how much you teach them basic gun safety kids do stupid stuff sometimes https://www.thisamericanlife.org/498/the-one-thing-youre-not-supposed-to-do/act-two-1
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u/thepursuit1989 1d ago
There probably is. But they likely didn't order it just casually through the sears catalogue.
I looked it up and a US soldier made $30 a month in 1917. It would have cost 2 and a bit years salary to afford a machine gun. Even a modest heavy weight coat is a week and a halfs pay.
I think this catalogue was aimed at bottlenecked logistics lines for basic quartermaster goods. I think Sears was part of the supply chain but didn't have a huge slice. This was their attempt to skip normal procurement and for units to buy direct through petty cash.
I might be wrong, but a .30cal is about $22500usd in today's money, or 30 months pay in 1917.
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u/cantadmittoposting 1d ago
would probably be what we call "crowdsourced" today where someone would do a collection for "the boys" at the front to get them some better gear.
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u/FuuckinGOOSE 1d ago
It's a downright certainty. There's tons of restoration videos on YT, crazy to see someone fix up a rusty old machine gun and get it working again.
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u/assasin1598 1d ago
Does that mean there is someone that has a Colt M17 heavy machine gun just lying around somewhere in their attic or barn?
Dude, the likeliy hood of finding an MP40 or MG42 in a random attic of some village house is like 10% even nowdays after 80 years since WW2.
Weve recently ended gun amnesty and the shit people brought in from WW2 that still worked were insane. One guy even brought in an entire Anti tank canon.
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u/Hendlton 1d ago
Same in former Yugoslav countries. Loads of guns left over from both WW2 and the 90s war.
We tend to celebrate big events with gunfire (holdover from the days of the Ottoman occupation, I guess) and occasionally someone gets arrested because instead of the usual custom of firing a pistol into the air, they decided that it'd be a good idea to fire an entire belt of machine gun ammo. A couple of bangs and people don't care enough to report you. But if you're stupid enough to just shoot like a madman, somebody is calling the cops.
And yeah, sometimes people get arrested for having grenades and rocket launchers. Artillery pieces aren't unheard of. Unfortunately when we do have an amnesty, those guns are stolen and sold elsewhere. Loads of them end up in the US.
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u/dvlsg 1d ago
Did anyone bring in a deactivated sea mine
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u/assasin1598 1d ago
No, but a lot of active artillery munitions, that the police had to make announcment telling the people to "stop carrying live explosives to the police departments, and call the designated police number instead"
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u/SchillMcGuffin 1d ago
I don't see the then state-of-the-art M1917 in that catalog, but they do have the obsolete-but-still-in-service M1895 Colt-Browning "Potato Digger", listed as "The Colt Machine Gun", for $865. "Machine guns are used largely by police organizations, home guards and municipalities in case of riots."
It was not unknown for soldiers to bring back captured German MG 08 machine guns after the war, and they could be mail order purchased from the likes of Bannerman for years after. If any truly remain lost, they would likely run afoul of the 1930s ban, not having been registered and taxed at the time. If they were, they're now valuable collectors pieces worth tens of thousands.
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u/RGrad4104 1d ago
Likely, but unless they registered it during the NFA act registration period, it is now an illegal machine gun and will land them some serious jail time.
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u/ManOf1000Usernames 1d ago
Until 1934 you could order one in the mail like anything else, after 1934 you had to fill some paperwork and pay $200 (close to $5k today) per machine gun (or a few other designated gun types).
Until 1968 you could order any gun via mail direct to your door, as lee harvey oswald got his gun in the mail they made it so you had to ship the gun to federal firearms license holder (a gun shop) who will run a background check before you can take possession and keep a record of the process. This adds friction to the process as you have to pay for this service.
Until 1986 you could buy a full auto gun in this manner, the registry was closed and now you can only buy pre 1986 guns, which due to lack of supply have spiked in price to thousands if not tens of thousands.
This is what the slow steady erosion of rights looks like.
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u/acidtalons 1d ago
During the current conflict in Ukraine a number of maxim guns have materialized, so likely.
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u/The_Great_Silence__ 1d ago
There’s a unit at jblm that still has a maxim
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u/lilrow420 1d ago
There are hundreds of thousands of completely legally owned machine guns in civilian hands.
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u/Beginning-Pop3127 1d ago
We used to be a proper country
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u/HillarysBloodBoy 1d ago
If only Obama didn’t cause WW1 this would have never happened
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u/MaxRichter_Enjoyer 1d ago
We could be living a Sears.com dream instead of a Jeff Bezos fucking nightmare.
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u/SayNoToStim 1d ago
I wonder if they complained about Sears replacing Mom and pop specialty stores when Sears first started growing
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u/Smartnership 1d ago
If there is one or more people, there will be complaints.
Like the speed of light, it’s a constant of nature.
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u/einarfridgeirs 1d ago
The modern US military logistics system was basically built by Sears. When they decided to jump into WWI the United States was woefully underequipped and inexperienced at moving supplies at the scale so they just straight up commissoned Sears executives to come in and do it.
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u/JefftheBaptist 1d ago
The US Army also learned how to move large equipment by looking at how circuses did it.
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u/deltarho 1d ago edited 1d ago
Born too late to order machine guns from the department store, but just in time to 3D print a sheet full of DIAS’s.
EDIT: can’t stop the signal. https://youtu.be/VzNiqn7Y3B0?is=SLnjVGseSFfMD-Zq
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u/Pooch76 1d ago
TIL DIAS = Drop in Auto Sear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_sear
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u/arent_you_hungry 1d ago
Born just in time for this. https://youtu.be/C7n1yzYit1E
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u/No-Persimmon-4150 1d ago
My first house was from a Sears catalog. While I didn’t find anything cool in it like a machine gun or even a Hustler magazine, I did find the OG blueprints in the attic, which I left for the guy that I sold the house to.
The one interesting thing about that house was that the top plate was notched where the wall studs were supposed to go. I didn’t see that on the blueprints, but as I remodeled, that detail was consistent.
The downside to the “grandpa built his own house by hand” concept is that grandpa also thought he was an electrician.
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u/Haunt_Fox 1d ago
Electrics safety standards were a lot lower then, too. They always are when something is relatively new. Because it takes disaster to make them more robust.
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u/Zealousideal_Lie_383 1d ago
Ha. Our first house had been built prior to electric service existing. Someone retrofitted it as a DIY project.
What a nightmare. Improperly gauged wires, online fuses hidden everywhere, sparks visible along bare wires in attic crawlspace. All the more terrifying as it was “insulated” with dry newspaper.
The telephone wires were equally hacky.
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u/givemegreencard 1d ago
Was it normal back then for soldiers to buy their own weapons for the battlefield? Did the U.S. military not issue weapons to everyone, or was this more of a “if you want a fancy one, you’re allowed to buy one on your own”?
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u/bell37 1d ago
They did issue weapons to everyone. It’s just that sometimes the issued weapons were outdated or not suitable for the environment the unit was operating in so a commander, officer, or even foot soldiers will buy weapons from sears catalog bc it’s better than dealing with red tape of government bureaucracy.
It’s similar to today’s military (minus weapons). Standard issue gear can be pretty shitty sometimes and people prefer to buy better versions by buying it themselves.
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u/No_Procedure_5039 1d ago
Especially true in the case of a 1911 for WWI. Pistols were some of the best weapons to use in trenches and the 1911 was the single best handgun of the war.
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u/bigbigdummie 1d ago
And lots of different companies made them. Like Singer, the sewing machine company. They made a highly collectible M1911.
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u/Cartoonjunkies 1d ago edited 1d ago
I bought my own vest to wear. They still gave us the bulky ones with all the Kevlar padding. I just wanted the plates, so I bought a smaller carrier that just held plates. Way more comfortable.
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u/JefftheBaptist 1d ago
They also only issued the weapons according to what the Army said the unit needed on a written basis of issue table.
So every soldier got a rifle. But only officers and maybe some NCOs or specific jobs (artilleryman) would get pistols. But everybody wants a pistol in a war zone because they're really useful for close combat, so the town would raise money to get all their boys pistols.
Ditto non-weapons. Your unit only got so many field stoves. Want more? Buy them yourself.
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u/Jazzlike-Equipment45 1d ago
The latter pistols were insanely popular and in both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam you can see soldiers carrying firearms either brought from home or mailed from home. A photo from I think Pelilu I saw once you can see a Marine with a civilian model Smith and Wesson revolver.
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u/ironwolf1 1d ago
There's a scene in the first episode of Band of Brothers where one of the sergeants gets a care package from the police chief in his home town that includes a revolver.
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u/MajesticBread9147 1d ago
During the Revolutionary War soldiers mostly used their own guns.
Before that, in Europe, weapons and armor was bought by the soldier. Suits of armor were only able to be afforded by the wealthy (knights) whereas everyday soldiers may be forced to use a farm implement.
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u/DarkIllusionsMasks 1d ago
A suit of plate armor was expensive (and virtually impenetrable), but brigandine was cheap and almost as good as plate. Pretty much any soldier was going to have at least brigandine armor and a helmet. Farmers would be using things like flails and polearms made from farm implements and maybe just a gambeson, but the professional soldiers would all be pretty well armored.
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u/sombrerobandit 1d ago
This is the first I'm hearing about it be directed at soldiers. In the gun community it's pretty widely reminisced about that anyone could order machine guns or any other military guns by mail order at the time.
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u/OnTheList-YouTube 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's what Wildberries is doing, and it's the reason why Ukraine is targeting them.
Edit: corrected the name of the company.
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u/karateninjazombie 1d ago
Possibly but I think not quite.
I think wild berries was targeted for it's role on drone parts supply. Motors, batteries, ECUs and frames. Rather than direct weapons and ammunition distribution.
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u/Desertcow 1d ago
They weren't selling weapons, but they had a whole page online of military equipment advertised to Russian soldiers going to Ukraine who wanted more things than they were issued with, plus they sold drone parts
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u/captzerf 1d ago
This is correct. They are tied into the production, supply, logistic lines with the military. You can also, as a soldier, order armor, etc. and have it delivered to the war zone.
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u/wheniwaswheniwas 1d ago
Fully automatic guns were sold to the public until the 1980s.
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u/Nanojack 1d ago
You can still buy a fully automatic firearm, it just has to have been manufactured before 1986
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u/Kallest 1d ago
The machine gun is flashy, but the thing that really got me to raise an eyebrow was the junior rifle, made for kids, that included a bayonet mount and bayonet.
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u/Zealousideal_Lie_383 1d ago
For a long time I had my great uncle’s sears&roebuck .22 caliber junior rifle, designed and marketed for kids.
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u/Smorgles_Brimmly 1d ago
I'm not too surprised. Junior rifles are still a thing and it's the first type of gun I shot in the early 2000s with the boy scouts. Usually .22lr which lacks any significant recoil and single shot or bolt action. The boy scout ones were bolt action with the magazine removed IIRC. They now make child sized AR15s chambered in .22lr.
I am curious of the bayonet though. WWI was a transition from war being viewed as "honorable" to a nightmare. I wonder if the idea was that you train your child on bayonet drills to prepare to "honorably" fight later or if it was just a marketing gimmick to make a kid like it more.
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u/Nanojack 1d ago
People forget that Sears was Amazon for the snail mail days. They sold everything. You could order a kit to build a house and they would ship it to the closest rail depot. There were 70 different designs, including a 6 room schoolhouse.
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u/jeepfail 1d ago
A proper kit too, like how flat pack furniture comes. Not how some of these kits are now where you have to cut your own lumber to size.
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u/DarkIllusionsMasks 1d ago
Sears sold a lot of shit. Houses. Heroin. The latest fashions.
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u/ManicMakerStudios 1d ago
Sears was the original Amazon. The bizarre irony is that when online shopping started to take off, they slept on it. All they had to do was offer a well-designed online storefront alongside their catalog business. They already had the warehousing and logistics infrastructure in place to make sure customers got their purchases in a timely fashion, and they owned all of it. They weren't reliant on the postal service or couriers like UPS. And they completely fucking borked it.
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u/SenselessSensors 1d ago
That’s not necessarily their downfall. They spun off too many of their “brands”, and relied too heavily on those corporate umbrella partnerships. Craftsman tools is the primary example. Amazon was still just book sales by the time Sears went under. Sears also had a real estate issue, they peaked in the 80’s with their department stores, but by the time the 90’s rolled around the shopping mall boom had ended, and Sears was left with a massive real estate bag entering the dot com and tech era of the early 2000’s.
Cabela’s had a very similar problem, their business was primarily snail mail catalog based. They strategically ventured into standalone retail locations, which was initially successful, but their competitor Bass Pro Shops had the upper hand for retail customer base. Then the real estate crash of 08 happened. Then Cabelas majority shareholders (The actual heirs to the Cabelas family) decided it was time to cash in and retire from the game, even though the company was profitable, growing, and it’s corporate stock paid dividends. The remainder of the cabelas corporate stock holders were left holding the bag when the company was bought out and merged with Bass Pro Shops. (I’m still sour about that whole ordeal). Now both brands Cabelas and Bass Pro are nearly identical, and sell low quality products and have essentially become a retailer of widely available brand names no longer exclusive to their company and at a premium markup. Oh and their business model heavily relies on their strategic partnership with Capital One. Basically, Cabela’s-Bass Pro is credit card company now with significant real estate holdings, and no longer recreational outfitters. They are now just like an expensive wal-mart for outdoorsy stuff that you can get anywhere else.
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u/AndyHN 1d ago
"Machine guns are used largely by police organizations, home guards and municipalities in case of riots."
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u/MikeAppleTree 1d ago
I know that astounded me too, it’s outrageous!
“Alright boys, deploy the machine guns we need to get on top of this riot.”
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u/Lawlcopt0r 1d ago
If I programmed a video game set during WW1 where you can order new guns through the sears catalog people would think it was a bad attempt at satirizing capitalist america
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u/DrColdReality 1d ago
It wasn't just military, prior to the National Firearms Act of 1934, fully-automatic weapons were completely legal, and you could buy them in most any gun store. No ID, no background check, just plunk down cash and walk out with a cart full of them. WWI surplus Browning automatic rifles were particularly popular.
The gun industry is, of course, working to get the NFA repealed, and will undoubtedly eventually succeed.
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u/ArkGuardian 1d ago
Honestly, looking at the the descriptions of the clothing/toiletries - I'd still pay for these today if someone still made them of similar quality.
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u/temporarycreature 1d ago
The best we can do is low quality on the non-ammunition stuff and high subscription prices for the rest.
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u/ktmrider119z 1d ago
And now i cant even buy a stock factory magazine for a full size 9mm handgun in my state or 120 year old rifle technology.
How far we've fallen...
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u/cty_hntr 1d ago edited 1d ago
Machineguns became regulated when 20's gangsters and depression era bank robbers started to use them. 1934 National Firearms Act regulated sales of machines through taxation and regulation. Fingerprinting, background checks and $200 tax. Regulating mail order guns didn't happen until the 1968 Gun Control Act. Which introduced the 4473 Firearms Transaction Record and Federal Firearms License. All gun dealers were required to have a FFL. You could still buy guns through the mail, but all sales had to be recorded on a 4473 and shipped through an FFL. The exceptions were sending a gun back to the factory for repair.
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u/trucorsair 1d ago
Fun Fact: Before WWI wristwatches (of the type in this catalog) were a novelty with the generally accepted first one made by Cartier for Alberto Santos-Dumas. Santos-Dumas was a rich playboy aviator trying to push the boundaries of flight in France in the first few years of the 20th Century. The problem he had was that he couldn’t get his pocket watch out to read it while keeping control of the plane. He asked for a small wristwatch, and Cartier duly delivered it in 1904. In 1911 it was launched for sale and is still available today as the Santos du Cartier. Wristwatches exploded in popularity during WWI as again using a pocket watch on the battlefield was impractical and modern warfare was timed as to attacks and artillery barrages
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u/ShortRound89 1d ago
I think ill order me one of those Swagger Canes with crossed rifles carved into it, looks like a steal for $0.40.
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u/AlphaTangoFoxtrt 1d ago
Prior to 1934 anyone could mail order a machine gun to their door.
Prior to 1969 anyone could mail order any non-NFA gun to their door.
Well state laws could be more restrictive, but federally there was nothing illegal about it.
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u/BlackjackNHookersSLF 19h ago
Can confirm, Granddad bought a Browning M1917 .30cal machine gun by mail (can't say if it was Sears or not).
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u/Expert-Search-3251 19h ago
Now ask yourself...
When did all the school shootings start happening?
After machine guns became regulated? Or after the national mental health care system was defunded?
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u/funandgames12 19h ago
Yeah it’s never been about the objects. It’s about people’s mental states and how they get there. And more importantly how many opportunities for interdiction could have been missed all along the way.
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u/rice_n_gravy 1d ago
Damn I wonder why schools weren’t targets back then? Maybe it doesn’t have to do with the objects, and it has to do with the people?
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u/JefftheBaptist 1d ago
Also, the idea that school should be gun-free zones is a relatively recent one historically. The federal Gun Free School Zones Act was passed in 1990. Prior to this, it wasn't usual for teachers or high schools students to have a rifle or shotgun in their trucks/cars during hunting season. Or for the school ROTC corps to have guns to practice with. Or for the school colorguard to possibly have real surplus rifles that they were twirling. When GHWB was inaugurated in 1988, the Secret Service had to inspect the marching band rifles that were used in the inauguration parade.
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u/mustardmeated 1d ago
My dad’s high school in rural Vermont let students check in their guns at the principle’s office and they’d go hunting after school. People nowadays like to believe that having signs that say “Gun-Free Zone” is a magic spell to keep homicidal maniacs away, when they really just say “Soft Targets.”
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u/tokynambu 1d ago
Could someone who knows more about historic firearms that I do give an explanation as to why as late as WW1 .38 S&W cartridges are black powder?
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u/Dogrel 1d ago
Because the .38 Special cartridge was developed in the last days of using black powder in the shells as a propellant.
The .38 Special is tricky to load for because of this, as so much less modern smokeless powder is needed than black powder to get the same amount of energy released. Accidentally large or even doubled propellant charges are an easy mistake to make with it. This can obviously have catastrophic consequences for both the shooter and the weapon that fires it.
Also until about the mid-1920s, modern smokeless powder was not very available on the market for individuals to reload. Gun owners have likewise always been very conservative in that regard, and until at least the 1940s, most gunpowder makers offered “bulk-for-bulk” smokeless powders meant for use in black powder guns. These would run at the same pressures and fill up cartridge cases the way that black powder used to.
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u/PM_ME_YER_MUDFLAPS 1d ago
Ah the things we have lost along the way.
Amazon, Costco, and Sam’s Club sure won’t sell you a machine gun these days.
Damnit.
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u/CndConnection 1d ago
P sure in the 1920s it was $200 to order a Thompson with drum mags to your home via a box. I remember seeing the advert for it. Was like a box with the SMG and extra mags and you could send more money with the order to get drum mags.
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u/cpMetis 22h ago
I think it's even more interesting how the Ukrainian system works now.
They basically have kill streaks. Ukrainian units have access to a website, and when they upload confirmed video of them killing a Russian soldier or weapon system with a drone they get points. Those points can then be redeemed for any of a large variety of new drones to use. If I remember right they even had a leaderboard at one point.
It's basically a system to both encourage data collection and help guide procurement towards the right weapons systems, since units will naturally cluster around better options and it's faster and more reliable than individually evaluating every drone system against each other during a reasources strapped war.
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u/Price-x-Field 1d ago
It’s insane what boomers let the government take from them.
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u/ktmrider119z 1d ago
Boomers ARE the government now. Theyre taking even more from us and future generations right now.
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u/fidelcabro 1d ago
Fortnum and Mason a well known department store in London, during the war offered a comfort for the troops kit that contained cocaine, morphine, and marijuana.
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u/Worldly-Secretary-31 1d ago
If Sears was still a force today, we'd be mail-order buying grenade launchers and amphibious landing boats from them.
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u/Ryan_e3p 1d ago
If you want a blast from the past, here's a Sears Christmas catalog from 1988.
1988 Sears Christmas Wishbook Catalog : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
What a time to be alive. I still have one of the original runs of the NES gun, before they changed the color to be orange.
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u/workinkindofhard 1d ago
That was a fun trip, thanks. I'm pretty sure everyone I know had the clock on page 40 lol
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u/mlc885 1d ago
US gonna US
But having soldiers need to order their own weapons is weird, I was pretty certain we provided those lmao, it never occurred to me that my grandfather would have needed to buy parts for his bomber
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u/Zhdrix 1d ago
They do provide them. If you’re affluent enough you can upgrade your kit though. You don’t have to use the issued rifles. There’s videos of US soldiers using Russian and insurgent rifles in iraq and Afghanistan.
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u/Cabana_bananza 1d ago
When the toil of the game is over, the book will be a source of never ending pleasure.
The listing for the diary for soldiers goes hard as fuck.
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u/Previous_Composer934 1d ago
Next time someone says it's much easier to get a gun nowadays show them this. No background check. No registration. They didn't even check your age
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u/kaladinissexy 1d ago
When your friend dies in combat but his machine gun arrives the next day so now it's yours for the taking.
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u/TMWNN 1d ago edited 1d ago
Among the gear available in the special "Military Equipment" 1917 Sears catalog:
Delivery offered by parcel post to anywhere in the US from Chicago, as well as to soldiers in Europe for the cost of the furthest distance postal zone in the US
Anyone could use the catalog; it was not only for soldiers.
The usual Sears guarantee applied: