Si Vis Pacem

'Nother post 'bout guns. The title is, of course, a reference to the motto of the Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken firm, which employed one Georg Luger. The last two words are "Para bellum" ("If you wish peace, [prepare] for war"), that's why Parabellum is the other name for 9mm Luger. I prefer Leo IX's version ("Para justitiam"), but it's still a great motto for gun-makers.

Ahem.

• So the ototo-ue's been playing the re-release of Goldeneye on the Wii. Am I the only one who wonders why the game doesn't call its P90s and ARs by their proper names? You'd think FN Herstal and Colt (among the many makers of civilian-market ARs) would like the free advertising.
  
  I don't know, maybe it's some weird law somewhere, or maybe they're just being lawyer-phobic. Anyway, at least they didn't take away Bond's Walther. Though, seriously, I get that he used to use the PPK and all, but why do they have to give him a P99 now? It's odd, is what it is. I wonder what Brit spies really use. SIGs, maybe?


• So the PP was copied, in a slightly larger size, to make the Makarov; the Soviets have a bad habit of copying German guns and forgetting they did it (yes that means you, Kalashnikov, and your surreptitious appropriation of the Sturgewehr 44).
  
  But I think it'd make sense, since the Peacekeepers in my book largely use Kalashnikov-type rifles ('cept bullpup), for them to use pistols that largely look like P99s. Thematically, I mean—hell, maybe the folks who gave current-Bond a P99 were thinking similarly. And maybe the US Marine "cadres" attached to the Peacekeepers will use, along with their bullpup ARs, something that looks like the Beretta Px4 Storm.


• So I was watching this Youtube video of this guy shooting a .357 SIG Glock; apparently you just have to swap the barrel to convert .357 SIG from a .40 S&W gun. Which makes sense, .357 SIG being based on the .40 casing. Anyway, though, he was saying that light, fast bullets tend to hit low, and a bunch of people in the comments were correcting him that, no, the faster bullets will have a flatter trajectory and hit high.
  
  But then he came back and said, no, their trajectory is flatter but they're more effected by the recoil; I'm not sure if his explanation's right but it's possible they lose momentum more readily or something, since they have less mass and therefore decelerate faster. Interesting though, huh? This, not violence, is why I'm fascinated by guns: the pure intellectual side of it. And, well, yeah, the fact they're a universally accessible form of lethal power doesn't hurt.


• That's actually something that makes me nuts. Several writers, Terry Pratchett and R. A. Salvatore among them, seem to think that the fact that, with guns, any Joe Blow can kill a master martial artist, is a bad thing. Uh, no. That is not a bug, it is a feature. Great fighters are no more special than the rest of us—there is no form of greatness that makes the rules not apply to you—and guns mean that nobody can consider himself above the law just because he's a powerful fighter.
  
  When I pointed this out, some idiot thought "yes but a much more skilled gunfighter will still have the advantage" was a counterargument. No again. See, with guns, once you're competent, greater skill is much less of an edge, and the average person is still on a much more even footing. Why? Simple: there is no way to block bullets. If I shoot at someone like Bill Jordan or Jeff Cooper, he still has to run and hide. If I come at Okita Sojiro with a sword, I stand a very good chance of being killed without even coming close to touching him: because a sword can also be used to block.


• And am I the only one who thinks "bullpup" may be the weirdest word ever? Hang on (quick search of the Bat-Google)...
  
  Ah. So apparently, it goes like this. "Bulldog" is (possibly British?) slang for "big gun", and, well, a bullpup is a smaller one. 'Cause it's more compact. Remember this one, folks, it could, I don't know, impress people at a shooting range, or something.
  
  Whoo. The internet justifies its existence, for once—and, for once, in a manner not involving the Los Alamos National Laboratory archives.


• You know what would pretty much make the more extreme forms of anti-gun hysteria evaporate? Having people read gun magazines. I mean, read Massad Ayoob's stuff, and then try to picture the media's portrayal of gun enthusiasts. It simply can't be done. Gun writers have a peculiar warm, laid back, slightly corny, easygoingly opinionated style that might as well just scream "Salt of the earth". You know who Jeff Cooper's literary style reminds me of? Richard John Neuhaus. I defy you to paint a man who sounds like that as a zealot. Occasionally a set-in-his-ways old fuddy-duddy (a single-stack just isn't enough, often, and .40 S&W, 10 mm, .357 SIG, and even the hotter 9 mm loads are now just as good as his preferred .45 ACP), sure, but hardly the frothing-mouthed survivalist the media would, reflexively, try to make him out to be.
  
  One recalls a Belloc essay called "The Eye-Openers". Here's a bit of something to chew on:

  It isn't only that we get our impressions for the most part as imaginary pictures called up by printer's ink—that would be bad enough; but by some curious perversion of the modern mind, printer's ink ends by actually preventing one from seeing things that are there.
  
  ...
  
  [A] foreigner [visiting England] will discover a plebeian character in the Commons and an aristocratic one in the House of Lords, though he shall have heard but four speeches in each, and though every one of the eight speeches shall have been delivered by members of one family group closely intermarried, wealthy, titled, and perhaps (who knows?) of some lineage as well.

  That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.