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Mk18 10.3” 5.56 AR as a SHTF truck gun?
- Thread starter heronblue7
- Start date
You sound like the cops that ticket people for letting their car run in their driveway instead of. I don’t know catching and prosecuting the thieves?
Stolen cars aren’t used in a large percentage of murders. Instead of making it illegal to idle your car in your driveway lawmakers should just let your insurance exclude that behavior in your policy.
Leaving guns in cars is how criminals become armed. Stop doing it.
Leaving guns in cars is how criminals become armed. Stop doing it.
You know in really cold icy weather you may need to let your car/truck idle for a few minutes in the driveway before driving off.
Especially if you have an older diesel truck.
It's kind of supposedly why we pay for police and their "protection" so we could live in halfway decent neighborhoods, otherwise what do we need them for if it's legally on us to be all mad max 24/7
Cops will have plenty of time to deal with you if you catch a thief and tune him up.
They should be setting up bait cars and arresting the thieves.
When the DA drops all the mandatory sentence crimes in these shit hole cities it doesn’t help either
They should be setting up bait cars and arresting the thieves.
When the DA drops all the mandatory sentence crimes in these shit hole cities it doesn’t help either
If your insurance company wants to exclude it I have no objection. You’re free to find one that will include it. That’s a free market rather than a law enforcement solution.
Trust me, you’d prefer a law enforcement solution to stolen guns over a free market solution.
I’m willing to bet far more criminals armed by stealing firearms out of houses than vehicles. Just stop leaving your guns unattended, that is how criminals get armed.
?
How about just holding criminals responsible for their crimes and stop this habit of going after the law abiding citizens for things?
It's illegal to steal a car, so if they do it's on the criminal and they should be tracked down and punished.
But to go sending the "just doing their duty" types "King's Men" to go fine decent hard working citizens for having the audacity to run their own car in their own driveway just downright is evil plain and simple. I'd rather just deal with criminals myself and skip paying for "The King's Men" if that's the case and I'm pretty sure the criminals will be the ones begging for police protection before long since all their crimes will now basically be punished with a bullet.
You don't seem to understand many things, why would history be any different?
Homes are different than vehicles. Both in security and conceptually.
Like I said, the police shouldn’t be fining people for idling their vehicles. Just let their insurance company exclude unattended idling vehicles. Darwin will sort that out then.
300-600k firearms are stolen annually. I don’t know what percentage from vehicles and what from houses but in some cities it’s more from vehicles. For instance in Atlanta 70% of gun thefts are from vehicles. The same people that are stealing guns from vehicles are often using them in crimes. Secure your fucking guns.
If you raided my home right now you wouldn’t find a single unsecured weapon. I have one on me of course. Now, would I support a law to require guns be locked up in cars? Eh, depends on details. If you are in a place that prohibits firearms and your gun is stolen that’s on whoever made the gun free zone. If you’re just too lazy to carry and leave it in the console, that’s on you. Locked up in homes? Absolutely not! A home is not a car. its a castle.
It would hurt if there was any truth to it.
It's all truth an it's killing your ass,...laughing. So stealing from a home is different than an car/truck, typical liberal thinking,...
Stealing is stealing no matter the venue,... the problem is the law protects the dirtbags of this world you keep their Just-Us system operating. One day that will all come to an end,...an Justice will prevail.
How about not letting the criminals out in a revolving manner to keep committing crimes?
Most folks that do that tend to be of the career criminal type that have the local jail as a second home.
If you are so all about demanding citizens are responsible to make it impossible for the criminals to commit crimes
How about holding the judges, and local LE responsible for the crimes if they don't protect the citizens properly......
I bet they would quickly write opinions on how they can't be held responsible for the actions of others.
The problem with your straw man argument is that, it's never written that way in the law, people like you push for some new handcuffs to be put on law abiding citizens "for the public good" and the communists are more than happy to give you what you want, worded in such a way to make it just about impossible to actually have a weapon to protect yourself.
I’m all for punishing career criminals. The government should crush longtime losers. Where I live first degree unlawful firearm possession nominally carried up to ten years but in practice criminals are out in weeks.
So how did we get to paying people to be sorry an reinforcing that logic at the voting booth? The left that's how,...
If criminals want to steal guns, they will find a way.
If criminals want to murder someone they will find a way.
Obviously, no one should leave unsecured guns in a vehicle. Also, don’t put gun or hunting stickers on your car. Might as well put a “rob me” sticker on your bumper.
If criminals want to murder someone they will find a way.
Obviously, no one should leave unsecured guns in a vehicle. Also, don’t put gun or hunting stickers on your car. Might as well put a “rob me” sticker on your bumper.
Don’t look at me I wouldn’t vote for a democrat for dog catcher.
We can take steps to make it harder.
Shit can you imagine the potential liability if your gun was stolen and used in a crime? You could lose everything.
This is why our country is so ducked up. No personal responsibility. Always someone else’s fault.
If you are in a free state then it's on the criminal who first committed the crime of thief and then wen from there.
It's also the same basis for the idea behind the protection of lawful commerce in firearms act.
That is the way it should be. ALL responsibility for a criminal act is on the criminal.
You need to sit back and really think about what you are saying, because what you state is exactly what the communists are pushing for because they know that means an end to firearms ownership. There are bills in places like CA to do exactly what you are alluding to. Because the communists know that means they can end run around the constitution by making you go bankrupt trying to have your rights.
You car can be stolen with a laptop and a set of keys, should you then be held responsible for the Jihadist that went on a rampage with it?
Most safes that folks can afford can be gotten into with a simple tool bag and a bit of knowledge.
I disagree. Both are locked, both have alarms, both are my personal property not public property / general public access.
Where I live, vehicle is considered an extension of your home.
When I’m specifically prevented from keeping firearm on my person, I’m away from home then firearm is secured (not able to do a smash & grab) in vehicle until I can get back to vehicle. Clearly I minimize time away from vehicle and firearm is secured, out of sight so no one is the wiser.
My right to defend myself is not negated just because I’m 50+ miles from home but temporarily need to go into to a building / area I’m unable to keep firearm on my person.
Secure weapon, I agree with you.
Leave weapon locked up at home because I can’t keep on me all day? I’ll pass.
YMMV.
I prefer to be prepared because my crystal ball, prediction of future events is ?.
Short answer is yes, you want one.
Make a secure and inconspicuous storage location in vehicle(s).
Add a can also, SAS M-455 has been quite nice while minimizing added length in my experience.
SHTF Does happen...though thankfully not “too” often. A rifle in the truck is still normal where I live, and stories like this one, though rare, are real. Copied and Pasted
The Ayoob Files: "F*** You and Your Automatic Rifle!" - The Gary Fadden incident...
Situation: A road-rage incident escalates into a deadly pursuit.
Lesson: Keep communications as handy as your gun. Bad guys fear resolutely armed people, not weapons. Remember that full auto can stop a fight--but start an indictment.
It's amazing how often a criminal will say something unbelievably stupid just before he forces a decent citizen to kill him. For many years I've been piecing together a book subtitled "Famous Last Words of Scumbags." The working title will come from the most memorable such incident: "F*** You and Your Automatic Rifle!"
The shooter was Gary Fadden. The incident took place some 20 years ago. Only now is Gary comfortable speaking of it, in hopes that others may learn from lessons that cost him very deeply.
The Incident
Sunday, February 24, 1984, approximately 2 PM. Gary Fadden, 26, and his lovely 22 year old fiancee are driving from a birthday party in Martinsburg, WV, into Virginia to look at some property for what they hope will be their starter home after their marriage. It's a bitterly cold day, and with the winter coats in the back of a new '84 Ford F-250 supercab 4WD diesel pickup, the Pendleton-clad Fadden looks from a distance like a harmless Yuppie. That means he and the pretty brunette look like prey to another kind of person.
Heading east on Rt. 50, they are passed by a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with two people astride, the operator cutting in front of him so sharply that he has to brake suddenly. Gary comments to his fiancee how cold they must be riding a bike on a low 30s day, and that driving as carelessly as he is, the cyclist needs to worry about sudden patches of ice.
A few minutes later, he spots a Chevy pickup in his rearview mirrors. It contains three people. One passenger is gesturing to him to pull over. Gary doesn't know what these scruffy guys want and he ignores them. But then he sees the passenger waving a knife, and the driver bringing up a revolver.
Gary says to his fiancee, in what will probably be the understatement of his life, "We've got a bit of a problem here."
Pursuit
It is 1984, long before the universal coming of cell phones, and there is no other communications in the vehicle. They are entering Middleburg, a town of perhaps 800, and stop at a red light. Behind them, Gary can see both males exit their truck and run toward him. The driver's hand is actually on Gary's door handle when he pops the clutch and sends his new truck screeching through the intersection against the light. The two men run back to their older pickup, and the chase is on.
They're almost on his bumper. Gary accelerates, hitting open road now, zig-zagging between reaching 95 miles an hour when the speed governor cuts in. Not only are the pursuers keeping pace but he sees the driver aiming a revolver at him out his window. Honking his horn and flashing his lights when he runs into a cluster of automobiles, passing them sometimes on the shoulder of the road and spraying rooster-tails of gravel, Gary still cannot elude the truck behind him.
Gary is desperately looking for a police car he can flag down. He doesn't see one. The chase has gone for 22 miles now and they're getting into a more compact area again. Coming up is an intersection he knows well: he goes through it every day on his way to work. Even on Sunday it will be clogged. He forms a plan quickly: if the light is in his favor, he'll go through it and keep going, hoping to find police in a more populated area. If the light is against him, he'll turn right, and make for the plant where he works on Chantilly Road.
The light stays red. Gary cuts hard right, heading for what he hopes will be the sanctuary of the workplace. Behind him, he can see that the pursuers haven't given up an inch. "I've got my pass card through the gates and the front door," he tells his fiancee urgently. "We'll get into the building and we can hide. They can't find us. We'll call the cops from there."
He pulls into the front area of the plant, the automatic mechanism taking an achingly long time to raise the gate. As the gate opens, the pursuing truck comes to a stop behind his, both men jumping out and running to Gary's Ford, their hands clawing at his door handles. He guns the engine and gels away from them, sweeping up to the front door and locking up the brakes in a skid.
The plant is Heckler and Koch.
Gary Fadden is a salesman for HK, and along with the rest of their firearms, he sells machine guns. In the truck with him is a competitor's weapon he has acquired to test, a Ruger AC556, the selective-fire assault version of the .223 Mini-14. He grabs it now as he throws open the truck door, hoping to hold them off at gunpoint. Gary knows his fiancee can't make it to the building's door now, and he screams to her to get down on the floor of the Ford.
The Shooting
The passenger is running toward him, an average size man in ratty clothes with stringy hair, a long beard, and an expression of absolute rage.
The selector switch and manual safety of the AC556 are in two different locations. Gary has not yet fired this weapon and, though he has taken off the safety, he doesn't know whether the switch is set for semi, three-shot burst, or full auto. He yells "Stop or I'll shoot," points the muzzle upward, and pulls the trigger for a warning shot.
The weapon is set on full automatic. Everything is going into deep slow motion, and Gary is aware that the Ruger spits a burst of nine shots before he can get his finger back off the trigger.
There is no effect whatsoever. The attacker is still running at him, perhaps ten yards away and closing fast, reaching for knives at his belt with each hand. The assailant screams, "F*** you and your high powered rifle! I'm gonna kill you motherf***ers!"
And Gary Fadden has run out of time. He lowers the Ruger, points it at the charging knifer, and pulls the trigger one more time. in the ethereal slow motion of profound tachypsychia, Gary can see the spent .223 shells arcing lazily out of the mechanism. He stops the burst, aware that six shots have been fired, as the man in front of him falls heavily to the ground.
Gary moves quickly, putting a big brick planter between himself and the onrushing pickup as cover. The truck stops and the driver, the larger of the two bearded men, shrieks. "F*** you! You killed one of the brothers! You shot him, you motherf***er!" Gary's weapon is level and ready, but this time instead of waving the revolver, the man looks as if he's trying to hide it in the cab of his truck. Gary can see now that the third person in the truck, the one who has always stayed in the cab, is a woman.
And then, the police are there. "They've got guns," Gary shouts to the officers disgorging from two patrol cars. He sets his rifle down and steps back as the officers swarm the pickup truck, taking the surviving man and woman into custody. In a moment, a cop is standing with Gary. "I did it," Gary says. The cop answers, "Did what?" "I shot that man." The officer picks up the AC556. "It's loaded," Gary warns, "Do you want me to unload it'?" The policeman answers. "No, I'll do it. Why don't you sit down?"
Gary Fadden sits on the curb. For a moment, it seems as if the whole bizarre nightmare is over. Unfortunately, it has only begun.
Aftermath
The man he had shot. Billy "Too Loose" Hamilton, was dead. He had been hit by all six rounds of Winchester 55 grain FMJ, headstamped "'WCC81." One bullet had struck behind the lateral midline in the instant that he turned away from the gunfire, taking out a chunk of his spine as is skidded across his back from side to side. This would be interpreted later by the prosecutor as having been "shot in the back."
The partner, who went by the name of "Papa Zoot," had gotten his weapons out of his hands by the time police arrived. In the front of the five-year-old Chevy pickup that had chased Fadden for more than 20 miles, police found a .22 auto pistol and a four-inch Smith & Wesson L-frame .357 Magnum. The revolver had three live and three empty cartridges in the cylinder. More fired brass was on the floor, and a plastic bag with more live ammo was open on the seat. Though Fadden heard no shots and no bullets hit his truck, he was convinced then and now that they were shooting at him during the chase.
Hamilton's two knives, a Schrade folding hunter and a nondescript fixed blade, were found with his corpse.
Gary Fadden was arrested that night and charged with 1st degree murder. His family raised $60,000 bail. He hired DC attorney Gerry Treanor to defend him. Treanor, at Gary's request, retained John Farnam and I as expert witnesses. Today, Gary remembers, "Two prosecutors wouldn't touch it until the third took it. It was all political because of the automatic weapon."
The weeklong trial took place in October of 1984. Word had reached Gary that Papa Zoot had bought a .30/06 rifle and sworn a "blood oath" to kill him. I was driving toward Fairfax County when I got the message from Gary's lawyer that John and I wouldn't be needed because the prosecution had self-destructed.
On the stand, Papa Zoot and the woman had testified that Gary had tried to run their biker brother off the road, and they had just followed 22 miles to get his license tag. Defense lawyer Treanor took them apart on cross-examination. An undercover detective broke his cover to testify that the deceased and Papa Zoot "put a bomb in my car, they like to rough people up." The prosecutor made such a show of waving the machine gun that the judge made a point of instructing the jury that the death weapon had nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the shooting was self-defense. The jury learned that Gary purchased the AC-556 personally and that it was perfectly legal to possess the weapon.
By the start of trial, the charge had been dropped to second-degree murder, and as the trial collapsed around the prosecutor's ears, he offered a plea to manslaughter, which Gary flatly rejected. At the end, when it was announced that the jury had found Gary Fadden Not Guilty on all counts, Fadden recalls that the self-same prosecutor snapped--in open court, in front of Gary's mother--"'You've let a murderer loose!"
"'H&K protected me," says Gary. "They picked up the tab for about half of my legal bills, and got all the publicity for it, until I quit a few years later. Florian Deltgen (at that time CEO at HK) told me after an argument with the vice president that one or the other of us probably had to go, and the vice president wasn't going anywhere. I accepted a job offer from Beretta USA and then resigned from H&K. Deltgen stuck me with the remaining bill, which I paid off at 10% interest." The bill had amounted to more than $45,000. Gary was 34 years old before he had paid everything back.
Dr. Deltgen is no longer with Heckler and Koch.
Lessons
Have communication. In 1984, only the rich had phones in their cars. Today, Gary Fadden is never without a charged-up cell phone. He knows that if he'd had one that day he could have called the police, who would have been able to interdict his pursuers before the thing became a killing situation.
Flight can trigger pursuit. Prey that flees inflames the pursuit instinct of predators. This is why we teach our children never to run from snarling dogs. Gary Fadden did what society told him to do when facing criminals: he ran. They chased. By the time they caught up with him, Billy Hamilton was in such a rage to kill that he could not be deterred.
Understand how deterrence really works. Papa Zoot and Too Loose had guns and ammo and knives in their truck with them. In Gary's truck were a Remington Nylon 66.22 rifle (for plinking, and never touched during the incident), a 9mm HK VP70Z pistol, and the AC556 with enough ammo for perhaps tour full magazines. None were loaded at the start. The pistol was loaded and placed in the console during the chase, and the rifle was at that point loaded and placed conspicuously on the dashboard by Gary in hopes that it would deter file pursuit. It did not.
When Gary Fadden stepped out of his new Ford at the climax of the chase, most of us would have seen him as an intimidating presence. The man stands six feet eight and weighed 260 pounds at the time, and he was holding a machine gun. His pursuers were unimpressed.
Later identified as belonging to one of the "big four" outlaw motorcycle clubs, Too Loose and Papa Zoot were members of an armed subculture themselves. They did not fear guns. Zoot was about 6'4" and 240 himself, and neither man feared big guys dressed like something off the cover of an L.L. Bean catalog. It is critical to understand this: Criminals don't fear guns. Criminals fear resolutely armed men or women they believe will actually shoot them.
22 miles of running away from them had left these wolves convinced that they were dealing with a large sheep, not the sharp-fanged sheepdog Gary Fadden turned out to be. Testimony that "they liked to rough people up" shows that they had a lot of ego invested in brutalizing others. Perhaps Hamilton, in his last moment on earth, took Fadden's warning burst as an indication of unwillingness to shoot him. Toxicology screen after death showed Hamilton to have a .19% blood alcohol content. This is a level of intoxication consistent with inhibitions being at their lowest. Gary Fadden sums it up today, "The mouse had run, and the cat was loose. Physical size was no deterrent. The gun was no deterrent with these people. If you pull a gun, you'd better be ready to use it."
Politically incorrect "assault weapons" make politically incorrect defendants. Though he didn't say it in so many words, prosecutor Jack Robbins' case against Fadden seemed to be, "I say, Muffy, people of breeding simply don't shoot criminals with machine guns in Fairfax County! Now, had he used a civilized weapon like a Browning Superposed ... and preferably shot him on the rise ... "
You and I know that Class III holders are the ultimate "card carrying good guys and gals." That particular card says they have been investigated for six months by the Federal government and been found trustworthy to possess machine guns. Unfortunately, most of the public in the jury pool, and most politically motivated prosecutors, don't know that. Every self-defense shooting I've run across with a Class III weapon, however justified, has at the very least ended with the shooter facing a grand jury. Asked what he thinks would have happened if he'd shot Hamilton with a Remington 870 Wingmaster instead, Fadden replies with certainty, "I would have gone home that night. I've told dozens of people since, 'Do not use a Class III weapon for personal defense."' Today, the guns Gary is likely to have in his car have neutral images: an M-1 .30 carbine, and a 10mm Glock 20 pistol.
Be there for your friends. It was stunning how many people he had trusted shunned Gary after the shooting, and particularly, after his indictment. He cherishes those who stood beside him through the ordeal, particularly Jim Stone and Rick DeMilt and, most particularly, knife-maker Al Mar.
Much later, after his AC556 had been returned to him by the courts, Gary gave that gun to Al Mar, another man who appreciated a fine weapon of any kind. On its stock was a brass plate engraved "To Al Mar, Because You Understand."
Gary says, "For twenty years now, I've cherished every morning I've gotten up, because I earned every moment of my life. I fought for it."
After Al Mar's death, Gary Fadden scraped up the money to buy his knife business, and he is CEO of Al Mar Knives to this day. One good man carrying on the work of another. It seems fitting.
The Ayoob Files: "F*** You and Your Automatic Rifle!" - The Gary Fadden incident...
Situation: A road-rage incident escalates into a deadly pursuit.
Lesson: Keep communications as handy as your gun. Bad guys fear resolutely armed people, not weapons. Remember that full auto can stop a fight--but start an indictment.
It's amazing how often a criminal will say something unbelievably stupid just before he forces a decent citizen to kill him. For many years I've been piecing together a book subtitled "Famous Last Words of Scumbags." The working title will come from the most memorable such incident: "F*** You and Your Automatic Rifle!"
The shooter was Gary Fadden. The incident took place some 20 years ago. Only now is Gary comfortable speaking of it, in hopes that others may learn from lessons that cost him very deeply.
The Incident
Sunday, February 24, 1984, approximately 2 PM. Gary Fadden, 26, and his lovely 22 year old fiancee are driving from a birthday party in Martinsburg, WV, into Virginia to look at some property for what they hope will be their starter home after their marriage. It's a bitterly cold day, and with the winter coats in the back of a new '84 Ford F-250 supercab 4WD diesel pickup, the Pendleton-clad Fadden looks from a distance like a harmless Yuppie. That means he and the pretty brunette look like prey to another kind of person.
Heading east on Rt. 50, they are passed by a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with two people astride, the operator cutting in front of him so sharply that he has to brake suddenly. Gary comments to his fiancee how cold they must be riding a bike on a low 30s day, and that driving as carelessly as he is, the cyclist needs to worry about sudden patches of ice.
A few minutes later, he spots a Chevy pickup in his rearview mirrors. It contains three people. One passenger is gesturing to him to pull over. Gary doesn't know what these scruffy guys want and he ignores them. But then he sees the passenger waving a knife, and the driver bringing up a revolver.
Gary says to his fiancee, in what will probably be the understatement of his life, "We've got a bit of a problem here."
Pursuit
It is 1984, long before the universal coming of cell phones, and there is no other communications in the vehicle. They are entering Middleburg, a town of perhaps 800, and stop at a red light. Behind them, Gary can see both males exit their truck and run toward him. The driver's hand is actually on Gary's door handle when he pops the clutch and sends his new truck screeching through the intersection against the light. The two men run back to their older pickup, and the chase is on.
They're almost on his bumper. Gary accelerates, hitting open road now, zig-zagging between reaching 95 miles an hour when the speed governor cuts in. Not only are the pursuers keeping pace but he sees the driver aiming a revolver at him out his window. Honking his horn and flashing his lights when he runs into a cluster of automobiles, passing them sometimes on the shoulder of the road and spraying rooster-tails of gravel, Gary still cannot elude the truck behind him.
Gary is desperately looking for a police car he can flag down. He doesn't see one. The chase has gone for 22 miles now and they're getting into a more compact area again. Coming up is an intersection he knows well: he goes through it every day on his way to work. Even on Sunday it will be clogged. He forms a plan quickly: if the light is in his favor, he'll go through it and keep going, hoping to find police in a more populated area. If the light is against him, he'll turn right, and make for the plant where he works on Chantilly Road.
The light stays red. Gary cuts hard right, heading for what he hopes will be the sanctuary of the workplace. Behind him, he can see that the pursuers haven't given up an inch. "I've got my pass card through the gates and the front door," he tells his fiancee urgently. "We'll get into the building and we can hide. They can't find us. We'll call the cops from there."
He pulls into the front area of the plant, the automatic mechanism taking an achingly long time to raise the gate. As the gate opens, the pursuing truck comes to a stop behind his, both men jumping out and running to Gary's Ford, their hands clawing at his door handles. He guns the engine and gels away from them, sweeping up to the front door and locking up the brakes in a skid.
The plant is Heckler and Koch.
Gary Fadden is a salesman for HK, and along with the rest of their firearms, he sells machine guns. In the truck with him is a competitor's weapon he has acquired to test, a Ruger AC556, the selective-fire assault version of the .223 Mini-14. He grabs it now as he throws open the truck door, hoping to hold them off at gunpoint. Gary knows his fiancee can't make it to the building's door now, and he screams to her to get down on the floor of the Ford.
The Shooting
The passenger is running toward him, an average size man in ratty clothes with stringy hair, a long beard, and an expression of absolute rage.
The selector switch and manual safety of the AC556 are in two different locations. Gary has not yet fired this weapon and, though he has taken off the safety, he doesn't know whether the switch is set for semi, three-shot burst, or full auto. He yells "Stop or I'll shoot," points the muzzle upward, and pulls the trigger for a warning shot.
The weapon is set on full automatic. Everything is going into deep slow motion, and Gary is aware that the Ruger spits a burst of nine shots before he can get his finger back off the trigger.
There is no effect whatsoever. The attacker is still running at him, perhaps ten yards away and closing fast, reaching for knives at his belt with each hand. The assailant screams, "F*** you and your high powered rifle! I'm gonna kill you motherf***ers!"
And Gary Fadden has run out of time. He lowers the Ruger, points it at the charging knifer, and pulls the trigger one more time. in the ethereal slow motion of profound tachypsychia, Gary can see the spent .223 shells arcing lazily out of the mechanism. He stops the burst, aware that six shots have been fired, as the man in front of him falls heavily to the ground.
Gary moves quickly, putting a big brick planter between himself and the onrushing pickup as cover. The truck stops and the driver, the larger of the two bearded men, shrieks. "F*** you! You killed one of the brothers! You shot him, you motherf***er!" Gary's weapon is level and ready, but this time instead of waving the revolver, the man looks as if he's trying to hide it in the cab of his truck. Gary can see now that the third person in the truck, the one who has always stayed in the cab, is a woman.
And then, the police are there. "They've got guns," Gary shouts to the officers disgorging from two patrol cars. He sets his rifle down and steps back as the officers swarm the pickup truck, taking the surviving man and woman into custody. In a moment, a cop is standing with Gary. "I did it," Gary says. The cop answers, "Did what?" "I shot that man." The officer picks up the AC556. "It's loaded," Gary warns, "Do you want me to unload it'?" The policeman answers. "No, I'll do it. Why don't you sit down?"
Gary Fadden sits on the curb. For a moment, it seems as if the whole bizarre nightmare is over. Unfortunately, it has only begun.
Aftermath
The man he had shot. Billy "Too Loose" Hamilton, was dead. He had been hit by all six rounds of Winchester 55 grain FMJ, headstamped "'WCC81." One bullet had struck behind the lateral midline in the instant that he turned away from the gunfire, taking out a chunk of his spine as is skidded across his back from side to side. This would be interpreted later by the prosecutor as having been "shot in the back."
The partner, who went by the name of "Papa Zoot," had gotten his weapons out of his hands by the time police arrived. In the front of the five-year-old Chevy pickup that had chased Fadden for more than 20 miles, police found a .22 auto pistol and a four-inch Smith & Wesson L-frame .357 Magnum. The revolver had three live and three empty cartridges in the cylinder. More fired brass was on the floor, and a plastic bag with more live ammo was open on the seat. Though Fadden heard no shots and no bullets hit his truck, he was convinced then and now that they were shooting at him during the chase.
Hamilton's two knives, a Schrade folding hunter and a nondescript fixed blade, were found with his corpse.
Gary Fadden was arrested that night and charged with 1st degree murder. His family raised $60,000 bail. He hired DC attorney Gerry Treanor to defend him. Treanor, at Gary's request, retained John Farnam and I as expert witnesses. Today, Gary remembers, "Two prosecutors wouldn't touch it until the third took it. It was all political because of the automatic weapon."
The weeklong trial took place in October of 1984. Word had reached Gary that Papa Zoot had bought a .30/06 rifle and sworn a "blood oath" to kill him. I was driving toward Fairfax County when I got the message from Gary's lawyer that John and I wouldn't be needed because the prosecution had self-destructed.
On the stand, Papa Zoot and the woman had testified that Gary had tried to run their biker brother off the road, and they had just followed 22 miles to get his license tag. Defense lawyer Treanor took them apart on cross-examination. An undercover detective broke his cover to testify that the deceased and Papa Zoot "put a bomb in my car, they like to rough people up." The prosecutor made such a show of waving the machine gun that the judge made a point of instructing the jury that the death weapon had nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the shooting was self-defense. The jury learned that Gary purchased the AC-556 personally and that it was perfectly legal to possess the weapon.
By the start of trial, the charge had been dropped to second-degree murder, and as the trial collapsed around the prosecutor's ears, he offered a plea to manslaughter, which Gary flatly rejected. At the end, when it was announced that the jury had found Gary Fadden Not Guilty on all counts, Fadden recalls that the self-same prosecutor snapped--in open court, in front of Gary's mother--"'You've let a murderer loose!"
"'H&K protected me," says Gary. "They picked up the tab for about half of my legal bills, and got all the publicity for it, until I quit a few years later. Florian Deltgen (at that time CEO at HK) told me after an argument with the vice president that one or the other of us probably had to go, and the vice president wasn't going anywhere. I accepted a job offer from Beretta USA and then resigned from H&K. Deltgen stuck me with the remaining bill, which I paid off at 10% interest." The bill had amounted to more than $45,000. Gary was 34 years old before he had paid everything back.
Dr. Deltgen is no longer with Heckler and Koch.
Lessons
Have communication. In 1984, only the rich had phones in their cars. Today, Gary Fadden is never without a charged-up cell phone. He knows that if he'd had one that day he could have called the police, who would have been able to interdict his pursuers before the thing became a killing situation.
Flight can trigger pursuit. Prey that flees inflames the pursuit instinct of predators. This is why we teach our children never to run from snarling dogs. Gary Fadden did what society told him to do when facing criminals: he ran. They chased. By the time they caught up with him, Billy Hamilton was in such a rage to kill that he could not be deterred.
Understand how deterrence really works. Papa Zoot and Too Loose had guns and ammo and knives in their truck with them. In Gary's truck were a Remington Nylon 66.22 rifle (for plinking, and never touched during the incident), a 9mm HK VP70Z pistol, and the AC556 with enough ammo for perhaps tour full magazines. None were loaded at the start. The pistol was loaded and placed in the console during the chase, and the rifle was at that point loaded and placed conspicuously on the dashboard by Gary in hopes that it would deter file pursuit. It did not.
When Gary Fadden stepped out of his new Ford at the climax of the chase, most of us would have seen him as an intimidating presence. The man stands six feet eight and weighed 260 pounds at the time, and he was holding a machine gun. His pursuers were unimpressed.
Later identified as belonging to one of the "big four" outlaw motorcycle clubs, Too Loose and Papa Zoot were members of an armed subculture themselves. They did not fear guns. Zoot was about 6'4" and 240 himself, and neither man feared big guys dressed like something off the cover of an L.L. Bean catalog. It is critical to understand this: Criminals don't fear guns. Criminals fear resolutely armed men or women they believe will actually shoot them.
22 miles of running away from them had left these wolves convinced that they were dealing with a large sheep, not the sharp-fanged sheepdog Gary Fadden turned out to be. Testimony that "they liked to rough people up" shows that they had a lot of ego invested in brutalizing others. Perhaps Hamilton, in his last moment on earth, took Fadden's warning burst as an indication of unwillingness to shoot him. Toxicology screen after death showed Hamilton to have a .19% blood alcohol content. This is a level of intoxication consistent with inhibitions being at their lowest. Gary Fadden sums it up today, "The mouse had run, and the cat was loose. Physical size was no deterrent. The gun was no deterrent with these people. If you pull a gun, you'd better be ready to use it."
Politically incorrect "assault weapons" make politically incorrect defendants. Though he didn't say it in so many words, prosecutor Jack Robbins' case against Fadden seemed to be, "I say, Muffy, people of breeding simply don't shoot criminals with machine guns in Fairfax County! Now, had he used a civilized weapon like a Browning Superposed ... and preferably shot him on the rise ... "
You and I know that Class III holders are the ultimate "card carrying good guys and gals." That particular card says they have been investigated for six months by the Federal government and been found trustworthy to possess machine guns. Unfortunately, most of the public in the jury pool, and most politically motivated prosecutors, don't know that. Every self-defense shooting I've run across with a Class III weapon, however justified, has at the very least ended with the shooter facing a grand jury. Asked what he thinks would have happened if he'd shot Hamilton with a Remington 870 Wingmaster instead, Fadden replies with certainty, "I would have gone home that night. I've told dozens of people since, 'Do not use a Class III weapon for personal defense."' Today, the guns Gary is likely to have in his car have neutral images: an M-1 .30 carbine, and a 10mm Glock 20 pistol.
Be there for your friends. It was stunning how many people he had trusted shunned Gary after the shooting, and particularly, after his indictment. He cherishes those who stood beside him through the ordeal, particularly Jim Stone and Rick DeMilt and, most particularly, knife-maker Al Mar.
Much later, after his AC556 had been returned to him by the courts, Gary gave that gun to Al Mar, another man who appreciated a fine weapon of any kind. On its stock was a brass plate engraved "To Al Mar, Because You Understand."
Gary says, "For twenty years now, I've cherished every morning I've gotten up, because I earned every moment of my life. I fought for it."
After Al Mar's death, Gary Fadden scraped up the money to buy his knife business, and he is CEO of Al Mar Knives to this day. One good man carrying on the work of another. It seems fitting.
Whoever said homes are different from your vehicle needs to read the Castle Doctrine in states like Florida.
Cliffs Notes; They're not; the only difference is you have to be in your car.
This became a thing when the burden of proof was taken away from you having to prove someone meant to harm you and instead placed it on the criminal now having to prove (if they lived) that they were just going to commit basic theft and not harm you.
The example that was actually used in Florida was someone sitting in their car and a guy halfway comes through the passanger side window, into your vehicle to just steal your CD case. Castle Doctrine applied, and he now has to prove he was ONLY there to steal your CDs and not harm you; yet you have zero duty to retreat in your vehicle and it would be a lawful shooting.
Cliffs Notes; They're not; the only difference is you have to be in your car.
This became a thing when the burden of proof was taken away from you having to prove someone meant to harm you and instead placed it on the criminal now having to prove (if they lived) that they were just going to commit basic theft and not harm you.
The example that was actually used in Florida was someone sitting in their car and a guy halfway comes through the passanger side window, into your vehicle to just steal your CD case. Castle Doctrine applied, and he now has to prove he was ONLY there to steal your CDs and not harm you; yet you have zero duty to retreat in your vehicle and it would be a lawful shooting.
Two seperate things. I was answering the conceptuality comment for the car. What you leave behind in it is a differen animal. Then again, you leave guns behind in your house too.
For the odd chance I have to leave a pistol in the car, I have a solid steel sliding lock box under my seat that you'd have better luck taking my lug nuts off barehanded than you would getting to it/getting it open.
You seem like a clever feller. Can you help me find the 'Not Like' button. I need to use it on all of your posts.
Wish I had my Mk18 mod 1 just driving around town yesterday dealing with all the dumb fucks on the road. One guy decided to nearly stop in the middle of the freeway presumably because he missed his exit.
Also Just saw some fucking social justice warrior on local news talk about how he plans lead protests against Las Vegas’ ban on homeless sleeping on the street by trying to stop freeway and road traffic (I live in Vegas).
Yep, a Mk18 truck gun is starting to look like a really good idea.
Also Just saw some fucking social justice warrior on local news talk about how he plans lead protests against Las Vegas’ ban on homeless sleeping on the street by trying to stop freeway and road traffic (I live in Vegas).
Yep, a Mk18 truck gun is starting to look like a really good idea.
To deliver "justice" as you see fit? Or to defend your country, and loved ones, against true evil? Everyone gets road rage; stay the fuck off the road. Same shitbags trying to steal my car; well, truck gun it is.
Just bought a ballistic advantage 10.5” FSB barrel on sale for $150.
Any tips on making a 10.5 run smoothly?
Any tips on making a 10.5 run smoothly?
If you can, install an adjustable gas block...SLR makes a nice one...I have syrac and like them but they are out of business.
Okay, I need to preface this with the fact that I got out of the Army a looong time ago, and I'm old enough to remember when an operator was the nice lady on the phone that would help you complete your call. BUT, if you see a roadblock up ahead, wouldn't it be smarter to just turn around and go the other way?
As to a 10.5" AR? Sure, why not?
A properly executed TCP will seize anyone that turns around. And will locate it so that you are caught in traffic and can’t turn around when you realize what it is. We are a long way from anyone but the state operating that effectively in the US.
Some may read John Mosby’s blog, he is ex mil door kicker and says he knows of dozens of kills over 500 meters with 10.5s. The right ammo certainly helps.
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That won’t do you any good when you encounter a roadblock of Karen’s demanding to speak to your manager.
Remember, a mk18 in the hand (or jammed between the seat and center console) is worth two in the tennis bag.
Maybe, but one anywhere in the car, if you happen to need it, is better than anything at home. I suspect that in most cases, you can divert the car to buy a little time.
^ what you gonna do when the antifa road blockers or ghetto jackers are wearing body armor? Gonna be shit out of luck with the wonder nine
This thread made me buy a 103” Geiselle upper. Hope it’s everything people say it is
This thread made me buy a 103” Geiselle upper. Hope it’s everything people say it is
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Pick your ammunition well and your enemies may find that not all "affordable" body armour works as advertised.......
He's gonna shoot them in the dick then canoe the motherfuckers like he was trained to.
A Mk18 will be insufficient for your needs whilst in the truck. Please consider a potentially better solution (note, some minor fabrication and alterations to your truck may be required)
Edit: It’s only a little bigger than @deersniper ’s Geissele upper and packs a much bigger wallop
Edit: It’s only a little bigger than @deersniper ’s Geissele upper and packs a much bigger wallop
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