The long strange trip of a Singaporean Cold-War-era assault rifle into the hands of Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, and what it reveals about the unintended consequences of the global trade in small arms and ammunition.
[slnyt]
posted by killdevil
on Jan 26, 2012 -
9 comments
Machine guns still firing, 70 years later. The BBC's Dan Snow joins in an dig in Ireland to uncover a Spitfire mk2, hoping to find one o the machine guns in reasonable conditions. They find six, and then it's time to see if they still work.
Okay so they stripped the six to rebuild just one good one, and used modern .303 calibre ammo as opposed to the ammo in the ground, but hey. 70 years and still spitting fire. Of course the WWII in me will point out that the mk V's Hispano cannons were far more effective, but hey, that's not romantic enough for a modern news bulletin.
posted by ewan
on Nov 10, 2011 -
19 comments
Badass Lego Guns, a short YouTube video (1.55) showing five working guns built from instructions from the book of the same name by Martin Hudepohl.
[more inside]
posted by bwg
on Jan 27, 2011 -
18 comments
"I have kinds of mortars; most convenient and easy to carry; and with these I can fling small stones almost resembling a storm; and with the smoke of these cause great terror to the enemy, to his great detriment and confusion. [...] I have means by secret and tortuous mines and ways, made without noise, to reach a designated spot, even if it were needed to pass under a trench or a river. I will make covered chariots, safe and unattackable, which, entering among the enemy with their artillery, there is no body of men so great but they would break them. And behind these, infantry could follow quite unhurt and without any hindrance."
Leonardo da Vinci's cocky, violent resume
posted by not_the_water
on May 18, 2010 -
27 comments
Though President Obama has signed no laws since taking office that prohibit gun purchases and ownership, that hasn't stopped permit applications and weapons sales in the United States from rising through the roof and worried state legislators from
passing laws they wouldn't otherwise pass, which greatly ease access and allow carrying weapons in, among other public areas, city, state and
national parks. Schools may have to
get their kids prepared.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Feb 23, 2010 -
102 comments
UnNerfed - the Nerf dart blaster overclocked to 500 rounds per minute.
posted by Artw
on Dec 22, 2008 -
38 comments
The single-shot Palm Pistol... The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has accepted a conceptual, ergonomic 9mm handgun — designed for people crippled by arthritis, muscular dystrophy, or similar conditions that render them too weak to operate normal handguns — as a Class 1 Medical Device.... doctors could eventually write prescriptions for it and then be reimbursed by Medicare.
posted by blaneyphoto
on Dec 8, 2008 -
61 comments
What happens when a US President declares war on a concept? In 1964, Canadian photojournalist Hugh O'Connor traveled to eastern Kentucky to document the battlefields of Lyndon Johnson's
war on poverty and was shot for trespassing.
The incident is the subject of a wonderful documentary,
Stranger with a Camera by filmmaker
Elizabeth Barrett, produced by
Appalshop, a non-profit organization in Whitesburg, Kentucky, that works with local artists to promote self-representation in media and the expediency of culture to counteract a stagnating local economy.
Makes you think twice about
nostalgic representations of poor Appalachian coal miners plucking their banjo strings in the hollers, doesn't it?
posted by billtron
on Apr 15, 2008 -
14 comments
Black , the final entry in Adidas'
Adicolor short film campaign., is seriously messed up, with a fish and a panda playing russian roulette. Also featuring Pink, Red, Blue, White, and Yellow. (
via)
posted by blue_beetle
on May 12, 2006 -
25 comments
Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.
Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel
posted by y2karl
on Nov 22, 2005 -
134 comments
