using the pistol grip and not the stock, but you're not looking for precision. This is the gun you want when you need to walk into a room and tear everything apart in a couple of heartbeats."
"I suppose the same caveat that applied to the little revolver applies to the shotgun," I said.
"If you can't do the deed with five loads of buckshot, I'll eat my boots and my hat."
The second long gun was a rifle with a short, overly thick barrel, a folding stock, and a small, sophisticated-looking telescopic sight. A small lever with a round knob reminded me of a deer rifle, but the overall impression was something a lot more menacing and dangerous.
"This is a custom-built weapon based on a little-known beauty called the DeLisle Commando Carbine. It's a bolt-action rifle that fires subsonic forty-five caliber pistol ammunition, and the barrel is actually fitted with a integrated suppressor that's second to none. British Commando units during World War Two would use the originals to silently kill German sentries and perform other clandestine assignments. While it's not completely silent, within an urban sniping environment like you're likely to work in, you'll be able to take shots out to a hundred meters and your targets won't hear a thing except their brains hitting the sidewalk."
"I'm assuming you mean that figuratively?" I joked.
"Kid, I'd clock you with this thing, but I don't want to damage it."
The last weapon was something I finally recognized from countless ‘80s action movies; the Uzi. Although my parents had never approved of mindless violence on television, they were gone from the house so often that as a teenager I absorbed more than my fill of Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Sylvester Stallone mowing down bad guys by the dozens with Uzis. My recognition of the gun was immediately obvious to Richard.
“I’m guessing you already know what this is; the Uzi nine-millimeter submachine gun. This weapon is blowback operated, fires from an open bolt, with a thirty-two round magazine and a folding stock. The design may be fifty years old, but this little chatterbox can still be found all over the world, burning brass and filling graves.”
“Not that I care, but isn’t illegal to own one of those?” I asked.
Richard shook his head. “It’s not illegal as long as you’ve got the right paperwork filled out and you meet all the other requirements and pay the proper fees. Of course, this beauty has never been seen by a U.S. government official; she was smuggled into the States probably twenty or thirty years ago. Been living in a crate ever since.”
I pointed at the suppressors for the two pistols, as well as the DeLisle and the foot-long suppressor for the Uzi.
“All of those, they’re also illegal, aren’t they?” I asked.
Richard shook his head again. “They can be owned legally, with the right forms. They’re almost impossible to regulate, anyway. Any half-decent machinist with the necessary tools could make the parts needed to construct a suppressor. There's dozens of little garage businesses around the country that could make one with a little work. That's how I got these," he explained.
"Those people can’t get away with it, can they?" I asked.
Richard shrugged. "It's a big country and the sorts of people who do this for a living have a dim view of Big Brother and its habit of covering everything in red tape. Besides, these guys are the same sorts who take pride in living off the grid if possible, folks whose granddaddies ran their own backwoods moonshine stills and fought it out with the revenue bureau. Mostly a law-abiding sort, but the law they abide by isn't always the same law as the government wants them adhering to, and that's when you get into some sticky situations."
"So there’s a whole black market being supplied by backwoods gun factories building these things?" I asked.
"You got it. God bless capitalism and free-market enterprise.”
SEVEN
The next
"I suppose the same caveat that applied to the little revolver applies to the shotgun," I said.
"If you can't do the deed with five loads of buckshot, I'll eat my boots and my hat."
The second long gun was a rifle with a short, overly thick barrel, a folding stock, and a small, sophisticated-looking telescopic sight. A small lever with a round knob reminded me of a deer rifle, but the overall impression was something a lot more menacing and dangerous.
"This is a custom-built weapon based on a little-known beauty called the DeLisle Commando Carbine. It's a bolt-action rifle that fires subsonic forty-five caliber pistol ammunition, and the barrel is actually fitted with a integrated suppressor that's second to none. British Commando units during World War Two would use the originals to silently kill German sentries and perform other clandestine assignments. While it's not completely silent, within an urban sniping environment like you're likely to work in, you'll be able to take shots out to a hundred meters and your targets won't hear a thing except their brains hitting the sidewalk."
"I'm assuming you mean that figuratively?" I joked.
"Kid, I'd clock you with this thing, but I don't want to damage it."
The last weapon was something I finally recognized from countless ‘80s action movies; the Uzi. Although my parents had never approved of mindless violence on television, they were gone from the house so often that as a teenager I absorbed more than my fill of Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Sylvester Stallone mowing down bad guys by the dozens with Uzis. My recognition of the gun was immediately obvious to Richard.
“I’m guessing you already know what this is; the Uzi nine-millimeter submachine gun. This weapon is blowback operated, fires from an open bolt, with a thirty-two round magazine and a folding stock. The design may be fifty years old, but this little chatterbox can still be found all over the world, burning brass and filling graves.”
“Not that I care, but isn’t illegal to own one of those?” I asked.
Richard shook his head. “It’s not illegal as long as you’ve got the right paperwork filled out and you meet all the other requirements and pay the proper fees. Of course, this beauty has never been seen by a U.S. government official; she was smuggled into the States probably twenty or thirty years ago. Been living in a crate ever since.”
I pointed at the suppressors for the two pistols, as well as the DeLisle and the foot-long suppressor for the Uzi.
“All of those, they’re also illegal, aren’t they?” I asked.
Richard shook his head again. “They can be owned legally, with the right forms. They’re almost impossible to regulate, anyway. Any half-decent machinist with the necessary tools could make the parts needed to construct a suppressor. There's dozens of little garage businesses around the country that could make one with a little work. That's how I got these," he explained.
"Those people can’t get away with it, can they?" I asked.
Richard shrugged. "It's a big country and the sorts of people who do this for a living have a dim view of Big Brother and its habit of covering everything in red tape. Besides, these guys are the same sorts who take pride in living off the grid if possible, folks whose granddaddies ran their own backwoods moonshine stills and fought it out with the revenue bureau. Mostly a law-abiding sort, but the law they abide by isn't always the same law as the government wants them adhering to, and that's when you get into some sticky situations."
"So there’s a whole black market being supplied by backwoods gun factories building these things?" I asked.
"You got it. God bless capitalism and free-market enterprise.”
SEVEN
The next
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