“Professor Raoul X”

My good friend Liston Matthews of Goodhill Press reminded me of a story by Matt Bracken. It is part of Bracken’s The Bracken Collection: Essays and Short Fiction 2010 to 2019.

The story entitled, “Professor Raoul X”, involves a seemingly non-descript sociology professor at a school in the Midwest. He is described as a life-long bachelor who has a secret life. That secret life is as the “guiding hand” to deranged young men. He finds them through classroom discussions where he encourages his own students to tell him about “the weirdest people they’ve ever known.” The good professor then seeks them out and lends them a receptive ear eventually guiding them towards committing unspeakable acts of violence.

He doesn’t really care what is the focus of the young man’s hate. It could be capitalism, socialism, nationalism, or any other ism. As he notes that “generalized mayhem is also a worthy end in itself.”

What brought this story to Liston’s mind and thence to mine was the murderous rampage in Highland Park, Illinois by a young, deranged man. He would fit right in as a subject of Professor Raoul X’s “guiding hand”. I read the story a few years ago and it really came back to me.

I am not saying there was any sort of conspiracy involved in Highland Park. However, the line between fiction and reality is certainly blurred. The coincidences are there. Young man, check; loner, check; mental issues, check; and the list goes on.

If you have not read Bracken’s anthology, I would urge you to read it. It is $3.99 to buy or free with Kindle Unlimited subscription. There are a lot of other good stories in it as well as some very practical instruction. For example, his instructions on how to make duplexed AR mags is quite useful. I have a couple I made myself and they work well. A Magpul drum mag is over $100. You can get 60 rounds here for the price of two GI mags, some duct tape, and a pencil.

Is That Like Double Secret Probation?

Not wasting any time in not letting a tragedy go to waste, there have been renewed calls for more gun control after the murders in Boulder, Colorado. The usual suspects have weighed in as has President Biden.

President Biden is calling on the Senate to pass both so-called universal background checks and an assault weapons (sic).

President Biden on Tuesday implored the Senate to pass new gun control measures in the wake of a mass shooting that left 10 dead in Boulder, Colorado, this week.

Biden said he didn’t “want to wait another minute, let alone an hour,” to act on gun violence.

He urged the House and Senate to ban “assault weapons,” as he said he did as a senator.

“I got that done as a senator. It brought down mass shootings, we can do it again,” Biden said. “We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again.”…

The president also called on the Senate to pass two House bills that closed loopholes on background checks, including the Charleston loophole.

“These are bills that received votes with both Republicans and Democrats in the House. This is not and should not be a partisan issue. This is an American issue that will save lives, American lives. And we have to act. We should also ban assault weapons in the process,” Biden said. 

So if I understand Biden and the gun control cabal correctly, if only there was a ban on high capacity magazines and guns with cosmetics they don’t like as well as a background check on every gun transfer then we would not have another mass murder?

Sounds great until you take into account two facts that completely blow away their arguments.

Fact 1: Colorado has background checks on all firearms transfers, both public and private.

Fact 2: Colorado passed a 15-round limit on magazines back in 2013. Now it is my understanding that the Colorado Supreme Court may have invalidated that ban.

We don’t know yet how the murderer obtained the firearm at this time. Even with a ban in place, an angry, paranoid person such as this murderer is reputed to be would not let violating a gun control law stand in the way of something doing something heinous.

One last thing. I’m not a conspiracy theorist but sometimes life feels like a Matt Bracken novel where the killer is merely a pawn for more government control.

Larry Vickers’ Delta Force Colt 723 Carbine

Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons posted an interview with Larry Vickers. They discussed his Colt 723 carbine that he was issued when he was first with SOF-D aka Delta Force.

Ian says in the description for this episode:

Use of carbines like this one by Delta and other special forces groups set the stage for the adoption of the M4 Carbine and Aimpoint M68 optic by the US military at large, and it’s very interesting to listen to Larry’s first-hand experience of how and why it was put together.

By the way, if you want to duplex magazines like that, Matt Bracken (Enemies Foreign and Domestic) has an excellent “how-to” article on it here. I’ve done it with black duct tape and a thin dowel.

More “Insurrectionists” Than I Imagined -#EFAD Is Number Two

The favorite epithet that the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (sic) and their leaders love to throw at gunnies is “insurrectionist”. It doesn’t matter which end of the political spectrum you are on, if you believe the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms then you are labeled an “insurrectionist”.

Imagine their consternation to see that the number two book on the Top 100 Free Kindle books is none other than Matthew Bracken’s Enemies Foreign and Domestic. That is because in their worldview this is one of the classic insurrectionist novels for its portrayal of an out-of-control ATF and the armed response from Ranya Bardiwell, Brad Fallon, and friends. It ranks right up there with John Ross’ Unintended Consequences as subversive literature in their narrow-minded opinion.

Matthew Bracken is making this book available for free in Kindle format until March 5th. Frankly, he is hoping the attention given the book will start a discussion and has penned an essay called “Gangster Government, and Sakarov’s Immunity” that should serve as a basis for discussion. I would suggest downloading that as well.

I have all three books in Bracken’s EFAD triology and I paid full price. You can get the first volume for free if you go to Amazon.com and download it. Here is the link to make it even easier.

I’ve been re-reading it today and I had forgotten how engrossing the book really is. It will keep you hooked. Now pass on the link to friends and family and encourage them to download it so we can continue irritating Josh, Ladd, and others of their ilk.

Operation #EFAD

Those who have read Matthew Bracken’s Enemies Foreign and Domestic will understand when I say that when I first heard Operation Fast and Furious I thought of that book. It, too, featured an ATF operation aimed at increasing the call for gun control. Given that it was published in 2003, the author was remarkably prescient in his view of elements within ATF.

If you haven’t read the book, now is your chance as it will be offered FREE on Kindle from March 1st at 1:00am until Monday, March 5, 2012 at 11:30pm. Remember, even if you don’t own a Kindle (which I don’t), you can still read the books using a PC, an iPhone, an iPad, Mac, Blackberry, Android, or a Windows 7 phone.

Matt is explicit about his goal in offering the book for free on Kindle for the maximum five days allowed:

My goal is to make the spike in the number of free Kindle downloads for Enemies Foreign And Domestic so dramatic, that the national media will notice the passionate interest in this “dangerous and seditious” novel among the bitter clingers. But this is just the first step of a jiu-jitsu move. The light thrown on EFAD’s sudden nationwide surge in popularity will then be mirrored back onto the federal government’s most egregious usurpations and abuses, and on the mainstream media itself.

The idea is to force open a long overdue national conversation that the elite MSM very much wants to ignore. In large strokes, it is about our federal government morphing into a socialist tyranny before our eyes, a tyranny that is no longer soft, but getting harder with every passing month. Which is it to be: freedom, or tyranny?

About the book:

BULLETS RAIN DOWN UPON A PACKED FOOTBALL STADIUM, killing dozens, and triggering a panic stampede which leads to a thousand more deaths. A police marksman kills the sniper, a mentally unbalanced Desert Storm veteran holding a smoking assault rifle. It’s an open and shut case, or so America is led to believe…

In the aftermath of the stadium massacre, an outraged public demands an end to the threat posed by assault rifles, and Congress passes emergency legislation banning their private possession. American gun owners have one week to turn in their semi-automatic rifles, or face mandatory five year federal prison terms.

Jimmy Shifflett, the alleged stadium sniper, is linked to a shadowy “gun club” in southeastern Virginia, which the FBI believes is a cover for a secret right wing militia terror group. Those who knew Shifflett the best don’t believe he was a member of any militia, or that he was guilty of the horrific mass murder.

But if he didn’t fire the “assault rifle” into the stadium, who did, and why?

A small band of Virginians, thrown together by fate, is forced to undertake a desperate odyssey through a minefield of government blackmail, official deception and covert death squads, to discover the truth behind the stadium massacre, and save their own lives.

ENEMIES FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC is about one of the several fault lines dividing the world views that co-exist uneasily within the United States today. One side of this ideological divide believes that American gun rights are a dangerous anachronism, and that firearms ownership should be strictly regulated, and as far as possible curtailed by the government. This side of American society desires to see all firearms registered with the government, and many classes of firearms banned.

The other side considers the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be an unbreachable wall, guarding the freedom of all Americans from steadily encroaching government tyranny. This side believes that it has learned a bitter lesson of history, and will never follow the tragic example of other peoples who have been disarmed, and then in many cases slaughtered by their own governments.

The firearms-intolerant side in America fails to appreciate that the God-given right to keep and bear arms is a bedrock core belief for tens of millions of Americans. This anti-firearms group seeks to elect those who would enact laws that may cross the constitutional point of no return for those millions of Americans who will not be disarmed without a violent struggle. The Americans who cherish the Second Amendment will refuse to be disarmed, regardless of what unconstitutional laws are passed, just as blacks would disobey any new laws which attempted to send them back into slavery.

The main thesis of Enemies Foreign and Domestic is that cynical manipulators, who understand both world views, could easily shape events to create a violent crisis in America between the two camps. This could easily be done as depicted in the Prologue, with a large-scale massacre blamed on a suitable villain, or by other means.

I have read all three books in the EFAD triology and like them all. I have also read his latest, Castigo Bay, as well. Bracken’s book are very much in the same vein as John Ross’ Unintended Consequences with ordinary Americans saying enough is enough. Giving that I liked them, I guess that makes me an insurrectionist.