transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:10] Hello and welcome to The GOAL Podcast. News and commentary from Gun Owners' Action League, your leading voice for the Massachusetts gun owner.

Speaker 2:
[00:21] I'm Garrett, once again across the table from Jeff.

Speaker 1:
[00:23] What is up? Busy weeks. You're getting ready to go on vacation, so we're like somewhat off schedule and bouncing around. But this past weekend, we had a fur trapping class. Well, not really trapping, but fur handling, fur preservation.

Speaker 2:
[00:37] A good way to put it.

Speaker 1:
[00:39] So the folks from Mass Trappers Association, so spearheaded by Dave Vance, great guy.

Speaker 2:
[00:44] Of which you are a member.

Speaker 1:
[00:45] Of which I'm a member from last year, when they originally did the event at Mansfield Fishing Game. It was part of the offers, like you could just join along with them. So why not?

Speaker 2:
[00:56] You're like, what the hell? So it was a good time. We did it down at the Mansfield on, in the little picnic area there. It was my first experience doing anything of this sort. I mean, I've hunted obviously, but I've never done game animal trapping. I've never done, you know, the skinning, the fleshing out, all that stuff. They supplied beavers for us. They supplied tools for us. They showed us how to skin them and then how to flesh out the skin to get it ready, stretch it out on the board, do the whole thing.

Speaker 1:
[01:24] Yeah. And you can see just how good they are having that much practice and repetition. What did the guy say? The first 100 are the hardest?

Speaker 2:
[01:32] First 100 are the hardest.

Speaker 1:
[01:34] And to see the speed and dexterity, how they handle all the different tools and get everything to just so much better than you could possibly do with triple the time.

Speaker 2:
[01:43] Right.

Speaker 1:
[01:44] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[01:44] I was like, it took me a little bit to get the idea. And then I was like, oh, because the flushing knife, the long one, how it's beveled on one side and flat on the other side and sharp on one side. And it took me a little bit to get it until I made that woodworking connection. So if you're doing woodworking and you're planing or anything like that, you use the bevel, you ride the bevel, keeps it from digging in. Same concept, right? That's why you use the knife, the way that you use it, is so that you're not diving in and cutting into the flesh, riding over the top of it and scraping all that, all that junk off of there. So it took me a little while to actually get that concept. And then I was like, oh, okay, I think I understand this. So I think that I actually got away with not causing any extra openings in my pelt.

Speaker 1:
[02:30] Yeah, I got one little nick in mind.

Speaker 2:
[02:32] I got close. I ran over, I think, I'm sure it was a nipple or something. And I was like, ooh, that's real close. Which if you're like not into this kind of thing, you think about that and go, good God, the guy cut into a nipple from the backside.

Speaker 1:
[02:45] You know, it's an interesting experience, but it's a great experience. So we're both going to get the pelts back sometime towards the end of the year after they go for tanning and preservation. But what an amazing skill set. So if you're a deer hunter, or if you're a hunter in general, and you always wanted to have that deer skin rug or a piece of deer leather or something like that, this is like kind of how you start to get into it and how you work with hides.

Speaker 2:
[03:15] It's a skill that translates, you know? And like they were saying, and like you said before, beaver pelts are more forgiving. They're on the more forgiving side of skinning and flushing and all that stuff. And deer's a little harder, but the basic concepts are still kind of the same, right? So it's a translatable skill. I'm not going to sit here and say that I'm good at it after doing it for a couple of hours, but it's nice to know that if I got back into it, I could actually pull it off with some more practice.

Speaker 1:
[03:44] Yeah, but cool education, great learning opportunity, special thanks to Mass Trappers Association. It's like, I'm already looking forward to getting that pelt back. I have a deer hide from last year that's going to be done. So great, good time at Mansfield.

Speaker 2:
[03:57] Good, yeah. Good, and thank you for applying the peer pressure because that was all you. I probably would not have signed up for it if you had not said, hey, listen, mofo, get signed up for this class.

Speaker 1:
[04:09] It's funny because the jokes can roll pretty fast.

Speaker 2:
[04:13] Oh, God, how many Beaver jokes can you hear in a space of a few hours? Turns out it's quite a lot.

Speaker 1:
[04:18] Yeah. But on a sidebar, so this past weekend, I don't know if you saw this. Totally not unrelated to the podcast really, but we just passed the Masters Tournament.

Speaker 2:
[04:32] Yeah. Not unrelated. We spent some time on the golf course.

Speaker 1:
[04:37] But I don't know if you saw it, but for the folks who don't understand the Masters Tournament, it's very, very unique. So in a lot of golf tournaments, if you watch, people love to yell out, like a player hits and they'll yell something ridiculous. They'll get in the hole on like a tee shot of a par five, that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2:
[04:53] Happy Gilmore jokes.

Speaker 1:
[04:55] Well, on Saturday during the tournament, a guy yelled, give me back my son. The quote from a Mel Gibson movie.

Speaker 2:
[05:03] Yeah. Yeah. From Ransom.

Speaker 1:
[05:04] After the leader of the tournament had teed off. That guy was promptly located, removed, and he is trespassed from the grounds for life. Ouch. So the tickets for the tournament, in order to get a ticket to the tournament, you have to enter a lottery. It's not a lottery to win the ticket, it's a lottery for the right to buy the ticket.

Speaker 2:
[05:27] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[05:28] So then you buy the passes and everything else, then you have to get accommodations in Augusta, Georgia or at least in a relatively around their area.

Speaker 2:
[05:36] Yeah. Which itself is a challenge, never mind during Massachusetts.

Speaker 1:
[05:38] And they said the average price to go for like the whole tournament is between 15 to 20 thousand dollars. And that guy got himself thrown out.

Speaker 2:
[05:50] Luckily, you can buy pimento sandwiches for like three bucks. That guy got thrown out and trespassed for life.

Speaker 1:
[05:56] Thrown out and banned from any event at the grounds for life. I think they were going through of like maybe even potentially banned from all PGA events, too. It was a pretty stiff penalty, but...

Speaker 2:
[06:07] Wow. You know what?

Speaker 1:
[06:09] In the spirit of like the joking and everything else, like, oh, that's a joke that just cost you a lot of money.

Speaker 2:
[06:15] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[06:16] But yeah, they don't mess around with that.

Speaker 2:
[06:18] In comparison to some of the things that I've heard other people say, I just wonder if this is, you know...

Speaker 1:
[06:22] I mean, there are other tournaments like the Waste Management, where they have like the stadium holes and people are throwing beer cans, chanting and cheering. But it's totally different vibe.

Speaker 2:
[06:31] Like, listen, man, this is the masters.

Speaker 1:
[06:33] Yeah. But they were saying they were throwing people out left, right and center for wearing the sunglasses, the glasses that record.

Speaker 2:
[06:38] Oh, the glasses?

Speaker 1:
[06:39] No phones, no electronic devices.

Speaker 2:
[06:41] Yeah. They have a no record, a mysterious no recording policy.

Speaker 1:
[06:44] Yeah. Anything that can do any recording or transmit any data off property.

Speaker 2:
[06:50] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[06:50] So like smart watches.

Speaker 2:
[06:52] Can't bring your phone, can't bring your nothing. Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 1:
[06:59] I was watching it with the lady and as soon as the guy yelled at, I go, that guy just got banned for life.

Speaker 2:
[07:04] It's like that dude is in trouble.

Speaker 1:
[07:06] Well, but heckling aside, so GOAL's annual members meeting is coming up Sunday, April 26th, the Renaissance Boston Patriot Place Hotel in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Tickets are sold out. But post-event, we will bring a recap on the next episode for those that couldn't make the trip out.

Speaker 2:
[07:26] Absolutely. And also we have GOAL's America 250 celebration happening June 13th at the Boxborough Regency Hotel in Boxborough. Tickets are available at goal.org/goal250. There's general admission tickets. There's VIP tickets for seating at a guest speaker's table. And just like last time, they're a sponsor table. So if you want to sponsor a table, contact Angie at the office. It's angela at goal.org for more information. So we do have a pretty decent line up of speakers. Check out goal.org/goal250 for tickets and more information on the speakers. I'm looking forward to it. So really briefly, before we move on, the Second Circuit recently heard a case called Kelsey versus New York City. Kelsey, I think, versus New York City. Long story short, the Second Circuit has upheld New York City's ban on stun guns, saying that it's not unconstitutional for the city to ban stun guns. And as soon as I saw the headline cross over my feet, I went, I'm pretty sure that this was addressed. And sure enough, it's almost like a word for word rehash of Catano v Massachusetts, where the Supreme Court slapped down the common use argument over stun guns, what, 11, 12 years ago, something like that?

Speaker 1:
[08:50] Yeah, and that was a strong decision, too.

Speaker 2:
[08:51] It was 8-0, it was 8-0. The only reason it wasn't 9-0 is because Galea had recently passed away. And he was certainly going to be on that. It was going to be a unanimous, you know, slap down. I guess lessons never get learned. The Second Circuit said, no, no, you know, we know that the Supreme Court has ruled on this, but we like to ban stun guns.

Speaker 1:
[09:12] We really are headed for a constitutional crisis. If something isn't done about circuit courts, federal appeals courts, just absolutely throwing to the double one-finger salute to the Supreme Court and its rulings.

Speaker 2:
[09:27] Yeah, it's ridiculous. We can dive into it next time if we want to, but basically speaking, you know, the Second Circuit, despite everything that was already proceeding, just said screw it, we're going to do it anyway.

Speaker 1:
[09:39] Well moving out west, you know, with the popularity of crime dramas and documentaries, some people think themselves pretty clever in how they would get away with things if they needed to. And, you know, they post stuff online about why I would try this or I would do that. And it's all problematic in the end, but, you know.

Speaker 2:
[09:59] Bury it under animal remains.

Speaker 1:
[10:02] My favorite one is they say to, you know, bury a body, but then plant endangered plants on top. So it's illegal to dig it up.

Speaker 2:
[10:09] That's right, they won't dig it up.

Speaker 1:
[10:12] And I've always said like, first and foremost, do you really think that's going to stop, you know, Oh, no, we can't possibly look there. John T. Detective, you think he really cares or is even going to know that it's an endangered plant? Second, even if it was an issue, they would remove it carefully, do the rest of the work, Do the rest of the work and then put it back.

Speaker 2:
[10:33] Anyway.

Speaker 1:
[10:35] Anywho, but the question is, is if you wanted to get rid of a murder weapon, I think there might be an actual viable chance that you might just want to turn it into the police yourself. So, you know, gun buybacks are nothing new, where a person can bring a firearm to a buyback event, hand it over for destruction by the organization hosting the event and walk away with cash, gift cards, you know, often for a fraction of what the commodity firearms would go for on a public market. But, you know, it stands a question. Why would someone take pennies on the dollar for a buyback when they could just sell the firearm for much more through an FFL or even on the black market? And that answer is immunity. Gun buybacks almost exclusively operate under no questions asked amnesty policies. Some require no name to be given, no information taken. You hand in the gun, they hand you the money. Thanks and have a nice day. That firearm gets summarily destroyed with almost no effort to check if that firearm or those turning them in have any connection to criminal activity. So if you wanted to get rid of a murder weapon, not only will it be done for you, but you're graced with anonymity and immunity and you get paid for it. So that's, you know, seems like a pretty sweet deal.

Speaker 2:
[11:55] Now, you're not saying this out of the blue. This is not apropos of nothing, right? This is not a made up scenario.

Speaker 1:
[12:01] In Chicago, this didn't work out so well for Twanda Willingham, who was shot in August of last year with a pistol that had been previously handed in to Chicago PD during a city buyback event in 2023.

Speaker 2:
[12:15] That's suspicious.

Speaker 1:
[12:17] So it was already turned into a gun buyback event, and then she was shot with it a year later. Apparently, the firearm, which was supposed to be destroyed, was stolen from inside Gresham District Station, a police station located in the south side of the city. Since its theft, it has been linked to three shootings, including Willingham's, and was finally recovered in 2024 by law enforcement after it was dropped by a 16-year-old during a chase when the juvenile was seen trying to break into several parked vehicles.

Speaker 2:
[12:46] I have a feeling that word stolen is carrying a lot of weight. That word's doing a lot of work.

Speaker 1:
[12:51] When asked about how the firearm magically disappeared from law enforcement custody in a room full of police officers, a supervisor told investigators he thought he knew what happened, that an officer decided to take it for themselves, aka that police officer, that cop used their position and authority to steal.

Speaker 2:
[13:10] They stole property. They stole a gun, which is a firearm crime all by itself, right? And then sold it off illegally.

Speaker 1:
[13:20] Those federal felonies. The tag on the firearm had been slipped onto another gun, and the envelope for the missing gun was in the trash can. Apparently, that was satisfactory enough for the city of Chicago. Investigators did not interview a single additional officer who was there when the firearms were stolen, and Chicago PD has since fought and pushed back to keep all information and records under seal, refusing to release records of the case despite multiple requests submitted by journalists under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. To this date, no one was charged and no one was disciplined except for one sergeant who approved the firearms inventories who was handed a one-day suspension which was later reduced on appeal to a noted violation, and they said, well, because they had done such a great job previously, no punishment was necessary.

Speaker 2:
[14:11] So Willingham is now suing the city's police department, alleging that it helped arm the person who shot her in the leg by covering up the obvious theft. They claim officers stole the firearm and either sold it or gave it to someone on the black market. Interestingly, the officer whose name was on the inventory records, one officer, Crystal Rivera, was later shot in the back and killed by her partner in what department officials called a, quote, friendly fire accident during an encounter with an allegedly armed individual. Lawyers for Rivera's family, as well as Willingham's legal team, called for an independent investigation into the shooting, saying that the official story put out by the department officials doesn't pass the smell test.

Speaker 1:
[14:54] Now, the teen that was found with the firearm isn't saying anything either. That juvenile pled guilty to illegal possession of a firearm but refused to answer how or from whom he had acquired a pistol. It would make sense, I think, that those conducting buybacks in the police or law enforcement officials assisting them bear some civil and criminal liability for the firearms taken into their possession. You know, by the lack of enthusiastic response from CPD officials, it seems like guns, you know, we'll put the bunny quotes right, guns disappearing is far less of an anomaly more than the public may believe.

Speaker 2:
[15:31] And it doesn't seem like they're all that worried about it. He's like, oh yeah, some cop stole it and took it home. Happens all the time.

Speaker 1:
[15:37] I know what happened.

Speaker 2:
[15:38] Yeah, right, I know what happened.

Speaker 1:
[15:39] What do you mean, you know, property went missing.

Speaker 2:
[15:42] Right. Evidence was stolen, property got...

Speaker 1:
[15:44] It seems paramount, you know, we the people should view any attempt to disarm or collect firearms with a healthy skepticism and suspicion. You know, are the guns being, are the guns actually being destroyed? Or is this another step in the, you know, in the so-called iron pipeline to sift out, you know, the diamonds in the rough of black market firearms on the streets? Because you see often photos from these buyback events and for those who are familiar with firearms, you see firearms that are turned in that are either clearly not operable, they're garbage, they're-

Speaker 2:
[16:18] It's a pipe on a stack or so, you know.

Speaker 1:
[16:20] Yes, it is not the modern firearm. They're not taking the quote unquote weapons off the streets.

Speaker 2:
[16:28] Right, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[16:29] So when something does turn up that actually does have some sort of value, it seems that the people turning in and are being notified that what they have, is what the value is.

Speaker 2:
[16:39] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[16:39] And then depending on who's in charge or who's handling what, law enforcement, things that are worth money are being disappeared into people's private inventories and private stocks. And then in this case, clearly, being funneled back to the black market for a profit.

Speaker 2:
[16:55] Amazing, amazing. But it's cool because it's apparently the cops that are doing it.

Speaker 1:
[17:00] I wonder how they're gonna moot her case. They'll probably try to find some way to say she doesn't have standing.

Speaker 2:
[17:04] Yeah, right.

Speaker 1:
[17:10] So as we all know, there's a ballot initiative coming up in November's election of this year to repeal the Chapter 135 in taller blacks. So a letter was recently put out by the Fraternal Order of Police from Massachusetts. What did that letter say, Garrett?

Speaker 2:
[17:27] Yeah, so from the Fraternal Order of Police in Massachusetts, they sent a letter to Deputy Chief Phoebe Cisher-Groban, the Constitutional and Administrative Law Division for the Attorney General's Office, in which, long story slightly shorter, they said that the ballot question as it was framed by the Attorney General's Office is unclear, it's unnecessarily biasing, it does not represent balanced viewpoints, and it is basically intended to reach a desired outcome. And they suggested alternative wording.

Speaker 1:
[18:05] So the Fraternal Order of Police said that the selective inclusion of terms such as ghost guns, machine guns and assault-style fire weapons highlights certain aspects of the law while omitting other provisions that may be subject to debate. It creates an imbalance, particularly in the absence of comparable context with the no description. So they say the intent of the petition is to repeal the act. However, the proposed structure as it currently sits says a yes vote would result in maintaining the current law and it runs counter to common voter expectations and introduces unnecessary confusion. Do you want to repeal a law? A yes vote keeps it in place and a no vote gets rid of it.

Speaker 2:
[18:46] It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1:
[18:47] It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 2:
[18:47] Referendum is a positive thing. You want to get rid of the law. Yeah, they included recommended language in the letter. So, they have a preferred format. It says recommended, you know, referendum on existing law. A yes vote would repeal the law, period. A no vote would keep the current law in place, period. It's easy. I don't know why all that extra nonsense from the attorney general was necessary.

Speaker 1:
[19:10] Well, that's the preferred format that the Fraternal Order of Police would like. And they offered an alternate, if the structure can't be changed, to simplify it to just say the referendum on existing law, the inact modernizing firearms laws, I call it the Intolerable Act. Just as simply a yes vote would keep the current law in place, a no vote would repeal the law, period. Doesn't get into...

Speaker 2:
[19:33] Doesn't say, oh well, we'll get over...

Speaker 1:
[19:35] A yes vote would take ghost guns off the streets and allow us to be safer in our communities.

Speaker 2:
[19:40] She might as well have said, you know, if you say...

Speaker 1:
[19:42] And a no vote is for killing babies.

Speaker 2:
[19:45] Exactly, exactly. It is so obvious the way that the current referendum language is written that, yeah, that that's their desired outcome. Anyway, more as this comes along, I'm sure, but this was from the Fraternal Order of Police.

Speaker 1:
[19:59] You know, it's almost... It would have been nice if there was this much pushback publicly before things went into place. But if you, you know, for those keeping score at home, it's like they lied about how the law went into place. They cheated to put it in place.

Speaker 2:
[20:13] They lied about the content of the law, blatantly.

Speaker 1:
[20:16] Then when the law went into effect and a referendum effort became clearly doable, they said, this is such an emergency, we need to put it in place now. And oh, by the way...

Speaker 2:
[20:25] After we had all the signatures in place, then they said, oh, it's an emergency three months after the fact.

Speaker 1:
[20:30] And then now with the referendum effort, it has to go on the ballot. They're saying, well, you know, they're playing cheeky games with language to try to trick people into not understanding what they're voting for.

Speaker 2:
[20:49] This is my rifle, there are many like it, but this one is mine.

Speaker 1:
[20:53] You know, for all the firearms that have a moment in cinematic history, in media history, the M14 seems to kind of hang out there. For a firearm that had somewhat of the shortest service life, it has an outstanding impact.

Speaker 2:
[21:12] Filled that gap between the M1 and the M16.

Speaker 1:
[21:15] Yeah, now World War II, you know, if anything, could be described as a war fought by industrialized technology. I would recommend Freedom's Forge by Arthur Herman for a closer look at how industrialization gave America, the United States, the Allies, a decisive edge over Axis forces in both European and Pacific theaters.

Speaker 2:
[21:35] So I'm gonna second that, like, strong recommendation. If you read it all, read that book. That was, it's not a huge, like, it's not a war book. It is a war book, but it's not like a battle book. It's about the stuff behind the battle, right?

Speaker 1:
[21:48] It's a little lovey-dovey politically in some ways, but it's certain parts of it that's like where it's a love letter to FDR.

Speaker 2:
[21:54] And I'm like, okay, we can skip. But that those parts are short. Those parts are short. But it really does get into, like, the logistics. And you would be surprised at how fascinating that stuff that happens behind the stuff actually is.

Speaker 1:
[22:08] Yeah. Well, there was old quotes that were attributed to German officers saying that, you know, one Tiger tank was worth five Shermans, but the Allies always had six. But the technology was not limited to the Allies. Industrialization was in the Allies' favor, but technology itself was not limited. In the post-World War II period, saw a scramble to secure the military advancements that had nearly allowed the Germans and the Axis power to win. During the war, German armors sought to bridge the gap between long-range rifles firing full-power cartridges like the Kar98 and short-range pistol caliber submachine guns like the MP38, the MP40. The result was the STG44, the Sturmgewehr 44.

Speaker 2:
[22:58] Famous, famous.

Speaker 1:
[22:59] Chambered, it was chambered in what they considered an intermediate cartridge, somewhere between pistol caliber and full-power rifle. It was a 7.92 by 33 millimeter Kurtz cartridge. It fed from a 30-round box magazine. It could fire 500 to 600 rounds per minute, with effective ranges of up to 600 meters in semi-automatic and 300 meters in fully automatic fire.

Speaker 2:
[23:22] Which is pretty good for a...

Speaker 1:
[23:23] Selectable with a fire control switch. So the Sturmgewehr 44 translates to, or loosely translates to, assault rifle, and that was the original definition of an assault rifle for that actual term. That's why we have terms now where they call assault style firearms, assault weapons, but they try to bastardize it or something else.

Speaker 2:
[23:44] That's all made up, but yeah.

Speaker 1:
[23:46] Something we've talked about before, we can dive into it a different day. Approximately 426,000 STG-44s were produced. You know, their effectiveness on the Eastern Front helped inspire another iconic and infamous fire arm, the Soviet AK-47. Range and power were traded for size, weight, capacity, ease of manufacture, while detachable magazines provided portable and reliable, you know, when properly manufactured, allowing soldiers to balance that controlled semi-automatic fire with suppressive automatic fire when necessary. So if one wishes to maintain a viable defensive position, you know, it makes sense to keep up with the competition, you know, to keep up with the Joneses a little bit. So as legendary as the M1 Garand is, you know, the greatest battle implement ever devised according to Padden, it had its limitations. The internal magazine held eight rounds of full power 30-06. It's robust construction reflected the demands of that cartridge. But as urbanization spread, small unit tactics evolved, you know, many saw the need in the utility for a rifle that was a little bit lighter and a little more versatile, you know, that they liked the magazine feed, they liked the select fire, and being chambered in an intermediate and more efficient cartridge meant you didn't have to machine like as beefy of a receipt. It could be smaller, it could be lighter, so, you know, it was, the US military came up with a really ambitious goal. They wanted to replace the M1 Garand, the M1 Carbine, the M3 Grease Gun, and the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, the BAR, with one single all-purpose platform that simplified logistics around, you know, one rifle, one cartridge, reduced parts supply.

Speaker 2:
[25:42] The M1 and its.30-06 cartridge served well all the way through the Korean War, but by the mid-1950s, calls for replacement were growing louder. Some designs had already been in development for over a decade. Even in the late stages of World War II, the M1 had undergone modifications, including experiments with select fire capability and detachable box magazines. John Garand developed the T20 prototype, which proved influential enough to serve as the basis for several Springfield Armory test rifles from 1945 to the early 1950s. In parallel, Earl Harvey of the Springfield Armory, working under Pentagon direction, developed the T25. It was chambered in the lighter 30 caliber cartridge, a shortened version of the.30-06. Despite reduced case capacity, advances in ball powder from Olin Industries allowed the new round to achieve comparable ballistic performance. With further refinements, this cartridge was standardised as the 7.62x51mm NATO, and later commercialised as the 308 Winchester.

Speaker 1:
[26:47] So with that cartridge selected, attention turned to finalising the rifle. So Garren's T20 served as the foundation. And with limited funding, engineers modified the M1's long stroke piston system into a short stroke piston system. They replaced the internal magazine with a detachable box magazine setup. They straightened the operating rod. They added a bolt roller to reduce friction. And they re-chambered and re-barrelled for the 7.62x51 NATO. And that design became the T-44 prototype and entered in testing. But the T-44s faced really stiff competition. So Fabrique Nationale, so FN, submitted a variant of the FN FAL. It was designed and designated the T-48. So both rifles performed comfortably, though the FN showed some advantage in dust resistance and ease of field stripping. But during Arctic trials in the winter from 1953 to 1954, Springfield engineers kind of took some extra steps to prepare their model, the T-44, for the extreme cold. So using a specialized cold chamber that they had built, they redesigned the gas system and modified, they modified magazines and internal components to reduce the friction enough to prevent that seizing. FN submitted its rifles without kind of similar preparation. So they ended up with somewhat predictable results in that the Springfield T-44 performed reliably, while the FN, the T-48 experienced sluggish gas system function and attempts to compensate as the performance dropped off. They tried enlarging the gas port, which led to overgassing. It was a really violent extraction on the shell casings and it started breaking components. So the Army's Arctic Test Board concluded that the Springfield T-44 was superior in cold weather conditions and declined to adopt FN's T-48 pending further improvements in testing.

Speaker 2:
[28:58] Ouch. So by June 1954, the T-44 had performed well enough that with some new funding, Springfield was authorized to produce receivers purpose-built for the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge. This reduced the rifle's weight by roughly a pound compared to the M1. Continued testing showed that the improvements to the FN T-48 had narrowed the reliability gap with malfunction rates approaching those of the T-44. Ultimately, the contract went to Springfield. The T-44's lighter weight, fewer parts, self-compensating gas system gave it the practical advantage. Additionally, a persistent and conveniently uncorrected claim held that the rifle could be manufactured using existing M1 production machinery. More broadly, domestic production likely played a decisive role favoring American industry over licensing and paying royalties to the Belgian-based FN. In 1957, the T-44 was officially adopted as the M14, replacing the M1 Garand.

Speaker 1:
[30:09] Initial production contracts were awarded to Springfield, Winchester, Harrington and Richardson. Springfield began tooling in 1958, delivered its first rifles in July of 1959. Production delays, however, slowed deployment. It seems like it kind of happens every once in a while in Springfield. But by the end of 1960, only the 101st Airborne Division was fully equipped with the M14 platform. The promise of a universal replacement for multiple weapon systems ultimately proved unrealistic. Approximately 1.4 million rifles were produced at a cost of about $143 million. I think the numbers came out to about $104 per unit, which, you know...

Speaker 2:
[30:54] Well, I mean, at the end of the day...

Speaker 1:
[30:56] Granted, it's $104, 1950s, 1960s, but still, that's relatively inexpensive.

Speaker 2:
[31:02] Nothing compared to what they pay for battle rifles these days.

Speaker 1:
[31:05] Yet, in a December 1962 Department of Defense Comptroller Report, the M14 was deemed, quote unquote, completely inferior even to its World War II predecessor, the M1.

Speaker 2:
[31:19] That's it. They tried to be too much.

Speaker 1:
[31:21] And as US involvement in Vietnam escalated, the M14's shortcomings became more pronounced. The size and weight made it really unwieldy in dense jungle environments, while the wooden stocks absorbed all that ambient moisture and started degrading accuracy. Fiberglass stocks were introduced, but not widely fielded before the rifle started to be phased out. So the 7.62x51 NATO cartridge also proved difficult to control in the M14 platform in full automatic fire, which led most soldiers to rely on semi-automatic mode as a means of conserving ammunition.

Speaker 2:
[32:00] Yeah, just pull the trigger quick.

Speaker 1:
[32:02] Despite ongoing debate within Army Research and Development, the M14 was replaced in 1964, which gave it one of the shortest service lives of a standard issue US service rifle.

Speaker 2:
[32:14] So paradoxically, the M14 remains one of the longest serving rifles in specialized roles. Variants continue to see use as designated marksman rifles, valued for their accuracy and effectiveness at medium ranges, particularly in urban and semi-urban environments where the bolt action systems may be less practical. M14s have seen continued use into the global war on terror, and given the ubiquity of the 7.62x51 NATO or 308 Winchester cartridge, the platform retains its relevance.

Speaker 1:
[32:48] The historical significance of the M14 to me is a little opaque. On one hand, it attempted to do too much too soon. On the other hand, to ask a single rifle and cartridge to realistically replace the diversity and roles filled by the M1 Garand, the M3 Grease Gun, and the Browning BAR without compromise, it's just really asking too much. In that sense, it stands as a lesson in the limits of consolidation. On the other hand, it reflects this is the nature of innovation. An unpaved road can have missteps, but can still lead to meaningful progress. So the legacy, I think, it's the legacy of the 7.62x51 NATO round, 308 Winchester, that kind of reinforces that point. The 308 consistently ranks among the most popular centerfire rifle cartridges. I mean, as of 2024, which is the most recent I could find the data when I was looking this up, it was like roughly 12% of rifles sold by major US retailers were chambered in 308 Winchester. I mean, that's a big chunk of market share.

Speaker 2:
[33:57] That's a big thing.

Speaker 1:
[33:59] And if you want to say military technology has no place in the civilian sphere, it would be difficult to explain the enduring popularity of one of the most versatile hunting cartridges ever developed. So, you know, the M14 and its descendants, they remain active in competition shooting and marksmanship. You can still find M14s, although not in the automatic configuration, but you have guns like the Ruger Mini 14. But having a military origin, it turns out, is not and should not be a life sentence. And it's often just the beginning.

Speaker 2:
[34:36] So, the NRA Annual Meeting is happening actually as we record this. That's going on the 2026 NRA Annual Meeting taking place in Houston. As we know, we mentioned last time Jim has been sentenced to another term on the NRA Board of Directors. Good for Jim. And Mike Harris, Mike Harris is GOAL's Public Policy Director. He's down there at the meeting right now as well doing his thing.

Speaker 1:
[35:05] So, yeah, and there's a lot going on between everything we have in Massachusetts, up and down the East Coast. Virginia just went through just an absolute beating.

Speaker 2:
[35:16] Oh, yeah. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1:
[35:18] Spanberger signed a bunch of stuff. They tried to amend some stuff, but basically rubber stamped everything that came through.

Speaker 2:
[35:23] Yeah. And it's a complete travesty. We're going to have to do a deep dive into that.

Speaker 1:
[35:28] I might have to give Kim Edwards a call and go, OK, I need that.

Speaker 2:
[35:31] Right. Give us the real deal because he's living in that.

Speaker 1:
[35:34] Give me the on the record and off the record response. But there is a lot going on. There's a lot to consider for the NRA. They have the DC magazine ban just recently from the Trump administration requesting an on-bonk hearing over a court determining that the magazine ban in DC was unconstitutional. Jeanine Pirro apparently is spearheading an effort to request an on-bonk review of that decision, which is drawing a healthy amount of criticism from people who are saying, you know, this is supposed to be the most pro-Second Amendment administration of all time. Yeah, right. So what are we doing here, fellas? DC falls under control of the federal government.

Speaker 2:
[36:20] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[36:20] Because it is not a state.

Speaker 2:
[36:21] To that degree, it sure does.

Speaker 1:
[36:22] So it's kind of like, this is, like, this should be your wheelhouse.

Speaker 2:
[36:26] This should be nice and easy.

Speaker 1:
[36:27] So what are we doing here? But yeah, a lot on the plate, a lot to talk about for the NRA. We'll probably get an update from Mike. I would say not for this episode release, but probably for the following. So we'll have the GOAL Annual Member Meeting. We'll update on NRA Annual Meeting. And then we will be full into spring turkey season.

Speaker 2:
[36:47] Turkey season's coming up. Yeah. That's it for today. Thanks for listening in. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to the show, share it with your friends. Check us out on Facebook at facebook.com/goalpodcastma, on YouTube at The GOAL Podcast, or on Twitter at GOAL Update.

Speaker 1:
[37:05] To join GOAL, visit goal.org and click the Join, Renew button on the top of the home page.

Speaker 2:
[37:10] If you have a topic you think we should cover, if there's something going on in your club or your town, or if you have a question for the mailbag, shoot us an email at GOAL Podcast at goal.org.

Speaker 1:
[37:18] The GOAL Podcast is a production of Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts. The views and opinions expressed are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect those of GOAL, its staff or affiliates.