MAGNUM MAGNUM - Jeffersonian

GUNCRANKDIARIES
John Connor
An Interview With Mister B.
TM
EXCUSES, ALIBIS,
PITHY OBSERVATIONS
& GENERAL EPHUS
A 1911 Centennial Adventure
Don’t ask me how it happened
— there ain’t room here. It took
years of clandestine meetings with
physicists and fakirs, crystal-gazers and
crackpots, mediums, two sidewalk saints
and a 16-year-old Cal Tech dropout who
built a time-space holographic transmogrifier
in his grandma’s basement. I’m not
even sure if I was transported through
a dimension-warp or it all happened in
my head, but suddenly I was in a round
room surrounded by opaque cloud-like
vapors, with the tinglin’ taste of chewed
aluminum foil in my mouth, waiting to
meet a man who, as he calls it, “crossed
over” — in 1926!
I was shakin’ my head and wondering
if I could spit somewhere when
a “ding!” like an old-fashioned elevator
bell rang. Through the “cloud-wall”
Courtesy of Colt
stepped John Moses Browning — irritated,
grumbling, and flappin’ the lower
edge of his robe.
“Horsefeathers and fiddlesticks!” he
barked, “Soppin’ wet! Again! Tell me,
sonny,” he asked, “Why is it the fans
of all my other guns just wanta shake
my hand, but the 1911 fanatics gotta be
kissin’ and drooling all over the hem of
my robe? Soppin’! Oh, well,” he said,
touched his pinkie to his thumb, and the
soaked spots dried up.
“Say!” he brightened, “I know your
dad! Good man. He likes shootin’ the
big guns; 3- and 5-inchers mostly, and
the 40 mike-mikes.”
“You’ve got guns here?” I choked,
“You shoot?” He smiled. “Where do you
think you are, kid? Smell any sulfur?
Feel any pain?” His eyes twinkled. I
got it, and grinned like a monkey.
“Y’know, I have 128 gun patents.
Wanta shoot all of ’em?” We had a blast!
It must have taken days! We shot BARs,
Winchester 97s, a Colt-Browning 1895
machinegun, Vest Pocket autos and a
hundred more, and I felt like I was 16
again! Ammo and targets miraculously
appeared, and the reports of the guns
were muted, pleasant booms. Then he
glanced at his empty palm, sighed, and
we were back in that cloud-room.
“We don’t have much time, sonny,”
he said. “That took three minutes, but
wasn’t it fun? Got some questions for
me, do you?” I suffered instant braindump;
a familiar affliction. All I could
do was blurt, “Didja know it’s the
hundredth anniversary of …” and he
cut me off with a wave.
Courtesy of Browning
“
Mister B Speaks
Yep; sure,” he said dismissively. “Of course
I like the ol’ girl, but for Pete’s sake, it’s been
a century-plus! You folks have done some good
things with it, but you’re still makin’ it with that stupid
redundant grip safety? I’m honored and all that, but
y’know, I learned a lot over the last few decades, and
I came up with a better design. Heard of the P-35?
Bravo to my pal Dieudonne Saive for finishing it for me
— he designed the staggered magazine, y’know — and
I’m not takin’ anything away from the nine parabellum;
newer loads for it are some real thumpers — but I didn’t
leave any orders that it couldn’t be made in .45 ACP, did I?” He
twinkled again. “In my head, I called it the Sweet-P, you know, like a
sweetpea. I love that gun.”
“Something you folks don’t think about is, I had to incorporate
a lot of stuff I didn’t like on guns because that’s what the contracts
required, like the grip safety on the 1911. The Frenchies demanded
the magazine safety on my Sweet-P, which messed up the trigger
pull. I like what they called it though — Le Grand Puissance —
sounds cool, huh? Anyway, all it needed was a more positive click
to the safety, a tad more mass on the thumb-safety lever, a little
more beavertail, and … like this!” A P-35, exactly as he described
appeared in his hand. Rosewood grips were flourished with curling
tendrils and blossoms — sweetpeas. Nice.
Colt Pocket
Hammerless
Carry-Guns
The hundred questions I’d had deserted me.
I stumblingly asked which three guns were
his top carry-choices. He didn’t hesitate.
“My Sweet-P, an ’08 Pocket Hammerless, and a
BAR, son.” He saw my eyebrows go up.
“Why a BAR? Ask the Marines. There are two in dress
blues at every gate here; not really necessary, but they
insist, and they tell some great stories! Anyway, nothing
says ‘non timebo mala’ — I fear no evil — like a BAR!”
“You’re thinking it’s tough to carry a BAR, right?
Listen; what you folks call open carry we used to call
freedom.” He turned thoughtful.
“I gave you an interview, so you give me this. Go
back with this message and become its champion: It’s
not enough to reverse those ‘duty-to-retreat’ laws. It’s
not enough to defend yourself and assure your safety.
You must create a moral duty, enabled by law, to take
positive action to attack evil and defeat predators. There
must be a duty to act.”
“Now,” he smiled, “We have just enough time for a
quick dark beer. I developed a fondness for it in Belgium.
Thirsty?” “Uhhh … Beer? Here?” I stammered.
“Sonny,” he smiled, his eyes twinkling, “I
said this is heaven, didn’t I?”
*
34 WWW.AMERICANHANDGUNNER.COM • MARCH/APRIL 2011