I’ve long had a theory: In the 1980’s, the CIA infiltrated the gangs of Los Angeles and New York, and convinced them that holding handguns and even bigger arms sideways was not just “cool”, but proper shooting technique:
It must have worked much better than most government conspiracies; by 1985, a Minneapolis cop told me that the safest place to be in a gang fight was the target; unfortunately, the most dangerous place was 45 degrees off the line of fire, in your living room, watching TV. This was grimly true, of course; there’d just been a gangbanger shootout in North Minneapolis where a half dozen urban yoots stood on each side of the street and blazed away at each other, hurting none of their enemies but paralyzing a boy in a second-floor apartment half a block off the line of fire.
Anyway – the John Woo grip has saved the life of a policeman, albeit at the cost of the Woo-gripping gunman:
A Times Square bloodbath was narrowly avoided because the machine-pistol-toting thug who fired at a cop flipped the gun on its side like a character out of a rap video, causing the weapon to jam after two shots, law-enforcement sources said yesterday.
When scam artist Raymond “Ready” Martinez held the MAC-10-style gun parallel to the ground, it caused the ejecting shells to “stovepipe,” or get caught vertically in the chamber, the sources said. The gun is designed to be fired only in a vertical position.
If he had fired the weapon — which had another 27 rounds in the clip — properly, Martinez, 25, could have killed the hero cop pursuing him and countless others walking through the swarming tourist mecca Thursday morning.
The NYPD owes at least one life to rap videos, and John Woo’s oeuvre.
A toast…
Wonder if this conspiracy is going to get on the Jesse Ventura show?
I love it when a story has a happy ending!
which had another 27 rounds in the clip
Apparently the reporter learned all he knows about guns from the same place as the rapper-gunman. Say it with me, magazine.
albeit at the cost of the Woo-gripping gunman
That’s just a darned shame.
Per Jeff’s comment, wouldn’t it be awesome to see a constable’s face to have a reporter correct him when he made that same mistake? I’ve heard a LOT of gun owners make the same mistake, and it would be hilarious to see the look on the face of an “ossifer” if a REPORTER of all people corrected him on that….
Wait a minute, I thought holding the gun sideways was “settled science”! I mean, they couldn’t show them doing that in movies and on rap videos if the guns didn’t work like that in real life, right? If everyone knows something then where do physics and science get off overruling fashion?
It’s kind of funny and good for society when hoodlum gang-bangers try to inflict their ignorance on the public; not so much when it’s the climate gang-bangers.
The situation dictates the tactics.
Bane pointed out years ago that the sideways grip was developed for right-handed back-seaters doing Drive-By Shootings. It makes the blazing hot shell casings fly up to bounce off the headliner of the car and fall to the floor, instead of going down the driver’s collar.
Gang courtesy. Don’t fry the driver. Very important during a drive-by.
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Bane pointed out years ago that the sideways grip was developed for right-handed back-seaters doing Drive-By Shootings
I had not heard that.
I read a comment in a thread of a NY Post article on the shooting by a gentleman who opined that the reason the weapon stovepiped was because it was a POS Mac-10 knock off. I’m just glad it did. I got scammed by a similar punk in 1988. I wish the same fate befell that guy.
“Wait a minute, I thought holding the gun sideways was “settled science”!”
I believe the illiterati is at odds over this because it has yet to be settled by Mythbusters.
the reason the weapon stovepiped was because it was a POS Mac-10 knock off
Could be. The article doesn’t say if it was .45, 9mm or .380; the .380 (the most compact variety) doesn’t have a ton of oomph for throwing the bolt back even under ideal circumstances. When you have to add “fighting gravity” to the extraction process, that can’t help.
I’ve heard MACs, with their large space behind the chamber, are prone to stovepiping anyway; it can’t help to have gravity tugging cases and rounds in the wrong direction, can it?
Gunnies?
it has yet to be settled by Mythbusters.
That’d be fun. And I love the fact that Jamie Heineman is un-PC enough to have such an amazingly righteous gun collection.
A Barrett, for crying out loud!
Love the drive by explanation. And if you are moving and shooting, what’s being off by a 45 degree angle anyway?
My idea for a drive by shooting range is making more and more sense.
“…Jamie Heineman is un-PC enough to have such an amazingly righteous gun collection.”
I think if you include crossbows, scimitars and shirukens along with guns in your weapons collection its considered “multi-cultural” and therefore automatically PC.
A fair point.
After having read all the Vince Flynn books I think that this might not be as crazy it sounds. I think that this could be true, I mean if we could infiltrate the KGB in the 50’s and 60’s until Carter decided to cut all funding for spies (another brilliant move there Jimmy) it seems that going undercover and getting into the bloods and crypts would be a piece of cake. The best way to destroy an organization is from the inside. Of course we probably wouldn’t do this today considering how neutered the CIA has been. God forbid we don’t give a gang-banger murderer his miranda rights. That would be the ACLU’s wet dream. Especially since they don’t have “clearance” to operate on US soil.
Seems to me that sideways shooting is condusive to stove-piping of rounds which would make it un-cool in a firefight. Even if isn’t improper technique, I’m not sure that the Mac-10 can be fitted with “HoMeBoy Nyte Sytes”, so that will diminish any coolness factor. See the link:
http://www.thegunzone.com/glock/glock-gag.html
Ventura is likely probing into this.
Bubbasan, at least in the Mpls Academy, we had “magazine” drilled in our heads. Saying “clip” would get the class push-ups.
I’m not sure if the origin is the movies, although the origin of the popularity apparently is. For one-handed shooting, if you rotate the wrist about 15% toward the centerline — to the left for righties — you do get a steadier gun (try it, the next time you’re at the range), and enhanced accuracy. So if a little rotation is good, more is, well, likely to happen, even though it’s manifestly not better.
As to the whole “clip” vs. “magazine” thing, that’s a minor battle that appears to have been lost. Me, I’m more concerned, hereabouts, about the “conceal and carry” nomenclature, as that has led to some bad stuff — permit holders being rousted (and, at least in urban myth, at times arrested) for a failure to conceal. (For those new to this: in Minnesota, there’s no legal distinction between open and discreet carry, although there are states where there is.)
True, Joel, there are plenty of times when your discreet carry is so totally obvious. 😉