"Unlikely" Guns Of Modern Bad Guys

I've been around enough murders for the last few days so I'll sorta get back to the original thread. I started as a LEO in 1969. For some reason I think we actually had more killings back then than we do now. The ones nowadays just seem to be more vicious. The weapon of choice in my earlier days of LE was undoubtably the .22 caliber first, shotguns second, and then the various other calibers. In my first 20 years as a LEO I saw more people shot and killed with .22's than anything else. The reason for this is that .22's are more affordable where I live than some of the other stuff. I've never seen a study on this. I can only go by what I saw.

The next weapon choice was a knife. About half of the early homicides I was involved with involved knives. Lots of stabbed and carved up folks seen in this career. Knife murders were usually the most vicious. Some of these perps didn't know when to stop. In all but a few cases the weapons, knives and guns, were cheap junk that apparently worked when needed. We actually got a bunch of cheap guns out of an evidence locker (expired cases) and used them for weights on catfish lines. Anytime I see one of these old pot metal pistols it brings back memories.

A few years ago criminals weapons choices seemed to upgrade somewhat. A lot of the guns were still cheap but the 9 mm was starting to be the favorite caliber. The more expensive guns such as Beretta and Glock were usually carried by "businessmen."(drug dealers who could afford more) In recent years the crooks have found that the bigger calibers seem to work better, or at least impress folks more, and we're seeing more 40's and .45's with a sprinkling of 7.62X39 in the form of AK's and converted SKS's. The old favorites (22's, .38's, and an oddball .32) still "pop" up from time to time, but the new favorites seem to be the larger calibers. Some crooks buy just the caliber in a *** form and a few of the smarter ones buy caliber and quality.

In times past an officer who confiscated a gun usually got to take it home if it wasn't involved in a crime after a trial was over. I collected and gave away hundreds, mostly junk. The judge or some other court official usually got the ones that came through court on a felony charge. Nowadays the AG's office requires that departments keep accurate records of confiscated guns and are also required to document proper disposal through auction or destruction. My department auctions them off. The only gun I can legally keep is a "lost" gun,ie. a throwdown or something similar that wasn't used in a crime. "Wow, I found this here gun lying here. Anybody knows who it belongs to?"

I've still got a few interesting things laying around the house even though I gave away or "loaned" and never got back a lot of stuff. Those that come to mind are: (1) a S&W .38 S&W caliber snubbie w/stags that a wife shot and killed her lawyer husband with back in the 50's. It came from the estate of the presiding judge. It's really a neat piece and is now a heirloom in my estate. (2) A H&R .410 sinble barrel shotgun. The previous owner used it to kill three different people in three different cases. The first two cases were ruled justifiable homicide. On the third case he was convicted of manslaughter. (I witnessed this shooting) (3) A RG 10 .22 caliber revolver a woman used to shoot her abusive husband. (through the front screen door) (4) A RG .38 a man killed his wife with after catching her with his brother. (5) An early S&W model 38 that was used by a fellow officer who shot and killed a guy who was trying to shoot me with one of the aforementioned cheap .22's 40 years ago (5) a couple of cheap butcher knives, a hawkbill carpet knife, AND...The Machete of Death! (a guy got chopped 37 times with this one. The rest of it I gave away or it got lost.
 
I've presided in some murder trials that involved some interesting weapons. One involved a Hi Point 9mm - not my choice for sure, and it only fired once, but it was sufficient for a contact shot to the back of the head with a 9mm hardball load. Victim sure never knew what hit him. Same thing with a side-by-side 410 shotgun - that was used to dissolve a cocaine partnership. Had one where two guys shot it out inside a small garage with nearly identical M97 Winchester shotguns. One of them also carried a high end .45 auto 1911. He used buckshot, the other guy had #6 birdshot. Guess who won. He also administered a final shot to the victim from about 6" in the face. Trust me, you really can blow someone's head off with a 12 ga. The oddest one was the twosome who did the deed with a 8 3/8" S&W M27-2. They didn't have any bullets so they used it like a ball peen hammer and beat the victim to death with it. That was ugly. Mostly it seems like these guys use whatever they have handy. There mostly isn't a lot of forethought or planning involved.
 
I forgot about the one I gave Burg. If you look real close you can see the imprint from where she was carrying it. It eventually wound up with someone who needed it.
 
And then there was albert packer a controversal cannibal in the old west. He was accused of killing and eating 5 of his companions in 1874 on a mineing trip in the colorado rockies. They were hopesly lost in winter.
When I was in high school at the time of gein`s trial there were many jokes and poems, one a parady of twas the night before christmas.
Twas the night before christmas
and all through the shed
not a critter stirred,
just ol ed.
I forgot the rest but it got gory.
I remember another story where supposedly some woman had a miscarrage as she had ate a sandwich gein gave her that tasted strange. When she heard the news she lost her baby. Probley just a untrue story, I hope.
I also heard that ed had a young male friend that tried to tear out ed`s throat when he heard what they were arresting him for. Think I heard that one from specks as I never read it.
I seen the house a number of times before it was burnt down. Once I made a blunder. I was working in yosemite. A woman got out of a car with wisconsin plates. I asked her what part she was from. She said plainfield. I stupidly said, old ed`s stomping grounds, hun? She broke down and cried and said Mrs. Worden had been her best friend! I felt like xxxx!
 
Tom Horn used a model 94 30-30 and a double action colt revolver, he was stumped by the safety on an automatic pistol during his escape.

Now i don't know if he was a bad guy or a man that was framed for the murder he was executed for. It is pretty clear he did kill men for money.

It used to be around here the bad guys would use jennings and Bryco now they are up to glock look a likes.
 
We had a manhunt here in NY in 1973 involving Robert Garrow who killed four people. Until Bucky Philips it was the largest manhunt in NY. Garrow carried a .30-30 but not sure of the make.
 
Charles Whitman was actually a bit of a gun nut, or so it would seem. He had an entire bag of weapons and not just the 6mm Remington rifle. Some period photos show all his stuff laid out. I think he also had Spam and deoderant with him. A great deal of his shooting was with a .30 caliber M1 carbine and not with the 6mm rifle. At the time, the gunwriters of the day often said the 6mm was the best chambering and maybe it was/is.

The Charter Arms .44 Special involved in the Son of Sam killings is another gun that was actually popular for a while in the gun magazines. It is also possible that there was more than one shooter using similar weapons. At the time there was something of a shortage of "quality" guns so Charters were pretty common, even as back up guns for LE work.

Things I've seen bouncing around with less savory folks that I've met or had peripheral encounters with have included:
a .22 SBR that had a bolt apparently made from a door bolt and where the cases swelled up ever time it was fired.

An old cut down 16 gauge loaded with slugs paired with an unknown - Iver Johnson I think - 38 SW revolver used in a home invasion robbery.

A High Point (recognized the grip) shoved down the front of a local drug dealers shorts as he did a silly little threatening dance.

A selective fire Chicom folding stock AK that made its way home from Iraq.
 
"(4) A RG .38 a man killed his wife with after catching her with his brother.
C.S.

What'd he do to his brother?

GF
 
GatorFarmer said:
Charles Whitman was actually a bit of a gun nut, or so it would seem. He had an entire bag of weapons and not just the 6mm Remington rifle. Some period photos show all his stuff laid out. I think he also had Spam and deoderant with him. A great deal of his shooting was with a .30 caliber M1 carbine and not with the 6mm rifle. At the time, the gunwriters of the day often said the 6mm was the best chambering and maybe it was/is.

The Charter Arms .44 Special involved in the Son of Sam killings is another gun that was actually popular for a while in the gun magazines. It is also possible that there was more than one shooter using similar weapons. At the time there was something of a shortage of "quality" guns so Charters were pretty common, even as back up guns for LE work.

Things I've seen bouncing around with less savory folks that I've met or had peripheral encounters with have included:
a .22 SBR that had a bolt apparently made from a door bolt and where the cases swelled up ever time it was fired.

An old cut down 16 gauge loaded with slugs paired with an unknown - Iver Johnson I think - 38 SW revolver used in a home invasion robbery.

A High Point (recognized the grip) shoved down the front of a local drug dealers shorts as he did a silly little threatening dance.

A selective fire Chicom folding stock AK that made its way home from Iraq.
Click to expand...

Gator-where the h-e-double toothpicks have you been?????????????? I've missed ya!! This would be the thread that brought you back from the dead :D
 
Very very macabre subject but the culmination in my opinion is how Vasili Blokhin killed 7,000 Poles in one month with the .25 acp. Everyone knows that a .25 can't kill anyone.
 
Many yers ago I went through the J N Davis gun museum in Claremore OK and the bad guys of the 20's and 30's used Colt 38 Supers, in fact those were the first 38 supers I had ever seen, just goes to show that the old timers had a little more class than the modern thugs. Jeff
 
feralmerril said:
What a beast! I had never heard of vasili blockhin before.
Vasili Blokhin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Click to expand...

"Blokhin was forcibly retired following Stalin's death, although his "irreproachable service" was publicly noted by Lavrenty Beria at the time of his departure.[9] After Beria's fall from power (June 1953), Blokhin's rank was eventually stripped from him in the de-Stalinization campaigns of Nikita Khrushchev. He reportedly sank into alcoholism, went insane, and died in February 1955 with the official cause of death listed as 'suicide.'" I wonder if his "suicide" was via a .25 Browning bullet?
 
I researched everything I could on blokhin. Virtualy every article was a repeat article of what I posted. I was routed into a white supreamist blog where they were trying to prove blokhin was jewish! I dont belive that for a secound. My grandfather and grandmother was german that came from what now is the ukraine. There were many jews there too, and all germans there were exicuted in world war two. My people seen it comeing and fled. The country was called volhyenia back then.
I had a great uncle (grandmothers brother) that was drafted into the russian army probley around 1908. He met a german doctor also in the russian army that somehow got him discharged and he and grandma came to the states together as she had also just lost her first husband over there. He also was in the army. My gradfather came from the same area about a dozzen years earlier, lost his wife and married grandma.
Both my grandparents could speak german, russian, polish and even some yiddish.
It is strange there is so little known about blokhin.
 
Have any seen the displays of "art" pistols confiscated from drug lords in Mexico which have made the rounds on the net---all the gold is not in a bank in California, thats for sure .
Blessings
 
It's not a gun, but a few years ago a badguy tried attacking a cop in his car with a samaurai sword in a neighboring county. The cop was unhurt, but the bad guy had a fatal case of lead poisoning
 
Some criminals use whatever they can get a hold of. Others like Whitman and The Son Of Sam apparently did some reading of gun mags before selecting their weapons.

But to commit murder, most anything will do the job. Guns are just mechanisms for launching bullets. A 44 spl bullet from a Charter Bulldog will kill just as dead as one launched from a S&W 1950 Target. a bullet from a 6.5 Carcano through the skull is just as bad as a .30 cal. bullet fired from a Win. Model 70.
 
Gatorfarmer, I think someone may have confused the 6mm with it's predecessor, the .244 Remington. The 6mm had a slight edge on the .243. Not to praise a murderers choice, the 6mm is a very competent round and it's slightly longer neck and higher powder capacity make reloading an easier proposition than the .243.
 
RonJ said:
Gatorfarmer, I think someone may have confused the 6mm with it's predecessor, the .244 Remington. The 6mm had a slight edge on the .243. Not to praise a murderers choice, the 6mm is a very competent round and it's slightly longer neck and higher powder capacity make reloading an easier proposition than the .243.
Click to expand...
And my point about it was that the .244 was overshadowed by the .243, so much so that they tried it again calling it the 6MM. I think it couldn't stabilize heavier bullets like the .243, something like that. But as messed up in the head as Whitman was, he used the less popular 6MM (I hate to put it this way), to great effect with off the shelf ammo.
But like you said, I don't want to sound like I'm putting any praise towards this guy. I believe this was the first really big mass murder of this type that made a world wide effect on people. A guy named Unruh walked around Camden N.J. in the forties and killed scores of people he had beefs with, real or imagined. He used a Luger. Anyone from New Jersey here know about that lunatic?
 
[. A guy named Unruh walked around Camden N.J. in the forties and killed scores of people he had beefs with, real or imagined. He used a Luger. Anyone from New Jersey here know about that lunatic?[/QUOTE]

Mentally deranged guy who killed 13 and wounded three others in the late 1940's.

Used a Luger pistol. Spent rest of life in nut house. Died 2009.
 
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