Where did the grease guns go?

[gkman11]

Saved our nickels and went on a vacation to the mediterain last month. Had been 30 years to the month since I had been to Barcelonia, Spain. When I was there before every cop (and there were plenty) had a machine gun hanging from a sholder strap. About level at the waist, horizontal, and ready to make noise. Don't know much about guns but looks like what was called a grease gun in the comics.

Now the cops aren't nearly as mean looking and in pairs in compact cars or on motor scooters with a small automatic on their hip.

Did you guys buy all those surplus machine guns?

[John Lawson]

As a lifelong LE firearms instructor, I can tell you that it is easier to teach a Hispanic officer to spray a target with projectiles than to get hits with aimed fire.

[Leigh]

Probably budget cuts... bullets cost money

------------------
Leigh W3NLB

[andy_b]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by John Lawson:
As a lifelong LE firearms instructor, I can tell you that it is easier to teach a Hispanic officer to spray a target with projectiles than to get hits with aimed fire.</font>

i believe that could be said of MOST LEOs. and M-3 grease guns are not politically correct enough for police to be carrying.

http://www.bat21.com/images/graphics%20011.jpg

andy b.

[sauer38h]

A couple of years ago I saw police in the Frankfurt airport with HKs. But they were in green uniforms, and didn't look all that martial - they looked more like forest rangers on the lookout for errant campfires.

[Rex]

What's changed is Generalissimo Franco (aka "Hitler's Boy") is gone.
I started my first day of grade school in Zaragoza in September 1957. As I was waiting for the bus on a street corner on the central boulevarde, about a dozen motocycles with sidecars came rooaring by. Each had two soldiers with the classic Nazi helmet. Each sidecar had a machinegun mounted on it.
As a 6-year old kid, I thought that was pretty cool. And then there was the occasional tank that would rumble by on the cobblestone street.


[This message has been edited by Rex (edited 10-25-2005).]

[madman]

My buddy Al had one hanging on a couple of nails in his camp kitchen. It was for close bear encounters he said.

[flatlander]

There was a good article on the 'grease gun', or M3 submachinegun in the NRA's "American Rifleman" last month. They talked about the gun's origins, development, and subsequent variations on the original model. One thing I recall from reading the article was that it was a popular export - our govt. sent a lot of them overseas as military aid as they were phased out of service here. At the same time, the M3 stayed in limited use here well into the '60s, and as a result, they got pretty well "used up" before they were finally retired. The author said that because so many were exported, and the remaining guns were so worn out, not many were ever sold on the civilian market. In other words, legally-owned registered M3s are pretty rare. That's OK by me though - I prefer the Thompson anyway.

[tomb]

I haven't been in Barcelona since the late 1980s - but I do recall seeing smgs back then hanging on shoulder straps of cops.

If I recall - those are Star brand Z45s (might be wrong - don't have my copy of SAR available) They are a 9mm Spanish manufactured product.