A “terrifying arsenal” in England
Country Singer sends us a link to the UK’s Daily Mail whose editors wets their panties over James Arnold’s 500 guns of his collection in his home in Wyverstone, Suffolk.
Three months after the discovery and the 49-year-old’s arrest in April 2014, Arnold died of pancreatic cancer, meaning he could never face prosecution.
But as firearms dealer Anthony Buckland, 65, was jailed for at Norwich Crown Court for supplying some of the weapons, Suffolk Police opened up its armoury to journalists to highlight the massive scale of the find.
Reportedly, he had 200,000 rounds of ammo, too. But, he never hurt a soul with this “terrifying arsenal” of weaponry. And I hope that those expended rounds of linked ammunition aren’t in the count. On closer examination, some of the linked brass appears to be blank ammo, too. I’m just trying to figure out what was “terrifying” about it. A man can only fire one weapon at a time, two if he’s Wyatt Earp or John Wayne, so it doesn’t matter how many he has, really. Besides, I know people with much more.
Collectors aren’t terrifying. Terrorists are terrifying.
Category: Guns
Jonn, it’s Britain. They have a national phobia concerning firearms. Hell, shooting a burglar who’s just broken into your home there is legally problematic for a “common subject” who’s not LE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Martin_%28farmer%29
Sad, really. Makes me damn glad I’m an American citizen vice a British subject.
Thank you for denoting the difference between citizen and subject.
Thank you for noticing. The use of two different terms above was indeed by design.
Everyone should note – and understand – the distinction.
I met some English Bobbies at Police Week in Wash DC. The group I hung out with were adamant that if they were required to carry a gun they’d quit first.
Different attitudes I guess, if I was required to work without a gun I’d quit.
If this country continues down the current path it won’t be long until we’re American subjects……
Henry Clay is quoted as saying “A man with a rifle is a citizen. A man without one is a subject”.
Excellent definition of the differences between the two.
A few years ago someone noticed,lying on the sidewalk in front of a downtown London store, a .22 short. His/her screams alerted the po lice who shut the street down and evacuated several stores whilst They investigated this potential instrument of mass destruction. No wonder We beat Them back when.
The tradition of restricting arms to the subjects goes all the way back to William the Conqueror in 1066. One of the first orders of business was to outlaw the possession of most metal arrowheads.
Henry VIII limited the ownership of “hand gonnes” to only the extremely wealthy. James II allowed more ownership; but, it was still restricted to about the top 10% of his subjects according to wealth.
Anyone else see a pattern here?
Brits are shocked at a gun collection, they think everyone should collect used condoms like they do! only one shot fired! 😉
I’m “terrorfided”, but then again I’m always terror “something”.
Dr T
I’m terrified by the mere idea of spending even one day in the UK.
During a European vacation, we left out the UK because Bobbies don’t carry. Other countries only allow detectives and higher level to carry. Stupid, all they do is investigate or sit behind a desk…
Being terrified of guns is no different than being terrified of fire hydrants. It is mental illness.
I don’t see a single casing in that photo that actually has a bullet seated.
No Kidding! Even I noticed that, and I know exactly jack about firearms.
Nice collection he had. I should be so lucky.
And the pity of it is, most of them will probably be melted down.
And just based on the appearance of the pictures, I wonder about the serviceability of many of them. Doesn’t look as if they were kept under the proper conditions…
True shame. Many extremely interesting and unusual pieces. Most likely hidden in undesirable places for years on end. He could have done a little cleaning tho. What maybe a month straight? I wonder why he didn’t seem to have any of the brass loaded, or very many magazines. I suppose powder might be a bit tough to find around there…
Yes, if someone in the UK has their home broken into they can just call the “Bobbys”. When they eventually arrive (unarmed) they can stop and shout “I say….stop you bugger!”
I read that crap last night.
This is yet another stunning example of why no one with any clue what-so-ever should have any faith in or respect for any news media org.
The news media is filled to the brim with morons, idiots and retards.
If a news media org ever accurately portrays an event it’s purely by accident.
When we first got together, my wife (who, despite her dad’s best efforts, still succumbed to the inner-city “guns are bad” indoctrination as a teenager) found my collection a little wierd. She was actually afraid of the nightstand 1911. She brushed it off as a quaint hillbilly quirk of her new redneck boyfriend at the time, but was visibly uneasy whenever I took any weapon out of the safe. Around the same thins that she started staying at my place, I convinced her to come to the range with me. She discovered, to her great surprise, that all those scary guns are actually a lot of fun, and not so scary after all. Then I got her an old S&W Victory Model .38 wheelgun right after we got married. She LOVES it (lightweight, zero felt recoil, ideal for a skinny Asian chick with tiny little hands), and sex of course ensued. Now, when I take the 1911 to investigate an unfamiliar noise downstairs in the dark of night, she holds the top of the stairs with the shotgun. We haven’t been to the range lately (she’s breastfeeding, can’t be away from the boy for more than roughly an hour and a half), but she enjoys the hell out of it every time–she LOVES that .38! And she’s fully deprogrammed two of her sisters from their irrational fear and is working on the third–whose husband just got an LE job last year and has been trying in vain to get her to stop freaking out over his sidearm–and is making progress. My belief is that people who are afraid of guns just need somebody to take them shooting sometime. For the hand-wringers who wet their panties over somebody’s collection of weapons and ammo, I say this, “I own and possess an arsenal sufficient to equip a platoon-sized force. So does my Dad. So does my Grandpa. So do my uncles and cousins. So do my neighbors here in rural Southern California. We are not crazy racists who think the world is about to end, we just like guns and enjoy shooting,… Read more »
If I had a dollar for every girlfriend I’ve had that either disliked guns or was apathetic about them and then whose eyes lit up when they first shot one of my wheelguns I’d have a million. well, change for a $20 after a six pack, maybe.
my wife didn’t care one way or the other about guns. Now she tells me i can buy any one I want but have to buy her one just like it.
This board STILL needs a ‘Like’ button. lol
🙂
The scary part of this, IMO, is that this man was a pillar of his community, friend to many, he had no criminal record and yet he had a arsenal big enough to supply a small army. The scary thing is that people like Mr. Arnold, may he rest in peace, stand in contradiction to the vast majority of gun control arguments.That is that there are no indications of his every planning to do anything other with his weapons than to enjoy owning them.
Most banjo players would understand this as the vast majority of us tend to have to deal with BAS (Banjo Acquisition Syndrome) – a dreaded incurable disease that literally forces us to keep adding more banjos to our banjo collection regardless of how large that banjo collection may be.
Those of us that posses weapons and obey the law but never do anything that propels up to the front page of the news papers don’t exist, at least as far as the gun control arguments are concerned.
Just wait until those whose purpose in life is to save us from ourselves set their sights on banjos… You’d probably be surprised at the damage one can do with a long neck – rest assured, long necks will be the first banjos to be legislated against.
They’ll have to pry my short scale out of my cold…
Oh, no! It’s banjos, too????
I thought it was just cameras that generate GAS (gear acquisition syndrome), never mind the long lenses that go with them!! Doomed! Doomed, I tell you!
A buddy of mine always said, “the perfect bass guitar is a journey, not a destination…”
Flashback to Woody Harrelson in “Zombieland”…
Hey there, Big Hoss! You got a purty mouth. [Smack]
Adult human males that fear guns need to have themselves frequently screened for Cervical Cancer.
Show me a cowboy who rides side saddle and I’ll show you a gay ranchero.
I’d trust a side saddle riding cowboy over a Brit pansy with a firearms phobia.
200,000 rounds? Um, that does seem a tad much. Can you imagine if a fire broke out where he kept the ammo. It would be the Great Suffolk Cook-Off.
Not all that much space-wise, really.
Assuming NATO 7.62mm ammo (.308 Winchester), a box of 20 is roughly 3″x4″X1″ (give or take). That means a cubic foot of storage space can hold 144 boxes – or 2,880 rounds.
200,000 rounds would thus require around 69 cu ft – or a space about 4′ 1″ by 4′ 1″ by 4′ 1″.
In reality, you’d need a bit more space than that, as the weight of the ammo would crush boxes stacked on each other that high (4′). However, 7.62mm ammo cans hold 200 rounds, are metal (and thus stackable), and are about 7″ x 3.5″ x 10″. That equates to 1,400 rounds per cubic foot – or a total space of about 5 1/2′ by 5 1/2′ by 5 1/2′.
Yes, but if you looked at the article, you can clearly see none of them are actually loaded(strict powder laws, assuming), thus no earth-shattering-kaboom.
I don’t understand hoarders of any thing. I own guns…but not more than I can carry away with me. In my truck, sure, but in zombiepocalypse I can move them away effectively and efficiently. This guy was simply a hoarder…and its a pity because many of those are museum pieces. I would swap a kidney for a Thompson…
“I would swap a kidney for a Thompson…”
Wouldn’t we all?
No, we all wouldn’t. I’d rather keep a spare kidnely on-line (just in case one goes bad) than trade one for a Thompson thanks.
Don’t get me wrong: I’d love to own, legally, a Thompson or full-auto capable AK or M16. But I’m not willing to go that far.
I need two kidneys, but don’t have a Thompson to swap..so it leaves me where? In deep shit..
And I can still ☺
Hondo, with a Thompson, I could always get another kidney!
Damn it, where’s that ‘Like’ button!!
What TOW said. 🙂
Has anyone even remotely considered that this gentleman was simply collecting brass casings for cash recycling? If the gun ranges pick up the empties, why couldn’t he?
I, too, have an incurable disease. Well, maybe a couple of them. I’m getting over my case of GAS (see above), but there is one that will never go away: BADASS (book and dictionary acquisition supply syndrome). It goes right along with ASS (art supplies syndrome), which is almost completely incurable. I dare anyone to take my brushes! Double dog dare you!!! Just try.
What would you call fabric collecting? ^_^ cause I think I have the fabric offshoot of the ASS ^_^
How about Fabric and Thread Acquisition Squirreling Syndrome.
I’ve had that, too. It was a wrench to have to give up some of that stuff. But I kept the beads… and the crystals… and I still have (looking around) patterns. SHHHH!!!!!
The Daily Mail article seems almost sorry that Mr Arnold died of pancreatic cancer before he could be tried, sentenced, and most likely hung for his HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE “crime” of possessing an illegal gun.
Oh, pass the smelling salts and lead them to the fainting couch. I think they have a case of the vapors!
Awesome of Mr Arnold to build a secret room into his house that NO ONE detected for how many years. . . ? Even with constant police inspections. hahahahahaha
Seriously, there were (past tense by now, I’m sure) some awesome guns in that collection that could have been brought back to excellent condition. That M3 Grease gun. . . . .
Oh, and about those 200K “rounds”, it looks as if the po-po had pulled the bullets out of the brass in order to make them inert. Just a SWAG.
Sure hope they pound on those round silver spots on the base of the cartridges too…. I suggest an ice pick. heh, heh, heh
If you look closely at the brass, most of the ones I could see the base of had already been fired. And some of the brass is in very rough shape. Looks like he was an brass collector. The article mentioned that he had belonged to several gun clubs.
Talk about tedious! It’s so much easier, not to mention fun, to fire that ammo.
England: “Authorities” and public terrified at home arsenal of 500 guns and 200k of Ammo.
America: “Authorites” either worried or check to see if all legal then go about their business. Public couldn’t care. Gun Nuts Drooling
btw: I’m also a little confused. All I saw was a bunch of empty brass and a tub full of projectiles. I wouldn’t mind the lead to melt down and cast some bullets, though.
Jeez, the Brits fear guns and self defense like Bernath fears intelligence, common sense and logic! (Bernath also still works balls and sniffs taint)
Surprisingly enough, the Kalamazoo shooting is the perfect argument for the passengers being able to carry a CCW in an Uber car. The one couple that screamed their asses off to get the puke to stop had no means of stopping him because they followed the Uber rule of a gun free zone. If they had a gun they could have stopped the driver from the entire mess and possibly saved 7 lives… Perfect argument for CCW…
Also remember that Uber drivers have intervened in at least two murders with one of them being a mass shooting in chicago being stopped by, who else, not a cop but an Uber driver with a CCW permit…
http://bearingarms.com/uber-driver-concealed-carry-permit-drops-chicago-gunman/