One of the oddities

of the Industrial revolution,

or the Invasion of Steel,

in our world

is that while the autos and trucks

of 1911 have to be restored

in order to be driven,

and then carefully driven, at that,

as most of them weren't very fast,

or very safe,

by 1911, most of the modern

pistols, rifles, shotguns, and

machineguns had already

been brought into existence...

and many of them will still function

just as well now as they did then.


An almost hundred year old Vickers

machinegun in .303 or 7.92 or .30-06

will take modern ammunition

and will take out a helicopter,

a lightly armoured vehicle,

or a whole company of men

just as efficiently

as always.


Forget Henry Ford,

John M. Browning's M1911 pistol

is still being produced,

by even more companies than it originally was,

each example of the thousands

capable of the same hole-making

that the prototype was.


Just like a 1951 Fender Broadcaster

is just as capable of playing

heavy metal as it is of playing

the country swing it was

built for.


It is the ignorance of historical

reality that hobbles people

more than the stupidity

of their leaders.

Ignorant people are always

struck by something "new"

because they don't file what they

encountered before and

the future is a mystery to them

until they switch on their TV

or visit a store.