The Gustav Gun....Largest Gun ever built.

 I was surfing around and ran across a mention of this weapon used by the Germans in WWII, I figured it would make good "blogger fodder" and I like history stuff I figured I would do a bit of research on it and post some pictures.  I remembered reading about these guns in my history books.  The Germans built some impressive weapons, but the resources that got tied up in these super weapons was incredible.  You know how many regular tanks they could have built instead of these super weapons.  The Germans did the same thing with their "V for Vengeance" weapons that they built.  They tied up a lot of material and resources, and the Russians and the Americans just churned out a pile of T-34's and Sherman tanks  instead.

Schwerer Gustav (English: Heavy Gustaf, or Great Gustaf) and Dora were the names of two German 80 cm K (E) railway guns. They were developed in the late 1930s by Krupp as siege artillery for the explicit purpose of destroying the main forts of the French Maginot Line, the strongest fortifications then in existence. The fully assembled guns weighed nearly 1,350 tonnes, and could fire shells weighing seven tonnes to a range of 47 kilometres (29 mi). The guns were designed in preparation for the Battle of France, but were not ready for action when the battle began, and in any case the Wehrmacht's Blitzkrieg offensive through Belgium rapidly outflanked and isolated the Maginot Line's World War I-era static defenses, forcing them to surrender uneventfully and making their destruction unnecessary. Gustav was later employed in the Soviet Union at the siege of Sevastopol during Operation Barbarossa, where among other things, it destroyed a munitions depot buried in the bedrock under a bay. The guns were moved to Leningrad, and may have been intended to be used in the Warsaw Uprising like other German heavy siege pieces, but the rebellion was crushed before they could be prepared to fire. Gustav was later captured by US troops and cut up, whilst Dora was destroyed near the end of the war in 1945 to avoid capture by the Red Army.
It was the largest-calibre rifled weapon ever used in combat, the heaviest mobile artillery piece ever built in terms of overall weight, and fired the heaviest shells of any artillery piece. It is only surpassed in calibre by the British Mallet's Mortar and the American Little David mortar (both 36 inch; 914 mm).

Schwerer Gustav
Schwerer Gustav (black) compared to an OTR-21 Tochka SRBM launcher (red) with human figures for scale.
Type	Railway Gun
Place of origin	Nazi Germany
Service history
In service	1941–45
Used by	Wehrmacht
Wars	World War II
Production history
Designer	Krupp
Designed	1934
Manufacturer	Krupp
Unit cost	7 million Reichsmark
Produced	1941
Number built	2
Specifications
Weight	1,350 tonnes (1,490 short tons; 1,330 long tons)
Length	47.3 metres (155 ft 2 in)
Barrel length	32.5 metres (106 ft 8 in) L/40.6
Width	7.1 metres (23 ft 4 in)
Height	11.6 metres (38 ft 1 in)
Crew	250 to assemble the gun in 3 days (54 hours), 2,500 to lay track and dig embankments. 2 Flak battalions to protect the gun from air attack.
Caliber	80 centimetres (31 in)
Elevation	Max of 48°
Rate of fire	1 round every 30 to 45 minutes or typically 14 rounds a day
Muzzle velocity	820 m/s (2,700 ft/s) (HE) 720 m/s (2,400 ft/s) (AP)
Effective firing range	about 39,000 metres (43,000 yd)
Maximum firing range	47,000 metres (51,000 yd) (HE) 38,000 metres (42,000 yd) (AP)

In 1934 the German Army High Command (OKH) commissioned Krupp of Essen to design a gun to destroy the forts of the French Maginot Line which were nearing completion. The gun's shells had to punch through seven metres of reinforced concrete or one full metre of steel armour plate, from beyond the range of French artillery. Krupp engineer Erich Müller calculated that the task would require a weapon with a calibre of around 80 cm, firing a projectile weighing 7 tonnes from a barrel 30 metres long. The weapon would have a weight of over 1000 tonnes. The size and weight meant that to be at all movable it would need to be supported on twin sets of railway tracks. In common with smaller railway guns, the only barrel movement on the mount itself would be elevation, traverse being managed by moving the weapon along a curved section of railway line. Krupp prepared plans for calibres of 70 cm, 80 cm, 85 cm, and 1 m.
Nothing further happened until March 1936 when, during a visit to Essen, Adolf Hitler enquired as to the giant guns' feasibility. No definite commitment was given by Hitler, but design work began on an 80 cm model. The resulting plans were completed in early 1937 and approved. Fabrication of the first gun started in mid-1937. Technical complications in the forging of such massive pieces of steel made it apparent that the original completion date of early 1940 could not be met.
Krupp built a test model in late 1939 and sent it to the Hillersleben firing range for testing. Penetration was tested on this occasion. Firing at high elevation, the 7.1 tonne shell was able to penetrate the specified seven metres of concrete and the one metre armour plate.^[3] When the tests were completed in mid-1940 the complex carriage was further developed. Alfried Krupp, after whose father the gun was named, personally hosted Hitler at the Rügenwalde Proving Ground during the formal acceptance trials of the Gustav Gun in early 1941.

Two guns were ordered. The first round was test-fired from the commissioned gun barrel on 10 September 1941 from a makeshift gun carriage on the Hillersleben firing range. In November 1941 the barrel was taken to Rügenwalde, where 8 further firing tests were carried out using the 7,100 kilogram armour-piercing (AP) shell out to a range of 37,210 metres.
In combat, the gun was mounted on a specially designed chassis, supported by eight bogies on two parallel sets of railway tracks. Each of the bogies had 5 axles, giving a total of 40 axles (80 wheels). Krupp christened the gun Schwerer Gustav (Heavy Gustav) after the senior director of the firm, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach.
The gun could fire a heavy concrete-piercing shell and a lighter high-explosive shell. A super-long-range rocket projectile was also planned with a range of 150 km, that would require the barrel being extended to 84 metres.
In keeping with the tradition of the Krupp company, no payment was asked for the first gun. They charged seven million Reichsmark for the second gun Dora, named after the senior engineer's wife.
                    An 800 mm shell next to a Soviet T-34-85 tank at the Imperial War Museum, London

In February 1942, Heavy Artillery Unit (E) 672 reorganised and went on the march, and Schwerer Gustav began its long ride to the Crimea. The train carrying the gun was of 25 cars, a total length of 1.5 kilometres. The gun reached the Perekop Isthmus in early March 1942, where it was held until early April. A special railway spur line was built to the Simferopol-Sevastopol railway 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) north of the target, at the end of which four semi-circular tracks were built specially for the Gustav to traverse. Outer tracks were required for the cranes which assembled Gustav.
The siege of Sevastopol was the gun's first combat test. Installation began in early May, and by 5 June the gun was ready to fire. The following targets were engaged:

• 5 June
  • Coastal guns at a range of 25,000 m. Eight shells fired.
  • Fort Stalin. Six shells fired.
• 6 June
  • Fort Molotov. Seven shells fired.
  • "White Cliff" aka "Ammunition Mountain": an undersea ammunition magazine in Severnaya ("Northern") Bay. The magazine was sited 30 metres under the sea with at least 10 metres of concrete protection. After nine shells were fired, the magazine was ruined and one of the boats in the bay sunk.
• 7 June
  • Firing in support of an infantry attack on Südwestspitze, an outlying fortification. Seven shells fired.
• 11 June
  • Fort Siberia. Five shells fired.
• 17 June
  • Fort Maxim Gorki and its coastal battery. Five shells fired.

By the end of the siege on 4 July the city of Sevastopol lay in ruins, and 30,000 tons of artillery ammunition had been fired. Gustav had fired 48 rounds and worn out its original barrel, which had already fired around 250 rounds during testing and development. The gun was fitted with the spare barrel and the original was sent back to Krupp's factory in Essen for relining.
The gun was then dismantled and moved to the northern part of the eastern front, where an attack was planned on Leningrad. The gun was placed 30 km from the city near the railway station of Taizy. The gun was fully operational when the attack was cancelled. The gun then spent the winter of 1942/43 near Leningrad.
The gun appears to have been destroyed to prevent its capture some time before 22 April 1945, when its ruins were discovered in a forest 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north of Auerbach about 50 kilometres (31 mi) southwest of Chemnitz.                  
  A shell for the Dora gun (without the sharp ballistic cap) found after the war at the former German firing range near Rügenwalde (today Darłowo), on exhibition in the Polish Army museum in Warsaw

 

 Dora was the second gun to be produced. It was deployed briefly against Stalingrad, where the gun arrived at its emplacement 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) to the west of the city sometime in mid-August 1942. It was ready to fire on 13 September. It was quickly withdrawn when Soviet encirclement threatened. When the Germans began their long retreat they took Dora with them. Dora was broken up before the end of the war, being discovered in the west by American troops some time after the discovery of Schwerer Gustav.

 

The Langer Gustav was a long cannon with 52 centimetre caliber and a 43 metre barrel. It was intended to fire super-long-range rocket projectiles weighing 680 kilograms to a range of 190 kilometres. This gave it the range to hit London. It was never completed after being damaged during construction by one of the many RAF bombing raids on Essen.

Ammunition

	High Explosive	Armour Piercing
Length		3.6 m (11 ft 10 in)
Weight	4,800 kg (10,600 lb)	7,100 kg (15,700 lb)
Muzzle velocity	820 m/s (2,700 ft/s)	720 m/s (2,400 ft/s)
Maximum range	48 km (30 mi)	38 km (24 mi)
Explosive weight	700 kg (1,500 lb)	250 kg (550 lb)
Effect	Crater size: 9.1 m (30 ft) wide 9.1 m (30 ft) deep	Penetration: 7 m (23 ft) of concrete at maximum elevation (beyond that available during combat) with a special charge.
Notes		The main body was made of chrome-nickel steel, fitted with an aluminium alloy ballistic nose cone.

Models:

• 80 cm "Schwerer Gustav" (Heavy Gustav) - Deployed in March 1942 against Sevastopol.
• 80 cm "Dora" - Deployed against Stalingrad in September 1942. Possibly never fired.
• 52 cm "Langer Gustav" (Long Gustav) - Started but not completed.

 

The largest gun ever built was the "Gustav Gun" built in Essen, Germany in 1941 by the firm of Friedrich Krupp A.G. Upholding a tradition of naming heavy cannon after family members, the Gustav Gun was named after the invalid head of the Krupp family - Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach. The strategic weapon of its day, the Gustav Gun was built at the direct order of Adolf Hitler for the express purpose of crushing Maginot Line forts protecting the French frontier. To accomplish this, Krupp designed a giant railway gun weighing 1344 tons with a bore diameter of 800 mm (31.5") and served by a 500 man crew commanded by a major-general.

Two types of projectiles were fired using a 3000lb. charge of smokeless powder: a 10,584 lb. high explosive (HE) shell and a 16,540 lb. concrete-piercing projectile. Craters from the HE shells measured 30-ft. wide and 30-ft. deep while the concrete piercing projectile proved capable of penetrating 264-ft. of reinforced concrete before exploding! Maximum range was 23 miles with HE shells and 29 miles with concrete piercing projectiles. Muzzle velocity was approximately 2700 f.p.s.

Three guns were ordered in 1939. Alfried Krupp personally hosted Hitler and Albert Speer (Minister of Armaments) at the Hugenwald Proving Ground during formal acceptance trials of the Gustav Gun in the spring of 1941. In keeping with company tradition, Krupp refrained from charging for the first gun - 7 million Deutsch Marks were charged for the second (named Dora after the chief engineer's wife).

France fell in 1940 without the assistance of the Gustav Gun, so new targets were sought. Plans to use Gustav against the British fortress of Gibraltar were scrapped after General Franco refused permission to fire the gun from Spanish soil. Thus, April 1942 found the Gustav Gun emplaced outside the heavily fortified port city of Sebastopol in the Soviet Union. Under fire from Gustav and other heavy artillery, Forts Stalin, Lenin and Maxim Gorki crumbled and fell. One round from Gustav destroyed a Russion ammunition dump 100 feet below Severnaya Bay; a near miss capsized a large ship in the harbor. Gustav fired 300 rounds during the siege wearing out the original barrel in the process. Dora was set up west of Stalingrad in mid-August but hurriedly withdrawn in September to avoid capture. Gustav next appeared outside Warsaw, Poland, where it fired 30 rounds into Warsaw Ghetto during the 1944 uprising.

Dora was blown up by German engineers in April 1945 near Oberlichtnau, Germany, to avoid capture by the Russian Army. The incomplete third gun was scrapped at the factory by the British Army when they captured Essen. Gustav was captured intact by the U.S. Army near Metzendorf, Germany, in June 1945. Shortly after, it was cut up for scrap thus ending the story of the Gustav Gun.

Read more at http://www.worldsbiggests.com/2010/02/gustav-gun-largest-gun-ever-built.html#WHebmYkbJ6oDRujz.99

The largest gun ever built was the "Gustav Gun" built in Essen, Germany in 1941 by the firm of Friedrich Krupp A.G. Upholding a tradition of naming heavy cannon after family members, the Gustav Gun was named after the invalid head of the Krupp family - Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach. The strategic weapon of its day, the Gustav Gun was built at the direct order of Adolf Hitler for the express purpose of crushing Maginot Line forts protecting the French frontier. To accomplish this, Krupp designed a giant railway gun weighing 1344 tons with a bore diameter of 800 mm (31.5") and served by a 500 man crew commanded by a major-general.

Two types of projectiles were fired using a 3000lb. charge of smokeless powder: a 10,584 lb. high explosive (HE) shell and a 16,540 lb. concrete-piercing projectile. Craters from the HE shells measured 30-ft. wide and 30-ft. deep while the concrete piercing projectile proved capable of penetrating 264-ft. of reinforced concrete before exploding! Maximum range was 23 miles with HE shells and 29 miles with concrete piercing projectiles. Muzzle velocity was approximately 2700 f.p.s.

Three guns were ordered in 1939. Alfried Krupp personally hosted Hitler and Albert Speer (Minister of Armaments) at the Hugenwald Proving Ground during formal acceptance trials of the Gustav Gun in the spring of 1941. In keeping with company tradition, Krupp refrained from charging for the first gun - 7 million Deutsch Marks were charged for the second (named Dora after the chief engineer's wife).

France fell in 1940 without the assistance of the Gustav Gun, so new targets were sought. Plans to use Gustav against the British fortress of Gibraltar were scrapped after General Franco refused permission to fire the gun from Spanish soil. Thus, April 1942 found the Gustav Gun emplaced outside the heavily fortified port city of Sebastopol in the Soviet Union. Under fire from Gustav and other heavy artillery, Forts Stalin, Lenin and Maxim Gorki crumbled and fell. One round from Gustav destroyed a Russion ammunition dump 100 feet below Severnaya Bay; a near miss capsized a large ship in the harbor. Gustav fired 300 rounds during the siege wearing out the original barrel in the process. Dora was set up west of Stalingrad in mid-August but hurriedly withdrawn in September to avoid capture. Gustav next appeared outside Warsaw, Poland, where it fired 30 rounds into Warsaw Ghetto during the 1944 uprising.

Dora was blown up by German engineers in April 1945 near Oberlichtnau, Germany, to avoid capture by the Russian Army. The incomplete third gun was scrapped at the factory by the British Army when they captured Essen. Gustav was captured intact by the U.S. Army near Metzendorf, Germany, in June 1945. Shortly after, it was cut up for scrap thus ending the story of the Gustav Gun.

Read more at http://www.worldsbiggests.com/2010/02/gustav-gun-largest-gun-ever-built.html#WHebmYkbJ6oDRujz.99

The largest gun ever built was the "Gustav Gun" built in Essen, Germany in 1941 by the firm of Friedrich Krupp A.G. Upholding a tradition of naming heavy cannon after family members, the Gustav Gun was named after the invalid head of the Krupp family - Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach. The strategic weapon of its day, the Gustav Gun was built at the direct order of Adolf Hitler for the express purpose of crushing Maginot Line forts protecting the French frontier. To accomplish this, Krupp designed a giant railway gun weighing 1344 tons with a bore diameter of 800 mm (31.5") and served by a 500 man crew commanded by a major-general.

Two types of projectiles were fired using a 3000lb. charge of smokeless powder: a 10,584 lb. high explosive (HE) shell and a 16,540 lb. concrete-piercing projectile. Craters from the HE shells measured 30-ft. wide and 30-ft. deep while the concrete piercing projectile proved capable of penetrating 264-ft. of reinforced concrete before exploding! Maximum range was 23 miles with HE shells and 29 miles with concrete piercing projectiles. Muzzle velocity was approximately 2700 f.p.s.

Three guns were ordered in 1939. Alfried Krupp personally hosted Hitler and Albert Speer (Minister of Armaments) at the Hugenwald Proving Ground during formal acceptance trials of the Gustav Gun in the spring of 1941. In keeping with company tradition, Krupp refrained from charging for the first gun - 7 million Deutsch Marks were charged for the second (named Dora after the chief engineer's wife).

France fell in 1940 without the assistance of the Gustav Gun, so new targets were sought. Plans to use Gustav against the British fortress of Gibraltar were scrapped after General Franco refused permission to fire the gun from Spanish soil. Thus, April 1942 found the Gustav Gun emplaced outside the heavily fortified port city of Sebastopol in the Soviet Union. Under fire from Gustav and other heavy artillery, Forts Stalin, Lenin and Maxim Gorki crumbled and fell. One round from Gustav destroyed a Russion ammunition dump 100 feet below Severnaya Bay; a near miss capsized a large ship in the harbor. Gustav fired 300 rounds during the siege wearing out the original barrel in the process. Dora was set up west of Stalingrad in mid-August but hurriedly withdrawn in September to avoid capture. Gustav next appeared outside Warsaw, Poland, where it fired 30 rounds into Warsaw Ghetto during the 1944 uprising.

Dora was blown up by German engineers in April 1945 near Oberlichtnau, Germany, to avoid capture by the Russian Army. The incomplete third gun was scrapped at the factory by the British Army when they captured Essen. Gustav was captured intact by the U.S. Army near Metzendorf, Germany, in June 1945. Shortly after, it was cut up for scrap thus ending the story of the Gustav Gun.
Read more at http://www.worldsbiggests.com/2010/02/gustav-gun-largest-gun-ever-built.html#WHebmYkbJ6oDRujz.99

The largest gun ever built was the "Gustav Gun" built in Essen, Germany in 1941 by the firm of Friedrich Krupp A.G. Upholding a tradition of naming heavy cannon after family members, the Gustav Gun was named after the invalid head of the Krupp family - Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach. The strategic weapon of its day, the Gustav Gun was built at the direct order of Adolf Hitler for the express purpose of crushing Maginot Line forts protecting the French frontier. To accomplish this, Krupp designed a giant railway gun weighing 1344 tons with a bore diameter of 800 mm (31.5") and served by a 500 man crew commanded by a major-general.

Two types of projectiles were fired using a 3000lb. charge of smokeless powder: a 10,584 lb. high explosive (HE) shell and a 16,540 lb. concrete-piercing projectile. Craters from the HE shells measured 30-ft. wide and 30-ft. deep while the concrete piercing projectile proved capable of penetrating 264-ft. of reinforced concrete before exploding! Maximum range was 23 miles with HE shells and 29 miles with concrete piercing projectiles. Muzzle velocity was approximately 2700 f.p.s.

Three guns were ordered in 1939. Alfried Krupp personally hosted Hitler and Albert Speer (Minister of Armaments) at the Hugenwald Proving Ground during formal acceptance trials of the Gustav Gun in the spring of 1941. In keeping with company tradition, Krupp refrained from charging for the first gun - 7 million Deutsch Marks were charged for the second (named Dora after the chief engineer's wife).

France fell in 1940 without the assistance of the Gustav Gun, so new targets were sought. Plans to use Gustav against the British fortress of Gibraltar were scrapped after General Franco refused permission to fire the gun from Spanish soil. Thus, April 1942 found the Gustav Gun emplaced outside the heavily fortified port city of Sebastopol in the Soviet Union. Under fire from Gustav and other heavy artillery, Forts Stalin, Lenin and Maxim Gorki crumbled and fell. One round from Gustav destroyed a Russion ammunition dump 100 feet below Severnaya Bay; a near miss capsized a large ship in the harbor. Gustav fired 300 rounds during the siege wearing out the original barrel in the process. Dora was set up west of Stalingrad in mid-August but hurriedly withdrawn in September to avoid capture. Gustav next appeared outside Warsaw, Poland, where it fired 30 rounds into Warsaw Ghetto during the 1944 uprising.

Dora was blown up by German engineers in April 1945 near Oberlichtnau, Germany, to avoid capture by the Russian Army. The incomplete third gun was scrapped at the factory by the British Army when they captured Essen. Gustav was captured intact by the U.S. Army near Metzendorf, Germany, in June 1945. Shortly after, it was cut up for scrap thus ending the story of the Gustav Gun.
Read more at http://www.worldsbiggests.com/2010/02/gustav-gun-largest-gun-ever-built.html#WHebmYkbJ6oDRujz.99

The civil disobedience continues.....in the blue zone

There is a Movement in the blue states(The states in the northeast corridor) that are overwhelming "blue" I.E Vote Democrat no matter what.  There are a lot of pissed off people and they flat out will not register their firearms with the state that is demanding that they do so. The states pushed through these edicts after the new-town shooting hoping to capitalize on the emotions to run through their disarmament schemes on the citizens.   The states in question being Connecticut and New York  are giving firearm owners a "second chance" to register their EBR(Evil black Rifles) and hundreds of thousands of people will not do it.  I think the states in question will try to raid a few houses whose people were "late" in registering them to make "examples" out of them in defying the edicts of the state.  After a few are killed or their house is ransacked and their pet is gunned down."In the name of officer Safety..Of course"  the other people will start fighting back and I am not sure that the state police will be so froggy to jump through the next door.  This is a massive civil disobedience going on and many people are pissed.

      many others are leaving the state as have several businesses moved to more gun friendly areas of the country.   People have asked me why am I such a 2nd amendment zealot.  I reply, " I have seen the Nazi Death camps" and what happens when the state can by imperial fiat shove people into a cattle car and send them off to be killed and they have no recourse because the state had the guns and the people didn't have any.

If you are not sure what those are...Those are the scratches made by fingernails of the people that were stuck in the "Showers" and were trying to get out.   When you see this stuff, it leaves an indelible impression.
     The following article is from the jpfo.org. they are a jewish 2nd amendment organization, that has scads of research and other material in support of the 2nd amendment. 


They're burning registration forms! They're rallying by the thousands. They're pledging civil disobedience. They're swearing to resist, to disobey, even if it makes them felons. They're angry, they're defiant, they've had it and they aren't going to take it any more.
Who are they? No, they're not 1960s draft resisters. They're not anti-nuke activists or scruffy Occupy Wall Street protestors. Heck, chances are some of them actually work on Wall Street.
They are the gun owners of the bluest blue states. They're the respectable men and women of the mid-Atlantic region. They're people who have, in the past, submitted to the rules even when they didn't like them -- or at least kept their mouths shut about their non-compliance.
But not any more.
The spate of pointless blue-state legislation against "assault weapons" and standard-capacity magazines that followed the Newtown school shooting sought -- as usual -- to punish millions of people who didn't commit the crime by registering or outright banning firearms that just happen to look scary to hoplophobes.
This time it didn't work.

• In New York, where owners of "assault weapons" have until April 15 to register them, thousands burned registration paperwork instead.
• In Connecticut, the December 31, 2013 register-or-surrender deadline passed -- and was resoundingly ignored by an estimated 85 percent of its intended targets. (And that's despite the fact that, unlike New York, where it's a misdemeanor, failure to register is a felony in Connecticut.) TheBlaze.com reported, "...officials and some lawmakers are stunned."
• In New Jersey, as a particularly ridiculous bill loaded with unintended consequences moved through the legislature, lawmakers had to face a nine-year-old competitive shooter who threatened to move out of state. (Not to mention a tongue-in-cheek campaign by the New Jersey Second Amendment Society to send gun magazines to some bigoted politicians.)
• Meanwhile, 19 states and 34 congresspeople, and the NRA sued New Jersey over one of its existing bad gun laws.
• Rhode Island gun-rights activists have so far managed to keep a host of ugly bills bottled up on committee while frustrating one state senator so badly he spewed an obsenity at a Second Amendment supporter. They also elected themselves some hopefully more rights-friendly politicians, too.
• While individual Maryland gun owners have been quieter about the "merely bad" law inflicted upon them, Maryland-based Beretta objected enough to announce it would be expanding -- in Tennessee

In some cases, anti-gun legislators ended up shooting themselves in the foot. In the months after Newtown, some Delaware politicians hoped to pass "reasonable" victim-disarmament legislation. But when a staffer mistakenly introduced a bill that revealed their real intention, they had to withdraw the bill and slink away. Their intended victims were onto them -- and could prove it.
Rage and resistance continue to build. A rally in Connecticut on April 5 drew as many as 5,000 gun owners, some lawfully bearing arms. (David Codrea was its keynote speaker.
As New York's registration deadline looms, "hardly anyone is signing up."
It seems people have not only had it with absurd, pointless gun laws. They may have finally grasped that registration leads to confiscation.
Taken one-by-one, these developments don't seem to mean much. Taken together, they're an absolutely remarkable record of resistance -- with more to come.
In old Hollywood movies and before that, in even older novels there was a phrase: "The natives are restless." This phrase usually turned up just before said natives went on a rampage against clueless "civilized" people. At that moment in the movies, you'd hear the sound of beating drums and angry hubub in a language that none of the "civilized" people could comprehend.
Well ... the natives (of formerly complacent blue states) are getting restless indeed. And too many clueless anti-gun politicians are still failing to comprehend the language of gun rights.
Just as in those old movies, this is not likely to end well for those who seek to dominate "the natives."

Monday Music "19" by Paul Hardcastle

I first heard of this song while I was a senior in high school, I was big into the JROTC program and I had noticed that there was a lot of "Vietnam" stuff coming out in the movies and in song, I made a comment that finally the country was trying to face down the ghost and the spectre of our involvement in the "Southeast Asean War Games" as I have heard it referred to.  My Dad is a Vietnam War vet and he is on the "Agent Orange Registry" and other things, he is now 71 and for his age is in remarkably good health.  I remembered the derision that the vets went through when they came back from the war, they didn't want to go, but went because their country sent them anyway because it was their patriotic duty.
      I remembered coming back from when I was sent to Desert Storm and returned and was back in Germany, I was out with some of my friends they were having a beer, I had quit drinking because going to the gulf had "dried me out" and I liked being sober...Funny how that works out.  I did have a taste of the beer to "prove that I had made it back."  I kept having dreams that I was back in the world and would wake up and still find myself in the sandbox.  As I understand it, that was a regular occurrence with many people.   But I digress.  I had a swallow of the Local German Beer "HofBrau" for the taste, when I actually tasted it, it finally proved to me that I was "home" from the war, and I wasn't a cripple or dead or some of that other crap. 

     A person came up to us and called us a "murderer and a baby killer"  Well that wasn't smart...was actually dumb...Here we are a group of GI's that were happy to be alive and this prick shows up and opens his pie hole.  Well I immediately had a flashback to somebody insulting my Dad when he had came back from his second tour of Vietnam and I had rage like I had never had before, and I told him to "f**k off" the dummy threw a punch at me and popped me in the jaw, the red veil descended and I unloaded in this poor guy, I knocked him down with one punch and started to kick the crap out of him.  My friends pulled me off of him.  The bouncer picked this guy up and threw him out.  The others vouched for what had happened and I was able to stay.   I went into the bathroom and drowned my head in cold water to calm down.  I had been in several fights before, but this was one I was proud of.  I didn't like to fight and would look for a peaceable solution if possible.   I later called my Dad from Germany and told him that I "kicked the crap out of a war protestor for him". 

     I have great pride in my Army service and my service in the Gulf, we did a good thing getting Saddam out of Kuwait, I saw Kuwait city after we had liberated it, the Iraqi's had pillaged it.  I also saw some of the vehicles used in the highway of death and they were full of loot from the Kuwaiti's.  Some people called it a "war for Oil" and perhaps it was to an extent, but you notice that we gave it back as soon as we had liberated it?   Which other country would have done that?
     But back to the song "19" by Paul Hardcastle:
"19" is a song by British musician Paul Hardcastle released as the first single from his self-titled third studio album Paul Hardcastle (1985).
Some people believe the song has somewhat of an anti-war message, focusing on America's involvement in the Vietnam War and the effect it had on the soldiers who served. The track was notable for early use of sampled and processed speech, in particular a stutter effect used on the words "n-n-n-n-nineteen" and "d-d-d-d-destruction". It also includes various non-speech samples such as crowd noise and a military bugle call.
"19" features sampled narration (by Peter Thomas), interview dialogue ("I wasn't really sure what was going on") and news reports from Vietnam Requiem, an ABC television documentary about the post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by veterans. In 2009, the song placed at 73 on VH1's 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the 80s.
"19" topped the charts in the UK for 5 weeks, and reached the top 20 in the US, where it also topped the dance chart. For a while, it was the top selling single in 13 countries (helped by the fact that versions of the song were recorded in French, Spanish, German and Japanese), and it received the Ivor Novello award for Best-selling single of 1985. The song's English language release came in 3 different 12" versions ("Extended Version", "Destruction Mix" and "The Final Story"), each with an alternative cover design.

Hardcastle was inspired to create the song after watching Vietnam Requiem, and comparing his own life at 19 to those of the soldiers featured: "...what struck me was how young the soldiers were: the documentary said their average age was 19. I was out having fun in pubs and clubs when I was 19, not being shoved into jungles and shot at."
The title "19" comes from the documentary's claim that the average age of an American combat soldier in the war was 19, as compared to World War II's 26. This claim has since been disputed. Undisputed statistics do not exist, although Southeast Asia Combat Area Casualties Current File (CACCF), the source for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, shows a large number of deaths (38%) were ages 19 or 20. According to the same source, 23 is the average age at time of death (or declaration of death). The song also comments that while the tour of duty was longer during World War II, soldiers in Vietnam were subject to hostile fire almost every day.
Musically, the song was inspired by electro, particularly Afrika Bambaataa, although Hardcastle also "added a bit of jazz and a nice melody", and beyond the sampling of the documentary narration, the song incorporated pieces of interviews with soldiers. The song's hook, the repetitive ""N-n-n-nineteen", was developed due to the limitations of the early sampling technology used. The E-mu Emulator could only sample for two seconds, so the hook was based around "the only bit of the narrative that made sense in two seconds." Hardcastle wasn't optimistic about the song's chances in the charts. His previous two singles for independent labels had failed to make it into the UK's Top 40 and the musical policy at Radio 1 was felt to be unsupportive of dance music. News interest in the song helped, with the 10th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War seeing Hardcastle interviewed by Alastair Stewart of ITN.
Tony Blackburn, then breakfast DJ for Radio London was an early supporter of the song and it reached number 1 in the UK and around the world, with Hardcastle producing more mixes of the song to help maintain interest.Although the song did not climb as high in the United States chart, Hardcastle claims "it outsold everybody else for three weeks solid, it only reached number 15, because back then the chart was based on airplay as well as sales." The song was held back in the US by some radio stations refusing to play it, feeling that the song took an anti-American stance, something Hardcastle denies, noting "I had tons of letters from Vietnam vets thanking me for doing something for them."
The success of "19" meant that Hardcastle's manager Simon Fuller, who had recently left Chrysalis Records to set up on his own, was able to use the funds to continue his business. He named the business 19 Management in acknowledgement and the number 19 has become of great significance to Fuller. Fuller went on to become the most successful British music manager of all time and was behind the success of the Spice Girls and American Idol. Hardcastle has continued his connections to 19 Entertainment and in 2009 created the sound for the end card used at the end of 19's television shows.

After the song's unexpected, rapid climb to the top of the UK Singles chart, Chrysalis asked directors Jonas McCord and Bill Couterie to rush a video into production. Due to the lack of a band able to perform the song, the video was primarily composed of clips from the Vietnam Requiem documentary, edited together by Ken Grunbaum. The first version of the video included footage from the television networks NBC and ABC, including a newscast by ABC anchorman Frank Reynolds. After it was aired on MTV in the U.S., NBC and ABC objected to the "bad taste" of using the serious clips in a "trivial" form of "propaganda."McCord and Couterie were forced to produce a new cut incorporating public domain footage, but ABC permitted Reynolds' audio to remain. Couterie asserted at the time that the television networks opposed the video because it involved rock music:

“

What is the difference between the words in our song and the 7 o'clock news? The only difference is rock'n'roll. And why did they love the documentary and hate the video so much? Every word in the song is from the film, and there was never any argument with the facts. The only difference is the music.

”

The song's reliance on sampling also caused problems with legal clearance. Grunbaum recalled in 2012 that "there were no precedents for something like this. We ended up having to pay Peter Thomas, the narrator, royalties.^".

The Yamato and other musings while I am stuck at home

I am stuck at home, I had a medical procedure performed that did not go as planned so I will have a more invasive procedure done later this year to correct the problem.  I was planning on going to the NRA convention this year but I had to have this procedure done instead.   It had to do with timing.  I could have waited and had the procedure done later, but it would put me into the summer schedule and there is a LOT of overtime in that so I had to forgo the NRA trip I wanted to do and meet all the people that I blog with.  I am hoping there will be another city mentioned soon and what dates so I can make sure that my calender is clear.
     So anyway I am stuck at home, and we got a "smart" tv for Christmas and I discovered I could use it in conjunction with my smart phone and watch videos that I find on my phone, play them through the TV with the "YouTube" app.  So here I was bored silly, having to stay seated in the recliner, well I was surfing Star Trek TV shows, especially the remastered Original series with the "Doomsday Machine"

You Tube is really cool, what can I say.  I also watched clips from the Star Trek II The Wraith of Khan, I consider it the best of the movies that involved the original series.

   It had good and bad guys, Starships shooting at each others, an excellent soundtrack, it had action, adventure, a Horatio Hornblower in Space kinda thing.
     Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a 1982 American science fiction adventure thriller film released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the second feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise. The plot features Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise facing off against the genetically-engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán), a character who first appeared in the 1967 Star Trek television series episode "Space Seed". When Khan escapes from a 15-year exile to exact revenge on Kirk, the crew of the Enterprise must stop him from acquiring a powerful terraforming device named Genesis. The film concludes with the death of Enterprise's captain, Spock (Leonard Nimoy), beginning a story arc that continues with the 1984 film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and concludes with 1986's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
    Well I went from Star Trek to "Star Blazers"  A Japanamation cartoon that I saw in the late 70's.  I really loved that series and saw both seasons.  There was a 3rd season that was released only in Japan, I was watching those also.

Well I went and watched several episodes of "Star Blazers"  which was called "Space Cruiser Yamato" in Japanese.  Well something youtube does is put up video's in the Que for you to watch based on the interest you have typed in.  Well there was a movie made in Japan called " The Mens Yamato".  It was about 2 hours long and it was really well done.  I spend the time seeing a different view, and yes it did show the draconian discipline that the Japanese Military was known for from its petty officers to the rated seamen.  The story starts about a young Japanese women that wants to go to the location of the Yamato sinking, later in the movie, it was to return her fathers ashes to join his shipmates that have died there, kinda like what the U.S.S. Arizona survivors do when they die, they frequently ask to have their ashes released into the water where their shipmates died.  The story talks about the bond of loyalty people have for their ship and shipmates.   A very well done movie.

Yamato (大和^?), named after the ancient Japanese Yamato Province, was the lead ship of the Yamato class of battleships that served with the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. She and her sister ship, Musashi, were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed, displacing 72,800 tonnes at full load and armed with nine 46 cm (18.1 inch) main guns. Neither ship survived the war.
Laid down in 1937 and formally commissioned a week after the Pearl Harbor attack in late 1941, Yamato was designed to counter the numerically superior battleship fleet of the United States, Japan's main rival in the Pacific. Throughout 1942 she served as the flagship of the Japanese Combined Fleet, and in June 1942 Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto directed the fleet from her bridge during the Battle of Midway, a disastrous defeat for Japan. Musashi took over as the Combined Fleet flagship in early 1943, and Yamato spent the rest of the year, and much of 1944, moving between the major Japanese naval bases of Truk and Kure in response to American threats. Although she was present at the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, Yamato played no part in the battle.
The only time she fired her main guns at enemy surface targets was in October 1944, when she was sent to engage American forces invading the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Japanese were unaware that Admiral Halsey's entire massive fast carrier task force with battleships had been successfully lured away by a feint. Left behind was only a slow escort carrier task force armed against ground forces with no hope of protecting vulnerable troop transports from the Yamato. But as the American light ships resembled larger cruisers and carriers, the Japanese believed they were fighting the main fleet. The massive guns of Yamato would not be turned against battleships, but in the Battle off Samar would instead be a seemingly mismatched showdown against the industrial production of small and inexpensive light ships and carriers. Nevertheless desperate sailors and aviators delivered accurate 5 in shellfire and torpedoes from ships as small as destroyer escorts. These attacks wrought enough havoc on the Japanese surface force to turn them back, but only after inflicting losses comparable in ships and men to the Battle of Midway.
During 1944, the balance of naval power in the Pacific decisively turned against Japan and, by early 1945, the Japanese fleet was much depleted and critically short of fuel stocks in the home islands, limiting its usefulness. In April 1945, in a desperate attempt to slow the Allied advance, Yamato was dispatched on a one way voyage to Okinawa, where it was intended that she should protect the island from invasion and fight until destroyed. The task force was spotted south of Kyushu by US submarines and aircraft, and on 7 April 1945 she was sunk by American carrier-based bombers and torpedo bombers with the loss of most of her crew.
    
From the time of their construction, Yamato and her sister Musashi carried significant weight in Japanese culture. The battleships represented the epitome of Imperial Japanese naval engineering, and because of their size, speed, and power, visibly embodied Japan's determination and readiness to defend its interests against the Western Powers and the United States in particular. Shigeru Fukudome, chief of the Operations Section of the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff, described the ships as "symbols of naval power that provided to officers and men alike a profound sense of confidence in their navy." Yamato's symbolic might was such that some Japanese citizens held the belief that their country could never fall as long as the ship was able to fight.

Decades after the war, Yamato was memorialised in various forms by the Japanese. Historically, the word "Yamato" was used as a poetic name for Japan; thus, her name became a metaphor for the end of the Japanese empire. In April 1968, a memorial tower was erected on Cape Inutabu in Japan's Kagoshima Prefecture to commemorate the lives lost in Operation Ten-Go. In October 1974, Leiji Matsumoto created a new television series, Space Battleship Yamato, about rebuilding the battleship as a starship and its interstellar quest to save Earth. The series was a huge success, spawning five feature films and two more TV series; as post-war Japanese tried to redefine the purpose of their lives, Yamato became a symbol of heroism and of their desire to regain a sense of masculinity after their country's defeat in the war. Brought to the United States as Star Blazers, the animated series proved popular and established a foundation for anime in the North American entertainment market. The motif in Space Battleship Yamato was repeated in Silent Service, a popular manga and anime that explores issues of nuclear weapons and the Japan-US relationship. The crew of the main plot device, a nuclear-powered super submarine, mutinied and renamed their vessel Yamato, in allusion to the World War II battleship and the ideals she symbolises.
In 2005, the Yamato Museum was opened near the site of the former Kure shipyards. Although intended to educate on the maritime history of post Meiji-era Japan, the museum gives special attention to its namesake; the battleship is a common theme among several of its exhibits, which includes a section dedicated to Matsumoto's animated series. The centrepiece of the museum, occupying a large section of the first floor, is a 26.3-metre long model of Yamato (1:10 scale).

Later that year, Toei released a 143 minute movie, Yamato, based on a book by Jun Henmi, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II; Tamiya released special editions of scale models of the battleship in conjunction with the film's release. Based on a book of the same name, the film is a tale about the sailors aboard the doomed battleship and the concepts of honour and duty. The film was shown on more than 290 screens across the country and was a commercial success, taking in a record 5.11 billion yen at the domestic box office.

Best and worse excuses for speeding....

-I told a State Trooper I was speeding because I had to use the bathroom. He told me where the closet restroom was located, followed me and wrote my ticket in the parking lot as I ran inside to use the bathroom".

-"I am on my way to give someone their last rites". Later the driver complained that I made him late and the guy died without them, however after the ticket he went directly into the nearby McDonalds.

-A cop caught a woman speeding who pulled into a convenience store and bought drinks. When she returned out to her car, the cop saw she was pregnant. "I'm in labour and on my way to the hospital" the woman told him. He offered to escort her to the hospital but the woman admitted she just used her pregnancy as an excuse.

-Stopped a guy doing 30 over. He asked to get out of the car to speak with me. After patting him down he walked to the rear of my car. He then asked if I would hurry up and write his ticket, he really needed to get home. After this request I asked him the emergency. He said I might not understand. I said just tell me what's the problem. He point toward his car and the young woman in it. He said they had been dating several months and she was finally "giving it up" and he wanted to get home before she changed her mind.

-In another hospital excuse, an officer said the driver he stopped for speeding said he was taking his wife to the hospital. "She's bad sick" the driver told Thomas. Thomas glanced in at the wife who wore a smirk on her face. Thomas offered to escort the couple to the hospital. While en route, he watched the couple arguing. He followed them into the emergency room where they continued arguing. Just as she acted like she was going to check in, the wife stopped and said "I'm not doing this anymore. You need to take what's coming to you".

-The best was when I stopped a guy going 88mph in a 60. Asked him why he was going so fast. He replied "I was trying to go back in time" as he looked at me and grinned.

-My dad used to say he got held up and was very late picking up his daughter and he was worried about her waiting all alone. Worked about 90% of the time.

-A drunk guy told me he was pregnant then urinated all over himself claiming his water broke.

-My wife didn't care for long drives on the interstate when she travelled on business alone. So she would put a box of tampons (visible) in the backseat. Whenever she was stopped for speeding, she would act jumpy, exasperated and irate. When questioned as to why she was driving so fast she would point to the box of tampons in the backseat. No male officer ever ticketed her!

-I stopped a girl with all the Goth black stuff on herself and little figurines on her dash. I asked what is all this stuff. She said "I'm a Wicka". I said "A what?" She goes "You know, a witch". I said "Oh yeah". Then she asks "Are you giving me a ticket?" I said "Yes, I am". She said "I'll put a spell on you. I told her "Too late. My ex-wife beat you to it".

-As I was speeding, a state trooper pulled me over. When he told me how fast I was going I told him I had been talking to myself. He looked puzzled. I said I was mad at my husband and was practicing what I was going to say to him. I guess the madder I got the faster I got. He closed his ticket book and said "I'll let you finish your conversation, just keep it under the speed limit". Works every time.

-DRIVER: My buddy, who is police officer, is gonna kill me! OFFICER: Who is your buddy? DRIVER: David Pollino! OFFICER: Ohhhh, you know Dave Pollino? Well in that case, you should thank him when you see him! DRIVER: You bet Officer, I will do exactly that! I stand there in awkward silence until the driver chimes in and says can I help you? OFFICER: Just waiting for my thanks. DRIVER: I don't understand! OFFICER: Can you read, ma'am? Can you read my name tag out loud? DRIVER: Officer! Sgt. David Pollino! OFFICER: Ma'am, since we are such good friends and all, and you were going to thank me, I was just waiting for my thanks.

-An officer asked my grandma why she was in a hurry and she said she had ice cream in the back and didn't want it to melt. He let her go.

-"Oh I thought the sign I-95 meant the speed limit... glad you didn't catch me over on SR-210 earlier".

-"I wasn't speeding, I just got a haircut and it makes me look fast".

-One driver blamed bigger tires for his increased speed. The judge understood because he knew changing out the size of a tire can throw off the speedometer.

-It snowed 6 inches and I radar a car driving 54 in a 30. Stopped her and she very matter of fact told me "Duh, I know I was going fast, I was trying to get the snow off my windshield so I could see where I'm going!!"

-I was working the highway on a Sunday afternoon and I pulled over a van with two occupants that was speeding. I asked what the emergency was and the driver responds that he was trying to get a fly out of the van and he figured that if he opened the windows and sped that it would work.

-I checked a 17-year-old kid on I-71 at 101mph. He was driving a gold Ford Explorer. When I told him I checked him at 101, he threw a fit and wanted to argue with me, saying he was only doing 85mph. Me, being the curious cop, asked him why he thought he was only going 85 and his response was "My speedometer only goes to 85 and I had my gas pushed all the way to the floor".

-I was trying to catch up to the guy in front of me so that I could read his license plate because he threw a beer bottle at my car".

-One of my cop friends told me a story: he pulled over a couple for speeding, asked why the driver (male) was speeding. The male said his wife (the passenger) was pregnant and they were going to the hospital. The officer said that was fine (even though he knew the truth) and followed them to the hospital to make sure everything went alright. When they got to the hospital, he escorted them in and made sure they got a room right away. Finally the male admitted to lying. The officer didn't write him up, figured the hospital bill would be enough.

-"My car has a recall on it for unexplained acceleration and I'm on my way to get it fixed!"

-I got pulled over in a small town in east Texas several years ago. When he asked for my license, I pulled my money clip out, which had my license in it as well as several twenties and fifties that he could see. I made the comment that I bet $50 that he was going to give me a ticket. He just smiled and said "You just lost. Where is my $50?" I was glad to give it to him".

-"I have a cold and when I cough, my foot mashes the pedal"...

-A few years ago when I was young and dumb, I had just gotten off from work and was speeding home - about 55 mph in a 30mph construction zone. I was pulled over and after the officer told me how fast I was going I told him that I had just put some new rear-end gears in my truck and my speedometer wasn't working right. All he said was to take it easy going home and get it fixed. No ticket.

-I stopped a guy for doing 71 in a 50 because he wanted to get to McDonalds before the breakfast menu ended.

-When I was in college, I had "stayed over" my date's house too late and was zipping home in the wee hours of the morning. A police officer pulled me over citing that I was driving over 85mph. I told him that I was sorry, but I was very tired from being up studying all night and was trying to get home to bed. Besides, my old Toyota couldn't possibly go 85 mph because the speedometer only goes up to 75! The officer put his head through the window to verify what I said and confirmed it. He let me go, saying: 'Get some sleep!'"

-I had someone tell me that he put too much oil in the engine of his vehicle, and he had to drive really fast to burn the extra oil out.

-I was going 85 mph in a 55-zone on I-40. I had just gotten my license a couple of weeks before. I still had my driver's manual in the glove box. By the time the officer had pulled me over, I had grabbed it, looked up 'DMV officers' and noticed they mostly deal with 18-wheelers. I gave him my driver's license and registration and asked if I could show him something. I showed him the manual and asked "Where's my other 14 wheels?" He laughed, told me to slow down and let me off with a verbal warning.

-I was told by a lady her accelerator was broken and it always went that fast no matter

-We had been trying to get pregnant for a while and were seeing a specialist. En route there I was taking a little-used side road that was 25mph. The cop clocked us at 94 in a 25. We were only about 3 minutes from the doctor's office at the hospital. When we explained we only had a few minutes to get this 'sample' to the office, not only did he let us go, but he even waved us through the red light.

-Pulled over a Corvette doing 100 in 55zone. Late at night on highway no traffic... I told the driver "You were flying, unless you have a pilot's license, you are going to jail". He actuallyhanded me a pilot license... yep I let him go.

-Apparently insulting an officer isn't an effective tool for getting out of a traffic stop. When the officer asks why you were going so fast, don't reply: "Tim Horton's has half-price donuts down the road and I was clearing the way for you".

-I stopped a lady who was crying when I walked up. I asked what the problem was. She said she had gone shopping for the first time after having a baby and nothing fit right. I handed her her license back and slowly backed away. Nothing good was coming from this!

-From an 80-year-old woman I stopped: "I'm speeding because I don't want to forget where I am going".

-"I was just keeping the 2 second buffer time between me and the car behind me". "There was no one behind you..." "Good job, huh?"

-I had a lady tell me that she was rushing home to meet her husband because she had 20 minutes to get pregnant. They were using one of those kits that told you when the right day and time of day, would be best.

-"The box says "If you have an erection over 4 hours, see your doctor IMMEDIATELY!'"

-"I wasn't speeding, I was qualifying".

-A 17-year-old was going 23 over. When I asked him why he was going so fast, he looked me dead in the eye and said "Because I'm just all kinds of stupid".

-I got tagged for doing 54 in a 45 years back. The officer laughed when he told me and I said that my dyslexia was acting up again.

-A traffic enforcement officer stopped a woman driving 60mph in a 45mph zone. When he asked why she sped, the driver replied "My colon has fallen in my vaginal canal". The officer wrote her a ticket anyway. He figured she could bring medical proof to court if she wanted to contest the ticket. She paid it without a hearing.

-"My car is a 2010 Corolla, and Toyota just released a recall for acceleration. It's all over the news!" He still got the ticket.

-"The reason I was going so fast is because I couldn't see the speedometer" the driver said. Evans peered inside the car and the speedometer appeared fine. The driver explained. "Sir, I had my head so far up my butt there's no way I could possibly see how fast I was going" the driver said. After a few short laughs and a warning citation, he was on his way.

-"I was low on gas so I wanted to make sure I had enough speed to coast home".

-An officer stopped a speeding driver whose excuse was there was a rat loose in the car. Apparently, the driver bought mice to feed his snake and placed the mice inside a cardboard box. The mice chewed through the box and escaped in the car.

-"I didn't want to get caught driving unaccompanied with my learner permit".

-A Highway Patrol Trooper clocked a man driving more than 100mph one cold morning. "Why are you going that fast?" He replied he was trying to get his window to defog because he couldn't see.

-A Traffic Officer stopped a speeding driver and asked about the reason for traveling so fast. "My colonoscopy bag is leaking" the driver replied. "Prove it" Huey said. When the driver did so the officer simply told the driver "Have a nice night".