P08 Jubil�¤um

[Michael Zeleny]

1908-2008

Too bad it shoots blanks. A metaphor for German military prowess.

[RGMCE]

I'll take the bait. While understanding Beckett's spiritually arid world view, I'm struck by the Swiftian irony of collecting the gun most closely associated with the "ineffectual" German military, the agent of the 20th Century's metaphorical Anti-Christ, to use a dramatic term. Millions dead. However in the abstract it's only sculpted metal. Intellectual detachment. No memories. No pain. What would Hanna Arendt think? (The banality of evil, etc.) On the lighter side, G.B.Shaw? Best regards, Dick McEvoy I'm not Waiting for Godot, he left on a bus for San Bernadino!

[Michael Zeleny]

Originally posted by RGMCE
I'll take the bait. While understanding Beckett's spiritually arid world view, I'm struck by the Swiftian irony of collecting the gun most closely associated with the "ineffectual" German military, the agent of the 20th Century's metaphorical Anti-Christ, to use a dramatic term. Millions dead. However in the abstract it's only sculpted metal. Intellectual detachment. No memories. No pain. What would Hanna Arendt think? (The banality of evil, etc.) On the lighter side, G.B.Shaw? Best regards, Dick McEvoy I'm not Waiting for Godot, he left on a bus for San Bernadino!

With half of my mother's family lost to uniformed depredations of the last century, I will have nothing to do with any arms that bear Nazi proofs. But the Luger's original maker, Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (German Weapons and Munitions Works), known as DWM, was a successor in interest to Ludwig Loewe & Company, an arms maker founded in 1872. In addition to the Luger, Loewe owned the production rights to some of the finest contemporary firearms such as Mauser turnbolt rifles and Smith & Wesson break-open revolvers. This provenance makes the Luger a Jewish gun par excellence. My 1906 American Eagle 9mm, 1918 DWM P08, and 1917 DWM LP08 put me in touch with my inner Ernst Kantorowicz, the hagiographer of Frederick II, who, but for an accident of Semitic birth, might have made an excellent Nazi. That said, my main passion is the SIG P210. The greatest sword never gets drawn in anger.