So the recent goofiness over cheap add-on parts to make pistols shoot like submachine guns leads me to bore you with my take on the machine gun.

This is a GLOCK 18, a submachine gun. Instead of a junk, add-on 3-D printed device, the G18 is different from regular GLOCK pistols in significant ways.

In the early days before my existence, opposing armies faced each other over battlefields and slugged it out with whatever strengths and technologies they had. When the firearm appeared, you could put a hole in “that over there” without approaching it. Instead of a contact weapon – something you had to carry to the party – you had a “remote control” weapon. Click the activation device here, strike over there.

Crossing the area between the battle lines – an area known as “no man’s land” – meant you could get plugged. Things were at stalemate. How do you breach the enemy’s line and acquire his position? Well, you have to keep him from shooting at you.

Put down smoke, try to keep him from seeing you – that would work. Except they know where you are and where you have to cross. While they can’t see you, they can shoot through smoke. And that’s where you are.

Someone thought, if we could shoot a lot real fast, and have the other side ducking, they can’t effectively engage our invading troops. Manufacturing assets came up with a way to shoot a lot real fast.

That put the fright in the enemy. Not like indirect fire from artillery – that was serious business.

It also increased the consumption of ammunition. The number of casualties went from a measurement “per round fired” to “per ammo can/belt of ammo.” A lot of noise, a lot of flying projectiles, not so many injured/killed.

Quick noise.

Still, if their heads are down, we can make an approach, breach their line, then defeat them with close combat – back where we started.

The best “area denial” small arms are machine guns. They put down a lot of rounds quickly and keep the other side from approaching and keep down the heads of those you’re trying to invade.

A lot of folks think we should all have machine guns. I believe that legal prohibitions on possession of machine guns are wrong.

I’m not sure if anyone cares what I think. Nor should they.

Here’s what else I think, if you care – for the modern application of military force, they are best as crew-served or vehicle mounted. Otherwise, in my view, they’re wasted. Give me a dozen troops who can hit a mark from a few feet to a few hundred yards reliably and under pressure with rifles and I’d be happy.

Field artillery, air support and generally being somewhere else where there isn’t war is better.

The best way to keep an enemy troop’s head down is to shoot a hole through him. It’s not nice, but it’s more effective because he’s less likely to snap back up and shoot some more if the buzz gun boys just “kept his head down.”

So, this whole thing about a junk, add-on giggle switch to an otherwise perfectly good pistol is wasted on me.

Having to change sidearm design because the limp and tepid among us are afraid is irritating. It’s also the world in which we live.

I don’t like it but I won’t have to deal with it all that much longer. The younger folks will and I wish them luck in sorting it out.

Turning money into noise.

I understand why the Sturmgewehr was a big deal when it was designed. My opinion is that its time has passed. The rattle of automatic gun fire is disconcerting to some, like the sound of someone chambering the round in a pump shotgun in the dark.

That doesn’t mean it puts immobilizing fear in your enemy. When your “auto-switch” pistol goes dry – or chokes or fires out of battery -- some youngster with a snub revolver may have you headed to your grave before you can restore the pistol to function.

That, too, is not my problem.

— Rich Grassi