Micheal wrote:
During WWI the Germans complained when the Americans started using sawed off shotguns as trench sweepers. Said it was inhumane. These were the people using Mustard Gas if you remember.
Supply went out and bought up every shotgun they could find and shipped them to our troops in France.
Interesting story, but it's not really factual. The Gov't bought about 19,000 of Winchester's Model 1897 pump shotgun after they were up to the specs that the military wanted (they basically added a bayonet attachment and a sling). They did buy about 5,000 of them on the open market, though. They weren't "sawed off shotguns", as they had a 20-inch barrels. The Gov't also bought Remington Model 1908 (re-designated Model 10) pump shotguns, these had a 21.5 inch barrel. The Winchester allowed you to hold the trigger in and just work the slide, while with the Remington you had to release the trigger between shots.
The Germans said that they would execute any soldier found with a shotgun or shells, because it violated the 1899 Hague Convention; the U.S. Army JAG gave the opinion that the German interpretation was wrong and that the U.S. would retaliate in kind if the Germans executed U.S. soldiers in relation to shotgun usage.
It's also worth remembering that the Germans weren't the only ones using poison gas during WWI; everybody did.
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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko
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