Today during a gun buy back event in LA, rocket launchers were turned in to the LAPD. Read about it here.
If you read my blog – you know I am a die hard supporter of the 2nd Amendment, and generally I am annoyed by these buy back events. If these people would just sell their firearms, they would get more money in most cases, so I have a hard time understanding why people turn in their guns.
Are these really rocket launchers? I don’t know – but, I have a feeling the media is blowing it out of proportion. Does anyone have more accurate info?
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Couple of things, those are expended M136 rounds, no more dangerous than any other fired cartridge and harder (maybe if you shipped it back to Sweden) to reload. One of them is clearly marked ‘TRAINER’. The black and yellow bands make it a formerly High Explosive loaded M136 and not a dedicated field handling trainer (gold/yellow) or the M287 ballistic (9mm tracer) trainer with no band. It’s just a empty tube wrapped in fiberglass.
The M136 is not a rocket launcher, it is a self-contained, disposable, recoilless rifle. The projectile is ballistic in flight, not propelled, so it’s not a rocket. Most likely some unit held onto a few fired rounds to help new soldiers learn the manual of arms for the M136 and then they made it into the wild. You can find expended M77 LAW and M136 tubes for sale online for between $200 and $400 dollars.
Art,
Thank you! I knew someone would have the real details. I appreciate your response, very educational.
I just had a feeling with all the attention the LA buy back was getting – this was probably an exaggerated story.
Glad you are here and took the time to get correct info out there!
~Lil
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/12/28/lol-media-plays-up-la-gun-buyback-that-turned-up-omg-rocket-launchers/
Thank you for the Link Jon! They had links in their story to differentiate between rocket launchers and RPGs.
Good stuff!
this is the pertinent quote from nbc…
The weapons, essentially long metal tubes once capable of firing rockets, lacked the projectiles and parts needed to fire them,
R – thank you for sharing, very interesting! I didn’t see that quote in the article I found, they spin to suit themselves….