Sunday, October 09, 2011

When the Left declares a kulturkampf, I reach for my Inglis....

My Inglis High-Power of course.

The title of this post is paraphrased from a rather well known national socialist of his time, Herman Goering.

Today we can see yet another leftist -- in German military uniform no less -- on Wall Street of all places calling for a class war. We also have the specter of these scumbags threatening violent acts against middle-class workers.

Do the fools realize what they're actually asking for, and the consequences? Probably not.

In any case, on to the Inglis Hi-Power.



This Hi-Power in my collection is an Inglis MKI*, with the black paint finish, British proofs, and rather excellent Inglis workmanship.

The Hi-Power fits the hand well and the sights line up quite naturally. The first 9mm pistol with a workable double column magazine, it offered 13+1 rounds of firepower.

The sights, while small, are quite usable and the trigger, which somewhat hampered crispness-wise by the magazine safety, is more than up to the task of accuracy for self-defense ranges. The small thumb safety takes some practice to quickly move from safe to fire, but overall the pistol serves its purpose well and even 70 years after it was made still functions perfectly and has been an enduring and excellent design.

This particular pistol was in the Nazi-killing business, and hopefully for this pistol and its fellows, business was good.

The Browning Hi-Power was developed in Belgium by Fabrique Nationale (FN). One of the last designs by John Moses Browning, it was refined and finished by Dieudonné Saive, and it went into production just in time for the factory to be occupied by the Nazi invasion and it then produced Hi-Powers for the Wehrmacht.

However, some brave Belgians smuggled the plans for the pistol to Canada where the Hi-Power was then produced by Inglis for the British Commonwealth military forces. As such the Hi Power, like Dieudonné Saive's later creation, the FN-FAL, fought on both sides of a conflict.

The Inglis name continues today and some Inglis pistols continue to serve in armies around the world, making them some of the longest-serving sidearms around and a testament to an excellent design.

Inglis, while it does not manufacture pistols today, is an example of the peace dividend Canada has been enjoying ever since the end of WWII. Inglis is now making home appliances including washing machines such as can be seen in my Dad's basement in Toronto:



From superb pistols to superb washing machines, the Inglis company (now having been taken over by Whirlpool in 1987 and the company having changed its name to Whirlpool Canada in 2001) has served Canada well.

1 comment:

Expatriate Owl said...

The labor unions (including the one I am effectively compelled by law to join) have also joined the "Occupy Wall Street" anarchy fest, and were beseeching their members to join the march last week.

My question: Once they take down Wall Street and the financial markets, what then? Remember that, imperfect as the securities trading markets may be, most of the unions' members' pension funds are invested in them.