By Major Van Harl USAF Ret
Wisconsin –-(Ammoland.com)- The Colonel announced we were going to watch the original Mel Gibson 1979 movie, Mad Max.
I had never seen the original Max Max movie, but I had seen the two sequel movies Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome. In the first Max Mad movie, Gibson’s character Max is some kind of police officer in the Outback of Australia. It is suppose to be an apocalyptic movie, but most of the people in the movie sort of seem to be living a normal life except for the outlaw biker gang that is terrorizing the area.
Max carries a large framed revolver in a shoulder holster and in a leg holster he has a cut-down 12 gauge, side-by-side shotgun (read saw-off). The shortened shotgun was his primary weapon in the first movie, and there was plenty of ammunition.
In the second movie, Road Warrior, it is post-apocalyptic, and Max is now a broken shell of a man living on the outer edge of what is left of society. He still has his cut-down shotgun and keeps pulling it out to visually warn off or intimidate those he confronts. In one scene, after dispatching a bad guy to hell, he searches the body and finds a couple of 12 gauge shotgun shells. One of the shells falls apart in his hand, but the second one appears to be still salvageable, so Max opens up his now noticeably empty shotgun and inserts the single round of ammo.
At this point, you realize the scarcity of ammunition is a major theme of the second Mad Max movie.
The world is turning to savagery, but without ammo, firearms are not a major player. This just means the strong that can use pre-gunpowder weapons with great skill, and ruthlessness can overpower the weak and unarmed. Longbows and lots of crossbows are used along with knives, clubs and boomerangs. If you are weak, but a great crossbow shot, it does not matter–the larger group of stronger vicious assailants will in the end overpower you.
In one scene a weaker female person, seeing that Max is also a vicious killing machine, but on her side of the fight, decides to give him the last few 12 gauge shotgun shells she has been hoarding. Eventually, in the final fight, some of the shotgun shells still fail to work.
If you have paper hull shotgun shells you are saving for a rainy day or a post apocalyptic showdown with “pickers” who will be visiting your neighborhood right after the police stop patrolling, I suggest you buy some new plastic hull shotgun ammo.
As the Colonel and I are watching Max have his shotgun shells disintegrate in his hands and his chances of surviving also disintegrating, I told her that there was a great reason for the Road Warrior to have shotgun adapters.
The Colonel’s response was “I know, I edit your columns, I know what a shotgun adapter is.”
As Max is desperately hoping for some ammunition for his shotgun, if only he had a couple of Short Lane Shotgun Adapters (gunadapters.com) in 12 gauge-to-9mm. 9mm ammunition is everywhere in the world, to include the Outback of Australia.
Volume wise Max could be carrying a hundred rounds of 9mm ammo in the space he would store 25 rounds of 12 gauge. If he also had a 12 gauge-to-22LR adapter he could greatly increase his shooting output in an even smaller storage package.
In many societies or countries, if you are even allowed to own firearms, it is usually only shotguns. The ruling class wants to keep you at a disadvantage. If “they” have high capacity self-loading rifles that shoot out five to six hundred yards and the peasant masses can only shoot back with birdshot at close range, who fairs best in that firefight?
I would bet money that Max would have loved to have a couple of 12 gauge-to-45acp, eight inch adapters that were rifled. He could have turned his double barrel shotgun that he had limited usable ammo into a double-rifle with which he would be dropping “Aussie Walkers” out to one hundred yards. Instead of eating dog food like Max did in the first movie, he would be able to shoot game in the vast open spaces to feed himself.
Max had a utility belt of heavy tools he carried. He needed a Farson Hatchet weighing only 9.6 oz on his belt (fremontknives.com) to facilitate processing the game he shot and to impress the need for prudence and personal safety on the part to the wilderness aggressors he might encounter.
In time of crisis, whether it is the Outback of Australia or the wrong side of the tracks in your town, having the correct tool to keep you safe may be the only thing to keep you alive.
Major Van Harl USAF Ret. / vanharl@aol.com
About Major Van Harl USAF Ret.:Major Van E. Harl USAF Ret., a career Police Officer in the U.S. Air Force was born in Burlington, Iowa, USA, in 1955. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Infantry School. A retired Colorado Ranger and currently is an Auxiliary Police Officer with the Cudahy PD in Milwaukee County, WI. His efforts now are directed at church campus safely and security training. He believes “evil hates organization.” vanharl@aol.com