Not exactly.

John M. Browning designed it and Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company built the Browning Automatic Rifle, which saw brief service in World War One, and entered the military inventory. 
After the war, the police found a need for something more. Yes, they had Thompson submachine gun, which fired a .45 ACP cartridge, but the cars that Detroit turned out were made of sterner stuff than they are today. The .45 ball ammunition of the day did not always provide the penetration that the police needed.
What to do?
Colt and FN Herstal came up with a solution: The COLT MONITOR R80 Automatic Machine Rifle.
The lightened and shortened version of the BAR, now called a Monitor, equipped with a muzzle break and a pistol grip, firing the .30-06 cartridge would put a round through-and-through the car including the engine block and its occupants with ease.
On May 23, 1934, the careers of bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were concluded through the use of the Colt Monitors (in part) when they were shot to death in a police ambush as they drove a stolen Ford Deluxe along a road in Bienville Parish, LA.
These days you hear the odd complaint about the police becoming too much like the military with armored cars and semi-automatic carbines like the M-4 and Ruger Mini-14. However there is a historical precedent for something much more robust.
Bonnie and Clyde met their end through the use of the Colt Monitor
I can only imagine the reaction of the inner city if law enforcement reverted to the golden age of police work (where the badge said POLICEMAN, not POLICE OFFICER) and they had Monitors available.
Can you outrun the long arm of the law? It is more difficult if the long arm of choice is the Colt Monitor. Thus ends your Sermonette.

(Yes, Ed. More nostalgia)

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33 COMMENTS

  1. More nostagia for Ed: yes, the days where the biggest, toughest badasses in town became policemen (not police officers) have been over for quite a long time.

    Just check out the physical characteristics of the average law man back in the old west. There were no short little, fat, pudgy near sighted sheriffs or marshalls. Uh uh. The men who wore the badge were all big, tough, mean, tall and imposing. No stubby sheriffs back then, not like now. Now, that doesn't mean that back in the day there weren't any big, tough, mean, tall imposing sheriffs who also had a heart of gold; you just had to look far and wide to find one.

  2. A BAR can blow a lot of big holes into something. I got to shoot a couple of magazines when I was a younger man.

  3. Yes, now you see your share of dwarf females wearing the badge. Not that I am anti-dwarf or anti-female. It's just that the job often requires that force be applied, and if you can't control the situation, you end up going to guns much more quickly than might otherwise be needed. I've seen it myself first hand.

    Of course, it took a big guy to properly haul and operate a BAR or a monitor. A 4'10" woman – even a fat one – might find operating a BAR to be a challenge. A Texas Ranger from the days of yore, would be right at home handling one.

  4. Oh, yeah. There's something about them. The cuts compensator helps and it helped with the Thompson as well. Not a lot, but it gives you a nudge.

    Those who know me, understand that I LOVE shooting a Thompson. But if I wanted to put a lot of big holes in something dense, the BAR is second only to the M-2.

  5. I'm not positive, but I think that the M-60, which also fires the 30-06 round replaced the Monitor in most if not all military arsenals. Shot thousands of rounds of those, but not standing up like Rambo, with the belt of ammo in one hand and squeezing the trigger with the other, not even that bruiser chick in the Mandalorian could have done that. Or Rambo, truth be known. Now that big hunk chick in the Mandalorian; she could have handled police work at any time, past or present.

  6. The M-60 fires the 7.62×51 NATO cartridge and there's nothing wrong with the M-60 at all. In fact the SEAL teams ordered cut-down versions, which have evolved over time.

    Check out the M60E4 which fires from a disintegrating M13 belt. The Navy Special Warfare designation of the M60E4 is the Mk 43 mod 0.

    And I'd rather have a Mk 43 than a Monitor any day for use in the inner city, but those aren't issued outside of military arsenals. They're lighter, and have a fore-grip to allow them to be hip fired effectively.

  7. PS – Gina Carano (in the Mandalorian) is hot. I met her in Reno a couple years back when she was actively wrestling MMA. She is related to people (father's side) who own a hotel casino downtown and I was at a party where she and her family were also attending.

  8. I keep hoping, when seeing a long car chase (like the OJ fiasco) of a police helo firing a Hellfire.

    Or shooting a fleeing suspect.

  10. Small policewomen? It is the size of the fight in the dog, not the size of the dog in the fight, IMO. The problem is recruiting dogs with no fight in them.

  12. My Dad told stories of "The BAR Guy" blowing stuff away to get at the Japanese soldiers hiding behind it. He said it would easily go through three or four palm trees and nail the guys behind them.

  14. There was a police helicopter movie where a "smart helicopter" was introduced with mind of its own. I don't recall the name – maybe Blue Thunder. It would have made an effective tool, orbiting around the Democrat Convention this summer.

  16. A 6' 4" guy who is fit doesn't need to exert the force that most 4' 8" woman would need to. The problem is math, no matter how much fight is in the female dwarf. Take the women of the coven (power of the Dark Lord and all). How many of them could subdue you without pulling out a wand or handgun or a handgun with a wand slung under it?

    That's my point.

  19. I take your point. I have too many LEO relatives,of both sexes, to discount women. One, retired, went from jailer to patrol Sargent, all 5'2" of her, in a 23 year career. Her superpower is quickness. Another, larger but still female, spent 22 years as a probation/parole officer and made her own arrests.Her retired deputy husband runs a MMA gym as a side business and he says he wouldn't want to try her on.

  20. I'd heard there was a monitor or two with Frank Hamer at the ambush. Never got to fire that one nor the BAR. Before my time. The closest thing for me was the M60. I would have liked to have tried the above mentioned E4 model.

  21. qualified on the pig in the airforce. was told at the range I could shoot as much ammo as I could carry from the truck to the firing line. removed the belts from the cans, linked up the belts and carried quite a lot of rounds to the firing line. silly bastards forgot to say I had to carry the pig at the same time. you would be surprised at how much ammo you can carry when you are enthusiastic about the results. the M-60s the air force bought had a stepped piston in the gas system that you couldn't put in backwards. went to school RAF Lossiemouth on the coast in Scotland back in the 1970s for nato air base defense. got grenades and mines?

  24. I remember watching Combat with my dad, and him explaining the BAR and their dependence on it.

  26. Usually the BAR man (not woman) was the big guy of the outfit. Little, crafty, fast SOB's had other uses in a platoon. Same with the M-60 or Mk 43.

    And somebody will read this and thinking that I'm cracking on women. I'm not (honest I'm not). Just like I'm not cracking on small guys. There is math involved with packing and operating a BAR, or a squad automatic weapon SAW, or it's heavier cousin, the M-60.

    And sometimes it's choice. I don't ride a Harley D. I ride a Ducati. I am big enough to straddle and run a Fat Boy and have done it many times. But I like the lighter Ducati Diavel with the wicked power-to-weight ratio. Sometimes the same applies to firearms.

  27. RAF Station Lossiemouth is still open. I was in town almost two years ago in Elgin and a friend suggested we drop in to have a pint at the officer's mess. It had been many decades.

  28. Great movie clip. The concept of walking into a gun store and buying what you really need has passed with time, hasn't it. There are still places you can do that sort of thing and sign a chit. CIA has an arsenal that's a lot like shopping at a Costco — for weapons. They'll give you a cart, or one of those golf carts with a trailer behind it if you're going to pick up a LOT of stuff. That's the only place I know of in the US.

  32. A 5'10 fat guy with high pain tolerance can put a world of hurt on short skinny ladies.

    Back in the day, when I was doing semi-historic medieval style fighting, I was wearing minimal armor and fighting a female 'knight.' She was whacking me on unarmored spots and I could barely feel the hits. Hit her twice, she was down for a long time.

    Hit one other lady in the leg hard enough that she got bad blood clots. And yet that was on medium power, just a simple snap shot. Same shot would be considered 'okay' by most guys.

    Yeah, not afraid of dwarf female hand-to-hand fighters. And, yes, had the argument with many of them. And proven, even after getting kicked in the head and the other head, that I could power through and crush them. Didn't feel good afterwards, but then again, made my point.

  33. The monitor always seemed like a cool piece of kit, and is one of my favorite anecdotes for people who don;t understand the 2nd Amendment, but think they do.

    -Kle.

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