Background in the Small Arms Field

Going hand-in-hand with his profound interest in history, the Managing Attorney possesses an inborn fascination for the tools humans have used throughout the ages to preserve their freedom and safety. From his early childhood poring over books of military history from Graeco-Roman times and the classical Far East and his enraptured study of the primitive firearms that Americans used to struggle for their independence and wipe out the blight of slavery, to acquisition and learning the care and maintenance of historical military surplus rifles from the World Wars and shooting them in competitions since the age of 18, Joe has always held a deep and abiding enthusiasm for small arms.

Different strong interests and their interactions so often grant unexpected boons to people’s lives, and that of the Managing Attorney has been no exception. In one example, Joe’s interest in foreign languages and his consequent attainment of fluency and literacy in Chinese allowed him to study at Peking University and subsequently work as a document translator and interpreter in Beijing after finishing his undergraduate studies. His time at Peking University gave his life the best blessing it would ever receive: meeting his wife.

His time in China’s capital also furthered his understanding of and interest in small arms. Joe took advantage of his time in China to visit museums and shooting ranges, where he had the opportunity to study, handle, disassemble, reassemble, and even fire on the range many native Chinese weapon designs that are virtually unknown in the United States. During the near-decade in which Joe spent much of his life in China, he found that a smile; a genuine interest in Chinese civilization; and the ability to speak, read, and write Chinese (something most Chinese find nearly inconceivable for a foreigner to be able to do), opened myriad doors, and that a plethora of opportunities that would not be available to the average foreigner visiting China, or indeed the regular Chinese national, were open to him.

Making good use of the effusive welcome and acceptance he received from all and sundry as the inexplicably-Chinese-speaking tall, blond foreigner (blond hair is such an object of fascination in China that strangers would regularly approach Joe on the street and ask to look at and touch his hair), Joe enjoyed his special access at museums and firing ranges to whet his appetite for exotic and inventive small arms designs. From the Type 81, of which only a dozen or so examples exist in America, to the Type 95 and Type 03 rifles, the Type 81 and 88 LMGs, and various SMGs, all of which have never been imported to the U.S., the Managing Attorney spent many enjoyable hours while a student and translator gaining familiarity with small arms designs that exceedingly few American students of small arms ever have the opportunity to see, let alone disassemble and fire.

After having struggled to compete with used-and-abused military surplus rifles from the era of the First World War (all he could afford as an undergraduate), the Managing Attorney, due to his work in China, was able to afford first-class, modern rifles when he returned to the United States to begin his J.D. studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Beyond High Power rifle competitions and hunting, Joe was absolutely enamored with the surgical precision, genius and efficiency of the design, and the aesthetically-pleasing appearance, of his ArmaLite AR-10 rifles.

So enamored, in fact, was Joe with the peerless performance and beauty of his new AR-10s, that he wished to explore the topic academically, and learn everything he could about them. To his surprise, however, no book existed from which he could learn what was sure to be a fascinating story of the most effective and precocious rifle design in history. Therefore, he made up his mind, and as he worked his first jobs out of law school, in his spare time the Managing Attorney researched a story that exceeded in quantity and quality his wildest hopes for a fascinating tale: the invention, development, production, and deployment of the ArmaLite AR-10!

When preparing his book, the Managing Attorney’s research took him to archives, military bases, defense contractors, and even involved him importing various parts and assemblies of 1950s-production ArmaLite AR-10s from Europe. This experience not only taught Joe invaluable lessons in navigating the small arms industry and regulatory structure, but granted him first-hand knowledge of how to complete successfully the importation of defense articles. In this acquisition for academic purposes, the Managing Attorney became his own first client in the world of small arms import/export, and the United States Munitions Import List.

After completing his manuscript, Joe was blessed with the best of good fortune of having his work picked up for publication by Collector Grade Publications - the premiere publishing house for scholarly works on the history, design, and development of small arms. Published and in print by February of 2016 as The ArmaLite AR-10: World’s Finest Battle Rifle became what it is today: the acclaimed first-and-only comprehensive history of all aspects of the AR-10’s story, from Eugene Morrison Stoner’s hand-built prototype to the popular and still-unmatched sporting and battle rifle that it is today.

From this auspicious beginning in the world of small arms scholarship, Joe has gone on to be published in journals and online on topics concerning small arms history, design, and the law as it relates to them. As an integral part of the area of law he practices, the Managing Attorney’s research into all aspects of the small arms industry and academic subject has never ceased, and he continues to write on this topic, seeking always to educate the public and industry, and understand for himself, this fascinating and dynamic field.

The most profound and moving part of writing his acclaimed work for Joe was not uncovering the thought-lost original files of ArmaLite, it was not corresponding with museum curators and collectors across the world, nor was it even having the opportunity to work in Eugene Stoner’s perfectly-preserved office and handle, study, and photograph all of that peerless inventor’s unique and hand-made prototypes; it was instead the honor and privilege of speaking and forming friendships with some of the bravest men in history.

The very low production numbers and secretive procurement and deployment history of the ArmaLite AR-10 consequently assured that the men who were issued this masterwork of small arms design were of the most elite and selective units in the history of modern warfare. In the course of his research, the Managing Attorney met and interviewed numerous veterans of storied units including the Batalhão de Caçadores Paraquedistas, Fuzileiros Especiais, Rhodesian Light Infantry, and Selous Scouts, among others. Joe was thrilled when Americans who had volunteered to aid the Katangese of the Congo and the Igbo of Biafra shared their time and their accounts of using the AR-10 in their armed humanitarian work, or when no less personage than a Lieutenant General of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army spoke with him on his unique and terrifying experience of facing genocide-committing Sudanese troops armed with AR-10s.

To see his humble work displayed next to the wall of decorations and commemorations of one of Portugal’s most-decorated soldiers - a friend of his - was, and still is, the proudest moment of Joe’s small arms scholarship.