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jonesy
from Lisboa (Portugal) on 2002-09-10 08:27 [#00386563]
Points: 6650 Status: Lurker
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Modest inventor of Uzi fired by armies, movie stars and street gangs dies at 79
Oliver Burkeman in New York Tuesday September 10, 2002 The Guardian
The gun he invented could hardly have had a higher profile. It helped the Israeli army establish a fledgling nation, took a starring role in Hollywood action movies, and outraged campaigners against the scourge of firearms on the streets of inner-city America.
But Uzi Gal, who has died at 79 in Philadelphia - 48 years after he finished designing the submachine gun that bears his name - was so little enamoured of a life on the world stage that he tried to stop the weapon being named after him, and considered a career in orthopaedics.
"Obviously, he was proud to be identified with the product of his craftsmanship," his son, Iddo, said yesterday, after it was announced that Gal had died on Saturday following a long struggle with cancer.
"But he was also a modest man who made efforts to move on to other things." Israeli Military Industries (IMI), the national defence manufacturer, overruled his request that the gun not carry his name.
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jonesy
from Lisboa (Portugal) on 2002-09-10 08:27 [#00386566]
Points: 6650 Status: Lurker
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Gal fled Nazi Germany for what was then British-mandated Palestine in 1936, and learnt his skills with weapons illicitly, receiving a seven-year jail sentence in 1943 for carrying a gun.
Three years later, he was pardoned, and got a job secretly producing firearms for the underground movement aiming to create a Jewish state.
The Uzi, admired among soldiers for the simplicity of its loading mechanism and its 10-rounds-a-second speed, was first deployed by the Israeli military in the Sinai campaign of 1956, and soon became standard issue there.
Small and relatively light, its international appeal spread, and by the end of the 1990s, IMI revealed that it had made $2bn from worldwide sales.
By then, though, some of the exported guns had ended up exacerbating a gun epidemic on the streets of the United States.
President Bill Clinton outlawed assault weapons in 1994, but the automatic firing mechanism removed from the Uzi proved easy for users to reinstate.
Outside of gangland America, however, the gun became best known among younger generations thanks to its recurring cinematic roles, most notably at Arnold Schwarzenegger's side in the Terminator movies. Schwarzenegger played a cyborg from a future era fond of letting opponents know he is carrying an Uzi 9mm.
Iddo Gal said his father "had thought of working in orthopedic medicine, given his skill with steel. But then again, he figured that if you are good in something, and you are protecting your country, you might as well stick with it".
Gal moved to the US from Israel in 1976 so that his daughter, Tamar, could receive treatment for a brain disorder. He will be buried on Thursday at Kibbutz Yagur, near Haifa, where he was raised.
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jand
from Braintree (United Kingdom) on 2002-09-10 08:29 [#00386570]
Points: 5975 Status: Moderator | Show recordbag
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Pity they didn't call it a GAL rather than UZI....
That sounds so uncool no-one would want one....
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REFLEX
from Edmonton, Alberta (Canada) on 2002-09-10 08:29 [#00386571]
Points: 8864 Status: Regular
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Crazy! A damn cool gun.... farewell good sir!
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Ctrl Alt Del
from Ft. Worth (United States) on 2002-09-10 08:33 [#00386576]
Points: 2190 Status: Lurker
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yep, farewell father of the uzi, may you rest in peace.
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jand
from Braintree (United Kingdom) on 2002-09-10 08:33 [#00386577]
Points: 5975 Status: Moderator | Show recordbag
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"cool gun".... oxymoron of the week!!
:)
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jand
from Braintree (United Kingdom) on 2002-09-10 08:36 [#00386579]
Points: 5975 Status: Moderator | Followup to Ctrl Alt Del: #00386576 | Show recordbag
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mourning the guy who was indirectly responsible for that mf of a killa just don't seem appropriate....
Bit like how Nobel (the inventor of Dynamite) sponsers the Nobel PEACE prize....
(I am in a weird mood this morning so ignore me if I'm being a bitch)...
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jonesy
from Lisboa (Portugal) on 2002-09-10 08:58 [#00386604]
Points: 6650 Status: Lurker | Followup to jand: #00386579
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Yeah, the Nobel Peace Prize is a joke. Henry Kissinger gets one and Bush and Blair are nominated. Orwellian douplespeak has arrived.
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princo
from Shitty City (Geelong) (Australia) on 2002-09-10 09:19 [#00386626]
Points: 13411 Status: Lurker
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"Uzi 9mm"
*In Arnie Voice*
I'll never forget that line from the original Terminator! ;)
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Zeus
from San Francisco (United States) on 2002-09-10 09:27 [#00386630]
Points: 14042 Status: Lurker
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i dont understand why the terminators were made to be so big and visible
i mean, they are trying to go back and time and assinate someone right... well, you kind of draw attention to yourself when you are huge, and speak with an accent
the terminator should have been a skinny nerd type
that no one notices
yes
and double yes
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jonesy
from Lisboa (Portugal) on 2002-09-10 09:39 [#00386631]
Points: 6650 Status: Lurker | Followup to Zeus: #00386630
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You have a point. they should have been like those robots in *Batteries Not Included fo sho.
Yes, yes and triple yes.
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Zeus
from San Francisco (United States) on 2002-09-10 13:56 [#00386820]
Points: 14042 Status: Lurker
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fuckin a!
jonesy is on the level
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