-Caveat Lector- Euphorian spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it.
To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk Modest inventor of Uzi fired by armies, movie stars and street gangs dies at 79 Oliver Burkeman in New York Monday September 09 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. 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. Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
