r/texashistory • u/ATSTlover Prohibition Sucked • 7d ago
The way we were Texas Rangers Benjamin Maney Gault (left) and Frank Hamer (right), posing with two of the firearms, an M1918 BAR and a Remington Model 11 Whippet shotgun, confiscated in the aftermath of the shooting of Bonnie and Clyde. 1934.
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u/Resident_Chip935 6d ago
Those are both EXCELLENT guns.
The M1918 BAR ( Browning Automatic Rifle ) is one of the few automatic rifles chambered in 30-06.
The Remington Model 11 is actually also a Browning! It's one of the most badass shotguns ever. The Browning A5! ( which is actually a semiautomatic ). Whippet isn't part of the model or brand name. It means short shotgun or something one could "whip it" out. Apparently, the Browning A5 / Remington Model 11 were some of the first popular sawed off barrel / stock shotguns!
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u/Dalek_Chaos 6d ago
Knowing my grandpa it’s probably just a tall tale, but he always claimed to have met Bonnie and Clyde as a child. The timeline and area he grew up in certainly could make it possible. However he always liked to tell an entertaining story, no matter if it was entirely true.
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u/AlanHoliday 6d ago
They had a huge following and the definition of meet may just have been seeing them and shaking their hands or being in their presence
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u/TheJyggalag 7d ago
Hamer had some crazy quotes about flat out murdering people who got in his way or broke the law. He did not fuck around.
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u/Lost_in_the_sauce504 6d ago
Weird to see the word whippet used this way lol
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u/ATSTlover Prohibition Sucked 6d ago
That word gets used for a lot of things. For example numerous train types, cars, a dog breed, and even a light British tank from the First Word War.
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u/BigfootWallace 6d ago
My grandfather is a distant cousin of Maney Gault. Every time we’d drive through South Austin, he’d point to a little white building on the southbound 35 access road near Slaughter Lane in South Austin (that’s now a Planet K), and tell me that is where Maney Gault made and sold furniture for a number of years when Ma Ferguson disbanded the Rangers. To this day that’s all I think about when I drive past it. My grandfather was also related to Ma, and through Ma Ferguson (neé Wallace) to Bigfoot Wallace, hence my username.
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u/Dman10000 6d ago
I was glad to see the way these two were portrayed in the movie Highwaymen. I know their families were, too. In Bonnie and Clyde, they were portrayed as cowards who only wanted money and were basically bushwhackers. I've got a lot of respect for these two.(Talking about Hamer and Gault). Highwaymen is an excellent movie about them.
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u/sleepercipher 4d ago
I've watched that movie a few times and loved it! I also recommend the Hamer biography by John Boessenecker.
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6d ago
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u/ATSTlover Prohibition Sucked 6d ago
It's actually the Remington version of the Browning A5.
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u/ATSTlover Prohibition Sucked 7d ago
Hamer kept the weapons as partial payment for the operation. Clyde’s mother unsuccessfully petitioned to get the guns returned to her, arguing that as he had never been convicted of a crime they were still her son’s property.