User:MT2008

MT2008

• Name: Matt
• Age: 23
• Home Town: Originally from Chapel Hill, NC; currently living in Austin, TX
• Occupation: Geopolitical research assistant at Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (StratFor) in Austin, TX. See http://www.stratfor.com/frontpage for more on this agency.

About Me

After losing my entire account and all the contributions I made to this site, I have finally returned. I'm still extremely upset that I lost everything I did (lesson: back everything up yourself, since you can never count on webmasters to do it for you), but fortunately, I have lots of screencaps and too much time on my hands, so I'm back. In addition to working on articles I had edited prior to the great crash, I'm also working on lots of new ones.

Anyway, I'm a recent graduate of a particular college in Maine (I was a History/Government major) who now has way too much time on his hands. I'm sort of a wannabe movie-gun librarian, and I love watching movies and seeing what types of weapons are in it. To be fair, I don't know as much about the classics, mostly just contemporary movies (Rafa, on the other hand, seems to be good with older films). Sometimes, I will buy movies on DVD, even terrible movies, if the guns are worth looking at - which sounds crazy, I know. Additionally, I tend to look for "behind the scenes" information on the guns in a movie - the company that supplied the weapons for the production, the armorers who built/handled the prop weapons on set, etc. I frequently use pictures of the actual prop guns in my articles, if I can find them (see for instance, my work on I Am Legend, for which I found pictures of the actual AR15 carbine and Mark-23 that were used in the movie).

Although I'm big into guns, movies, and guns in movies, I don't do much shooting in real life. I used to shoot skeet when I was in high school, but that was years ago now. I also go to the pistol range sometimes, but this, too, is pretty rare. Usually, I just buy guns for collector value...I have a very expensive pre-1989 Poly Tech AK which I've fired a total of 4 times in my basement. I am thinking about getting more into shooting once I graduate and I'm not in an environment where guns are frowned upon.

So that's that. Any other questions, please drop me a note on my "discussion" page.

Guns I Own

• Poly Tech AKS-762 (Chinese-made semi-auto AKM clone) - this is my baby
• Smith & Wesson 4506 - it actually belonged to my grandfather, but he gave it to me.

I also used to own a Taurus PT92 which I have since sold (it was a very old and well-used example) and a Ruger Mark III (another of my grandfather's guns which I sold).

My Favorite Firearms

(please note that I haven't fired or even held all of these necessarily - I just like the way many of them look in movies)

• AK-47/AKM/AK-74 series rifles - I am a Kalashnikov historian and well-versed in the different foreign-made derivatives. I'm particularly fond of Chinese Norinco examples (which probably isn't surprising because I own one) and Hungarian versions such as the AK-63 and AMD-65.
• Barret M82
• Benelli M4 Super 90
• Beretta 92 and Taurus PT92-series pistols - let's face it, these are quite possibly the most beautiful-looking semi-automatic pistols ever designed. Personally, I like the Taurus better because I like the frame-mounted safety, as opposed to the Beretta's less-accessible slide-mounted safety.
• Browning M2
• FN F2000
• FN Minimi
• Glock variants
• Heckler & Koch G36 series
• Heckler & Koch MP5 series
• Heckler & Koch USP
• Jericho 941
• M16 rifle series (I especially like the look of the shorty 11.5-inch barrel models, like those used in Heat)
• MP40
• Makarov PM
• Mossberg M500 Bullpup
• PK/PKM machine gun series
• RPG-7
• SIG Pro SP2022
• SPAS 12 and SPAS 15
• Sig Sauer P220 pistol series (especially the P220 and P226)
• Steyr AUG
• Tokarev TT-33
• Uzi series (especially the Mini)
• Walther P99

Articles to which I've contributed include:

Movies

• 2 Fast 2 Furious
• 44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-out
• A History of Violence
• American History X
• Blood Diamond
• Blown Away
• The Corruptor
• Deep Rising
• The Departed
• Enemy of the State
• Godzilla
• Goldeneye
• Hard Boiled
• Hot Fuzz
• I Am Legend
• The Incredible Hulk
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Live Free or Die Hard
• Lord of War
• The Matrix
• The Negotiator
• Patriot Games
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Raw Deal
• The Replacement Killers
• RoboCop
• Romeo & Juliet
• The Siege
• Snatch
• Training Day
• U.S. Marshals
• XXX 2: State of the Union

Television

• Harry's Game
• Harsh Realm
• Ultimate Force

Guns

• AK-47
• FN Minimi
• Glock
• MAC-10
• RPG-2
• Sig Sauer P220 pistol series
• Taurus PT92