{"id":134095,"date":"2020-11-01T12:28:32","date_gmt":"2020-11-01T17:28:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gunsamerica.com\/digest\/?p=134095"},"modified":"2020-11-01T12:28:32","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T00:55:53","slug":"jim-jones-maniacal-messianic-monkey-salesman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/jim-jones-maniacal-messianic-monkey-salesman\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Jones: Maniacal Monkey Salesman, Leftist Koole Aide, Democratic Congressional Massacre, and The Guns of the Largest Mass Murder in American History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Jim
The suicidal cult leader Jim Jones was a certifiable nutjob. He was also undeniably charismatic and an unrepentant communist.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Studying apocalyptic doomsday cults is like watching a slow-motion train wreck. Despite our best efforts it can be tough to turn away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
This is Shoko Asahara. He convinced his adherents to unleash sarin nerve gas into the Tokyo subway system in 1995, killing thirteen. Functionally blind, Asahara released this photograph as undeniable proof of his capacity to levitate himself with his mind. Down here in the Deep South we\u2019d call him a \u201cSerious Piece of Work.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

David Koresh, Charles Manson, Shoko Asahara, and Adolf Hitler are the archetypes. Their bizarre capacity to work a crowd ultimately resulted in the deaths of countless devoted followers. To the rational mind, however, such stuff can seem almost comically bizarre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heaven\u2019s Gate<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"Jim
Heaven\u2019s Gate adherents believed death was but a portal leading to\u2026wait for it\u2026a transient spaceship full of alien beings shadowing the Hale-Bop comet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Heaven\u2019s Gate was a mob of American UFO acolytes that arose near San Diego, California, in 1974. They believed there was a spacecraft following the comet Hale-Bop. Through ritualized mass suicide cult members thought they might physically transport themselves to the passing starship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
This is Marshall Applewhite, the brains behind the Heaven\u2019s Gate UFO cult. He and five members of the group had themselves castrated to prove their commitment.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When they were unable to visualize the expected spacecraft their telescope was clearly defective, so they returned the device for a refund. The group purchased alien abduction insurance guaranteeing a $1 million benefit in the event of an abduction, impregnation, or death by aliens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
Adorned in odd identical androgynous garb, Heaven\u2019s Gate shared dinner out before committing mass suicide. They all ate identical meals of turkey pot pie, blueberry cheesecake, and iced tea.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All 39 Heaven\u2019s Gate cult members wore identical gender-neutral black shirts and sweatpants as well as matching Nike Decades athletic shoes. At the time of their deaths each had a $5 bill and three quarters in their pockets and wore matching \u201cHeaven\u2019s Gate Away Team\u201d arm patches (one of several odd Star Trek<\/em> references).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
The brother of Nichelle Nichols, the actress who played Lieutenant Uhura on the original Star Trek<\/em> series, was among the dead.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One cult member was Thomas Nichols, the brother of Nichelle Nichols who played LT Uhura on the original Star Trek<\/em>. These 39 otherwise educated, professional people washed down a lethal dose of phenobarbital with vodka before affixing plastic bags over their heads. One can\u2019t help but find such extraordinary behavior darkly fascinating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crazy on a Whole New Scale<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"Jim
A young Jim Jones is seen here on the far left. Even at a young age acquaintances could tell he was destined for darkness.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

James Warren Jones was born in May of 1931 in rural Indiana. Like most stark raving lunatics, young Jim\u2019s childhood was chaotic. His father was a WW1 veteran and a member of the Ku Klux Klan whose family shack had no plumbing. Those who knew him described the younger Jones as a \u201creally weird kid\u201d with obsessions concerning both religion and death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
Despite the clerical vestments, Jim Jones was actually both an atheist and a die-hard Marxist.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jones employed a warped theology to manipulate people. However, he was himself either an agnostic or an atheist depending upon his particular mood. Regardless, he frequently wore a white clerical collar. Jones wielded spirituality as a form of mind control, but his real gods were Marx and Lenin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
Door-to-door monkey selling was actually an early form of fund raising for the Peoples Temple.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jim Jones championed racial integration at a time when racial integration was not terribly mainstream. His willingness to bridge racial divides bought him his first acolytes. By the early 1970\u2019s Jones\u2019 Peoples Temple had satellite offices in cities across the United States. For a time Jones and his buddies actually sold monkeys door to door to raise money for the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
President Jimmy Carter\u2019s wife Rosalyn maintained a friendship with Jones. As I researched this project I was struck by how many prominent Democratic politicians of the day rubbed shoulders with this psychopath.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jones\u2019 communist sympathies earned him some interesting friends. President Jimmy Carter\u2019s wife Rosalyn met with Jones on multiple occasions. Democratic vice-presidential candidate Walther Mondale publicly praised Jones and his organization. Leftist California Governor Jerry Brown gushed that Jones was a symbiotic melding of Martin Luther King Jr, Albert Einstein, Angela Davis, and Mao Tse-Tung. LGBT activist Harvey Milk was also himself enraptured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
By 1977 Jones\u2019 pervasive weirdness was garnering his sect more scrutiny than he desired.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By the summer of 1977, Jones\u2019 group started attracting attention. Sensible minds began investigating Jones\u2019 charlatanical faith healing as well as persistent rumors of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. In response Jones took his motley mob on the road, securing land for a church compound in the South American nation of Guyana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Workers\u2019 Paradise<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"Jim
A common thread to all such enterprises is that the current practitioners believe that the reason communism has failed every single time it has ever been tried is that the previous purveyors were just somehow doing it wrong.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jones and his followers intended to form yet another communal utopia. They titled their agrarian enterprise the \u201cPeoples Temple Agricultural Project\u201d or more simply \u201cJonestown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
Despite its lofty populist goals Jonestown actually remained pretty squalid.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

They intended to pool their resources and live comfortably off of the bounty of the land. There would be no class distinction, and resources would be equally shared by all. Oddly behind every single one of these delusional mobs there resides some alpha lunatic who believes himself divinely inspired to do most of the thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
Jones maintained a motley harem of both men and women as well as an extended blended family.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Most megalomaniacal nutjobs also fold a sexual component into their particular depraved fiefdoms, and Jones was no exception. He banged anything he could catch, regardless of gender. In 1973 Jones was arrested for lewd conduct in a movie theater restroom. I tried to catalog the guy\u2019s kids and stopped counting at nine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Deviancy Amplification Spiral<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"Jim
California Congressman Leo Ryan seemed a decent enough guy. When staff members voiced concerns regarding their safety Ryan reassured them that a sitting American Congressman and his staff would never be harmed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the fall of 1978, a Democratic US Congressman from California named Leo Ryan flew down to Jonestown with a few straphangers on a fact-finding mission. Some of Ryan\u2019s constituents had approached the Congressman about relatives they felt were being held in Jonestown against their will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
Congressman Ryan is shown here with cult members whose families back in the US had asked him to look in upon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There followed a carefully choreographed dog and pony show designed to allay the Congressman\u2019s concerns. All went well until a few terrified cult members surreptitiously slipped notes to the visitors begging to be freed. One deranged cult member then attacked Ryan with a knife, and the group felt it was time to leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
Larry Layton, shown here soon after his arrest, originally intended to bring down an airplane loaded with turncoat cult members wishing to leave the Guyana compound.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The visiting delegation made its way back to the airfield in a dump truck. Once there they began boarding a pair of civilian aircraft, a Twin Otter and a six-seat Cessna. A Peoples Temple true believer named Larry Layton boarded the smaller plane and produced a handgun. His original mission was to kill the pilot in flight. However, he only succeeded in wounding two passengers before being disarmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
The operation at the airfield was a full-bore bloodbath.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile the cult\u2019s security detail, colorfully titled the Red Brigade, approached the Twin Otter in a trailer pulled behind an agricultural tractor. Once within about 30 feet of the plane they opened fire with rifles, shotguns, and handguns. The resulting bloodbath precipitated Something Truly Horrible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guns<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"Jim
Period news reports stated that Jones\u2019 armed security detail was equipped with AK47\u2019s. I could find no reference to military weaponry having been recovered in my research.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I recall news reports at the time saying that the cult had murdered the Congressman\u2019s delegation with fully automatic AK47 rifles. It appears an uninformed media might have gotten the details wrong. All of the weapons catalogued from the Jonestown site were civilian firearms procured in the United States and smuggled into Guyana underneath false bottoms within shipping crates. In 1978 airport security was not really a thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
The Walther PPK has been a popular concealable handgun since the 1930\u2019s. It remains in production under the Walther banner in Arkansas today.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Jim
The diminutive Colt Vest Pocket .25 is an adorable little pistol firing a Lilliputian cartridge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the behest of the State Department, the BATF traced as many of the recovered firearms as they could. There were rumors of as many as 176 guns at the compound, yet only 31 were ever documented. The handguns included a Walther PPK, three S&W .38-caliber revolvers, a Ruger .357 Magnum revolver, two inexpensive .22 wheelguns, a Ruger .22-caliber semiautomatic, and a Colt .25ACP pocket pistol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
The Winchester Model 88 was a rakishly modern lever-action hunting rifle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The long guns included a GI M1 Carbine, a Ruger 10\/22, a Browning slide-action .30-06, a Winchester .243 bolt-action rifle, a Sears Model 54 .30-30, a Remington 742 .308, a Winchester Model 88 .308, a Remington 700 in .308, a Remington 788 in .308, and a Winchester .30-30 lever-action saddle gun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
The ArmaLite AR7 survival rifle is a takedown survival arm that breaks down into components that store in the buttstock. This nifty little gun even floats.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Jim
There were seven 12-gauge shotguns from Remington, Winchester, Universal, Noble, Foremost, and JC Higgins. There was also an ArmaLite AR7 .22 in the mix.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These guns represented a fairly typical cross-section of civilian-owned firearms drawn from 1970\u2019s America. In each case, they were purchased legally by cult members and then smuggled into the compound in Guyana illicitly. What became of the other weapons rumored to have been there is anybody\u2019s guess if they were ever there at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rest of the Story<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"Jim
The toxic concoction was mixed in a series of vats and then dispensed via syringes either orally or as an injection. Note the crossbow bolt through the top of the barrel. Guards were purportedly wielding crossbows to help keep the less enthusiastic in line.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The nine-man Red Brigade hit squad was nothing if not efficient. Congressman Ryan was shot more than twenty times. When word of the murders got back to the compound Jones, called on his followers to partake of a lethal concoction of Valium, chloral hydrate, cyanide, and Phenergan mixed in with Flavor Aid drink powder. Jones referred to this lethal brew as \u201cthe medication.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
Kool-Aide got a bad rap in Jonestown. The actual culprit was knock-off Flavor Aid.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Jim
Many of the crossbows present were WHAM-O Powermasters like this one. The Consumer Product Safety Commissioned ordered a recall of 15,000 of these weapons back in 1976 due to inadequate heat treatment of the string release mechanism. WHAM-O also brought us the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee, the Slip \u2018N Slide, and the Super Ball.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While the colloquial term \u201cDrink the Kool-Aide\u201d has come to mean any circumstance wherein someone voluntarily partakes of something unlikely or stupid, in this case most of the victims were just flat-out murdered. Security personnel armed with guns and crossbows ensured that the poisoning proceeded in a fairly orderly fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
The influence Jim Jones had over these poor people is tough to overemphasize. It is amazing how many of his victims seemed to go along with him willingly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jim Jones made a 44-minute cassette tape recording of his appellations to his followers to kill themselves in real time. The audio is available on Wikipedia and is absolutely surreal. Jones\u2019 reassuring monotone stands in stark contrast to the obvious terror of the moment. He does at one point refer to a machinegun in his unhinged discourse, but I could find no evidence of such weapons in my research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
The resulting carnage is hard for the rational mind to comprehend. Note the crossbows in the foreground.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

918 people died, some 304 of whom were children. Most of those succumbed to the poisoned Flavor Aid that was either ingested or forcibly injected via syringe. Jones himself went down with a bullet to the head, either self-inflicted or otherwise, at age 47.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
A massive stash of communist propaganda was found at the compound in the aftermath of the killings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Larry Layton, the man who fired the handgun in the Cessna, was the only survivor prosecuted as a result of the carnage. He was ultimately paroled in 2002. The group attempted to leave their accumulated assets, more than $7 million, to the Communist Party of the USSR. On the death tape, cult members are still asking about an airplane that they hoped might arrive to \u201ctake them off to Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
Nearly a thousand people died that fateful day in Guyana.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This loss of life was the single worst case of mass death in American history prior to 911. The Jonestown tragedy serves as an extraordinary example of what results when true darkness is unfettered within the hearts of men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jim
The cult members\u2019 passports were centrally maintained to help keep everybody under control.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Jim
In happier times Jim Jones almost looks like a nice guy. He wasn\u2019t.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

   Buy and Sell on GunsAmerica!<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This loss of life was the single worst case of mass death in American history prior to 911. The Jonestown tragedy serves as an extraordinary example of what results when true darkness is unfettered within the hearts of men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":134096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_specdata_upc":"","_specdata_placement":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[257,772],"tags":[132,102,752,636],"featured":[],"hunt365":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-134095","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-historical-guns","8":"category-will-dabbs","9":"tag-buzz","10":"tag-feature-articles","11":"tag-historical-guns","12":"tag-history"},"yoast_head":"\nJim Jones: Maniacal Monkey Salesman, Leftist Koole Aide, Democratic Congressional Massacre, and The Guns of the Largest Mass Murder in American History<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jim Jones: Maniacal Monkey Salesman, Leftist Koole Aide, Democratic Congressional Massacre, and The Guns of the Largest Mass Murder in American History - Will Dabbs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/jim-jones-maniacal-messianic-monkey-salesman\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jim Jones: Maniacal Monkey Salesman, Leftist Koole Aide, Democratic Congressional Massacre, and The Guns of the Largest Mass Murder in American History\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This loss of life was the single worst case of mass death in American history prior to 911. 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However, shooting guns and claiming it was work seemed like a pretty sweet hustle. As a result, Will serendipitously transformed an avocation into a vocation. Raised in the Mississippi Delta, Will flew UH1H, OH58A\\\/C, CH47D and AH1S helicopters operationally as an Army Aviator. He is SCUBA-qualified and has parachuted out of perfectly good airplanes at 3 o'clock in the morning. Will has summited Mount McKinley, Alaska, six times\u2026always at the controls of an Army helicopter, which is the only way sensible folk climb mountains. Will has delivered sixty babies and occasionally wrung human blood out of his socks. He is married to his high school sweetheart and has three awesome adult children. 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