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Happiness is a warm gun

Idiots With Guns

Off-Duty Cop Mistakes Daughter For Intruder And Shoots Her

All too often people make the mistake of assuming because cops carry guns they are members of the cognoscenti of the firearms community. The sad truth is that normally they are among the neophytes rather than the cognoscenti. So let’s look at the basic gun safety rule this firearms neophyte of a Police Officer with 9 years of carrying a gun violated and how to avoid such a sophomoric mistake.

The late great Jeff Cooper bestowed upon us 4 basic rules of firearms safety which was a simplification of the myriad of safety tips out there. Rule 4 states:

Be sure of your target and what is beyond it
You never shoot at anything until you have positively identified it. You never fire at a shadow, or a sound, or a suspected presence. You shoot only when you know absolutely what you are shooting at and what is beyond it.

Now, unless this officer is as strict a parent as Headly Lamar of Blazing Saddles is about chewing gum in line, it is highly unlikely he had positively identified his target. So besides the obvious, how could have he avoided the incident?

The answers is the six Ps of preparedness. Prior Preperation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

An intruder in one’s home is among one of the things man fears the most. It is also one of the things he prepares for least. One of the common things heard from victims is “I never thought it would happen to me.” The law of averages says that it might not, but the law of averages means squat when someone is in your home uninvited.

Planning for an intruder in your home is a lot like creating a family plan in case of a house fire. You do have one of those don’t you? The first step is to plan everyone’s actions. In case of fire that is to exit the area of danger and go to a pre-arranged meeting place that will presumably be safe. If it isn’t you go to the alternate. The same applies to an intruder. While leaving your home is inadviseable, having the entire family make their way to one room would be a good idea. This way you can account for everyone, summon authorities, and easily defend yourselves.

By the way I have seen some house plans that have the Master and Kid’s rooms on opposite sides of the house or even seperate floors. I understand that parents have the desire to have wild monkey sex without disturbing the kiddies, but for the sake of safety pick a house that makes it easy for the kids to move to the safe room (preferably with you in it) without putting them in harms way. Take a long lunch break during school days or send the kiddies to grandma’s when you’re gonna do the wild thing.

Now that I have the Public Service Announcement out of the way, lets get back to business. How do you think having a plan would have prevented the officer’s daughter from getting shot? If you answered “Because she was unaccounted for” get yourself a cookie. This may have alerted the father that the intruder may well be his wayward daughter returning home from her own trip into the animal kingdom and made him doubly cautious before pulling the trigger.

Another critical item is a means of identifying the target without placing it in harms way while still maintaining your advantage of surprise. For this I recommend the humble flashlight. Preferably one of the really bright ones from Streamlight or SureFire. These are so bright that they have been known to cause momentary paralysis to those they are aimed at. I prefer the hand-held ones myself. Weapon mounted lights are great and they make a lot of sense from the “grab-n-go” point of view but think of this; anything you light up with a weapon mounted light also has a loaded gun pointed at it. If you have an unaccounted for family member, you may not want to be doing that.

Finally we come to practice. You practice your plans for a house fire right? (You do have a plan for a house fire?) You should also do it for an intruder. If your plan includes using a firearm to defend yourself get to the range and practice with it regularly once a month minimum. I also strongly advise competing with it (this can count as your practice) with IDPA style competition being the best in my opinion.

So there you have it. Have a plan, have the right equipment, practice, practice, practice and your chances of making the news for shooting someone who didn’t deserve it will be greatly reduced.

Priest: Fight Gun Violence Kill a Gun Store Owner and Pro-Rights Politicians!

Nobody expected Saturday’s Operation PUSH protest at Chuck’s Gun Shop & Range to be anything other than a circus of the bizarre. However, nobody anticipated that an address by a Chicago priest would include a call for the murder of a suburban gun shop owner and legislators who oppose gun control.During an address at an anti-gun rally in front of Chuck’s, Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina’s Church, exhorted the crowd to “drag” shop owner, John Riggio, from his shop “like a rat” and “snuff” him. Rev. Pfleger went on to tell the crowd that legislators that vote against gun control legislation should be “snuffed” as well. As many know, “snuff” is slang for especially violent murder.

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One can only hope that the reverend (whose name sounds like a bodily function) gets the smack down he deserves from both his Archbishop (or higher) as well as the State Police for threatening the lives of elected representatives who have the courage to actually believe in the Consitution of the United States.

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Memorial Day 2007

Yes I know I am a day late, I wasn’t near a computer till last night and then I was too worn out.

Anyway, as usual I watch one of the classic war movies on Memorial Day. Last night it was Patton with George C. Scott. There is one quote that is attributed to Gen. Patton that sums up memorial day for me: “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should
thank God that such men lived.” — General George Patton

He’s right, we shouldn’t mourn the dead. We should instead thank what ever cosmic force we believe in that such men were born to protect us.

Tam over at View From The Porch posted a picture that also struck home this year.

I remember, and I thank God every day.

Why Restraining Orders Are Worthless As Protection

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All a Restraining Order does is give the Police something to arrest the offending party for. It will not protect you.

Image Courtesy Oleg Volk

S.C. lawmakers consider allowing concealed weapons on campuses

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To prevent school shootings, some South Carolina legislators want more guns on campuses.

A House subcommittee approved a measure Wednesday that would allow concealed weapon permit holders to carry guns onto public school campuses, from elementary schools to universities. Supporters say having trained and armed gun owners in schools could prevent massacres like the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech, where one armed student killed 32 people.

As outlined in Mass slaughter in our schools: the terrorists’ chilling plan (posted earlier here) maybe it is time to consider armed first responders on site to handle the rare school shooting. In practice this has worked very well, both in the United States and Israel. I definitely do not buy into the assertion that this will make kids less safe. The hoplophobes try that tactic every time a state passes a “shall issue” concealed carry law, and their dire predictions never come true.

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Details Here, and yes I know there’s no magazine in the gun and that it’s a .25 not a .32 as claimed in the article.

Lara Croft dummy merits Police raid on house.

As the source of the confusion dawned on all concerned, it might have been the moment for an apology from the police.

Instead, however, Mr Williams was taken to the cells and held for more than 13 hours before being released.

He is now on bail for a suspected firearms offence, and Lara Croft remains impounded as evidence.

(Story)

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It’s amazing how much better a girl can shoot when you tell her to visualize the target as the guy who said “Don’t be a Bitch” to her last night.

The .357 I Couldn’t Do Without

Last weekend Kim Du Toit asked his readers to write about the .357 Magnum we couldn’t do without. Needless to say this presented a bit of a quandary for me, as I was born to the world of hand gunning with a 1911 but it was with .357 Magnum Revolvers, two especially, that I came into my own. So I set to thinking. I’ll present the finalists here.

First up we have “Junior” (named back when I had few enough guns to do that sort of thing). “Junior” is a Smith & Wesson 686 with a 6 inch barrel. I bought this gun in 1986 for $200 from a U.S. Marshall. After I bought it I took it to my local gun store and smithy where my mentor in the gun business walked me through doing a trigger job on Smith & Wesson Revolvers. At the same time we also changed the front sight insert to black and chamfered the cylinders for easier reloading.

“Junior” was my very first hand gun, as such it was my constant companion on many adventures and mis-adventures. I have had to replace the rear sight blade 3 times because of damage (one of these days I’ll install a Millett rear sight), and I’ve fired close to if not more than 100,000 rounds through this gun. Mostly moderate loads consisting of 158 grain cast lead bullets over Unique. I have carried this weapon concealed in a Bianchi Shoulder Holster and in the open in a Security Holster. This is the gun I used for years in practical pistol matches and was also the gun I used when I went up against Author, Instructor and NTI Champion Andy Stanford. I’d like to say it was a close match, but the best I could do was give him a small run for his money.

This gun and I have been through a lot together and it has saved my life on two occasions. It is something I value highly, but is it “The .357 I couldn’t do without?”

Next is one of my unnamed guns. I really should name it as it has a unique history, but first some background.

I’ve always been a fan of wildcat cartridges, ones that shoot hard and fast are my favorite. Among these is a marrying of the .357 Magnum to the .44 Magnum called the .357x.44 Bain and Davis. I wanted one of these! It is created by taking a .357 magnum firearm that has a beefy enough cylinder for the .44 Magnum. There are very few revolvers capable of handling this. One was the S&W Model 27 which I happened to stumble across one day while perusing gun stores.

Now before you Smith & Wesson Collectors go ballistic I’ll say the conversion was never done. When I bought the gun I didn’t realize what it was (and for $300 who would) the gun was a 5 inch barrelled model that had a pinned barrel and recessed chambers. It also came with a walnut presentation case, cleaning kit and some other goodies. My thinking was; “That would make a real classy looking custom shooter.” So off I went again to my favorite gun store and smithy since I knew he had the tools to do the job.

When I showed him my new acquisition he was quite impressed, then he gave me the bad news. “If you’re going to do a .357x.44 B&D in a double action revolver you should really use a Ruger Redhawk, the Smiths can’t handle the maximum loads like a Ruger.” My whole reason for wanting a .357x.44 B&D was to get maximum performance from a .357 bullet, so now I had a gun I had no use for and that made it a gun I did not want to keep around.

One of the guns in my mentor’s case at the time was a 3” barreled Smith & Wesson Model 65. It was a compact, lightweight (compared to my 686 anyway) .357 and my 686 was a heavy load to carry all day even in the best of rigs. So I decided to give it some thought.

After a few weeks I made my decision, I would try and trade my Model 27 for the Model 65. So off I went to the shop and presented the owner with my trade, he thought about it, did some calculating and decided to trade straight across.

During this time I had been making some side money refurbishing guns he’d bought at a Police auction. I’d been doing some thinking about the gun industry and marketing and I had decided that women were woefully under-represented in our sport and part of the reason was a lack of quality firearms in serious defensive calibers they could use. So the guns I had been refurbishing were done with a woman’s needs and wants in mind. I think my girlfriend and female acquaintances at the time handled more guns than anything else during this time. I decided that the Model 65 would become the ultimate work in that regard. My masterpiece so to speak, my Mona Lisa. So out came the files, the stones, the screwdrivers and I set to work.

The first thing I did was modify the cylinder release to give speed loaders a bit more clearance as well as to keep the top of one’s thumb from encountering the bottom of the cylinder release. From there I did a trigger job and adjusted the mainspring to give the lightest pull possible while still being reliable. Also since some people liked to wrap their finger around the front of the trigger guard I stippled that surface for a better purchase. During reliability testing I found several things lacking in the grip area. One was the standard grips didn’t fill anyone’s hand well. The other was that the back of the grips tended to beat up the last knuckle of the thumb. So a Tyler’s T Grip Adapter was installed and the stock grips rasped and sanded down until they were comfortable.

The women who shot the gun felt it was OK, but weren’t too thrilled with the grips still. I found the solution a few weeks later when I came across a Hogue Neoprene Monogrip for the gun. After adding those the grip was considered and instant hit, but they were black and ugly. That and the rubber tended to catch on clothing causing the gun to print. So I tried a pair of Spegel Boot Grips. A beautiful wood grain, hand filling, comfortable, and it didn’t catch on clothing. I couldn’t afford them at the time, but liked the way they looked (as did my test group).

Next came the two final issues. First the stainless steel sights were hard to see and second the hammer liked to hang up on things if the gun was drawn from a purse. (I hadn’t heard nor did I think about putting ones thumb on the hammer during the draw) The sights I fixed with lowly Testors Flat Black paint, and the hammer was simply ground off and re-contoured. After this the ladies all pronounced it good. The owner of the shop I did my work in only had one feature he would like to see and that was a shroud over the ejector rod to keep it from being damaged. These ideas were later presented to a S&W factory representative. A short time later S&W unveiled the Model 65 LadySmith. I’d like to think I had a small hand in the introduction of that fine revolver.

Shortly after I finished this product another desired gun fell into my possession. A Colt Delta Elite 10mm Stainless. In order to buy it I did something foolish; I sold my Model 65, to a woman of course. It was no surprise that after trying every other gun in stock because she didn’t want a used gun that the owner talked her into trying my 65. She held it for about a minute and out came the cash.

At first I didn’t miss the 65 I had my 10mm and it was flatter than any revolver and the 10mm round hit harder too. But after a while I began to miss the elegance and the history of that little revolver. Oh, I tried to forget it, buying a Colt Officer’s Model for a carry gun, then a S&W 642 in .38 Special, and then in desperation a Kel-Tec P32 but something was missing from all of them. So I began my search for the now discontinued model 65.

After a year of searching I finally found and purchased another one. Once again this little gun went under the file and the stone. But I had learned a few things since my last Model 65 so changes weren’t as drastic. A trigger job was done, the cylinders chamfered, but the hammer was not ground off, and the front of the trigger guard was not stippled. I did add a laminated rosewood version of Spegel Boot Grips made by Hogue instead of the old rubber ones. I also purchased a nice leather holster, belt and speed loader pouches made by Bianchi for it to complement the elegance of this fine revolver.

So my original Model 65 is long gone. I’d like to believe that the woman who bought it still carries it with her to this day. I doubt I’ll ever know. However, I have an updated version of my vision, and a work of art it is (at least in the artist’s opinion). It’s too bad that S&W discontinued the six shot K-Frame .357 Magnums. No they can’t stand up to a regular diet of .357s, but that’s why we have .38 Special Ammunition. In my opinion the 3” Model 65 makes for one of the most perfect packing pistols out there. Heavy enough to absorb recoil, light enough to be carried all day and with 6 rounds of .357 Magnum (plus a few speedloaders) at your disposal you’re ready for all but the roughest of neighborhoods.

It’s hard for me to say which of these two .357s I can’t do without so I am going to say both. The smooth trigger action of the Smith & Wessons, their elegant lines, their reliability, and their sentimental value are all reasons that make these the .357s I can’t do without.