No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.18/230 - Release Date: 1/14/2006 And Your Point Would Be?: Article in The New York Times on illegally owned firearms in New York City doesn't seem to say much other than that reduction in the number of unregistered firearms does not appear to have reduced the number of shootings. Conspicuously absent from this "analysis" is the issue of people who illegally acquire firearms for self-defense because the city's permit system makes it impossible to do so legally. (As an aside, New York's Sullivan law, which set up the stricter regulation of handguns in the city, was passed in 1911 to keep non-English-speaking immigrants from arming themselves against the strong-arm extortion rackets of the Irish-American gangs.) http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/nyregion/15gunsweb.ready.html --- More From Teddy: Teddy Jacobson's opinions are, at a minimum, thought-provoking and it never hurts to re-think matters of life and death. I'm inclined to accept his advice on things like 1911 pistols (perhaps because the only ones I have shot in years belonged to students and I fired a round or two to verify point of impact or to assess function problems). I personally do not agree with his advice to stage the trigger on a double-action revolver but I have friends who disagree with me on that. http://actionsbyt.blogspot.com/2006/01/things-you-should-know.html --- From John Farnam: 12 Jan 06 On ammunition, from a friend with the Feds: "During the course of the year our special agents will charge hundreds of magazines with thousands of rounds of ammunition, for both rifles and pistols, all while seldom looking at it. The ammunition that we purchase is, of course, of high quality. Yet, sometimes we find defective rounds, usually during firing, as defective rounds get past us, just at they got past the manufacturer. At a range session recently, we discovered two, defective 223 rounds. One failed to feed, as the brass near the neck was peeled back, making the case neck too big to go into battery. The second fed but refused to fire, because its primer was in backwards. In a real fight, either cartridge would have caused an irritating and inconvenient stoppage. As a result, we all recommitted ourselves to cast away our sloppy habits and visually inspect all ammunition when it comes out of the box, before it goes anonymously into magazines. We learned our lesson!" Comment: All ammunition manufacturers will tell you, when you produce several billion copies of a product every year, a few bad ones will get past you. If quality control were so anal that no defective rounds were ever produced, ammunition would be prohibitively expensive. It's expensive enough as it is! What that means is this: quality control is probably as good as it is ever going to get. EACH ONE OF US MUST FUNCTION AT THE FINAL INSPECTOR, because we are the ones who are ultimately penalized by defective ammunition. The manufacturer will feel bad. We'll feel worse! Once ammunition is hidden within a magazine, it is too late to look at it. It must be inspected as it comes from the box, without fail. /John (One exceptionally well qualified and experienced member of this list weighs each round on an electronic reloader's scale. This affords him the opportunity to catch differences that could result from improper or missing powder charges.) --- From Jeff Cooper: (There are not many things on which I quote Jeff Cooper but I do favor his original Color Code concept over its corruption to a code of awareness, rather than of preparedness.) JEFF COOPER'S COLOR CODE From Cooper's Commentary Vol. 13, No. 7, June 2005 Having invented my own personal color code for individual response to personal danger, I like to feel that I ought to know just what it implies. This is, of course, not obligatory. I may have designed the code, but nobody is obliged to observe it as I declared it. Still I wish people who wish to use it would use it as designed, rather than as improvised after the fact. Specifically, I would like to insist that my own four-stage color code refers to decisions to take deadly action, rather than a degree of danger. As I have designed it, the color code designates that psychological condition which enables you to take action which is very unusual in your experience and which may result in lethal violence. A reasonably well-adjusted human being finds it very difficult to take lethal action against another human being. It is so difficult that it may prevent him from saving his own life. I have described it, taught it and written it up several times, and I am satisfied that it works as I have created it. It has on several occasions saved the life of the individual who had used it correctly. Put as simply as possible, the color code runs White, Yellow, Orange, and Red. It does not need amplification, but it does cover the subject in hand completely. * In White you are unprepared and unready to take lethal action. If you are attacked in White you will probably die unless your adversary is totally inept. * In Yellow you bring yourself to the understanding that your life may be in danger and that you may have to do something about it. * In Orange you have determined upon a specific adversary and are prepared to take action which may result in his death, but you are not in a lethal mode. * In Red you are in a lethal mode and will shoot if circumstances warrant. That is putting it as quickly as possible, and we can go into it further at your convenience. -- Stephen P. Wenger Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .