No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.12.2/442 - Release Date: 9/8/2006 Florida City Claims Right To Regulate Firearms In Emergencies: About halfway through this article about Cooper City giving itself the right to seize its residents' personal property for public use in an emergency, one finds that the commissioners also claim the right to prohibit public possession or display of firearms. (Privately owned firearms have played a significant role in reducing looting following hurricanes in Florida.) http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-sconfiscatesep09%2C0%2C5658448.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines --- Rule Three Reminder: My attention was drawn today to Paxton Quigley's book Stayin' Alive: Armed and Female in an Unsafe World. I was more than a little disturbed to note that the cover photograph not only depicts the iconic author with the muzzle pointed in an unsafe direction but also with her finger inside the trigger guard at the same time. (Rule Three: Keep your finger out of the trigger guard, up on the frame, until your sights are on target and you're prepared to fire.) http://www.amazon.com/Stayin-Alive-Armed-Female-Unsafe/dp/0936783435/sr=1-1/qid=1157897497/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-9444063-8551360?ie=UTF8&s=books --- When There Is No Second Amendment...: Not only does Britain punish its disarmed subjects for fighting back when attacked by criminals, it is now fining them for cursing at them. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/10/nswear10.xml --- From John Farnam: 4 Sept 06 The Graham Flashlight Method My friend and colleague, Matt Graham, president of ITC and manufacturer of ITC three-dimensional targets, have developed a new pistol/flashlight method that I like. For those of us who don't like physically attaching flashlights to guns, particularly pistols, the Harries and Goode Techniques, along with several others, have heretofore represented the only ways of using the pistol and flashlight in conjunction with each other. Those two have been the ones I routinely teach, until now. Matt has persuaded Surefire to manufacture their famous 6P flashlight with a rubber, O-ring within a quarter inch of the control button on the end. This arrangement allows the operator to wedge the flashlight between the index and middle fingers of the support hand. Thus held, the light can be pressed against the front of the trigger guard as the pistol of held in the normal, two-handed grasp. Pressing the flashlight against the trigger guard will then turn it on, and the barrel of the flashlight will be parallel with the barrel of the pistol, putting light, on demand, directly on the target. The Graham Method is quick to get into and out of, permits normal hand positioning on the pistol's grip, and aligns the flashlight with the barrel of the gun more precisely than does most other methods. It has a lot going for it. The method requires a Surefire flashlight with a "Rhino Combat Ring," available from Surefire /John (Color me skeptical. For one thing, I am uncomfortable with techniques that require contraction of the index finger of the support hand - this may result in an involuntary sympathetic contraction of the trigger finger. For another, I'm wary of techniques that require a uniquely designed or retrofitted light - what happens if you must use some other light? Gun-mounted lights have a role, so long as you are also equipped with an independent light that allows you to illuminate without searching with the muzzle. A lanyard, around the wrist or around the neck, facilitates the transition from the handheld light to the gun-mounted light.) 4 Sept 06 Four Features In recent times, handgun specifications promulgated by police departments have been updated to reflect new developments in the industry. Of course all the usual items are still mentioned, eg: accuracy, reliability, et al, but these are now with us too: (1) Adjustable grip size. The S&W M&P, Beretta PX4, Kimber KPD, and a number of other modern pistols now have this feature. The grip can be made larger or smaller via interchangeable attachments that are supplied with each pistol. This makes it possible for the same pistol to be comfortably used by everyone within a department, regardless of hand size or finger length. Adjustable grip size eliminates innumerable equipment complaints and is thus popular with chiefs. (2) Double-drop. Self-decocking (DAO) autoloaders are now the norm in American police circles, but most do not permit the hammer to be dropped on a recalcitrant primer a second time. Once the hammer is down, releasing and pressing the trigger a second time will not recock and fire the pistol. The slide must be reciprocated before the trigger is active again. The SIG/DAK is a notable exception. It does double-drop, a feature considered significant by many. (3) Hammer fired vs striker fired. A traditional, arcing hammer will predictably deliver a heavier blow to the chambered cartridge's primer and will a "striker," which is little more than a spring-loaded firing pin. Many design engineers thus insist that hammer-fired pistols provide inherently more reliable ignition than do striker-fired ones. However, many trainers insist that a pistol with a hammer that visibly moves as the trigger is pressed is distracting to beginning students who should be learning to watch the front sight. No striker-fired pistol features double-drop. (4) Field stripping without the necessity of first dry-firing the pistol. This is primarily a training/common-sense issue, but it has garnered the attention of many chiefs. The industry has taken notice. For example, the Beretta PX4 comes apart exactly as does a Glock, absent the dry-fire-first requirement. Interestingly, Glock pistols, which are currently the top sellers, feature none of the above, and no pistol I know of features them all. However, it is fair to say that smart manufacturers will continue to modify products and create new ones in an effort to claim market share. And, when one wants to sell pistols in America, he has to sell them to police chiefs. Pistols not popular with police will not be popular in the general market. /John 5 Sept 06 Several have suggested I also enumerate those other directions in pistol design that range from useless to hurtful. Not all can be legitimately called " trends," but all of the following are manifestations of manufacturers going in the wrong direction: (1) Grip Safety. Grip safeties have been standard on 1911s from the beginning. They are also found on the more current SA/XD. Happily, none of the other major manufacturers have seen a need for them. Grip safeties are called "passive" safety devices, because they are not deliberately, or even consciously, operated by the shooter. The pistol can't be fired unless grasped in the normal, firing grip, an act which depresses the grip safety and enables the trigger mechanism. When they work, grip safeties function just fine, but people with skinny/bony hands sometimes fail to depress them sufficiently, even when they grasp the pistol correctly. In fact, a poorly-adjusted grip safety can be a problem even for those with average hands. I, for one, would not like to see grip safeties added to pistols that do not already have them. (2) Loaded-Chamber Indicator. Taking the form of a bulge on the extractor or a hole drilled into the chamber itself, loaded-chamber indicators are supposed to provide an tactile/visual indication of the status of the chamber. They now come standard on several otherwise excellent pistols. My advice is to ignore them. When ignored, loaded-chamber indicators are, at least, harmless. The danger comes when naive shooters rely upon the dubious information provided by the device, instead of performing a legitimate chamber check. The world would be better off without them. (3) Forward Slide Serrations. Another "feature" best ignored. The trouble starts when shooters use them when they attempt to reciprocate the slide with the traditional (and correct) support-hand, overhand grip. The support hand then gets too far forward and actually occludes the ejection port, making it impossible for the pistol to cleanly eject a recalcitrant round or an empty case. In addition, with the hand in this forward position, the little finger invariably drapes over the muzzle. Front slide serrations have no legitimate function on serious pistols. Covering the ejection port while reciprocating the slide would appear to be an inherent contradiction. Placing fingers in front of muzzles, for any reason or duration, is foolish. (4) Manual Safety. The vast majority of pistols currently in production do not feature a two-position, manual safety, nor have they ever. In the opinion of professional gunmen, the weight and length of most pistols' trigger pulls provides the margin of safety necessary for daily carry and serious use. The addition of a manual safety constitutes a superfluous and dangerous redundancy. I, for one, do not want to see two-position manual safeties added to pistols, such as the Glock, that do not already have them, even as an option. We're all familiar with the way "options" quickly migrate to "requisites!" (5) Hyper-Accuracy. There is no doubt that some pistols are inherently more accurate than others. SIG's five-point lockup, for example, yields an intrinsically greater degree of accuracy than is the case with most other production pistols. However, in serious use, discussions of pistol accuracy are mostly irrelevant. Any production pistol, from any reputable manufacturer, is more than sufficiently accurate for nearly any practical purpose. The trouble comes when, in an attempt to produce hyper-accuracy, pistols are tightened up to the point where they become unreliable. Hyper-accurate, but temperamental, pistols are of no interest to serious gunmen. (6) Magazine Safety. Worse than merely useless, magazine safeties are death traps! Formidable liability negates any conjectured "safety" benefit of this device. The presumed advantage is that a grip safety sterilizes the pistol when the magazine is removed. However, often the magazine in a pistol that is being carried for defensive purposes is inadvertently unseated. Under these circumstances, the pistol will not fire and the owner doesn't know it and won't find out until the pistol is desperately needed to defend his life. In a worst case, the unseated magazine may, unnoticed, fall free from the pistol and thus not be immediately available for reseating. In addition, the pistol is unavoidably inoperable during much of the reloading process, and when magazines are damaged or unavailable, the pistol becomes completely useless. Worst of all, dependence on a magazine safety can be used to excuse sloppy and unsafe gun handling and storage. Storing an unsecured pistol with a round chambered is unsafe and improper, whether the pistol is equipped with a magazine safety or not. In summary, magazine safeties provide precious little in the way of "safety" but do substantially jeopardize the health of the pistols' owners. The foregoing are with us mostly as a result of gunmakers' over-cautious, in-house councils trying desperately to justify their existence and not caring a whit for the poor schmuck whose life may, one day, depend upon their product. None come about as the result of consultation with real operators and professional gunmen. /John (My comments: * Within the limits of the size of the grip frame, revolvers have always allowed some latitude for adjustment via changing the grip stocks. * I can trace the grip safety at least as far back as the top-break S&W Safety Hammerless revolver, featured in my logo. When that overall design was re-introduced as the solid-frame Centennial, the first-generation models came with a pin, for those who preferred to keep the safety depressed by mechanical means. The grip safety was an early feature in the evolution from the Colt Model of 1905 to the Model of 1911. The thumb safety did not make its appearance until the Model of 1910. * "Forward slide serrations" were deleted from what would become the Colt 1911 at the insistence of the Army boards. Like John and many of the rest of us, the boards were concerned about users' hands drifting in front of muzzles. They appear to have made a resurgence due to competitions shooters who cannot use slide serrations at the rear of the slide due to red-dot scopes mounted in that area. * I find it ironic that John derides the two-position manual safety when he counsels against ambidextrous safeties for pistols such as the 1911 out of concern that a lever next to the body could lead to the safety being disengaged by friction. Looking at the disproportionate number of negligent discharges with Glocks that were not equipped with New York triggers, I find it hard to support the argument that "the weight and length of most pistols' trigger pulls provides the margin of safety necessary for daily carry and serious use." * Magazine-disconnect safeties are a two-edged sword. Some officers with older S&W pistols equipped with them have used the magazine release as a "kill button" as they felt the pistol being wrested from their grasp. NYPD specified that they be deleted from the S&W pistols sold to its officers out of fear that officers who selected S&W pistols would assume that all autoloaders were similarly equipped. I have counseled some pistol buyers who felt that a pistol with magazine-disconnect safety was the best solution to the dilemma of how to safely keep a pistol nearly ready for use in a home with small children.) -- Stephen P. Wenger Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .