Prison Release an Outrage: Reports that state lawmakers are considering the release of thousands of prison inmates across the country to save money amount to a public outrage, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today. The Associated Press reported Friday morning that legislators in several states are considering the move to prop up state budgets. One report said those released might include "drug addicts, thieves and even violent criminals. Before we waste time wondering what raving lunatics are behind this idea," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, so-author of America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age, published by Merril Press, "it seems more prudent to advise the citizens who are faced with this ominous proposal that now would be a good time to start exercising their constitutional right to keep and bear arms. After all, the message that this sends to the public seems pretty simple: If you don't own a gun, get one. If you're not licensed to carry, you better apply now because cash-strapped state lawmakers obviously don't care about the crime wave they're about to unleash." http://www.ccrkba.org/pub/rkba/press-releases/prison.release.call.to.arms.htm --- More Obama History: Barack Obama says he won't take folks' guns away as long as they're hunters. But when the hunted are his constituents, well, that's different: He opposes concealed carry and the right to self-defense...In a 1996 questionnaire, Obama wrote that he "supported banning the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns." He says now that the survey was filled out by an aide who misrepresented his views. Yet his record since then is consistent with that view. Never mind that Illinois and the other 49 states have a lot of two-legged predators. Illinois resident Hale DeMar was prosecuted by the town of Wilmette for using a handgun to defend his home in 2003. Wilmette had imposed a ban on the possession of handguns, in effect making the town a gun-free zone. To correct the situation, several Illinois state legislators introduced SB 2165 to protect the right of self-defense for residents like DeMar. Obama voted against the bill. That self-defense bill protecting the right to bear arms for law-abiding citizens such as DeMar passed the Illinois state Senate and was enacted into law over the governor's veto (and Obama's opposition)... http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=292204370724337 --- Charlton Heston, Former NRA President, Dies: ...In June 1998, Heston was elected president of the National Rifle Association, for which he had posed for ads holding a rifle. He delivered a jab at then-President Clinton, saying, "America doesn't trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don't trust you with our guns." Heston stepped down as NRA president in April 2003, telling members his five years in office were "quite a ride. ... I loved every minute of it." http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080406/NATION/842261662/1001 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/06/AR2008040600584.html?hpid=artslot http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/movies/06heston.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all --- From John Farnam: 1 Apr 08 2008 ILEETA (International Law Enforcement Educators' and Trainers' Association) Conference, Wheeling, IL Today was the first day of our 2008 Conference. It was Vendors' Day. Here are some of the products of note: The "Rapid Rotation Baton" is an interesting integration of the straight and side-handle batons. It permits a host of effective close-in control and protective moves, and it is light and compact. Innovative! Crown Gym Mats, known for padded mats and training pads, is now making "nerf" furniture! They had an entire office, complete with realistic-looking desks, computers, file cabinets, chairs, lamps, et al- all made of nerf material! They even had nerf airline seats, chunks of oncrete, bricks, broken bottles, etc. One can conduct force-on-force, contact drills in the "nerf " room with little danger of injuring anyone. Clever! Lasermax is now producing an attachable rifle forend, with built-in laser! The whole thing is self-contained! Called the CGL, this device offers a quick-attach Laser capability to nearly any rifle. My old friend, Bill Mathes, of 21st Tactical, famous for air-soft equipment, is now making wonderful trauma kits, along the lines of what we recommend in our Tactical Treatment of Gunshot Wounds Course. Small and well-organized, they are ideal for range bags and briefcases! Taser's new self-contained shotgun round, effective out to 20m, and priced at around $100.00/copy, will finally hit the market in early 2009. Launchable from any 12ga shotgun, this innovative device provides considerable stand-off capability, with all the stopping effect for which Tasers are currently famous! SIG's new P250 ships with a "medium" frame. "Small" or "large" frames can be ordered from SIG for $30.00/copy. I really like the "small" frame, and that is the one I would use. Swapping the trigger/firing module consume all of thirty seconds! Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, once again, put on their wonderful program wherein various video simulators, including CAPS, Milo, and Laser Shot, are integrated with hands-on scenarios. This innovative Program allows us to get the most out of laser simulators. The whole thing is accessible on-line. Highly recommended! All police trainers need to be members of ILEETA. More tomorrow! /John 3 Apr 08 More interesting tidbits from the ILEETA Conference. I've been attending as many presentations as I can. All instructors are at the top of their game and make this Conference eminently worthwhile: LED bulbs have substantially superceded xenon bulbs in police flashlights, for any number of good reasons. Xenon produces warm, yellow light. LEDs produce cold, grey light. However, although LEDs are generally brighter, their ability to penetrate fog and smoke is substantially less. Fog and smoke are thus effective barriers to LED light! At the SIG and Glock Armorer's Classes, both instructors were united in urging shooters to replace recoil springs once a year, more often under heavy use. SIG and Glock Armorer instructors both cited numerous reliability and durability issues directly attributable to worn-out recoil springs. At the AR-15 Armorer's Class, I learned the same issue is common with the Stoner System. Worn recoil springs engender extraction failures and a host of other unpleasantries! RRA offers an optional "two-stage" trigger on their version of the AR-15. It is liked by some recreational shooters for its enhanced creep. However, it 's installation on any serious rifle is highly not recommended. Two-stage triggers are insubstantial and commonly break under heavy use. In fact, any rifle that comes with the title "Match," "Target, "or "Competition" will invariably be delicate and temperamental and should never see the light of day in a beat-car! At the Glock Armorer's Class, I learned something I never realized: Glock's trigger-return spring is unnecessary for normal functioning of the pistol and is included by the manufacturer only as an aid for those who don't know how to shoot! Even with the trigger-return spring removed altogether, the pistol will run normally, so long as the shooter, practicing continuous trigger contact, correctly catches the link ("resets" the trigger) between shots. It is only when shooters incorrectly "slap" the trigger that it will "go dead" between shots. In fact, deliberating removing the trigger-return spring from the pistol and then inviting the student to continue shooting is a range training method that can be used to effectively cure trigger-slapping! Of course, all Glocks should have trigger-return springs. Indeed, I recommend replacing the trigger-return spring with Glock's NY Trigger, as it greatly enhances responsiveness and crispness. Several Classes dealt with modern, violent criminals, particularly those in street-gangs. Watching videos of jail-house interviews with these sociopaths made my blood run cold! Several decades ago, they would be called "criminally insane." Today, in our upside-down world, armies of sociopaths are organized into gangs who, whenever they take a brief break from raping, murdering, maiming, and torturing, lobby politicians (who are only to anxious to cater to them!), and set fashion trends! At the Taser Instructor Class, I watched at close range as several dozen aspiring instructors were tased! Reaction was universal. Upon being tased, everyone fell down. No one was able to remain standing! Everyone audibly, and loudly, groaned. I asked them afterward if their groaning was intentional or spontaneous. All indicated the latter. Effect was significant, even with separation of the darts of as little as eight inches! The tactic is rolling on the ground while being tased, in an effort to break the wires is now commonly taught to, and by, gang-members in prisons. Most students I saw were unable to do it, and, even with those who could (at least a little), there was sufficient slack in the wires so as to render the tactic unsuccessful. More tomorrow! /John (I don't understand the physics of why light generated by an LED would be less likely than that generated by a Xenon bulb to "penetrate" smoke or fog. I suspect that this may be an issue of color and reflection and, while "white" LED light has a distinct bluish tint, LED's can produce light of various colors. I share John's preference for the New York trigger on Glock pistols but question the attitude that failure to "reset" the trigger is a matter of ignorance. Under stress, the finer motor skill involved in that process may fail, if only by a small fraction of an inch, sufficient to cause problems if the standard coil trigger-return spring should break.) 4 Apr 08 More from the ILEETA Conference: Today, I attended the excellent FAL Armorer's Course put on by my friend and colleague, John Krupa, of the Spartan Group. I own several DSA/FALs, and I asked John what issues are of the most concern in keeping the rifle running. The FAL is a rugged, robust, military weapon, and, in my experience, nearly indestructible. However, John indicated that three screws, (1) the joint pin, (2) the rear-sight base-screw, and (3) the handguard screw, all need to be secured with blue Locktight. The issue is, as with most military rifles, recoil-impulse vibration. With target rifles that spend their lives in padded cases in gun vaults, loose screws may never become a issue. But, with serious rifles that may see heavy, sustained, field use, these screws will vibrate loose when not Locktighted down. On another subject, John is left-handed, and he pointed out that a vertical forend is a handy feature for left-handed shooters on any military rifle, as its regular use prevents the left forearm and hand from inadvertently blocking the ejection port. Being right handed, that never occurred to me until I saw John demonstrate the problem. My old friend, Bert Duvernay, in his wonderful Class on Emergency Planning, pointed out that advocating for "Anti-terrorism" training and equipment will predictably glaze over the eyes of most politicians, simply because the subject has been beaten to death, and politicians no longer want to hear about it. Changing the wording to "All-Hazards" planning and training is likely to get a more sympathetic audience (although the two are essentially identical). He also pointed out the crop-duster aircraft are of particular interest to terrorists, because they are extremely maneuverable and have a heavy-lift capacity. Thus, once airborne, they are difficult to follow, and they can carry a heavy load of explosives. Homeland Security is far more concerned with these particular planes than they are with most other private aircraft. Tomorrow is the last day. /John 5 Apr 08 ILEETA, last day: Today, we had a Panel Discussion, featuring a number of working trainers, including Vicki and me. My friend and colleague, Ed Sanow, active trainer and editor of L&O Magazine, told us all that the four-man, "diamond" formation that is currently being promulgated as the local PD's standard response to "active-shooter" calls is indeed an effective and powerful, tactical tool. It is also mostly wishful thinking! By the time we get four, plain-vanilla patrolmen, let alone four SWAT-Team members, to the scene and ready to make entry, nearly a half hour will have elapsed since the first 911 call. By then, there is every chance the entire event will be long-since over! Ed suggests we need to be training with two-man teams, even one-man entry, if we expect to act in time to save any lives. Even then, he tells his school administrators that they will be on their own for at least the first six minutes. There is virtually no possibility even the first beat-car will get there any sooner than that. In the majority of recent school shootings, perpetrators have committed suicide when they first saw officers approaching. We should provide them with every opportunity to do so, assisting them when necessary, as soon as we can! Dr Jim Williams, also our old friend, in his wonderful Class on Tactical Anatomy, talked about an interesting, recent phenomenon that is now being reflected in shooting statistics. American police have been trained to use their sights and engage bad guys as close to the body midline as possible, firing multiple times. The result: a sharp increase in bad-guy fatalities, combined with a parallel increase in acute spinal injuries, with the upshot that many bad-guys, who do survive police gunfire, are permanently paralyzed. Nothing not to like! My friend and colleague, Vince O'Neil, like all of us, uses the term "trigger control," but he also uses the term, "front-sight control" to describe the necessity of training shooters to aggressively drive their front sights to the target. I'm going to steal it from him! My friend of many years, Dennis Tueller, reminded all of us that the word, "fair" is used almost exclusively by children and Democrats! There were many other wonderful Classes that I didn't get a chance even to look in on. A virtual cornucopia of subjects, all being expertly taught by veterans who know of what they speak! Next year's Conference will be at the same time and, again, at the wonderful Westin Hotel in Wheeling, IL. All serious Operators and trainers need to attend! /John (The point about the delay in the first response by police is something we need to pound into the politicians who insist on maintaining defenseless-victim zones in venues such as schools. Dr. Williams' Tactical Anatomy courses emphasize understanding the three-dimensional nature of human targets and three structures that are most likely to produce rapid incapacitation. One of these is the lateral pelvis, the one exception to trying to use the spine as the backstop for the bullet. The bone of the pelvis, between the sacrum and the hip joint, is more vulnerable to handgun bullets than the sacrum itself and a bullet aimed there is likely to strike the relatively large neurovascular bundle that branches into each leg. I am proud to be a charter member of ILEETA. However, as I don't fall under the provisions of LEOSA, I'm unwilling to disarm in order to attend the conferences, which are always held in Illinois.) -- Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .