Another Restraining-Order Failure: A man with a rifle opened fire near a church Saturday morning in the San Fernando Valley and wounded three people, Los Angeles police said...Authorities said Diaz was on parole for an unspecified crime, and a restraining order was in place to prevent him from being near the school, his son and wife...The suspect was reloading his weapon when he was tackled by several witnesses who were volunteers at the festival. The shooter put up a fight, struggling and taunting people as they were trying to subdue him. KTLA said the suspect and the weapon were taken into custody near the church, St. John Baptist de la Salle Parish in the Granada Hills area of Los Angeles. http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/17/church.shootings/index.html http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-shoot18-2008may18,0,2906491.story --- Project Appleseed Target: Project Appleseed provides a free set of three targets, on one sheet, scaled four use at 50 feet, to assess your rifle skill in standing, sitting or kneeling, and prone positions. http://wtr100.bravehost.com/promo_target_15_yards_v3.pdf --- Study Finds Lead In Game Meat: A study released last week by the Peregrine Fund and Washington State University shows that people who consume venison from game animals killed with lead bullets risk ingestion of the poisonous metal. Tiny amounts of lead can cause brain development problems in children. Even amounts previously considered safe in adults are now known to increase rates of death from heart attack and stroke. (Metallic lead is not well absorbed from mammalian digestive tracts unless it is very fine particles.) http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0518LeadInMeat0518.html --- McCain Once Sought to Exclude NRA from GOP: "The NRA is entitled to their advocacy. I don't think they help the Republican Party at all, but I don't think they should in any way play a major role in the Republican Party's policy making." [CNN, 5/12/00] U.S. News and World Report notes that McCain is expected to flip-flop on his position regarding the closing of the gun show loophole. (CNN video clip avaialble.) http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/16/flashback-mccain-once-sought-to-push-the-nra-out-of-the-gop/ --- Bob Barr Knocks Huckabee NRA Joke: "Mike Huckabee showed incredibly poor taste when he joked about a gun pointed at Senator Barack Obama. His words were reckless, callous and harmful to the sports men and women of America and to those of us who fully support the Second Amendment..." http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/05/17/statement-from-bob-barr-on-mike-huckabees-remarks-at-nra-national-convention/ --- Sen. McConnell Addresses NRA: ...It would not be the first time a Senator was head of the NRA. The NRA was actually founded in Senator Clinton's adopted state of New York, and its first president was a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island. But it was founded by two Civil War veterans. They were worried about the lack of marksmanship among Union soldiers and wanted to do something about it. And in the 137 years that have passed since its founding, the National Rifle Association has proven to be one of the finest voluntary organizations, in war and in peace, that any free nation has ever known... http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26583 --- Is the NRA in Bed with BATFE?: ... The shameful truth about the National Rifle Association, for example, is that there seems to be some kind of mutually beneficial - symbiotic - relationship between that group, which would like you to believe it was created to protect the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms, and the agency that enforces federal gun laws, the notorious Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Neither could exist without the other to prop it up. The BATFE needs the NRA to keep resisting its agenda (or at least appearing to do so) so it can whimper to Congress that it needs more money, more manpower, more machinery, and most of all, more leeway with regard to its habitual violations of its victims' Constitutional rights. Similarly, the NRA needs the BATFE to frighten its membership with (not to mention prospective members), using the violent and corrupt federal agency as a bogey-man, and its well-known illegal depredations and terror tactics to extract more money from those who foolishly believe the NRA can protect them - or even has an interest in doing so... (Food for thought.) http://www.jpfo.org/smith/smith-friends-like-nra.htm --- Defensive-Display Bill Heads to Arizona Governor: Earlier this week, the House concurred on technical amendments made to House Bill 2629. HB2629, which would clarify how and when a firearm may be displayed for defensive purposes, now heads to Governor Janet Napolitano (D) for her consideration. Please contact Governor Napolitano TODAY and urge her to sign this important bill! You can call her at (602) 542-4331 or send an email by clicking the link on the NRA-ILA website. http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?id=3922 --- NRA-ILA Alerts: This week's alerts are posted on the NRA-ILA website. http://www.nraila.org/GrassrootsAlerts/read.aspx --- From John Farnam: 6 May 08 2008 IALEFI Conference in Reno, NV: I arrived on Range in Reno, NV yesterday afternoon, eager to shoot several new guns I've only handled up until now. Classes continue on the Range all week with lecture Classes going on simultaneously at the local Silver Legacy Hotel. Ruger's diminutive LCP is very functional and digests 380 ammunition with great enthusiasm. Smooth, flat, small, and slick, I like it! It's a single-column, self-decocking seven-shooter. It makes a wonderful hide-out/back-up pistol. Comments were generally positive. Sights are rudimentary and hard to see. Officers who have to qualify with back-up pistols may find sufficient accuracy difficult to attain. Gunsmiths will thus stay busy retrofitting the LCP with after-market sights! The LCP has an external slide-lock lever, but the slide does not lock to the rear when the last round is fired. Magazine-release button is in the customary place on the left side of the frame. Priced at under $400.00, Ruger will have difficulty making LCPs fast enough! SIG's P250, currently available only in 9mm with the "medium" frame, is a compact seventeen-shooter that runs well and is makes a wonderful concealed-carry pistol. My friends from SIG are already complaining that they can't get enough copies to run an Armorer's Class, so it will be a while before SIG is able to fill the pipeline! The P250 is a DAO service pistol, designed to compete, price-wise, directly with Glock. Action Target has produced yet another ingenious innovation: the "Dropper." With this compact, collapsible system, The shooter shoots through a cardboard target in an effort to hit a steel plate positioned on the body mid-line, eight inches behind it. The shooter cannot actually see the steel plate, as it is concealed behind the cardboard target. When the plate is struck, the cardboard target falls forward, and the plate falls backward! This inexpensive, manual system does two important things: (1) It trains the shooter to keep after the target until he gets results, and (2) it trains the shooter to see the target with "X-ray vision." That is, the shooter can't perceive his ultimate target directly. He must estimate where it is, beneath the skin of the torso. Seeing one's target with X-ray vision is a discipline to which Dr Jim Williams introduced us all, and the "Dropper" enables one to actually exercise this critical skill. More later! /John 11 May 08 More on the IALEFI Conference: Bill Mathes of 21st Tactical featured his innovative RTI (Rapid-Transfer Interchange) holster system, whereby holsters can be rapidly attached and detached from the belt base or a base attached anywhere. Guns can be kept in holsters, even when the base remains on the belt. The trend with weaponlights is to leave them attached to pistols and train with them constantly. I saw a wide variety of holsters designed to accommodate pistols with lights attached, and they are greatly improved from the originals. Insight lights are extremely popular. However, I really like Safariland's RLS, as it goes on and comes off so fast and conveniently. Firstlight's line of lights are, of course, designed to be just as useful when not attached to pistols! I was among the first to see and shoot Springfield Armory's new XD/M pistol. Scheduled for an official debut at the NRA Show in KY next weekend, several of us got our hands on a copy at the SA booth. It was in 40S&W, and the size is virtually identical in dimensions to the existing XD, but it is a 17-shooter, vs the current 13-shooter. I'm not sure how they accommodated four additional rounds, but the grip is still comfortable and very ergonomic. The XD/M also features variable grip-geometry. The grip can easily be sized up, or down, to accommodate a wide variety of hand sizes, much like S&W's M&P, Beretta's PX4, and SIG's P250. It is not necessary to dry-fire the XD/M in order to field strip it. This is an important feature for many. In short, the XD/M is substantially slicker, more ergonomic, more comfortable, and has significantly more magazine capacity than the existing XD, and it will be more expensive. SA will continue production of the conventional XD, which is still a perfectly serviceable pistol. The XD/M will now represent the premium line. I like it! /John (Modular holsters, in which the holster attaches to some sort of mounting base, usually project farther from the belt, compromising concealment. This is one of the biggest weaknesses in the otherwise attractive Blackhawk Serpa holster for S&W J-frame revolvers with the older 1 7/8" barrels.) 13 May 08 Unleaded pistols in holsters: Yesterday, in IN, I conducted a "Defensive Revolver Course." My students, proficient Operators, all united in agreeing that we need to be competent with all commonly-used handguns. So, we spent a day exclusively with revolvers, both as main-guns and as back-up guns. Of course, we run hot ranges, and I reminded all students not to holster empty, nor even partially-loaded, revolvers. We want all revolvers topped-off prior to being holstered. But, one circumstance is an exception: When rapidly transitioning from main-gun to back-up, we must "do something" with the main-gun, as most of us want both hands available as we continue fighting with the back-up pistol. During the transition, the now-empty (or otherwise non-functional) main-gun can be (1) jettisoned, (2) returned to the holster, or (3) retained in the strong-side hand (and perhaps even thence used as a club) as the back-up gun is simultaneously drawn via the support-side hand and subsequently put to use. This latter option was employed with considerable success by several clever students, who showed us all that it is the fastest option of the three. However, it requires that the back-up pistol be readily accessible to the support-side hand and that it be fired one-handed. The first option is fast too, but the main-gun ends up on the deck where it may, or may not, be subsequently recovered. Acceptable in most domestic confrontations, but not a good idea when employed in a disaster scenario, where we can't be quite so cavalier about "throwing away" critical (albeit currently unusable) equipment that can't be readily replaced. The middle option is the slowest of the three, but the main-gun is preserved on the body of the Operator and can nearly always be subsequently recovered, reloaded, and returned to service. However, in the interim, the Operator has an empty pistol in his holster. Inauspicious, but unavoidable in this scenario. More than one student who employed the middle option forgot all about the fact that, at the end of the drill, their holstered main-gun was empty, and, as they launched into the subsequent drill, unhappily discovered that they were starting the gunfight with an empty pistol! Happily, they only made that mistake once! Main-guns can usually go rapidly from the holster, to action, and then back to the holster. Conversely, most back-up guns cannot be returned to their holsters quickly. Indeed, even autoloaders in slide-lock can still be reholstered rapidly. Thus, when transitioning from back-up pistol to second back-up pistol or to a blade, the (now-empty) first back-up pistol must be (1) jettisoned, or (2) returned to a pocket. Again, in a disaster scenario, taking the extra time to return the back-up to a pocket will surely be arguable. /John (I know not what course others may take; but as for me...I carry the same model revolver behind each hip, in mirror-image IWB holsters, each of which meets my criteria of allowing a full firing grip on the holstered handgun and one-handed reholstering without needing to take one's eyes off the threat area. On days that I am able to, I carry a similar, third revolver in my left, front pocket in a PCS No See-Um straight holster, which is the only pocket holster I have found that meets the same criteria and stabilizes the gun in the pocket even while I am seated. Certainly, this assumes that I am competent with these revolvers in my non-dominant hand, with or without the support of the other hand. As John points out, his students only reholstered empty handguns once without remembering to reload them at first opportunity. I also make it a point to wear a DeSantis 2+2+2 ammo pouch, which I find optimal for tactical reloads or "topping off" a revolver that has fired fewer rounds than its full capacity.) 15 May 08 Wisdom from Doc Gunn: "Regardless of what kind of gun is being used, we need to stress to our students that they must favorably resolve their tactical challenge within the number of rounds they have readily at hand. . In days of old, duels were usually decided upon a single shot from each opponent. Each could hit or miss. When hit, each would either survive or die. Real bad boys, even after being hit, might re-challenge one-another when the matter remained unresolved, and both antagonists continued adamant in their respective positions. Enter the world of high-capacity handguns, and suddenly the critical necessity for a single, carefully-delivered hit becomes muddled and loses its position of supreme relevance. It shouldn't! The purpose of additional rounds is to allow additional, carefully-delivered, follow-up hits while giving the first one time to take effect. Indeed, if a VCA requires shooting, he probably needs to be shot several times in rapid succession. Deliberate follow-up shots are surely well-advised, rather than idly standing by, assuming an uninterrupted threat. My point? Learn to successfully answer the challenge with the number of rounds readily at hand, rather than shooting carelessly and then naively depending upon time and your presumed capability to reload." Comment: Doc Gunn has an uncanny ability to make a subtle, but critical, point succinctly and in few words! Yes, whether we have at our ready disposal five rounds or nineteen, we always need to shoot as if we had only one! Sloppy shooting, like sloppy thinking, is the province of those who are not destined to enjoy long lives! /John 16 May 08 News from Detonics: At the NRA Convention in KY this weekend, Detonics is introducing new products. Now under the control of my long-time friend and colleague, Bruce Siddle, Detonics is, once again, bringing forth exciting innovations that will surely turn heads in our Industry. I'm not there personally, but I've been on the phone with Bruce, and here is what I can tell you: Detonics will continue to manufacture its signature, small 1911 pistol, the Combat Master. I carry my copy in a wonderful Lou Alessi shoulder-holster, and a better carry/back-up pistol would be hard to find. Among new products is the DTX. It is a small, thin, light, polymer-frame, self-decocking autoloader, designed for concealed carry. It will compete directly with Kahr's line-up for the huge, and growing, concealed-carry market. In addition, Detonics is making the new Detonics/Novak line of 1911 pistols, with the participation of my long-time friend, colleague, and master pistolsmith, Wayne Novak. This product line will feature Wayne's wonderful "Answer" back-strap, Novak sights, a durable ceramic coating, and will bear all tool-steel, machined parts. No MIM metal/injection molding) nor castings. All made in America. A Commander-size and a smaller Officer's-size are available. For 1911-O-Philes, these pistols will top the list! I'll have copies of both the DTX and the D/N to test shortly. In the interim, Detonics is going to create quite a stir. Good show, Bruce! /John (Once again, those who purchase firearms as life-saving equipment are cautioned to wait at least one year to allow any new design to be debugged.) -- Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .