New Sniper Record in Afghanistan: ... Corporal Christopher Reynolds, 25, camped on the roof of a shop for three days as he waited for the perfect conditions to shoot the terrorist commander. He calculated the range, wind and trajectory before pulling the trigger - and the bullet flew 1,853 metres before hitting the target in the chest. The warlord, known as 'Mula', is thought to be responsible for co-ordinating several attacks against British and American troops since the outbreak of war in 2001. Cpl Reynolds, of 3 Scots, The Black Watch, who has already killed 32 rebel fighters, has now been credited with the longest kill in Afghanistan at 1.15 miles away. The incident happened last week during heavy fighting in the town of Babaji in Helmand Province. Today he told how the Taliban chief slumped into the arms of a stunned colleague after being hit by the 'lead sleeping tablet'... (The appears to be a great deal of dissonance between how the British view skill with firearms among their military and their police personnel.) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1206553/British-sniper-tells-moment-shot-Taliban-commander--TWO-KILOMETRES-away.html#ixzz0ODEmi6X6 --- Tangentially Related: ...Before 2001, America's military women had rarely seen ground combat. Their jobs kept them mostly away from enemy lines, as military policy dictates. But the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, often fought in marketplaces and alleyways, have changed that. In both countries, women have repeatedly proved their mettle in combat. The number of high-ranking women and women who command all-male units has climbed considerably along with their status in the military... Their success, widely known in the military, remains largely hidden from public view. In part, this is because their most challenging work is often the result of a quiet circumvention of military policy. Women are barred from joining combat branches like the infantry, armor, Special Forces and most field artillery units and from doing support jobs while living with those smaller units. Women can lead some male troops into combat as officers, but they cannot serve with them in battle... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/us/16women.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all --- From John Farnam: 7 Aug 09 Force: "Reasonable," "Superior," "Effective," "Equal," "Optimal," or "Minimal?" In teaching Defensive Shooting, within our domestic environment, "use-of-force" issues always dominate the discussion. We can provide students with what we believe represents competent guidance. What we cannot provide is specific, nor perfect, solutions for every conceivable threat a student may encounter. "Force," in the legal sense, means "to compel via physical means." We legitimately, lawfully use force, or the threat of force, to compel violent criminals to cease and desist harmful/threatening behavior, and/or to disengage and go away. Deadly force (that degree or type of force that is intended, or likely, to cause death or serious bodily harm) is legitimately, lawfully employed as a last resort to what you reasonably believe to be an bona-fide, unlawful, imminent, deadly threat posed by a violent criminal. Understand that some weapons, like guns and blades, are considered inherently "deadly," and thus cannot be employed in a "non-deadly" manner. We all need to understand that many in the criminal justice system believe they have, and should have, a monopoly on the use of any kind of force. They are mistaken, but this false nation is common. Thus, any unilateral use of force on the part of a Sovereign Citizen will often be greeted with suspicion and condescension by investigators and prosecutors alike. Expect it. Don't become a victim of it! Judgments with regard to the appropriateness of a person's use of force in self-defense require consideration of: (1) The relationship between the amount and type of force actually used, and the apparent need presented, (2) The relationship between the stated intent of the user of force, and the extent of injuries actually inflicted, and (3) The presence, or absence, of a good-faith effort on the part of the person employing force in self-defense to adhere to, as dispassionately as possible, the singular goal of preserving his own safety and that of other innocent parties. That is, whatever type or amount of force is initially employed, one may not continue to apply it after the threat has clearly been eliminated or has voluntarily desisted/withdrawn. When a fight is unavoidable, it is best to end it, on our terms, quickly! The longer the fight/confrontation goes on, the more my safety is compromised. It should be noted that ill-conceived hate-crime legislation makes "wrong" intentions a crime in and of itself, even when the person's actions were otherwise lawful and appropriate. In other words, when using force, one may only think government-approved thoughts! The advice I give to students as the discussion progresses is that the key word here is "reasonable." Under the totality of circumstances existing at the time, was your use of force an example of what a reasonable person would do? You are not required to be a saint, nor come up with the "perfect" solution, but your actions need to be within the "reasonable" range. However, any force used that is ineffective in abrogating the threat cannot be "reasonable." By definition, "reasonable" force is "effective" force. And, to be truly effective in quickly ending the threat, "effective" force is "superior" force. Again, merely prolonging a potentially-deadly confrontation can hardly be considered a "reasonable" option! So, "reasonable" force is both "superior" and "effective," or there is no point. When in a fight for my very life, "inferior," "ineffective" force surely has no appeal! Thus, fraudulent doctrines such as "equal force" and "minimal force" undermine the principle of legitimate self-defense: When I am only authorized to employ "equal" force against a VCA threatening me with a gun, must I only use a gun "equal" to his? When he shoots at me and misses, must I miss also, in order to maintain equality? As you can see, "equal-force" is an unworkable can or worms. The problem with "minimal-force" is with the definition! Whatever type or amount of force you use, someone can always claim that, had you used less force, things would have worked out just fine! Well, we'll never know. Will we? "Minimal" does not equate with "effective" Finally, when facing deadly, unlawful threats, you don't need to be thinking about any of the foregoing! You need to ask yourself only one question: "What can I do to keep from getting hurt?" When, whatever you do, or don't do, is even half-way reasonable, you're probably going to be okay. But, there are no guarantees! /John (John's points are well taken but may also merit discussion with a local attorney. In Arizona, for example, the law distinguishes "physical force" and "deadly physical force." Generally, one may not use deadly physical force to counter mere physical force, unless a disparity of force [male versus female, trained boxer or martial artist, multiple attackers, etc.] exists so that physical force can reasonably be perceived as deadly under those specific circumstances. Thus, while you may not be required to punch back only as hard as the punch thrown at you, you will generally not be allowed to shoot in response to a punch.) 9 Aug 09 On aftermarket pistol barrels, from my Pistolsmith: "One of the few articulable reasons for purchasing an aftermarket barrel for your Glock pistol is so that you'll have a barrel with traditional, cut rifling. That will make shooting unjacketed, lead bullets slightly less messy! Storm Lake, Wilson, Bar-Sto, Jarvis, Lone Wolf, et al all make these barrels. I've found accuracy is almost always compromised, relative to Glock's OEM barrel, but not in any practical sense. I don't recommend shooting any species of unjacketed bullets through any pistol, particularly autoloaders, and particularly Glocks. In short order, you'll end up with a greasy, gummy mess! However, in light of current shortages and looming anti-gun/anti-ammunition legislation, we may all be melting wheel weights and lead pipe before long! Storm Lake offers the widest variety of replacement barrels for Glocks. They make extended, threaded, ported and even conversion barrels, that allow you to shoot 9mm ammo out of 40S&W guns. Their barrels do, however, have 'fully-supported' chambers. There is not much of a feed-ramp, a 'feature' which may generate feeding issues with some ammunition. By contrast, OEM Glock barrels have an ample feed-ramp, which makes for reliable feeding, but sometimes they eject bulged cases, particularly in 40S&W and 357SIG. This, however, is of scant concern to all but hobby-reloaders." Comment: I love this Country! When an OEM manufacturer declines to make a particular accessory, you can bet someone else will, for better or worse! Ultimately, most quality guns run fine, as they come from the factory. Think long and hard before "accessorizing!" Most after-market accessories, even well-made ones, do little to extend the life-span or their owners! /John (I don't know who John's pistolsmith is but I respectfully disagree. Revolvers were originally designed to fire lead bullets. With conventional land-and-groove rifling, leading is a function of hardness of the lead alloy, choice of bullet lubricant and velocity at which the bullet is fired; the chance of leading increases significantly when the velocity starts exceeding 1,000 fps. Autoloaders with land-and-groove rifling typically have shallower grooves as they were designed around jacketed bullets; thus, they are a bit more prone to leading at higher velocities as the bullets can "strip" from their engagement in the shallow grooves. Polygonally rifled barrels, such as those in Glocks, HK's and most Kahrs, are actually more prone to undetected leading than land-and-groove barrels and use of unjacketed or unplated cast bullets may consequently result in unacceptably high chamber pressures. This is particularly risky in Glocks, which are engineered with "looser" chambers than SAAMI-spec guns. This means that the use of an aftermarket land-and-groove barrel for those who train or compete with cast lead bullets in Glocks is a safety issue, not a cosmetic one. While I have, on rare occasion, encountered an exceptionally tenacious residue from bullet lubricant when cleaning my guns, generally the messy residue will clean right out, even with a water-base solvent, such as M-Pro-7. Others comment below.) 9 Aug 09 TWO THINGS Two things move under this night sky: that thing that came to murder, and I He, released from prison to roam, and I, peaceably headed home He carries a knife and drug-addled sense, seeing prey, without defense I detect movement, intuitive fear and put my hand to pistol near Worried, alone in that gloomy blight above the fear, I prepare to fight He sees my pistol and makes no sound, fleeing to hunt less risky ground No predator dares go hunting for me for I am armed, and that makes me free I holster my pistol and slowly stand down heading, once-again, towards home in my dark, sleeping town For there are two things that, this night, shall not die: my Right to be Armed, and I! Anon "A nation of sheep will beget a government of ravenous wolves, cynically masquerading as 'shepherds!'" /John 10 Apr 09 How many shots? This from a LEO in CA: "Last week, during a sweep, two of our tactical officers confronted a well-known, local VCA and gang-member. He was armed and, without hesitation, went for his concealed pistol. He never made it! Both our officer fired simultaneously, and both rounds hit. VCA was 10-X'ed, twice. He went right down and was DRT at the scene. All of which is wonderful, of course, but both officers attempted to fire their pistol multiple times, and both unhappily discovered they were, unbeknownst to them, carrying one-shooters! As it turns out, additional rounds were probably unnecessary, but both officers were astonished to discover that their pistols had failed to cycle normally after the first round. It was subsequently diagnosed, in both cases, to be a feed-ramp problem. Easily corrected. However, these guys are all high-speed, and this kind of misstep is not supposed to happen!" Lessons: (1) Test your gear before you carry it! More than once I've failed to adequately test, with the high-performance ammunition I carry for serious purposes, a pistol I just got back from my favorite gunsmith, only to discover (on the range, fortunately) that my new pistol didn't like the ammunition I was feeding it. How unfair! In this business we don't like surprises. Accordingly, don't set yourself up to be "surprised!" Make sure you're not "beta-testing" in the field! (2) When carrying an autoloading pistol, you're pretty-much guaranteed the first shot. There are no guarantees after that. Your gun may run normally, and it may not! Accordingly, never forget that the most important shot you'll ever fire, and maybe the only one you get to fire, is your first one! The naive foolishly believe that they can afford to pitch their first few rounds, because they have a "high-capacity" magazine. Never allow yourself to be seduced by that false line of thinking. Treat every round as if it were your only round, and you'll live through many fights, as these two officers so expertly demonstrated! /John (Hmm. Maybe I need to reconsider carrying these old-fashioned revolvers, whose cylinders keep on rotating as long as I keep stroking the trigger. "VCA" is Farnamese for "Violent Criminal Actor" and "DRT" is "Dead Right There.") 11 Aug 09 Shooting lead, More comments from gunsmiths: "When you insist on pounding lead bullets down your pistol's bore, you will get lead build-up. It's unavoidable! However, when you shoot lead bullets exclusively, you will experience a progressive, and significant, degradation in accuracy, and, as you mentioned, a greasy, gummy, disgusting mess, but there will probably be no safety issue associated with the practice. The problem comes when you subsequently shoot high-performance, jacketed ammunition through a barrel with appreciable lead build-up. Catastrophic bulging, even bursting, of the barrel is likely. In the latter case, the frame may well be ripped asunder also. When the dust settles, pray you still have a hand! There was a time when this routine was common with 38Spl revolvers. FMJ ammunition was fired through the revolver now and then in order to 'clean out the lead.' Actually, precious little lead is actually thus removed, but the procedure was common. A few revolvers blew-up, but not many, due to the relatively low pressure of the round, and the fact that the cylinder/barrel gap functioned as a safety-valve, bleeding off excessive pressure, and, of course, most lead bullets were cold-formed and thus dead-soft. Continuing that same practice today, with relatively high-pressure rounds (40S&W, 357SIG, 45GAP), and autoloading pistols where the chamber is continuous with the barrel, and lead bullets that are hard/cast, is tantamount to begging the question! Not recommended!" Gunsmith Two: "OEM Glock parts are relatively loose-fitting, in order to promote reliable functioning under a wide variety of circumstances. However, tolerances on those same parts are so precise as to come close to being exact. Impressive! Everything Glock does is by design. Nothing is left to chance!" From friend and colleague, Irv Stone, owner of Bar-Sto. Irv is not only a good friend, but a shooter and manufacturer for whom I have immense respect. I personally have Bar-Sto barrels on several of my carry-guns. If it were otherwise, he would not have a voice in this forum: "There is no 'compromised accuracy' with my barrels! I have never seen any factory barrel shoot close to ours, with regard to accuracy, nor durability for that matter. We make barrels for Glocks, and just about every other main-stream auto-pistol." /John (NRA did a study a few decades ago in which lead bullets were fired through a Dan Wesson revolver, whose barrel was removable, and jacketed bullets though an autoloader, whose barrel also came free during the normal cleaning process. The experiment started with a clean barrel in each gun and each barrel was weighed, on a very precise scale [analytical balance] at the start of the study and after each shot. While I don't remember the exact numbers, what was observed was that there were small incremental increases in weight for several rounds, then the weight dropped back slightly and continued with a little fluctuation. In other words, at normal velocities for the ammunition involved, there appeared to be a point at which some of the metallic barrel fouling was removed by subsequent shots and an equilibrium was established. For those who are concerned with lead buildup, a Lewis Lead Remover [http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=21587/Product/LEWIS_LEAD_REMOVER] will not only remove lead fouling from rifling and forcing cones, it is also great for removing the buildup of powder residue that accumulates when .38 Special rounds are fired in .357 Magnum chambers. Copper fouling can be removed chemically without too much work but is generally not a significant problem in handguns; it is a significant concern in centerfire precision rifles.) 11 Aug 09 Training comments, from a retired USN commander, and one of our Instructors: "After years of running emergency drills on US Naval vessels, I learned (mostly the hard way) a few vital Principles of Training. In a real emergency, our students will invariably rise to the level of their training- not their, nor our, expectations! So, the more painful, relevant, hard, and emotional our training, the better we respond when bad things happen. As an example, when fire breaks out inside a submerged submarine (something that happens a lot more often than is ever reported) visibility degrades to near-zero, usually in less than a minute. Yet, we routinely trained in bright light, and could not turn off the lights, due to the need to operate the reactor-plant safely. One of my sharp, young sailors suggested stuffing the inside of our emergency air-breathing apparatus with black trash-can liners, in order to simulate low visibility, and bad air. We did it that way, and quickly, unhappily discovered that our previous training had been utterly inadequate. Our first drill, thus encumbered, was a fair imitation of a Three-Stooges movie! I began to realize precisely what you emphasize in Classes: Good training is ever scary, demanding, and makes you feel inadequate and stupid. When you finish and 'feel good about it,' you probably weren't pushing yourself hard enough. Learning takes place when you fail, not when you succeed! Thus, any training worthy of the name is going to be both frustrating and 'dangerous,' no matter what safety procedures are in place. But, failing to train is even more dangerous, and the consequences ever appalling and irrevocable. Ask any commander who has lost a battle! And, failing to train because those in charge are more worried about their next promotion than the lives of their crew-members, is criminal!" Comment: Naive "administrators" about whom we're talking fully expect a chocolate cake to emerge when they dump together vinegar and baking soda, and are astonished when it doesn't happen! "We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears." Franois de La Rochefoucauld /John (It sounds clever to say that, "Learning takes place when you fail, not when you succeed," but it is misleading. Learning usually goes through stages and if there are not initial stages, where the student experiences success, a certain proportion of students will only learn to fail. It is when the student acquires confidence with his skills that they need to be tested in increasingly adverse conditions. As an example, I recall fellow students, in the instructor role, yelling at me that I was doing things stupidly, in an exercise in Patrol Rifle Instructor Development School. Confident that my shots would go just where my sights were aligned, I ignored them, which was the point of them yelling at me. In my basic Handgun/Shotgun Instructor Development School a few years earlier, I recall using goggles with very dark lenses to simulate low-light conditions. It was a nice theory but was very unrealistic. We were outdoors in bright sunlight, which was very apparent as soon as my eyes adjusted for the low light - there were very distinct, sharp shadows on the pavement and the targets were easily discernible.) 13 Aug 09 Winners and Losers: I have a copy of a painting, commissioned years ago by Las Vegas tycoon Steve Wynn, called "Winners and Losers." It depicts a smokey old gambling hall filled with poker players. Some are obviously fearful and frustrated. Others are cheerful and confident. It is a masterpiece! In our line of work, we could probably teach chimpanzees how to operate a pistol, or play poker for that matter, but they still wouldn't have a clue with regard to how either activity properly fits into their lives. Among our human students, we typically have "nice" people who are personally honest and generally successful in our civilization, but many still display what we call "loser-traits" which will predictably sabotage an otherwise sincere effort to master our Art. Winners are unafraid! They spend their time finding a way to win, rather than looking for an excuse to lose. Winners fear neither victory nor failure. Losers are deathly afraid of both! Yes, losers are afraid! Fear ever haunts the base of their being and prevents them from ever walking upright, confidently, proudly. Losers mumble! They don't speak clearly, nor with conviction. They can't even seem to speak in complete sentences, because their thought processes are confused and perverse. They are afraid of truth, afraid of reality in all forms. They doubt their ability to handle life, so they hide their faces from the light of day. Losers are bitter and resentful! They are angry with everyone. They can't handle correction. They savagely defend their every mistake, every blunder, every crime like a lioness her young! Their elaborate rationalizations are sadly comical. Losers are afraid of growing up! They prefer to be "taken care of." Accepting full, personal responsibility for anything is unthinkable. Losers snivel, whine, and make excuses! They take personal responsibility for nothing, always blaming others and "bad luck" for every gloomy hand they're dealt. Losers surround themselves with enablers and coddlers who never challenge them! Losers associate only with other losers! Losers are chronically unproductive! They run their mouths continuously, but habitually shun productive work. Losers know right from wrong, but conduct their lives as if they didn't! They're into "situation ethics," offering up endless excuses for lying and other misdeeds. Most of all, losers are ashamed, and should be! They cheerlessly watch themselves missing out on all the best life has to offer, but personal vanity and cowardice ever prevent them from sincerely repenting, and then boldly claiming their own magnificence. As Instructors, these loser traits, some of which, to some degree, are displayed by nearly everyone, are our constant adversary. Again, merely teaching a set of mechanical skills is just the beginning, and indeed, almost a side-show! /John (So, do we build winners with the philosophy that learning only occurs through failure or do we ensure that the student ends up winning? While we should not build false confidence, if we challenge our students, we should give them the means to meet those challenges. Yes, some students pose greater challenges than others. This is one reason why I am happier teaching only one or two students at a time, so that I have less chance of leaving a student with no confidence because he has had trouble keeping up with the rest of the class.) -- Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .