Who's Afraid of the NRA?: In politics, conventional wisdom can be slow to die, even when the so-called wisdom is neither true nor wise. So I was reminded on a recent visit to Capitol Hill, when I asked several lawmakers and senior members of their staffs to explain the Democrats' timidity about standing up to the National Rifle Association by pressing needed measures to curb gun violence. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Obama tossed cold water a few weeks back on Attorney General Eric Holder's well-founded enthusiasm for reviving the assault weapons ban that Congress and the Bush White House let expire in 2004. I was struck by a common thread in the responses I heard: Enactment of the original 1994 assault weapons ban cost Democrats control of Congress... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/opinion/09sat4.html?_r=3&ref=opinion --- Tenth Amendment Smokescreen: Several states have sanctimoniously passed resolutions that are worthless trash demanding nothing designed to placate a half-asleep public. They mean nothing, have no effect in law, the spineless "servants" who introduce them know this, and act just so they can say, Oh what a good boy am I. Let one, just one, introduce such a bill with backbone and teeth, that truly repulses federal government intrusions and attacks on the 10th Amendment, and I'll change my tune. I guess that would be Montana, which has enacted a 10th-Amendment-based statute called the Montana Firearms Freedom Act. A nice rumor sheet about the bill has blazed across the web. My first hand details on the bill are posted below... (Alan shares some interesting insights into the planned court battle over the Montana law, which is serving as a model for a few other states. This is item five on the linked page.) http://www.gunlaws.com/Page9Folder/PageNine-64.htm --- AK-47, Home-Defense Rifle: Investigators said blood DNA and forensic evidence from a southwest Atlanta crime scene helped lead police to the capture of Standard bar shooting suspect, Jonathon Redding. Police said, two days after the murder at the Standard bar, Redding was shot while trying to commit a home invasion. Officials said Redding came to the Harmony Plaza One apartments on January 9 and attempted a home invasion of Apt. 6, Building F. "All of a sudden we heard shooting. It was about five shots," said witness Terry Williams. Bullet holes can still be seen through the window at the apartment unit. Police said Redding didn't realize that the home owner had an AK-47 of his [sic] and shot back at Redding, hitting him in the arm and shoulder... (It's unclear, due to an apparently missing word, if both shooters were armed with AK-47 clones. Redding's wounds, however, are typical in that they appear to be in the gun-side arm and shoulder. This is why it's important to be able to access a firearm and shoot with either hand.) http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/local_news/Forensic_Evidence_Led_to_Redding_Arrest_050809 --- With Friends Like These...: A 7-year-old boy who was allegedly shot in the head by a couple who thought he and three other people were trespassing on their property died Saturday, authorities said... Sheila Muhs and her husband, Gayle Muhs, both 45, were charged with second-degree felony counts of aggravated assault in the shootings Thursday. They were being held at Liberty County Jail with bail set at $25,000 each and had not yet retained an attorney, Bishop said... Bishop said the district attorney could upgrade the charges to murder on Monday, but investigators were "still trying to get the circumstances behind the incident." ...Bishop said the area includes a dirt road, trees and overgrown brush and that it wasn't uncommon for people to go off-roading there. The Houston Chronicle reported that a sign in front of the suspects' home reads: "Trespassers will be shot. Survivers will be reshot!! Smile I will." ... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30650051/ --- Firearm Legislation in Arizona: ...If the NRA gets its wish, registered gun owners in Arizona will be able to keep weapons locked in their cars outside of a business, regardless of the business' policy on weapons in the workplace; they'll also be allowed to bring guns into certain restaurants that serve alcohol. The guns-in-cars legislation, House Bill 2474, moved out of the House on Thursday and its sponsor, Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, expects it to pass through the Senate. "I think there'll be some Democratic votes, too. The Republican Party does not have a monopoly on the Second Amendment," he said. Kavanagh said the NRA brought the proposed legislation to him earlier this year, and the gun-rights group is pushing for states to enact similar laws around the country. He's not alone. Rep. Frank Antenori, R-Tucson, also sponsored a bill with the NRA's backing this session, that would allow gun owners to bring firearms into restaurants that serve alcohol, provided the gun owner doesn't drink and the restaurant gets more than half its profits from food sales. Antenori's legislation never got a hearing, but it should live on in the Senate, where Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, inserted the language in another bill, Antenori said... http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2009/05/10/20090510politicspage0510guns.html --- Hawaii May Ban Pocket Knives: Hawaii, the island paradise that has long been a haven for tyrannical government denial of civil rights, with virtual bans on the Second Amendment, has introduced a bill to ban pocket knives of any type. Knives are theoretically protected under the Second Amendment, whose careful wording protects "arms" and not just firearms. No criminal activity or intent is required. Mere possession of the private property is all that's needed, if the bill passes... (According to the 2006 edition of David Wong's Knife Laws of the Fifty States [http://www.knifelawsonline.com/knifehome/], open and concealed carry of folding knives and fixed-blade knives, with the exception of dirks and daggers, are both currently legal in Hawaii. Possession of switchblades and butterfly [balisong] knives is currently banned.) http://www.gunlaws.com/PageNineIndex.htm --- Germany to Ban Paintball: The German government is planning to ban paintball and laser shooting games in reaction to the recent school massacre in which 15 people died. Under legislation agreed by the ruling coalition of the chancellor, Angela ­Merkel, using air rifles to shoot paint-filled pellets at opponents is likely to be made illegal, and would be punishable with fines of up to EUR5,000 (£4,480)... The government has found itself under pressure to tighten gun laws in Germany in what has become one of the main issues before a general election in September. "This so-called game plays down violence, leading to the danger that people have fewer inhibitions about shooting each other," said Dieter Wiefelsputz, of the Social Democrats... (The gist of this was in an earlier linked article about the forthcoming firearm restrictions but, since two different list members sent me links to this article, some list members may not have taken note of it.) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/08/germany-paintball-school-massacre --- From Force Science Research Center: I. New study links multi-tasking capacity to good or bad shooting decisions Officers who have a greater capacity for multi-tasking are less likely to make errors in shooting decisions, even when emotionally aroused, according to a new study from psychology researchers at Georgia State University in Atlanta. "The study is an important, seminal work," says Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Research Center at Minnesota State University-Mankato, "because it directs attention to human behavior factors in deadly force encounters, instead of focusing on race, environment, or alleged officer bias as so much previous research has done. We know from our own scientific investigations that factors of biology, physiology, and psychology are by far the most critical elements in lethal confrontations, and yet to date they are the least studied." The new study has limitations, including a small sample size, less than ideal testing conditions, and a lack of any immediate practical training applications. "But it should be viewed as a ground-breaking good start. It surfaced valuable information that now cries out for more thorough exploration," Lewinski told Force Science News. The GSU research team, headed by assistant psychology professor Dr. Heather Kleider, set out to determine how differences in officers' "working memory"--the capacity of the brain to temporarily store and manage information needed to carry out complex cognitive tasks--might affect "judicious shoot decisions" in threatening, stressful situations. As a psychologist, Kleider in the past has worked with issues of eye-witness accuracy, memory, decision-making, and cognitive processing, especially as related to the court system. In discussions with colleagues, she became curious about how an individual's cognitive capacity and ability to multi-task might relate to decision-making in aggressive circumstances. With 2 other researchers, she decided to explore WM and the decision-making of LEOs in threat situations, "something that hadn't been looked at before," she told Force Science News. TESTING. The team's volunteer subjects were 24 urban police officers, 8 of them female, with a median age of 38 and an average of about 10 years on the job. During personal 90-min. laboratory sessions, they first were given standard computerized number-and-letter memory and problem-solving tests to determine their individual working memory (WM) capacity; in effect, "their ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously." Next, "to put them in a 'field-ready' mind-set," they were shown a 9-min. video of an actual vehicle stop during which an officer was shot and killed. This was "designed to simulate a threatening in-field situation that might elicit negative affect and arousal," Kleider explains. The officers' negative emotional reactions were assessed by measuring changes in their facial muscles and their stress level was tracked by monitoring heart and pulse rates. Finally, each officer was shown a sequence of 80 slides for less than 1 second apiece on a computer, in an attempt to "partially recreate realistic police shooting decisions." Each slide pictured a male holding either a gun or a "neutral" object, such as a cell phone. The officers were told to press a "shoot" or a "don't shoot" key "as quickly as possible in response to armed and unarmed targets," as they would in the field. Points were awarded for "correctly" shooting an armed target and deducted for "incorrectly" shooting an unarmed target, shooting too slowly, or not shooting an armed suspect. FINDINGS. The researchers found that watching the officer get murdered did increase evidence of negative emotions in the test subjects but did not result in significant physiological arousal. Nor was there any indication that WM capacity or negative emotionality affected speed or produced a bias in the officers that caused them to automatically favor an impulsive "shoot" decision over a "don't shoot" response. What careful analysis of the data did show, though, was "a significant positive relation" between WM capacity and accurate decision-making, Kleider states. Specifically, officers who had low levels of WM capacity and who responded to the stimulus video with relatively high levels of negative emotionality had an "increased likelihood of shooting errors"; that is, they had "a greater likelihood of shooting unarmed targets and a failure to shoot armed targets.". On the other hand, officers who had high levels of WM capacity scored much better even though their emotionality was high. They shot significantly fewer unarmed subjects and more armed suspects. These results suggest that "high WM capacity seems to buffer officers against the negative effects of a threat when making shooting decisions," the study says. It may be that "heightened arousal creates a 'load'" that "usurps a substantial amount of available working memory capacity." Officers with high WM capacity may be able to accommodate this load and "keep more things 'in play' at one time." But in those with lower capacity, it seemingly "impairs cognitive processing ability" and results in poorer decision-making. Bottom line: "When threatened and experiencing highly arousing negative emotion, police officers with limited working memory capacity are at increased risk of shooting error," Kleider concludes. OBSERVATIONS. Lewinski points out that the low-budget study was conducted in a laboratory and did not place officers in an environment that approximates real-world conditions. "The fact that the officers' pulse rates did not increase significantly during testing is a strong indication that they were not really feeling threatened or stressed," he says. "In some Force Science research involving highly realistic role-playing scenarios, officers' pulse rates have more than doubled, for example. "Yet even with little physiological arousal in Dr. Kleider's study, the officers with lower working memory showed significant errors in decision-making, and that is an important finding that warrants further research." Kleider and her co-researchers, Drs. Dominic Parrott and Tricia King, agree that the study was short on realism. Clearly, Kleider states, "the key-press response in our shooting task is very different than aiming and pulling the trigger of an actual weapon or shooting at a real-life target." Also, she notes, "the emotional intensity of the video may not have been enough to 'load' the working memory of high-capacity individuals." Had they been more fully aroused, perhaps their decision-making advantage would have been lessened. The research team has applied to the National Institute of Justice for a research grant that would permit a large-scale study which, Kleider speculates, might ultimately result in a testing protocol that LE agencies could use as part of their recruit-screening process. This might allow departments to identify applicants who need additional, specialized training to compensate for or overcome their decision-making limitations or who should be weeded out altogether. More work needs to be done before useful training lessons can be determined, Kleider acknowledges. More experiments need to be run to clarify the relationship between WM and "the shooting task" and to answer questions such as how WM capacity can be strengthened or emotional arousal regulated to produce better in-field performance. Meanwhile, says Lewinski, the study as far as it goes "is right on target in focusing on the kind of human dynamics that researchers should be looking at." [A paper by the researchers on their study, "Shooting Behavior: How Working Memory and Negative Emotionality Influence Police Officer Shoot Decisions," will be published later this year in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology and is expected to be posted soon on that publication's website.] ================ (c) 2009: Force Science Research Center, www.forcescience.org. Reprints allowed by request. For reprint clearance, please e-mail: info@forcesciencenews.com. FORCE SCIENCE is a registered trademark of The Force Science Research Center, a non-profit organization based at Minnesota State University, Mankato. ================ --- From John Farnam: 3 May 09 More Industry News, from Friends in TX: "Here at Cabelas, we get shipments of military rifles, mostly Bushmaster and S&W M&P M4s, as well as SIG 556s, once per month. They are all sold-out within the next two days! Then, we have no inventory until the next shipment. In fact, the day AR shipments arrive, there is always a long line at the gun counter. Even Ruger Mini-14s, which most regard as an 'alternative,' sell out within a week of arrival. As you know, we are a high-overhead store, so prices here are at least full retail. Nonetheless, ARs are out the door as fast as we can get them unloaded from the truck and into the store! Wal Mart and some other box-store employees here have been accused of hoarding ammunition in the back of the store as soon as it arrives, particularly 223, and then holding it for their buddies, who come in and buy it all, subsequently selling it on the internet at scalper's prices. The scam is widespread, but largely unreported!" Comment: I see no letup in this rabid demand any time soon! Out of fear of being legislated out of business by Congress, most arms and ammunition manufacturers have, so far, declined to borrow money to increase floor-space, buy machinery and inventory, and bring on new hires. Few are making long-term commitments, owing to the never-ending stream of question-marks emanating from the current White House. In the interim, apprehension with regard to the flow of national and world history is causing layer after progressive layer of non-gun owners, even the heretofore anti-gun, to reconsider! /John (This is the first I've heard of manufacturers not investing in new machinery due to fear of being legislated out of business. While I believe that Big Brother has triggered the largest wave of private purchases and ammunition in the history of this nation, it cannot go on forever, particularly if the economy does not turn around soon. At some point, people will feel comfortable with the amount of ammunition and reloading supplies they have stored and will return to spending scarce funds on other commodities. At such times, arms and ammunition manufacturers will likely back off from their currently enhanced production schedules and be grateful for any police and military contracts they may have.) 4 May 09 More on brain-stem shots, from a trainer: "Here in Atlanta we regularly run real-time, Air-Soft scenarios involving hostages. The practitioner is always afforded several generous windows through which to make a brain-stem shot. I play the role of the VCA. Here is what happens: When I'm armed with a knife, practitioners always get close. Most use verbal commands, like 'drop the weapon,' then shoot me in the body. In most cases, my completely-exposed head is less than two feet from the practitioner's pistol, and many still insist on talking, instead of shooting! When I'm armed with a pistol, most practitioners move to the other side of the room, negotiate ad-nauseam, and then also shoot me in the body! I've played the VCA several hundred times, with practitioners (many of them police officers) of various skill levels. I've been successfully shot in my (helmeted) head only five times! The vast majority never even attempt a brain-stem shot, even though I always give them more than ample opportunity to successfully accomplish it." Comment: Conversely, my students will make the brain-stem shot, because they've been trained to do it! However, I am persuaded that many inadequately-trained practitioners in scenario-based training simply act-out what they've seen in movies! In virtually all Hollywood hostage dramas, when the villain, holding the hero's sexy girlfriend at gunpoint, commands the hero to "drop your gun," the hero always meekly complies (so additional melodrama can be squeezed from the scene). I'm also persuaded that many practitioners have never honestly confronted the extreme level of ruthlessness that is necessary to successfully resolve these desperate circumstances. Enthusiastically, even fiercely, defending the lives of family members is the most basic of human rights. It is not "taking justice into your own hands," as naive VBCs mistakenly see it. But, there are many VBCs who foolishly believe that "negotiation" is the one-and-only moral response to violent aggression. When it fails, they predictably lapse into denial, and are proud of it, because the gun-hating media has elevated arrogant self-deception to an art form! /John (Firearms instructors tend to structure scenarios to fit their preconceived doctrine. While an instructor seeking to encourage his students to chance a shot to the brainstem may leave his head sticking out two feet, a real hostage-taker may not and will likely move his head when he sees your gun home in on it. Those who failed to follow the link to my brief article on head shots [http://www.spw-duf.info/emperor.html#head%20shots] in last Sunday's mailing are encouraged to do so this week. "VBC" is Farnamese for "Victim By Choice.") 5 May 09 Selection of a Lawyer: My friend and colleague Mas Ayoob had sage advice for us at his lecture during the Polite Society Event in Tulsa, OK last week. The following is a phenomenon that I have noticed too, but Mas, who does of lot more expert legal consulting than I do, masterfully focused in on the issue. Representing criminal defendants is a narrow law specialty. Most lawyers don't know much about it. Of course, all criminal defendants are entitled to competent representation, so our System is not tempted to railroad defendants, for the sake of expediency, politics, nor a host of other illegitimate reasons. Sometimes it happens anyway! The problem is that the vast majority of criminal defendants are, in fact, guilty as charged! Most are also indigent, sleazy, unstable, and have a criminal record already. In fact, the only classes of criminal defendants who have money and who are willing to spend it defending themselves and their reputations are those accused of (1) drunk driving, (2) molesting children, and (3) dealing in illegal drugs. The vast majority of other criminal defendants don't have two nickels to rub together! In every town, out of hundreds of practicing lawyers, there is only a handful whose practice includes representing criminal defendants. They spend a lot of time with defendants accused of the foregoing crimes. They know, and their clients concede, that their clients are almost always guilty. As such, they are accustomed, often far too accustomed, to "making deals" in order to get their guilty client the best outcome they think they can. That, of course, is their job! However, when you, a good and decent person, are compelled by circumstance to righteously and lawfully defend yourself with gunfire, you are not guilty of any crime! And, a real problem may develop when you hire a lawyer to represent you who is habituated to representing guilty clients! Many have never represented a client who is not guilty, and who is, in addition, a decent and upright person, wrongly accused by a mendacious prosecutor pursuing a personal, anti-gun agenda. Lawyers like this may arbitrarily lump you in with the rest of their clients and thus jump at the first "deal" offered by the prosecutor, rather than carry your case forward. Juries rock! And, it may be necessary, at trial, to get your side of the story before a bunch of ordinary people who can imagine what they would have done under the same circumstances in which you found yourself. Only the USA still has juries, and you are entitled to demand one! They have been eliminated in most other parts of the world, owing to power-hungry despots who want complete personal control of the "justice" system. Our still far-from-perfect System is a lumbering bureaucracy which, like all bureaucracies, exists mostly to serve itself. And, you won't have to look very hard to find examples of injustice. In fact, one can persuasively argue that our System is terrible, except for all the other systems! Mas' point is that, in gun-cases, well-know and flamboyant defense attorneys may not be your best choice, simply because they may not want to believe you are not a criminal, like the rest of their clients. You need to find a lawyer who, at least occasionally, represents guiltless people, wrongly accused, who knows something about guns and people who own them, and who knows credible experts who can assist him. Your best source is the ACLDN (Armed Citizens' Legal Defense Network). You need to be a member! Call them at 360 978 5200 /John (The defense of clients charged with criminal offenses is definitely a specialty within the legal profession. During my erstwhile relationship with Massad Ayoob, he often made the point that very few criminal-defense attorneys have ever defended an innocent client, hence most may not be skilled in the dynamics of doing so. I am aware of ACLDN and am keeping my eyes and ears open before making the recommendation to join. I have been called to jury duty in three different courts in Los Angeles County and have seen a wide disparity in the intelligence and integrity of my fellow jurors. Still, when it's a matter of interpreting the facts, I'd still feel safer gambling with the biases of eight to twelve jurors than of a single judge.) 7 May 09 Twelve-gauge slugs work only too well! This from an LEO student in TX: "Last weekend, a local miscreant became upset with his favorite drug retailer, and, as a way of expressing his unhappiness, shot-up the dealer's mobile home, using a twelve-gauge shotgun. The shotgun's magazine tube was charged with four, Foster slugs. All four struck the trailer. One slug was fired lengthwise, through the trailer. It entered the exterior wall, penetrating four interior walls, and exited out the other end. It was not recovered, and is still going, as far as we know! We arrested the idiot, without further incident, shortly thereafter. No one in the trailer was hurt." Comment: Penetration capability of twelve-gauge slugs never fails to astonish me! They go right through what 223 and most pistol rounds never will. /John (Mobile homes are pretty flimsy in construction so it's no surprise that 12-gauge slugs sail right through them; they will generally penetrate automobile bodies. One list member, who heads the firearms-training unit for his police department and who has taught me some of the lessons I share, convincingly argues that LEO's who carry shotguns are better served by using slugs as their primary load. This is partly because there is only a single projectile traveling downrange at distances that cannot be predicted when outdoors. The option is retained to swap the slugs for buckshot loads prior to entry to close quarters, where the spread of the buckshot may be acceptable and the penetration of the slug may be excessive. It will generally take a human spine to stop a slug at relatively close quarters, before they lose much velocity. Often referred to as "Foster" slugs, the common "rifled" slug is actually a "Forster" slug.) -- Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .