Self-defense weapons: let a thousand choices bloom

Great thoughts on the subject over at Hell in a Handbasket.

The Newhall Incident

California recently honored the four officers murdered in the Newhall shooting. Here's an excellent write-up:

Newhall Incident: The day that shook our valley

Just trying to help out the professionals

In the march/April American Hangunner, Mike Venturino has a column on British military revolvers. It’ pretty think gruel since “Duke” Venturino admits that he does not know much about the .455 Webley and .380 Enfield.

He closes his column with a revealing statement:

Somebody probably knows why the Brits stuck to revolver in the years leading up to WWII, and even, perhaps, why they liked such pea-dunkler cartridges.

Actually, many people know the answer to both questions. They are called People who Read History. Apparently, the folks at American Handgunner are not among their number.

The Brits stuck to revolvers for a bunch of good reasons. Many officers considered wheelguns more reliable and easier to maintain. Economics also played a large role as Britain was forced to rearm in the middle of the Depression. It just made sense for Britain to crank out more copies of the weapons they had than to start from scratch, retool, and replace their existing stock of handguns as well as procure additional weapons for their expanded army.

The final factor was training and ergonomics. It is easier to teach a civilian neophyte (and most recruits had no experience with firearms) to handle a revolver than an automatic.

This last point also explains why the British stuck with rounds like the .380 (the equivalent of the .38 S&W). It took less training to make a soldier proficient with an Enfield .380 than with a .45 ACP. Skill with a handgun ranks is a low priority for soldiers in a mass army. It was vital that the weapon used be easy to shoot. The British wheelguns passed that test.

Walter Roper discussed this in his 1945 book Pistol and Revolver Shooting:

It is interesting to note that the British apparently believe that the power of a handgun should be governed as much by the ability of the average soldier to handle the cartridge as anything else. They insist that the handgun is a short-range arm to be used with speed and so adopted a cartridge like the S&W .28 Regular and loaded it with a 200 grain bullet…. The idea that a handgun is essentially a short-range arm is not at all new, even in military circles, but we seem to have attempted to increase the range beyond the practical limit with such cartridges as the .45 Automatic, with the result that the gun is decidedly difficult for the average man to shoot well.

American gunwriters, with their “you’d better believe size matters, baby!” mentality, like to disparage the British rounds. That is a mark of their ignorance. The British army was officered by men who had extensive CQC experience. Four years of trench warfare in Europe and endless colonial skirmishes across the globe gave them a decent idea of what a military sidearm should do. They opted for the .380 Enfield based on that combat experience. WWII confirmed the validity of that choice.

Captain Clifford Shore served with the British Army as a sniper and instructor. He went into action at Normandy and saw combat in France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany. He was also something of a gun nut who tried out a wide variety of weapons under wartime conditions. Here’s his assessment of the British revolvers from his book With the British Snipers to the Reich.

The Enfield was primarily designed to permit quick pointing and rapid snap shooting, since it was thought (and future events showed the quality of the thought) that the main use of a service handgun was for combat work; the general balance of the Enfield was designed to help the average man to instinctively point, and hit, his opponent. The authorities … wanted a pistol which, in the hands of the average soldier armed with it, was capable of being pointed at, and hitting, a man in the least possible time.

The light weight and less recoil…[of the Enfield] … resulted in the average man putting up far better performance than he did with the heavy caliber weapon, and after a little practice it was good to see how these men so rapidly brought their guns into play, and with instinctive pointing sense and quickness on the trigger, secured hits on man-sized targets at anything up to 15 yards. And it was later proved a hundred-fold that the 200-grain bullet moving at a velocity of about 650 fps had quite an effective stopping power when compared with the heavier calibred brethren.

And once again I say that I would infinitely prefer to have my old S&W than any automatic pistol, the much over-rated Walthers and Lugers included, for a combat weapon.

Deer and turnips

For the past several years i've been planting purple-top turnips in late season foodplots and hot spots. They are supposed to be deer magnets after the hard frosts hit in late fall.

I can say that they grow like gangbusters, are easy to establish, and look nice when their dark green leaves are coverd with a dusting of light snow.

The only problem is that the deer do not eat them. I found zero evidence that Pennsylvania whitetails think of them as food let alone a delicacy.

Jack Weaver

American Handgunner (May June 2008) has a must read article on Jack Weaver, the Weaver stance, and the development of the Modern Technique for Pistol.

Nice that he is getting some recognition which he richly deserves.

BTW: This really is a great poster. One is currently residing in my man-cave. (I.e. the basement where i keep gear and reading chair.)

Ranger Ray on civilian reponse

I discussed the role of civilian response in the Texas Tower sniper case here.

One of the men who went up the Tower that day was officer Ramiro Martinez. In his memoirs he has some interesting things to say about the actions of the civilians in Austin.

I was and am still upset that more recognition has not been given to the citizens who pulled out their hunting rifles and returned the sniper's fire. The City of Austin and the State of Texas should be forever thankful and grateful to them because of the many lives they saved that day. The sniper did a lot of damage when he could fire freely, but when the armed citizens began to return fire the sniper had to take cover. He had to shoot out of the rainspouts and that limited his targets. I am grateful to the citizens because they made my job easier.

Cross posted at my other blog.

Michael Vick: And the big losers are...

hunters.

The groups leading the charge against Vick (PETA and the Humane Society) are also vehemently anti-hunting. So as they use Vick's trial as a platform, it also gives them credibility in their work to ban and restrict hunting.

Vick apologists play the same game. Listen to sports talk radio as they yak about the case and you will eventually hear someone float the idea that dogfighting is part of Vick's culture just as hunting is for some white players. Rarely does anyone argue the other side.


Here's an example of what is coming:

Morning Rush
By Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports
August 13, 2007

The franchise quarterback had just suffered the most crushing defeat of his career and he needed to get away from it all. So the peeved passer headed to the backwoods of Mississippi, where he cleared his head by killing a defenseless animal.

Sorry, PETA, but the gun-toting quarterback in question was not Michael Vick. In fact, it was Peyton Manning , whose aim with a hunting rifle apparently is as true as it is with the ol' pigskin.

In January 2003, a couple days after the Indianapolis Colts ' 41-0 playoff annihilation by the New York Jets , Manning went to a 12,000-acre spread in central Mississippi owned by a family friend and got his mind right. As he told me later that year, "You're out there hunting for deer and ducks, just you and your gun. It's peaceful and totally quiet, no cell phones or anything like that. It's a good detox, the type of thing that gets your batteries re-charged."

In other words: Bad news, Bambi.

Good lessons even for us civilians

I found two very interesting articles on police survival and deadly force.

This one is filled with insight and lessons learned:

STAYING ALIVE ON THE JOB - A SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR PEACE OFFICERS

Not everything is applicable to civilians and some of the lessons require modifications. For example:

FBI’s annual “Officer Killed” summary, the statistics show that officers tend to die in close, not just at 7 yards but at 7 feet, and they tend to neutralize their attackers and survive unscathed as the distances increase.

Distance buys time. Waiting buys time. Time buys survival.

There are few “immutable laws” of police officer survival that go to 100% but this one reaches about 99%. Distance and time will generally favor the police officer that is the first to respond to a life-threatening crisis that involves armed criminals.

Very true, but sometimes hard to apply in self-defense situations. Often, trouble (i.e. the criminal) finds us; we do not have the option to wait for reinforcements or maintain a safe distance. Nonetheless, it is always smart to train with the idea that distance is (usually) our friend.*

This advice, however, is true for everyone:

W- Have a plan, Twining and Davis had a plan and they out gunned twice their number of highly trained lawman. The responding CHP officers didn’t…and they died.

A - Always Maintain the Advantage over the opponent. Gore and Frago initially had the tactically dominant position and officer survival experts who interviewed the surviving Bobby Davis believe that he and Twining would have surrendered if the two officers had not abandoned their tactically superior position.

This refers to the Newhall Incident when two ex-cons murdered four CHP officers. This defense trainer has a slide show that illustrates the events of that night.

I especially like it because he proves that you do not need fancy CGI software to make a useful training tool.

This article has a chilling glimpse into the mindset of one of the Newhall killers.

“I talked to him for quite a bit,” he recalls. According to Madden, Twining described for him the moments leading up to the shooting of Gore and Frago. The two cons had briefly contemplated surrendering as they were pulled over.

“He told me that he was looking in the side-view mirror and they were debating whether they were going to give up. And he looks in the mirror and he could see [Frago] with the shotgun as he walked up to the car and there was still tape around the slide, which means there was nothing happening,” Madden says. The tape around the slide meant the patrolman had not cycled a round into the chamber – he wasn’t locked and loaded.

For a criminal like Twining, that was like the scent of blood in the air.

“He told me the patrolman actually looked embarrassed, like he didn’t want to be there. So [Twining] just said ‘Fuck it’ and bailed out and started shooting.”

I've heard (and read) too many people talk about the wonderful intimidation power of their chosen weapons. "All i have to do is rack the slide on my shotgun and they will run away." "Once they see the size of the hole at the end of my .45 they'll give up."

It is hogwash and dangerous to boot. Unless you are prepared to use the gun, it is just a hunk of metal. Twining's confession shows that criminals can be frighteningly savvy in sizing up the threat. (Hint: they are seldom scared of a chunk of steel and wood.)

It also is important to remember that it only took 2 or 3 seconds for Twining and Davis to seize the tactical initiatve.

So mindset matters and so does focus.

* This is a problem i have with many "practical pistol" courses. I've seen many that require the shooter to move toward distant targets. Dumb idea. It makes for a good game but represents poor tactics.

School shootings and civilian response

I have some thoughts on my other blog.

Michael Bane says it all

Why I Never Fell in Love with the .40 S&W

He is not knocking the .40 S&W as a cartridge, just explaining why he prefers to carry what he does. This point can't be repeated enough:

Finally, "stopping power" is wildly secondary to bullet placement. Let me say that again...in a handgun round, bullet placement is everything. What I want in a carry gun is the absolute knowledge that I can deliver the shot with that gun and that load. The little .40s required more from me than the 9mms and the .45 ACPs.

Bane is in good company. I remember seeing an interview with Jeff Cooper in which he explained that the .45 ACP was not the be all and end all of defensive cartridges. {GASP!} He thought the .45 Colt and .455 Webley were also fine rounds. He shot the .45 ACP because that is what the 1911 shot. Like Bane it was platform first, cartridge second.

Me, i'm that way with the .357 mag. I don't like it's loud bark. But i recognize it's unmatched versatility. But the clincher is the S&W Model 19. It is the platform that i shoot best that can also be carried easily.

Be prepared

Here's a man who takes the injunction seriously.

Email to Shooting Times

For the first time that i can remember, i disagree with Sheriff Jim Wilson. He is a courteous gentleman so i understand why he apologized for his earlier comments about IPSC. (Although, calling it an "armed track meet" with " cute, pastel-colored pajama outfits" is pretty funny.) But he went too far when he wrote: "The majority voted, the majority rules, and life goes on."

If Col. Cooper and the guys at Big Bear believed that, we would all be shooting .38 Specials out of the FBI stance. Progress does not come from going along with the majority; it comes from cantankerous individuals who are willing to challenge conventional wisdom and figure out what really works.