If I have this right, only climate scientists can have an opinion on climate change, but any jackass can opine on guns even if they don’t know a .22 from a 12 gauge.
It is my understanding that this sort of attempt by those of us who are knowledgeable about firearms technology and terminology to correct those who are clueless about same is now derided as "Gunsplaining". Note that the link goes to what might be called a "friendly" site, as opposed to the ones that criticize "gunsplaining" as using "jargon" in "bad faith" to "bully" the gun grabbers...
Because terminological inexactitude is unimportant when The Feelz are at stake.
So, remember, next time you feel the need to correct someone on "Standard Capacity" versus "High Capacity" magazines, or to explain the difference between the independent and dependent clauses in certain articles in The Bill of Rights, or why cosmetic features make little or no difference to the actual functioning of a firearm, or why certain firearm features are actually safety features...
...Remember, I say, that you are engaging in jargon-based, bad-faith, bullying behavior.
Make sure you capture any progressive tears that ensue, as I am assured that they make excellent firearms lubricant.
Aside from the fact that I may have to start reading the Unreasonable Dangerous Onion Rings blog just for the name, this is essentially a detailed fisking of the entire story. In this case, go ahead and read the comments. (Note: If you're going to click through to the Daily Mail's coverage, you might want to warn your spouse lest she look over your shoulder when you reach the part about how one of the principles in this story led a "Shades of Grey" lifestyle. AMHIK.)
Anyway.
What brought me here was that, out of curiosity, I looked up de-salinators on Amazon, because, 5 months at sea you'd obviously have to have one.
The search returned 29 hits, most of which are filters or purifiers, not de-salinators.
Removing bugs and contaminants from salt water doesn't do you much good if you still can't drink the water...
Anyway, two rules:
Always read the product description.
Never read the comments.
Exception to 2. above:
Unless you still have questions about the product description.
Heh®. The Cluemeter: Mocking chainsaw bayonets before mocking chainsaw bayonets was cool! The Clue Meter: Safety First!
Not sure, but that was probably my first "Derp" post.
Got home and submitted all of ours for the program; process took maybe 5 minutes, and that included getting pistols out of the safe, and a separate submission for each of them.
No further action is required from you at this time.
You will
receive an email from SIG SAUER at a later date that will include a
prepaid shipping label and instructions to return your P320 pistol and
any P320 caliber exchange kits that you have. It may take many weeks for
you to receive this next communication, but we won’t forget about you
(SIG will not begin the upgrade process for a few weeks as we prepare to
make this upgrade). Once your P320 is shipped and received at SIG SAUER, the turnaround time will be approximately 4 – 6 weeks.
This lengthy process is due to the high volume of pistols in the
marketplace. Transit times may vary depending on your geographic
location and receipt of your returned pistol. In the meantime, your SIG
SAUER pistol is safe to carry and use as originally configured from the
factory.
Obviously, the 4-6 weeks to get the pistols back after the undetermined wait to ship them off is less than appealing. (The most common number I've heard for P320 sales is ≈500,000. Not sure how accurate that is, but I can see how that would be a significant number of pistols to process...)
The fact that the entire process will be free of charge to us goes a ways to alleviating that.
FAQs about the program are at the bottom of the page linked above.
BTW, if you have caliber exchange kits in addition to one or more P320s, they recommend sending in the slides, as well, as
the striker(s) will be replaced, and the slide(s) will need the disconnector cut.
I'm honestly not too concerned about toting the P320 Sub Compact in the meantime, as I don't plan on dropping it multiple times in just the right orientation to cause an ND.
Don't really care whether the hysteria brigade thinks I'm overly optimistic or a fool.
"Gentlemen, you can't reason here! This is the Internet!"
So, you may recall over several previous posts that I (and Ms. Drang, on my advice) have switched over the Sig P320s as out primary sidearms.
You may also be aware that the entire Gunternet is having a collective meltdown over recent "revelations" regarding the Sig P320.
The American Rifleman's The Keefe Report has published a review of the situation.
This post has few links; they'll be easy to find on your own. There is so much pants shitting hysteria over this issue that I am giving myself a time out from most gun-specific fora.
Many of my fellow bloggers, over in
the right sidebar, have addressed this situation, as has The Gun Feed.. The issue has been
beaten to death so thoroughly at Pistol-Forum.com that the horse is not
only dead, but they had to bring in a new dead horse because the first
one had been reduced to a pile of rancid jelly.
To review, for any who have not been following:
A few weeks ago a video popped up in YouTube, on a channel with only that one video and no other content, purporting to demonstrating that, when dropped in a specific orientation, the Sip P320 would fire.
The video had no commentary at all, including a description of how many tries it took to get this to happen, or how they reached the conclusion that dropping this pistol such that it struck the ground at a specific angle would cause it to fire.
After a week or so, during which time people generally held to be In The Know arrived at the conclusion that the circumstances surrounding the video were so flaky as to render it suspect, at best; shortly thereafter, it disappeared.
At approximately the same time, however, it was noted that there was language in the Sig P320 manual stating that the pistol could fire if dropped, and one should take care.
Note that this is standard lawyerese in most if not all firearms manuals, along with "use only quality, factory-loaded ammunition", and "modifications will void the warranty."
Also at approximately the same time, the Dallas, TX, Police Department issued a safety warning regarding the Sig P320, due to the fact that "it might fire if dropped." (The P320 is not issued by the department, but is authorized as a personal purchase.)
Note that, contrary to rumors, no Dallas police officer has had a P320 fire accidentally.
Sig released a statement which pointed out that the P320 had passed all industry standard safety testing, including all industry standard drop testing; IOW, no one ever thought they had to test a gun dropped at this specific angle before.
Just as the furor over the original video and the verbiage in the manual was dying down, other videos popped up. These were better produced, and did seem to explain what happened better.
Note, however, that these all built on the original video, which means that they started with the knowledge that the pistol dropped in this specific orientation could or would fire.
Then... people started claiming that this previously unsuspected flaw applied to the M17 and M18 pistols, the Army having just awarded the contract for the Modular Handgun System to Sig for variants of the P320...
...despite the fact that the M17 and M18 use different internal components which avoid this issue...
...and which it turns out, Sig had already planned to offer as a voluntary upgrade to the P320. Details to be available the day after tomorrow. (That is, Monday, August 14th, 2017.)
Of course, this latter fact gets reported to the effect of "What did Sig know and when did they know it?"
Notes for those who have been following along:
I left out the lawsuit by a Connecticut police officer who alleges he was injured when his P320 unintentionally discharged, which came to light about when this was happening, on purpose. Claim is made that his holstered pistol went off. The lead time on a lawsuit is such that the timing may or may not be suspicious, and the description of what happened is still unproven.
I am also not addressing the fact that one or more highly regarded personages came out and said that the P320 was as safe as any other gun, and questioned the original video, leading to their character and integrity being called into question when the full feeding frenzy hit.
Seriously, Gunternet-wide the knicker-twisting approached Bernie Sanders rally proportions...
Note that she is not commenting on the allegations or sequence of events, just that this is not the first time we've seen the "blood-in-the-water" effect of a new, successful pistol design which might have a weakness.
And as Mr. Keefe says in his article referenced above, this whole thing has gone beyond "blood in the water" into full-on Sharknado. (Naturally, the first comment on that article claims Sig bought the NRA's compliance...)
Although SIG was already working toward introducing the MHS-inspired
Enhanced Trigger to the P320, this -30deg drop issue has hastened their effort. They have lightened the Trigger, Striker and Sear by about 30% overall and added a Disconnect (commercial only, not MHS). The trigger pull weight is unaffected, but rather the trigger part actually weighs less. The reason they lightened those parts is to mitigate the momentum
gained by the heavier parts during a drop.
Taylor laid it out, “There is a vulnerability with the P320 at the -30deg drop.” They plan to incorporate the trigger enhancements for the M17 into the P320. They’d been working on them, but implementation wasn’t imminent. Based on what they’ve found, that has been accelerated. Details on their voluntary upgrade program will follow soon.
I want to put this perspective. Since it’s introduction in 2014, they’ve sold around 500,000 P320s. There are three recorded cases of unintended discharges in LE channels . There is one additional commercial incident which I am familiar with but was not formally reported to SIG. That’s four known incidents from 500,000 weapons, many of which are used on a daily basis. Additionally, those incidents have all been within the last year.
This report concludes with the following paragraph:
My take is that despite building their pistols to industry standards, SIG has acknowledged the issue and is taking steps to fix it. They didn’t waste any time. They’ve stopped commercial production of the P320 and are concentrating on the upgrade. It’s going to be more than just swapping parts. The slide and frame will need some work as well so the pistol will need to go back to SIG. Details will soon follow on how to participate in the voluntary upgrade program.
As I noted earlier, details of the upgrade will be available Monday.
Not gonna lie, I'm not too crazy about the idea of sending our guns to New Hampshire to be upgraded, but expect to be doing so, if only to ensure parts compatibility down the road.
This whole series of events has left me disgusted with a large swathe of humanity, though.
I have a t-shirt, black with red lettering saying "D.A.R.E"! It looks familiar, except in small letters it says "Derp Abuse Resistance Education". It was a limited edition at SKD Tactical, a Todd L Green memorial of sorts, raising money for Tod's Rampage For The Cure. I wore it at MAG40 last summer, and at the Langdon Tactical class.
Holster Derp
You still see people using Serpa holsters,
or imitations. I have a couple myself. I bought them because they're
reasonably priced, and retention seemed like a Good Idea.
Then
I learned that there were reports of the locking mechanism getting
jammed. "Well", I says to myself says I, "I've heard Internet rumors
about this problem but not met anyone who saw it happen, and I'm not
planning on wearing these things on a deployment or rolling around in
the dirt while wearing them..."
Well, apparently it
doesn't take rolling around in a bear pit to jam the mechanism, and I've
now read too many eye-witness accounts of having to retrieve a gun from
one of these with a pair of tin snips to want to risk it.
Plus, there's the whole "Using your trigger finger to activate the release" thing.
Now,
when I first heard these particular concerns raised I did some "dry
practice" draws, and concluded that the Serpa locking mechanism
positioned my trigger finger along the frame of my Combat Commander
where it belongs.
Trouble is, well, here's a video:
Note
that Mr. "Only a fool can't use a Serpa safely" has his trigger finger
inside the trigger guard pretty much during the whole draw stroke.
So in last week's Weekend Knowledge Dump Greg Ellifritz linked to a post Why NOT SERPA | Stuff From Hsoi
which included a video of a Serpa jamming up hard during a self-defense
training session. (Which also links to a Facebook post that includes
the video I just embedded.)
Holster Non-Derp
Last week I found myself trying to explain why you really do need to expect to spend more than a Jackson* on a holster. All too often we see someone dropping five hundred or more on a pistol, just to carry it in what Tamara calls a "sausage sack"; a soft nylon holster that collapses on the draw and that might, even if it covers the trigger guard, might not do a good job of protecting it.
Fortunately, Kathy Jackson (smooth segue, huh?) has just completed a six-part series on holsters:
If one has questions about what round to carry, the standard advice is to carry whatever the local constabulary carries. If one still has questions, the best bet is to start your research with the "sticky" threads on this page: Ammunition -- Pistol-Forum.com. Note that a couple of those stickied threads have to do with ballistic gelatin testing and wound ballistics. Minimal research will tell you that one does not simply walk into one's local Safeway and buy ballistics gelatin (do we need a Boromir meme for that...?) so when that YouTube celebrity says he was using clear Knox gelatin for his test, well...
Guns
You get what you pay for. The $500 (new) gun is better than the $300 (new) gun, and the $1000 (new) gun is better than the $500 (new) gun. (Granted, there may be exceptions, including lucking into a Steal of a Deal.)
Mind you, the qualitative difference between the three Franklin gun and the five Franklin gun may be greater than between the five and the ten. All other things being equal, an all-metal gun is almost certainly going to cost more than a polymer gun of equivalent size and quality. Do your research, and determine what you are giving up by going with, say, the Kel-Tec P3AT versus the Ruger LCP, S&W Bodyguard, or Glock 42.
Ideally, read those ammunition threads I just linked to and buy a 9mm instead of a .380...
Training
"Derp Abuse Resistance Education"...
Since I mentioned Pistol-Forum.com, one of the members has put together what is shaping up to be a pretty useful tool, which he calls the Firearms Training Hub. Looking for a specific type of class? Or classes in a specific area? Here you go. Mind you, the trainers have to let him know that they're available to include, so it is not necessarily 100% as to what is scheduled where, but it's certainly a good place to start.
Archives
I've written a few posts on the subject of derp, using the tag Derpitude
*AKA an "Irony". If that puzzles you, research Andrew Jackson's relationship with the US Bank, and extrapolate to the concept of the Federal Reserve. One must assume that Andy J would be fine with having someone else's face on the $20, although how he would feel about being replaced by Harriet Tubman I refuse to speculate.
So, a friend and co-worker surprised me by casually mentioning in conversation a week or two ago that she was having trouble finding a holster for her pistol.
I suppose she thought I knew she had bought herself a pistol, but up until a month or so ago we had spent quite a while on opposite shifts, and on those rare occasions when we did have a chance to chat over coffee it was usually over the stupidity of colleagues and/or management.
Anyway, I was glad to hear that she had avoided any pressure or "advice" to go with a snub nosed revolver or a .380, which are all too often recommended as "Lady's guns", and in deciding to go with a 9mm she went with a S&W M&P 9 Compact, rather than a Glock 43 or an S&W Shield because "the extra capacity seemed like a good idea."
Not only that, but she has eschewed off-body (purse, fanny pack) carry for reasons both practical and tactical.
Now, she has decided that for her purposes a cross-draw holster will work best. We discussed the potential drawbacks, and she acknowledged them, but feels that this will serve her best, and I refuse to push lest she decide either not to carry, or not to speak to me again... 😞
Thus we come to the derpitude, to wit, not only is she having trouble finding a cross-draw holster in stock, at least one dealer said that "nobody makes those."
Not "We don't stock those as there's not much call for them, let's see what I can order", but "No such thing".
Furthermore, he implied that there weren't (m)any holsters for the M&P 9 Compact at all!
{Insert Facepalm Meme Here}
Naturally, within half an hour or so I had forwarded her half a dozen links to various and sundry holster makers' wares for the M&P 9C, including cross-draws, highlighting holster makers local to us.
I also had to keep explaining that a cross-draw holster may be worn forward of the hip, but that referring to it as an appendix holster (as Minion #1 kept doing) was going to confuse people as to where and how you are planning to place the thing. ("No, I'm going to wear it for cross-draw." "I understand, but these days when you say 'appendix carry' people will assume you mean strong-side in waist band. With practice, this can be a very good way to carry concealed, but that's not what you intend.")
Hopefully her fashionable belts will support the holster, when she finally gets it...
So, there seem to be two schools of thought about the 1911-pattern pistol:
It's an archaic jam-o-matic, or
It's Certain Death for Evildoers.
The truth, of course, is that it's neither.
Here are some facts*:
The M1911 was designed by John Moses Browning (pbuh) to US Army specs.
The story is well known, the Army went from the Single Action Army revolver in .45 "Long" Colt¹, to a double-action revolver in .38, which proved less than adequate in the Philippines.
At the time, semi-automatic pistols² were just coming into use, and the Army included features that seemed like a good idea at the time.
Things like multiple safeties, since it was expected that most of the Army's pistoleros were going to be on horseback.³
And lanyard rings, ditto. (Including on magazines!)
And sights that are nearly vestigial, since the art of combat marksmanship as envisioned by the military at the time didn't really go in for sighted fire as we know it.
Also, of course, it was made of steel because what else was there?
Oh, and keep the tolerances somewhat loose to allow for minimal maintenance under field conditions, not to mention so that it will cycle ammunition loaded "kinda sorta" to spec under wartime conditions.
Jump ahead fifty years or so. A bunch of guys have been exposed to the 1911 and the .45 ACP round but, largely because of Army pistol marksmanship instruction, don't really understand it. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, of officers and technical specialists have been handed a big chunk of metal and told "go qualify", but not really told how to do so. Once again, the #2 pencil is the greatest tool for making sure the unit's numbers come out right... But what the hey, we won, right?⁴
But the war's over, and a bunch of guys are getting together to invent a new sport involving pistol shooting. And it turns out the M1911 is a pretty good tool for that.
So, what spare time I've had the last week or two had mostly been spent transcribing my notes from MAG40. I think I'll pass on posting a day-by-day AAR and just post the outstanding things from it.
When I'm ready.
In the meantime... I often pass on posting about things in the news, because others post about them so much better. But sometimes...
This. This right here is why we can't have nice things.
(And actually ties in with some of the things covered in MAG40.)
Acknowledging that the press almost always leaves important details out, and that events as described by friends and family of the deceased are biased and not to be trusted...
A bunch of young males in their late teens and early twenties at, or leaving, a party two doors down does not sound like "hoodlums and vandals."
The part that really caused me to face palm so hard I almost gave myself a concussion was this:
I fired my warning shot like I’m supposed to by law.
Not only is there no legal requirement to fire a warning shot, but police are generally prohibited from firing warning shots.
And, sweet Jesus, if you HAVE to fire a warning shot, shoot into the ground!
The 911 calls include this:
12:50 a.m. “We’ve got a bunch of hoodlums
out here. I’m locked and loaded, and I’m going outside to secure my
neighborhood. You need to send PD as quickly as possible.”
and
“You need to send PD as quickly as possible, I’m on neighborhood watch. I’m gonna have the neighbors
with me. There’s hoodlums out here racing up and down the street. It’s 1
o’clock in the morning, um, there’s some vandalism.”
and
12:57 a.m. “We have a lot of people
outside our house, yelling and shouting profanities. I yelled at them,
‘Please leave the premises.’ They were showing a firearm, so I fired a
warning shot and, uh, we got somebody that got hit.”
at which the dispatcher asked (reasonably enough)
“Someone was shot?” the operator asked.
“Well, I don’t know if
they were shot or not, ma’am,” he told her. “I fired my warning shot
like I’m supposed to by law. They do have firearms, and I’m trying to
protect myself and my family.”
The operator asked who had come to his house.
“Ma’am,
I don’t know who they are,” the man said. “There’s frigging black males
outside my frigging house with firearms. Please send PD.”
Okay, so...
Neighborhood Watch is no more a license to kill than a concealed carry permit.
The evidence as presented in this article makes it sound like no one got further than a few feet onto the idiot's property.
At this point, we only have the idiot's word that anyone had anything resembling a firearm besides him.
And since the evidence makes it sound like he fired from inside the garage, through a window, it hard to see what made him feel he or his family were in such danger that discharging a shotgun was necessary.
The bad part, aside from all the people who have been writing and training about these things for years having apparently done so in a giant exercise in futility, is that there are people out there who will read this little screed of mine, and similar ones by others who are more experienced, have taken more training, and have more exposure, and excoriate us for "abandoning" this guy. (Not to mention NRA, SAF, etc.)
Make no mistake: There may be evidence to come that will change this to another "Good Guy With A Gun" story, but at this point this moron is a moron who deserves to be locked up, and only trotted out when a Bad Example is needed.
In my previous post, as I was lamenting the fact that I had discovered by day three of MAG-40 that the three "generic" stainless steel magazines for my 1911s were crap, and the feed lips had spread to the point where, not only would they not lock back the slide when empty, but I couldn't even get one of them in the mag well, I added as an aside
the blued ones actually marked as GI mags seem to be working OK.
By the time we had finished shooting the last drills and were about to shoot the qualification several of my blued steel mags were also failing to lock back the slide.
I suppose the "COLT" marked ones have an excuse, since they came with my Combat Commander, which I purchased almost exactly 30 years ago.
Annoying, but nowhere near as annoying as getting that hot brass down my back from the Marine shooting his Ruger LC9S S&W Shield next to me was. ("Mas! The blogger is doing Saint Vitus' Dance!""Is his muzzle pointed in a safe direction...?")
That and it made the Glockenspielers even more insufferable.
On the one hand, my habit of buying 1911 magazines over the last year or two seems like a good one.
On the other hand, buying the cheap ones marked and packaged as GI 1911 mags may not have been so smart.
the twinge you felt when typing the first bullet was not just your bursitis acting up at the self-back-patting, it was foreshadowing.
Bullet two OTOH, was prescient. (Except the blued ones actually marked as GI mags seem to be working OK.)
Day three of MAG 40 and I now have three fewer 1911 magazines than I came with. Turns out those "generic" stainless steel magazines simply marked ".45 ACP" weren't even worth the sawbuck each they cost me.
In mitigation, I would like to point out I bought the things strictly for use in training.
Too bad they won't even go into the mag well easily enough to use them to practice reloads.
Lately I've been perusing items on the website of Foreign Policy magazine. Sure, there's a lot of furriners and commies there, but think of it as my version of Tamara watching the Sunday morning talk shows. Living on the Left Coast as I do, especially now when I get home from work after midnight, pressure testing my cardio-vascular system watching the talking heads pontificate is i practical, to say the least.
So when I saw an article called Foreign Policy: Obama Was Not a Realist President, subtitled "If he had been, he might have avoided some of his biggest foreign-policy mistakes", my first thought was "No shit, Sherlock."
Realist? Abandoning Iraq, ditto Afghanistan, sucking up to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Putin, bowing to royalty all over the place, insulting long-standing allies and friends to play footsie with enemies...
Who the hell could think Obama is a realist, foreign policy or otherwise?
Well, it turns out paragraph four givs us a clue: The kind of guy who can write about Obama in these terms:
But first, what will Obama’s legacy likely be? My view, for what it’s
worth, is that future historians will rate Obama highly. He will be
remembered for being America’s first nonwhite president, of course, and
for conducting his office with dignity, grace, and diligence. His
administration was blissfully scandal-free, and he didn’t make a lot of
hasty decisions that turned out badly. He was admirably thick-skinned
and charitable toward most of his critics, despite the abuse and thinly
veiled racism he faced from some of them. And no matter who wins in
November, he is likely to look mighty good by comparison.
"Dignity, grace, and diligence"? It is to laugh! (And of course, the item is replete with cheap shots at Republicans in Congress...)
My guess is that Stephen M. Walt's business cards read
So, elsewhere on the Internet, in a discussion of defense training for folks in the education business, someone trotted out the hoary chestnut "Just keep a can of wasp spray on your desk!"
I didn't like that advice the first time I heard it, on the basis that spraying folks with nerve agent seemed like a bad idea. If you need a less than lethal option, OC spray or Mace, or even one of those crappy stun guns they sell everywhere, would seem like a better idea.
Why? Because the label tells you not to use in an enclosed space, or to evacuate an enclosed space before use. Because these products generally have a warning that says something like "Illegal to use in a manner inconsistent with this labeling" as part of the safety precautions. Because of the possibility of some lawyer standing up in a courtroom and reading the label of the can, and challenging any suggestion that it was "less than lethal". Since you gave and/or took advice that this was useful as a self-defense tool, the issue of liability is greater than I was comfortable with.
Mind you, if you're attacked by a gang while spraying that wasp nest in the back year, it's what you have and they have it coming, but deliberately arming yourself with a bug bomb seems questionable.
I suppose the reason that wasp spray specifically gets recommended is that it shoots what seems to be a powerful stream for a relatively long range, and the target will curl up and drop when hit. It's a (relatively) little bitty bug, hit by a stream that is powerful relative to it's size, and formulated to it's biology.
So when someone said "Wasp Spray", I mentioned that I thought it was a bad idea, and sat back with a metaphorical bowl of popcorn and waited for the experts.
The concentration of pyrethrins in a typical wasp spray isn’t all
that high, but the amount of material in the stream which hits the
insect may weigh as much as it does; even in a small concentration, the
insect will get a huge dose of the poison relative to its weight. The
distillates which serve as the carrier are selected to get past the
bug’s exoskeleton and deliver the poison very rapidly. The result is the
effect described above: the insect loses its ability to control its
muscular functions in mid-air and drops to the ground, where it rapidly
dies.
When directed at a human, I can tell you from experience this doesn’t
happen. As I said at the top, several years ago I managed to spray
myself in the face with some wasp spray as I attempted to snuff out a
large nest. I wasn’t looking at the can as I shifted my grip to get the
spray into an difficult place, and I was wearing gloves so that I
couldn’t tell where the button was pointed. Instead of hitting the nest
the spray hit my face!
I was in no way incapacitated and had no problem walking into the
house, cleaning myself off, and checking the manufacturer’s website for
first aid procedures. I did notice some tingling and my vision was a
little blurry in one eye for a bit, but that was about the extent of it.
Mr. Cunningham also links to an American Preppers Network article with a detailed discussion of the chemical make-up of wasp spray, and of the differences between OC for humans and for bears, as well as a link to a news item about a couple who tried unsuccessfully to use wasp spray to "repel boarders" during a home invasion.
Plus, this video:
So, spraying wasp spray on a news crew filming the news in a public area put them in such distress they thought it was... windshield washer fluid.
I have actually been pondering this post for a while, and then a couple of posts by fellow-bloggers prompted me to go ahead and write it. And I did, and saved it, and edited it, and then... didn't post it. Until now. Had to play games with posting time; since I started it several days ago, it tried to post to that date I started it, not the day I finished it...
in which--in case you do not or cannot watch You Tube products--a man has modified a chainsaw and/or an AR15 so that he can mount the chainsaw to the rifle, like a bayonet from a Bruce Campbell movie.
(Here's a Hollywood-plausible use for same: Just think of the impact of the Designated Door Kicker on the local Dynamic Entry Squad--AKA SWAT Team--making his own door, rather than simply knocking down the existing one. Hell, I know guys in real life who would be so impressed by this piece of hardware they'd forgive you for confusing their house for the meth lab with the same number, a block over...!)
Anyway, the happy inventor pops a few caps at a few offensive pumpkins, and then charges downrange to slice and dice them with his, um, "bayosaw."
I was with him to that point, but being bullet-ridden pumpkins they didn't stay put, and he came awful close to several key body parts in the process of making pumpkin pie filling...
Which beings me to this post in which RobertaX expounds on The Four Rules. (Context: Evidently some professional football player with an improbable name popped a cap on himself. I never heard of the guy, probably because we only have high school football in this state.) (You can't tell me those guys get paid; you damned sure can't tell me they deserve to! As for college football, they're stacking students like cord wood six to a dorm room, why are they spending money on those farcical athletic programs?)
To backtrack a bit, there are two schools of thought vis a vis Firearms Safety: The Threerulians and the Fourrulians.
As an National Rifle Association Firearms Safety Instructor, I am a Theerullian:
Always keep your muzzle pointed in a Safe Direction.
Always keep your finger off the trigger unto your ready to shoot.
Always keep your gun unloaded until you're ready to use use it.
Evidently, Roberta--and, apparently, most Intertoobs Gun People--is a Fourrulian:
All guns are always loaded.
Never point your gun at anything you are not willing to destroy.
Keep your finger off the trigger.
Be sure of your target and what is beyond.
Roberta links to this page on The Gun Zone, which lists both, with discussion. (Which I never read until after this post was half-written, by the way.)
Now, it seems that the Four Rules were devised by the Late, Great Col. Jeff Cooper (pbuh), primarily for range training or combat duty.
What is often forgotten, however, is that Col Cooper had input into the writing of the Three Rules, as well! The Three Rules are instructions for how to be safe while handling firearms under general conditions: If you follow them all, you will be safe.
Note that (as I explain the difference to students who are aware of the Four Rules) Rule One-of-Four is more of "an over-arching philosophy", an approach to gun handling safety, rather than a "how to." Note also that Rules Two-and-Four-of-Four are pretty redundant.
Now, I think that any argument--and I have seen and heard some--about "which set of rules is better" is, quite frankly, silly. They are not in competition, a point which, I think, is explained better in that page of The Gun Zone linked to above than I can.
A few additional words about the Three Rules:
1. Always keep your muzzle pointed in a Safe Direction.
So what's a safe direction? I have had people--generally current or former military, who had "Keep it pointed downrange, and elevated*" drummed into their heads so often that they "ass-you-me" that pointed "up" is safe. But what if you are on the second floor of a three+ floor building? ANSWER: A safe direction is a direction in which, if there is an unintentional discharge, no harm to humans or damage to property will result.
2. Always keep your finger off the trigger unto you're ready to shoot.
Self-explanatory, yes? Maybe so, but you have to be careful with certain designs, as getting "something" in the trigger guard can lead to an unintentional discharge...
3. Always keep your gun unloaded until you're ready to use use it.
"Wait a minute! You expect me to load my gun when I see the deer? Or am already being attacked?" ANSWER: Of course not.
A hunting rifle (shotgun/pistol) is "being used" when you get out in the field.
A firearm kept for self-defense is "being used" when you are preparing to defend yourself, and that means carrying (concealed or openly, and always in accordance with local laws and regulations!) or kept in the nightstand, the corner of the bedroom, etc., against need for "repelling boarders", that is, home invasion.
I am sure that, if I had a legal department, they would require that I add that
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR GUNS. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR SECURITY, THEIR PROPER FUNCTIONING, AND THEIR CARE AND FEEDING. IF THERE IS ANYONE IN YOUR HOME WHO SHOULD NOT HAVE ACCESS TO YOUR GUNS, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR PREVENTING THEIR ACCESS.
So, if you have children, the feeble minded, babysitters, or people who are known to abuse alcohol or other substances in your home, you need to make a decision: Would it be better to lock the guns up, to hide them, or to educate them?
In the case of children and babysitters, education might be the best course, but for those who are of reduced mental capacity or emotional stability, locking the guns up would be the way to go.
I have a very dear friend, and fellow NRA instructor, who temporarily stored all her guns at a friends house, when she realized her just-jilted daughter was contemplating drastic symbolic gestures. (All is well now.)
(By the way, I can't speak for any other states, but in Washington AC, gun safes are tax-free. Only the large long-gun type, though, not pistol safes.)
Another point about The Three Rules as expounded by the NRA, is that they are written as positive statements; that is, "ALWAYS" do such-and-such, not "NEVER " do such-and-such, let alone using words like "DESTROY" or "KILL" or other things that may be effective when used with emotional stable adults, but might scare youngsters and the more impressionable adults away from guns. An abused woman who has finally screwed up her courage to Do Something to protect herself from Homo Feralus** does not need to be scared back out of her decision!
Also, it is psychologically easier to remember "positive" statements than "negative" ones. And remembering, and following The Rules, is The Point.
*Usually stated as "Keep it pointed up and down range" to the point where people miss the fact that it is supposed to be, well, "elevated and downrange." **My own coinage. Don't bother trying an online translator.
