Do As I Say, Not As I Do: An editorialist for a Texas newspaper takes on
the state legislator who voted against the state's castle-doctrine bill
and the Massachusetts firearm prohibitionist who broke the law to prove
he could make a straw purchase in neighboring New Hampshire.
http://www.star-telegram.com/212/story/168600.html
---
AK-47 Name As Generic As Kleenex: As the AK-47 reaches its 60th
anniversary, a now capitalist Russia bemoans foreign competition in its
manufacture. Of note, the US, which has purchased Kalashnikov
derivatives to arm allies around the world, has avoided purchasing
Russian models.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/weekinreview/15chivers.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=world&pagewanted=all
---
From Gun Week:
NRA's LaPierre Says: Despite NICS Bill Support NRA Will Fight Other Bills
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
Just because the National Rifle Association negotiated with
Congressional Democrats to hammer out an accord on improving the
National Instant Check System (NICS), that doesn't mean NRA will agree
with any moves to further restrict gunowners' rights.
In a telephone interview with Gun Week after the House of
Representatives adopted a NICS reform measure by a voice vote--a move
condemned by gun rights activists because it allowed members of Congress
to cast a gun vote without it being recorded--Wayne LaPierre, NRA
executive vice president, affirmed that NRA will fight any attempts to
pass any more restrictive gun control measures. In particular, he
singled out measures affecting private sales between individuals.
Anti-gunners wasted no time after House passage of HR 2640 to start
suggesting other measures, such as requiring background checks for all
firearms transfers. This would require, for example, a background check
before someone could sell a gun to a friend or relative. It would also
ratchet down on private sales at gun shows and through newspaper
classified advertising.
Brady View
"Congress and the gun lobby should join us in supporting additional
reforms that extend Brady background checks to all gun sales, not just
those by licensed dealers covered by current law," said Paul Helmke,
president of the anti-gun Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "That
would be a significant additional step to prevent guns from getting into
the wrong hands."
There seemed to be no middle ground on HR 2640 in the gun rights
community. You either saw it as innocuous with some benefits to
gunowners, or you hated it, and the NRA for supporting it. Internet chat
lists ignited for days after the House passed the measure in mid-June.
LaPierre said the speed at which the legislation moves would be up to
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT),
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy's committee asked the
bill to be referred to them, according to a spokesman in Leahy's office.
Leahy press aide David Carle told Gun Week that the senator had intended
to mark up the bill soon, for quick action.
LaPierre said HR-2640 holds some important improvements for gunowners
and called it "an advancement over the current law." Under this
legislation, NICS fees would be prohibited, so citizens would not have
to pay for background checks during the firearm purchasing process.
Appeals Process
The bill establishes an appeals process for certain people who may be
denied gun purchases, and also cleans up expired NICS records,
irrelevant and inaccurate state records, and it will provide relief for
thousands of military veterans whose names were simply "lumped into" the
NICS system by the Clinton Administration without any apparent due process.
This would prevent, according to an NRA position paper, the use of
federal "adjudications" consisting only of medical diagnoses without a
finding that the individual subjects are mentally incompetent or
dangerous. Under the current situation, NICS will accept decisions by
the Veterans' Administration that a veteran is an "adjudicated mental
defective" when no such adjudication has actually taken place.
Under the new legislation, all federal agencies that impose such
"adjudications" or actual commitments would have to establish a process
through which individuals can get a relief from that disability, and
have their firearms rights restored. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives used to conduct "relief from disabilities"
investigations, but funding for that process was stopped in 1992 in a
move led by perennial anti-gun Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) while he was
still in the House of Representatives.
Gun Owners of America and its affiliates around the country were loudest
in their opposition to the bill, primarily because they see a lot of
unsuspecting people who have had any sort of psychiatric health problems
being swept into the prohibited category.
This article is provided free by GunWeek.com.
For more great gun news, subscribe to our print edition.
---
From Force Science Research Center:
The camera doesn't lie, right? Wel-l-l-l-l-l-l........
Force Science News #76
July 13, 2007
======
Brief, dark, and grainy, the video image is a punch to the gut.
A California sheriff's deputy trying to detain a subject who's on the
ground after a high-speed chase says to him, "Get up! Get up!" The man
says, "Ok, I'm gonna get up," and starts to rise. Without another word,
the deputy shoots him, 3 times in quick succession.
With millions of others, you probably became a vicarious eye-witness
when the scene was telecast over and over world-wide. Be honest. The man
complied with an officer's command, and the shooting was not an
unintentional discharge. Didn't it look like a slam-dunk case of
egregious abuse of force?
Late last month [6/28/07], after less than 4 hours' deliberation
following a trial that lasted over a month, a jury acquitted the deputy,
Ivory Webb Jr., of attempted voluntary manslaughter and firearms
assault. The charges could have sent him to prison for 18 years. For
people who knew nothing more about the case than what they'd seen on TV
or the Internet, the verdict seemed a puzzlement, if not an outrageous
miscarriage of justice.
But jurors said the tale of the video took on a whole different flavor
when considered in context with circumstances that were little known
publicly until Webb's trial.
Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Research
Center at Minnesota State University-Mankato, was part of the defense
team. He was brought into the case "to explain the human factors behind
the shooting," based on his expertise as a behavioral scientist and on
FSRC's unique studies of lethal-force dynamics.
In a recent interview with Force Science News, Lewinski reprised his
courtroom testimony and his insider's knowledge of the pressure-cooker
confrontation that embroiled Ivory Webb and resulted in his becoming the
first LEO ever charged criminally for an on-duty shooting in the history
of San Bernardino County.
"It was important to paint a picture of what happened from Webb's
perspective," Lewinski says. "The video was so vivid, so seemingly
clear-cut, that people didn't properly factor in what led up to the
shooting."
The Players. Ivory Webb was 46 years old at the time of the shooting, a
former college football player (Rose Bowl '82), the son of a retired
California police chief, and a veteran of nearly 10 years with the San
Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. Most of his career had been
spent as a jail officer. Although he'd been on the street for over 4
years, "he had never been the primary officer on a felony vehicle stop,"
Lewinski says. "He performed pretty much as a backup officer."
The subjects he confronted at the shooting scene were Luis Escobedo, 22,
who had a rap sheet from previous run-ins with police and would later be
arrested for CCW, and Elio Carrion, 21, an Air Force senior airman and
security officer.
The Chase. On the last weekend night in January, 2006, Luis Escobedo and
Elio Carrion were at a late-night barbeque in Montclair, east of Los
Angeles, celebrating Carrion's recent return from a 6-month stint in
Iraq. They'd been "heavily" consuming beer and tequila when they decided
to take a fellow partygoer's Corvette for a spin. Both had blood alcohol
levels of more than double the state's legal limit.
Escobedo took the wheel (although he had no driver's license) and on a
"lightly trafficked industrial road" near some railroad tracks, he
opened up the sleek muscle car to see how fast it would go. Soon they
passed a San Bernardino deputy who gave pursuit but couldn't keep up.
Webb, returning to patrol from another call, heard radio traffic about
the chase and moments later saw the Corvette "coming directly at me. If
I hadn't swerved into the other lane, they would have smashed right into
me."
Webb barreled after them and soon was driving over 100 mph to keep up.
The Corvette screeched around a corner, caromed off curbs, and at one
point "spun around and came directly at me a second time." Before
colliding, it suddenly smoked into a U-turn and wove wildly from one
side of the street to another, then crashed into a cinder block wall
facing opposing traffic and "hung up there." The chase had ended in the
municipality of Chino.
When Webb pulled up, the vehicle was shaking as the occupants tried to
force the doors open, he said. The trunk lid had popped up from the
impact, blocking the view from behind. He nosed in slightly toward the
right rear of the Corvette and stepped out of his patrol car.
The Confrontation. "Considering that they'd played chicken with him
twice and had shown no regard for human safety with their reckless
speeding, Webb reasonably assessed the car's occupants as really
dangerous," Lewinski says. "He had his full uniform on, his overheads
were flashing, and he had his gun and flashlight out, so there was no
mistaking his authority.
"Carrion began to exit the vehicle and took a step in the direction of
Webb's patrol car. Webb ordered him to show his hands clearly. Carrion
didn't. Webb ordered him to get down. Carrion didn't. Inside the
vehicle, Escobedo kept reaching his hands into areas Webb could not
see." The deputy's commands to both subjects were repeated in a stream,
with no compliance. In his frustration and concern, Webb ratcheted up
his language with liberal infusions of profanity.
At trial a retired LASD lieutenant testified as a tactical expert for
the prosecution and condemned Webb for not remaining "calm and
assertive," as officers are trained to do. But Lewinski took Webb's
words out of the context of antiseptic Monday morning quarterbacking and
put them in the context of his on-the-spot fears.
The chase had led the deputy into an unfamiliar section of Chino and,
essentially, "he was lost," Lewinski says. He knew the street he was on
but in the blur of the pursuit he'd had a hard time tracking the cross
streets. Several times he named the nearest intersection incorrectly
when radioing for help. Deputies trying to reach him sometimes cited
directions and their own locations erroneously, too.
The two suspects could overhear the radio jabber. "Webb knew that they
knew his back up couldn't find him and that he was all alone with two
drunken young men who were not complying with any of his orders,"
Lewinski says.
The pair was physically separated, so Webb constantly had to shift his
focus and his flashlight from one to the other to keep tabs on their
actions. And they kept trying verbally to intimidate him, Lewinski
explains. "Carrion at one point told the deputy, 'I've spent more time
than you in the fuckin' police, in the fuckin' military.'
"Webb recognized all this from his jail experience as a common tactic
among gangbangers: separate, keep up a barrage of chatter to distract,
then attack. Webb ordered them to shut up, but they didn't."
At a point when Carrion had gotten within his reactionary gap, Webb
kicked him to take him to the ground. (The prosecution's expert would
claim later that police are not trained to kick suspects because it puts
them off-balance. But Lewinski points out that in fact kicks and leg
strikes are common staples in contemporary defensive tactics.) On the
ground, Carrion was propped up on his arms, "controlled to some degree"
but not proned out like Webb wanted.
The grinding crash of the speeding Corvette against the wall and the
flashing lights and all the yelling that followed had alerted a used car
salesman living across the street that something worth filming was going
down. He grabbed his Sony digital zoom camera and started recording
after Carrion climbed out of the car.
This man, a Cuban refugee, was wanted on old felony warrants for
aggravated assault in Florida. His past would surface after his
sensational footage saturated the airwaves.
But for now, his camera was about to capture what photographers call
"the money shot."
The Shooting. When the video was first reviewed and broadcast, the
figures of Webb and Carrion could be grossly seen on the darkened
street, the deputy with his gun out standing over the semi-grounded
suspect. But subtleties were hard to distinguish. The audio track, too,
was tough to make out, although what could be heard sounded
discouragingly incriminating.
Carrion: We're here on your side. We mean you no harm.
Webb: OK, get up! (inaudible) Get up!
Carrion: OK, I'm just gonna get up.
Carrion starts to move up. Three shots ring out from Webb's .45. Carrion
is hit in the left shoulder, the left thigh, and the left ribs. He's
critically wounded but survives.
The digital recording was "enhanced" by an FBI laboratory to reveal more
visual detail. Through ultra-sophisticated technology of David Notowitz,
a video expert engaged by Webb's attorneys, it was then enhanced even
further, to the point that images were recovered from a section of the
recording that seemingly had been completely whited out by the amateur
cameraman ineptly fiddling with the controls.
Webb had experienced difficulty articulating precisely what happened
just before he started shooting. In Lewinski's opinion, he suffered
memory problems that are not uncommon after high-intensity
officer-involved shootings. "But when the enhanced footage was slowed
down and time coded so we could study the action fragment by fragment, I
became convinced he was reacting instinctively to a legitimate perceived
threat."
As Carrion braces on his hands, resistant to going fully to the ground,
he first can be seen jabbing a hand up toward Webb's gun. The weapon is
well within his grasp, but he quickly lowers his hand without attempting
a grab.
Then the video confirms that he twice reaches his hand inside his black
Raiders jacket. Carrion would claim on the witness stand that he was
just pointing to his chest. "But the enhanced image shows his hand
buried in the jacket up to the knuckles," Lewinski says. "It was
definitely inside."
Less than a second later, Webb jerks his gun barrel up slightly as if
motioning with it as he commands, "Get up! Get up!"
"He's talking to the hand, focusing on it," Lewinski says. "What I
sincerely believe he was thinking was, 'Get your hand up,' meaning get
it away from where you may have a weapon hidden and out where I can see
it. But the words came out different than his thought.
"Some of our studies have shown that when officers feel they are in
control of a situation, they tend to give clear and relevant commands.
But when they feel out of control, their commands often deteriorate. For
Ivory Webb, that was an enormously stressful situation and there was
nothing he felt in control of.
"Under stress and time compression, people commonly experience slips
between thought and speech." En Route to the trial, for example,
Lewinski asked a harried airline ticket agent for directions to a
travelers' lounge. "Down there," she said-and pointed up. Even the
prosecutor while cross-examining Lewinski misspoke in referencing
something, and apologized for it. "It's easy to do, isn't it?" Lewinski
softly replied.
Lewinski cited a case of an officer who, facing a suspect with a knife,
repeatedly shouted "Show me your hands!" even though both hands were
visible. The officer was trying to say "Drop the knife" but "resorted to
familiar commands from his training under stress," Lewinski explained.
In the uncertain and rapidly evolving circumstances on the street in
Chino, Carrion reaching into his jacket had "extremely threatening
implications," Lewinski says. "He turned out not to be armed, but Webb
couldn't know that. For the first time in the encounter, Carrion obeyed
the command he heard. He began to rise up and a little forward, like
starting to lunge. Webb had already made the decision to fire, thinking
his life was in jeopardy, and pulled the trigger."
A tactics expert who volunteered for the defense, Sgt. Kenton Ferrin of
Inglewood (CA) PD, said he would have shot under the same circumstances.
Webb "thought he was going to die," Ferrin testified.
The prosecutor's expert, however, asserted that each of Webb's shots was
a deliberate decision, bolstering the contention that the deputy in
effect had committed a cold, calculating execution. But Lewinski pointed
out that the time-coded video enhancement showed there was just 6/10 of
a second between each round. He explained that FSRC's time-and-motion
studies had proven that in that tight sequencing, with both the officer
and the subject moving slightly, there's no possibility of conscious
decision-making prompting each shot. "At that point, after the first
round, it was just an instinctive process."
"The purpose of Dr. Lewinski's testimony," says Webb's attorney Michael
Schwartz of the Santa Monica law firm Silver, Hadden, Silver, Wexler and
Levine, "was to help the jury see that behavior the prosecution
considered grounds for suspicion and criminal action could, in fact, be
understood as common human behavior in circumstances of extreme stress."
The Outcome. The first poll inside the jury room was 11 for acquittal, 1
for conviction. The dissenter soon changed his mind. When the verdict
was announced, Ivory Webb burst into tears and praised God.
That was just the first of the legal challenges he faces. Elio Carrion
and his family have asked federal authorities to bring criminal charges
against Webb, and a civil suit has of course been filed.
Meanwhile, with cell phone cameras and camcorders proliferating, a
profusion of controversial police actions seems destined in days ahead
to be seen and judged by millions who understand little about them.
After the Webb verdict, a reporter for the Associated Press interviewed
Eugene O'Donnell, a former cop and prosecutor who now teaches police
studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
"Videos are drenched with caveats," O'Donnell cautioned. "One thing
we've learned about videos is that there are often missing pieces."
================
The Force Science News is provided by The Force Science Research Center,
a non-profit institution based at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Subscriptions are free and sent via e-mail. To register for your free,
direct-delivery subscription, please visit www.forcesciencenews.com and
click on the registration button.
(c) 2007: Force Science Research Center, www.forcescience.org. Reprints
allowed by request. For reprint clearance, please e-mail:
[email protected]. 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:
9 July 07
Here is an item you'll never see on any American news medium: The Iraqi
government has today publicly announced its suggestion that all Iraqi
citizens arm themselves for their own protection. This, after we
Americans, adhering to the British model, have spent the last four
years doing our level best to disarm every one of them!
While Americans back home are being told incessantly by local, state,
and federal governments that we are all too stupid to own guns and that
personal protection is not a valid reason to arm oneself to begin with,
because, of course, we're not worth protecting, our Iraqi allies have,
almost inadvertently, spoken the truth!
"We have met the enemy, and they are us!"
/John
9 July 07
Among Operators, there has recently been a shift in thinking with regard
to moving and shooting at the same time. Most now agree, in all
situation save extremely close range, it is more effective to briefly
halt and have a stable platform and sight picture when engaging your
target than trying to move and shoot simultaneously.
Shooting while moving became all the rage some time ago, but, in my
experience, those who claim to be able to do it cannot hit with any
acceptable degree of accuracy, with rifle or pistol, when asked to
demonstrate it in front of impartial observers. In order to hit
consistently, they must move so slowly, they may as well stand still!
Moving while shooting is arguable when the range is extremely close and
indeed should be practiced as such. However, at all other times, I
concur that one is best served by shooting from a stationary position
and then moving briskly the rest of the time.
/John
(As I have pointed out at
http://www.spw-duf.info/emperor.html#moving,
shooting while moving may be feasible while moving directly toward or
directly away from a threat, scenarios that are not usually tactically
sound unless one is confined in a corridor or dragging a wounded
partner. Shooting while moving laterally is an entirely different matter
and I concur with John about alternating movement with shooting.)
12 July 07
Bear story, from a friend in WY:
"While camping last week in WY, we returned from a fishing expedition
only to find a black bear on our camper's doorstep! We honked our horn
and blinked the lights. The bear quickly got the hint and departed.
Shortly after retiring for the evening, our alarm went off. It was the
bear again, trying to pry the door open. The siren didn't impress him,
so we yelled and banged pots together. Once again, he went away, but
not for long! He was back two more times during that same night. The
last time, he got up on the roof of the camper. I went outside with
flashlight but no gun. What a mistake!
Around back, the bear was trying to break out the camper's rear winder.
My wife was still asleep inside. I had to go back inside, grab my
revolver (357Mg w/140gr Cor-Bon JHP), and then re-exit and confront the
bear.
I decided this bear was becoming too dangerous. I fired one shot,
broadside, striking him just behind front shoulder. The bear dropped
off the camper and started flopping on the ground. I then fired four
more shots. All hits. Bear was DRT.
We contacted the F&G folks by phone, and they sent out a Ranger the next
morning. The Ranger had no problem with what I did, saying the animal
was a "nuisance bear" and would have had to be destroyed anyway.
I had no idea "nuisance bears" like this one were so common and so
aggressive and unafraid of humans. Next time, I'll be better prepared!"
Lessons:
(1) When in bear country, don't walk around unarmed! Guns in drawers in
campers will be of no use when you find yourself in an unexpected
confrontation with an aggressive bear.
(2) Bears are unlikely to be impressed with "people-guns," like 9mm,
40S&W, even 45ACP/GAP. When in bear country, one should be armed with a
41Mg, or larger, revolver and a slug-shooting shotgun or autoloading,
military rifle in 308, like a DSA/FAL.
(3) As recent events have, once again, clearly illustrated, no unarmed
human, no matter how big or well trained, is any match for a bear, even
a small one. When you are unarmed, most any bear will make short work
of you, and you will have no chance of outrunning him!
(4) Be unprepared at your peril. This is bear country, not Disneyland!
/John
(Where I live, animals are losing habitat as more homes are built in
what used to be forest. This forces animals such as bears to shift to
food sources such as trash cans, bringing them into closer proximity to
humans.)
12 July 07
More on bears, from a friend in AK:
"You're right about not going into bear country without a suitable
weapon, or two. When attacked by bears, nothing less will do!
With bears that have had previous exposure to people, yelling is
generally ineffective. However, Black Bears respond well to
'negative-conditioning' via rubber slugs from a shotgun. Once they make
the connection between that painful sting and humans, they typically
stay away from people from then on. Some are incorrigible, however, and
need to be destroyed. With these perpetual 'nuisance-bears,' there is
no other viable alternative.
Conversely, Browns and Grizzlies typically do not respond well to
negative-conditioning. When struck by a rubber slug, they may run away,
but just as often they will become extremely aggressive with the
perceived source of pain. They are accustomed to being
'king-of-the-forest,' and are thus not easily intimidated.
Hunting bear and shooting a attacking bear are two entirely different
circumstances. Some bear-hunters even come up here with the intent to
hunt with pistols, so long as they have a rifle backup. However, when
an aggressive bear in menacing or even in the process of an attack, you
must have the right equipment and the right strategy, if you plan on
living through it.
I recommend heavy rifles. Leave your 7mms and thirty-calibers at home!
Good bear medicine is 458WM, 45-70, 375H&H, et al. Just as with Cape
Buffalo hunting, I recommend solids, rather than hollow-points. Bears
up here have thick, tough skin, and the rest is dense muscle and heavy
gristle. Only solids will guarantee adequate penetration.
A three-legged deer will run like the wind. Conversely, a three-legged
bear will go nowhere and will be unable to run you down. Thus, when
shooting bear, you need to break bones, specifically the heavy,
structural bones that are necessary for the bear to stand up and to
run. Best place to hit a bear is the point of the shoulder. Smash his
shoulder, and he is anchored! Then, you can finish him at your leisure."
Comment: In 2008, I'll be bear hunting in AK with my friend and, with
any luck, get a chance to test these theories!
/John
(Note the analogy between shooting an attacking bear in the shoulder and
shooting a human aggressor in the pelvis.)
--
Stephen P. Wenger
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
