Oops, Wrong Gun: Frederick P. Henry was fleeing arrest and Somerset
County (MD) Deputy Sheriff Robert Purnell needed to stop him. Purnell
reached back to unholster his Taser, then drew and fired at Henry. But
instead of drawing his Taser, designed to merely immobilize suspects,
Purnell had mistakenly grabbed his Glock .40-caliber handgun. Henry
suffered a gunshot wound to the elbow and filed an excessive force
lawsuit against Purnell, claiming the officer's mistaken use of the gun
violated the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable
seizures. (While most pistol grips are a pretty good ergonomic way to
hold a tool, there is a potential problem if you carry something with a
pistol grip and a pistol at the same time.)
http://www.mddailyrecord.com/article.cfm?id=2763&type=UTTM
---
Oops, Wrong Store: Attempting to hold up a South Philadelphia 7-Eleven
proved deadly overnight when the armed robber was shot and killed by an
on-duty narcotics officer, police said...The officer identified himself
to the robber, and in the ensuing confrontation, the officer discharged
his weapon at least several times, Vanore said...The robber fled about
two blocks, before being found and transported to the University of
Pennsylvania, where he was pronounced dead at 1:52 a.m.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/breaking/news_breaking/20070928_Philadelphia_police_shoot_robbery_suspect_dead.html
---
Successful Head Shot?: Authorities in Chicago say a police officer
fatally shot a 15-year-old boy who aimed a gun at the officer and his
partner. The shooting happened last night on the city's southeast side,
and the Cook County medical examiner's office says Meliton Recendez was
pronounced dead early this morning...Chicago Police Officer Hector
Alfaro says one officer fired, hitting the teen in the head, after the
boy turned toward the officers with the gun in his hand. (Granted that
tactical officers may do more firearms training than the average Chicago
cop, unless the shot was fired at close range, I suspect it may have
gone higher than intended, a common phenomenon in low light.)
http://www.wqad.com/Global/story.asp?S=7141406&nav=1sW7
---
Shooting-Safety Reminder: While no details are provided, this incident
reminds us of the need to use eyeglasses while shooting and, if they do
not include any side protection, not to turn sideways while others are
shooting at steel targets or targets mounted in steel frames.
http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=130552
---
From John Farnam:
24 Sept 07
Well-practiced skills come through. This from a student who had barely
touched a pistol before he joined us at a Defensive Pistol Course in July:
"I wanted to let you know that the skills I acquired at your Course
earlier this year served me and my family well.
I was prairie-dog hunting with my brother last Friday. We had just
spotted prairie-dogs, and, after pulling the truck around, we stepped
out. My brother set up on the hood as I went around the to set up on
the tailgate.
I looked back and saw a coiled rattlesnake just inches from my brothers
right foot! I yelled to him to look out. When he saw the snake, he
started moving away from it.
Suddenly, there were several holes through the middle of the snake! I
had smoothly drawn my SA/XD/45ACP, acquired the target, and fired just
as soon as my brother was clear. I barely realized I had done it. It
was near automatic!
Your course, and the skills I learned there, made my decisive, precise
action possible. My brother was astonished and said, in a shaky voice,
'Where did you learn to shoot like that?' I may have saved his life.
During your Course, I remember thinking I would probably never have to
use any of the skills I was learning. How wrong I was!"
Comment: When it's least expected, you're elected! Danger, when it
comes, come fast and unannounced. It's a "ready-or-not" world!
Good show!
/John
(I have no quarrel with training until your skill is reflexive. However,
as a health professional in rural Arizona, with repeated experience
assisting in the treatment of rattlesnake bites, I have a few comments.
[1] With treatment, rattlesnake bites are rarely fatal to humans. [2]
It's usually harder to incapacitate a snake with a gunshot than to
incapacitate a person with one. [3] People who have experience with
unwanted crotalid visitors generally consider a hoe or a shovel the best
weapon for dealing with them and chop off the head with it.)
26 Sept 07
Confirmation of pernicious gun-phobia, with requiem fear and distrust,
that still paralyzes the Army, even today. From a friend in the NG:
"I have been activated several times since 9/11. On one domestic guard
detail near the border, we were initially issued our M-16A2s and
fully-charged magazines, but sternly instructed never to actually load
our rifles, under any circumstances. Rifles were to remain 'unloaded at
all times!' However, some atta-boy up the food-chain soon realized the
career-ending insanity of issuing us peons potentially-functional
weapons. Suddenly, ammunition was whisked away. Magazines suffered the
same fate a day later. We were told that rifles and magazines (even
empty ones) actually inserted into magazines wells looked 'too
militaristic.'
I'm sure the same atta-boy then realized the ridiculousness of obviously
unloaded rifles being carried about by uniformed Guardsmen. The
conspicuous solution: take away our rifles too! Sure enough, that
happened two days later.
All this time, our guard posts were being actively surveilled by
suspicious people with video cameras, on foot and in vehicles. None were
ever confronted.
When word got back to Santa Fe that we had all advised our families on
whom to sue when we, now completely defenseless, were attacked and
murdered by invading Mexican drug dealers, rifles were mysteriously
"returned". That, at least, was the cover-story for public consumption.
The truth is that rifles were placed in a locked room, inside a locked
building, nearly a quarter mile away from our guard post. Magazines were
locked in a different room. Keys to the various locks were given to our
sergeant who was told that weapons and ammunition were to be unlocked
and issued (a process that would take at least an hour) only upon direct
attack of the post. Even then, soldiers would have to sign out weapons
and ammunition, individually.
After all that, we were then told point-blank that if any of us ever
actually fired a shot, we would all spend the rest of our lives in
Federal prison!
It being obvious that our safety, indeed our very lives, meant nothing
to the atta-boy in question, nor anyone else up the food chain, I began
carrying my personal pistol, concealed in a shoulder holster. Blades
too! With my encouragement, others did the same. We put together an
(unauthorized) plan whereby those of us who were thus armed would hold
off the bad guys until rifles could be accessed.
When we finally stood down, a CWO, asked me directly if I had been
carrying personal weapons during mobilization. 'Of course not! Where did
you get such a crazy idea?' His unkind reply was, Well, if you had, and
I had known it, I would have had you court-martialed.' I countered, 'Why
would you ever think those of us down here actually doing the job would
ever place any value on our own lives? Why, we know we're just highly
expendable, cannon-fodder, and when we're all massacred, because we're
unable to defend ourselves, you'll just recruit more. Right?' I could
hear him grind his teeth as he walked away in a huff. I'm sure my
comments made him late for coffee!"
Comment: What makes me most angry is that no one seems to care a whit
for the lives and safety of these brave lads who courageously
volunteered to serve their Country. For one, I will serve no one who
doesn't trust me with my weapons! These guys, correctly and audaciously,
took matters into their own hands. In the end, we're all going to have to!
Thomas Jefferson reminded us, "Who bend their swords into plow-shears
will plow for those who don't!"
/John
(I will never forget jury duty in downtown L.A., the week after the
Rodney King riot. When we were cut loose for lunch I would see three-man
patrols of NG's trudging into downtown from South L.A., with M16's slung
with empty magazine wells. I still marvel that none of those trios of
white boys ever got mugged for their obviously unloaded weapons.)
26 Sept 07
Close-call creates a convert! This from the wife of one of our students:
"Until yesterday, I good-naturedly tolerated my husband's interest in
Operator skills and lifestyle. However, when I worked outside at our
place in the country, I chose not to carry a pistol, even though he
gently encouraged me to do so.
Again and again, I told him it is just not convenient to lug that pistol
around while stacking wood. After all, I would continue, we live in
this sleepy, little town where nothing bad ever happens. I would then
give him the old 'whatever-eye-roll'.
That all changed yesterday! I'm writing to you, John, to proclaim that
he, and you, are SO RIGHT, and always have been!
Early yesterday one morning, we were our walking our two dogs in our
large back yard. We both caught a glimpse of something running across
our driveway. We started moving back toward our house. Then, we saw
them all!
A group of six, large, wild dogs were running in a pack, digging wildly
under a fence in an effort to get at the neighbors' horses. At once,
they noticed us and all began running in our direction. Luckily, we,
and the dogs, got back to the house in time. My heroic husband, pistol
at the ready, brought up the rear, covering me.
We found out later that our neighbors tried, mostly unsuccessfully,
fighting off the dogs with a shovel and trash-can lid. Their horses
were seriously injured. Local deputies, when they finally arrived, were
far more concerned about having to pay the dog catcher overtime than
they were about protecting any of us.
I, at long last, learned to put what you and my husband teach into my
heart and mind forever! As you've reminded us, we are all individually
responsible for our own safety. That now has special meaning for me!"
Comment: Fortunately, an important lesson was learned without a painful
price, this time!
Threats seldom come at us in "expected" forms, nor at "convenient" times.
"Hope" is not a strategy!
/John
(Several months ago I was surprised to see a co-worker, who used to walk
her dogs, along with her husband, in the park a few blocks from my home,
back walking laps in the park by herself. She lives outside the city and
had been walking near her home ever since the price of gasoline had
approached $3.00 per gallon. She said she had been wanting to ask me a
question and told me of an incident on one of her walks, when she had
been chased by a skunk. My immediate response was that the skunk was
rabid. "That's just what the deputy sheriff told me!" I then encouraged
her to carry a handgun on her walks and learned that she feels most
confident with a 1911 as that's what her father had taught her to shoot.
To my knowledge, she still walks unarmed. There are at least a dozen
local people who "intend" to take my CWP course but never get around to
scheduling it. Most only envision carrying on trips down to Phoenix
despite the fact that our county has the highest per-capita rate of
methamphetmine abuse in the nation.)
27 Sept 07
Comments on unarmed soldiers, from a puzzled friend in the Philippines:
"...aren't soldiers in uniform supposed to 'look militaristic?' When
they don't, who will?
When the situation has deteriorated to the point wherein a government sends
in warfighters, then one would think 'war' is to be expected, and those
fighters must be geared for battle. In your Country, military
bureaucrats are apparently more afraid of their own soldiers than they
are of enemy soldiers!
Missiles fail. Airplanes conk out. Ships run aground. Tanks run out of
gas. But, a competent Operator with a rifle, armed with unimpeachable
resolve, will never fail the flag under which he serves.
No one fears sheep. But, even elephants respect tigers."
Comment: "One seldom errors when attributing (1) extreme actions to
vanity, (2) average ones to habit, and (3) petty ones to fear"
/John
--
Stephen P. Wenger
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
