Olin Foundation To Shut Down: The Olin Foundation, which has funded conservative think-tank activity over a period of three decades, is closing down. Not mentioned in the article is the fact that John Lott (More Guns, Less Crime) has received important support from the Olin Foundation. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/politics/29olin.html?pagewanted=all --- C-O-M In-Car Safe: The "safe" has arrived. As reported to me by one list member, it is made of fairly thin steel and the cable is also quite thin. It is better described as a lock box than a safe. I would describe it an a moderate security device in that two steps would likely be required to access the firearm(s) - cutting the cable to remove the box and getting the lock open at another location. It is probably not the best device to use in open view but, slid under the seat of a vehicle, a burglar would need to know to look for it. It remains a low-cost option to limit access to casual, unauthorized users and affords a certain level of security in a vehicle without the hassle of removing seats and drilling holes for installation. http://www.center-of-mass.com/ --- More From Teddy Jacobson: Teddy continues his comments on current-production handguns. http://actionsbyt.blogspot.com/2005/05/current-production-continued.html --- From John Farnam: 23 May 05 Reloading autoloading pistols: This issue keeps coming up. We teach a "Military Reload" to our active-duty Marines and a "Speed reload" to those preparing for domestic defense. The only difference between the two is that the "old" magazine (and live rounds it may still contain) is captured and preserved during the military reload and simply jettisoned during the speed reload. I like friend, Dave Manning's, technique for the military reload. "Make a hole; Fill the hole" sums it up. The old magazine is first removed and quickly secured in a pocket (not in a magazine carrier, as only fully-charged magazines should go there). A fresh magazine is then retrieved with the support hand and inserted into the pistol. Easy to teach and learn, difficult to do wrong, and unlikely to lead to items being inadvertently dropped, this is the method I prefer teaching to our military students. I don't like any reloading technique that: (1) Requires the student to hold two magazines in the same hand at the same time, or (2) Requires the student to hold a magazine in the same hand that is already holding a pistol. Dropped and fumbled magazines (sometimes even pistols) regularly plague all reloading techniques that involve the foregoing. With either option, I teach students to rack the slide after the fresh magazine has been inserted. The fact that the slide is forward is no guarantee that there is a live round chambered. Autopistol slides are supposed to lock to the rear when the last round in the magazine is fired, but none do it reliably. Racking the slide after the magazine exchange insures that: (1) There is a live round chambered, and (2) The slide is forward and not locked to the rear /John 23 May 05 Shooting Incident in Capetown, SA, from a friend there: "One of our city police officers was enjoying a leisurely, off-duty meal in a local restaurant yesterday when he alerted on odd behavior of restaurant staff attending the cash register. When he got up and moved toward that part of the restaurant, he saw that the place was being robbed by three, pistol-wielding suspects. He immediately drew his (concealed) pistol (CZ 9mm, w/hardball) and yelled that he was a police officer. One of the suspects pointed his pistol in our officer's direction, and our officer responded by firing a single round. The suspect was struck in the chest and fell after taking only a few steps. He was DRT. The other two suspect turned and fled. No one else was hurt, and everyone took a breath of relief. Prematurely, as it turns out! One of the fleeing suspect fired several shots back into the restaurant, through a glass window, from outside. Our officer and a bystander were both hit. Fortunately, neither wound was serious. I believe this officer's actions were heroic, but he was let down by his training, as he remained static after the initial shooting, mistakenly thinking it was all over. The importance of the techniques you have taught us with regard to automatically moving off the line of force cannot be overemphasized. Neither of the two suspects who escaped have been subsequently captured." Comment: Years ago at Northwestern University in Illinois, I had the privilege of lecturing beside Pierce Brooks, author of "Officer Down, Code Three," the first definitive text on serious police tactics. In his book, Pierce listed "deadly sins" often committed by police officers and often left uncorrected by supervisors. Of the ten listed, the one that always stuck in my mind was RELAXING TOO SOON. The forgoing is a classic example. When you think it is "all over," is the precise time when you should be most vigilant. Someone may forget to tell the bad guys! /John 26 May 05 You have to trust your people. At the start of the American Civil War, it was a commonly-held belief among war planners in the Union Army that muzzle-loading muskets made more appropriate infantry weapons than did muzzle-loading rifles or did any breech-loading rifle. Smooth-bore muskets were useable only out to seventy-five meters. More distance than that, and practical accuracy dropped off exponentially. Rifles of the day, on the other hand, were fully useable past three-hundred meters. Further, French mini-ball technology reduced rifle reloading time to little more that for a musket, but commanders were still unenthusiastic, because long-range marksmanship encouraged, indeed invited, individual enterprise. Commanders wanted complete control of battlefield formations, and allowing soldiers to fire individual weapons at targets of opportunity, on their own initiative, was considered contrary to good order and discipline. Breech-loading rifles, many of which were also rapid firing, were shunned even more, as they were thought to encourage soldiers to fire wildly and waste ammunition. In addition, unlike muzzle loaders, breech-loaders could be reloaded and fired while the soldier remained in a prone position. In contrast, muzzle loaders were easiest to reload when the shooter stood up. Soldiers are difficult to see when the are in the prone position. A field commander preferred his men standing during battle, so he could control formations. Marksmanship training was often withheld, again because it could cause individual soldiers to realize the full capability of their issued weapons and become "too proficient" as a result. Of course, in retrospect the foregoing seems foolish; commanders actually fearful of their own people excelling in skill with individual weapons. Unhappily, this same reactionary thinking haunts many military organizations, even today. Minimal range time, cold ranges, and the official discouragement of soldiers taking advantage of outside training or obtaining personally-owned guns and blades all contribute to soldiers fearing their weapons and having no confidence in their ability with them. We have the opportunity today to provide soldiers and Marines with small-arms training far superior to any provided in the past, training that is consummate and self-empowering. Modern techniques and methods, learned at great expense, are now common knowledge in the weapons training community. This training can make our soldiers and Marines competent, audacious, professional gunmen, not the timid, fearful, unsteady, unenlightened gun handlers many are now. What is holding us back? The same things that has always held us back: ignorance and fear. The solution is faith, faith in our own magnificence and in the virtue and grand potential of our people. Fearless officers are, as this very minute, pushing this enlightened training philosophy forward, but "those of little faith," rather than leading the way, stand in the way. We should all pray they are wildly successful, and soon, before the next world conflagration, the next Great War, where heroes, not machines, will carry the day. We may have a good deal less time than we all think! /John 27 May 05 Excellent history lesson from a friend and student, particularly germane on Memorial Day: "The NRA was indeed started by a group of concerned Union Army officers at the end of the American Civil War. They were frustrated with the universally acknowledged abysmal performance of Union Army soldiers with personal weapons. Marksmanship was poor throughout the conflict. Worse, accidents were rampant due to inept gun-handling. By contrast, marksmanship and weapon-handling skills were excellent among Confederate troops, which is the reason they were able to hold out so long. Of course, the foregoing was all common knowledge, but, by 1871 (the year the NRA was founded in New York), the Army, reflecting the nation as a whole, was predictably back in its customary state of lassitude and denial. New York's governor, Alonzo B Cornell, gave voice to the naive, adolescent thinking of the day, 'There will be no war in my time or in the time of my children. The only need for a National Guard is to show itself on national holidays. I see no reason for them to learn to shoot, since their only function will be to march in parades. Rifle practice is a waste of money. We should take their rifles away and sell them to benefit the treasury. It would be more practical, and far less expensive, to arm them with clubs which require no instruction in their use.' Were he alive today, Cornell would surely be the front-running presidential candidate for the Democratic party! The lesson here is that critical, war-winning weapon skills and age-old warrior traditions always lie dormant in peacetime, kept alive in an unofficial, self-ordained Priesthood that exists both within and without the military; a Priesthood that is relentlessly threatened, persecuted, and disparaged. In fact, sanctimonious politicians make every effort to stamp it out altogether, until danger threatens. When it does, complacent sheep who, in peacetime self-righteously made outcasts of warriors in order to promote their own pseudo-sainthood, pay for their naiveté with the blood of the current generation of hastily assembled and poorly trained soldiers. It's a miserable cycle, and I don't know that it can be broken. All I can do is stay sharp myself, expand and refine the Priesthood, and enlighten anyone else who 'gets it.'" Comment (from Kipling): "I could not dig. I dared not rob. Therefore, I lied to please the mob. Now, all my lies have proved untrue And I must face the men I slew. What tale shall serve me here among These angry and defrauded young? /John -- Stephen P. Wenger Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .