No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.7.4/351 - Release Date: 5/29/2006 UN vs. Gun Owners: Article opens with an account of how the UN disarmed one combatant in Liberia and proceeds to discuss whether or not it could disarm American gun owners. http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1148681735345&call_pageid=1020420665036&col=1112188062620 --- NICS "Improvement" Act Clears House Subcommittee: Sponsored by famous prohibitionist Carolyn McCarthy, the National Instant Check System Improvement Act would deny federal funds to states that fail to meet new standards for reporting to the FBI database. http://www.longislandpress.com/?cp=162&show=article&a_id=8595 --- NYC FFL Disputes Publicized Charges: Joseph Benfante, a lawyer for DF Brothers Sport Center - which the city says sold a gun illegally to an undercover investigator - claimed the store first sent the former cop packing for providing insufficient paperwork and then the ex-cop misled the gun dealer on her application. http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/66675.htm --- Slow News Day: Some of you may have read this a few years back but the list has probably doubled since I last recall sharing it. Some of you may also recall reading similar material in my book (http://www.spw-duf.info/book.html). STREET VS. GAMES Stephen P. Wenger The following article was originally written as a series for a shooting club newsletter. It is not intended to belittle those who enjoy the action pistol sports. Rather, it is an effort to create tactical awareness among those who may use a firearm in self-defense by comparing examples from the different arenas. The article has been published previously in the SMITH & WESSON ACADEMY NEWSLETTER.. DOUBLE TAPS: A staple of the IPSC crowd, the double tap has two sets of problems on the street: When faced with a single assailant the best course is to shoot until the threat ceases. If the assailant goes into surrender mode after the first shot, the second shot is no longer justifiable. If the assailant is still charging you it is foolish to pause after the second shot. When faced with multiple assailants it makes more sense to put a round into each aggressor as quickly as possible, then go back and place more rounds into anyone who is still a threat. About ten years ago there was actually an incident in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where an IPSC-shooting cop went up against three assailants. He double-tapped the first two and was shot and killed by the third. Had he shot each assailant once initially he might have had a better chance of prevailing. SCORING BY THE CLOCK: Virtually all of the action pistol sports use a timer. Speed is certainly a useful attribute in a gunfight, although it is worth remembering the words of Bill Jordan, "Speed is fine but accuracy is final." I'm not trying to discourage people from developing speed in placing accurate fire on the target. My concern is when rewarding the shortest time over a course of fire encourages people to do things like leaving cover and reloading on the move. If the cardboard targets or steel plates were shooting back, would you want to leave cover with an empty gun? Even if you have a high-capacity gun and it isn't empty yet, wouldn't you rather have the gun fully loaded when circumstances dictate your move to the next piece of cover? What if you get shot in the leg and can't make it to the next piece of cover? MOVING TO COVER: Most sport shooters try to shorten the distance to the target to make the shot easier. Couple this with shooting against the clock, then set up a stage where the shooter starts in the open and has to move to cover which is somewhere downrange. Most competitors will run directly to the point where they intend to shoot, on a straight line. Years ago the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center disseminated a concept known as the "FLETC L." If you're really under fire, you want to get the cover between you and your assailant as quickly as possible. Move laterally to get behind the cover, then turn, making an "L," if you need to move closer to the cover. DISTANCE FROM COVER: Most sport shooters try to shorten the distance to the target to make the shot easier. Most sport shooters have also learned to use "barricades" to gain support to steady the gun. One IPSC-style shooting academy teaches resting the back of the support hand on the side of the barricade when shooting from the gun-hand side of cover. First of all, this technique will usually expose greater than 50% of your body to the target, but that's all right when your target is just a piece of buff-colored cardboard. Secondly, if the target and the cover were real, shots fired by the target could "skip" off the side of the cover, such as a wall surface parallel to the direction of the incoming fire, and strike you if you were within six feet of the cover. For this reason people who train for the real world generally try to leave at least six feet of space between them and cover which is large enough to permit it. LATERAL FAULT LINES: To protect the competitor from hostile fire from cardboard or steel targets, most action shooting sports which use cover in scenarios place fault lines to the side of the cover. If your foot strays over the fault line you lose points. If your head and body hang out there, that's okay. Cardboard and steel targets generally stay in one place whereas people intent on harming you move around. If you're in an upright position it's not likely that your foot will project noticeably wider than another part of your body. People who train to deal with targets that shoot back will usually "slice the pie." This means that if they are approaching a doorway or a corner they will stay back about six feet, keep the gun in a low ready position of some sort and inch themselves past the edge of the cover. Every inch yields a new fan or pie-slice of view and if a threat is found in one of these slices, the gun rises and the shot is taken. If they were to insist on hiding the feet while incrementally exposing head and body, they would merely place themselves off balance at a time when balance might be very valuable. RIGHT TO LEFT OR LEFT TO RIGHT: Most right-handed sport shooters, when faced with a bank of targets, will shoot them from left to right. When faced with real threats, you want to shoot the most immediate threat first. This is going to be a split-second judgment, but those come easier if you have dealt with them in training. However, in cases where two or more threats are of comparable urgency and similar distance, it makes sense to protect your gun side first. An awful lot of gunshot wounds are to the gun hand, the arm of the gun hand or the shoulder of the gun hand. Eliminating or reducing the threat on your gun side increases the likelihood of being around to finish the fight. For a right-handed shooter this means that when you've got a bank of targets it makes more sense to shoot from right to left. -- Stephen P. Wenger Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .