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 .