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From GunLaws.com:

Originally introduced in Arizona as The Defenseless Victim Act of 2002, this bill recognizes that gun-free zones, recklessly made and typically with no alternative security provided, are known to be extremely dangerous.

We have seen this (when the bill was first introduced) in the Wakefield, Mass., slayings, the Luby's Massacre, and even the hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, where pilots and passengers were defenseless, in the false name of security. Congress responded to that with the "Arm The Pilots" law.

The death toll from gun-free zones continues to mount, with the 2007 Virginia Tech slaughter of helpless students and faculty, and at a Christmastime massacre that year in an Omaha shopping mall. The mall had "no guns allowed" signs to keep out FBI-certified citizens with CCW permits. The murderer, as in all such cases, disobeyed the signs. The news media continues to suppress stories where armed individuals stop such mayhem. See for example, The Bias Against Guns, by John Lott, for numerous egregious examples. You can also read this eloquent gun-bias editorial online.

The Gun-Free-Zone Liability Act basically says that, in public places, if you create a dangerous gun-free zone, you're liable for any harm it causes. There is no cost or budget item associated with enacting this bill.

The idea that gun-free zones are safe is fraudulent.

It is a mythology perpetrated by anti-rights activists who can often be recognized by their beliefs that:

1. self defense should be illegal,
2. guns should be confiscated,
3. no one but "authorities" should have guns,
4. government can take care of you better than you can.

The anti-self-defense lobby would tell you to rely upon the police for your safety, but they always omit the inconvenient facts that:

1. police have no legal duty to protect you;
2. they routinely respond only after an event to pick up the pieces;
3. when seconds count, the police are just minutes away.

 

I wonder if it might be possible to really get this on the table (it has been seriously discussed in Arizona and Georgia legislatures). As the authors note, even forcing the concept of gun-free zone liability into the general discourse would have an excellent effect — public property owners would start thinking in terms of civil liability as well as criminal liability.

If I am ever involved in a mass shooting in a place where I am forbidden to have my legal gun, you can bet I will be filing a spectacular lawsuit against the property owner, all the associated businesses on the property, every single corporate entity involved, plus their spouses, pets, kitchen appliances and anything else I can think of.

I think it is appalling that the MSM continue to parade their antigun bias... read David Hardy's Arms & the Law reporting. The newspapers and electronic media should be trumpeting that an armed civilian stopped a madman's slaughter... but that would go against their deeply held religious belief that we are all incapable of protecting ourselves and need Big Brother 24/7.

 

I've been keeping tabs on all the response to the Ruger SR9, and it reminds me a lot of my old days as a rock critic in New York City.

The interesting point to me is that, ultimately, any "review" - including mine - is utterly subjective. To wit, what is a "good trigger?" As it happens, a few years back I commissioned a long-slide 1911 .45 ACP from Ross Carter, at the time one of the great gunsmiths on the 1911 platform. For once, I decided to spare no expense, have a gun built exactly to my specifications and with my favorite parts. The finished gun, which was on the cover of AMERICAN HANDGUNNER and was auctioned off with the proceeds going to Carter, who was severely injured in an accident right after he finished the long-slide, has taken on a kind of legendary status, especially regarding its trigger pull. The trigger pull had to be felt to be believed... a perfect 3 pound (as I specified) "glass rod snapping" break. It had the kind of trigger pull gun guys talked about with reverence and every time you snapped it, John Browning smiled down from heaven.

I remember AH Editor Roy Huntington pulled the trigger and exclaiming, "Good lord! Now this is a trigger!"* Now here's the conundrum... does that perfect trigger mean you'll shoot the gun better? If you had asked me this 10 years ago, I would have said, "Are you nuts! Of course you'll shoot better with a perfect trigger, you moron!"

I am less sure of that now, based largely on my changing Real World experience. When I was a serious competition shooter, I believed in the Perfect Trigger Pull. I shot 1911s of various flavors - mostly Wilson's - and I fretted about trigger pulls the way a soon-to-be-bride frets about her wedding dress. Since launching SHOOTING GALLERY and DOWN RANGE, however, I typically shoot a lot of different kinds of guns. LOTS of different kinds of guns. Most of them have factory, stock triggers.

What I have found is the less I fret about the trigger, the better I shoot - oh my heavens! Can shooting be mostly in the head rather than the hand? I've shot the GUNSITE basic drills with a really nice 1911 and an out-of-the-box S&W M&P... and scored the same. I've gone through classes with DA/SA Sigs - the DA to SA transition being the bane of many shooting experts' existence - no big. I b**** mightily about Glock triggers, but they're no harder to shoot than single-actioning a Colt Python, if you're paying attention. Ask Dave Sevigny, or Jessical Abbate, or Randi Rogers... all national and world champions with Glocks.

Super slick, super light triggers are VERY important... if you're shooting specific types of competition. My big turning point was my class at the Rogers Shooting School... essentially, Bill Rogers' message was "shoot what you have in your hand."

I thought Bill was full of bat dookey, but in for a penny; in for a pound. He was right; I was wrong. The less I fretted about the trigger, the better I shot.

I'm not talking here about WRETCHED triggers (think 1950s vintage Spanish semiautos), but the triggers in current production guns. Which brings us to the Ruger SR9... I stand by my comments, ie, the trigger is fine just as it comes out of the box. I do not believe that Ruger dinked the test guns we all shot... the guns, however, had all been shot. As I said before, there is no difference in trigger pull between my T&E SR9 and my S&W M&P that can't be accounted for in the number of rounds through the M&P versus an out-of-the-box unfired gun.

If you want a "glass rod snapping" trigger pull, you need to avoid striker-fired polymer-framed pistols! There is a fundamental difference between a FUNCTIONAL trigger pull - an out-of-the-box Glock, M&P, Taurus, XD or, yes, Ruger SR9 - and a competition trigger pull, just as there is a fundamental difference between my Honda Element and a Formula 1 race car. My Honda, however, does everything I need done by a car or truck.

I stand by my comments.

Ditto on the safety... I have talked to very credible people who have trouble wiping the SR9 manual safety. I don't, not at all, and I've shot a bunch of 'em. So we come back to my days as a rock critic... this stuff is TOTALLY subjective! As a rock critic, I tried to remind myself that there was this HUGE gap between "what I like" and "what is good." Heaven help me, I never cared for the Rolling Stones... that doesn't mean the band isn't brilliant at what it does.

For the most part, it's the same with guns. Modern guns are on the whole much better than we give them credit for. The marketplace is NOT like it was in the 1950s and even the 1960s... American manufacturers are simply not producing complete lemons, because the marketplace won't allow it!

Think about it!

[*If you must know, I spec'ed a Cylinder & Slide trigger kit with a Match Commander hammer, an STI carbon fiber trigger and specific Wolff springs.]

This has probably happened to you, right? I was stuck on the LA freeway system, trying to eat a Mexican-style fish taco while listening to an explanation of the resurrection of the 50-90 rifle cartridge over a tinny hands-free phone speaker when — WHAM! — I remembered my high school alma mater:

"Hail to thee, our alma mater

Hail to Overton High!"

Which is apropos of nothing, of course, except to continue my moderate obsession with antique rifles in general and the Martini-Henry in particular. I have recently come to the conclusion that at least when it concerns the most important things in life — women, guns, cars and adult beverages — men are only slightly more intelligent than unicellular organisms. While that other sex, women, grow, change and evolve, men apparently have their critical circuits fused at an early age. I could tell you this story about jerking sodas in my grandfather's drugstore in Memphis and this really hot girl in a poodle skirt and ankle bracelet… but I won't.

Instead, I'll use that sleazy tease to explain why I'm crazy about Martini-Henry rifles. The falling block, self-cocking single shot Martini-Henry protected the British Empire from the 1870s until the turn of the century. They were big, ugly brutes, lobbing 577-450 bullets behind a huge load of black powder at the Empire's enemies around the globe. You're probably the most familiar with Martinis from the 1964 movie Zulu! (complete with exclamation point), starring Michael Caine, where 1,000 British soldiers with Martini-Henrys held off some 4,000 incredibly good Zulu warriors at Rorke's Drift in Natal Province, South Africa.

So anyway, at some formative time in my life I see Zulu!, and the single-shot rifle circuit fuses shut on "Martinis." I'd been prepped for this moment by over-exposure to the old Frank DeHaas book on single-shot rifles, Single Shot Rifles and Actions, which I'd poured though with the intensity that only a young male primate who has not yet discovered the opposite sex can. My theory was that since I had never even seen a Winchester High Wall or Low Wall in any of the Tennessee gunstores — the early 1960s were hardly a high-water mark for single shot rifles — and all the Remington Rolling Blocks and Trapdoor Springfields were beat to crap, a Martini-Henry, or at the very least, one of the Cadet Martinis, the training versions in .310 Greener, was within my reach.

I spent a lot of time planning, plotting, outlining caliber conversions… and then I discovered girls!

Flash forward to the more-or-less present. My first reentry into Martini World was a couple of years ago when I stumbled into master gunsmith Vic Samuel, who builds flawless little gems out of Martini Cadet actions that he travels all over the world to scavenge. I had him build me an homage to all the Cadet converted to .357 "crow guns" back in the early 1960s… you can read the whole story on the Cadet at the DOWN RANGE TV.

That still left me jones'ing for a full-size Martini-Henry… which is where I still am, but two important things have changed:

1) There's a flood of full-sized Martini-Henrys on the market, thanks to the unearthing of the Kathmandu armory described in Christian Cranmer's book Treasure is Where You Find It. Essentially, military arms "treasure hunters" got permission to "mine" a collapsed Nepalese armory in Kathmandu, where they discovered an incredible treasure trove of cannons, knives and small arms, including thousands of well-preserved Martini-Henrys in various flavors. All of a sudden the relatively obscure guns are available all over the place for bargain prices.

2) Richard Pumerantz of Ten-X Ammo thought it might be a cool idea to shoot one of the old guns. Now that's more complicated than you might think. The 577-450 loaded ammo was for the most part as dead as the dodo; brass availability was sporadic and of wildly varying quality; the paper-patched bullets were notoriously hard to reload and accuracy typically resembled shotgun patterns. What the heck, Pumerantz thought.

He talked Starline into producing modern-quality 577-450 brass, then launched into a quest to create a bullet and load combination that was both safe and accurate in the mid-1800s guns. He ended up with 3-shot 100-yard groups dangerously close to MOA out of his two guns (yes, yes… your results may differ). He then sat down with Dillon Precision and created a Frankenstein combination of the Dillon 900 shotshell reloader and the metallic cartridge 650 reloader to actually manufacture the 577-450 rounds on a commercial basis.

So last weekend I went out to a range in Southern California and through the smoke launched a bunch of brand new 577-450 rounds through a long-lever Martini-Henry, and, hey, it was everything I thought it would be. Big booms; lots of smoke; large holes in the target… no doubt my high school teachers, who imagined "big things" in my future, would be proud…

So I was out at the range in Clear Creek Friday — yes, the one I have to drive an hour to because of those big ole USFS "POSTED" signs! — where I was supposed to do a show-and-tell with my new production crew. Unfortunately, I had failed to factor in the hellish holiday Interstate traffic as the entire city of Denver trys desperately to get to the mountains, so I ended up at the range alone with a Honda Element-full of guns.

Instead of doing what I usually do...50 rounds through this one; 100 rounds through that one...I hauled out the 1911 .45, the Kimber overhauled by Cylinder & Slide, and launched into a classic practical shooting set of drills — one-shot draws, two-shot draws, multiple targets, all at varying distances. I figured a 500-round practic session would be good for my return to USPSA Single Stack; then I discovered I only had 450 rounds of .45, but what the heck!

I've been changing my foundation shooting style lately as a result of my recurring bouts with shingles effecting my right eye. Rather than whining about how I'm gettign old, which heaven knows I am, I've started making major changes in my shooting to reflect the new reality.

For a start, I've gone back to a "hard," or classic Jeff Cooper, Weaver stance from the isoceles I've shot in competition for decades. The Weaver has accomplished two things for me...the gun is slightly closer (call it five inches) to my dominant, and weakened, right eye, making it easier for me to focus on the front sight, and the platform is rock stable, which allows me to run the .45 more aggressively. A side effect I hadn't anticipated is that hte locked-tight Weaver seems to take the heat off the elbows, which is a good thing.

I'm also going back to shooting with my weak eye closed, which allows me to focus more clearly on the front sight...especially out of the Weaver!

So anyhow, I was standing there shooting drills when I had a 25-year Flashback — what was I doding 25 years ago, 1982, as summer slid into fall? Well, darn it, I was doing exactly the same thing! Standing on a range with a 5-inch 1911 .45 ACP shooting drills getting ready for an IPSC match.

I'd already changed from Rex the Wonder Gun, my first 1911 Combat Commader with S&W revolver sights, to an old Gold Cup a friend of mine had got right at a pawn shop he worked at. Of course, I'd quickly managed to shoot the pinned-in rear sight off and had scraped up enough money to have Bob Cogan at Accurate Plating & Weaponry do a trigger job, bevel the mag well, open up the ejection port a bit and put on a Bo-Mar rear sight, which looked weird on the Cup but shot just fine. That Gold Cup was one of the best-shooting 1911s I'[ve ever owned...Bob did an amazing job with it...wish I still had it!

I hadn't yet transitioned from the Weaver to the isoceles, nor taught myself to shoot with both eyes open. I weighted less, however...but not by much...

And NO, I didn't have a friggin' earring!

Holsterwise, I was using a Gordie Davis "Chuck Taylor Special" leather vertical belt sheath and a leather Davis double mag pouch. I still have both, and they remain great, if somewhat battered, 1911 gear. In a year or so I would switch over to one of the newfangled Rogers' holsters made out of...what was that stuff again?...oh yeah, kydex. Except, of course, Bill Rogers offered his revolutionary holsters covered with a thin layer of leather, because who would use a plastic holster that looked, well, plastic...

...like the Blade-Tech I was using yesterday, perhaps. But the B-T exactly mirrors the Davis/Taylor, if with a bit less style. Yesterday, strangely enough, I was using an old Rogers clip-on single magazine pouch that dates back to the mid-1980s...still works great, BTW.

So, hell, what does that say about me? That I'm relatively consistent or simply boring? Maybe what it says that in the end, I would rather shoot a 1911 than any other gun in the world. After so many hundreds of thousands of rounds over so many years, my hands "recognize" the 1911, and there's something comforting about it.

That's what I think USPSA is being extremely smart in sanctioning Single Stack competition on a formal basis...it's still the most popular gun in the world...especially with old farts like me!

PS: When I finished my 450 rounds of .45 ball, I ran a couple of hundred rounds (.44 Special Cowboy stuff; 240-gr @ 750fps) through the Ruger 4-inch Redhawk I'm going to use in the GUNSITE revolver class in a couple of weeks. SWEET! Yeah, it's a Ruger trigger, but it's smooth. Gonna work GREAT for the class!