5if -4 boe -4 tqpsu b w - uscca: concealed carry, … ... own copy of this dvd courtesy of front...

www.concealedcarrymag.comVolume 01 - Issue 04 �Concealed Carry Magazine

History Reveals the TruthFounders Inventions Vis-a-vis an Armed Populace

04 CCM “Profiles” - Joe DeSua & John HayesTimothy J. Schmidt / Maria M. D’Amato Real life, real stories, real people.

02 03

34

Gun ReviewGeorge Hill - Guest EditorKel-Tec P3AT - Many have been waiting for this review!

Letters to the Editor

40 Upcoming Issues - A look ahead to the next issues of CCM.

23

Gear ReviewKevin MichalowskiHandguns for Women? Definitely - Making women feel a little more comfortable with a firearm and a lot safer from danger.

Publisher’s Comments

37

18

“Cocked and Locked” Column by: Robert H. BoatmanShould You Screw Up Your Courage And Go To A Shooting Match? - What you can and can’t learn from competing with your handgun.

30 A Woman’s Perspective Candace CarmanLadies Only! - O.K. ladies, pack your bags and let’s go to Arizona.

Official Publication of:

COVER PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Oleg Volk www.a-human-right.com

10CCM “True Stories Compiled by Sten Jackson

2nd Amendment Boris KarpaThe 2nd Amendment & The Burden of Proof - Gun control advocates are missing the proof.

07

28Street Tactics: “Reality-Based Gun & Knife Fighting” Column by: Gabriel SuarezCarjacking Countermeasures - Train for the fastest growing crime.

25Gun ReviewDuane A. DaikerRohrbaugh R-9 - Small...but packed with power!

20

Tactics & TrainingClaude Werner & Mike BenedictUsing IDPA Competition To Build Your Concealed Carry Skills - Explore the International Defensive Pistol Assocation in this great article.

12 Photograph by Oleg Volk

Nicki Fellenzer - The 2nd Amenment and all its controversy.

28 38

Standing Up Chuck HawksJust Say NO to Gun Registration! - Be sure you know all the candidates before voting this November.

Editor & Publisher Timothy J. Schmidt

Managing EditorMaria M. D’Amato

Art Director Tonnie M. Lund

Technical Editors Sten JacksonFred W. BlackHank J. O’Meara

Column EditorsRobert H. BoatmanGabriel Suarez

Contributing EditorsNicki FellenzerGeorge Hill

Guest EditorsMike BenedictCandace CarmanDuane A. DaikerChuck HawksBoris KarpaKevin MichalowskiClaude Werner

Concealed Carry Magazine Volume 1, Issue 4; October 4th, 2004 (ISSN 1550-7866) is published 8 times per year for $24.97 per year by Delta Media, LLC, 4466 County Road P - STE 204, Jackson, WI 53037-9272. Periodicals postage paid at Jackson, WI, and additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Concealed Carry Magazine, 4466 County Road P - STE 204, Jackson, WI 53037-9272.

Most people don’t realize the importance of high quality training. Also, most people don’t

realize that our inalienable rights to own firearms are slowly but surely being stripped away from us. A DVD recently came across my desk that addresses both of these issues. A fellow by the name of Ignatius Piazza, from Front Sight Resorts, sent me the DVD. I put it in my player and gave it a fair look. I was not prepared for what I was about to see. Needless to say, I was excited, inspired and filled with hope. You can find your very own copy of this DVD courtesy of Front Sight Resorts and Concealed Carry Magazine. You ought to watch this thing. Not only that, you ought to watch it and then give it to someone who doesn’t feel as passionate about gun rights as you do. Lastly, I challenge everyone who reads these words to vote in the presidential election. Don’t vote for the candidate who promises you the most government programs. Vote for the candidate who will defend our constitution! Vote for the candidate who acknowledges the inalienable right to keep and bear arms. For without the teeth of the second amendment, our constitution is worthless!

Be safe and God bless.

Timothy J. Schmidt Publisher / Editor

www.concealedcarrymag.com

Published by:

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Jackson, WI 53037

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September/October 2004

Signed articles in Concealed Carry Magazine reflect the views of the author, and are not necessarily the views of the editors at Delta Media, LLC. The claims and opinions in the paid advertisements published in this magazine are not necessarily the claims and opinions of Delta Media, LLC. Delta Media, LLC takes no responsibility for these views, claims or opinions.

Concealed Carry Magazine and United States Con-cealed Carry Association are trademarks of Delta Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.


Dear Editor,

I enjoyed the cover story by Bruce Eimer. (I also enjoy your mag.) Regarding the color codes. Jeff Cooper does not use/include condition black. I go both ways. I’m not sure we need it, but it may have some usefulness. Bruce has needlessly complicated the color codes by expanding the potential threat to include Orange and Red and restricting Black to a ‘fight for your life’. I will agree/accept his definitions for White, Yellow and Orange. There are levels of Orange from just feeling uneasy to viewing an aggressor with a knife more than 21’ distant. Maybe we could agree to having pale orange to bright red-orange? ;) Basically, in Orange, you identify a specific threat and create a plan. Similar to drawing a line in the sand, if he crosses that line, I am going to take action. You do not have to tell the bad guy where the line is. If he has a knife and he crosses the 21’ line, I am going to shoot him. I will tell him to put the knife down, once. Actually, I might tell him to put the knife down 2 or three times but after telling him once, I will shoot him 2 or 3 times while I am telling him to drop the knife. Condition Red is Fight or Flight. When you take action, you are in Condition Red. It could be a fist fight or it could be a ‘fight for your life’. O.k., if a fight for you life is condition Red, what is Black? What is beyond a fight for your life? Condition Black is a killing rage, similar to Condition White, you are unaware of your surroundings because you are so intent on beating him to death, you do not know anything going on around you. It is all right to get in a fight (Condition Red), it is all right to kill someone if you have to. It is not all right to beat someone to death after he has given up. Some include freeze or panic as Condition Black, under the theory that if you freeze or panic you are unaware of your surroundings. I do not agree with this. I include freeze and panic as Condition White. If you were in Yellow, went to Orange when you were first threatened, went to Red when you had to fight, you would not freeze/panic. The only time you freeze/panic is when you are surprised. By definition, if you are surprised, you are in White. You might think you are in Yellow, but if you truly were aware of your surroundings, you would not panic.

Jack Griffith Euless, TEXAS

Dear Jack, Thank you for your thoughtful analysis. The purpose of the color codes is to help us cue ourselves into the appropriate state of alertness and readiness to the situation.

Jeff Cooper worked with four (White, Yellow, Orange and Red). John Farnam added Black to distinguish between the state of readiness to engage a known threat (i.e., being in Red for readiness), and the state of actually being engaged with the attacker (i.e., being in “Black”). So, in White, we are taking no precautions. In Yellow, we are situationally aware and alert, so that we can see any danger signs that might manifest. Also, in Yellow, we note where we might seek cover should the need arise. If we see a danger sign signalling a possible threat, then, we move into Orange. In Orange, we seek cover, should we need it, or note where our outs lie. From here, still in Orange, we determine if the danger sign signals a real threat. If it does, we move into Red. In Red, we prepare to engage the threat. If we have to pull the trigger then we are in Black. But adding Black gives us the option for cueing ourself to move back and forth between engaged (Black) and ready to engage (Red) as the situation dictates. It’s a model for helping us cue ourselves through different levels of escalation of our response. I hope this clarifies.

Bruce N. Eimer, Ph.D.Email: [email protected]

Dear Editor, I was just reading the letters to the editor in the July/August ‘04 issue and I have to take exception to your statement that sometimes it feels like we are “doing this magazine in a vacuum.” I know it must be great and feel good to hear from everyone who reads CCW magazine, and, since I am a charter member who reads every mag cover to cover, I would like to inform you that I have to devote as much free time as possible to political activism in order to try and counter the landslide of anti-gun propaganda in the media and political establishment of our great country. I hope you understand that I and my fellow subscribers of like mind, support you in every way, but we have other obligations to attend to in order to further our great cause. I am assuming, and hoping, that a great many of our fellow citizens of like mind are doing the same thing and that is why they do not have the time to write you. I am sending you this letter at 12:40 am on a night that I have to wake up at 7:00 am in order to get my 14 year old son to school for band practice. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry

Send your letters to: Concealed Carry Magazine, Attn: Editor, 4466 Hwy P - Suite 204, Jackson, WI 53037. Or Email: [email protected].

Due to volume received, not all letters can be answered. Letters may be edited for space and clarity.

for me, this is a labor of love. I would like to challenge my fellow Americans to raise their voices to their respective representatives at the state and federal level and let them know that we will not tolerate them subjugating our Second Amendment rights. I have found that a majority of good people, when informed of the truth by a fellow citizen with common sense, often times see the light. Keep Your Powder Dry. Bill Hinds - Email: [email protected]

Las Vegas, NEVADA

Dear Bill, Thanks a lot for writing. Wow, now I feel kinda bad for putting that statement in our last issue. I didn’t mean to sound like a whiner... There is nothing worse than a whiner. I agree with every point you made in your note. I am very happy to know that there are other Americans like me out there. Those who are not willing to stand and watch as our natural rights are stripped away from us. I’ll be sure to “Quit my whining”. Take care and thanks for subscribing.

Tim SchmidtEditor & Publisher

Dear Editor, Wow! I disagree with one statement in Ray Baltes’ otherwise fine article, Carrying Concealed Starts with One Finger. When he wrote, “Actually, if you talked to the very best shooters in this country, you’d find that they grip their guns with as little strength as possible.” I guess I have not been talking to the same “best shooters” because the ones with whom I have had contact, grip the pistol firmly to very hard. I know that Massad Ayoob disagrees with the light grip in his video series, Stressfire, where he says to grip it hard enough that it almost begins to shake. I have improved a whole bushel full of shooters’ accuracy simply by having them grip their pistols more firmly and I’m sure that it’s the major reason that I was finally able to be classified as Master in IDPA competition. This debate is easily settled by going to the range. Set up two targets at about 12 yards. Then shoot a magazine full at one target using a light grip firing a shot at about one second intervals (which is slow fire in a combat situation and rapid fire for a bull’s-eye shooter) and then do the same using a grip where both hands are gripping it so hard that it almost shakes. It’s best if the weak hand grips harder than the strong hand (about 60% pressure with the left hand for a righty and 40% with the right.) Don’t confuse what I am saying that the trigger finger should press hard. It still should only move enough to fire the gun and no more. Pressing through the sear release to the stop causes the gun to shoot low. I can almost guarantee that you will see dramatic results when you make this simple comparison.

Don Myers Email: [email protected]

www.concealedcarrymag.com� Concealed Carry Magazine Volume 01 - Issue 04

I was born in Pittsburgh, PA, in 1949, but was raised in Newton Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. After college, I moved to Nashua, New Hampshire. I currently live in Apple Valley, Minnesota. In my youth I was not raised around firearms, my Dad was not a hunter. My only exposure was shooting .22’s at summer camp, but I loved shooting whenever I got the chance. While living in Nashua, I became friends with a fellow who exposed me to Upland Game Bird hunting. I was hooked for life. During one of our grouse hunts, we had an incident with a black bear. No one was hurt, but it made me realize that I was only armed with a 20-gauge shotgun. That was not much protection from a bear. The very next day I went out and bought a Ruger Single Six in .357 Magnum. I didn’t know much about handguns. I had never shot one before, so I got some instruction from a friend who was an NRA member. He introduced me to the fun of handgun shooting and the NRA. Once again, I was hooked for life. I soon upgraded my single six to a Smith & Wesson Model 19 .357 Magnum and carried it whenever I was bird hunting. I joined a local gun club and practiced as much as time and money allowed. Several moves later, I ended up in Minnesota and have been here for about 28 years. I still bird hunt, but I now carry a Smith & Wesson in .44 magnum when I’m in the woods. About 5 years ago, I was talking to some friends at a gun club I belong to and we got to discussing concealed carry.

by Joe DeSua • Timothy J. Schmidt • Maria M. D’Amato Each issue of CCM contains an article that “PROFILES” an everyday individual who carries a concealed weapon. This article is an inspiration to our readers by helping them to realize that they are not alone in their lifestyle decision to always be armed.

I said something to the affect that I thought I would get a CC permit. After my friends stopped laughing, I inquired why they thought I was not eligible. They simply said, “Not in the 7 county metro area you won’t”. I took this as a challenge and set out to prove them wrong. I took the required training from a reputable local company, submitted all the required paperwork to my local police chief along with an exp-lanation as to why I thought I needed to carry a gun, (we were not a shall issue state then) and was summarily rejected in less than a week. This upset me. I could not think of, nor was I offered any legitimate excuse, as to why I should be declined a permit to carry a gun. There is nothing in my past, I have always been a good citizen and parent, so why does my government not trust me? It seemed that I would have to be a victim in the hospital bleeding before I was eligible to carry a gun. This was wrong. I had a constitutional right that a bureaucrat was denying me. I have been a member of the NRA for many years, but decided to take it to a higher level. I became an instructor in both Pistol and Personal Protection. I also became an instructor for the company that I had taken my handgun self defense course in order to fulfill my permit application requirement. I have been teaching for all three since getting certified. I acquired a Florida Non-Resident permit. I joined a group called, Minnesota Concealed Carry Reform Now, (CCRN), which had been

working on getting our discretionary law changed to shall issue. Each year I would reapply and be denied. Finally, before our law was changed, I went so far as to have a meeting with the Mayor of Apple Valley, the Chief of Police, and one of his Captains to discuss my case. I was, as a result, granted a limited carry permit. As a member of CCRN, I was asked to give testimony to various committees in our House of Representatives and our Senate on my experiences, and why I thought the law needed changing. During monthly CCRN meetings, I and other members, would make suggestions to the officers as to what we would like to see stay in the law, and what we thought could be sacrificed to facilitate passage. It was a great lesson in civics. I learned a lot about how politics works. I was at the capital for over 8 hours waiting on the day the Minnesota Personal Protection Act of 2003 was passed last April 28th. I was the first person in line at the Dakota County Sheriff’s office on the day the law went into effect to submit my application. I went and picked it up rather than wait for it to be mailed, so I would assume I was the first person in Dakota County to acquire a permit under the new law. Just because Minnesota is a “shall issue” state, and I have a permit, the fight is not over. Every chance I get, I voice my opinion through letters, calls and emails, to anyone, any business or any legislator in any state that is trying to take our Second Amendment right away from us.


CCM: What weapons do you carry?

Joe: My main carry gun is a Kahr Arms P9 in 9mm. It has a very lightweight and compact design which makes it a terrific carry gun. I’m not one of those guys that thinks bigger is always better. Carrying around a big hunk of iron all day is not comfortable, nor very concealable. If it is not comfortable, you probably won’t carry it for very long, and therefore, it will be useless to you if you should need it. Some people may question my choice in caliber, but I am partial to the 9mm for several reasons. It has been in existence since 1902 and is used by a large number of law enforcement agencies and militaries in the world. Today’s modern cartridges have all the stopping power you will need. After all, we’re not trying to bring down a charging buffalo. Also, it has the advantage of being so widely used, that you can find it just about anywhere ammo is sold and it is still fairly inexpensive so practice doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg.

CCM: What type of ammunition do you carry?

Joe: 124 Grain Federal Hydra Shok Jacked Hollow Points. I believe those will do the job without over penetrating. You should always be aware of what is behind your target.

CCM: What concealment holsters do you use?

Joe: I have several. As you may know, in Minnesota we have 11-1/2 months of

CCM: Was there a specific incident that caused you to carry a gun?

Joe: I have carried a handgun, when bird hunting, for over 30 years. This came about because of an incident many years ago involving a Black Bear. A friend of mine and I were Grouse hunting in New Hampshire. When we returned to our car a couple of other hunters told us they had observed, from an elevated vantage point, a Black Bear criss-crossing our path. The incident made me realize that I was only armed with a 20-gauge shotgun. Not much protection from a bear. I went out the next day and bought a .357 magnum. I was hooked on handguns for life. CCM: Have you ever had to use your firearm in a defensive situation?

Joe: Thank the good Lord, No! One of the things I train people, is avoidance. How do you spot and avoid dangerous situations that would lead to protecting yourself with a firearm? The last thing in the world any of us want to do is to be forced to shoot someone. The mental trauma of taking a life, even to protect yourself or a loved one from those bent on doing you harm, would be a bad enough ordeal in itself. However with today’s laws the way they are, you also have to realize that defending yourself with a gun will probably cost you money, lots of money, no matter how just the situation is. That of course is better than being gravely injured or dead, but it is nothing to rush into or take lightly. That’s not to say I haven’t found myself in places that, shall we say, turned out to be less than desirable. When that happens I have on occasion ended up

with my hand on my gun or have moved it in my pocket to make it more accessible. Luckily, as of yet, I have not had to draw it.

CCM: What training methods do you employ? Do you have any recom-mendations?

Joe: I try to inject a lot of common sense into my classes. You’ll see instructors advertise that they have S.W.A.T, Military Intelligence backgrounds or some such nonsense. What does that have to do with you and me? Nothing. It sounds impressive, but you and I are not junior G-Men or been awarded special police powers because we have a carry permit. So running around dressed all in black and wearing a flack vest is not in our immediate future. In fact, it will probably get you into trouble if you try it. Given the times we live in and the crime that is all around us, our future may include a situation where we have to choose between protecting ourselves or be a victim. I choose to avoid those situations if at all possible, but I will not submit to being a victim if the situation is absolutely unavoidable. I also recommend practice, practice and more practice. Once a month at the range is not too much, in fact, it is the least you should do. You can’t be proficient at anything if you don’t practice.

CCM: How long have you carried a concealed weapon?

Joe: About 4 years counting my Florida non-resident permit.

Continued on page 6


winter, so concealing your gun is not that hard to do most of the time. But in the 15 days of summer remaining to us, I have to make adjustments. I use 3 main holsters. My favorite is from Tucker Gunleather. It is their Tucker Cover Up IWB. It is very comfortable and high quality at a very reasonable price. I also use a bellyband type of holster. This works very well when you aren’t wearing a belt. The third is a fanny pack type with a built in holster. It is an excellent choice when you are in shorts and a tee shirt.

CCM: What do you do for a living?

Joe: I am the Materials Manager for Valmont Lexington in Farmington, Minnesota. We manufacture aluminum light poles and flag pole shafts. I’ve been with the company almost 19 years.

CCM: Do you have any advice for our readers?

Joe: Yes, several things. Get politically involved. Not everyone will have the opportunity that I had in speaking before the legislature, nor would they want to, but there are small things each of us can do. When you read or hear misinformation about guns being espoused by some anti., take a few minutes to correct them. Email is a wonderful tool. It can put you into contact with every politician and news source in a matter of minutes. Imagine the impact it would have if every time a newspaper ran an article against guns, just half of the gun owners in the state wrote a polite rebuttal. That would be, at a minimum, thousands of replies. Or if every store that posted “No Guns” signs barring legally permitted carry holders got a polite notice that we will not be spending our money there until the signs come down. That would be thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of dollars they might loose. You have to believe that they will quickly rethink their policy. Above all, remember to know your facts and always be polite. Also, gun owners must come together. By this I mean even if you don’t use handguns, but maybe hunt with a rifle or shotgun, our fight should be your fight and vice versa. Remember, there is not much difference between the ridiculous definition of a so-called “assault weapon” and your favorite semi-automatic shotgun. That could easily be the next gun they try to take away from us. We all need to support one another. It bothers me when I hear gun owners say they don’t support concealed carry just because they personally don’t feel a need to carry. That’s not the point. Our Second Amendment is about our right to bear arms. The choice to carry or not to carry is up to the individual. And finally, teach kids about the fun of shooting and what the Second Amendment is all about. It’s not going to happen in our schools. As a matter of fact, I read a study that showed the number of times certain topics and words are found, on average, in civics books used in Middle and High schools. Words like “diversity” and “multiculturalism” are found numerous times. The Second Amendment is found zero times. In other words, we are raising a generation that doesn’t even know they have a right to bear arms. So when that right is taken away, nobody will miss it, because they didn’t even know they had it.


Continued on page 8

by : John Hayes • Timothy J. Schmidt • Maria M. D’Amato

Each issue of CCM contains an article that “PRO-FILES” an everyday individual who carries a concealed weapon. This article is an inspi-ration to our readers by helping them to realize that they are not alone in their lifestyle decision to always be armed.


Mom and Dad sent me to a Military Boarding school where I joined the Exp-lorer Scouts and became an NRA rifle competitor in the 7th and 8th grades. Guns and the shooting arts were ingrained into my psyche from an early age. Years later, as an adult, I was one of the first in line to get my permit when George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, signed the bill giving us our first CCW license. I joined USPSA-IPSC and had a great time shooting in competition in San Antonio Texas with such great masters as Ted Bonnet. IPSC or USPSA is great combat training as is IDPA. I learned a lot. My preferred concealed handgun was a Light Weight Commander 1911 by Colt. Since then I carry one of several state of the art autos from Sigs to the new Springfield XD which I really love. Seven years ago, my wife and I moved to North Central Idaho. She had extensive experience in garment design and manuf-acturing from back east. I carry everywhere I go and had a problem with finding the right jacket, coat or shirt to keep my handgun concealed. Back in 2001, I asked Lynne if she would make me a vest that would be long enough and tailored fuller in the waist to cover my handgun and not print. It was in the hot time of the year so I did some research into fabrics that would be suitable and found a Supplex Nylon that wicked perspiration to the outer layer and

when it evaporated, actually cooled me down somewhat like the way an evaporative cooler works. It worked like a charm. I wore it everywhere. Suddenly one morning light bulbs started going off inside my head. “Sweetheart” I said, “Let’s start producing these vests and sell them on the Internet.” A couple of weeks later, Concealed Carry Outfitters was born. I built a web site and we sold our first vest in May of 2002. We spent months perfecting our designs. When a prototype came out of the sewing room, I would wear it everywhere and test every aspect of the design. We experimented with different fabrics and different pattern designs. I was in heaven. They say if you can take your greatest interest and make a paying career of it you will be in total bliss. I am. We came up with four styles of vests. Lynne really showed her genius when she designed our Holster Vest. My gun knowledge and her design skill produced what we think is a really usable and workable vest that will carry your gun comfortably with virtually no printing. Various accessories were added to our product line like Fobus Holsters, Extreme Shock Ammo, Cold Steel Knives and Tactical Flashlights. What are my views on Concealed Carry? An armed society is a polite society. Despite what the gun grabbers say, crime

rates drop where ever citizens are allowed to carry concealed. It makes the bad guys think twice when they could be shot by their victims. I put the following blurb into the instruction sheet we send out with our vests. Commentary: The probability of terrorism in the United States has changed the lives of American Citizens forever. We believe the single most effective way to combat terrorism is to go from a soft target, which we currently are, to a hard target. By allowing law abiding, licensed, trained citizens to carry concealed side arms everywhere (reciprocity) in the United States, the risk to terrorists would be greatly multiplied. We would in effect become a “Hard Target” thus reducing the probability of additional acts of terrorism on American soil. In my opinion, most everyone should learn the shooting arts and be prepared to defend themselves and their loved ones. Most areas of US cities have become the “mean streets” of our modern society. The news said the other day that one in every thirty two citizens is in prison, on probation or on parole. That is a lot of criminals in our country, the most per capita in the world. The bottom line is you may have to defend yourself sometime in the future. The most effective way is with good training and a good handgun.

www.concealedcarryoutfitters.com


CCM: Was there a specific incident that caused you to carry a gun?

John: There is no specific incident, just an escalating crime rate and drug proliferation, one out of every 32 U.S. citizens is on pro-bation, parole or in jail and I wanted to put into practice my inalienable Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. CCM: Have you ever had to use your firearm in a defensive situation?

John: No.

CCM: What training methods do you employ? Do you have any recom-mendations?

John: Shooting IPSC (USPSA) was my best training. IDPA would be great training also. I have had training from various sources including Special Forces instructors, Army Ranger instructors, Ted Bonnet and a few others. The best training for the regular guy or gal would be IDPA or IPSC shooting clubs. Aside from the training that depicts real life scenarios, it is a lot of fun. If money is no problem, there are a handful of real good shooting schools. Gunsite, Front Sight and the shooting classes from Sig Sauer are but a few.

CCM: How long have you carried a concealed weapon?

John: Back in the early 90’s George W. (bless his heart), then Governor of Texas, gave us our first CCW permits. I was one of the first in line and have carried concealed ever since. CCM: What weapons do you carry?

John: I prefer a light weight carry gun in 45 ACP. Sometimes I carry a PT 145 Millennium Pro from Taurus. It’s light, DAO, holds 10 rounds of 45 ACP and priced right. If I were going into a high risk area where I might have to defend myself against an armed bad guy, I would take my Para Ordinance P14 loaded with 15 rounds of Extreme Shock Ammunition. There would be 30 more rounds on my belt. That’s a little extreme and that much gun with that much ammo gets heavy and uncomfortable real fast. No one will carry

around a heavy gun for long. My opinion is a light handgun with enough punch to stop a threat with one shot.

CCM: What type of ammunition do you carry?

John: My company, Concealed Carry Outfitters, carries Extreme Shock Ammun-ition and that’s my choice for a defensive round. ES is a frangible round like the Glazer Safety Slugs that make shoot throughs and ricochets less of a threat if you miss. Frangible rounds explode when they hit most objects and may not go through your walls and hit an innocent inside your house or next door. If you do hit the bad guy with one, generally the fight will end abruptly with you the one still standing.

CCM: What concealment hol-sters do you use?

John: I like the Galco FLETCH, the Bianchi Black Widow and the Fobus if you prefer a polymer holster. Fobus holsters work well (we carry them also) and cost under $25, a best buy in my opinion.

CCM: What do you do for a living?

John: I own and manage Concealed Carry Outfitters.

CCM: Do you have any advice for our readers?

John: When they first started issuing CCW permits, the gun grab-bers predicted chaos and shootouts on every street corner of America. Boy, were they wrong. Hundreds of thousands of assaults, robberies, rapes and other crimes have been prevented just by the sight of a handgun in the hands of an intended victim. My best advice for permit holders is to pull that trigger only as an absolute last resort. Only if your life or that of a loved one is in eminent danger should you pull your weapon and only pull that trigger if there

is no other way out. Then look forward to huge legal bills and being sued by the bad guy’s relatives and some cut-throat lawyer in civil court. Only if you have a really clean shoot, will you not go to trial in criminal court. Never, ever run after a shooting. You will be automatically guilty when they catch you. The bottom line is: Only pull that trigger if your life is in danger and pray you made the right decision.

www.concealedcarrymag.com�0 Concealed Carry Magazine Volume 01 - Issue 04

TEENAGE HERO

LUBBOCK, Texas — A Plainview, Texas, family was awakened about 2 a.m., by the chilling sound of someone breaking a window in their home. Since his father worked nights and left him in charge, a 13- year-old took it upon himself to protect his mother and younger brother. Upon hearing the noise, the boy got his father’s shotgun and, when he saw someone attempting to enter through the broken window, fired one shot. No one was injured, and the would-be burglar was not located. But Capt. Michael T. Carroll praised the boy’s quick thinking that prevented his family from becoming crime victims. “We commend his bravery for protecting his mother,” Carroll said.

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal February 20, 2004

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH

CAPE CORAL, Florida — A Cape Coral woman suffered critical injuries when a stranger broke into her house as she slept, molested her and then beat her unconscious, police said. The 2:50 a.m. beating continued out-side the woman’s house until a neighbor threatened to kill the attacker at gunpoint, Cape Coral police Lt. Bill Rivers said. Rolando Mota, 20, of 1130 Patterson Road, was arrested early Saturday morning on charges of burglary with a person present, battery and sexual battery using force, Cape Coral authorities said. Police said the woman did not know Mota but that he lived in her neighborhood. Investigators confirmed Mota’s identity after finding his wallet in the victim’s bed-room, a report said. He is being held in the Lee County Jail without bail. The 45-year-old victim is being treated at Lee Memorial Hospital. “He ruthlessly beat her, and he wouldn’t stop,” Rivers said. “That neighbor saved her life.” Mota is accused of breaking into the woman’s house in the middle-class neigh-borhood that borders North Fort Myers. The victim was asleep in bed when she woke up to find Mota standing in her room, Rivers said.

“He began beating her right there,” Rivers said. The victim’s screams for help, that someone was raping her, woke several neighbors who called 911 as she tried to escape. Mota, who was only wearing shorts, is accused of fondling the woman during the beating. The victim struggled against the attack so hard, officers said they found the bed knocked off its frame and blood smearing the sheets and blankets. The victim crawled out of her house still screaming. Paramedics arrived to find the victim naked in her yard, unconscious. Another neighbor had covered her with a blanket, Rivers said. Officers found Mota hiding in a nearby house and witnesses confirmed he was the suspect, Rivers said. Mota fought arrest, saying, “I ain’t got nothing,” a report said. Officers are still seeking a motive for the beating. Mota has refused to speak to investigators.

South Florida News-Press March 18, 2001

WHAT COLLEGE SHOULD TEACH

SALINAS, California — Two men and one woman broke into the apartment of a 20-year-old college student at 5:48 a.m. One invader was armed with a pellet gun, and the three overpowered the resident and tied him up. As the intruders began to ransack the apartment, the student was able to free himself and get hold of his handgun. He fired three shots, hitting one of the burglars in the chest, and then ran from the apartment and called for help. Police discovered the body of one suspect, identified as Juan Herrera, on the stairs leading to the apartment. The other two suspects had not been apprehended.

The Salinas CalifornianMarch 23, 2004

CHANGING THE OPPOSITION

PONTIAC, Michigan — At 6:30 in the morning, a woman was walking from her car to her office when she noticed a car on the lot with two people inside. A man got out of the car and started toward her, his hands in his pockets. The woman realized

she would not be able to reach the office door before the man reached her. Believing she was in imminent danger, the married mother of two opened her purse and drew her gun. The man reacted immediately, turning and walking back to the car, which had pulled up alongside him. The man got into the car and it sped off. Thinking quickly, the woman called police on her cell phone and provided a detailed description of the car and the couple, who were picked up within minutes of the attempted robbery. A 9mm handgun was found in the couple’s car and they were charged with attempted armed robbery. Farmington Hills, Mich-igan, Police Chief William Dwyer, who had not been a proponent of the state’s recently enacted concealed carry law, said the situation had changed his view. “She took the appropriate action,” Dwyer said, “and probably saved her life.”

The Daily Oakland PressMarch 20, 2004

PARTY’S OVER!

TAHLEQUAH, Oklahoma — A Tahl-equah man died from one gunshot wound to the chest early Thursday morning, investigators said. Christopher H. “Rolo” Miller, 30, of Tahlequah. Tahlequah police were called to a residence on Fox Street around 2:45 a.m. Thursday after reports were made of shots fired in the area. When arriving at the home of Miller’s ex-girlfriend, they found Miller had been shot once. He later died from the wound at the Tahlequah City Hospital, according to Kym Koch, public information officer for the OSBI. “Our investigation found that Miller had made a call to his ex-girlfriend earlier Wednesday evening and found out she was having a party. The two of them argued on the phone and Miller told her he was coming over to the house,” said Koch. Miller eventually arrived at the home at 406 W. Fox, where he peered in through the windows before being discovered by those inside the house. Carl E. Mullins, 27, of Tahlequah, was at the party and went out onto the porch. “Reports state that Miller fired a weapon [at Mullins] first, and fired it several times,” said Koch. “That is when Mullins fired once, striking Miller in the torso. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.” Miller was employed at the John Vaughan Library at NSU. Mullins is an armed guard, employed at Keetoowah Bingo in Tahlequah. Tahlequah police and investigators from the OSBI served search warrants on the house on Fox Street and at

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604 Ward St. on Thursday, and were trying to get a search warrant for Miller’s home Thursday afternoon. According to District Attorney Dianne Barker-Harrold, Mullins is cooperating with law enforcement officials, and the shooting will most likely be considered justifiable homicide or self-defense.

The Tahlequeh Daily Press December 13, 2004

AX VS. GUN ANDERSON, South Carolina — Lance Myers of Anderson, South Carolina, awoke around midnight to a thumping sound. He then heard a shuffling sound and saw a man crawling into his bedroom. Alarmed, Myers switched on a light beside his bed and the man, dressed in a black hooded shirt and jeans, jumped to his feet, holding an ax with a 3-foot handle. Myers hastily retrieved a gun from his night stand and told the intruder to drop the ax. When he repeated his demand to drop the ax, the man raised the ax higher and appeared to come at Myers, who fired one fatal shot, dropping the man instantly. Police identified the suspect as Ernest Leroy Miles, who had been arrested multiple times for burglaries, robberies, and drug offenses.

Anderson Independent MailMarch 9, 2004

TRICKERY

SUITLAND, Maryland — Police say a Suitland man prevented a burglary at his home this afternoon, by shooting the suspect in the act. A Prince George’s County police spokeswoman says the suspect rang the doorbell of the Apple Cider Court town home and the victim answered the door but found no one there. Moments later, he heard glass breaking, went to his gun cabinet and grabbed his registered 9mm handgun. That’s when he saw a man he did not know in his living room. Officer Julie Valdez says the man shot the suspect several times in the upper body. The off-duty firefighter also called 911 for assistance after the incident. The suspect, who is said to be 38-years-old, was flown to Prince George’s Hospital Center for treatment. He is said to be in critical condition.

Valdez says investigators found a bicycle and some clothing outside of the Suitland man’s home. She also says the suspect is believed to have several outstanding burglary warrants. The homeowner will not face charges because he fired in self defense.

NBC4.com March 23, 2001

WHY YOU SHOULD PACK YOUR GUN IN THE SHOWER

SOMERVILLE, Massachusetts — A Somerville, Massachusetts, resident had just stepped out of his shower when he heard unusual sounds at the back of his house. When a man broke through his back door, the homeowner retrieved a handgun, confronted the intruder, and shot him in the shoulder. The wounded burglar ran from the house, but police were able to track him by following a trail of blood to a nearby rail station. The suspect was treated at a local hospital for the gunshot wound, and police were expected to charge him with breaking and entering.

Boston HeraldJanuary 23, 2004

FOLLOW YOUR INSTINCTS

DETROIT, Michigan — Barbara Holland closed her used car lot for the day and drove home. She had checked to make sure the handgun she has carried since 1992 was loaded after a strange encounter at the car lot left her feeling uneasy. Holland pulled the car into her driveway and, as she entered her side door, Holland bent down to retrieve something she had dropped. Suddenly a man armed

with a gun came rushing at her. Holland tried to slam her door on him, but the man shoved the door open and Holland fell back on her landing. Lying on her back, Holland snatched her pistol from its holster, ready to protect herself and her 15-year-old daughter who was home at the time. Her assailant’s glare changed. “He looked sur-prised,” she said. Holland recalls firing three times, but authorities later confirmed six shots. Police identified Holland’s attacker, who died at the scene, as an ex-con named Clabe Hunt.

Detroit Free PressApril 29, 2004

HAVE IT HANDY

POMONA, California — Four armed men wearing masks robbed the Central Mart in Pomona, California. One of the robbers fired several shots at the grocery’s owner when the owner and his wife refused to open the store’s safe. The owner fired back at the gunman, who limped along with his accomplices as they ran from the store. One of the robbers fired a second time at the owner when he went outside to check on his wife who was lying on the ground. The owner returned fire, but the gunman got into a blue van and drove off. Neither the store owner nor his wife was injured in the incident.

Inland Valley Daily BulletinApril 15, 2004

“She took the appropriate action...and probably saved her life.”


Photograph by Oleg Volkwww.a-human-right.com

o amendment to the U.S.

Constitution has drawn as much controversy and debate as the Second

Amendment. Violence is naturally a concern for many in the United

States, and numerous individuals and organizations view guns – their mere existence and the

people’s ability to purchase and use them – as one of the main causes

of violence in America. Gun control advocates have raised a

mighty roar blaming the availability of guns on everything from suicides and homicides to

robberies and domestic violence. But while their claims that some “sensible” gun control is all that’s needed to save lives are spurious at best given the rise in violence in every country that has implemented “sensible” gun control, some more “intellectual” types try to argue that the right to keep and bear arms specified and enumerated in the Bill of Rights is a collective right that pertains to state militias. Those who seek to curtail your rights – the rights protected, not granted to you as an individual and a human being, by the United States Constitution will try to persuade you that the Founding Fathers never intended for individual men to possess guns. Even the Amer-ican Civil Liberties Union – tasked with defending basic human rights protected by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – claimed as recently as March, 2002 that the right to keep and bear arms is collective, “intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government.”


Continued on page 14

The attorneys at the ACLU further claim that the idea of individuals keeping and bearing arms is “anachronistic” because it “would require weapons much more powerful than handguns or hunting rifles.” ACLU policy claims, therefore, that “Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected.” It is amazing that an organization com-prised of a horde of attorneys and which claims to defend the Bill of Rights, could be so ignorant not only of the simple wording of the Constitution, but the historical record that directly contradicts their specious claims. Their misinterpretation of the Bill of Rights, their disregard of the Founders’ intent and their ignorance of the evolution of this country into the freest nation in the world and the reasons for this distinction are staggering. In order to truly understand how misleading and misguided the ACLU’s claim about the Second Amendment is, one must examine the historical origins of the Bill of Rights.

What did the Founding Fathers mean by “the people?”

Why did the Founders fear a standing army?

Who or what is the “militia?”

And did the Founding Fathers acknowledge the right to keep and bear arms as an individual right?

For answers to these questions, it is necessary to look at the historical origins of the Second Amendment. It is necessary to understand that the Founding Fathers distrusted national governments and standing armies – that they ultimately felt that an armed populace was the most effective deterrent to tyranny.

JAMES BURGH The courageous men who founded this nation and established its place in history as a model of independence and freedom developed the political model of the nation they sought to create from the thoughts and writings of British libertarian theorists. James Burgh, a Scottish theorist and writer, in his Political Disquisitions wrote:

All lawful authority, legislative, and executive, originates from the people. Power in the people is like light in the sun, native, original, inherent and unlimited by any thing human. In governors, it may be compared to the reflected light of the moon; for it is only borrowed, delegated, and limited by the intention of the people, whose it is, and to whom governors are to consider themselves as responsible, while the people are answerable only to God, themselves being the losers, if they pursue a false scheme of politics.

America’s founding fathers also recog-nized that certain basic rights are endemic to being human beings – not granted by governments, but consistent with being born men. Human beings create governments. Governments’ powers come from the people, and therefore, the power of the people cannot morally be limited by the governments they created. Because Burgh and other libertarian writers of his era believed the people were the original source of governments’ powers, they also understood that the only way to keep those powers in check was to ensure that the people maintained control of force – that the government they created would not grow so powerful that it could force the citizens to do the bidding of the few in power. Force, to Burgh, and to America’s founders, was to be

the tool of the people. According to Burgh, “Those, who have the command of the arms in a country, says Aristotle, are masters of the state, and have it in their power to make what revolutions they please…” Burgh also spoke of a court “awed by the fear of an armed people.” Burgh, on whose knowledge, expertise and writings the Founding Fathers relied heavily when they wrote the Law of the Land and built our form of government, clearly stated that “The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave.” This simple sentence was echoed in Thomas Jefferson’s 1776 assertion that no free man should ever “be debarred the use of arms.” Like Burgh, the Founding Fathers distrusted standing armies. Burgh wrote in his Political Disquisitions about the “cruel, hellish” nature of armies, soldiers and war. Burgh detested war and subscribed to the belief that the folly of monarchs and power-hungry rulers were responsible for the carnage, hatred and enmity of war.

My inestimable friend, the late great and good Dr. Hales, was used to say, that if any thing might be called the peculiar disgrace of human nature, and of our world, it is war;” Burgh wrote, and “that a set of wretched worms, whose whole life, when it holds out the best, is but a moment, a dream, a vision of the night, should shorten this their short span, should assemble by thousands and myriads, travel over vast countries, or cross unmeasurable oceans, armed with swords and spears and infernal fire, and when they meet immediately fall to butchering one another, only because a couple of frantic and mischievous fiends

in human shape, commonly called kings, have fallen out they know not about what, and have ordered them to go and make havoc of one another.

It appears that Burgh not only distrusted those in power, but directly blamed them for abusing their power and using armies to perpetuate their ambitions. Likewise, America’s Founding Fathers – especially the anti-federalists such as Richard Henry Lee, who believed that America’s national government should be firmly limited – especially feared a standing army controlled by the government and thought it would have an adverse effect on freedom. While Lee and other anti-federalists understood the need to provide for the common defense, he also called for an additional check to Congress’ power to raise

a standing army. The Federal Farmer, as Lee was known, fought to avoid a select militia that was comprised of anything less than the populace at large. So distrustful was Lee of the government’s power over the people, that he proposed requiring two-thirds consent in Congress before a standing army could be raised or the

militia could be called into service by those in power. Meanwhile, the Federalists, who sup-ported the original Constitution as drafted, never disputed that the people themselves were the last line of defense against government tyranny. Indeed, Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 28:

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defence, which is paramount to all positive forms of government…” Hamilton continues, “In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.

Federalists such as Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay did not dispute the fact that standing armies were a danger to liberty. Federalist George Mason saw that the most effective way to enslave a populace was to disarm them. But the Federalists felt the Constitution itself provided adequate protection against the tyrannical jeopardy posed by a government with trained and armed soldiers at its disposal. Madison wrote in Federalist 41:

… But among all the blunders which have been committed, none is more striking than the attempt to enlist on that side

“...feared a standing army controlled by the government and thought it would have an adverse effect on freedom.”

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the prudent jealousy entertained by the people, of standing armies. The attempt has awakened fully the public attention to that important subject; and has led to investigations which must terminate in a thorough and universal conviction, not only that the constitution has provided the most effectual guards against danger from that quarter, but that nothing short of a Constitution fully adequate to the national defense and the preservation of the Union, can save America from as many standing armies as it may be split into States or Confederacies, and from such a progressive augmentation, of these establishments in each, as will render them as burdensome to the properties and ominous to the liberties of the people, as any establishment that can become necessary, under a united and efficient government, must be tolerable to the former and safe to the latter.

The Founders’ writings directly cont-radict what those supposedly “learned” constitutional scholars at the ACLU espouse. Their original thoughts clearly expose the ACLU’s hollow claims that the individual right to keep and bear arms is specifically intended for police and military. Patrick Henry also realized that government equals force. He ardently insisted that the populace must zealously retain that force as its own, for it is the safeguard of liberty. “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. When-ever you give up that force, you are inevit- ably ruined.” If the Founders had intended the right to keep and bear arms to only pertain to individuals who are in the military or part of a police force, why did they fight so hard to ensure that the citizen militia did not fall under federal control? If the men who established this nation wanted the military and police to be the only people whose right to keep and bear arms was protected by the Constitution, why did they insist that an armed populace was the last deterrent to a government that usurped its power? And if our Founding Fathers only proposed protecting the military and police officer’s right to keep and bear arms, why did Tench Coxe insist in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1788, “Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.”The truth the ACLU either ignorantly or intentionally avoids is that the Founding Fathers fully intended for the citizen militia to have the same access to weapons as the military controlled by the government. Their distrust of standing armies prompted them to

make sure that the populace was adequately armed against abusive governments. The sick, twisted attempt to limit the people’s access to certain weapons those in power have deemed are only good for military use is contradictory to what the Founders wanted for this nation.

WILLIAM BLACKSTONE The notion of the inalienable right to keep and bear arms for self-defense and protection from oppression predated the Constitution and the writings of the Founding Fathers. That concept was recognized by British libertarian theorists and political thinkers long before the Founders endeavored to create a new government in the United States. Historical proof in the writings of the Founding Fathers, as well as their reliance on the discourses of some of Britain’s most well known libertarian and republican thinkers and theoreticians shows clearly that the men who built this country understood and insisted that the right to keep and bear arms – to defend one’s life and property – belonged to each individual. Another British theorist, Sir William Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England also had a tremendous influence on the Founders’ views of government wrote that the right to keep and bear arms was essential in order for individuals to enjoy their other rights, what he termed “the liberties of Englishmen.” Blackstone acknowledged the existence of fundamental individual rights:

And we have seen that these rights consist, primarily, in the free enjoyment of personal security, of personal liberty, and of private property. So long as these remain inviolate, the subject is perfectly free; for every species of compulsive tyranny and oppression must act in opposition to one or other of these rights, having no other object upon which it can possibly be employed. To preserve these from violation, it is necessary that the constitution of parliaments be supported in its full vigor; and limits certainly known, be set to the royal prerogative. And, lastly, to vindicate these rights, when actually violated or attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts and law; next to the right of petitioning the king and parliament for redress of grievances; and lastly to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defense. And all these rights and liberties it is our birthright to enjoy entire; unless where the laws of our country have laid them under necessary restraints.

The model for our own Constitution and Bill of Rights is clearly visible in Blackstone’s writing. What is also conspicuous is Blackstone’s acknowledgment that people

have the right to seek recourse and justice through government channels. But when those channels fail, the people have the right to have and use arms to protect life and property. Blackstone also understood that in order for tyranny to take hold, the people must first be disarmed. A tyrant would have need for a standing army – to protect his own interests from the enemy, including his own people, should it become necessary. But if the people he rules had access to the same weapons as his armies, his power and force are greatly diminished. Blackstone, like Burgh, did not trust a profession whose only aim was war. Any “elite” military force taken from among the people themselves, he felt, would eventually become servants to another master – the one who took them into service. His fear of a professional standing army was clear:

In a land of liberty it is extremely dangerous to make a distinct order of the profession of arms. In absolute monarchies, this is necessary for the safety of the prince, and arises from the main principle of their constitution, which is, that of governing by fear: but in free states, the profession of a soldier, taken singly and merely as a profession, is justly an object of jealousy.--The laws, therefore, and constitution of these kingdoms know no such state as that of a perpetual standing soldier, bred up to no other profession, than that of war.” Yet we see gentlemen breed up their sons for the army as regularly as for law, physic, or divinity; and, while in France, the land of slaves, the soldiery are engaged only for a certain time, ours are for life; that they may be effectually separated from the people, and attached to another interest.

George Mason, an anti-federalist, and the Founding Father widely considered to be the “Father of the Bill of Rights” held similar beliefs with regard to individual liberties. During the 1788 constitutional debate in Virginia, Mason reiterated his – and many others’ – fear of standing armies by reasserting that each individual has a fundamental right, given to him by God, to defend himself. “…I consider and fear the natural propensity of rulers to oppress the people. I wish only to prevent them from doing evil. By these amendments I would give necessary powers, but no unnecessary power. If the clause stands as it is now, it will take from the state legislatures what divine Providence has given to every individual--the means of self-defence.” Patrick Henry, early American patriot and great orator also stated his wish that the citizenry – each individual – be armed. “…the great object is that every man be armed…Every one who is able may have a gun.” So strong were the anti-Federalists’ feelings about the benefits of an armed populace as a deterrent to tyranny, that they

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insisted the Bill of Rights be included in the new Constitution, specifically addressing the right to keep and bear arms. If the Founding Fathers of this country had never intended for each individual person to have access to arms, why did they insist on a separate Bill of Rights affirming this right? The patriots who founded this great nation recognized that the right to life and property belonged to each and every individual, and that the right to protect that life and property from those who would attempt to infringe upon those rights, including oppressive governments, as a natural and logical extension of those rights.

THE “WELL REGULATED” MILITIA According to Title 10, Subtitle A, Part I, Chapter 13, Section 311 of the U.S. Code, “…the militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.” (b) The classes of the militia are - (1) The organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) The unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia. Meanwhile, George Mason described the militia of the United States as consisting “…now of the whole people, except for a few public officers.” In other words, every citizen of the United States is, in fact, a member of – at the very least – the unorganized militia, and ergo, those who would relieve you of your freedom with the argument that the right to keep and bear arms was only meant to arm members of the militia, can rest easy knowing that right is endemic to all citizens. Again the Founding Fathers’ distrust of a standing army brought into existence a separate, citizen militia, independent of the government, comprised of regular citizens, who would take up arms against oppression and violence should the need arise. Tench Coxe wrote in 1788, “Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? ...” From the writing of William Blackstone and James Burgh, one can clearly infer that both theoreticians considered a professional military a danger to freedom. Likewise, George Mason argued vociferously against “special militias” claiming they comprised a government controlled special force that

could be used to destroy the people’s rights and endanger liberty. The militia was meant to be the body of the people themselves. Only then would they be able to resist the special forces of the government, should such resistance become necessary. Alexander Hamilton wrote in

Federalist 46 that a small government army would amount to nothing in comparison with the body of armed citizens that would rise up to resist an oppressive government. “To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.” Richard Henry Lee also added, “A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves, and render regular troops in great measure unnecessary.” And because the founders fully intended for the

armed citizenry to be able to effectively resist a standing army, it is impossible to logically advocate limiting the people’s access to military weapons – weapons that are issued to our professional soldiers. But the founders intended for the militia to be “well regulated,” correct? Doesn’t that

mean that a governmental entity of some sort had to control said group? No, it does not. If you look up the modern meaning of the word “regulate,” you will find it includes the definition of “To adjust, or maintain, with respect to a desired rate, degree, or condition.” The phrase had been in use long before the Founders established our form of government, and it meant that the subject to which it referred was functioning properly. Indeed, Alexander Hamilton confirmed the definition of this much contested phrase in Federalist 29 when he wrote: A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. Where, in this discourse, do we see any mention of government control? Nowhere. Where, in this communication does Hamilton men-tion any government jurisdiction over the militia or its members? He does not. He specifically refers to

the militia’s skills, abilities and training, but says nothing about government control of this group. Why? Because the Founding Fathers - both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists – agreed that the militia must remain an independent force from the government. It must be a group comprised of the entire body of citizens not under control of the central government and able to resist said government if it ever usurped the power given to it by the people.

CONCLUSION Regardless of claims made by opponents of freedom and would-be usurpers of the people’s power, historical record proves without a shadow of a doubt that the Founding Fathers of this nation intended for the right to




keep and bear arms to be an individual right that belongs to the people – not a formal military force and not just the police. The American patriots and political theorists who created our nation and its system of government were loath to give a centralized national government power over the people. They sought to ensure that the populace was never outgunned, out-maneuvered or overpowered by a mighty centralized authority. The preservation of a free state meant that the people would need to be able to resist government tyranny. When James Madison first proposed the text of the Second Amendment, its initial portion read, “A well regulated Militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed…” In order for the “body of the people” to outnumber, outgun and overpower a despotic tyrant, the entire “body of the people” would have to not only keep and bear arms, but be proficient in their use and have access to the same firepower as the government’s select armies. Ergo, the ACLU’s view that an unlimited right to keep and bear arms belongs only to police and military organizations is inaccurate at best, and downright intentionally deceptive at worst. Nowhere in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights or the historical record supporting the contentions stated in this article will you find any proof that the Founding Fathers intended for the right to keep and bear arms to be managed or controlled in any way by a government power. Quite to the contrary, the founders spoke out strongly against the kind of government control that would render the people’s militia into just another force to wield power over the people and compel them to obey the whims of tyrannical despots who seek power over the populace. Historians, political theorists, patriots and great thinkers who helped – both directly and indirectly – develop the system of government we have today agreed that the right of the people belongs to every individual – not a collective. Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society wrote in 1989, “The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which con-sequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.” And yes, the Founding Fathers specifically linked the ownership of arms with freedom. “No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1776. Jefferson and the other Founders believed the citizenry was the last and best line of defense against tyranny, and when all attempts failed to redress grievances through legal government channels, the use of force was expected and necessary to restore the liberties infringed upon by corrupt oppressors. Ergo,

any entity, individual or organization that attempts to push the “collective right” theory of the Second Amendment is either ignorant of historical record, or is intentionally trying to mislead the public into ceding its rights. It is abundantly clear from the writings of the Founders that they learned their lessons well from British history. They firmly believed that armed force was a necessary tool in the people’s arsenal to remove a despot from power. And their writing showed the right to keep and bear arms to be absolute, inviolate and fundamental. As for the ACLU’s claim that the right to keep and bear arms is “anachronistic,” given the written intent of the Founders to ensure that the citizens had access to every “terrible implement of the soldier,” and their insistence that the citizens be proficient with said arms as a deterrent to tyranny… …and given the current debate on extending the obviously unconstitutional ban on military-style weapons, that right is more relevant than ever.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND BACKGROUND READING1. American Civil Liberties Union; Gun Control; March, 20022. Anti-Federalist Papers; West El Paso Information Network; 19963. Blackstone, William; Commentaries on the Laws of England; 1765-17694. Burgh, James; Political Disquisitions; 17745. Hamilton, Alexander, Jay, John and Madison, James; The Federalist Papers; Bantam Dell, 20036. Johnson, Theodore L; The Second Amendment Controversy Explained; 19967. Shalhope, Robert E.; The Ideological Origins of the Second Amendment; Journal of American History, 19828. Vandercoy, David; The History of the Second Amendment; 1994

Nicki is a freelance writer whose articles have been published by a number of Second Amendment rights organizations, including KeepAndBearArms.com and Armed Females of America. She’s a former radio news anchor and broadcast journalist for the U.S. Army and a former contributing editor to the NRA’s Woman’s Outlook magazine. She resides in Virginia.



If you carry a

gun, you’re bound to wonder how

your gun-handling and shooting skills

compare to others. There’s one way to find out. It’s safe,

it’s fun, and you just might learn something important in the process. The first thing you’ll probably learn at your first shooting match is that you do not shoot as fast, smoothly or accurately when you’re on stage all alone under the spotlight as you do in your daydreams. The second thing you’re likely to learn is that you need more training so your mind is not constantly over-revving trying to figure out what you’re doing and what you should be doing next. The first time you step up to the line in pistol competition of any kind, you’ll have butterflies in your stomach, a pounding heartbeat, difficulty breathing and ringing in your ears. The palm of your shooting hand will be clammy and your trigger finger may be numb. Sending real bullets down-range with a bunch of other armed people watching, even friendly armed people, is hard on the nerves. That’s why it’s a very good thing to do. Competing with your carry gun will give you

cops-catch-you sort of game.) One-on-one sports are less lethal forms of dueling with firearms, fists or swords dressed up as boxing, billiards or tennis. While women are usually equal and often better pistol shots than men with comparable experience, the offensive/defensive strategy and tactics they learned playing the girls’ game of hide-and-seek is not of the same advanced quality as the boys’ game of cops-and-robbers. Nevertheless, I’d be willing to bet that little girls pull the heads off their dolls a lot more often than little boys pull the heads off their G.I. Joes, so it’s not that girls don’t have a killer instinct. It’s just that they need more practice being discriminatory, decisive and aggressive. Competition can teach these things in a hurry. Today’s deceptively delicate-looking little Russian stars of big-time women’s tennis sure learned it. Most criminals are under the impression that any prey-species female has been taught by her mother to be too nice a person to shoot them between the eyes with a .45, which is a lesson they will learn too late to pass on to their professional associates. Training is competitive game-playing too, to a large extent. But in a training class you have a range master keeping an eye on you ready to grab you before your mind wanders off in the direction of making a big mistake. In competition, you’re supposed to know how to keep an eye on yourself, so the range officer can score your performance rather than grab your gun. It follows that training should precede competition. The best firearms training academies in the West, in my personal opinion, are TFTT in California, Gunsite and Yavapai Firearms Academy in Arizona, and Thunder Ranch formerly in Texas and now in Oregon. Spend a few days at any of these places getting your basics down and your head straight and

you’ll be ready to compete with anybody, anywhere, anytime. Handgun competition comes in several different forms. IPSC/USPSA: When Jeff Cooper and his buddies got together in Los Angeles

If girls just want to have fun, how come they’re always pulling the heads off their dolls? Women usually have no trouble with marksmanship, it’s strategy and tactics they need to work on.

This is a “racegun” used in Open Class IPSC competition. As a daily defense weapon, it’s about as practical and concealable as a stretched Hummer limousine.

confidence that you can shoot under pressure. Not the ultimate pressure. Competition is not nearly as hard on the nerves as the real thing such game-playing is supposed to simulate, but it’s about as much pressure as you’ll really want to manage with a gun in your hand. If the real thing should ever come along, the pressure on your mind and body will be multiplied at least a hundred times. If there are other armed people present, they will be doing a lot more than watching and at least some of them will be anything but friendly. But that’s not something most of us get a chance to practice on a regularly scheduled basis, which is why we invented games in the first place. Remember how much you enjoyed playing games when you were a kid? Playing games is fun, which is nature’s way of telling

us she’s got something we need to learn and learn good. Every ball game ever invented, from baseball to golf, is nothing more than marksmanship practice with a little stylized adversity thrown in. (An exception is American football, which is an oddball sort of steal-the-pig-and-try-to-escape-with-it-back-to-your-own-dinner-table-before-the-

Should You Screw Up Your Courage & Go To

A Shooting Match


back in the 1950s and did a little shooting together under the moniker Southwest Pistol League, an entirely new doctrine of the defensive handgun quickly evolved. It was called the Modern Technique of the Pistol, and it elevated the practice of combat shooting among civilians, military and law enforcement to the startling levels of effectiveness we see today. Soon, the organizers took over civilian competition and changed “combat shooting” to “practical shooting”, in the name of political correctness. The International Practical Shooting Confederation and its U.S. counterpart, the United States Practical Shooting Association, were born. Soon after that, a war erupted between “game-player” and “martial artist” factions within IPSC. The game-players wanted to play with real guns the way they played computer games and never imagined they might have to shoot a real person in real life. The martial artists saw IPSC as fundamental practice for their true purpose, which was being able to shoot a real person in real life should it ever become necessary. The IPSC club nearest you will probably be dominated by one or the other of these two factions, but you can ignore the politics and get out of it what you want to get out of it. Competing in this fast run-and-gun action sport can teach you a lot of things about you and your gun. Just don’t let the game-players teach you any of their cheap tricks and gamey habits, which are potentially suicidal on the street. IDPA: The more gamey IPSC became, the more serious shooters drifted away from it. In the mid-1990s, legendary 1911 shooter and pistolsmith Bill Wilson started up a new organization called the International Defensive Pistol Association in the hope of restoring a respect for sensible tactics to the combat

the most popular gun games ever is designed to give you all the practice you want. The Cowboy Action Shooting matches of the Single Action Shooting Society will take you through a variety of Old West shooting scenarios, if not realistic in historical terms at least as real as any shootout ever shot by Roy Rogers or John Wayne. The game is focused on fun and socialization as much as shooting and you’ll even be encouraged to dress the part. Some more specialized types of handgun competition are popular in different regions of the country, close-range bowling pin shooting and long-range metallic silhouette shooting for instance. Local gun clubs are your best source of information about what kind of competition

is available nearby. For some of these games, you can show up with your carry gun and your concealment hol-ster and start competing. Some others require more specialized guns and equipment and are not particularly relevant to the way you’ll likely use your gun in a defensive situation. Nevertheless, any kind of shooting is better than no kind of shooting. It’s an unbreakable house rule that you

risk embarrassment when you play any kind of competitive game, high-intensity gun games probably more than any other. But if you’re afraid to get out there and start pulling the trigger in front of strangers, all of whom are hoping against hope that you’ll screw up, you’re risking a lot more than a short- lived blush.

Gunsite — www.gunsite.comYavapai Firearms Academy — www.yfainc.comThunder Ranch — www.thunderranchinc.comInternational Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC/USPSA) — www.uspsa.orgInternational Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) — www.idpa.comGlock Shooting Sports Foundation (GSSF) — www.gssfonline.comNational Rifle Association (NRA) — www.nra.orgCowboy Action Shooting/Single Action Shooting Society — www.sassnet.comTactical Firearms Training Team — www.tftt.com

The difference between training and competition is that in training there’s always somebody looking over your shoulder giving you expert advice, whereas in competition, the people looking over your shoulder are hoping you’ll make a mistake.

If you want to compete with your six-shooter you can join the fastest growing competitive shooting sport of them all.

Robert H. Boatman is the author of Living With Glocks (Paladin Press, 2002), Living With The Big Fifty (Paladin Press, 2004) and Living With The 1911 (to be released January 2005). He is currently at work on books about Glock customization, the AR-15 rifle and dangerous-game hunting rifles, and can be reached at [email protected].

The most valuable competition allows you to use your carry gun the way it was intended to be used.

shooting game. The effort has, in large part, proved effective, and IDPA is where you’ll find a lot of real-world shooters competing today. It’s not as much fun for the spectators to watch as IPSC (no raceguns allowed), and you won’t get off nearly as many rounds, but each round will count more in your training regimen. There is even some evidence that the influence of IDPA is serving to bring IPSC back toward its roots. Unfortunately, there is also some evidence that IDPA is becoming more stylized and going down the same road traveled by IPSC earlier. GSSF: Glock realized early on that its mushrooming ranks of civilian Glock owners would have more fun with their guns and buy even more if they could enjoy the camaraderie of fellow “Glocksters” and compete now and then in low-key shooting matches designed not for brutal professional and semipro competition provided by the likes of IPSC but simply to familiarize themselves with the little black guns for which they had developed an abiding affection. Glock Shooting Sports Foundation matches are simple events – no drawing from holsters allowed and no tactics required – peopled by fam- ilies with children, grand-mothers, housewives and working women, men who would never pull the trigger on their home protection Glock otherwise, and a few sandbagging master shooters providing free entertainment. The shoots are fun and relaxing, and almost nobody is there to win. In fact, prizes are awarded in so many categories it’s almost a random draw that determines who takes something home as proof of his or her advancing skills. GSSF shoots, unlike the hard-core competition circuit events, are relatively few and far between but worth a visit on a lazy weekend afternoon. NRA: The mother organization of all American shooters continues to offer a wide range of competition, relatively little of it cutting-edge but all of it worthwhile. NRA bull’s-eye competition is always good to help you refine the fundamentals of marksmanship and NRA Action Pistol is an easier version of the IPSC discipline. Cowboy Action Shooting: In the somewhat unlikely but entirely possible event that your carry gun is a single-action revolver, one of

www.concealedcarrymag.com20 Concealed Carry Magazine Volume 01 - Issue 04

When you decide to carry a concealed firearm for the first time, a number of questions will undoubtedly arise in your mind. When you purchased your firearm, you may or may not have received any training with it. Even if you did receive some training, most likely it focused on the legal issues of concealed carry rather than building the physical skills necessary to use a concealed firearm. Seldom does training associated with the purchase of a firearm include how to draw the handgun from a holster. So you may be asking yourself questions like: “can I draw my pistol safely if I need to?” or even “how do I do this?” A good place to get started on building your skills is IDPA competition. IDPA stands for International Defen-sive Pistol Association. Its purpose, as stated in its rule book, available online at www.idpa.com, is: “Defensive Pistol shooting as a sport is quite simply the use of practical equipment including full charge service ammunition to solve simulated “real world” self-defense scenarios. Shooters competing in Defensive Pistol events are required to use practical handguns and holsters that are truly suitable for self-defense use. …the main goal is to test the skill and ability of the individual…”

HOW DOES COMPETITION BUILD CONCEALED CARRY SKILLS?

It has been said that under stress, you are unlikely to do anything that you are not SUBCONSCIOUSLY sure you will do reasonably well. Competition develops our concealed carry skills in several ways:

It gives a benchmark of your ability to shoot your pistol, should you need to. Areas needing improvement become readily apparent in the competitive environment. “A smart man knows his limitations.” As a responsible gun owner, you should always be looking to improve your ability. Repetitive performance of simple gunhandling tasks, such as loading, reload-ing, and unloading, in a safety conscious environment builds the ability to perform the tasks safely. Learning to do these tasks with subconscious skill and a high degree of confidence is one of the most under-valued aspects of competition. Many times, people who have just purchased a firearm lack understanding and competence in

basic safety procedures due to a lack of training and practice. Competition tests the functionality of the contestant’s personal equipment. Until tested under pressure, a shooter does not really know how well the shooter/equipment interface will perform under stress. Sometimes, competitors find that the pistol and holster they liked so well in the gun shop doesn’t work as well for them as they might desire. It’s a fun way to use our pistols and develop familiarity with them. Most people find that after shooting competition, informal shooting at bulls-eye targets isn’t nearly as much fun as it seemed before.

USING IDPA COMPETITION TO BUILD YOUR CONCEALED CARRY SKILLS

by claude werner

& mike benedict photography by mike benedict

USING IDPA COMPETITION TO BUILD YOUR CONCEALED CARRY SKILLS

www.concealedcarrymag.comVolume 01 - Issue 04 2�Concealed Carry Magazine

You meet other like-minded people and enter into the firearms community. Since gunowners have had to become nearly a secret society in the United States, it’s refreshing to find out that there are many people just like you who live in your area. Frequently, they can provide good advice about what worked and didn’t work when they began to carry. “A smart man learns from the mistakes of others.” Many people are surprised just how difficult it is to use a pistol when they are placed under pressure. While competition is not the same level of pressure as a criminal attack, it does provide an environment where the shooter does not control the scenario and must work against time, which are characteristics of real life defensive encounters. Competition can provide a form of “stress inoculation” which is not readily available elsewhere to most people who carry concealed.

WHAT IS IDPA COMPETITION LIKE? IDPA competitions typically require shooters to draw their handgun from a hip holster and fire at several targets while being timed. Contestants may be required to move from one shooting position to another and to take advantage of cover that would protect the contestant from an assailant’s bullets. The targets are scored and less than perfect hits add time to the contestant’s score. Shooters’ scores are divided into equipment divisions and shooting abilities so that scores are comparable among different equipment types and skill levels. The shooter with the lowest score in each equipment division and ability class is the winner in that division and class. There is no overall winner of a match. As a sporting competition, IDPA principally exercises marksmanship and gunhandling skills. These include: drawing the pistol from a concealed holster, firing multiple shots at multiple targets, reloading an empty or partially empty pistol, and moving from shooting position to shooting position, sometimes while firing the pistol. IDPA places emphasis on hitting targets accurately. Each round that hits outside the central scoring area adds one-half second to the competitor’s time. By placing a timer into the situation, an added measure of stress is placed on the contestant, forcing shooters to rapidly demonstrate their marksmanship ability in a tactical situation they do not completely control. The competitions also test target discernment by including non-threat targets. These are targets are marked in a manner that indicates to the contestant

that they are not to be shot. By including non-threat targets in the scenarios, shooters are forced to pick which targets need to be engaged, just as in real life. While IDPA does provide an ex-periential learning environment, it is not tactical training, per se. IDPA does not stress Avoidance, De-escalation and Deterrence skills. Such skills are best learned from one or more of the many firearms trainers who are available throughout the country. The competition is based on an underlying assumption that the lawful decision to shoot has already been made. Neither does IDPA test tactics at an advanced level; as a timed sport it is not a good venue for practicing advanced tactical skills such as team drills and extensive structure clearing. IDPA pro-vides a component of a person’s ongoing learning needs by providing a place where an ever-changing combination of marksmanship and speed can be evaluated.Scenarios in IDPA are shooting problems that simulate self-defense shooting such as

might occur on the street, in a vehicle, or in home defense. Strings of fire will generally involve a few rounds at relatively short ranges with some movement. Ideas for scenarios are drawn from several sources: actual incidents involving private citizens, actual incidents experienced by the law enforcement community, and “what-if ” ideas that occurred to the course designer. Standard exercises are also an integral part of IDPA. They are shooting exercises that test marksmanship and gunhandling ability. Strings of fire will generally involve several rounds at medium to longer ranges with limited or no movement. People from all walks of life shoot IDPA. At a match, a shooter will encounter business people, homemakers, tradespeople, law enforcement officers, and almost anyone else who possesses a pistol. Newcomers are welcomed with friendly advice and an understanding that everyone was a new shooter at some point. In the beginning, it is wisest to simply shoot as accurately

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as possible without regard to speed of fire. With practice and repetition, speed comes naturally as fumbling and unnecessary movement are reduced.

WHAT EQUIPMENT IS NECESSARY FOR IDPA SHOOTING?

Equipment required for IDPA is a basically stock service pistol or revolver of .38 Special or .380 caliber or larger. Highly modified pistols suitable only for competition are disallowed, as are all pistols whose barrels are ported or have compensators. Probably the most common pistol encountered at IDPA competitions is the Glock pistol in 9mm caliber. The second most common pistol is the Browning 1911 pattern in .45 ACP caliber. Many other good pistols and revolvers are suitable for the sport. Ammunition does not need to be expensive hollow point ammunition. Full metal jacket range practice ammo available at the sporting goods counter will be sufficient. Whatever ammo is used, it should be reliable. One mistake commonly seen is to use underpowered reloaded ammo that does not reliably cycle the gun. Since IDPA does not allow “alibis” for equipment problems, unreliable ammo will reflect poorly on the competitor’s score. Most local matches will require less than one hundred rounds of ammunition; many require fifty or less. The contestant will also need a concealable hip holster. For range safety reasons, crossdraw, shoulder, pocket, or ankle holsters are not permitted. All holsters must cover the trigger guard and must retain the pistol during normal movement. The most popular holsters in IDPA are outside the waistband (OWB) holsters made of hard thermoplastic. As a safety note, holsters that require two hands to re-holster the pistol, and inside the pants holsters that collapse on the draw are NOT suitable. As noted defense trainer John Farnam puts it: “People who routinely point guns at themselves [unintentionally during weapon manipulation] will eventually shoot themselves.” Most cheap nylon holsters will not be suitable for IDPA. An entry level thermoplastic holster can be purchased for less than $20, and is the preferred solution when starting out in IDPA. At least one spare magazine or two speedloaders is necessary because most matches will require some timed reloading, A magazine carrier or speed-

www.concealedcarrymag.com Volume 01 - Issue 04

loader carrier is also necessary. As with holsters, cheap nylon carriers, especially those with Velcro flaps, will not perform well on the range, just as they don’t work well on the street. Entry level plastic magazine carriers are available at reasonable prices and are the preferred solution. And certainly, eye and ear pro-tection must be worn at all times. For outdoor ranges, a hat is highly recommended, as is plenty of water to drink for several hours at the match.

SHOOTING IDPA AT ONE CLUB Pickens County Sportsmen’s Club (PCSC) in Georgia, holds an IDPA match once each month. Generally, it will consist of four courses of fire and require about fifty rounds of ammunition. Usually there are about ten competitors, including two or three ladies. Many of the IDPA competitors in Georgia come to matches for the purpose of furthering their marksmanship and gunhandling skills, as well as for the fellowship of other gun owners. Many of the scenarios at PCSC are written based on actual incidents reported on in “The Armed Citizen” column of the NRA Journals. A recent course of fire, called “Hitting the Links” is based on an incident that took place on a golf course in the Metro Atlanta area in December of 1998 and was reported in the March 1999 The Armed Citizen. The scenario required the competitor to run to the rear of a simulated vehicle, get the pistol out of a golf bag, and then fire two shots at each of three targets that had non-threat targets interspersed among them. Along with carrying a concealed weapon comes a great deal of resp-onsibility. Physical manipulation skills are required to fulfill those respon-sibilities. Consistent practice and stress inoculation are key to developing the requisite physical manipulation skills. IDPA competition is an excellent format to get that practice in a safe and structured way. For more information and a list of clubs in your area, go to www.idpa.com. Mike Benedict is the owner of Talon Tactical makers of Kydex concealment and IDPA holsters. Mike is a IDPA 4 gun Master class shooter and has been active in training and shooting competitively for 20 years. He can be reached at: [email protected].

Claude Werner is Director of Firearms Safety Training LLC, in Georgia and a Chief Instructor for Options for Personal Security in Florida. He is a Four Gun Master Class shooter in IDPA and regularly teaches and attends defensive training classes with handguns and shotguns. Currently, he is working on two books; Survival Shooting with Snub Nose Revolvers and Great American Gunbattles of the Twentieth Century. He can be reached at: [email protected].

Predators seek out easy victims. Often, men with criminal intent seek out women as victims, counting on “easy pickings” from someone physically weaker and often less capable in a fight. Handguns are the great equalizer. So it logically follows that those most in need of defense would have the most to gain by obtaining a handgun, being trained in its use and carrying it regularly. Thanks to concealed carry laws, women in most states can, if faced with the threat of great physical harm or death, mount a capable defense quickly and easily. But first,

women have to make the conscious choice to defend themselves. And empowerment begins with knowledge. What gun should a woman carry for self-defense? To attempt to name one model of the plethora of fine guns available would be impossible. Everyone knows one of the three universal lies includes, “One size fits all.” But there are things women should know about handguns for self-defense in order to make the decision a little bit easier. The first is this: The best handgun to have in fight is the one you have when the fight starts.

Yeah, it’s a macho line laced with attitude, but the naked truth is that if you don’t have your gun on your person and ready to present in the face of an attack, there will be no time to go get it once the situation goes bad. To that end, the best gun is one that is light enough that you don’t mind carrying is all day, every day and small enough to be concealed unobtrusively. In short, you need a handgun designed for concealed carry. That is the information you will take to the gun shop as you search for your defensive handgun. And if I may digress here for a moment – women should shop for a handgun alone. There is no need for the husband or boyfriend to be leaning on the display case saying, “This is what you need.” The right defensive pistol is a personal choice based largely on how the gun feels in your hand, and only you will know when you are holding the right gun. Having made the case for personal choice, there are some parameters for con-cealed carry defensive handguns. Typically, you’ll be looking for a short-barreled, round-butt revolver or a compact to mid-sized auto-loading pistol. In a revolver, you likely don’t want to go much smaller in

caliber than the .32 H&R Magnum and in pistol, .380 ACP is approaching the low end of the power scale. Both of these rounds are marginal when it comes to stopping power, but their light recoil means inexperienced shooters are more likely to practice more often, thus becoming proficient more quickly. A well-aimed shot with a .32 is far and away better than several misses with a .38 Special. With all that said, the .38 Special and the 9mm are everywhere and have been used successfully countless times in self-defense. Even a new shooter should give these rounds a try. If shooting either of these calibers proves uncomfortable, step down. If you really don’t mind, try stepping up. With the .38 Special, move up to +P loads. If you feel you can easily handle a 9mm pistol, try the .40 S&W. The goal is the have the most powerful handgun you can accurately and confidently shoot. To find that gun you should try several. This means you may have to seek out a gun shop that also has a shooting range. Rent the range time, get some instruction and try several guns. Any reputable gun shop will be happy to help you.

Some women don’t have the strength to work the slide on an auto-loading pistol. For those who do, pistols offer more ammo capacity and faster reloads. Additional controls make pistols a bit more complicated, but good training clears that hurdle.

A mid-sized pistol can easily be carried in a fanny pack. In casual clothing, the pack never stands out and provides plenty of room for gun and ammo. Access is quick and easy, too.

www.concealedcarrymag.com 2�Concealed Carry Magazine


As you look into the display case, the choices can be overwhelming. Remember the goal. You want a gun that will be easy to carry, easy to shoot and provide adequate power to stop an attacker. The place to start, especially for an inexperienced shooter, is with a short-barreled .38 caliber revolver. Revolvers, while they have their drawbacks, are the simplest guns to use should the need arise. There are no external safety levers to manipulate and no magazine to worry about. Simply put, you grab a revolver, point it at the target and pull the trigger. Most self-defense situations happen just that quickly. There’s usually no time to think about anything else. On the downside, revolvers limit you to five or six shots before they require reloading. And reloading a revolver requires more fine motor skills than does reloading a pistol. In a near-panic situation, it can be very difficult to reload a revolver quickly. Then again, reloading is a worst-case scenario. If you really need more than six shots, you are no longer in a self-defense situation; you are in a gunfight and you will need training far beyond that of simply reloading. A revolver will work for almost all self-defense needs. One of the key features to look for on a concealed carry revolver is a shrouded or concealed hammer. An exposed hammer spur can easily snag on clothing or the lining of a purse or handbag. Such an occurrence can cost precious time if you need your gun in a hurry. If you find a gun that fits you and feels good, but has an exposed hammer, ask if there is model with a concealed hammer. If not, you might be able to have a gunsmith remove the hammer spur for a reasonable cost.

The market leader in the small revolver category is Smith & Wesson. The Massachusetts-based gunmaker produces more styles with more options than any other firm. Charter Arms, Taurus and Rossi are also names to be trusted. If you think you want an auto-loading pistol. Start with a 9mm and be ready to shoot it and train with it often. Auto-loading pistols are, by their very nature, more complex. The also offer the option of carrying up to 10 rounds of ammunition inside the magazine. With a few other loaded magazines in your purse or fanny pack you have enough ammunition to get yourself out of serious trouble. But there is a drawback to autoloaders that many shooters overlook: Cocking a pistol requires you to pull the action slide all the way to the rear. On shorter slides, strong springs are needed to keep everything working as it should. Some women simply do not have the strength to operate the pistol efficiently. My wife, for instance, is an accomplished revolver shooter who finds it difficult to handle the slide of most small auto pistols. While all self-defense firearms require training, using an auto-loading pistol effectively requires more repetitions in order to truly master the mechanics and instinctively know where the controls are. Most pistols will have a slide- or frame-mounted safety lever, a magazine release and a slide release. If you are willing and able to train effectively so that you instinctively operate the controls as required, by all means, look into an auto-pistol. Again, fit and feel will be the two most important qualities to look for in an auto-loading pistol for self-defense. The shorter

guns are easier to conceal, but they can also be tougher to hold onto when it comes time to fire. The benefits of an auto-loading pistol include more ammunition and faster reloading. Auto-loaders can be more acc-urate, but at basic self-defense distances most shooters won’t see much of a diff-erence between autos and revolvers. Another benefit is that, being flatter, many pistols are easier to conceal than revolvers of the same basic size. A little Kahr 9mm will give you more rounds in a smaller package than your average revolver. That also means you can move up to larger gun in a larger caliber for roughly the same overall size. You may add some additional weight because of the extra ammunition, but just about every major company is making a polymer-framed pistol these days and they are light enough to carry anywhere. Only personal information and hands-on experience will say conclusively which handgun is best each individual woman. As a starting point, inexperienced shooters should likely reach first for a revolver, even though it limits the shooter in some ways. Those women willing and able to effectively fire a pistol need to remember that faster reloads come at the price of a more complicated firearm. In the end, it is the first rule that applies: The best gun is the one you have when the fight starts. Search out a gun that works for you and train with it until good shooting becomes second nature.

Photography by Kevin Michalowski.Kevin Michalowski is an NRA-certified pistol trainer and a member of the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Department Reserve.

A small revolver like this Smith & Wesson Airweight is an ideal CCW choice because of it’s simple operation and size. The concealed hammer means it won’t snag when it’s needed and the optional laser sights by Crimson Trace provide an added level of security.

www.concealedcarrymag.com2� Concealed Carry Magazine Volume 01 - Issue 04


Duane A. Daiker

4.25 in.

3.7 in.

5.2 in.

POCKET PISTOL WITH POWER

ocket pistols are always a compromise. Everyone who carries a concealed firearm would like to have the firepower of a full-sized service pistol. Unfortunately, neither a Glock 17, or a Beretta 92FS, or a Colt 1911A1 will fit in your pocket. Even sub-compact guns usually require some type of belt carry and a cover garment. If you really want a pocket pistol, you have to be pre-pared to compromise on capacity, or caliber, or both. Until now, true pocket-sized pistols were chambered for .380 ACP or smaller—with .380 ACP generally considered to be the smallest round adequate for serious self-defense. The Rohrbaugh R-9 breaks new ground for pocket guns, putting the well-established 9mm cartridge into a very small package that will easily drop into the average pocket.

R-9 Specs and Function The R-9 is definitely a pocket-sized pistol. It measures a mere 5.2 inches long and 3.7 inches tall, with a slide width of just more than .8 inches. These measurements make it smaller in all dimensions than a Kahr PM-9, and very close in size to a Kel-Tec P-

3AT. The R-9 weighs in between the two, at a very reasonable 14.3 ounces unloaded, with magazine. Unlike many of the guns in its class, the R-9 is all metal construction. The slide and barrel are stainless steel, with the frame made of aircraft aluminum. The grip panels are constructed of carbon fiber—for high strength and low weight. Interestingly, none of the metal parts are made from castings or metal injection molding (MIM)—cost saving measures used by many firearm manufacturers today. The result is a gun that is made of the highest quality materials. The gun operates on a simple locked breech mechanism with a double action only (DAO) trigger configuration. The use of a DAO mechanism permits a design with no external safety—because none is needed. It also allows for repeat strike capability. Each pull of the trigger completely cocks and releases the flush fitting hammer. Rohrbaugh specified this design for the ultimate in simplicity—a “point and shoot” pocket gun. The magazine release is located on the heel of the gun, as seen on many European designs. There is no magazine release button – you must push back the heel release to drop the

P

magazine. Although this feature is not what many American shooters expect, the heel release was chosen to further simplify the design and prevent accidental release of the magazine in the pocket. The R-9 has no slide release lever either. In fact, it has no slide stop. The slide will not lock open on an empty magazine. The omission of a slide stop, as a concession to overall gun thickness and operational simplicity, has become commonplace on pocket guns of late. In truth, these guns are not designed for speed reloads, and the extra step of working the slide to chamber a round from a fresh magazine is not such a big deal. Each gun ships with two high-quality stainless steel magazines. There is only one size—a flush-fit magazine holding six

rounds. The mags have five witness holes, allowing for an easy visual verification of the number of rounds available. There are no after-market magazines available yet, but spares are readily available from Rohrbaugh. The gun comes in two basic configurations. The R-9s (shown in the pictures accompanying this article) has a set of minimal

fixed sights milled into the top of the slide. Although small, the sights are quite decent—reminding me of the fixed sights on a Smith & Wesson J-frame revolver. The sights are stainless steel, in their natural color, and have no dots or outlines. Nonetheless, they are very serviceable. The R-9 (no “s”) model is identical to the R-9s, but has a smooth slide with no sights at all. Although sights are not strictly necessary on a pocket pistol, I find the sights on the R-9s to be very useful and not prone to snagging. For what its worth—I think the sighted model is the way to go.

Length 5.2 in.

Height 3.7 in.

Width 0.812 in.

Sight Radius 4.25 in.

Barrel Length 2.9 in.

Magazine Capacity

Weight (w/ Empty Mag.) 14.3 oz.

Weight (w/ Full Mag.)

Trigger Pull 7.0 lbs.

Rohrbaugh R-9 Specifications

17 oz.

Caliber

6 + 1

9mm

ROHRBAUGH R-9DUANE A. DAIKER

The R-9 disassembled to its basic components for cleaning.



Rohrbaugh originally offered the R-9 in two frame colors – silver and gray. After experiencing some problems with the annodization process for silver, that color was dropped, and all the current frames are gray. The gray frames create a nice contrast with the stainless slide, and work well with the bluish carbon fiber grips—which are also standard across the line. The entire gun is “melted,” with no sharp surfaces, for ease of carry. The workmanship on this gun is obvious. All of the parts fit extremely well, and the operation of the slide is slick and smooth. Everything about the fit and finish of this gun indicates quality construction. My one criticism of the design is that breakdown of the gun could be easier. To disassemble the pistol, you must hold the slide back and align a hole in the slide with the barrel pin. The pin must then be pushed out using a 1/16 inch brass punch. This operation requires three hands to do efficiently. It would be nice if the disassembly could be done without a special tool (or extra hand), but once I had done it a few times, it got easier. Cleaning is very straightforward once the gun is apart, and reassembly is just reversing the process and tapping the pin back in.

It should be noted that the gun comes equipped with a spare recoil spring, and the manual notes that the spring should be replaced every 500 rounds. Although the springs are top quality Wolff springs, they take a beating in a gun this small and powerful. Of course, the R-9 is not a range gun, and many people will never wear out the two springs that come with the gun.

Shooting the R-9 The R-9 is designed to be as small and light as the laws of physics will permit, and still safely contain the pressures

generated by standard 9mm ammunition. In fact, through trial and error, and close cooperation with Wolff Gunsprings, the R-9 was designed with the shortest slide length and spring length that would still permit reliable operation. As such, this gun is a handful to shoot. Rohrbaugh can’t change the laws of physics, and a 12 oz. handgun with a two finger grip will jump and twist when you shoot it. That being said, the smooth lines and the grip design do help considerably. Rohrbaugh consulted with an orthopedic surgeon on its grip angle and contours when designing the gun. There are no sharp edges or sharp checkering to flail your skin. All in all, the recoil of the gun is not painful – but you won’t forget you are shooting it either. Recoil is very subjective, but I would rate it as similar to shooting .38 Special +P rounds in an AirLite revolver, and not nearly as unpleasant as shooting .357 Magnums from such a gun. The sharp recoil, however, is one reason this is not a great gun for beginners. After just a bit of familiarization, I had no problem shooting the gun rapidly or controlling it during rapid fire.

The gun grips well, although only two fingers will fit – as is common on sub-compact and smaller guns. There is no risk of accidentally depressing the magazine release, because of the heel-type release design. The deep contour of the backstrap acts as a “beavertail” of sorts, keeping the hand well below the axis of movement for the slide. There is no danger of hammer bite or slide bite with this gun. The trigger is smooth and polished. The trigger pull is long, but smooth, with some stacking at the end of the pull. The trigger

breaks at a very reasonable 7 pounds. The reset is very smooth and almost impossible to feel. Since the trigger pull is the principal safety device on this DAO gun, the longish trigger pull is very appropriate. It would be quite difficult to fully depress this trigger without a conscious act, yet it is certainly manageable for controlled fire. Target accuracy is not required for a pistol of this type, and a reasonable range for defensive use of a pocket gun probably does not exceed about 25 feet. Nonetheless, a defensive weapon needs to have a certain level of combat accuracy. At a realistic combat distance of 21 feet, I could place 6 shots into the 10-ring of a standard NRA pistol target, shooting without support—as shown in one of the pictures accompanying this article. Given these results, the mechanical accuracy of the pistol and the effectiveness of the sights are clearly adequate for this gun’s intended purpose.

To simulate a combat situation, I also tried many strings of rapid fire—as fast as I could pull the trigger without taking time to reacquire the front sights—at a distance of 10 feet. This tested the ability to control the gun and reacquire the target instinctively under recoil. A typical result had all six rounds in the torso of a standard silhouette target. By slowing down a bit, and at least seeing the front sight on the target each time, the results were significantly better. I also moved a standard silhouette out to 75 feet, and confirmed that I could hit a man-sized target at 75 feet with deliberate aiming and good trigger discipline. My testing involved approximately 250 rounds of mixed jacketed hollow point and full metal jacketed rounds. I did not experience any failures of any kind. When it comes to a premium defensive ammo, R-9 owners tend to agree that Speer Gold Dots, whether of the 115 grain or 124 grain

The R-9 ships in a lockable hard case, with a cable lock, two mags and an extra recoil spring.

Speer Gold Dot 124g JHPs produced this group shooting free hand at 21 feet.

This entire carry package (including a SureFire E1e, Kershaw Random Leek, and leather from K&D Holsters) weighs in at a scant 28 oz.!


variety, seem to perform the best. The R-9 is not a “one round wonder” and was not designed for any particular round, but is reported to have some ammo sensitivity. As with any gun, you must establish reliability with your chosen carry round. Again, I would suggest the Gold Dots, which have proven very reliable. However, the gun is not rated for +P use, so stick with standard pressure choices.

Carrying the R-9 The R-9 was designed to be a pocket pistol, and most people will carry it in a pocket. When carried in a proper pocket holster (i.e., one that covers the trigger, supports and distributes the weight, and disguises the shape), this gun will disappear for most people. Although the R-9 is new to the market, there are already many holster companies offering custom fit leather and kydex holsters. The K&D Holsters Pocket Defender shown in this article is typical of the leather styles available. Other quality makers like R.J. Hedley, Ron Graham and Milt Sparks have similar offerings. For those who are content with a more generic fit, there are any number of pocket gun sized holsters available from Uncle Mikes, DeSantis and others. The R-9 is also a natural for other deep concealment carry methods—such as ankle holsters, belly bands, or below the waistband type holsters. The small size and light weight opens up any number of carry methods that won’t work for even sub-compact sized guns. For those who prefer inside the waistband carry, the R-9 will certainly do that as well, although I would recommend a holster that sits deeply below the belt or has some type of retention since there is actually very little barrel length below the level of the grip to hold the gun in place.

Conclusions The Rohrbaugh R-9 is a fine example of a high quality pocket pistol. The most criticism of the gun seems to concern its price. The suggested retail is $950. Obv-iously, this is higher than similar guns, although it is hard to define exactly which guns compete with the R-9. It seems that the relatively high price is based on a few factors. First, the gun utilizes all top quality and expensive materials, like aluminum alloys, carbon fiber, and Wolff springs. But, it also encompasses a lot of research and development, and is made in a relatively low volume factory with significant hand fitting and finishing. All of this results in a higher dealer price. Unfortunately, the hype around this gun and the relatively short supply also cause some dealers to price gouge…or at least not discount these guns. If the suggested retail gives you heartburn but this gun might fit your needs, take heart—I have already seen this gun offered below suggested retail, and the prices will stabilize further over time. If you can’t justify spending that much on a pocket gun, or if other cheaper guns meet your needs, then the R-9 might not be for you. Furthermore, the Rohrbaugh R-9 is not an ideal pistol for the beginning shooter. This design pushes the limits of a pocket pistol, and embodies many of the compromises common to this particular class of firearm. Pocket pistols as a whole are not easy to shoot, and require practice and training. However, with those limitations in mind, the R-9 may be the best pocket pistol on the market today, and is certainly the smallest 9mm pocket pistol available. This gun will not disappoint you with its size, function or quality of construction. If you are ready to step up to a high quality and truly pocket-sized pistol in 9mm, I highly recommend the Rohrbaugh R-9.

Duane A. Daiker is the founder of the Rohrbaugh Forum: www.RohrbaughForum.com. Duane shoots regularly in club IPSC matches and enjoys writing and researching on concealed carry issues. Contact Duane at [email protected]. Photography by Teresa Daiker.

The very modest Rohrbaugh Firearms factory in Farmingdale, New York.

About Rohrbaugh Firearms After 20 years as a firearms instructor, Karl Rohrbaugh understood the need for a small and powerful defensive handgun. His first step toward the realization of this product was a drawing on a napkin in 1995. His first concept was for a .380 ACP pocket pistol incorporating a magnetic “safe gun” technology. The idea evolved over time, and the introduction of Seecamp’s diminutive .380 ACP model pushed Karl to up the stakes for his gun—he began to dream of a pocket-sized gun in 9mm. The first prototype was shown at the 2002 SHOT show, causing throngs of people to swarm the small Rohrbaugh Firearms booth for the duration of the show. Spurred on by the intense interest, Karl and his family redoubled their efforts to complete the design and begin production of this ground-breaking firearm. After nearly nine years of effort, long hours, and a huge financial investment, the Rohrbaugh R-9 pistols began rolling of the production line on May 4, 2004. The Rohrbaugh Firearms factory in Farmingdale, New York is a small privately owned operation. The assembly of all Rohr-baugh pistols is handled personally by Karl Rohrbaugh and his long time friend and master gunsmith Steve Reuter. All R-9 pistols are test fired by Karl, or his brother Eric, before being cleaned, inspected, boxed, and shipped out. Rohrbaugh Firearms and its R-9 pistols have attracted world-wide interest for their size and quality. However, the story of Karl Rohrbaugh and his tireless pursuit of the American Dream is nearly as interesting as the product itself.

Internet Sources:http://www.rohrbaughfirearms.comhttp://www.rohrbaughforum.comhttp://www.kdholsters.comhttp://www.surefire.comhttp://www.kershawknives.com


CARJACKING COUNTERMEASURES Carjacking, or the violent theft of an automobile, is one of the fastest growing crimes worldwide. A good percentage of my professional confrontations involved the attempted arrest and subsequent gunfights with carjackers. One of my contacts in South Africa reports that it is one of the most prolific crimes in his region, and that no one even bothers to stop for stop signs or red lights over there, as that would place them in a vulnerable position. Although the crime is often completed by way of intimidation, it is just as often accomplished with pre-emptive violence. Like most street crimes it happens very quickly…especially if you’re not prepared. In one case I was involved in, a victim was shot AS the thieves walked up to his Mercedes. After the duo were captured after a lengthy chase, the survivor simply said that they did not have time to negotiate with the victim about his car. So what do we do? Just as with precautions while on foot, we’d like to have a good amount of situational awareness going on so we are able to see it coming in enough time to take action. Just as a stopped car is a tactical liability, a moving car is an asset and a weapon. As long as

your vehicle is moving, or even if you’re stopped, positioned to move quickly, your chances of success against a carjacking are very good. When you park, remember to position your vehicle so you can drive off without any preparatory maneuvers. If you can, I suggest backing in to a parking place whenever possible. When stopped in traffic keep a distance from the car in front of you sufficient enough to be able to see the rear tires of the car in front of you. If you had to accelerate away quickly, know where your car would go. Always look for

escape routes. Also adjust and use all your mirrors to maximum advantage. You should be able to see an entire three sixty with one glance across the front of your windshiled area. The steering wheel is to your car, like a trigger is to a firearm. If your hands are fiddling with the

CD changer, or the cell phone, you will not be able to get out when the getting is good. Keep at least one hand on the wheel at all times. If driving a manual transmission vehicle, stay in first gear. Doors locked and windows up are a good policy unless you have no AC and you’re in Phoenix, Arizona in July…or if the car is full of shooters preparing to run a roadblock under fire. If you, or your passengers are armed, your rules of engagement should be simple, legal, and understood by all. (For more on the use of firearms, specially from vehicles,

Pictured above, the driver appears to be defenseless sitting at the wheel; but in the photo on the left, a pistol held in a Covert Ready position is at hand.

By extending the arm, the driver can deal with any hostiles immediately in sight.

Same goes for hostiles on the passenger side.

into the .308 family of cartridges things change dramatically. Buckshot is fairly worthless against cars. I personally shot a carjacker with a load of 12 pellet magnum buckshot at 7 yards as he hunkered down and fired at me over the door. The majority of the shot pattern was stopped by the thin door of a Fiat Spyder! Shotgun slugs are a different deal altogether! One special group that I have known uses slugs over any and all other weapons when they anticipate contacts in and around cars. If you haven’t given much thought to training in and around the car you spend so much time in, then perhaps you should start. It may be more important than trying to shave a quarter second off your draw or shooting that 50 yard gong.

Gabriel Suarez is an internationally recognized trainer and lecturer ni the field of civilian personal defense. He has written over a dozen books and taught courses in several countries. http://www.suarezinternational.comhttp://www.warriortalk.com


see the Suarez International webiste at www.suarezinternational.com). If something happens and you must react, and if your car is running and you’re not in gridlock traffic, simply drive away from (or over) the threat. If you cannot escape, then a weapon may help to save the day. You should have a plan for the worst case - what to do if you don’t realize you have a problem until there is a gun in your face. You should have already decided what to do. It’s easy to say that you’ll simply get out and let ‘em take your ride. But what if you have family members seated within? What if you have infants strapped to their mandated and DOT approved car seats? Are you gonna let the bad guy have ‘em as well as your car. I can’t decide that for you. But there comes a point where going for it and trying to shoot them is the only real option left.

DRIVE OR SHOOT? Let’s try an exercise. Picture in your mind the tables that are often used to estimate the terminal ballistics of a particular cartridge. Factors like velocity, mass, bullet design all are compiled into some program and a suitability factor is then issued to the cartridge. Now take all of those values and alter them for a different kind of result. Instead of data for a cartridge, input data for a Ford (or a Chevy, Volvo, or whatever). Talk about a Stopping Power Index!! A vast percentage

of those shot with handgun cartridges survive. Almost everyone who is hit dead-center by a car (and run over) does not. That is good enough for me! If your car is still moving, or can get going quickly, don’t worry about guns. Use the car. Another point that the reader must understand is that before anyone will ever get a weapon out and shooting from within the car, the driver would have usually have already performed some evasive driving maneuver and escaped the area. Additionally, I’ve never met anyone who could drive and shoot at the same time without doing both things poorly. Whether you are alone, or working with a group, the firearm picks up when the wheels stop. Another situation that you may face is coming under fire as you exit, or as you are preparing to board your vehicle. I will write about the dynamics of cover in a future article so I won’t spend too much time on it, except as it pertains to motor vehicles.

When using a car as cover, do not get too close to it as

ricochets may still hit you. Stay at least arm’s length away

from the cover. Six feet away will be best. Don’t stick

your hands beyond the cover, and don’t rest

the firearm on the cover itself.

Some police groups advocate staying in the car and using it as cover. This is

fine, but at the cost of mobility. Far better to keep your mobility. So what exactly do rounds do to a car and its occupants? Well, there are no guarantees on anything relating to ballistics, but I’ll say that most pistol rounds are wasted against automobiles. Much the same goes for the .223/5.56 family. When you get

Use your ammo as cover first, and then the car for cover.

In oppressed states where there is no CCW, a knife can be kept handy in the car.

Remember that getting out and fighting outside the vehicle is preferable to staying inside.

You may need to fire one-handed as you exit.

uns are for guys, right?” “They’re my husband’s guns; I

would never touch them.” “Having guns in the house scares the daylights out of me.” “If I need protection, my husband will protect me; I certainly don’t need to know how to use a gun.” “I don’t’ know what gets into some women’s heads, shooting guns around, well, it’s just not safe.” “You know women just aren’t smart enough to use a gun. Or strong enough for that matter; someone could just take that gun away from them and shoot them”. You’ve read similar phrases; you’ve heard similar phrases said by your friends, by the newspapers, the television and the radio. Ben Avery Shooting Facility in Phoenix, Arizona, http://www.basfaz.com is putting a lie to all of those statements through their popular

education and instruction program entitled the Annie Oakley Sure Shots program. And it’s Ladies Only! The Annie Oakley Sure Shots program is sponsored by the Arizona Game and Fish Department. It provides a safe, non-threatening environment where women can be free to learn, develop, and improve shooting skills at their own pace. Although men are discouraged from attending, they may attend with their wives but they are not allowed on the range, itself. A few of the range instructors are male but this is a transition phase until more ladies can take the further training necessary to become instructors themselves.

The night I dropped in on the class, it had almost 20 first-time students plus some return students. It was a diverse group of first-timers with ages ranging from teens to ladies in their later 70s. It also included an instance of multigenerational attendance: a grandmother, a mother and her two teen-aged daughters. Our instructor, Mary Rybka, herself a graduate of the Annie Oakley Sure Shots program, mentioned that this is

Portrait of Annie Oakley. Original Buffalo Bill Collection (c.1902, New York) Photog-rapher, White.

Photograph by Candace Carman www.candacecarman.com



not unusual. Nor is it unusual for a busload of people to come once or twice a month from another shooting center elsewhere in Phoenix, bringing both mothers and often their children to Ladies Night at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility. The initial class is geared as a one-time only class focusing on safe handling practices with specific attention to both semi-automatic pistols and revolvers. In addition, the ladies are provided the use of a .22 caliber pistol and 500 rounds of ammunition free of charge to get them started and the use of the range for practice shooting on Ladies Night. There is one catch. All women must go through the initial basic training before they are allowed to use the range for free with complimentary guns and ammunition. It’s a great deal and the numbers of women on the range that evening illustrated that this setup encouraged not only the very first time user but the weekly user. It’s a social thing, too. Many of the ladies who return become friendly with others who, too, have decided to return and keep working on their shooting skills. From these you have ladies, who like another Annie Oakley Sure Shots graduate, Alice Korsick in the post 50-year age group, has gone on to not only become an instructor but to shoot competitively and win. In speaking with a number of the older ladies about their reasons for choosing to learn how to handle a gun safely and to fire it, I was amazed to hear many of those statements with which I opened this article. For many of these women, the anti-gun media has been the only information source about guns. Guns are bad. Guns are evil. Guns will get up off the table and shoot you. And this conditioning is very difficult to overcome.

Many of the older ladies live alone, having become widows in the last few years. Most of these had had husbands who enjoyed firearms. Some of these ladies had hated and/or feared these guns and barely tolerated them when their husbands were alive. Now, with their husbands gone, they find they do not want to give up one more tie to the man whom they knew and loved. These ladies are smart, astute women who knew that they could not keep a gun around the house without knowing how to handle it properly and safely and how to store it properly. 40 years plus of propaganda about the inherent evilness of this tool makes coming to these classes both a terribly difficult endeavor and a real eye-opening learning experience. There was an internet-based video cam entitled, The Smith & Wesson Cam, which was set up by a man by the name of Robert Frenchu to record the evilness of guns. It

put a gun on a table and focused a video cam on that gun so that everyone could see how it would get up and shoot people. Another video cam, along the same lines, had a loaded gun on a table. Well, after a little while, the owner of the video cam noted that the gun just lay there like some inanimate piece of metal and didn’t do any of the things that the media presented a gun as doing. He added an open bottle of whiskey because, of course, everyone had heard loaded guns and liquor will cause horrible, irrational behavior and he was sure that he would be able to film something now. But, no, the whiskey sat there in its bottle and the gun sat there on the table and did nothing but sit there. For some of you reading this, you may laugh at how ridiculous this sounds, but for many, this is the reality about guns which many people have bought into, hook, line, and sinker. For some of these ladies, coming to

Photograph by Candace Carman www.candacecarman.com


realize that the gun is an inanimate piece of metal, which would not leap off the table and start randomly shooting people, was a difficult experience. Presented with a tool which simply sat there and did nothing without the animating force of a human made some of the ladies I spoke with feel foolish as if they had been the victims of a hoax meant to keep them vulnerable and defenseless. There were many other reasons for coming to the class: curiosity, confusion, fear but the list was as long as the number of participants in the class. Several ladies, young, younger and older, had decided that they would not be a victim whether in their own homes or on the street. For these people, this was the beginning of a journey into self defense training and Concealed Carry Weapons training to acquire the permit to allow them to carry a handgun concealed on their person and to work on their shooting skills, both target and combative. The Annie Oakley Sure Shots program was named after the famous, female shooter Annie Oakley whose family has given Ben Avery the legal right to use the name for the Women’s Shooting program. Throughout her long life, Ms. Oakley’s motto had been one that is as true today as it was when she first voiced it over 100 years ago. “Aim at a high mark and you will hit it. No, not the first time, nor the second and

maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect. Finally, you’ll hit the bull’s-eye of Success.” (Annie Oakley) Don Turner, Chief Range master for the Ben Avery Shooting Facility and creator of this opportunity for women feels strongly that women need their own space with support and training from other women. He has witnessed the damage that long-term negative reinforcement can do to a woman first starting out, intent on learning how to shoot well and safely. Annie Oakley Sure Shots program is his way to enable women to access the information and experience shooting. For many women, once they experience it, they find they love it. Generally, women are better shots than men with finer motor control. Competitive shooting is one avenue which some women explore which provides them with fun, and wonderful opportunities for creative, positive feedback. This is a women’s night out with added support for learning and self actualization. Women with younger children can drop them off next door to participate in a Junior Shooters Program. The media has presented us with flawed data from targeted studies which leads people to believe that having guns around children leads to murder and accidental deaths. However, it has been established statistically that education decreases firearm accidents both for adults

and for children and teenagers. The more the gun is a mystery to a child, the higher the probability that the child will seek to find out about that mystery with the possibility of a tragic outcome. Those children who are taught respect for firearms, rarely become statistics themselves. Night had fallen by the time our class went to our shooting stations on the lighted range. My companion was a lady in her late 60s, early 70s. Her girlfriends at the next shooting station had brought her to the class this evening but she was still terrified and now she was to handle [Oh, my God!] and shoot one of these things. By the end of that hour, she had done it: she had loaded and unloaded a revolver, shot at a target and hit that target. Her smile lit up the night. As we made our way out to the parking lot, her girlfriends gathered around her, happy for her and excited. And so it goes, regardless of age. Try this, it’s fun. Practice this; it may help save your life or the life of someone you love.

Pictured (Left to Right) Don Turner (Chief Rangemaster, Ben Avery Shooting Facility), Mary Rybka (Annie Oakley Sure Shots instructor), “annie” (a visitor from Prescott, AZ), Joni Bidel (Ben Avery Customer Relations Specialist) Bess Edwards (Grand niece of Annie Oakley), Debbie Davison, Angela Reynolds (Coach Women’s Shooting Program and Office Manager)

CANDACE CARMAN - b. 9-11-1952 Canada. A published author and poet, she is a member of International PEN and formerly a member of The League of Canadian Poets. She has published non-fiction articles in Canadian, American and British journals and magazines. She is a published photographer with some of her work online at www.candacecarman.com. During her life she has worked in many different fields from assembly line worker in a wok factory, to piano teacher, to executive secretary to court reporter. She now lives and works in the United States spending much of her time working with the American Disaster Reserve volunteer virtual disaster support group and spending many enjoyable hours shooting her Glock 19C.

Photograph Courtesy of Ben Avery Shooting Facility


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1. Treat every firearm as if it were loaded at ALL times.

2. Always point the muzzle in a safe direction or at something you are willing to destroy.

3. Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot. 4. Always know your target and what is behind it.

CCM “Golden Rules” of Gun Safety


Length 5.2 in.

Height 3.5 in.

Width 0.77 in.

Sight Radius 3.8 in.

Barrel Length 2.7 in.

Magazine Capacity

Weight (w/ Empty Mag.) 7.2 oz.

Weight (w/ Full Mag.)

Trigger Pull 8.0 lbs.

Kel-Tec P3AT Specifications

10 oz.

Caliber

6 + 1

.380 AUTO

3.8 in.

3.5 in.

5.2 in.

s soon as I started writing articles for CCM, I was hit with num-erous requests to review the Kel-Tec P3AT. Okay, sure. I would be glad to do a

review. The only problem is that I didn’t have one. I looked around my local gunshops and unfortunately no one had any Kel-Tec pistols. I sent a request to Kel-Tec and they were more than happy to send me a P3AT for my review. They sent a parkerized version, but there are also examples with blued and hard chromed slides. Some people think that gun companies send specially prepared examples to the gunwriters so they will write favorable reviews. If any gun company does that, it is not Kel-Tec. The example I got looked fine on the outside, almost brand new. As soon as I got it home and had a spare moment, I took the gun apart. I was surprised to find that this gun has been well used. When I say well used, I mean filled with so much gunk that I thought I was looking inside an AR-15.

Whoever the last gunwriter was that reviewed this thing, neglected to clean it before sending it back and Kel-Tec didn’t bother with it either. So this gun was certainly no ringer. Someone email Snopes, because that urban-legend is busted. Right off the bat, I wanted to like this little gun. It is so small, skinny, and light…it’s perfect for a back-up gun or a hideout gun or for carrying concealed when concealment is priority one. The “Pee-Three-Eighty” is only a little bit bigger than the P32, but chambered for the .380ACP cartridge, of which the pistol gets its name.

I found that I could carry this thing in my front jeans pocket without a second thought. For a pocket gun or for a pistol to ride in an ankle rig… the P3AT is ideal. The gun simply disappears when I carried it around doing everything one does all day long from seven AM until well after midnight. Several times I literally forgot I had it on me. I have been carrying it as a backup gun to my Detonics Combat Master. The design makes the P3AT almost completely “slick sided”. There are no control levers or safety levers on this thing. The only mechanism on the left side is little magazine release button. There is nothing on the right side. There is hardly anything in the way of sights either. There is a hint of sights, made flush with the top of the slide and uses a type of “dot the i” set up. It is tiny and difficult to use well, but it is there and it works if you put forth the effort. If this sight system is too alien for you or not as precise as you would like, then there is something for you. www.psenhancements.com is where you want to go online. There you can order something called a P-Sight. It is a drop in

rear sight that gives you a more traditional rear sight. For about twenty five bucks, it is a cost effective and worth while addition. In order to get the most accuracy out of your P3AT, you will have to master this trigger. It is a long and heavy double action only pull with lots of stacking, crunching and enough grit to make an angle grinder jealous. On top of that, there is some over-travel as well. That means after the sear breaks and releases the hammer, the trigger is still moving. Most triggers have over-travel to a point, but this is the first time I was actually conscious of it. This trigger can be improved. This trigger favors a consistent continual pull all the way to the rear until it fires. (Yes, most triggers do, but in this gun it is especially critical if you want to hit your target at all) Once you master the trigger and get used to the sights, this gun is quite accurate. During testing from seven paces out to about fifteen yards, we found it to be more than accurate for the intended purposes of the weapon. I was very pleased with the accuracy. At seven paces I was able to get the P3AT to print a very nice 1.2 inch shot group. I was expecting something in the area of 3 or 4 inches, but I’ll take a 1.2 in a defensive weapon any day. This gun will require a good deal of practice in order to develop proficiency, and that might be a problem with some people. Too many people neglect practice for a myriad of reasons. Time, cost, distance to a shooting range, noise and comfort are all excuses people can use. With the P3AT, you might find yourself making more excuses to not go shoot it. It is flat out not a pleasant gun to shoot. The gun is so light and so skinny that you feel every bit of recoil that the .380ACP can generate, and it can be difficult to hold on to during recoil. You are not going to want to spend a lot of time shooting this thing. I didn’t. I love shooting and will take any excuse to go shoot… but I flat out did not like shoot-ing the P3AT. Neither did my intrepid assistant, Deveni. Her first reaction to seeing the P3AT was “Oh… I like it! I want it for my purse!” “Hey, you have my Makarov.” “But this one is so cute.” Well, that tune changed after only one magazine full of ammo. After firing the gun for only 6 shots she announced that she did not like it and that I could have it. Unfortunately, as a press sample pistol, keeping it isn’t an option. It has to go back. More on this later. Let me clarify something here…Kel-Tec does not make pistols for spending hours of leisure time plinking. If you want that, get a Browning Buckmark. Kel-Tec guns are


intended for a much less jovial purpose… they are self defense weapons designed to disappear when not needed but to be at hand when your chips are down. As big African game hunters say, when you need the weapon you won’t feel the recoil. That is the truth. If you are looking for a defensive weapon, don’t be worried about recoil so much if you are able to handle it. I think most able bodied adults will have no problems. One of the things that impressed me about the P3AT is that it uses a modified Browning action as used in most every full caliber automatic handgun. That means when the gun fires the barrel is locked to the slide and moves back until the barrel tilts to disengage it from the slide. Theoretically, the tilting barrel also makes it easier for the gun to chamber another round as the breach is lowered. It is also in a better line to receive the next round held in the magazine when the slide moves forward again. I say, theoretically, because this P3AT example was not reliable. I experienced repeated jams. I had a couple failures to feed, but more problematic was the failures to extract. A failure to extract is when the fired cartridge is not pulled clear of the chamber. This is perhaps the worst failure you can have in a defensive weapon. Especially in the Kel-Tecs. The Kel-Tec guns do not have a slide lock mechanism to hold the slide back. This makes it difficult to clear a failure to extract. In one photo I have you can see the fired cartridge is jammed up against the

next cartridge. To clear this jam, you have to pull and hold the slide back while ejecting the magazine. Once the mag is removed, you then have to cycle the slide again and hope the extractor will catch the case rim and yank it out of the chamber. Then you can reload the weapon and carry on. It is difficult and slow to clear and almost needs three hands to perform. The gun can be a little slick in the hand if you are sweaty, and since the gun is so small, it can be a challenge to hold the slide back. In a defensive situation, this would be a complete disaster. I had this jam with almost every magazine full of ammo, regardless of the type of ammo I used. Winchester, Federal, Blazer, Cor-Bon… didn’t matter. Before I fired this gun, I cleaned it using Hoppes #9 and Microlon Gun Juice. According to online polls, about fifty percent of P3AT owners have said that they have had some problems. The other half said that they have had none. Because of my experience and those expressed by other owners, I can not give the P3AT

my recommendation. However, I can give it a conditional recommendation. If you are dedicated and serious about carrying a P3AT, these guns CAN be made reliable. It takes effort on the part of the shooter and some faith in the Kel-Tec company. Another resource for Kel-Tec guns is the Kel-Tec Owners Group that can be found online at www.ktog.org.

George Hill is an NRA Certified Pistol and Personal Protection instructor and the writer and publisher of Mad Ogre.com. Visit his web site for more information on Mad Ogre. http://www.madogre.com. Photography by Deveni,

The field stripped P3AT

The gun is so light, small, thin, and just plain brilliantly designed; these little guns warrant the effort to make them reliable. If done so and the gun is proven reliable with all loads to be carried - then this gun gets two big and enthusiastic thumbs up. They have amazing potential for a CCW gun. In short, I like the P3AT. I’m going to keep my eyes open for a good hard chromed example.

ADDENDUM The P3AT came back. I had returned it because I was finished with it for the purposes of the review. Evidently, they thought I returned it for service and worked some serious magic on it. The paper in the box said, “REPAIR WORK ORDER – Malfunction type: Jams. Repair: Replaced slide and barrel assembly, test fired.” I can tell you one thing for sure – they did more than just replace the slide. The trigger is now about (I don’t have a trigger scale here to measure) 6 pounds and breaks crisp and clean. All the problems with the trigger I mentioned before…gone. If this trigger was on a S&W revolver, you would be well pleased and the corners of your mouth would curl up into a smirk. But this isn’t. This is on a tiny little pocket auto. So instead of a smirk you would be wearing a big Cheshire class grin. This is not the same gun I sent back… can’t be. I had to double check the serial number to be sure it was the same gun. Yup, it is. If I was a Kel-Tec owner and this was my gun…I’d be doing a Snoopy Style Happy Dance. The gun was delivered to them, according to Fed-Ex tracking, exactly 2 weeks from yesterday. They blessed this little gun and sent it back over night in only 2 weeks. That flat out impresses the heck out of me. Last gun I sent back to the maker for service, Springfield, took a month and 4 days. This kind of service, if this is what Kel-Tec customers get on a regular basis…raises the bar. Two thumbs up.


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What has always bothered me about debates with anti-gun people is that they always take gun control for granted. “But it’s only reasonable…” they cry, and then insert the most unbelievable suggestion. The Anti-Defamation League’s criticism of JPFO, www.jpfo.org, is a perfect example of this. When referring to the book, “Lethal Laws”, which speaks of the connection between the Nazi Weapons Act of 1938 and the Gun Control Act of 1968, they wrote that the Nazi Weapons Act is nothing out of the ordinary, containing only restrictions as licensing and regist-ration, with every “reasonable” person agreeing, they say. Now, one wonders, how do they define reasonable? I’m pretty much the reasonable fellow

and I disagree completely. So why did they write that? Because they take this for granted. Gun control is so much a part of their “conditioning”, they can’t even imagine a sane person disagreeing with it. So when you start arguing with an anti-gunner, he nearly always tells you to “prove” that you’re right, and you always get into an argument. Well, DON’T! Why should you prove anything at all? Imagine you’re in court and the anti-gunner is accusing you of a crime in order to put you in prison. Now should you be proving that you’re innocent? No, he’s the one seeking to take away your liberty; so, he’s the one who has to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that you are

guilty. We’re really dealing with the same thing here. Gun control is a restriction of your liberty. Why should the anti-gun crowd get away with restricting your liberty without at least proving their idea will save that proverbial “one child”? So relax, take a sip of coffee and simply ask the anti-gunner in question: “If it saves one child, it’s worth it, you say? Well, let me ask you this: you’re out to restrict my freedoms. Now do you have any proof whatsoever that it will work? I mean, gun control has been around for a century, if it worked, we’d probably know by now, right?” That’s it. The guy’s down. You see, Lott and Lambert might continue arguing whether CCW reduces or increases crime till the cows come home, it doesn’t matter. Scientists from around the globe have explored the effects of gun control for thirty years now. And guess what, practically every scientist who doesn’t work for the Violence Policy Center, or some other similar group, will agree that there’s no proof that gun control reduces crime. The only question now is whether it increases it or maybe it has no influence on crime and violence at all, and that question is purely academic. Once you agree that there’s no benefit to gun control, you reach the absolutely inevitable conclusion that gun control must go, because if it has no benefit, but has a very tangible cost to your liberties, (AND an added risk of genocide) then why leave it? Why send jackbooted storm troopers into people’s houses if there’s no positive effect? What is then the justification to all the kitten-stomping, child-burning and so forth? Until now, the gun control crowd has failed to provide proof of their position. Their only support is their reliance on the difference in murder rates between Europe and the United States. You can point out that back when the major European countries had no gun control at all, less than 80 years ago, they had even less crime. You can state that crime in many of those countries is rising at a terrible speed. Point out to them that a UK researcher has proved back in 1978, that the difference in murder rates between the UK and the USA is not the result of gun laws (Colin Greenwood). Then you’re done. There’s nothing else they’ve got; it’s over. One of the reasons they have continued winning for these years is because of an illogical reversal of the burden of proof. Just put burden of proof where it belongs and see their house of cards come crashing down!

Boris Karpa is a writer, translator, system administrator, armourer and civil rights activist from Israel.


In the name of anti-terrorism, craven gun control advocates in Congress such as Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton, John Conyers, Tom (“Puff”) Daschle, Diane Feinstein, Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Charles Schumer, Charlie Wrangle, et al are trying to attach riders to Homeland Security and other bills that would ban gun shows, make it illegal for private citizens to sell their guns directly to other private citizens, and register all of the privately owned firearms in the USA. Obviously, such intrusive measures will add nothing to our homeland security, and would in fact impede citizens attempt-ing to protect themselves from terrorists. But the anti-Second Amendment legislators clearly are not interested in actual security concerns or combating terrorism, anymore than they were interested in preventing crime when they passed the Brady Bill. They are only interested in using the horrific events of September 11, 2001 to advance their anti-gun agenda and their continuing assault on the Bill of Rights, which stands foursquare in the way of their nefarious political agenda. Gun registration, followed by gun confiscation and the final destruction of the Second Amendment, is but the first part of an orchestrated campaign to ultimately strip the American people of the protection afforded by the Bill of Rights. The subversive members of Con-gress who would perpetrate this crime fully realize that law abiding gun owners are the single biggest obstacle to their ultimate plan for a socialist-democratic government (in which, of course, they personally will gain immensely in power and influence while the people they were elected to represent suffer). Although all individuals everywhere have inalienable rights, it has been repeatedly proven throughout history that only those who are armed can ultimately defend their rights against governments and politicians who seek to abrogate them. So it follows that politicians with subversive objectives must disarm a free people before they can usurp the rest of their freedoms. That is the clear intention behind their current gun registration scheme, an intention they have admitted in private,

although they deny it publicly. Lying to the public, disseminating falsehoods, and “spinning” the truth so that it seems to support their political agenda when in fact it does not are the acknowledged tools of socialist politicians everywhere. Remember

that these are people who believe that the ends justify the means, and that there is no objective truth, only whatever “truth” serves their political purposes. It is a viewpoint and tactic practiced and polished to its present perfection in the 20th Century by the Communist and National Socialist (Nazi) movements and parties. Our Founding Fathers were coming at the issue from the other side: their goal was to protect the individual freedoms they had risked so much to secure. They realized that only an armed populace could guarantee the continuation of a free society. They had the foresight to see that someday the Federal Government that they were reluctantly creating might itself threaten the very freedoms it was established to protect. That is why they guaranteed in the Second Amendment the individual right of the people to maintain (own) and bear (carry) arms (guns). It is no accident that the Fathers placed the right to maintain and bear arms (which became the Second Amendment) right after the First Amendment (which guarantees the most basic human rights), and before the other eight Amendments in the Bill of Rights. They regarded it as the second most important right, the guarantor of all other rights. This is clear to anyone who has read the Federalist Papers (written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison). The Second Amendment was primarily intended to guarantee that the people could defend the First and all subsequent Amendments in the Bill of Rights against the intrusion of the federal govern-ment, should it ever become necessary. That is a responsibility that still rests upon the shoulders of all law abiding gun owners today. Now a group of amoral socialists and venal intellectual lightweights in Congress want to destroy the work of intellectual

giants like John Adams, Sam Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, and the others who framed the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution (inc-

luding the Bill of Rights). These socialists don’t accept that you have “an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The

words “Inalienable right” mean a right not subject to the whim of government, a right with which you are born and from which you cannot be separated. They think all rights are subject to their interpretation, and usually claim that “the people” (which means everyone not in the ruling cabal) must sacrifice their rights for the “greater good” (which invariably turns out to mean what is good for the politicians in the ruling cabal). It isn’t only the Second Amendment that the socialists (that is what they are, regardless of their party affiliation) des-pise, they have also repeatedly assaulted the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments in their ongoing struggle to “break” the Bill of Rights. (WAKE UP MAINSTREAM AMERICA, IT ISN’T JUST LAW ABIDING GUN OWNERS WHO ARE UNDER ASSAULT HERE, IT IS YOU WHO ARE IN DANGER OF LOSING YOUR BILL OF RIGHTS.) Ultimately we must answer to an authority higher than the political power brokers inside the Beltway who currently run the Federal Government. This is particularly true at a time when so many individuals of corrupt morality, questionable ethics, and unsavory motives populate the US Congress. Individuals who have a proven record of foolish (and sometimes criminal) behavior, lying to their constituents, and undermining the Constitution they have sworn to protect. In a just and moral government the Senators and Representatives named at the beginning of this essay and their cohorts would be removed from office for violating their oath of office. (They promised to uphold and protect the Constitution when they were sworn in as Senators and Representatives.) Their subversive actions, in the main, are not legally treasonous (the legal requirements for treason are very difficult to fulfil), but they amount to the same thing.

“WAKE UP MAINSTREAM AMERICA”


It is this age old tendency of govern-ment to become elitist and encroach on the rights of its own citizens, well understood by the Founding Fathers, that we as citizens of the United States must find a way to resist today. And because it is the gun owners of America who must bear the brunt of the initial assaults on the rights of all the people of the United States, it is we who own guns who must first take a stand. We must somehow draw a figurative line in the sand. The practical question becomes, how shall we do so? My proposal is that we gun owners adopt a policy popularized (in a different context, to be sure) by Nancy Reagan when she was First Lady. I suggest that we “Just say NO.” NO to gun registration, and NO to gun confiscation. If the majority of the 65 million law abiding gun owners in the United States take the moral high ground and say NO, the government will be power- less to enforce its anti-gun laws on a wide-spread scale. I do not suggest such a course lightly as I am a working class guy, a veteran who volunteered to serve in the armed forces of his country and emerged with an Honorable Discharge, and a citizen who gripes about, but does not cheat on, his taxes. I support my local police and I have never been arrested for any crime (let alone charged or convicted). I like to think of myself as being a reasonably moral person (but, God knows, far from perfect), and (although not a jingoist) as patriotic as the next guy. These things do not by any means make me exceptional, in fact they make me ordinary. I mention them merely to show that I am not by inclination or experience a criminal.

I realize that I am openly advocating breaking the law, should gun registration (for instance) become law. But I reason that such a law is immoral as well as unconstitutional. And it is the duty of every citizen to refuse to obey immoral laws, just as it is the duty of every soldier to refuse to obey immoral orders, whatever the per-sonal cost. It now falls to us to put our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor on the line, following the example of the brave and noble men who signed the Declaration of Independence. Admittedly, those in government charged with enforcing these abhorrent laws will arrest a few visible individuals who advocate just saying NO (perhaps including me) to make “examples” of them. But they simply lack the resources to arrest the biggest part of 65 million otherwise law abiding citizens. And should they try, I have to believe that the majority of mainstream America will finally see and understand what is happening and rise to our defense by electing different politicians who will repeal the anti-gun laws and free those who were arrested for refusing to register or surrender their guns. In urging all gun owners to “Just Say NO” to gun registration and confiscation, I am advocating a form of civil disobedience that I hope will become so widespread and visible that it will cause the opponents of freedom to pause. Make them realize that their own political demise will be the inevitable result of their actions. Perhaps if the gun owners of America take this stand it will ultimately save the Second Amendment, and the entire Bill of Rights, from those who seek to destroy it. I am

hoping that word of this proposal spreads rapidly to, and finds acceptance with, the majority of gun owners in every corner of this land. Understand, I am not suggesting or advocating initiating violence or the use of force against anyone. In my view force, and particularly lethal force, should properly be used only to protect and defend one’s life or property (or the life and property of another innocent person). In any case, speaking only for myself, I have benefited from living in a free country for my entire life, some 57 years as I write these words. Because of that freedom I have been able to vote, run a small business, hunt, fish, travel to foreign lands, and do many things that would have been impossible for a working class person in a society without the freedoms protected by the Constitution of the United States of America and its Bill of Rights. If it is now necessary to stand up for freedom, to take a risk, even to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to help give succeeding generations their chance to live in a free country, so be it. I am pledging on my sacred honor to say “NO” to gun registration and/or conf-iscation. I humbly ask you, gentle reader, after serious consideration and in full realization of the potential consequences, to make the same pledge. And to pass the idea along to all of the gun owners (and other freedom loving citizens) you know. As Ben Franklin said in 1776 when he signed the Declaration of Independence, “We must all hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Photograph by Delta Media, LLC

This article was reprinted with permission from Chuck Hawks. Please visit his web site at: www.gunsandshootingonline.com, an online reference source for information and articles of interest to shooters.


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Concealed Carry Magazine and its publisher Delta Media, LLC are not responsible for mishaps of any kind which may occur from use of published firearms information, equipment recommendations, tactics and training advice or from recommendations by staff or contributing writers. Carrying a concealed weapon can be very dangerous if you are not well trained and familiar with the weapon you carry. Notice: Some advertisements may concern products that are not legally for sale to California residents or residents in other jurisdictions. No advertised or reviewed item is intended for sale in those states, or in those areas where local restrictions may limit or prohibit the purchase, carrying or use of certain items. Check local laws before purchasing. Mention of a product or service in advertisements or text does not necessarily mean that it has been tested or approved by Concealed Carry Magazine or Delta Media, LLC.

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