Range Report 09 Aug 17- Lady’s Choice

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Linda and I made the weekly pilgrimage to Champion Arms but this week we had a purpose- for Linda to test-fire four guns and pick a favorite. She got to shoot the Chiappa Rhino, her Kahr E9, the Para-Ordinance LDA .45 and her newest, a Taurus PT738 .380 side-by-side. It was the first time out of the gate for the Taurus and she was eager to try it.

The Taurus is a very small, flat gun weighing only 12 ounces fully loaded. It’s 5-1/4 inches long by 3-5/8″ tall including the magazine base, which forms an integral part of the handle. The gun fires from a locked breech and has a six-round magazine.

A lot of small .380s can be rather snappy to shoot but the Taurus, while it has a lot of muzzle-flip, doesn’t beat you up. With factory ammunition it was 100% reliable in my hands, but Linda had some issues, which increased the longer she shot. The gun would occasionally either fail to strip the next round from the magazine or fail to fully come into battery. Since I didn’t have any similar problems I think she is having issues with grip sensitivity. She’s going to work on her hand strength, and I am pretty sure this and practice will solve the problem.

My first .380 ACP hand-loads did not fare so well; I erred on the side of caution on the powder charge and they were just a bit too wimpy to cycle reliably. Live and learn, I guess.

Linda had no trouble at all keeping her shots on the paper at seven yards, as you can see-

Lindataurus

Next up was the Chiappa Rhino. Linda adores this gun and has a ball shooting it. She found it very pleasant to shoot with my wadcutter hand-loads. Factory Fiochi 125 FMCFPs were a little stout for her, but she is sure she will get used to it in time… in fact she’s eager to try it with some .357 Magnum loads!

Linda’s 7 yard double-action target

I did a bit of shooting with the Chiappa myself. When I originally tested this gun I found it shot quite low at seven yards, but I have since discovered that it was me. It’s a weird gun, and not just because the barrel is in the ‘wrong’ place. I’ve found that the faster I pull the trigger the more accurate it is! Like I said, weird- but very, very good. I bent the range rules rather a lot to shoot this seven-yard rapid-fire group at a rate of two shots per second-

I also tried a double-action group at twenty-five yards- not spectacular but not tragic for a 2″ barreled gun. I’ll keep practicing…

Linda also enjoyed shooting the LDA .45 and her Kahr, but then she always does. The Kahr remains her favorite- by a narrow margin- but the others? She can’t choose.

I also tried a new load for the S&W .32 Double Action snubby.  This is more like it! The muzzle-blast cracks instead of phfarts and the holes in the target are much cleaner. There’s bit of authority to these rounds, but they are only slightly snappier than Remington factory loads. I like them a lot- these are going to be my new standard loads for this pistol. Seven yards, rapid-fire-

This is a fun little gun, but it’s not an easy gun to shoot until you get used to it. Oddly I tried the gun single action, and I can actually shoot it more accurately double action. I guess it’s just what I am used to.

The successful loads used this evening were:

.38 Special- 148gr. BBWC on top of 3.3gr. of Unique

.32 S&W- 96gr. LRN-FP on top of 2gr. of Red Dot

9x19mm- 125gr. LRN-FP on top of 4.3gr. of Red Dot

.45 ACP- 200gr. LRN-FP on top of 5.3gr. of Unique.  This load was a very good soft-shooting target round that functioned perfectly in the LDA.

All loads use CCI primers.

We had a great time, and I am glad that Linda is coming with me regularly now. Reloading my own ammo has made a huge difference- when we had to spring for factory ammunition it was hard to afford for us both to shoot.

Michael Tinker Pearce, 09 Aug 17

‘Good Cause’ Restrictions on Carry a No-Go

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Can you imagine if you had to show ‘Good Cause’ to exercise your civil rights?
 
“Sorry, you haven’t shown Good Cause why we should allow you to worship as you please. After all, it’s just a matter of which fairy-tale you believe in, and you won’t be physically or financially harmed.”
 
“No, we don’t need a warrant; you haven’t shown Good Cause why we shouldn’t search your home- if you’re guilty that isn’t ‘Good Cause,’ and if you aren’t you will take no harm.”
 
“Sorry, you haven’t shown Good Cause why you need a speedy trial. After all you are getting three hots and a cot for free, not to mention housing and medical care.”
 
“Can you prove you’ll get a fairer result from a jury than from a judge? No? Fine, no Good cause, no jury.”
 
“Sorry, you haven’t demonstrated that you have Good Cause to not answer our questions, and being guilty of a crime isn’t Good Cause because, well, you’re guilty!”
 
“Sure, you think that forty lashes in the Public square is cruel and unusual, but you haven’t shown Good Cause why we should not. Tie him to the post, people!”
 
Sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it? Cleary requiring a ‘Good Cause’ to exercise your Civil Rights isn’t acceptable. Yes, there are limitations to some of these rights in the interest of the public good. You can’t shout ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded theater. You can’t incite a riot. You cannot practice a religion that includes human sacrifice. The police can enter and search your home if there is a reasonable belief that waiting for a warrant will result in serious and lasting harm or death of a victim. Regulation of Civil Rights in the interest of the public good is a long-established principle, but ONLY in those cases where it can be clearly demonstrated that the exercise of that right will cause significant harm.
 
A number of Supreme Court findings in recent years have established that citizens are allowed to own firearms for ‘all lawful purposes, including self-defense in the home…’ and that the words ‘bear arms’ clearly means the right to keep them near-to-hand against need at all times, except possibly in designated sensitive areas like schools and hospitals. Even this has not been held up for Constitutional scrutiny and may eventually be found to be improper.
 
What this means is that if open carry is not allowed the state must provide a mechanism to carry concealed, and if they don’t have such a mechanism they must allow open carry. Of course this right is subject to reasonable restriction; your local jurisdiction can restrict ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’ The have to let you carry a gun, but they don’t need to let you carry a machine-gun or a bazooka. What constitutes a ‘dangerous or unusual weapon’ is of course up for debate, and is a whole other discussion.
 
Denying select civil rights to convicted felons, or persons whose diagnosed mental illnesses have been proven to make themselves a danger to themselves or others would appear to meet the test of ‘in the public good.’ That allowing citizens to bear weapons in public has not, and cannot be proven to be ‘in the public good’ because the statistics simply don’t support that conclusion. States that have enacted Universal Carry laws have not seen any change in the use of firearms in crime so far, and unless or until they do and a direct causal link can be established there is no demonstrable public interest in forbidding the practice.
 
This means that immediately Washington DC’s ‘Good Cause’ requirement for issuing a concealed carry permit is gone, because open carry is forbidden and the combination of these facts means that citizens have no recourse to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms. Other Good Cause restrictions nationwide are likely to fall for the same reason. The effect this will have on society as a whole is unknown at this time, but early evidence is that neither positive nor negative changes will result.
 
I suppose that time will tell.
Michael Tinker Pearce, 4 August 2017

“$700 a Month- Bring Your Own Gun”

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Back when I was mustering out of the army I saw an ad for a small-town law enforcement position. The position was listed as follows- “Town Constable- $700 a month + room & board. Bring your own gun.” That wasn’t bad for 1983, but it wasn’t great ether.
Under the assumption that I would be one of several constables. I responded and they asked me to drop by for an interview. When I arrived at the town I saw it was a single street with 2 gas stations, a grocery store, a farm store, a diner, the combined City-Hall/Police/Fire Station/Public Library (a not very large three-story building.) a scattering of houses and seven bars. Not promising…
As directed I went up to the mayor’s office. Instead of interviewing me he showed me the police station- a room with a reception counter, a desk, a gun case with a hunting rifle and a shotgun in it and two jail cells. A doorway led to a tiny bathroom/shower and just past that another small room with a hotplate, a tiny fridge, a desk and a bed.
“This is where you’ll be staying,” the mayor said. Pointing out the window to the diner he continued, “That’s where you’ll take your meals on a chit and the Town Council will pay it.”
I was starting to get a very bad feeling…
Downstairs he showed me the police-car, a 1969 Dodge Dart (!) that had clearly seen better days. I inquired after the other constables and was told there weren’t any! I, a 21 year-old just getting out of the army with no law-enforcement experience was going to be the town’s sole constable and the mayor was talking like I already had the job! A tiny robot began dancing across my forebrain waving it’s arms and chanting ‘Danger Will Robinson!’
It was very clear what sort of town this was. Every Friday and Saturday night the town’s population would quadruple as every farmer, hand and cowboy for fifty miles around converged on the bars to cut loose and blow off steam. It was also obvious that this place was so well-known that no qualified law-enforcement officers would take the position and they were desperate. Even in my overconfident/still-immortal/testosterone-poisoned state it was clear that I’d last until approximately 11 PM on the first Friday night. If, at that point, I was alive and unhospitalized I would flee for my life ahead of a drunken mob.
We chatted a while longer, with me sweating from more than just the heat, and he asked, “When can you start?”
“I’ll let you know,” I lied. We shook hands and I fled and never looked back. Happily when I did sign on with a small-town three years later they trained me and sent me to the academy- and I had a partner and several other officers to help.
Safe to say this was the first time I dodged a bullet in my brief law-enforcement career.
Michael Tinker Pearce, 01 August 2017