An aptly named county for such a Sheriff

Wright said,"Liberals call me and tell me the chain-gang form of justice isn't working. Well, let me inform you, your form of justice isn't working either."

He said Lance should not have had the right or opportunity to "violate a good, upstanding woman."

***

Wright said, "It's too bad someone with a concealed weapons permit didn't walk by. That would fix it." He said people are tired of doing the right thing and criminals
getting away with their actions.

He said several times, "I want you to get a concealed weapons permit."

It's a start. There's plenty more where that came from, from a Sheriff that seems to have his heart and mind in the right place. He seems to genuinely understand that his town will be a better, safer place if the good folks at large are able to stop scumbags with something that works much faster than a cell phone.

I understand his anger, too; there have been two more attempted abductions in my AO since my last post on the matter, and police don't believe any of them are related. That would mean there are lots of twisted creepys running around, not one. This place is saturated with wonderful kids that need to be protected, and hopefully the community is up to the task.

I suck at Family Feud

Wife, playing Family Feud on her iphone: "What is something China is known for?"
Me, without hesitation and while still typing the last post: "Genocide."
Wife: "Nope. Two answers were the Great Wall and Communism. They gave 'great food' and 'Chinese New Year.'"

My Asian history is a little hazy, but didn't China work hundreds of thousands, if not millions of workers to death building their Great Wall? Apparently 100 people surveyed and I are not on the same page.

Get to the most important part!

A lazer that can pull apart the fabric of space? Woopedee Dooooooo! What a waste. Who the hell cares about destroying anything in space; there aren't any zombies, ninjas, Nazis, or giant insects that I know of. All I want to know is how long before I can mount one on an M4?

Hand cannon gun p0rn!

Five Six shots, five six kills. . . . ?

ETA: Confirmed it's a six shooter!!!

Small pistol AIWB

A couple of weeks ago my brother showed me his Kahr CW9 in its new DeSantis Sof-Tuck, and I tried it out to see how it would fare carried AWIB. I did a hasty shirt tuck, and then my brother took some pictures:




It sure is purdy! Comfy, too!

I could carry that thing all day like that with no problem. In the first picture you can spot the J-hook, and the slight bulge under my belt. Again, I just jammed the front of my shirt into my britches rather quickly for the picture; I'm sure I could do a better job of hiding it if I tried a little harder. Also, the CW9 shot great. I only put a few rounds through it, but it's certainly more shootable than my P3AT.

As an added bonus, I thought I'd include this picture as evidence of why you shouldn't shoot CB Long rounds out of your 10/22:



Oooops.

Immediately after that picture was taken, my brother then noted something I did not know: in order to punch a cleaning rod OUT of the barrel of a Ruger 10/22, you have to remove the barrel. That's not an option here because the barrel is fit so tight into the receiver that I don't think I can ever take it off. I don't know about you, but when I learned to clean a gun -- any gun -- I was taught that it's best to push the dirt and fouling and stuff from the breach end out of the muzzle, and not the other way around. I've also learned that you can count on engineers at Ruger to design shit like they're retarded, so this doesn't surprise me. The only other option is to drill a hole in the back of the receiver so that you can take the bolt out and get a cleaning rod in there, which is what I did.

Awesome job, Ruger. You build a rifle that has to have a hole drilled in it to clean. Morons.

That song is playing in my head again

It's the song they call Tinnitus, played by a band called IneverworehearingprotectionwhenIwasyoung. It goes like this: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

When I was a kid, all I did was shoot guns. All day. I had several counties of woods and fields to wander and hunt, and that was what interested me. Even before I could drive I was competent with big magnum rifles and handguns, and had taken down countless deer with a 7mm Magnum and a .300 Winchester Magnum I borrowed one hunting season. When I was in High School, while all the cool kids were out getting liquored up and partying, I would be proned out on mom's dining room table with a Marlin Glenfield Model 25 sniping crows in the back yard out the back door. It made me a decent marksman, but it also gave me substantial hearing damage.

Back then hearing protection came in the form of foam plugs, or dad's cigarette butts. Either way, to keep the song from playing after you broke a shot you had to completely block out ambient sounds, which was not desirable if you wanted to also be able to hear your quarry. Spending so much time in the woods, I never wore hearing protection at all for more than half my life; and because of that I have recurring tinnitus.

It happens randomly several times a month and usually goes away within an hour or two. Not this weekend, though; I woke up Saturday morning and my left ear was ringing so bad that it made my hearing in both ears almost non-existent, and continues now as I write this post. My wife came home from work and was wondering why the hell I had the TV blaring so loud. I could barely hear it, like I was underwater. My kids would be talking to me not two feet away and I just couldn't make out what they were saying. It gets really bad like this several times a year, and can take a week or two to go away.

In my youth, I knew damn well I was damaging my ears with all the gunfire, but I didn't care because I thought I was tough. Now I see what a moron I was, and I wish I could go back in time and kick my own arrogant ass, then sport the dollar or so for some ear plugs. Idiot. I'm right handed, which means my right ear is turned slightly away from the muzzle when I shoot, so it's the better ear of the two. Both ears are bad enough that I had to get a waiver to get into the Marine Corps and Army National Guard because of a wide range of sounds that I could no longer detect, which shouldn't be the case for anyone under 60 years of age.

These days there are electronic hearing protectors that amplify ambient sounds, but cut out the gunfire. When you shoot, instead of the muffled "pop" that you hear with foam plugs, the electronic muffs let you hear the shot as if it was normal, but your ears are spared only the most damaging pitch. On top of that, they're affordable, so there's no reason in the world not to buy a pair and use them, even in the woods while you're hunting. I noticed that with my cheapo pair of Peltor tactical muffs, I can hear distant sounds clearly as if I were there that I cannot hear without them. They'd be a huge advantage in the woods while hunting, and would also keep the worst of the gunfire from making your ears play that song that you cannot get out of your head, ever.

Horse-playing with your food

I concede that this story is a bit on the strange side, but folks have a right to play with their food any way they chose. The comments at the bottom of the story -- "I'd like to meat her." -- and the ones at ARFCOM -- "I want you inside me." -- are hilarious, though my sense of humor is probably faaaaar more twisted than the average Joe.

Double facepalm

I found two news articles about enacting gun laws in Nevada in the wake of the Carson City shooting last month, and both of them made my jaw drop. You have to be an airhead to write or say some of this stuff, and I thought I would fisk both articles this morning.

First up is this one, and this just begs to be pointed out:

"Nevada National Guard Sgt. Caitlin Kelley, one of the victims in the IHOP attack, responded to the shooting by calling for a ban on assault weapons, which can be purchased without a background check at many gun shows or through private sellers."

It would be better written if it said that most common firearms can be purchased privately, but are mostly subjected to a background check at gunshows. That would at least not be misleading or disingenuous, unlike this:

“I can’t imagine why we are even selling assault weapons to civilians,” said Kelley, who was shot in the foot and still uses a wheelchair. “There’s no reason for an AK-47 or an M-16 or an M-4 to be in a civilian’s home.”

AK-47s, M16s, and M4s are very very rare in the US. The weapon in question was illegally converted to full auto by a man who could have cared less for any law barring him from a tool to kill people; the response to this apparently is to have one of the victims of the shooting tell everyone that psychopathic killers shouldn't be allowed to buy automatic rifles.

Washoe County Sheriff Mike Haley agreed, saying: “I don’t see any logic to having assault weapons available to the public.” But he said banning such weapons would spark a sharp response by gun-rights advocates.

You correctly answered your own question there, chief. Way to go. The "logic" to having rifles available to the public is that the public wants rifles; and for every one scumbag that uses one for harm, hundreds of thousands or more peaceable men and women put them to good use. Because they are desired by far more good people than bad, they are available; and I reckon they will stay available for a long while to the good folks in Nevada.

Going now into a full blown lie:

Semi-automatic assault weapons can easily be converted into automatic weapons — which are the same thing as machine guns — with a simple kit available online or at gun shows, officials said.

Nope. Wrong. Erroneous. How this garbage keeps getting written is beyond me, but to clear things up, you cannot buy "simple kits" online or at gunshows, or anywhere besides criminals to make rifles fire automatically. You can purchase the fire control components to make an AR rifle fire automatically, but they're heavily regulated by the ATF, and so is the receiver that those fire control parts go into. The number of these receivers is finite, and the price to own one is high. I have seen booths at gunshows that will gladly sell you an automatic weapon, legally, which will set you back at least $10,000 for a cheap one, and you will have months and months of paperwork to do before you can own it. You can manufacture your own full automatic weapon in your basement out of scrap metal if you are mechanically inclined, or if you have access to metalworking equipment you could likewise turn some rifles into machine guns. You can also buy all the parts you would need to make a bomb from your local Home Despot, and assembling one would be way less effort than making a semi-auto AK into an automatic weapon, and the killing potential would be much higher. Chew on that for awhile.

This line was my first facepalm:

What happened at the IHOP “was as close to a war as most people will ever come, and they were helpless to defend against it,” Haley said. “But because of our love affair with weapons, we are subjecting the public to this type of violence. If this is going to change, the public has to stand up and demand change.”

This may sound cold, but being "helpless to defend" yourself is a personal choice. Sadly, the National Guard has largely taken away that personal choice by disarming Soldiers who, by their very title, are charged with guarding our nation. I'd say a lunatic shooting civilians with a rifle in an IHOP is threat to [the Nation] that could have been stopped had these Soldiers been armed, or by some yahoo eating breakfast who happened to be armed to protect his or her gift of life. How are you supposed to defend your people if you are not armed? How can you swear an oath to defend a nation and then be totally unprepared at keeping your charge? Does the public really believe that the National Guard is only supposed to shoot foreign enemies on some other soil? How the Sheriff can profess the above and then in the same breath advocate taking away the very tools to allow defense against it is bizarre.

If you really want to do a double facepalm like I did this morning, look no further than the comments to this story. It boggles the mind. A quick Google search then yielded this article that has almost the same shitty verbiage as the first, but with some extra pizaaaaaz!

"I think it's a good question to ask: Why does a typical citizen need to have an assault weapon?" he said. "I think we're at the point where we have to have that discussion. Can we protect citizens without impacting other people's rights?"

Go right ahead and have that discussion, because it's not going to go the way that you want it to go. I have to point out that a man's rights have absolutely nothing at all to do with protecting citizens, and are not measured by need. You have rights; either use them or don't, but get it out of your head that you can protect people by dishonoring them with a violation their rights.

Hey lookie! This article has lies, too:

Seven states have assault weapons bans: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Virginia.

Not in Virginia; although if Old Dominion Dems have their way, they would scoop them up in a heartbeat, which is why it's been noted that we won't be seeing many of them winning elections in the near future.

Despite being diagnosed as schizophrenic, Sencion legally purchased the weapon from a private seller in California.

But you just said that these weapons have been banned in California! How can you say that they've been banned there, and then say that he legally bought them there? Great editing! These articles are the only reason why I bother to read the news.

Tuesday morning weirdness roundup

It's a couple of years old, but check out this 230 lb. wolf that was killed in Alberta. Yikes. Something like that roaming around where I live would get shot to death in a heartbeat.

And in VA news:

A 15 year old is being charged with a felony for pepper spraying a fellow student in school. First, what's the point in charging a minor with a felony such as this? Trying for the death penalty? And "malicious assault with a caustic substance"? Does that mean that a cop can be charged with that if they use their pepper spray without proper cause? Just wondering.

A man tackles a home intruder, causing scumbag's handgun to fall to the ground. I thought that only happened in movies. Good thing scumbags don't often use holsters. Also, how is it that felons keep getting ahold of handguns?

Two attempted kidnappings of young girls in Spotsylvania in a week. Both of these men hopped out of their vehicles and chased the girls for a little ways through their subdivisions. These sickos should be advised that many folks around here have not forgotten the last demented shitbag that terrorized the county, and don't take too kindly to weirdos chasing our youth with box cutters. It will not happen here again.

To boldly go where no handloader has gone before

Last night I was talking ballistics gibberish with a dear friend of mine and fellow reloading addict, when I got the notion to give Reloder 17 another try in .264 LBC. From all I've read, that gun powder won't work in the 6.5 Grendel/.264 LBC cartridge because, it's argued, there isn't enough room in that little case for enough of the powder to push a 123 grain bullet. Well, I think that there is.

Consulting Quickload-the-Wise about this, it warns me of all sorts of impending doom if I try to do what I'm about to do, but I've been there before when I was shooting 208 grain AMAX bullets out of a .308 AR with RL-17 -- I'm not skeer'd. I've found that I can game a certain charge weight of powder and a certain length for loads by plugging in actual data from shooting previously, and it's been very consistent so far. Using a drop tube last night, I easily fit a great deal of RL-17 under a 123 grain AMAX with just a pop or two of crunched powder, and the bullet seated to magazine length. Good to go. Now I just need to try it out.

This is why I can't have nice things

What I initially thought were marks from a kid's washable marker turned out be deep gouges from who knows what after closer inspection under better light.

GGGGGGGRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr. . . .

Whomever coined the phrase "the pitter patter of little feet" with the notion of well behaved darlings frolicking around the house must have been high. My house is awash with the sounds of AAHHHHHGGGGG!!! THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUD-THUMP THUD-THUMP THUD-THUMP WHUMP-THUD-THUMP WHUMP-THUD-THUMP WUMP-THUD-THUMP AAAAAAHHHH WEEEEE AAAHHHGG!!! -- followed by the unmistakable sound of some object being smashed/thrown against the wall/hurled down the stairs.

My poor Oakley's. Its Achilles Heel was exploited by one of my children, whom I have to give some credit to for being able to destroy a pair of sunglasses that are basically indestructible. Then again, my father has told me more than once that when I was a kid, "[I] could fuck up an anvil with a rubber hammer."

The apples don't fall far from the tree.

Arming up for the Exotic Animal Apocalypse

I hadn't paid any attention to the exotic animals running loose around Ohio until yesterday afternoon when I walked in the door. My wife, whom I love more than life itself, was watching the news and they were showing the 18 Bengal tigers and at least one African lion that were killed by various police units in the area, which got me thinking about whether or not this incident will spark new dialog in proper weaponry to deal with the next Exotic Animal Apocalypse.

Think about it. Gunnies the world over constantly prepare for the fictional zombie threat -- which really is just a humorous way of preparing for the end of the world -- and bicker and argue about what firearms would be the best tool to have to efficiently dispatch them; in the wake of this exotic animal roundup I can picture such arguments taking place at my local Ganderous Mountainous. Cops may just start keeping a 45-70 Marlin in the trunk next to their AR that they're probably never going to use, and I bet savy armchair warriors are going to start doing the same.

People generally pay a shit-ton for the chance to fly to another continent and hunt these animals. I wonder if the cops that shot them will have the option to keep what they killed; it would be a shame to incinerate them. I'm sure that the techniques and shot placement(s) were not up to Craig Boddington's standards, but there's little to be said about it considering that the police were properly armed for lighter and thinner skinned animals when they were asked to respond without preparation.

And while we're on the subject, good on them for their bravery. Think about being a cop accustomed to responding day after day to domestic violence calls, shoplifters, and a drunk who parked his car at speed into the first floor of a retirement home, and then getting the call to take down dozens of 400 lb lions and tigers armed with a pistol or 5.56mm rifle. Sounds terrifying to me. One cop even killed a black bear with one shot from his issued weapon. Good shooting!

About those gun free zones. . . .

It's nearing the end of October, and police in Alexandria, Virginia are investigating a death that just may be the city's first murder this year. Alexandria isn't as gun friendly as, say, Floyd county, but it isn't a Gun Free Zone. If you want one of those, you can drive just a couple of miles North across the Potomac river and live in a city with 93 murders so far this year.

If you think making it illegal to own and/or carry a firearm will make anyone safe, you should consider this.

Pain is not always weakness leaving the body

This past Monday was day one of me getting back into weight training after almost a year and a half hiatus. Despite me dropping a third off the weight I normally lift and only doing three sets, all I managed to do was hurt myself. Badly.

Tuesday night I woke up and my arms were aching painfully, with my left arm seized up at the elbow from tightness and inflammation. Wednesday night was the same thing with my right arm, and the pain was severe enough to keep me awake for half the night. In the wee hours of the morning the whole week, including this morning, it took substantial effort for me to put my cup of coffee to my my lips; my arms just won't bend. It takes an hour or two of me working them to get them functional enough to drive to work, and I'm downing Motrin to keep the inflammation down.

Lesson learned: take it easy on the weights when you've been out of the game for awhile.

I'm giving myself the weekend also to recover, and hopefully I'll get a do-over on Monday. Military presses will be with the bar only! I've been wanting desperately to do some shooting, and I've been offered to do a review on ammo that I just haven't been able to get to, but since I've been sick for two weeks now and I'm physically unable to scratch my own back at the moment, it looks like I'll have to wait til' next weekend.

Only you can prevent sawzall violence

EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — Police in Everett, Wash., say a woman is accused of cutting her sleeping husband's neck and shoulder with a power saw.

The story doesn't mention it, but it's apparent that there was no background check conducted on the purchaser of the saw. Anyone can just walk into a Harbor Freight and buy a truckload of these reciprocating saws and slash their husbands. It's best for the children that we enact a law to restrict the purchase of power tools to licensed construction workers so we can avoid this senseless violence forever.

State of the CTone Address: Whatcha been up to?

Ohhh, about 320 lbs., from the looks of it:




As you can tell from my blog content lately, I've been otherwise engaged with things. Cute, needy, and extremely high strung things; they're lots of fun. I've been sick as a dog for over a week now, along with my youngest -- this was a gift that all in my family have shared -- today makes me think that the end of the sickness may be further off than I had thought. It sucks when little kids get sick because they don't understand why they feel terrible.

I didn't get any shooty in this weekend due to sickness, pumpkin patches, the need to have essentials like groceries and diapers (lots and lots of diapers), church, and good friends, but maybe next weekend will be different. In the spring I have high hopes to get into IDPA, and I strongly intend to drag both of my brothers into the mix with me as well. I don't get to spend nearly as much time with my siblings as I want, so that's something I'm going to make time for from now on.

I noticed this weekend the Pocket Carry Competition Association, which seems like an excellent idea, but sadly they don't actually allow drawing from the pocket. Something to do with lawyers or some shit. Because of that I'll have to decline PCCA; but browsing the IDPA rule book hasn't shown any AIWB disqualifiers, so all this time drawing and dry firing with magazine changes at the Huron poster that Mike W. and Nancy gave me will be well spent (no offense to Hurons. I mean well).

I have another Bladetech holster on the way that is better suited for AIWB carry, and also two of each of the Vicker's slide release and Vicker's magazine release so that the Glock 17 and 26 will be the same. My practice sessions have shown that my stupid-high death grip of doom causes me to ride the Glock brand extended slide release with both my strong hand thumb and the palm of my support hand, which makes me have feeding problems and the slide often fails to lock back on an empty mag. The Vicker's parts should remedy that. As far as AIWB carry, it's by far the most concealable way to carry a handgun; and if you have a hankerin' to carry a full sized pistol, you can do that with ease. Try it!

The Mk12 is rarin' to go with some fire formed brass loads that I did up last week; I'll have to do a write up on that sometime as trying to get accuracy from new brass is usually problematic. The 10/22 is ready for action as well, and I'm already on the hook for a range report with pictures when I get that going. With the cost of centerfire ammo being what it is these days, rimfire guns are becoming more and more popular. The potential for lots of affordable shooting in field positions that the 10/22 provides will certainly make me a better shot; with that I often wonder about what would happen if I had the chance to go shot-for-shot with the 12 year old version of myself, and who would win.

I managed to clean out my weight room this weekend, so hopefully the beer gut that I've earned over the last year and a half since I stopped weight training will start to disappear. I'm also looking forward to all the Whey protein shakes with peanut butter that come with lifting! Saaahweeet! With less love-handle hanging over the belt, I'll have more room to hang all sorts of do-good gadgetry and tactical lights for my wife to roll her eyes at me over, and that translates into equipment reviews.

Lastly, I owe some emails and action items to some folks out there. I'm getting to it; please be patient with me!

Free M1 Garands!

They may need a little TLC, but with a great deal of work one of these could be yours!

Now you tell me

Back in June I posted a range report where the 230 grain Winchester Ranger-T +Ps were way too hot for my 1911, and I had an unpleasant shooting session over 70 rounds where I ended up with a sore hand and lots of jams. Well, it turns out that my bitching was warranted, as I came across this thread today from 2009 detailing stoppages and premature wear from the RA45TP in duty weapons; mostly 1911s. To be fair, the commentors with 1911s report that the 230 grain HST +P ammo is too hot as well, which just reinforces my belief that +P ammo in .45 ACP in a 1911 is not needed. Hmmmff!

Ruger 10/22 build

My camera didn't load all the pictures I had, so you won't get to see the barrel bedding part. I'll have to post that another day, but in the meantime I thought I'd show the progress that I have.

The only major component I've added thus far is a barrel made by the hands of Tony Kidd. They come highly recommended on every gun board that I've visited, so I ordered an 18" bead blasted barrel and set about installing it. Here's a picture of the gun with the stock skinny barrel, with the Kidd barrel next to it:



The barrel came in a plastic tube with two rubber grommets on it to keep it centered. One of the first obstacles to overcome is that the stock's barrel channel is cut to fit tight against the skinny barrel, and will have to be relieved to accept the Kidd barrel's .920" girth. I don't have pictures of that, but I used a half-round file and a 1/2" drive socket + extention wrapped in 60 grit sandpaper to open that channel up, and it took considerable effort and several hours to do. It looks good though.

The next thing to do is to add some sort of metal bedding block for the receiver to rest on. From the factory, there is a brass escutcheon with a bolt that rides through it that connects the barreled action to the stock, but the problem with that is that the action rests on wood, and over time the wood gets compressed in that area. Adding a metal block that ties into the escutcheon and floats the receiver above the stock will help in accuracy. I went to the hardware section of Lowes and picked up this furnature T-nut:



It literally matched my measurements within a few thousandths of an inch, so there was little work for me to do to make it fit. You can see in the photo (click to make bigger) the brass escutcheon and takedown screw.

Before installing the T-nut, I trued up the surface of it on a belt grinder before carefully taking off the .030" from the bottom for a perfect fit:



I then had to drill out the takedown hole in the stock a bit so that the T-nut would fit:



I don't recall the bit size, but I used a piece of 120 grit sandpaper wrapped around a brass punch to slowly and carefully open the hole bigger than the T-nut to make room for the JB Weld that I used to permanently glue it in. I counter sank the T-nut about .020" using a 5/8" forster bit, and noticed that despite my leveling the stock in the drill press, the stock wasn't completely true. To counter that, I skimmed the JB Weld under the head of the T-nut to make it true, but it still didn't matter; once I placed the receiver down into the stock, it was only resting on a small portion of the T-nut, and would rock back and forth on it even when I tightened the takedown screw. I took a small piece of 120 grit sandpaper and started taking down the high sections on the top of the T-nut to make the action sit flat, and would occasionally use shoe polish to witness where the contact points were:



I found out that part of the problem was the glob of dried black factory paint on the underside of the receiver, so I sanded that off and made it flat. It was a pain in the ass to keep mounting the receiver in the stock to check for a fit, but I only wanted to do it once, so I was careful.

Once that was done, I bedded the barrel using JB Weld. There are better products to do bedding with, but I had the JB Weld sitting around already. I found the balance point on the barrel and made the bedding 2 1/2" long, using Kiwi shoe polish as a release agent. It worked great, and when I place the barreled action in the stock, it rests solid on the steel T-nut and the bedding.

A glamour pic:



The scope on the beasty is the Burris 2-7x35 Fulfield II Tactical that I took off the AR-from-DPMS, and the rings are Brownell's low aluminum rings. That's the second pair of Brownell's rings that I've ordered -- the first pair were steel -- and I have to say that they are of excellent quality. I can't remember off the top of my head who makes the aluminum 1913 rail. The next step is to buy a trigger for it. As far as stock 10/22 triggers go, this one is among the best that I've tried, but nowhere near where I want it to be. I'll have to post the barrel bedding pictures when I do a range report; hopefully sooner than later.

Reality check

So you and your wife are walking back from charity work at the local homeless shelter one night and a thuggish looking scumbag with "FELON" tattooed on his forehead in Arial Bold font jumps out from an alley way 15 yards away, full stop, holding a knife in one hand and a box of condoms in the other. He yells "This is a stickup and a rape and a murder! Give me your wife, your money, and your car keys or I'll kill you both dead with this here bowie knife!!". . . .allowing you ample time to think and draw your sidearm and get into that Isosceles stance you learned about on the range. Scumbag takes a single step offering you the chance to blow him away with your fang-face patriot-ninja-warrior ammo and save the day.

Sadly, lethal force encounters don't usually look like that as far as I can tell. Here is a real example of a lethal force encounter that fortunately resulted in not only no fatalities, but justice served as the scumbag in question went back to prison for the rest of his life ***Warning: Graphic pictures near the end of the thread*** -- My CCW Shooting AAR.

The victim was maimed forever from the encounter, and the scumbag was dumb enough to leave a prominent blood trail from the crime scene to his bed, complete with bloody weapon containing empty shell casings. All in all, though, it could have been a lot worse. The victim was never charged with any crime, got his weapon and personal belongings back (after two years! Yikes!), and mostly recovered. Some of the things that stand out from this story to me are that this is a specific example of a grip safety causing a defensive weapon not to fire at the precise moment it needs to, and also that appendix carry would have not only allowed a more covert draw by the victim, but also may have prevented the scumbag from discovering the empty holster, thus arousing suspicion. Also, even though it wasn't needed in this fight, a spare loaded magazine is definitely something that you should carry.

I post this story because there are armed folks out there -- good people, mind you -- that it seems can't wait to get into a situation where they take out the bad guy and save the day, going home victorious knowing they did the world a service. There are those also who are cluelessly armed and under prepared. This story is a stark reminder of why I try my best to live a life of avoidance, de-escalation, and deterrence in order to not end up in a situation like this one, but if trouble does find me, that I'm prepared and focused.