The gun was an odd-ball – a Smith & Wesson Model 60 with a 3″ barrel. You can walk into just about any gun shop and find some kind of holster for the standard 2 1/8″ barrel J-frames, but for a 3-incher? Forget it. And further, I had a particular set of specifications in mind for this holster: an IWB, an “ear,” straps for a 1 ¼” belt with brass snaps rather than screws, all leather with no plastic, and a steel-reinforced mouth to stay open for easy re-holstering. I did a lot of surfing and found offerings from a number of leather makers, but none had all of the features I wanted for the gun I had in mind. I remembered an article I had read about Rudy Lozano of Black Hills Leather. I went to his web site, and found a holster that was very close to what I wanted, the BH76. I called Rudy and told him what I wanted and asked him if he would build it. Rudy answered that not only would he build the holster, but that I would receive a holster of exceptional quality and he personally guaranteed my 100% satisfaction. There was a confidence in his voice that told me this wasn’t empty bravado. I wasn’t disappointed.

The holster was delivered in about four weeks. I called Rudy when the holster hadn’t arrived in three weeks, and he explained that there had been unusually wet weather in Laredo (hurricane season in the Gulf) and it had slowed the curing process in the leather. I was willing to wait but it was hard.

It’s cool to know that I have a unique creation from a master craftsman. I doubt that he gets a multitude of orders for IWB’s for 3″ Model 60’s. But in doing so, I got a holster built exactly to my specs for my odd-ball gun. The holster is substantial and solid with a chestnut brown finish and brass strap snaps. The leather on the main body of the holster is 1/8″ thick. The holster is also lined. It has a tensioning screw just beyond the point that you would find if you drew intersecting lines from the front of the frame and the top of the trigger guard. The trigger is completely shielded, and the “ear,” the flange of leather extending up from the mouth between the gun and your body, extends exactly to the point where the grip begins so that no metal can touch your body. With this gun, that means the cylinder latch is shielded from digging into your skin.

Black Hill’s specialty is cowboy leather, and this holster retains a bit of that ambience. Like western holsters, this one is not excessively boned and molded to every little contour of the gun. It is smooth. Of course, this is preferable for a holster that spends its life inside your pants. A lot of molding on an IWB would just create pressure and abrasion points.

This is a solid holster that is capable of standing up to extended heavy duty. It’s a bit heavy compared to some of my other IWB holsters, but that doesn’t bother me. The weight comes from the solid construction, and so far it has proven to be a very comfortable holster to wear. In my opinion, IWB’s aren’t really “comfortable” compared to “outside-the-waistband” belt holsters, but among the IWB’s that I have tried this one is the most comfortable and stable. It doesn’t shift or rock around. Some of this has to do with the fact that most IWB’s with belt straps are built for 1½” belts and I wear 1¼” belts, so I had this one built to a 1¼” belt. Having the straps fit to the belts you actually wear makes the holster much steadier. I’m sure the “toe” flange aids in stability also. This holster stays where you put it, even after repeated standing up and sitting, getting in an out of the car, and bending over.

It’s a no-nonsense holster with just a touch of cowboy flavor that fits the gun like a glove. I like it, and I like Rudy Lozano. He’s a real gentleman and a pleasure to deal with.

http://www.blackhillsleather.com/main.html

Rick Breneman

This style of holster, with a belt loop and trailing belt slot, is so popular that almost all major manufacturers have a variation. The original holster of this type was perhaps the Milt Sparks 55BN; the BN being Bruce Nelson, who also designed the Summer Special made famous by Sparks. Called the Vertical Scabbard by Kramer, the Sport by FIST, the Avenger by Galco, Bianchi’s version was developed with input from famed pistolero Charles Askins.

What makes the Askins Avenger distinctive is its fairly extreme “FBI cant”. While most makers put the slot, designed to pull the butt of the gun into the body, behind the trigger guard, the Bianchi version has the slot beneath the guard, making the gun ride quite high, and (in my opinion) better-concealing a large gun.

I’ve been using my holster for three and a half years in IPSC Limited competition, and it is still looking good. The stitching is still tight, and the leather has not stretched or sagged out of shape. Matched to 1 3/4″ Bianchi belt, the holster is tight and secure.

My one complaint is that the unlined interior has no formed sight channel, which meant that the first few dozen draws revealed a blob of leather fuzz on the front sight. With use, this trait has disappeared; but it is perhaps this problem that caused Bianchi to drop the #4 holster from the line, and continue with only the lined #4L version.

The Avenger is truly a behind-the-hip design, the cant requiring that the holster be worn over the hip pocket to maximize both concealment and draw speed. If you’re looking for a high quality holster for range or concealed carry use, that comfortably and discreetly accommodates a full-size pistol, try the Bianchi Askins Avenger.

by L. Neil Smith

Politicians are a demonstrably unbright lot.

Take Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I’ve known since I was a high school senior (a thousand years ago) and read George N. Crocker’s Roosevelt’s Road to Russia that FDR was a few crayons short of a box. Reprints of John T. Flynn I saw recently portray him as having had intelligence and character remarkably like those of Bill Clinton.

If you took all the American presidents of the 19th and 20th centuries (the current occupant of the White House being no exception) and threw them in a pond, you could skim stupid for decades.

The phenomenon isn’t limited to presidents. Our political system selects for stupidity — along with evil and insanity — and you can see it work from the Senate and the Supreme Court right down to your friendly neighborhood silly council. Politicos with an IQ higher than an artichoke may be numbered on the fingers of one elbow.

Not to put too dull a point on it, stupid people do stupid things. The total number of stupid things politicians have done, just over the past two centuries, just in the United States, undoubtedly exceeds the maximum number of subatomic particles possible in the universe.

I was reminded of all this the other day when I saw someone light his cigarette with a Zippo. The familiar metallic clink and whiff of lighter fluid were unmistakable, and brought memories back to a former smoker vastly more pleasurable than those who’ve never smoked might expect. What it specifically reminded me was that technical progress, while very good and highly important, isn’t always necessary.

Nothing could be simpler than a Zippo. It’s a business card sized metal box half an inch thick, stuffed with cotton, into which a wick is inserted. The box is spring-hinged, so it stays closed in your pocket. The wick emerges through a partition between the two parts of the box in just the right place for sparks from a hardened steel thumb-wheel and a tiny cylindrical spring-fed “flint” to set it alight when there’s enough fuel in the cotton-batting reservoir.

Four moving parts (lid, wheel, flint, spring). Pretty neat. Disposable Bic lighters put less weight in your shirt pocket and are tidier (Zippos will leak now and again) but they lack romance.

Now, I pretend to hear you ask, what does this have to do with the stupidity of politicians? Another elegant, minimalist invention the 20th will someday be famous for is the .45 caliber Colt Automatic Pistol Model of 1911A1. As sprung from the mind of John Moses Browning (with a little help from the US Army), it’s the perfect size, shape, and weight to do what it’s meant to do, which is to protect its holder at the “last ditch” from becoming one with the earth.

The 1911, as we call the big roscoe with fond familiarity, did the job remarkably well for 75 years (How many other bits of military junk have stayed in the inventory that long?) until the mid-1980s, when it was replaced by a travesty of European pseudomodernity and corrupt wheeler-dealering, an aluminum-framed small-caliber Italian popgun that’s now being replaced, itself. The 1911 was even beginning to be replaced in the hearts and minds of civilian shooters, but it now appears — thanks to Congress — that it won’t happen anytime soon.

During the darkest days of the Waco Willie Administration (which often look sunny and bright, compared to the present incumbency) a number of gun laws were passed with the eager, enthusiastic, and utterly indispensable assistance of the Republican Party.

The most absurd of those laws placed a limit on the number of cartridges that might fit into the magazine of various pistols, rifles, and shotguns. At the time, I explained to my readers that politicians are criminals themselves. They subsist on money stolen from the Productive Class, exactly like common muggers and burglars.

People tend to identify more closely with those who earn their living the same way than they do with family, country, race, or religion. It’s long been obvious that politicians identify with freelance criminals and wish them well. They don’t want their serfs — meaning you and me — injuring or killing their fellow thieves.

Trouble, these days, usually comes in packs. It sometimes requires a pistol magazine of adequate capacity to deal with them, especially if you’ve been persuaded to adopt one of the smaller, weaker calibers.

Confronted by six or eight of what Jeff Cooper calls street goblins, you may need all fourteen, sixteen, or eighteen cartridges in your Browning High Power, S&W WonderNine, or Glock.

But no. Somebody might get hurt — your continued life and health don’t count — if you could adequately defend yourself, and Congress was determined to put a stop to it by limiting the Productive Class to ten rounds, despite clear Constitutional obstacles, and at a moment of technical advance when the latest magazines held more and more shells all the time — meaning that an ordinary man or woman or capable child could walk anywhere, unafraid of whole hordes of goblins. Such an idea, of course, was intolerable. To politicians.

After the law was passed — Brady Bill-Bob Dole allowed Clinton to evade normal Senate procedures to railroad it through — a funny thing began to happen. Two funny things, actually.

First, some guns got smaller. This was already being driven by the licensed concealed weapons trend. Civilian gun-toters wanted smaller, more easily-concealed weapons. (Some licensing authorities threatened them with revocation, confiscation, and jail if anybody saw their nasty old guns — another argument against putting up with nonsense like licensing. Or authorities.) Why wrap a fifteen-round gun around ten rounds of ammo, when you can cut off everything you don’t really need and make everybody happy?

Glock, Para-Ordinance, and nearly every other handgun manufacturer started making cut-down versions of their earlier weapons. Other companies began designing tiny weapons from scratch. KelTek has an amazing .32 auto not much bigger than a Bic, and lighter than a Zippo.

As guns shrink, some magazine grow. My seven-round 1911 magazines now hold eight rounds, thenks to engineering ingenuity, and I have extra-long ten-rounders I sometimes carry as spares.

At the same time, self-defense cartridges started getting bigger. The twenty-year trend toward twenty-shot 9mms was over. The venerable 1911A1 is back again, bigger than ever. If you’re limited in numbr, why not use the largest, most powerful cartridge you can?

Smaller guns, larger, more powerful cartridges. If there are, in fact, advocates of victim disarmament who sincerely wish to reduce the carnage they foolishly imagine is caused by private weapons ownership, how does this new trend, driven by incredibly stupid legislation, serve them? All it means is that gunfolk have new toys to play with.

Poor advocates of victim disarmament. They can’t even cry out, in despair, “Outlaw them all!” England and Australia tried that; they now have the highest violent crime rates in the world. And thanks to the Internet, everybody knows it.

My suggestion? Recognize that human ingenuity will get around stupid politicians every time. People had plenty to drink during that prohibition — some were drinking for the first time because they were pissed off. After a century of making war on drugs, there are now more drugs available, and of more different kinds, than ever.

The Age of Prohibition is collapsing inward on itself (which is why it has to be propped up by a phony war against terrorism). It’s time for an Age of Repeal, during which politicians will be judged by how many stupid laws they can get rid of each session. The good news is that the current occupant of the White House, the head of the Stupid Party himself, is doing more to discredit the notion, that government can act any way but stupidly, than any previous president.

The Evil Party will help him. All we need do is stand and watch.

And point.

And laugh.

On the Record:

• Kerry voted for the assault weapons ban contained in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1993, restricting the manufacture, transfer, and possession of certain semiautomatic assault weapons and large capacity ammunition feeding devices. On November 17, 1993, the amendment passed 56-43.
• Kerry voted for the Brady Bill in November 1993. The legislation required a 5-day waiting period on handgun purchases, to allow local officials to conduct a background check. The bill passed the House on November 10 and on November 20, 1993, the bill passed the Senate 63-36.
• Kerry voted against the motion to table (defeat) the Boxer/Kohl Amendment, requiring that all handguns sold in the United States be sold with a child safety lock. On July 21, 1998, a motion was made to table the amendment. The motion to table passed 61-39.
• Kerry voted against the Craig Amendment that would have required that gun stores have trigger locks in stock and available for sale. The vote on the Craig amendment was immediately prior to a vote on the stronger Boxer/Kohl amendment to require all handguns sold in the United States be sold with a child safety lock. The Craig Amendment was an effort to undercut support for the stronger Boxer/Kohl amendment. On July 21, 1998, the amendment passed 72-28.
• Kerry voted against the Large Ammunition Magazine Ban Amendment to ban the importation of large capacity ammunition feeding devices. On July 21, 1998, a motion was made to table the amendment. The motion to table passed 54-44.
• Kerry voted against the motion to table (defeat) the Child Access Prevention Amendment to increase penalties for individuals who permit juvenile access to firearms. On July 21, 1998, a motion was made to table the amendment. The motion to table passed 69-31.
• Kerry voted for the Lautenberg Gun Show Amendment to the Violent and Repeat Juvenile Offender Accountability and Rehabilitation Act of 1999 to close the loophole allowing individuals to sell guns from their private collections at gun shows without completing background checks for purchasers. On May 20, 1999, with Vice President Al Gore casting the tie-breaking vote, the amendment passed 51-50.
• Kerry voted against the motion to table (defeat) the Ban on Unlicensed Sale of Guns on Internet, an amendment to the Violent and Repeat Juvenile Offender Accountability and Rehabilitation Act of 1999 banning the unlicensed sale of guns on the Internet by requiring websites clearly designed to sell guns to be federally licensed firearms dealers and to comply with all such federal laws. A motion was offered to table the amendment. On May 14, 1999, the motion to table passed 50-43.
• Kerry voted against the motion to table (defeat) Large-Capacity Clips, an amendment to the Violent and Repeat Juvenile Offender Accountability and Rehabilitation Act of 1999, to ban the importation of large-capacity magazines (ammunition feeding devices that can hold more than ten rounds). A motion was offered to table the amendment. On May 13, 1999, the motion to table failed 39-59.
• In 2000, Kerry signed the Democrat manifesto, “A New Agenda for the New Decade,” which, among a host of other things, calls for the development and use of “smart gun” technology to prevent use of firearms by unauthorized persons.

By Syd

I have been a gun owner in my own right for 45 years, having received my first firearm, a Winchester Model 94 30-30 at the tender age of nine years old. In all of those years, I have maintained constant surveillance on my firearms for that dreaded moment when one would come to life, fire several rounds by itself and thereby commit an act of “gun violence.” Stay tuned, but it hasn’t happened yet. People, animals, perhaps even storms could be said to commit acts of violence. They have volition, the capacity to act. Guns just sit there inert until a human agent possessed of volition picks them up and does something with them.

“Gun violence” is a misnomer. Guns do not do violence. People with guns certainly have the ability to do violence. I suppose an ape could pick up a gun and manage to make it go off, but would that be the “gun violence” we hear so much about? No, not really. The ape would have no understanding of what was happening. “Gun violence” occurs when a human being picks up a gun and uses that tool to injure another human being. The human being rather than the hardware is the agent in the event, so, if we wanted to speak accurately, we would have to call this “human being violence.”

Am I straining at gnats here? Yeah, just a bit, and this certainly isn’t a new revelation, but it demands repeating because the media and the gun prohibitionists continue to mistakenly characterize a current societal problem in the United States as “gun violence.” This is a form of scape-goating. Guns may make violence easier to commit (as do knives, bats, rocks and sticks), but guns are incapable of violence. My grandfather was fond of saying, “’Tis a poor workman who blames his tools.” Blame the gun. It can’t defend itself. That way, we don’t have to blame ourselves, the human beings who are actually responsible for the violence. A crisis of violence does indeed exist, especially in the inner cities, but not exclusive to them. Philadelphia has suffered 275 homicides this year. Numbers like that create a lot of pressure on lawmakers to do something, anything, even if it’s wrong, so that they look like they’re doing something and addressing the problem. After all, elections are coming up, don’t ya’ know. The net result is usually more useless gun laws that do nothing toward curbing crime, but make life much more difficult for law-abiding gun owners.

The implied message of “gun violence” is that if we could just make the guns go away, the violence would stop. This is a false hope and an intellectual idol. The basic premise, that we could make the guns go away, is unreasonable and unrealistic, and the conclusion, that violence would cease if this science fiction scenario could be accomplished, is simply erroneous. Anyone who has lived long enough to get into a sandbox squabble knows you don’t need a gun to do violence.

Into this mix of mayhem and misunderstanding come groups like the Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center touting their tired, failed agenda as salvation. They dance on the graves of the victims when they exploit every crime as some kind of support for their political agenda, and often the cases they cite actually prove the opposite – that less gun restriction might have enabled citizens to defend themselves instead of being slaughtered like sheep. “Ban concealed carry… One gun a month… Ban .50 caliber sniper rifles… Resurrect the Clinton Assault Weapons Ban…” You know the drill. As if any of these things had any relevance to inner city gun crime. You could do all of those things on their gun prohibition agenda and not impact violent crime one iota, except perhaps to make it worse.

The gun rights people respond with our predictable set of clichés: “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people,” “Criminal control; not gun control.” While I am more sympathetic to this line of reasoning, I have to admit that these old chestnuts are starting to sound hollow to me. I believe that when we rely on these old truisms and clichés without reflection, especially when we throw in a couple of quips about “improving the gene pool,” we risk being seen as callous and indifferent to the carnage being wrought in many of our cities. The perception of indifference will not serve us well in the political arena in years to come.

Right now, there are several groups trucking around the Philadelphia area that call their outfits names like “The Coalition to Stop Handgun Violence.” I’m sure that most of them have good intentions but they’re wasting their time with their rallies and bus rides to Harrisburg. I would feel a lot better about them if they would name their organization something like “The Coalition to Stop Senseless Human Being Violence,” and spend some time trying to understand the reasons and root causes that lead so many young inner-city males to kill each other.

I think that both gun rights and anti-gun people would agree that senseless human being violence is a bad thing and should be stopped or curtailed as soon as possible. Imagine if we spent just one tenth of the energy that we devote to beating up on each other over hardware to the task of identifying and fixing the root causes of the violence that plagues our cities. What would happen if we began to look at the issues of joblessness, lack of self esteem, the collapse of social values and pathological self-centered behavior? We might actually accomplish something. What will you bet me that it never happens?

During the time I have been writing this, I have kept one eye on the .45 automatic pistol sitting on my desk. It hasn’t budged.

“The media insist that crime is the major concern of the American public today. In this connection they generally push the point that a disarmed society would be a crime-free society. They will not accept the truth that if you take all the guns off the street you still will have a crime problem, whereas if you take the criminals off the street you cannot have a gun problem.” – Jeff Cooper

“We are steadily asked about the age at which to teach young people to shoot. The answer to this obviously depends upon the particular individual; not only his physical maturity but his desire. Apart from these considerations, however, I think it important to understand that it is the duty of the father to teach the son to shoot. Before the young man leaves home, there are certain things he should know and certain skills he should acquire, apart from any state-sponsored activity. Certainly the youngster should be taught to swim, strongly and safely, at distance. And young people of either sex should be taught to drive a motor vehicle, and if at all possible, how to fly a light airplane. I believe a youngster should be taught the rudiments of hand-to-hand combat, unarmed, together with basic survival skills. The list is long, but it is a parent’s duty to make sure that the child does not go forth into the world helpless in the face of its perils. Shooting, of course, is our business, and shooting should not be left up to the state.”

“It is interesting to hear certain kinds of people insist that the citizen cannot fight the government. This would have been news to the men of Lexington and Concord, as well as the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan. The citizen most certainly can fight the government, and usually wins when he tries. Organized national armies are useful primarily for fighting against other organized national armies. When they try to fight against the people, they find themselves at a very serious disadvantage. If you will just look around at the state of the world today, you will see that the guerillero has the upper hand. Irregulars usually defeat regulars, providing they have the will. Such fighting is horrible to contemplate, but will continue to dominate brute strength.”

“It has never been clear to me why increased magazine capacity in a defensive pistol is particularly choice. The bigger the magazine the bigger the gun, and the bigger the gun the harder it is to get hold of for people with small hands. And what, pray, does one need all those rounds for? How many lethal antagonists do you think you are going to be able to handle? Once when Bruce Nelson was asked by a suspect if the thirteen-round magazine in the P35 was not a big advantage, Bruce’s answer was, “Well, yes, if you plan to miss a lot.” The highest score I know of at this time achieved by one man against a group of armed adversaries was recorded in (of all places) the Ivory Coast! There, some years ago, a graduate student of mine laid out five goblins, with four dead and one totaled for the hospital. Of course there is the episode of Alvin York and his eight, but there is some dispute about that tale. (If you read it over very carefully you will see what I mean.) Be that as it may, I see no real need for a double column magazine. It is all the rage, of course, and like dual air bags, it is a popular current sales gimmick.”

“One cannot legislate the maniacs off the street… these maniacs can only be shut down by an armed citizenry. Indeed bad things can happen in nations where the citizenry is armed, but not as bad as those which seem to be threatening our disarmed citizenry in this country at this time.”

“Owning a handgun doesn’t make you armed any more than owning a guitar makes you a musician.”

“Remember the first rule of gunfighting… ‘have a gun.’”

“The police cannot protect the citizen at this stage of our development, and they cannot even protect themselves in many cases. It is up to the private citizen to protect himself and his family, and this is not only acceptable, but mandatory.”

“The will to survive is not as important as the will to prevail… the answer to criminal aggression is retaliation.”

“Safety is something that happens between your ears, not something you hold in your hands.”

“All the people constitute the militia — according to the Founding Fathers. Therefore every able-bodied man has a duty under the Constitution to become part of the “well-regulated” militia, specifically to understand and perform well with the individual weapon currently issued to the regular establishment. . . . Thus one who has not qualified himself with the M-16 may not be considered to be a responsible citizen.”

On Federal Law Enforcement Officials:
“Already a couple of the faithful have sent in checks for a foundation memorial to the innocents who perished at the hands of the ninja at Waco. … I have been criticized by referring to our federal masked men as “ninja” … Let us reflect upon the fact that a man who covers his face shows reason to be ashamed of what he is doing. A man who takes it upon himself to shed blood while concealing his identity is a revolting perversion of the warrior ethic. It has long been my conviction that a masked man with a gun is a target. I see no reason to change that view.”

“One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that ‘violence begets violence.’ I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure—and in some cases I have—that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.”
– Cooper vs. Terrorism

“The purpose of the pistol is to stop a fight that somebody else has started, almost always at very short range.”

“Bushido is all very well in its way, but it is no match for a 30-06.”

“A free man must not be told how to think, either by the government or by social activists. He may certainly be shown the right way, but he must not accept being forced into it.”

“The conclusions seem inescapable that in certain circles a tendency has arisen to fear people who fear government. Government, as the Father of Our Country put it so well, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. People who understand history, especially the history of government, do well to fear it. For a people to express openly their fear of those of us who are afraid of tyranny is alarming. Fear of the state is in no sense subversive. It is, to the contrary, the healthiest political philosophy for a free people.” – Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries, vol. 4, no. 16, December, 1996

“Hoplophobia is a mental disturbance characterized by irrational aversion to weapons, as opposed to justified apprehension about those who may wield them.” – To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth

“The media insist that crime is the major concern of the American public today. In this connection they generally push the point that a disarmed society would be a crime-free society. They will not accept the truth that if you take all the guns off the street you still will have a crime problem, whereas if you take the criminals off the street you cannot have a gun problem.”

“In the larger sense, however, the personal ownership of firearms is only secondarily a matter of defense against the criminal. Note the following from Thomas Jefferson:

The strongest reason for the people to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against the tyranny of government.

That is why our masters in Washington are so anxious to disarm us. They are not afraid of criminals. They are afraid of a populace which cannot be subdued by tyrants.” – Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries, Vol. 2, No. 5, May 1994

“The 1911 pistol remains the service pistol of choice in the eyes of those who understand the problem. Back when we audited the FBI academy in 1947, I was told that I ought not to use my pistol in their training program because it was not fair. Maybe the first thing one should demand of his sidearm is that it be unfair.” — Col. Jeff Cooper, GUNS & AMMO, January 2002

The Complete Archive of Cooper’s Commentaries

Fr. Frog’s Jeff Cooper Pages

By Dave Kopel [From America’s First Freedom, July 2003]

Banning handguns, the gun prohibition lobbies accurately recognize, is not politically feasible to accomplish all at once. Accordingly, the lobbies often focus on measures which set the stage for moving towards near-prohibition in incremental steps. In pushing for pre-prohibition measures, the lobbies work hard to select measures which superficially seem to affect only a small minority of gun owners-so as to keep the tens of millions of gun owning American families on the political sidelines. Yet the pre-prohibition bills often have enormous implications for all gun owners. Among the most clever anti-gun proposals, expertly created to exploit the divide-and-conquer strategy, is the campaign for “one handgun a month laws.”

These gun rationing laws help lay the foundation for broader restrictions in two important ways. First, the laws set the precedent that the government can quantitatively limit the exercise of firearms rights, based on the government’s determination that an individual does not “need” to exercise the right so much.

Once the gun rationing principle is established, the time period can be changed to limit gun purchases to two per year, or two per lifetime, or none per lifetime, based on the government’s determination that people do not need any more guns.

In Great Britain, for example, the police enforce the rifle licensing laws so that a hunter who has a rifle in a particular caliber may never acquire a second rifle in that caliber, since he does not “need” the second gun.

In the U.S. Congress, the first formal efforts to impose gun rationing came in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. Peter Rodino (D-N.J.)(then-Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee) proposed a handgun licensing law which would, among other things, allow the purchase of no more than two handguns per year. As evidence of the anti-gun lobbies’ increasing sophistication in taking incremental steps, the lobbies apparently recognized that the Kennedy “two per year” proposal was too restrictive to be politically realistic as a first step. Accordingly, in 1993, then-Rep. Robert G. Torricelli (D-N.J.) introduced “The Multiple Handgun Transfer Prohibition Act of 1993.” The bill would have made it a federal crime to buy more than one handgun in a thirty day period. Currently, the leading “one per month” advocate in Congress is Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).

The second way in which gun rationing sets the stage for more controls stems from the fact that gun rationing is difficult to implement without gun registration. Only if the state maintains a computerized list of gun buyers for at least 30 days after each purchase can the state tell if a person purchased more than one gun at retail. Only if private gun sales (e.g., buying a gun from a relative or a friend who is not a licensed gun dealer) are prohibited can the state be sure that the individual is not exceeding the rationing limit. Thus, for advocates of gun registration, gun rationing is a good first step, because it helps to create a “need” for registration and for prohibiting private transfers.

Gun registration, in turn, makes gun confiscation much easier to accomplish-as residents of California, New York City, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia have already discovered, with registration lists in those jurisdictions being used for confiscations of a variety of handguns and long guns.

In the United States, the first regulations on multiple handgun purchases appeared after enactment of the Gun Control Act of 1968. Although the Act itself said nothing about multiple purchases, the new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) created regulations for “Multiple Purchase Reporting Forms.” Whenever a federally-licensed firearms dealer sold more than one handgun to an individual in a thirty-day period, the dealer had to send the Multiple Purchase Reporting form to BATF.

BATF did nothing with most of the forms that it received. Thus, when John Hinckley legally bought two handguns from a Texas firearms dealer one day in early 1980, the dealer sent a Multiple Purchase Form to BATF.

Neither a BATF investigation based on the Multiple Purchase Form, nor the future “Brady Act” would have prevented Hinckley’s purchases. His only criminal conviction was for a misdemeanor; his mental health records were private; and although the address on his Texas drivers license was no longer correct, he was a Texas resident, and legally allowed to buy guns anywhere in Texas.

The BATF regulation for the Multiple Purchase Form was codified in the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986. (Volume 18 of the U.S. Code, section 923(g)(3).) The 1994 the Clinton crime bill mandated that the Multiple Purchase Form also be sent to the local chief of police or sheriff. In recent years, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has been attempting to use the federal Freedom of Information Act in order to obtain every Multiple Purchase Form in BATF’s custody. This would be a gross violation of the privacy rights of law-abiding gun owners. Commendably, the BATF fought Daley all the way to the Supreme Court, and just before the Court was scheduled to hear the case in March 2003, Congress enacted an appropriations rider specifically forbidding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (its new name as a result from the Homeland Security government reorganization) from spending any money to divulge the private information in the Multiple Purchase Forms.

The first state to impose explicit gun rationing was South Carolina. (New York State’s 1911 Sullivan Law requires police permission for handgun purchases, and in some jurisdictions, such as New York City, handgun purchase authorizations are frequently forbidden under the theory that the applicant does not “need” another handgun.)

South Carolina’s legislature acted after a 1975 a television network news report claimed that South Carolina was the main source of handguns for New York City street crime. In response, the South Carolina legislature passed a law allowing only one handgun purchase in a thirty day period.

Next came Virginia. Efforts to pass a one-handgun-a-month law in Virginia had floundered for years, until Democratic Governor Douglas Wilder made gun rationing his top priority for 1993. Wilder said that “The surest way to stop the number of guns available for illegal sale is to place limits on the numbers that can be purchased legally.”

In support of the proposal, Governor Wilder sent every legislator a copy of a recent issue of “Batman” comics, which apparently had been written in order to assist the anti-gun cause in Virginia. In the Batman episode, Virginia was portrayed as the main gun-running state in the east. One character complained that tough gun laws had not been enacted “because some fat white bastard wants to play with his guns on a weekend.”

The writers made Batman himself endorse total gun prohibition, claiming that violence “will end when we decide that we don’t want guns in our houses, in our neighborhoods, in our schools, in our hands. It will end when we decide to get rid of the guns we have and not get more.” Like many advocates of gun rationing, the Batman writers saw gun rationing as merely a step along the path towards eliminating all guns.

According to Batman, non-Virginians traveled to Virginia, purchased multiple handguns, and then took them back to Gotham City to sell on the black market. Ever since the Gun Control Act of 1968 (which banned handgun purchases outside one’s state of residence), such purchases were federal felonies, with especially strict penalties for trafficking of multiple handguns. (The statutes are found in volume 18 of the U.S. Code, sections 922(a)(1) & (5), 924(b).)

Besides the comic book, the other major evidence used to portray Virginia as the main source of New York City crime guns was Project Lead, a BATF firearms tracing operation. According to anti-gun advocates, Project Lead showed that 41% of New York crime guns came from Virginia.

Project Lead had traced 6% of the firearms recovered by New York City police in 1991 and 1992 (1,231 of the 13,382 recovered firearms). Of firearms found at the scenes of violent crimes in New York City, 32 (17% of traced violent crime guns) had been originally sold at retail in Virginia. Of these 32 guns, three guns originally sold in Virginia were found at homicide scenes.

Project Lead was unable to determine whether traced firearms had been stolen from the original buyer, or how they had entered New York City. Most of the Virginia guns appeared to have been associated with non-violent crimes, including violations of New York City’s near-prohibitory handgun licensing ordinances.

After an intense legislative struggle, the normally pro-gun Virginia legislature enacted a law making it a misdemeanor of persons (other than licensed firearms dealers) to purchase more than one handgun in a 30 day period. The law contained provisions for persons to obtain waivers if the multiple purchase was part of a collection (e.g., the purchase of a pair of matched pistols), for bulk purchases from estates sales, if a person’s guns had been lost or stolen, or for similar reasons.

Perhaps the decisive factor in Governor Wilder’s success was convincing the Virginia business community, especially in Richmond, that the absence of a gun rationing law was nationally embarrassing to Virginia.

In that same legislative session, the Virginia legislature required proof of residence for driver’s license applicants, thus making it harder for out-of-staters to unlawfully buy guns in Virginia.

After the victory in Virginia, Handgun Control, Inc. (originally known as the National Council to Control Handguns, and later renamed the Brady Campaign), pushed very hard for gun rationing in other states. Intense lobbying in Delaware has come close, but has not yet succeeded. Maryland enacted gun rationing in 1996 after extensive legislative arm-twisting by Governor Parris Glendenning and Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

California followed suit in 1999, as a direct result of the Columbine school murders. A key legislator who had opposed gun rationing announced that he was switching his vote because of Columbine. The logical connection between the California one-handgun-a-month law and Columbine was tenuous, since the Columbine killers had used only a single handgun (plus three long guns), in a murder spree that had been planned for over a year.

But in the post-Columbine atmosphere, the logic of particular anti-gun laws was less relevant than the atmosphere of hatred and panic incited by prohibitionists such as Rosie O’Donnell and President Clinton. Congress appeared to be ready to pass a national gun rationing bill, although NRA lobbying managed to turn the tide sufficiently so that the bill was never brought to a formal vote.

What has been accomplished by gun rationing laws? In 1995, Captain R. Lewis Vass, of Department of State Police, testified to a Virginia crime commission that the gun rationing law had “not significantly affected … the number of multiple handgun purchases within the Commonwealth.” According to Captain Vass, 95% of applications for multiple handgun purchases are approved.

The laws’ main benefit is supposed to be reducing interstate gun trafficking, rather than as controlling local crime. Certainly South Carolina achieved no crime reduction for itself with the 1975 law, as the state’s already high crime rate violent crime rate more than doubled over the next two decades.

A 1996 gun trace study conducted by Handgun Control, Inc., researcher Douglas Weil, found that after the Virginia law was enacted, the number of guns traced to a group of four southeastern states including Virginia declined. (D.S. Weil & R.C. Knox, “Effects of Limiting Handgun Purchases on Interstate Transfer of Firearms,” 275 JAMA 1759-1761.)

But study that same year by the office of Rep. Charles Schumer (simply reporting the results of BATF gun traces) found that Virginia and South Carolina were two of the three states which supplied the most guns to New York. (Office of Rep. Charles Schumer, “War Between the States: How Gunrunners Weapons Across America.”)

If the Schumer study is correct, then the South Carolina and Virginia laws were miserable failures, since gun rationing failed to change the status of either state as a prime source of illegal guns for New York. A pair of journal articles which I have authored (and which are cited at the end of this article) argue that neither the Weil study nor the Schumer study are reliable, since they both depend on BATF trace statistics, but BATF firearms traces involve only a small and unrepresentative sample of crime guns.

The conventional wisdom in Virginia was summed up by a pair of newspaper headlines. In 1992, the Richmond Times-Dispatch announced: “Virginia gun-running is ’embarrassment’.” In 1998, an article by the same author was headlined, “Virginia Gun Limit has Enthusiastic Following: But State Still Ranks High as Weapon Source.”

It should not be surprising that there is so little evidence for the effectiveness of gun rationing laws, since there are several better programs in place which help prevent the purchase of guns for illegal interstate trafficking. The BATFE’s Multiple Purchase Reporting Forms already alert BATFE about every multiple handgun sale, and BATFE can use these forms to focus on genuinely suspicious transactions (such as repeated large quantity purchases of firearms by an individual). The National Shooting Sports Foundation runs a firearms dealer education program which helps dealers detect “straw purchasers” who may be acting as a surrogate of for someone who is legally barred from gun ownership. And of course every single retail purchase of any kind of firearm requires prior authorization from the FBI or its state equivalent, under the National Instant Check System.

As soon as the 1993 Virginia gun rationing law was enacted, anti-gun lobbyists began to push for similar legislation in West Virginia. They did not succeed statewide, but did win an ordinance in Charleston. Charleston law, however, was erased when the legislature passed a law making the existing statewide firearms preemption statute (banning local anti-gun laws) even more explicit and comprehensive.

Now, the original gun rationing law, the South Carolina statute, may also be headed for the ash heap of failed restrictions on civil liberty. As this article is written in early April, the South Carolina House of Representatives has voted to repeal the state’s gun rationing law, and Governor Mark Sanford has voiced his support for repeal.

This would not be the first time that South Carolina’s legislature has acted to undo civil liberties restrictions from the past. Following the assassination of President William McKinley by an anarchist, South Carolina in 1902 banned pistol sales to anyone except sheriffs and “special deputies” (e.g., Klansmen, company goons, and similar insiders). In 1966, the South Carolina legislature forthrightly acknowledged that the law restricting civil rights was wrong, and the pistol ban was repealed.

While the debate about gun rationing often focus on empirical issues, civil rights attorney Stephen Halbrook believes that empirical data are irrelevant when constitutional rights are at stake. In a 1993 article for West Virginia Law Review (www.saf.org/LawReviews/Halbrook2.htm ), Halbrook asked:

“May a constitutional right be limited by a legislature’s determination of whether, to what extent, or how many times within a given time period a person has a ‘need’ to exercise that right? Would it be consistent with the freedom of the press, for instance, to make it a crime to purchase more than one Bible. . .each month? Who, other than dealers in books, really ‘needs’ more than one such book per month?… it could hardly be argued that the Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel in criminal cases would not be violated if crime decreased as a result of not allowing an accused person to consult with counsel more than once each month. A bill of rights guarantee cannot be disregarded under the guise that its existence contributes to increases in crime or that its absence would make it harder to extract confessions.. . .The essence of a bill of rights is that the issue of whether a person ‘needs’ to do a protected act is removed from legislative proscription.”

This is why the gun rationing issue is so important to every gun owner-including the woman who owns just one rifle and has no plans to ever buy a second gun. Gun rationing is one of the tools being used to eliminate firearms ownership as a human right which belongs to all law-abiding American citizens, and to replace that right with a government-granted privilege which can be exercised no more frequently than the government decides there is a need.

 

---

 

This article is based in part on Kopel’s entry on One-Gun-per-Month Laws for Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History Politics and Law (ABC-Clio, 2002), for which Kopel served on the Editorial Board. For more on gun tracing and its relation to gun rationing, see David B. Kopel & Paul H. Blackman (NRA Research Coordinator), “Firearms Tracing Data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms: An Occasionally Useful Law Enforcement Tool, but a Poor Research Tool,” 11 Criminal Justice Policy Review 44 (Mar. 2000); David B. Kopel, “Clueless: The Misuse of BATF Firearms Tracing Data,” 1999 Law Review of Michigan State University Detroit College of Law Review 171, www.davekopel.com/2A/LawRev/CluelessBATFtracing.htm

This article, from the Independence Institute staff, fellows and research network, is offered for your use at no charge. Independence Feature Syndicate articles are published for educational purposes only, and the authors speak for themselves. Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily representing the views of the Independence Institute or as an attempt to influence any election or legislative action.

Please send comments to Editorial Coordinator, Independence Institute, 14142 Denver West Pkwy., suite 185, Golden, CO 80401 Phone 303-279-6536 (fax) 303-279-4176 (email) [email protected]

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear single shot duck guns with a minimum barrel length of 36″ having neither detachable magazines, bayonet lugs, nor pistol grips, shall not be infringed.”

That doesn’t sound quite right, does it? It doesn’t sound right because it isn’t the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution; it’s the Second Amendment of the Brady Campaign, of Charles Schumer, Frank Lautenberg, Diane Feinstein, the Million Mom March and the Violence Policy Center. In other words, it’s the Second Amendment of gun control extremists. These are the terms in which they want to frame the discussion of our civil rights.

Their current jihad targets the mythological beast often referred to as the “assault weapon.” Now, we’re not quite sure what defines this monster, but we do know that unless the fraudulent “Assault Weapons Ban” of 1994 is extended, these deadly tools of mass destruction will suddenly flood our streets, and turn our schools and ghettos into killing fields. This is all, from stem to stern, a complete fiction – the terms, the description of the law, and the imagined consequences of non-renewal. Not a word is true.

The “Assault Weapons Ban” of 1994, a.k.a. the “Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994,” is one of the great scams of the Clinton era. It is a masterpiece of double-speak and equivocation. In reality, the law banned rifles that had detachable magazines and two or more of the following characteristics: folding or telescoping stock, pistol grips, bayonet mount, flash suppressor, or threads to attach a suppressor, or a grenade launcher. Further, it banned the importation of foreign-built rifles having some or all of these characteristics, and it banned the ownership by civilians of high capacity magazines (more than 10 rounds) produced after 1994. (Notice that a rifle with a 100-round drum magazine and a grenade launcher could be completely legal under the AWB as long as it did not have a bayonet lug, flash suppressor, folding stock or pistol grip).

Notice also that AK-47’s, M-16’s, Uzi’s and MP5’s (real assault rifles and submachine guns) are not addressed by the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994. Guns capable of automatic fire have been controlled by the National Firearms Act of 1934 for the past seventy years. Contrary to the overheated rhetoric of the gun grabbers, the AWB will have no impact whatsoever on the presence of AK-47’s and Uzi’s on our streets. It never has. The gun control jihadists lie because they know their agenda will fail in the light of truth. Were the gun grabbers serious about fighting crime or violence, they would be focusing on weapons that figure prominently in the violent crime statistics of America. Military-style rifles do not.

The real agenda is to ban military-style rifles because they are seen as being vulnerable to these emotional, non-rational appeals. Next will be semi-auto handguns, then revolvers, and so on, until we’re down to single-shot duck guns. The agenda is to disarm and force the cult of victimization on the free and self-reliant citizens of America.

The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting. It never has been. It’s about freedom. It’s not about Charles Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Donna Dees-Thomases or Josh Sugarmann telling me what kind of rifle I need or should have, and for what purposes. It is about responsible citizens of this republic making conscientious decisions for themselves about the tools necessary for their own security, safety, and recreation.

If we are to counter this campaign of disinformation, our response needs to be more than technical lectures about the fine points of firearms nomenclature. We must define the terms, but more importantly, we must shape the discussion in terms of civil rights, individual liberty, and the inalienable right to self-defense, and that includes the bearing of arms which are on a par or superior to those which might be used against us.

September 13, 2004 – The Sunset of the Assault Weapons Ban

The “Assault Weapons Ban” does not go gently into that dark sunset. Its swan song is accompanied by a wild chorus of phony claims, political recriminations, unearned chest-thumping from some gun rights organizations, and dire prophesies from gun grabbers and opportunistic politicians. One statistic that has intrigued me through this latest round of the debate is that a significant percentage of NRA members are supposed to support renewal of the AWB according to polling by the Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center. While I don’t pretend to know what these folks are thinking – and no doubt a significant sub-percentage of this group may be attributed to the way the questions are asked and misunderstanding about what the AWB actually does – I can’t help but wonder if the NRA supporters of the AWB support its renewal precisely because they do understand it. They have done their homework and know what a toothless and hollow piece of cosmetic legislation it really is. Perhaps they prefer this feel-good hodge-podge of cosmetic restrictions to another more restrictive ban which could appear in the future. “Lessee, how does it go? I can have a 30-round mag but no grenade launcher; or I can have the grenade launcher as long as I don’t have the bayonet lug. No, I can’t give up my bayonet – I may need it to hold off the next banzai charge by the IJN marines lurking just the other side of the Stop-N-Shop.” It’s just silly unless you understand that it’s about symbols and images.

The AWB is about conditioning people to accept incremental prohibitions on guns based on features, and we know where that goes. It is about demonizing civilian ownership of military style rifles (“…no one goes deer hunting with an AK-47”). It is about characterizing anyone who wants to own a military rifle or even a high capacity semi-auto pistol as a “domestic terrorist” or a potential mass murderer. Remember the historical setting that produced the AWB. Following Ruby Ridge and Waco, membership in civilian militia groups was expanding rapidly and the Clinton administration feared these groups in a way that was completely disproportionate to the actual threat they may have represented. Military rifles are only rarely used by street criminals and drug gangs. They were the preferred guns of the civilian militias. Symbol, image and politics – the stuff the AWB is made of.

Another statistic that has been bantered around is that crimes with “assault weapons” have decreased since the ban because “we have gotten these weapons of mass destruction off the streets.” Makes for a great sound-bite, but it suffers from a fatal flaw in logic. Nothing has been removed from “the streets” as a result of the AWB. Has anyone had any difficulty in buying a semi-auto military rifle or procuring high capacity magazines for their M9’s during this ten years? No. If you could buy a five-shot snubnose revolver, you could buy a semi-auto Kalashnikov clone. And for that matter, if you were willing to pay the inflated prices and go through the red tape, you could buy an honest-to-gawd selective fire assault rifle or submachine gun. If crime with “assault weapons” has decreased, it is because of other forces, such as demographic changes and the fact that all gun crime has diminished since its statistical peak in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The AWB had nothing to do with it.

The AWB has always been about symbols and politics. It still is. I will make two predictions: nothing will change in terms of crime statistics as a result of the AWB sunset, and it will be back. When it comes back, it will be far more obnoxious, restrictive and unconstitutional than the old, dead AWB it hopes to replace.

Further Reading on The Assault Weapons Ban

awbansunset.com – A site devoted to seeing the AWB “sunset”

Bait-’N’-Switch By Dave Kopel
Gun-prohibition lobbyists are after much more than AK-47s.

ATF Letter On The Expiration Of The AWB

Explaining the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban – This site is dedicated to explaining the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban to novices in the gun debate

Federal Assault Weapons Ban – Gun grabber propaganda site hosted by Jointogether.org

Violence Policy Center AWB site – Gun grabber propaganda site hosted by VPC

GOA Fact Sheet on the AWB – If you don’t read anything else, read this one.

Ban Aid – The real point of the “assault weapon” law

The ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Is Dead – by John R. Lott, Jr.

Who’s Under Assault in the Assault Weapon Ban? – by Jeff Snyder

Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 – The actual complete text of this stupid law

By Syd

It seems that most new firearms are coming equipped with an accessory rail for lights and/or laser sights. Tactical lights appeal to the gear-head in us all. They have a really high coolness factor. But what are the issues, benefits and drawbacks of these systems?

Is the light on the gun an asset or is it just a bad guy target acquisition indicator? The light helps you to identify your target, but it also shows the target where you are. Is it more important to be able to positively ID your target or to keep your position concealed? Or, is a separate flashlight not mounted on the gun a better arrangement? Of equal importance are the legal implications of using a weapon-mounted light. Once the light is mounted on a firearm, it becomes part of the firearm, and pointing it at another human being can be a crime.

Have you ever been in the kind of situation where some illumination could prevent a tragedy, like the kid next door coming home after the prom dead drunk and going to your house instead of his own and trying to get in, or a beloved family pet getting something caught on his collar, dragging it around in the basement and making sounds like a home invasion? In these types of situations, the time allowed for the shoot or no-shoot decision can be very short. Make the wrong decision and a tragedy or legal disaster can occur. Can the tactical light help here? Or put another way, what are the rights and wrongs of using a weapon-mounted light?

Parallel Beams
One factor that quickly emerges in this discussion is the distinction between law enforcement and armed citizens. Law enforcement loves tactical lights. For the armed citizen, they can be a bit more problematic. The difference is in the mission. There are times when law enforcement (and military) must go on the offensive: they have to go into places and clear buildings. The role of the weapon system for the armed citizen is purely defensive. As a lone, armed citizen, you should never attempt a building clearing alone except in the most extraordinary circumstances. If you notice, when the professionals do that, they always do it in teams. Doing it alone can be characterized as, “hunting for someone to shoot me.” Consequently, we have to put on the bifocals when dealing with tactical lights. They perform different roles depending on the mission and the person behind the gun.

The Light Side of Law Enforcement
Police officers face two kinds of situations in which the tactical weapon-mounted light can literally be a life saver: dynamic entries and building clearing. During a dynamic entry, the ability to instantaneously identify threats and non-threats saves lives. In a building clearing situation, having the light mounted on the weapon allows for a free hand to open doors and move things while still maintaining the readiness of the weapon.

“When under-barrel lights (aka: muzzle lights, tactical lights) first came into vogue I got one for my SWAT pistol and I loved it. It was big, it stuck out several inches from the muzzle, it added some weight to the pistol, but I loved it. I no longer needed a third hand to search a building or room. It was great, my pistol and my light were searching where a threat might be and I had a free hand to open doors and move objects.” – Sgt. Mike Burg, “Under-barrel Lights: They’re not just for SWAT anymore!” Police Marksman Magazine

Even in this context, law enforcement officers cannot put a weapon-mounted light on someone unless it is a situation which would justify pointing a gun at them. Actually, the same legal rules apply to LEO’s (Law Enforcement Officers) as apply to the armed citizen, but LEO’s do have a bit more latitude in this matter due to the nature of their job. But a LEO cannot threaten a person with a gun for no reason.

Enlightening the Armed Citizen
(You notice I don’t use the term “civilian” when talking about citizens and law enforcement officers. The reason for that is that law enforcement officers are civilians also, although they don’t act like it sometimes. The only way to quit being a civilian is to join the armed forces. Once you are a soldier, seaman, airman or marine, you cease to be a civilian, but not before.) For the armed citizen, the issues are different. When polling my friends and correspondents, the consensus was, “It’s great for a ‘house gun’ but useless for concealed carry.” The problem of weapon-mounted lights for armed citizens is that they can encourage us to break the basic rules of gun handling: “Never cover with the muzzle anything you don’t intend to destroy,” and “Know your target.” Also, in some circumstances, pointing a gun at another human being can be a felony in itself unless it is justified by the circumstances. You can’t use the weapon light as a simple flashlight. You have to remember that it is part of the sighting system of the firearm.

With those caveats said, there can be a role for the weapon-mounted light in the context of home defense. Everyone can imagine situations in which one might have to move through the dark and quickly identify targets and no-shoots.

Let There Be Light
One thing that’s very clear is that the weapon-mounted light does not substitute for or replace a flashlight. If you had to choose one or the other, the flashlight would be the choice. It’s more flexible, less complicated legally, and can perform most of the functions of a weapon-mounted light. Don’t think for a minute that a weapon-mounted light will allow you to dispense with a flashlight because it won’t.

When you get into the matter of low-light combatives, you will find a lot of voodoo, strong and conflicting opinions, and hand-gun-light positions that would give a Kung-fu master a charlie horse. Some say that the light only shows the bad guy where to shoot; others point out that bad buys don’t automatically think “gun” just because they see a flashlight. Most believe that it is more important to identify a target than to maintain concealment, but the weapon mounted light may not be the best way to identify targets in many situations. For the armed citizen whose primary role for the weapon-mounted light is home defense, most do not want to wander around their own homes pointing guns at whomever just because they heard a bump in the night. In most of these kinds of situations, a handheld flashlight is a safer option. Walt Rausch summed it up well when he said:

“In reality, gun-mounted lights are simply shooting aids, which have only very limited application as search and identification tools. Yes, we are all treated to watching endless repeats of law enforcement officers performing light shows worthy of Las Vegas or Disneyland on TV and in movies, but they are not exposed to being charged criminally or civilly for assault or reckless endangerment. Use the light judiciously for what it is: one more limited but good addition to your self-defense package.” – Walt Rausch, Guns & Ammo Handguns

Better to Light a Candle than Curse the Darkness
The weapon-mounted light is most useful when you already know some information about the situation, particularly, that there is something very wrong happening and you will have to quickly determine shoots and no-shoots. A possum in the garage knocking over gas cans probably doesn’t qualify, but may get you a visit from local law enforcement inquiring as to why you’re running around the yard in your underwear with a gun at 3 A.M. When you are suffering a home invasion, and know there’s bad guys in your house, and also know that you don’t know the location of all of your family members, the weapon-mounted light could be a big help. As Walt pointed out, the range of applications for the tactical light is very limited, but within that narrow range, it could be extremely important.

For LEO’s the value of the weapon-mounted light is clear and unambiguous. For the armed citizen, the use of the tactical light is more problematic, but the value is still there. I think some professional training in low-light combatives (by a responsible trainer with some real-world experience with an emphasis on the legal issues) would benefit any armed citizen who chooses to deploy a tactical light, just because there are some mistakes which can be made, and walking through the scenario with a professional critic can show you where the trapdoors are.

A Story from My Own Experience
Once I was awakened by noises in my basement at approximately 3 A.M. My house is a two story with a full basement. All of the family’s bedrooms are on the second floor and no one should have been in the basement at this time of night. I grabbed my 1911 and a Streamlight Scorpion flashlight and went downstairs as quietly as I could. As I reached the foot of the basement stairs, I could still hear movement in the far end of the basement. My heart was pounding, and I’m sure I was suffering an “adrenaline dump.” I didn’t do any fancy ninja gun/light hand positions. I just leaned around the corner, Streamlight high in my left hand, pistol with safety off at low-ready in my right. Surprise, surprise: it was my eldest son, then about 15, sleep-walking in the basement. He was disoriented and bumping into things. The learning that came out of this for me was that a good flashlight is essential for home defense, and is, in some ways, more important than the gun. Had I been using a gun-mounted light, I would have had no choice but to point the gun at or near my own child. The tactical gun-mounted light does not replace the flashlight.

Summary
The gun-mounted tactical light has its role to play, especially in low-light situations in which the shoot/no-shoot decision must be made almost instantaneously, but the gun-mounted light also introduces its own set of safety and legal problems. It tempts us to break two of the cardinal rules of gun safety: “Know your target” and “Never cover anything with the muzzle that you do not intend to destroy.” And remember, boys and girls, that pointing a firearm at another human being without justifying circumstances is a felony in most jurisdictions. The gun mounted light may be a helpful addition to your personal defense system, but it does not replace the flashlight, and in many circumstances, the flashlight is far more useful and flexible.

By Scott Smith

When one carries a firearm for self-defense, if it is needed most likely that time will be in low or very little light. Being a prudent pistolero you should be able to identify your target before engaging it. To help do this a light is needed. One of the if not the best is Surefire/Laser Products.

New for 2000 are the M2 Centurion and the M3 Combat Light. The Centurion has an octagonal light bezel so the light won’t roll away when you set it down and a built in pocket clip for easy carry. The lens is a clear pyrex to keep it from melting.

The light also comes with two light bulb units to give added flexibility. Unit A is the original style light an puts out 65 lumens which will put out enough light for most situations. Light B puts out 120 lumens and will light up the drive way or garage, major drawback is Light B consumes those lithium batteries.

For those need a little more light the M3 Combat light will fit the bill. This light like the Centurion is mad from aircraft aluminum for toughness. Where the Centurion stops at light power the M3 picks up. It has the new light unit as its primary light source and this can be changed out for a more powerful source that comes with it that produces 220 lumens, more than enough light to light the back yard. This light can also be used as a less than lethal weapon with the 220 lumen bulb as it will temporarily blind you.

Both light come with the Z series O-ring to aid in using the Rodgers/Surefire syringe technique of shooting a handgun with a light. The lights are also well suited for the Harries Technique. Both are taught at most of the institutes of higher handgun education, try them and use works for you.

Because of size the M3 light makes an excellent duty/field light. The Centurion would serve well at home, on the person, or at Gunsite learning how to properly use that 1911. Check out the web page at www.surefire.com for more details.