Snub Dry Practice Training Aids
#wheelgunwednesday
All discharges of a firearm by LAPD officers must be reported to the LAPD Force Investigation Division. Each discharge is thoroughly investigated, adjudicated by the Board of Police Commissioners (BOPC) for LAPD policy compliance, and a public report posted on the BOPC webpage.
https://www.lapdonline.org/police-commission/categorical-use-of-force
Of particular interest are the off-duty discharges. These usually involve one of two situations. First, situations of self-defense similar to what would be encountered by any non-sworn person who owns a firearm for personal protection. Or, second, Unintentional Discharges due to administrative gunhandling such as: placing or removing the firearm in a storage location, cleaning the firearm, or dry practice “to improve accuracy.” In one rare instance, both situations were involved; a firearm was discharged while being retrieved during a ‘tactical situation.’
In adjudicating Unintentional Discharges cases, the LAPD BOPC subdivides them into two categories.
A. Unintentional Discharge
The definitions for an Unintentional Discharge, both Accidental and Negligent, are as follows:
Accidental Discharge: The unintentional discharge of a firearm as a result of an accident such as a firearm malfunction or other mechanical failure, not the result of operator error.
Negligent Discharge: Finding where it was determined that the unintentional discharge of a firearm resulted from operator error, such as the violation of firearm safety rules.
Administrative Disapproval – Negligent Discharge. Finding where it was determined that the unintentional discharge of a firearm resulted from operator error, such as the violation of a firearm safety rule (Los Angeles Police Department Manual, Volume 3, Section 792.05).
From 2005 to 2023, five Unintentional Discharges of five shot revolvers, which are authorized for backup and off-duty carry, occurred. All five were adjudicated as Negligent Discharges and received Administrative Disapproval. Negligent Discharges are one category of Negative Outcomes https://store.payloadz.com/details/2617872-ebooks-true-crime-serious-mistakes-gunowners-make.html and we obviously want to avoid them.
Four of the five involved preparation for dry practice. The cause of all four was the same. Not all five rounds were ejected from the cylinder when the revolver was unloaded. One round remained in the cylinder when the other four ejected. At some point during the dry practice, a loud noise occurred when a click was expected. That universal cause reinforces my concept of how to prepare for dry practice with a revolver.
https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2020/08/21/dry-practice-safety-part-ii/
Since that article was posted, Zeta6 and I teamed up to create the SafeSnap Training Disc.
https://zetasix.com/product-category/safesnap
I now keep a SafeSnap Disc in my storage box, along with an empty HKS speedloader, to make my dry practice even safer. Although I don’t carry an HKS, I find it’s the easiest of all speedloaders to put ammunition in.
I rotate the revolver so the muzzle is pointing straight up, eject the live rounds from the snub, place them in the speedloader, and then put the SnapSafe in the revolver. Holding the revolver completely vertical is an important aspect of ejecting the live ammunition. Holding it at angle and catching the rounds in the palm of the other hand is a dangerous technique and is “cruisin’ for a bruisin’.” Sooner or later, doing that will bite you in the ass; hard.
This procedure makes the possibility of having a Negligent Discharge during dry practice fairly remote. I also have a Zeta6 K-PAK2 https://zetasix.com/product/k-pak2/ with dummy rounds for reloading practice in the box. It is set up with a Retention Ring https://retentionring.com/ to mimic my EDC reload.
All the live ammunition stays in the box and the box gets closed while I’m practicing. When I’m finished practicing, I rigidly follow the post-practice safety protocols described in the above linked article.
Dry practice is a key component of learning how to shoot well. When doing it, we want to avoid having the Negative Outcome of “causing damage to equipment or injury to personnel,” which was a graded aspect required to pass the Special Forces Weapons Qualification Course that has stuck with me for the past 44 years. Having the right training aids and following safety protocols in a disciplined manner is how we can avoid those Negative Outcomes.
FTC Note: I have a relationship with Zeta6 and Retention Ring but receive no compensation for mentioning their products.
Negative Outcome from Opening the Door
Bottom Line Up Front
Do not open (nor even unlock) your [exterior] door[s] until you’re confident this person does not represent a threat.
John Farnam
Excellent advice on many items in John’s post.
Also read this post about ‘Castle Defense.’
http://modernserviceweapons.com/?p=18502
Forewarned is forearmed.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – December 2023
Rather than my usual boring rants about Serious Mistakes, Negative Outcomes, and excruciatingly detailed analyses of Armed Citizen incidents, I’ve decided to do something different for 2024.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is an iconic movie in American cinema and arguably the best of the ‘Spaghetti Westerns.’ A new feature in 2024 for my Patreon page is a monthly post based on this theme; the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It will feature a Good incident by an armed citizen, a Bad incident resulting in a Negative Outcome, and a stupid and unbelievable Ugly happening.
My Patrons get first look at it on the last day of each month. The following month I’ll unlock the Patreon post on the last Monday and link it here for my blog Followers. Today’s the day to unlock the December 2023 edition.
My hope is to make it both educational and entertaining. I’m very excited about the idea and hope you enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed researching and writing it. The movie soundtrack is outstanding so a snippet from the soundtrack will be part of each month’s post also.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/good-bad-and-95600517
Enjoy!
The GBU isn’t drawn from The Armed Citizen column of the official NRA Journals but the December edition of The Armed Citizen is attached. Rather than an obsessive interest in ‘the worst case scenario,’ it shows what the vast majority of Defensive Gun Uses really look like.
Los Angeles Citizen’s CCW Taken Away
L.A. homeowner who fired on armed robbers has concealed carry permit suspended
https://news.yahoo.com/l-homeowner-fired-armed-robbers-055345708.html
It’s as plain as the nose on your face that this is retaliation. For what, you may ask?
Embarrassing the authorities on public media. Just that simple. His incident demonstrated that he was capable of protecting himself and his family at the moment of crisis and the authorities were not. By talking to the media, i.e., the local news and Colion Noir, he rubbed that fact in the faces of the Law Enforcement Agencies responsible for his and his family’s protection.
One of the benefits of belonging to a self-defense legal organization such as the Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network https://armedcitizensnetwork.org/ is getting to talk to someone about the incident in a confidential manner. Regardless of what organization or attorney you contact, they will undoubtedly advise against giving statements to the media. They are going to tell you to not make public statements.
After any such incident, it’s a natural desire to want to talk about it to decompress. Doing so is probably emotionally healthy. What we want to do is accomplish our decompression in a format that won’t hurt us. Talking to a lawyer is a non-harmful format. Talking to the media, even if they are neutral or well-intentioned, is fraught with hazard.
Couching your criticism with comments like “the LAPD is understaffed” or the like is equivalent to “Bless their hearts.” Then saying you’ve hired a private detective to investigate, which is tantamount to saying the authorities are incompetent, is only throwing more fuel on the fire of their future discontent. And please don’t publicly say that the investigation was sloppy, even if that’s true. NO BENEFIT. That’s just venting. Vent to your attorney not the local news.
As we can see in this incident, the authorities are not going to take kindly to a gunowner publicly proclaiming that it was the Second Amendment and not the authorities that protected them. In States that only issue Licenses To Carry because of Bruen, they’re going to look for some way to get even. Law Enforcement administrators in those States are not your friends. Don’t poke them in the eye by publicly exposing their inability to protect you.
Having to interact with the authorities after an incident is a Negative Outcome.
In its statement to KTLA, the sheriff’s department did say that Ricci’s CCW may immediately be reinstated as long as he has followed all the required policies, such as “proper notifications” and “use of [a] properly documented weapon.”
The Sheriff’s Office’s definition of “immediately” may be somewhat different than ours. Having to jump through a bunch of bureaucratic hoops to reinstate your Right to protect yourself is an undesirable interaction. Don’t put yourself in that situation, regardless of how righteous your incident was. In this case, his attackers are still out there and I wish he could carry his piece.
Wedding officiant accidentally shoots grandson
#safetySaturday
“It was a blank,” Houchin said in response to a question from a local reporter. “What it was is: it was a .45 Colt ammunition. What he did was put black powder into the casing and then glued it. And what we believe is the glue is what injured the child.”
Actors Brandon Lee and Jon-Eric Hexum both died from blanks fired while filming.
After Alec Baldwin shot and killed his cinematographer on set, Hollywood weapons expert Larry Zanoff commented about blanks.
“[T]here is a minimum safety distance of 20 feet in front of the muzzle because even with a blank, smoke and burning embers can get propelled out of the gun. There should be nothing in front of it when filming is occurring with firearms.”
It was reported that the weapon fired at the wedding was a Pietta 1860 snub nose revolver with a .45 Colt conversion cylinder.
“When he decided to cock back the hammer of this revolver it slipped and it shot his grandson in the left shoulder, causing an injury,” authorities said.
Firearms are relentlessly unforgiving of the slightest lapse in attention or competence. The shooter has probably been ‘shooting for years.’ Unfortunately, as is sometimes said of the law enforcement profession:
“Some people have 20 years of experience and some people have one year of experience 20 times.”
This happening was eerily similar to an incident several years ago in which a father accidentally killed his teenage son at an indoor range. https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/04/us/florida-father-shoots-son/index.html Fortunately, the consequences of the Texas misadventure were not quite as tragic.
If you would like to learn more about Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make and the Negative Outcomes that result, please buy my ebook.
WWII Helicopter Rescue Mission – Unintentional Discharge Related
Dr. Mark Felton never ceases to amaze with his recounts of wartime exploits. The elaborate efforts made by the US Army to rescue a soldier involved a journey three-quarters of the way around the globe.
“A soldier based in a weather station atop a 4700 foot tall mountain [in Burma] had accidentally shot himself in the hand and infection had set in. He needed immediate evacuation to hospital.”
“On the 24th of January 1945, a helicopter undertook the first combat medical evacuation in history.”
Ironically, the first helicopter Medevac mission in history was not due to combat action but rather because of an Unintentional Discharge.
Safety Notes
Don’t shoot yourself in the leg when drawing your pistol.
According to authorities, Officer Charles Hamilton was responding to a potential burglary in progress at a residence on Lind Ave. around 10:06 AM. As he approached the scene on foot, Hamilton drew his service weapon, which subsequently discharged and struck him in the right leg.
On the same page, there’s an interesting display of handguns seized during a drug raid.
And another Revolver Handgun to the Rescue. Revolver Handgun To the Rescue
Jones went into her room to get her revolver for protection. When Jones exited her bedroom, Turner advanced towards her and she fired on[e] shot out of fear for her life. Turner was pronounced dead at the scene.
I don’t understand how can anyone possibly defend themselves with a revolver handgun and kill someone with only one shot but apparently it happens.
If you are interested in more in-depth writing about Point Shooting or Personal Defense Incidents and Analysis, please subscribe to my Patreon page by clicking on the image below.
Preventing Negligent Discharges While Eating at a Restaurant
#Saturdaysafety
OMG – Another Tactical Professor rant
Simple TTP to Prevent Negligent Discharges While Eating at a Restaurant
1) Have a decent holster that keeps your pistol from falling out of your pants and use it any time you carry your pistol. Even if you’re just getting out of your vehicle to eat something or put gas in the tank, don’t just stick your gun in your waistband.
2) Let falling guns fall and then pick them up deliberately and without haste. Keep your finger out of the trigger guard as you do so.
If you do have a Negligent Discharge in a public place, don’t try to run out the door immediately. Check to see if anyone has become a casualty.
Note that I generally agree with my colleague Marty Hayes’ https://armedcitizensnetwork.org/ comment that most Unintentional Discharges don’t fit the legal definition of ‘Negligent.’ However, someone who is walking around with a pistol stuck in their waistband in such a low level of security that it easily falls out and causes someone else to get injured is being Negligent. That activity can be foreseeable as reckless and likely to cause someone else to become wounded.
THE STORY
Normal day at Cracker Barrel’ ends with shrapnel stuck forever in Charlotte man’s leg [when someone else has a Negligent Discharge and injures an innocent bystander]
https://news.yahoo.com/normal-day-cracker-barrel-ends-213119642.html
SYNOPSIS OF THE INCIDENT
A traveling man eating at Cracker Barrel in North Carolina dropped his pistol. According to the police report, the pistol was a .45 1911 Colt. He tried to catch the gun from falling and it discharged. The bullet hit the wall, broke into pieces, and several pieces embedded in another man’s leg.
Image courtesy of Charlotte Observer
The shooter then tried to run out of the restaurant but was stopped by a customer at the cashier’s stand.
A Social Security eligible out of state man from Ohio was the shooter. He was cited and released by local POlice for violating North Carolina concealed weapons law. Whether he had a permit for concealed carry is unclear.
Upon being taken to hospital, doctors recommended the victim leave the pieces of metal in his leg. He said they told him it would be riskier to take them out.
MOST LIKELY EXPLANATION OF HOW THE INCIDENT OCCURRED
Because he was traveling across several States with a large heavy pistol, the gun was placed somewhere off-body in his vehicle. Serious Mistake. https://store.payloadz.com/go/?id=2617872 As my colleague Karl Rehn https://krtraining.com/ has noted, most people who obtain concealed carry licenses/permits do so in order to keep a gun in their vehicles and off-body in the console or door pocket. Or even worse, if that’s possible, on the floor underneath the floor mat or stuck between the seat and the console.
Upon stopping at the Cracker Barrel, he didn’t holster the pistol but rather just stuck it in his waistband without a holster. It is possible he wasn’t even wearing a belt but that’s conjecture on my part. Then because autoloaders are butt heavy, when the gun came out of his waistband because he was shifting around in the unpadded chair, it fell outside of his pants toward the floor. A point in favor of revolvers in such a situation is that they will slide down the inside of the pant leg like an Unintentional Turd Discharge (UTD) rather than falling rapidly to the floor. Ask me how I know this.
The no longer concealed carrier tried to grab the gun as it fell. His finger got into the trigger guard, as will usually happen when trying to grab a falling pistol, and the pistol discharged. Whether the thumb safety was even engaged when he tried to grab the pistol will never be known.
The shooter’s court date is June 9 for the citation. If he doesn’t return from Ohio to face the charge, a bench warrant will probably be issued for his arrest since it is a criminal charge. Whether the injured man will press charges further has not yet been decided.
HOW TO PREVENT SUCH AN INCIDENT
1) If your gun is too big and heavy to carry in a holster when it’s not in your safe or arms room, then you need a smaller lighter gun. The 1911 pistol was designed to be carried in a sturdy flap holster on a cavalry trooper’s 2 ½ inch pistol belt or kept in the unit’s arms room. One or the other, no in-between. That’s the other part of “the 1911 was designed to ….” people don’t much talk about.
Image courtesy of FrankD on the CMP Forum
2) If your holster isn’t comfortable for all day carry, including while you are seated for long periods, then you need to get a more suitable holster and/or pistol. Although the platitude “A pistol should be comforting [to carry] not comfortable” is heard periodically, it is in severe conflict with the reality of most peoples’ lives.
3) Practice letting a fallen gun fall to the ground before trying to pick it up. Brian Hill of The Complete Combatant http://www.thecompletecombatant.com/ calls this “Rule 5” and I agree with him completely. If you don’t want to practice with your $1000 cool breeze carry pistol, then get some kind of inert dummy gun and practice with it. If you don’t want to spend the money on a Blue Gun https://www.blueguns.com/ , serviceable training aids are available on Amazon. There are training aids available even in the toy section of Walmart, assuming you don’t live in Chicargo where Walmart has decided to close.
This kind of incident makes those of us who are responsible gun carriers look bad. There’s more involved in Every Day Carry of a Deadly Weapon than just buying a gun and sticking it in your pants or purse. Consider the number of incompetent drivers you see who you know should only be riding the bus; not operating a two-ton murder machine.
1) Learn what you need to be able to do, 2) get the proper equipment, 3) practice the skills you need, and then 4) live the lifestyle.
That’s the proper sequence. Don’t be deliberately ignorant and irresponsible.
If you are interested in more in-depth writing about Point Shooting or Personal Defense Incidents and Analysis, please subscribe to my Patreon page by clicking on the image below.
Don’t Play with Guns in Vehicles
“A student is dead after a firearm was accidentally discharged in a vehicle in the parking lot of Dalhart High School.
…
According to [Superintendent] Byrd, a student not enrolled in the district went to the high school at lunch and picked up three students when the firearm went off in the parking lot.”
Just don’t do it. Fooling around with guns in cars is a Serious Mistake that can easily lead to a tragedy.
If you have to put it in a lockbox, have a lockbox that’s big enough for the holstered gun and put the gun in the box without removing it from the holster.
Duel at the Dumbster (Part VIII)
“Hey Claude what are your thoughts on the dad getting convicted and the son getting acquitted in the ‘Duel at the Dumpster’ Trial?”
The “Duel at the Dumbster” saga has finally concluded after almost five years. For those unfamiliar with the incident, it started as the 2018 killing of a man in an Abilene, Texas alley over the disposal of a mattress. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/father-son-texas-shooting-neighbor-trash-video The elder shooter will now spend the rest of his life in prison but his son will go free, except for the debts he owes to his lawyers.
As a friend of mine commented:
“We aren’t supposed to kill each other over who is king of the landfill until *after* society collapses.”
My thoughts about it are remembrances of what other knowledgeable people have said about personal protection in general. This incident shows the wisdom of their words.
“Any time you go into court, there is a greater than zero chance you will be convicted.”
–Andrew Branca Law of Self Defense
“Stupid people, stupid places, doing stupid things. Avoid them and you’ll probably be alright.” and “The best way to win a gunfight is to not be there.”
–John Farnam https://defense-training.com/
“Forget Stand Your Ground.” and “Don’t Go Outside.”
–Steve Harris http://modernserviceweapons.com/?author=12
“The process is the punishment.”
–John Murphy https://www.fpftraining.com/
Note that their combined bond was $500,000, which means they had to give a bondsman at least $50,000 to get out of jail. They don’t get that back, it’s the bondsman’s fee for posting their bail.
Also, assume that in any confrontation you will be on video, most likely from the perspective least favorable to you. The framing of the story in the media will also be as unfavorable to you as can possibly be made. The picture of the participants in the Buzzfeed story is a good example. Both the shooters are portrayed as shirtless toothless gun-armed rednecks. The shootee is portrayed as a happy smiling person, not the hulking angry foul-mouthed behemoth with “Intermittent Explosive Disorder” holding a baseball bat that the video shows.
There are so many lessons to be drawn from the incident that I wrote a series of articles about it.
https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2018/09/21/lessons-from-the-duel-at-the-dumpster-part-i/
https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2018/09/22/lessons-from-the-duel-at-the-dumpster-part-ii/
https://tacticalprofessor.wordpress.com/2018/09/28/lessons-from-the-duel-at-the-dumpster-part-iii/
The year after the Duel, I made a visit to the site as part of my trip to the SHOT Show.
Visit to the Site of the Duel (Part IV of the series)
Visit (continued) to the Site of the Duel (Part V of the series)
This is a quote from The Godfather that is worth repeating.
“There are men in this world,” [Don Corleone] said, “who go about demanding to be killed. You must have noticed them. They quarrel in gambling games, they jump out of their automobiles in a rage if someone so much as scratches their fender, they humiliate and bully people whose capabilities they do not know. I have seen a man, a fool, deliberately infuriate a group of dangerous men, and he himself without any resources. These are people who wander through the world shouting, ‘Kill me. Kill me.’ And there is always somebody ready to oblige them.”
That doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences for such a killing, as the Duel at the Dumbster demonstrates. In The Godfather Sollozzo noted:
“Blood is a big expense.”
tacticalprofessor 
You must be logged in to post a comment.