Feature Request

To the manufacturers of cardiac monitors/defibrillators that are marketed toward the EMS environment:

Please add a Voice Recognition component that automatically prints a 30 second strip (15 seconds before and 15 seconds after) the microphone picks up any of the following phrases:

"Oh, shit..."

"What the hell is THAT?"

"Ever seen this rhythm before?"

"Uh, partner? Pull over and get back here..."

"They didn't mention this in paramedic school."

"Hell, I don't know. Maybe we should shock it."

Here we go again

Another shooting at a school.

Another instance of a "gun-free" zone that results in nothing more than a shooter who doesn't need concern himself with return fire.

Another chance for the Brady folks to tell us that if we care about children, we'll make stronger laws about guns.

Another situation where people and the media will ignore the fact that several laws were already broken in the events leading to this tragedy.

I'm sorry for the Parmentor family that lost their child today. I truly am. However, there's no law that could be written that would have prevented this senseless act. If a person, be it an adult or a disturbed teenager, is set to inflict violence on another, no written law, sign, or feel-good policy is going to stop them.

Breaking in a new holster

'Bout two weeks ago, I picked up a Galco Fletch Black Leather holster for my Glock 19.

I like the ride on my hip, the fact that I can conceal it without needing a floor length robe, and the condition as a "used" holster (I saw a post on a local gun web board; seller got it as a gift, but didn't like it, so he sold it to me).

Problem is, it hasn't been used much. That's a good thing on one hand, but a bad thing on the other.

See, what I'm having trouble with is getting it soft enough to allow a fairly expeditious draw, but still hold shape well enough to keep the gun stable and firm.

At the moment, it's so snug that I cannot draw with just one hand. I have to hold the holster with left hand and pull the gun with the right.

That won't do.

I've spent some time repeatedly drawing and re-holstering and re-drawing and re-re-holstering (all with an unloaded gun, of course), and otherwise I've kept the gun in the holster in my bed-side table (no children at JB's house.)

Still, though, it's really stiff to pull. Any suggestions?

Yesterday

Lost in the midst of all the "furniture store sales, paid holiday, kids out of school for the day" madness of President's Day* was the anniversary of the introduction of the 21st Amendment, to Repeal Prohibition.

Prohibition was an abject failure, as is oft the case when government tries to regulate morality, behavior, and activity. It led to crime, organized and otherwise, and really served no purpose other than to make a very few people very rich, and a lot of other people very dead. The rest of society... well, they got screwed.

Seventy nine years later, we still haven't learned our lesson. Government, and more specifically politicians -- from BOTH sides of the aisle, mind you, think they can successfully regulate free-thinking people into some idealistic view of morality.

We see this in the (failed) "War on Drugs" which has been going for years, and yet the drugs still come.

We see this in efforts to ban or limit homosexual couples from having the same rights as heterosexual couples.

We see this in efforts to ban abortion -- usually by men who have never faced the prospect of being a young, single mother.

We see this in efforts to ban alcohol -- anyone live in a "Dry" county?

Time and time again, we see people who have some warped view of what is and what is not "moral" attempt to force that view onto others by regulating behavior.

The underlying message is "You can't be trusted to make your own behavior choices, so we, your Elected Superiors, will make them for you."

If you find this as insulting as I do, raise your glass.

*So noted because I refuse to celebrate all the Presidents at the same time. Seriously, George Washington and Franklin Pierce should NOT have the same day of celebration.

Failure to fire?

One of the guys in the office is a retired Law Enforcement Officer, and he sent me this yesterday. It was sent to him via a "retired cops email list" thing... I don't know if it is real, but perhaps someone can verify?

THE FOLLOWING TRAINING ADVISORY WAS FORWARDED FROM GWINETT COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT - LAWRENCEVILLE, GA

In September, a GCPD officer was involved in a situation which quickly became a use of deadly force incident. When the officer made the decision to use deadly force, the chambered round in his duty pistol did not fire. Fortunately, the officer used good tactics, remembered his training and cleared the malfunction, successfully ending the encounter.

The misfired round, which had a full firing pin strike, was collected and was later sent to the manufacturer for analysis. Their analysis showed the following: ".the cause of the misfire was determined to be from the primer mix being knocked out of the primer when the round was cycled through the firearm multiple times". We also sent an additional 2,000 rounds of the Winchester 9mm duty ammunition to the manufacturer. All 2,000 rounds were successfully fired.

In discussions with the officer, we discovered that since he has small children at home, he unloads his duty weapon daily. His routine is to eject the chambered round to store the weapon. Prior to returning to duty he chambers the top round in his primary magazine, then takes the previously ejected round and puts in back in the magazine. Those two rounds were repeatedly cycled and had been since duty ammunition was issued in February or March of 2011, resulting in as many as 100 chambering and extracting cycles. This caused an internal failure of the primer, not discernible by external inspection.

This advisory is to inform all sworn personnel that repeated cycling of duty rounds is to be avoided. As a reminder, when loading the weapon, load from the magazine and do not drop the round directly into the chamber. If an officer's only method of safe home storage is to unload the weapon, the Firearms Training Unit suggests that you unload an entire magazine and rotate those rounds. In addition, you should also rotate through all 3 duty magazines, so that all 52 duty rounds are cycled, not just a few rounds. A more practical method of home storage is probably to use a trigger lock or a locked storage box.

FURTHER GUIDANCE FROM ATF FIREARMS TECHNOLOGY BRANCH:

The primer compound separation is a risk of repeatedly chambering the same round. The more common issue is bullet setback, which increases the chamber pressures often resulting in more negative effects.

SOD RECOMMENDATION:

In addition to following the guidance provided above of constantly rotating duty ammunition that is removed during the unloading/reloading of the weapon, training ammunition utilized during firearm sustainment and weapon manipulation drills, should also be discarded if it has been inserted into the chamber more than twice. This practice lessens the likelihood of a failure to fire or more catastrophic results.

Putting things into perspective

If you have a life filled with problems, you probably have felt at times like you'll never get past them all.

Imagine your problems are like a 2x4. Seemingly stout, firm, not easy to get through.

You whittle away at them, a little at a time. This is like driving a nail into the board, then removing it. Notice how just a little bit is gone? Sure, it still LOOKS daunting, but there's a small chink in that hulk of wood.

Now imagine how cool it would be if you just blasted the damn 2x4 with a Barrett .50 cal....

:o)

Trigger Discipline

You know you have it when...