Category: Carrying / Self-Defense

Virginia Shooting Sports Assocation is reporting:

SB 1035 – Repeal of the Restaurant Ban for concealed carry. Reported with amendment (removed the requirement to notify a member of the restaurant staff that you are carrying concealed) 17-Y 5-N

That was silly to begin with, and I’m glad someone in the Virginia Senate realized it.  You should never tell someone you’re carrying who’s not a law enforcement officer approaching you in an official capacity.  Definitely not the host or hostess of a restaurant.  People carrying a pistol with a license still are not permitted to drink alcohol under this rule, and no doubt critics will point out that this relies on the honor system.  All concealed carry relies on the honor system, since the gun is, you know, concealed.

Many Pennsylvania municipalities regulate the discharge of firearms.  The language of our state’s preemption law would seem to allow this, but it’s never been abundantly clear.  Now someone is challenging the City of Lancaster’s ordinance regarding discharge of firearms:

Swinton said his cousin was being attacked and beaten by a group of assailants and that he fired a warning shot to disperse them. He had a concealed-carry permit for the gun.

Police charged Swinton with reckless endangerment and illegal discharge of a firearm. The latter is a crime under an ordinance that City Council strengthened in 2007 at the urging of Mayor Rick Gray. Each shot — even a blank — is a separate offense and can result in a $500 fine and 90 days in jail. Swinton is the first person to be charged under the amended ordinance.

State law gives a person the right to fire a gun if he or she believes another person is in imminent threat of serious harm, Crystle said. The city ordinance, in contrast, says shooting is justified only in defense of one’s home, business or “human life.” The city can’t deny a right to Swinton that he has under state law, Crystle said.

My feeling is there has to be a self-defense exception to these ordinances, otherwise it would appear to fly in the face of state law and the state constitution.  If the ordinances aren’t written in that manner, than I have no problems with the court creating an exception.

This does, however, speak to relative legal hazard created when warning shots are used.  I’m not a fan of them.

Plaxico Burris could have definitely used this.   I don’t think most professional athletes have been shining examples of responsible gun ownership, but I don’t think Blackwater is doing us a disservice either.  The athletes who are sensible enough to seek out training aren’t going to be the ones we have to worry about making gun ownership look foolish.  Pro-athletes are high profile people who have serious personal protection concerns.  Kudos to Blackwater for offering professional athletes the opportunity to learn how to protect themselves safely.

Outlining some of the problems with carrying and shooting from a pocket.  Short of it is don’t expect more than a few shots if you fire from the pocket, especially with an autoloader.

If you’re going to use a rifle for home defense, you’ll always have the problem of over-penetration, and in a suburban neighborhood, that can be a problem.  The last thing you want is for your shot to go through the bad guy, and leave the premises, or to ricochet off something, and head off in an unsafe direction.  This summer, we did a lot of close range steel shooting with frangible ammunition from International Cartridge Corporation. It occurred to me that if I wanted to use a carbine like an AR-15 for home defense, I would need appropriate ammo.  So I ordered up some of ICC’s .223:

I didn’t shoot any of the .223 Frangible, but if it’s a good as their .45 ACP, it should be pretty good. As you can see, the shape and color are much different than FMJ, but it’ll turn to dust if it hits any surface harder than itself.  You can always use a shotgun for home defense, but I like the AR platform, and its operation is more drilled into my head.

When most of us think home defense, we think pistols and shotguns.  We don’t usually imagine hands.  I’m guessing this guy will not have difficulties with home invaders from this point forward.  All he really has to do is say “I strangled the last guy who broke into my house with my bare hands.  Do you really want to be number two?”

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mess with a guy who killed a man with his bare hands.

In Texas, several people with a concealed handgun license stopped a rampage in progress.  You can tell it was Texas because the guy had no less than three people returning fire.  God Bless Texas.  So much for the claim that the good guys will just end up confusedly shooting each other.