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GEnie Outdoors RT Newsletter April, 1995 edited by John Marshall (Paladin) TABLE OF CONTENTS: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 9504A CAST BULLETS: WHY AND HOW Ken Mollohan 9504B REVOLVERS VS. SEMIAUTOS John Marshall 9504C BIOGRAPH Stephen Mandell 9504D BIOGRAPH Don Alexander 9504E NATIONAL SAFE BOATING AWARENESS WEEK Kevin Shaw 9504F NOAA HYDROGRPHIC SURVEY SHIP SCHEDULE, 1995 Kevin Shaw 9504G CARRYING CONCEALED: A GROWING TREND John Marshall 9504H RV ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS: A BOOK REVIEW ANNE B. WATSON 9504I RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS: NRA NEWS NRA Staff 9504J EDITORIAL John Marshall And, by the way, congratulations to Stu Wayne, who correctly identified the March issue's "mystery contraption" as a WW I device for allowing a soldier to fire a rifle without exposing himself to the enemy! Stu had this one on the same day the last issue was put on the wire! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 9504A CAST BULLETS: WHY AND HOW by Kenneth Mollohan *BULLETS *CASTING *LEAD Permission is hereby granted to Genie (General Electric Information Services) for a one-time usage of this copyright protected document in their outdoors newsletter. All other rights reserved. This document, or any portion of it, may not be otherwise reproduced by any means without the written consent of the author, who may be contacted at (412) 573-1183. This is NOT a public domain document. Cast Bullets Chapter One: Why & How Kenneth Mollohan Copyright March 1995 The casting of lead projectiles long predates the development of firearms. It was an archaic art when David-and-Goliath slings were still standard military technology, because archaeologists have found ancient battlefields littered with cast lead balls for slings, many marked with the equivalent of "Take this!". So when firearms were developed, it was an obvious step to use them to launch such lead balls instead of a sling. The spherical lead ball was preeminent for firearms until the elongated lead projectile was developed. Even then, most firearms projectiles were still cast from lead until modern smokeless gunpowder came along. Then it was found necessary to cover the soft lead bullet with a harder metal jacket to protect it from the much fiercer action of smokeless powder. The day of the cast bullet came to an end with smokeless powders. Or so it was generally believed. And it was very nearly true. Cast bullets endured mostly because they could still be used for low power handguns, where they still worked well. The few companies that catered to this industry, (like Modern Bond and Ideal) also offered rifle molds to augment their sales. Why not? They were already set up to make pistol molds, and there was a small but steady customer base of those who liked them well enough in handguns to want to try them in rifles too. But in the tiny bores of smokeless rifle rounds, and at their higher velocity, the old cast bullets simply could not perform: At velocities over about 1200 or 1400 fps, they leaded the bore and were wildly inaccurate. But shooters and especially reloaders are an inquisitive bunch. They continued to tinker and modify their loads and molds until fillers and gas checks had been developed. Velocities of 1600 fps were then possible, and occasional hints that the limit had not been reached would be published from time to time. But duplication of unusually good results was rare. That was where cast bullets languished until Col. Harrison of the NRA staff undertook a scientific investigation to determine exactly what was necessary for good cast rifle loads. He published his definitive work in "The American Rifleman", and told how to obtain good accuracy at 2200 fps and more. Later developments like paper patching have pushed the limits of cast bullet technology well over 3000 fps. The resulting upswing in interest has made cast bullets the latest "in" technology, and the list of suppliers grows by leaps and bounds. Why? What has caused such an interest in a technology that our grandfathers abandoned as uselessly obsolete, especially when it is so unnecessary? We don't need cast bullets. Jacketed bullets from the factory are superb in quality, and unexcelled in performance. In fact, the crowning claim of cast bullets is that now they can be "just as good" as jacketed bullets. Not even their most ardent advocates claim they will perform BETTER than cast bullets. And they can be an awful lot of trouble to prepare and use if you want to duplicate jacketed bullet performance, especially in high power rifles. So what is their appeal? The first attraction of cast bullets for most of us is economic. The cast bullet will not cost more than about 20% of it's jacketed counterpart at most, and frequently costs nothing but the labor. In those situations where they are adequate, they will permit much less expensive shooting. And there are very few situations where a person who understands them cannot get a cast bullet to work very well indeed. In practice, the economics usually mean more shooting for the same money. Wheelweights or similar salvaged metals currently cost about twenty five cents a pound, and are often free. This translates to a cost for the metal of a 150g bullet from nothing to a trifle over half a penny. Of course, adding the cost of lubrication and gas checks (if needed) will raise that very slightly, as will a really complete accounting that considers the cost of melting the lead and how many bullets it takes to wear out a mold. But if you care for your equipment, your grandchildren could still be using your molds, with just as good a result as you will get. Heating is not expensive, and equipment cost is negligible. After the air you breathe, cast bullets are the biggest bargain you can find! The second reason is curiosity. Many a reloader has become captivated by the challenge of seeing how well they can make cast bullets shoot. Cast bullets offer ever expanding avenues for exploration by the curious. While the basic principles are easily grasped by a ten year old youngster, the underlying complexities can exceed the capacities of a college professor. Casting can be a complex interweaving of thermodynamics, chemistry and metallurgy or a simple money saving process. It can be whatever your own inclinations make of it. A third reason is versatility. The same need for extra labor to prepare cast bullets also enables you to customize them to fit special needs. Cast bullets can fitted exactly to your gun, making it easier to get accuracy. They can be loaded to lower velocities than jacketed bullets, for inconspicuous pest control, and teaching youngsters, all at much lower cost. And few uses for firearms mandate the full power maximum pressure magnum loads that are still the special province of jacketed rifle bullets. While cast bullets can indeed perform well at the highest levels, it takes a great deal of expertise and experience to get such results from them, while jacketed bullets work well even for novices. Yet another reason to justify cast bullets is personal challenge. Some want to see how they measure up against the records set by past generations of marksmen. Some just want to try something new, because they've become bored with jacketed bullets. And some just want the satisfaction of saying "Look what I can do with bullets I made myself!". But whether your primary interest is economic, curiosity, personal challenge, or simple boredom, cast bullets offer a vast and rewarding outlet. I recommend that anyone who has no previous experience with cast bullets buy his first mold for a handgun bullet design and try light target loads for his first efforts. The reason is that the more powerful rifle loads, while quite feasible, tend to require a much higher level of skill for best results. Handguns and lighter loads are easier to get good results with, and success is all-important in building confidence and interest in the capabilities of cast bullets. The list of the basic equipment you will need is short. Oh, you can spend small fortunes on more refined gear, but basically you are going to be doing something within the capabilities of an uneducated frontiersman huddled over a campfire of buffalo chips. In its simpler form, it will not take a wagon load of equipment. The idea here will be to let you try out the waters at a minimum of cost, to see if you enjoy it or not. If you do, you can purchase better equipment as the occasion merits. Select a mold recommended for your caliber handgun by the manufacturer, and procure a supply of lead alloy. Which alloy? Well, alloy selection and treatment will be another story. For now, ordinary wheel weights from the local tire shop will do, since you are only going to be making some bullets for target loads, and special alloys will not be necessary. You will need a pot to melt the lead in. Anything of iron or steel will do. Do not use aluminum, and do not use food vessels. Lead will weaken the aluminum, and someday it could break apart while full of molten lead. You will find this educational, but not entertaining. And the food pan could kill someone by lead poisoning as long as it exists. You may not be here in a hundred years to warn your grandchildren that the antique iron skillet is not safe to use. You can use an old hubcap, a pipe cap, or even spend a few bucks for a small iron pot sold for the purpose by several suppliers and a lot of hardware stores. Buy a bottom pour dipper like Lyman's too: Nothing else works quite so well, and the cost is negligible. Heat can be supplied by anything from an electric hotplate, a propane torch or a camping stove, or even a campfire. I suggest you don't use the kitchen stove. Heat generated by the spouse when you fill the house with fluxing smoke is too intense. You will also need a small, long-handled spoon that has had a number of 1/16" holes drilled in the bowl. These holes will keep the spoon from ever being used for food, and will allow lead to drain when you use it to skim debris from the surface of the melt. Your mold should always be stored with a protective coating of oil or grease. The same products that protect your guns will also keep your molds rust-free in storage. The old advice to just leave a bullet cast in the cavity simply will not protect your mold for very long under many conditions. But it must be completely free of oil before it can be used. The usual approach of trying to clean it with gasoline just leaves the mold contaminated with one petroleum product in place of another. The best way to degrease them is to just immerse the opened mold blocks in a pan with about an inch and a half of boiling water, to which about a quarter teaspoon of dish detergent has been added. I put my mold on the handles first, and use them to stand it in the pan on end. The handles serve as a convenient way to remove the mold blocks when they are clean. Leave the mold in the water until it returns to a rolling boil. Then rinse them very briefly under a stream of hot water, and shake them dry. This is a bit beyond the frontiersman's technique, but not too hard to master. And it will leave your mold so free of oils that it can rust in a few minutes if you don't shake them dry like I told you. A clean mold will cast good bullets from almost the very start, and you will not have to go through the frontiersman's traditional "break-in" period, which mostly consisted of keeping the mold hot long enough to evaporate the residual oils off, or to at least cook them down until no volatiles were left in the traces that were left on the mold. You should wear proper clothing. You are about to handle molten lead, and unless you are inhumanly perfect in everything you do, you will sooner or later brush against a hot surface, or get a lead spatter on your clothes. Your clothing should be natural fibers. Synthetic cloth like polyesters can melt and glue hot metal to your skin, vastly increasing the effect and damage of burns. Do not wear synthetics, but loose cotton "blue jeans" type clothing is fine. For maximum protection, you should also be wearing leather or cotton gloves and have a face shield to protect your good looks. At the very least, wear safety goggles to protect your good sight. You will also need a proper working area. You must find a spot secure from children, pets and other distractions. Young children may find the shiny surface of molten lead very pretty and try to pick it up. Don't give them the chance to make that mistake. You will also need good ventilation. No, not because of lead fumes. There aren't any to speak of in ordinary casting. But some virtually invisible lead dusts are generated by casting and fluxing, which amount to almost the same thing: They can be inhaled and can lead to serious poisoning. This is a major concern of many beginners, and not without some justification. It has happened, but it is exceedingly rare. The most common source of lead poisoning comes not from inhalation, but from ingestion! It is eaten! Lead will transfer from the surface of the ingots to your hands, and then into your mouth with a quick sandwich, or along with a cool drink, or perhaps with a cigarette. NOTHING should go in your mouth while you are casting. And when you are done, your should wash your hands, arms and face well. Generations of shooters have shown that working with lead is not particularly dangerous if you use a little common sense. These simple steps will dramatically improve the safety of working with lead alloys. Now inspect your wheelweights. Sort out and discard any that do not have a small steel clip in the middle. Those without the clip are often flat strips of pure lead, and are too soft for most purposes. Fill the pot with the remaining wheelweights, and put it on the fire to melt. Once it melts, use the spoon to skim off the steel clips, and discard them safely in a tin can for proper disposal when they have cooled. DO NOT ADD UNMELTED WHEELWEIGHTS TO THE MOLTEN LEAD!! The dirt and grease may contain trapped volatiles ranging from water to light oils that can boil off and cause serious spattering of the molten lead. And volatiles can come from the most unexpected sources. Only lead that you have melted and cast into ingots can be safe to add to a melt, and not always then. In warm climates, perspiration on your hands can get on the lead ingots, and cause spattering. I was badly burnt this way once. In cold climates, moisture from your fire [if you are using one] (or even your breath) can condense on the cold ingots and cause spattering. If in doubt, just lay the ingot near your heat until it's warm to the touch, and moisture condensation will evaporate. Then it can be safely added to the pot with gloves or tongs. While your lead is melting, set the mold blocks beside the pot to pre-heat. Be careful not to let the handles get burnt. While the mold is warming up, check the temperature of your pot. The best way is with a thermometer, and for most alloys you should start with the lead at about 750 to 800 degrees. But our frontiersman had no thermometers. He judged the temperature by tossing in a bit of paper or dry grass. If the paper didn't brown, or browned slowly, the metal was still too cool to cast well. If the paper browned quickly, the lead was hot enough to cast with. If it burst into flame, the lead was too hot, and the casting would be slow because of the time for the lead to cool and harden, though no other harm was done. Not too exacting a technique, but practical and serviceable. You can use it too. Too high a heat will also cause bullets to get a frosty appearance, but that will do no harm: Just go ahead and use them, but save energy by dropping the temperature of your pot when you see frosting. Now skim the surface of the melt with your spoon. This should remove almost all of the dirt (called "dross"), leaving you with a smooth shiny mirror-like surface. Most authorities recommend fluxing before you skim. Unless your metal is quite dirty, I strongly suggest you do not flux at all while casting. The purpose of fluxing is to separate entrained alloy from the skin of metallic oxides that form naturally on the surface of the melt, and float dirt to the top for easy removal. The usual procedure is to drop a thimble sized ball of wax or grease on top of the molten metal, and stir with your skimming spoon. The wax melts and wets out the oxides (black stuff), and causes the flakes of oxide to stop adhering to one another, so the tiny metal droplets that were stuck in the oxide piles can drop free back into the melt. The mixture of oxides and molten wax is also much lighter than the alloy, so it stays on top of the melt so you can skim it off easily. The process works, but you pay a heavy price for a few drops of alloy recovered and the marginally cleaner alloy. Your work environment is enveloped in an impressive cloud of smoke from the burning wax until (and unless) you set fire to it (or it bursts into flame from the heat), and that too is an impressive sight: Six to twelve inches of leaping flame that you are trying to get a spoon in to stir with. The smoke and lead oxides are also the source of microscopic airborne particles that are responsible for most of the "lead vapors" hazard of casting. And the smoke, odor and flame is NOT calculated to win smiling toleration of your hobby from your wife! It is far better to simply skim the surface with your spoon, and deposit the scrapings in an old soup can for later salvage. The next time you go outdoors to melt down a batch of wheelweights into ingots on a camping stove, the scrapings can be added to the melt, and any necessary fluxing can be done then. Actually, for all the metal you will salvage from it, it could be safely disposed of without significant loss. Put your dipper in the melt, and stir it to get the dipper hot. A cold dipper means a cold alloy which means poorly cast bullets. Pick up the hot mold and pour the melted lead quickly into the hole in the top. Do not pour slowly and timidly, but as quickly as you can without splashing or spilling it. And keep pouring, even after the mold cavity is full. Leave a large puddle (called the "sprue") on the top of the mold. Many oldtimers continued to pour until the dipper was empty, letting the overflow run off the mold and back into the pot. They got good results, but I think that was going a bit too far. Once the lead has been poured, do not set the dipper down, but return it to the pot so it will stay hot. These things are important. Pouring slowly allows the lead to cool off too much, and can cause wrinkled or poorly filled out bullets. The large sprue is to keep the base of the bullet hotter than the nose, so it will be the last part of the bullet to cool and harden. This is important to getting good quality bullets because the lead shrinks measurably as it cools. If it cools from the nose while the base is still molten, more lead can be sucked into the cavity to make up for the shrinkage. But if there is not a big sprue to keep the base hot, the bullet will cool from both ends. Once both ends are hard, and unable to adjust for shrinkage, cavities will form randomly inside the bullet as the alloy shrinks. This will cause the bullet to be unbalanced, and it will not shoot well. As the lead cools, the mirror bright surface of molten metal will abruptly turn dark, or stop being shiny. This is normal. It only means that the alloy has cooled enough to crystallize and harden. When it happens, count off about three seconds before you try to cut the sprue and open the mold. It looks like it all hardens at once, but it doesn't really. There will briefly be some tiny droplets that are still liquid, and if you drag it across the mold, some will be rubbed off. Just wait a little to give all the lead time to harden, so none will stick to your mold and cause problems. If that should happen, and you see a build-up of lead between the sprue cutter and the top of the mold blocks, DON'T scrape it off. You can easily ruin the blocks with a knife or file that way. The right way to get it off is to just heat the blocks up a bit more with a propane torch, and melt the deposit. Then it can easily be wiped away with a dry rag, and you'll be ready to resume casting almost immediately. Once your mold is good and hot, the bullets should come from the mold as exact duplicates of the cavity. They should not be wrinkled or have rounded edges. If they do, your alloy or your mold is not hot enough. An old way to improve the casting of your alloy at lower temperatures was to add some tin, but it is not a good idea. Not only is tin very expensive, but it contributes somewhat to leading and causes bullets to soften with age. Increasing the heat instead is cheaper and gives more consistent results. Another trick that can work wonders is to use a bit of soot to coat the cavity. Something like an old fashioned miners lamp is the best, but they are rare today. Candle soot may be slightly greasy and may cause more problems than it cures until the wax is evaporated off. You can also use commercial sprays described below. Cast bullets are often difficult to remove from the mold. There are a lot of reasons for this, ranging from cavities cut slightly off center to machining burrs on the edges of the cavity. There are a number of ways to deal with the problem. You could simply whale the dickens out of the mold to jar the bullet loose. But while some jarring will usually be necessary, it should not be more than a tap or two. If you have to pound, stop and examine your mold. Let it cool, and go over it with a magnifying glass to look for burrs along the edge of the cavity, and especially where vent channels enter the cavity. Look on the cast bullet to see where the burr or obstruction is: Anything that keeps the bullet from falling freely from the mold will usually leave small marks on the bullet as it is pounded out, and these marks will show you just where to concentrate your attention. DO NOT TRY TO REMOVE ANY BURRS WITH FILES OR STONES! Any burrs that big are grounds for returning the mold as defective. But it doesn't take a big burr to cause big trouble. Burrs can be so small they can't be seen (by older eyes anyhow) and still cause trouble. But they can be removed without damaging the mold by scrubbing the cavity edges with the eraser end of a pencil. If this doesn't do it, scrape the edge of the mold cavity with a bit of brass. Brazing rod, or even a cartridge case will do nicely, and a graphite pencil lead will also work. The pencil lead will also leave a lubricating coating that will help release the bullet too. There are also a number of commercial mold release aerosols sold for this purpose, and they can work very well. But it's best to deburr the mold so that they aren't necessary, and the bullets will drop easily from the mold with only a tap or two. Incidentally, many authorities recommend anything from a stick to a leather mallet for tapping the mold. Never use steel, as you can quickly pound your mold into useless junk with the hard steel. Personally, I find sticks scatter splinters and make a mess, and the leather mallets are always getting misplaced. I use a lead ingot to tap the mold with. Yes, it gets dinged up, but that hurts nothing when I drop it into the melt and pick up a fresh ingot. Lead ingots have the weight to work well to cut the sprue and jar the mold, and yet are far too soft to dent the mold blocks. When your bullets drop from the mold, they are still very hot and soft. They are easily damaged, and damaged bullets are inaccurate. You must prevent any damage by catching them softly. It used to be recommended that you drop them onto an old wool blanket or something similarly soft, and let them cool there. Nowadays, the trend is to drop them from the mold into a bucket of water. The water cools and hardens them rapidly, and they are resistant to damage by the time they fall to the bottom of the bucket. This sudden cooling also makes them harder, but that too is another story. Both techniques work well, and you can take your choice. The water does require special care to prevent it from getting into the melt though, which could be disastrous. The bucket must be located away from the lead pot, so that it can't splash. Or rather, so that splashes can't reach the pot. The best way is to have the bucket UNDER the desk or table you are casting from. The splash cannot come up through the table top to reach the lead pot, and this lets you work without having to turn to the side every time you cast, which can quickly become tiring. Be careful that the splashes do not leave any water in the mold when you pour lead again. However, the mold should be hot enough that any specks of water will sizzle away in a few seconds, so that with a little care, this should not be a problem. The wet bullets can be dried by simply spreading them out for the water to evaporate. But drying can be speeded up a great deal if you place several handfuls of the wet bullets on a bath towel, and hold it by both ends to tumble them back and forth a few times. This will remove almost all the water, and you can get on to the next step quickly. Once the bullets have been cast (and dried, if needed), you must prepare them for loading. For most purposes, this means they must be sized and lubricated. A micrometer will show that your bullets are too big for your gun! They must be sized, which means that the diameter must be swaged down a bit. You might wonder why they don't make molds that cast the right diameter to begin with. There are lots of reasons, and all good ones. First of all, the cost of the molds would be much higher, because the manufacturer would only be able to cut a few mold cavities before his expensive cutter wore a bit, and he would have to throw it away and use another one. A slightly oversized cutter can be used, sharpened, and used again several times before it has to be discarded. So one reason is manufacturing economics. But another reason is consumer economics. Modern guns are marvels of precision, but each will have minor variations in bore dimensions. Do you want to buy a new mold for each 30 caliber gun you have? If you had molds that cast only one specific diameter, you'd have to do just that unless you had two with exactly the same bore diameter. Wouldn't it be nicer to use the same mold for all of them? And the final reason is that even if you were willing to go to all that trouble and expense, you'd have to buy another new mold every time you changed alloys. If your gun did not shoot well, and you wanted to try a harder lead, it would NOT cast at the same diameter. The changes would be small, but very real. You can change the diameter of bullets from a mold by a thousandth of an inch or more, just by changing alloys. But all this aggravation is avoided by just making the mold a tiny bit oversized, and then sizing it to fit whatever you want. Several manufacturers offer a simple inexpensive sizer of the "push them through" variety, that only size the bullet, but will not lubricate them, and this is a practical minimum. Our frontiersman used very soft lead that would expand to fit his bore, and could use undersized bullets with his black powder loads, and still get pretty good results. This is not practical with modern smokeless powders, and bullets must be the right size for best results. What diameter do you size to? Many people make the mistake of getting a sizer for the nominal bore diameter for his gun. The old advice to measure your actual bore diameter was an improvement, but the best way is to size the bullet near the diameter of the chamber throat in your gun. For revolvers, start with a sizer that is throat diameter or 0.001" more. For auto pistols and rifles, get a sizer that is throat diameter or 0.001" less. You may improve your results later by changing the diameter slightly, but these will be very good starting points. And sizing dies are available in sufficient diversity that you should be able to find a sizer within 0.001" of your throat diameter with little trouble. Lubrication is necessary to prevent lead from sticking to the bore of your gun, and ruining the accuracy. As a practical minimum, bullets can be lubricated by picking them up by the nose and dipping them briefly in some wax lubricant that (for safety's sake) you have melted in a double boiler. The wax will harden around the bullet and fill in the grooves. It will also harden around the bands, and this has to be removed before the bullet is loaded. An easy way is to do that is to just cut the bottom off of a fired shell, and push the greased bullet through it. Lyman used to sell a similar device called a "Kake Kutter", which was used to cut grease away from the bands of lubricated bullets. Now you're ready to load the cast bullet. The relative softness of the cast bullet means that some special treatment is necessary, and your old loading techniques will have to be changed very slightly. Instead of just running a case through the sizer die, you will also need to "bell" the mouth of the case slightly. This is a small flare that you put in the neck to let the cast bullet start down the neck without being scrapped. Jacketed bullets are hard enough to just force the brass neck to expand to fit them. Cast bullets aren't that hard, and the brass can gouge them badly, damaging the accuracy badly. The flare is an easy thing to do, and it will prevent the problem entirely. At a minimum, you can do the job with a tapered punch that you can tap to cause the mouth of the case to flare out very slightly. The right amount is usually almost invisible: Just enough that the bottom of the bullet will start in. When you seat the cast bullet, it should just touch or almost touch the rifling. And the base should not go below the neck in bottlenecked cases, if your gun will let you seat it far enough forward to avoid that. If the base is seated too low, you will not be able to use as powerful a load as you might otherwise. Otherwise, load cast bullets just like you would jacketed bullets. Pick a safe load recommended for cast bullets from any good manual, and follow the loading instructions in the manual. In handguns, almost any load is usually suitable for cast bullets, and will usually give about the same pressure and velocity as a jacketed one of the same weight. If you want the very best accuracy from your loads, give your gun a good cleaning with a bore solvent that will remove the copper fouling from jacketed bullets. And when you have a clean gun, remove the cleaner with a little paint thinner on a patch before you shoot. Cleaning is not as important with pistols as it is with rifles, but clean bores shoot best with any ammunition, and especially so with cast bullets. It must be noted that while very good ammunition can be made with the sizing and lubricating techniques described above --- and I have used them to load more ammunition than I like to think about --- the job is made infinitely easier and more convenient by some more advanced equipment and techniques. Sizing and lubrication are best handled by a special machine called (oddly enough) a sizerlubricator. Simply insert a sizer die for the desired diameter, and a quick pull on a handle will both size and lubricate the bullet in less time than it takes to tell it, and it will seat and crimp gas checks too, if your bullet uses them. It will eliminate all the fuss and bother of melting lubricant, dipping bullets, using the Kake Kutter, and then sizing the bullets. They are fairly expensive, but if you enjoy cast bullets, they would be the very next purchase I would recommend. A close second on the list of suggested improvements would be a bottom pour electrically heated melting pot. They can be had in a range of capacities and prices, and will eliminate the need of dipping and pouring the lead by hand. The convenience will well repay their purchase price. Other useful accessories are an ingot mold and a thermometer to make sure your pot is up to casting temperature, and to let you return to the temperature that works best with your alloy. Beyond these, your wallet is the only limit on the gadgetry that can be purchased for cast bullets. Hardness testers. Mold sprays. Fluxing agents. Dozens of different lubes to try. Lube heaters. An infinity of alloys and tempering variations. Paper patching. Foil patching. Painted bullets instead of jacketed ones. Sabots. Hollowpointing. Split slugs. Multi-ball loads. Copper bearing bands. Gas Checks. Sizing dies. Bumping dies. Fillers. Top Punches. And Molds, Molds, Molds. Molds for every caliber, and molds of every possible shape and form, and ... No, no, no, that way lies madness ... and bankruptcy! I must go lie down for a while. But I'll be back! My next installment will be a discussion of all those possible shapes and forms that can be used for bullets. Which ones are best in which application, and why they work ... or don't work. See you then. Molly ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 9504B REVOLVERS VS. AUTOLOADERS by John Marshall *REVOLVERS *SEMIAUTOMATICS *ACTIONS *HANDGUNS *PISTOLS About the only controversy bigger than 9mm vs. .45 in the shooting world is the one about which is better - the revolver or the autoload- ing pistol. In this article, I'll hope to make you aware of some of the advantages and disadvantages of both types of handgun, and then venture my opinion. First, some protocols. I'll refer to "revolver" and "auto." Please don't take the latter term to mean "full auto" as in machine gun. I'm referring to autoLOADING, not automatic fire. Also, in the context of this article, I'm going to be talking about advantages and disad- vantages as they relate to the prime purpose of a handgun - defense and combat. If you want to switch the discussion to target work, we'd have to tackle another article which would be beyond the scope of this one. THE REVOLVER Those who know me sometimes figure that I'm anti-revolver because it's well known that I'm a leading fan of the 1911 auto. Nothing can be farther from the truth. The revolver, as a genre, has some very attractive features, and I use these firearms myself in certain situa- tions. I'm not going to be discussing single action revolvers here, although they have great romance and some very commendable features also, but only the typical double-action, single-action capable re- volver which has become ubiquitous on these shores since about the turn of the century. The design really hasn't changed much because it hasn't needed to; sure, there have been improvements such as coil springs replacing leaf springs, safety transfer bars and so forth. Still, the typical revolver still has a cylinder containing five to nine rounds, and that cylinder can be swung out to the left where a central ejection rod is pressed to disgorge the empties in one motion. The revolver described above has some real advantages. In fact, because of these advantages, I often recommend one for newcomers to the shooting game. The DA revolver is as operator-foolproof as practically any mechanism to be. To fire it, one need only pick it up and pull the trigger. There is nothing to remember about safe- ties, condition of readiness, etc. Just do what comes naturally. The revolver can be left loaded indefinitely with no deterioration in expected reliability. All springs are at rest either loaded or unloaded. The revolver can be fired with a long pull on the trigger for instant action at short to medium distances, or for more precise work at longer range, it can be cocked and the shot squeezed off with a sin- gle-action pull which is generally unmatched on the auto side except by target pistols. You can use practically any type of ammunition in a revolver and it will still fire. You can shoot very light loads, very stout loads, and use any style of bullet, from round-nosed to wadcutter. As long as the cartridge is complete and sound, it will fire satisfactorily, regardless of its configuration or power. In a revolver, the rounds are visible - you know instantly if it's loaded. If you so unfortunate as to have one pointed at you, you can see the bullet noses. If you are on the dishing-out end, you can see the cartridge rims. Just a glance is all that's necessary to affirm the loaded condition. If a round fails to fire in a revolver, another pull of the trigger is all that's necessary to bring another cartridge into line behind the barrel and fire it. The firing of the next round is not dependent upon the firing of the previous one. Your choice of grip (stocks) is almost infinite with a revolver. Whole industries have sprung up providing custom grips for revolvers, in virtually any style, type of wood, with or sans checkering, etc. If you can't get a revolver to fit your hand, you just haven't discov- ered the right set of grips or the frame is too large or too small. Frames come in just about any size you could want. The revolver can be made to take extremely powerful loads, and given the right frame size and metallurgy, the sky is just about the limit. That's why "magnum" typically also means "revolver," with a few excep- tions. The revolver is fairly simple to maintain - open the cylinder, scrub the chambers and the barrel, clean in the nooks and crannies, lube sparingly, and that's it. Well, those are the advantages for the revolver. Are there any disad- vantages? You betcha. Here are some, including some you may not have thought of before. oX3 The revolver is admittedly slow to reload. Sure, there are speedload- ers or clips which hold the required number of rounds in a gang for reloading, but they are cumbersome, unreliable and bulky for the most part. Speedloaders have been known to dump their rounds through careless mishandling, and clips can get bent easily. At best these devices usually hold a maximum of six rounds. If you're using a revolver against multiple assailants, you are at a disadvantage against an autoloader. It's commonly thought that the revolver is jamproof. Uh-uh. And when the jams happen, they can be real doozies. First, there's the "high primer" problem. If you look at a revolver where the base of the cartridge rests against the recoil shield and frame, you're going to see tool marks, crevices, and other irregulari- ties. They're unavoidable in a production gun. If for any reason the primer in a cartridge is high, that is to say projecting beyond the face of the base of the cartridge, you're gonna have problems. This most often happens with reloads, but factory rounds can occasion- ally show this defect also. That high primer against those irregular surfaces causes extreme friction. In the best possible case, it may make trigger action difficult. In the worst possible case, it may bind the cylinder to the point where it will not turn. Remedial action is severe - the cylinder release must be actuated and the right side of the cylinder smacked with a karate chop to loosen it. If this doesn't work, it must be struck with an object with more momentum, such as a block of wood, or in an emergency, it can even be slammed against a car door, etc. Police can tell you this happens, and Murphy being alive and well, at the worst possible moment. The .357 magnum cartridge is notorious for tieing up revolvers simi- larly to the above scenario. The high pressure of this cartridge tends to back out the primer, or to "weld" the primer against the recoil shield of the revolver, and it's mighty darn difficult to move the cylinder once this happens. In fact, many police departments have forbidden use of full-power .357 loads and have prescribed the use of +P .38 specials only in duty guns. The revolver, by its very nature, is a close-tolerance design. This means that mud, dirt, clothing fiber and other assorted crud has no place in or near a revolver. It must be kept scrupulously clean to function well, and a mudbath will be cause for a major disassembly and cleaning job that's beyond the scope of most amateur gunsmiths. Heaven forbid that you get a "squib" load in a revolver. This is a cartridge loaded with only a small amount of powder, or no powder at all. This is most common with handloads, but sometimes it happens with factory loads, as well. Two things can happen here; one is a severe annoyance, and the other can be very dangerous. In the first case, the power of the primer or small amount of powder is enough to move the bullet, but only into the forcing cone of the barrel, leaving the bullet half in and half out of the cylinder. The half that's out is in the barrel, locking the cylinder up tight. No more shots can be fired until some instrument is poked down the barrel and the of- fending bullet pounded back inside the cylinder. Then the cylinder can be opened and the round removed. The second happening is where the bullet moves all the way into the barrel, still allowing the cylinder to rotate and another round to be fired right behind it. The resulting pressure of a double bullet load in the barrel can literally explode the handgun. That's why if you hear an other-than-normal discharge with a revolver, you should STOP and check the situation out before attempting to fire another round. It's vital to your health to do so. Another problem can happen, particularly with magnum loads. Newton's laws of motion are inviolable, and they apply to revolvers as well as to any object in motion. Let's look at what happens when a round is fired in a revolver. As the gun is fired, the bullet comes out of the barrel. The equal and opposite action described by Newton is called recoil; the gun sets back, often violently, in the hand. The lead bullets in the unfired cartridges have what is called "inertia of rest." In other words, they tend to stay in place. As the gun re- coils, the effect is that the case tends to be pulled back off the bullet; the gun itself acts like an inertia bullet puller in reverse. That is why magnum loads should be heavily crimped; the crimp and the tension of the case against the bullet are usually all that prevent this inertial setback from happening. When it does happen, the bullet nose projects beyond the cylinder, and you can guess what happens next; the gun is tied up and won't function. Now if the offending round is on the LEFT side of the revolver's cylinder, your immediate action is simple. Open the cylinder and pluck out the long round, or dump the entire contents of the cylinder to save time and then reload quickly. If the bad round is on the RIGHT side of the cylinder, you are in deep excrement. Not only will the cylinder not turn, but you can't open the cylinder to get rid of the bad round or rounds. This is a major malfunction, and the only way to get the cylinder open is to pound the offending bullet back in so it's flush or below the level of the front face of the cylinder. This is not an easy thing to do in a pucker situation. Cops are trained to slam the cylinder with its projecting bullet forward against a flat sharp surface such as a car door if they can, or preferably go to their backup piece, or run like hell. It's not a pretty situation. Now let's take another happening which is fairly common. Let's say you're banging away (hopefully at targets), and you find the trigger pull getting increasingly stiffer. Maybe you can't even pull the trigger, and so you try to open up the cylinder to see what's happen- ing and find it's darn near impossible to do. Chances are you have a Smith and Wesson or Taurus revolver; the Colts with unshrouded ejector rods are not subject to this particular malfunction. What has hap- pened is simple enough. Recoil and vibration have loosened your ejector rod, and it's now projecting forward too far. Far enough forward, and the rod will not allow you to open the cylinder. If you have an unshrouded ejector rod on a Smith or Taurus, you can use your fingers to screw in the rod so that it's the right length, while the cylinder is closed. If you have a shrouded ejector rod (most magnums are built this way), a special tool is required, and YOU probably don't have one. You're out of action, pilgrim. Oh - another thing. Ejector rods come in two flavors; clockwise threads and counter- clockwise threads. You'll have to know which yours is before you attempt to screw it in. Early Smiths have a clockwise thread (to screw inward), and later ones have a counterclockwise thread. The latter ones are identified by a groove in the ejector rod just behind the knurling. And one MORE thing before I leave this subject. NEVER attempt to use a pair of pliers to screw in that ejector rod. You will almost certainly screw it up, and you will have a major gunsmith- ing repair job on your hands. Use your fingers only. If you're not comfortable doing this, take the revolver to a gunsmith after your remedial action, and get him to apply a LITTLE Lok-Tite to the threads on the ejector rod. Too much, and you're in trouble again. The stuff tends to migrate and can muck things up inside your cylinder very badly. Take any revolver and open the cylinder. Now depress the ejector rod and look underneath the ejector star. Do you see those two little pins that project up and mate into the ejector star? They're tiny, but they are important. They are put there to align the ejector star, and with it, the ratchet against which the "hand" in the frame of the revolver presses to rotate the cylinder. If one or both of these little pins is missing, STOP, do not pass go, and do not collect $200. You have a dangerous situation in which your revolver will go out of time, start spitting lead, or worse, not allow the bullet to exit from the misaligned cylinder. Those little pins are just three- cent parts, but they are a press fit in the cylinder and can sometimes work loose and fall out. When they do, you're in trouble, so take the time to look at them, note them, and check them from time to time to be sure they are still there. There's more while you're looking underneath the ejector star. This is one of the most important areas to clean on a revolver. Crud, grease, congealed oil and unburned powder granules tend to collect in there. When it gets bad enough, the ejector star cannot go all the way down into its seat in the cylinder, and the result is a cylinder which will either bind or will not close properly. Cleaning this area is important, and is not one of those things you can do readily in combat or another pucker scenario. When you clean your revolver, pay particular attention to this area. The reason many revolvers have an ejector shroud (the ejector rod is enclosed on three sides) is not for looks or to add extra weight for control purposes, although these are pleasant side effects. The shroud is there to protect the ejector rod against blows which may bend it. Once that rod is bent, there is no way to eject the empties short of poking them out with a stick and in Smiths and Taurus revolv- ers, you cannot lock up the cylinder properly (the front of the ejec- tor rod is a locking point). If you have an unshrouded rod, take extreme care to protect the rod by not banging it against anything; the result of doing so will not be pleasant and you'll be making a trip to your friendly neighborhood gunsmith once again. He'll appre- ciate your business, I'm sure. Take your unloaded revolver, close the cylinder, and without pointing the gun at your head, look at the front of the frame where the crane (the support for the cylinder when it's opened) mates against the frame. In a properly-set-up revolver, you should see only a hairline where the two parts mate. If there is a gap, you've got trouble, because the gun will almost certainly be out of time, perhaps danger- ously so. "Out of time" refers to the cylinder not locking up proper- ly so that a chamber is directly in line with the barrel. The cause for this problem is that someone, hopefully not you, has been playing Humphrey Bogart and flipping the cylinder open and closed with a flick of the wrist. This is a bad practice and can spring the crane; cylinders should always be closed carefully by hand and slightly rotated until a click is heard, indicating proper indexing of the cylinder. The sprung-crane condition is dangerous and can only be corrected by a good gunsmith or the factory. Revolvers are complex mechanisms, and disassembly of the innards is best handled by someone who really knows what he or she is doing. Removal of the sideplate alone can be a problem for the uninitiated. To do it properly, it should never be pried off after the retaining screws are removed. The best method is to tap the frame in the trigger guard area with a plastic hammer or wood stick until the sideplate bounces up through inertia. This is as far as I would recommend most folks disassemble their revolvers, and only for the purpose of applying lube judiciously to the contact friction points within once in a while. Look out - small parts can pop loose and get lost or bent, screws can be stripped, springs can get bent; the list of problems is endless. If you are in any way unsure of what you're doing, DON'T take your revolver apart. Lube it by dropping a very small amount of oil down through the opening created by the cocked hammer, and never over-lube. Any lube in areas that contact the primers of the cartridges can migrate into the primers and kill them surer than heck. Remember, WD-40 is a better solvent than a lube, and it WILL work into primers very easily. Police have been known to clean their duty revolvers, load them, and then spray the handgun with WD-40 and wipe it down. These same officers are then amazed when their "reliable" revolvers go click instead of bang. Learn and live or find out too late and die; those are the options sometimes. THE AUTOLOADING PISTOL The autoloading pistol has also been around since about the turn of the century, and the design was arguably nearly perfect when John Browning designed the immortal 1911 pistol for the U.S. armed forces. There have been a profusion of "refinements" and "improvements" since this event, but the basic design features of that pistol are still with us and have not been materially improved upon. Let's look at some of the auto's advantages first. The main advantage, and the reason why the military has universally adopted the autoloader, is firepower. The typical revolver holds six rounds and is slow to reload. The autoloader typically holds seven to 16 rounds in its magazine, and a magazine change can be done in a couple of seconds with the right handgun. The autoloader, because of its action, tends to soak up recoil better than a revolver. With a heavy load like the .45 ACP, or a high- intensity round like the 9mm Parabellum, the comfort factor cannot be ignored. Recovery time is faster with an auto because of this. Repeat shots can be placed faster and more accurately with an auto. There is no need to pull through a long double-action pull, nor to cock a hammer. The loading and cocking functions are performed by the pistol itself. You can concentrate on that front sight and squeezing the trigger properly, and you can do this in rapid succes- sion. The autoloader's barrel is not far over your hand, providing for recoil which is closer to the axis of your arm. This means that there is less muzzle flip than with a comparable-power revolver. This gets you back on target quicker. The autoloader is typically flatter than a revolver (there are some exceptions). This allows for less bulge in concealed carry, and more compactness when stowing the gun (for example, under the seat of a car in those regions where this is legal). Clearing a jam is more straightforward than with a revolver, and depending on the jam, is usually quicker to accomplish. We've already discussed some of the things that can go wrong with a revolver, and most of them take time and trouble to clear. The most common jams in an auto require only that you tap the base of the magazine to insure proper seating, rack the slide, and continue shooting. In more complex jams, the drill is to strip the magazine, rack the slide twice, re-insert the mag (or a new one), rack the slide, and continue shooting. With practice, these drills become automatic reflexes and take but a few seconds to get back in action. The mechanism of an autoloader is such that it may have several condi- tions of readiness. This can be a safety factor which may hinder or preclude your own gun being used against you. A DA revolver can be picked up by anyone and fired. An auto may have the safety on, the magazine removed, and/or an empty chamber. An untrained person may have some difficulty getting it into firing mode, giving you precious seconds or preventing a tragedy. This is particularly true if the pistol has a magazine safety which precludes firing if the magazine is removed or even dropped down a little. Field stripping the typical autoloader is usually a snap. Ever since the Model 1911 was designed, most autos have been designed for easy disassembly to the point where routine cleaning can be accomplished easily. The Model 1911 itself can be detail stripped to the last part with only a little training. If your handgun has been subjected to a mud bath or salt water immersion, this is a necessity, even if it's made of stainless steel. The tolerances on the typical auto are not as close as with a revolv- er. This means that dirt and other assorted crud can be chewed up and the pistol will still function. The 1911 design is famous for its ability to digest crud and still work. That's why it was THE combat pistol of our armed forces for over 70 years. The design of the auto keeps crud out of the works when the action is closed; the revolver is more open due to its design, and it's hard to keep dirt out of it in combat situations. While parts breakage in an auto does happen occasionally, most ama- teurs can replace the parts themselves with no hand-fitting being required. When a revolver part becomes worn, breaks or is misaligned, the services of a trained gunsmith are almost always required. Does the autoloader have some disadvantages? Sure. Here are some, and they are not all-inclusive. First, the autoloader requires that its user be trained adequately to insure safety and proper employment. It is not readily apparent in most autoloaders whether the gun is loaded or not. There may be a round in the chamber, or the magazine may be full, partially empty, or empty. Careful inspection is necessary to determine its state. It must be remembered if the action is cocked and locked over a live round, if there is an empty chamber, etc., etc.; if you don't use a uniform "condition of readiness" the ensuing fumbling could get you killed while you figure it out. The autoloader is more ammunition-sensitive than the revolver. The ammo must be of the proper bullet configuration and power level to reliably function the mechanism. A bad round must be manually eject- ed before continuing. As in the case of the revolver, a squib load can lodge a bullet in the barrel, but usually the action will not function to load another round behind the lodged bullet. An unusual sound will be heard, and as in the case of the revolver, things must be brought to a halt, the action cleared, and the barrel inspected to be sure there is no bullet stuck in the barrel. Loading another round into the chamber and firing it behind a stuck bullet will most likely be injurious to your health, big-time. The autoloader is NOT a handgun for the novice. Most seasoned shoot- ers can remember instances of a newbie using an auto, firing the first shot, and then turning around, gun in hand, to ask for the approval or comment of the coach on that first shot, unaware that the pistol has loaded itself and only a light touch on the trigger being necessary to fire it again. Tuck and duck time. Coaches, be SURE you tell your students to keep that muzzle downrange, and that the gun is hot after every shot but the last one. The auto demands proper training to clear a jam and in recognizing a malfunction. The proper drills have been mentioned already for about 90% of the possibilities, but other situations can and do happen. It's wise to remember that MOST autoloader malfunctions are as a direct result of a bad magazine, and that replacement of the mag will most often cure the problem. One should NEVER venture into a life-or-death situation with a magazine untested with the load in the pistol. You want that baby to go BANG instead of click every time in a pistol your life depends on. OK, it's conclusion time. In essence I feel very strongly both ways about revolvers and autos. That's not a cop-out, I can assure you. For the occasional or novice shooter, it's the revolver every time. It's about as user-foolproof as a device can be. Pick it up and shoot it. 999 times out of a thousand, it will go bang if the gun is in satisfactory condition and has not been abused. It's the handgun of choice for maximum-power loads. For the more seasoned and trained shooter, it's the autoloader, hands down. It's fast to get into action, it's got a lot of firepower, it's fast to reload, it's more comfortable to shoot, it keeps on target easier, and it's easily taken down to maintain. Add to that the fact that most of the jams possible with the autoloader can be cleared quickly. A properly-maintained auto with the right ammo will be extremely reliable, and you can bet your life on it. I use 'em both, but if you were to lay a primo revolver in a major caliber on the table next to a primo 1911 in .45 ACP and say to me, "John, you can only have ONE" - well, you know how I feel. <G> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9504C BIOGRAPH by Stephen Mandell *BIOGRAPH *MANDELL My bio?..Steve [Vinman] Mandell, GEnie Outdoors-RT Librarian. How could I top that? Anything more would be anticlimactic, eh? <G> ..Upon graduation, I spent almost ten years in the great gray corporate world shuffling papers while semi-permanently attached to a phone. When it finally occurred to me that I wasn't going to make board chairman by age 35, I left the major computer mainframe manufacturer that employed me to go to work in a budding vineyard/winery operation my father had started. The move to the family biz could not have been a more fortuitous one. One of the benefits of working for the family business is that my schedule is virtually my own. This delightful perk affords me the opportunity to be fully involved in the shooting sports. I belong to two very active, NRA affiliated clubs, on the board of which I sit at one. I belong to and shoot in two state level action-pistol competition leagues: PA League Pin Shooting & PA League Steel Challenge. ..And then, there's my crowning achievement: the elevation to RT volunteer. <VBG> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9504D BIOGRAPH by Don Alexander *BIOGRAPH *ALEXANDER (Don Alexander - "Deadeye") I've got to admit to some mixed feelings about writing about myself for the newsletter. Laura's idea to put a bio in about each of us who "work" in the RT was a really great idea. Well, it was a great idea until I found out I was second in line. <g> I'm not entirely sure what you all might be interested in reading so I thought it might be fun to take a quick look at my life outside of GEnie and the Outdoors RT and then cover some of my shooting related interests and then wrap it up with what I get out of GEnie and why I'm here. When I'm not on GEnie or shooting you'll likely find me working in the shop, cooking, fishing, reading, surfing the Internet or playing with my four daughters (ages 9-16). It has always seemed like there is never enough time to do all the things I enjoy so I often find myself burning the candle at both ends trying to do as much as I can. Before moving back to Virginia in the mid 70s I spent 6 years in Pennsylvania working on an undergraduate degree in biology and later a masters in environmental biology. It was there I learned to fly fish for trout. About the only bad thing I can say about the South is, we don't have a lot of really good trout fishing...conversely, the best thing I can say about the North is, they do.<bg> I learned to tie flies and cast to wary trout while in Pennsylvania and those skills travelled well. I now live on a 22 acre lake with bass, bluegill, pickerel, crappie and catfish. Spring time is a wonderful time to take sassy brim over a half pound on a fly rod and most every evening after work I will be out fishing, weather permitting. When it comes to firearms, my interests began as a child. My dad taught my brother and I to shoot when we were very young. As I recall, when I was 7 or 8, dad had me shooting an old Stevens .22 that belonged to my grandfather. I may have been even younger. When I was about 10 or 11, dad gave me a youth size single shot 20 gauge shotgun and after learning to safely shoot clay pigeons, I was invited to hunt small game with "the men." That shotgun stayed with me until I got a thumb in the eye one day while shooting it. Dad decided I'd outgrown that shotgun at which point I informed him I really wanted a 20 gauge O/U Beretta with modified and full chokes and a single selective trigger. I guess that was asking for a lot <vbg> but he found a like new used Beretta that nearly fit the bill and I still hunt with that gun today. From then until I left for college I shot regularly, hunted every fall and even joined the high school rifle team. In college I did a bit of hunting but guns were not encouraged on campus (to say the least) and there wasn't a lot of time to devote to them. After college I moved back to Virginia and started raising a family. Practicality and a wife that didn't care for firearms put a stop to new gun purchases for a while. One year, as hunting season rolled around, a local retailer put a Remington M700 ADL on sale for 159.00 (am I dating myself?) and that was all it took to get me back into shooting and hunting again. A few weeks later while hunting on the Blue Ridge mountains I dropped my first buck, a four pointer, with that rifle. The next year my wife got me a sweet little bolt action .22. It was a Squire Bingham, made in the Philippines and it shot pretty well. Considering myself handy, I decided to glass bed the rifle and make this $70 jewel a match rifle. It was a wonderful learning experience. I learned how important getting release agent _everywhere_ is. I learned what a pot metal trigger guard looked like...in pieces. I learned how replace an action under the watchful eye of a real gunsmith. Eventually, I learned that I really did have a guardian angel watching over me (and the gun) as that gun survived my first gunsmithing attempts and is an exceptionally accurate squirrel gun to this day. Reloading was, or so I thought at the time, a great way to save a few bucks. I had watched my dad reload for his rifles, pistols and shotguns since I was in the later part of grade school. So in the late 70's I bought a Lee target model loading kit for my 30-06 and set about to find a load that would shoot well. Equipped with a can of IMR 4895, 100 primers, some military brass, a Lyman book, a box of 100 Hornaday boattail bullets and an RCBS scale I began loading my hunting ammo. Eventually, I added a Rockchucker press, a powder measure...and well, the rest is history. As I noted on the RT a short while ago, it now takes a whole room to hold the reloading equipment I've accumulated. Of late my shop has been occupying a lot of my time. Originally, my interests and inclinations were oriented toward woodworking but lately I've added metalworking to my list of avocations. I began collecting woodworking tools about 25 years ago and have been learning general carpentry skills and fine woodworking ever since. The highlight of my carpentry efforts was building my own house back in the early 80's. Actually, I started in 1982 and finished in 1986 - it was a killer project and when I was done I'd built a two story, 3,000 sq. ft., brick Cape Cod style house. Of course as soon as I realized the dream, a new job came along and I choose to sell the place move south. Fortunately, the skills moved real well as did the many tools I could "justify" for that project! Working in the shop isn't everything and once in a while, everyone has to stop and eat. When time permits, I love gourmet cooking. Mexican and Greek cuisine are my two favorites but there's darn little I won't eat and enjoy. My kids never know what to expect when dad gets to cooking and sometimes I don't either. I can successfully follow a recipe or adlib with the food stuffs on hand. Grilling is a special favorite and if you were to stop by around dinner time, any time of the year, there's an excellent chance you'd find me sitting in the backyard with a beer in one hand, a spatula in the other and a keen eye on the grill. I am also an avid reader and my avocation is learning how to do things. I've heard a lot of people say they can't learn how from a book but rather they learn from seeing. I seem to be blessed with a gift for being able to learn to how to do things from books as well as from watching others. For ten years I read how to build a house before tackling that job. Likewise I've learned car care and repair, firearms maintenance, gardening, cooking, woodworking and umpteen other skills. Religion and philosophy also interest me and you'd find a few shelves dedicated to those topics. Currently I'm educating myself on metal working and gunsmithing. Novels are not of particular interest but authors like Robertson Davies who can wrap humor, human insight and religion into tales of love, war and intrigue do capture my attention occasionally. So that brings me up to the present time. Before joining GEnie and getting the "Deadeye" moniker (thank you Mark <g>) some of you knew me on Prodigy as "Don in VA." That was my first foray into a major bulletin board system. I left Prodigy and made the jump to GEnie along with quite a few others during the 1993 exodus. Certainly the price here was attractive but two other things were even more appealing to me; the depth of knowledge of the participants and the freedom from censorship that we enjoy (and now I can help assure continues). Since coming here I've learned to cast bullets from Molly, shoot pins from Vinman and I've added immeasurably to my knowledge about many aspects of firearms and reloading from many of you. It seems like there is hardly a topic that someone doesn't have experience in that I can learn more about. It's been personal, it's been interesting and most of all it's been great fun. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 9504E NATIONAL SAFE BOATING AWARENESS WEEK by Kevin Shaw *BOATING *SAFETY Safe boating is not accomplished by accident. Across the country, boating safety professionals work hard to make our waterways safe to accommodate a wide range of recreation. The job requires increasing public awareness, education, and frequent reminders about safety and individual responsibility. A major part of this continuing effort is National Safe Boating Week, sponsored by the National Safe Boating Council in cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard. The National Safe Boating Council has announced that the 1995 National Safe Boating Awareness Week (NSBW) will be from May 20-26, 1995. This is earlier than prior years. The Council wants to get the year's campaign message, "It Won't Work If You Don't Wear It! Life Jackets Save Lives", out into the boating public before the first busy outdoor recreational boating weekend of the season (Memorial Day). This theme is aimed at the importance of wearing personal flotation devices (PFDs). Another departure from tradition this year will occur with this year's NSBW's activities. There will be three campaigns conducted, instead of the usual one. The first campaign will emphasize the new PFD law which requires a wearable life jacket for all persons on boats of all sizes. This new federal regulation will go into effect on May 1, 1995. The second campaign is designed as a "summer reminder" with special emphasis on the Fourth of July. This campaign will have as its message, PFDs and Kids. Many state laws require youngsters to wear a life jacket when a boat is underway. The age limit varies from about 6 to 12 years, depending upon state law. The National Transportation Safety Board and many national organizations recommend that youths age 12 and under wear a life jacket even in states without a law. The third campaign will be designed for Labor Day and autumn on-the-water activities which many people overlook. The emphasis will be life jacket use for hunters and fall anglers. Each of these three campaigns will include television and radio public service announcements, printed news releases, and a video news release. In the Boating CATegory here in GEnie's Outdoors RT, please be looking for further information and updates on National Safe Boating Week. I will be posting regularly in the safety topic articles on how you can make your boating experiences out on the water a safe adventure. Please check in regularly, and give us your own feedback, your own experiences, and your own feelings on what should be a very important topic for all boaters. Thank you! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 9504F NOAA HYDROGRAPHIC SURVEY SHIP SCHEDULE FOR 1995 by Kevin Shaw *BOATING *NOAA *HYDROGRAPHIC SURVEY The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is tasked with many varied missions as one of the premier scientific and technical agencies in the Federal Government. One such mission is the surveying of the coast, going back to the beginning years of our country. The "Coast Survey" was founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1807 to find out more about our coastline, and to survey its broad expanses to make it a safe coast for maritime navigation and waterborne commerce. Nowadays, NOAA, like most all of the factions of the U.S. Government, is being subjected to downsizing and getting the most bang for a decreasing amount of buck. During the past several years, NOAA survey ships have been taking a pretty big hit, with many of them being forever laid up, and taken out of operation forever. At the end of Fiscal Year (FY) 95, yet two more survey ships will be placed in mothballs. With these tremendous limitations on resources, we have to make sure we are conducting the surveys we can run in really critical to navigation areas, where a grounding or a nonsafe passage can seriously affect the safe delivery of important commodities to our major ports of call throughout the U.S. The active ships in the NOAA hydrographic survey fleet are the NOAA SHIP RAINIER up in Alaska, the NOAA SHIP WHITING in the southeast Atlantic, the NOAA SHIP MOUNT MITCHELL in the Gulf of Mexico, the NOAA SHIP RUDE in the Chesapeake Bay, the NOAA SHIP HECK in the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic and Pacific Hydrographic Parties (AHP and PHP). The RAINIER and MOUNT MITCHELL are 200+ foot long survey vessels, the WHITING about 175 foot, and the RUDE and HECK a bit smaller than that. The hydrographic parties conduct surveys in shallow draft areas, using smaller launches that can be towed to site, making them more mobile and able to get into spots that our bigger ships would have a hard, if not impossible time to get into. For the upcoming 1995 season, the RAINIER will be going to finish up some old 1994 survey work in the southern Stephens Passage area in Southeast Alaska, then into the well known heavily glaciated northwestern Prince William Sound area (not too far from the spot where the infamous Exxon Valdez Oil Spill of 1989 occurred), then winding up the season with the approaches to Nikiski, a deep water Cook Inlet AK port, where hazardous Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) tankers come to load up. Numerous large boulder fields in the approaches to Nikiski have been recently discovered, and detailed surveys of the bottom to identify the locations of these boulder fields in order to ensure safe navigation around them, is critical. The ultimate goal will be for the RAINIER to utilize side-scan sonar technology to create a safe corridor around these boulder fields out into the deep water of the Gulf of Alaska. The WHITING has already been, and will continue to survey the approaches to Savannah and Wassaw Sound, to support the safe running of the 1996 Olympic Sailing events to be held in this area. Some hydrographic surveys have already arrived at our Atlantic Marine Survey Processing Center in Norfolk VA, and will be soon headed for our Mapping and Charting Branch headquarters in Silver Spring Maryland, where these surveys will be used to help produce new editions of the nautical charts of the area, which will show the newly surveyed depths of the area, to help those Olympic sailors and all the support personnel navigate safely and efficiently. The MOUNT MITCHELL will finish up their ongoing project to survey the approaches to Tampa Bay, Florida, and then unfortunately be laid up at the end of FY 95 forever. The HECK and the RUDE, formerly a team of two ships that had a wire connected to both of them, hence the name "wire-drag" vessels, are now separated as side-scan sonar has replaced the "wire-drag" as an effective means for determining the least depth over wrecks and obstructions. These two ships can also do more conventional hydrographic surveying, and determine depths of areas. They will be headed for the Southern Chesapeake Bay to check out some bothersome wrecks and obstructions and the safety fairway and approaches to Galveston TX. At the conclusion of FY '95, the RUDE will be also placed in a perpetual mothball state. The Atlantic Hydrographic Party will be surveying the inshore areas of Galveston Bay, Texas. The Pacific Hydrographic Party will be surveying pretty close to our Pacific Marine Center in Seattle WA, in selected areas of Puget Sound, WA. Areas they will be particularly interested in include Eagle Harbor, Cherry Point, South Puget Sound, and Shilshole Bay. Don't forget that the ultimate product that these surveys support is the Nautical Chart. New editions of the charts in these areas being surveyed this coming year will be coming out within a few years times with all these new depths added. In the interim, if critical to safe navigation depths, wrecks, rocks, obstructions, etc. are found, notices to mariners will be issued to inform the boating public immediately. For more information on notice to mariners, chart schedules, new editions, etc., please check out the chart topic in the Boating CAT of the Outdoors RT. Thanks! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 9504G CARRYING CONCEALED: A GROWING TREND by John Marshall *SELF-DEFENSE *RTKBA *CONCEALED CARRY *FIREARMS LAWS It seems that nearly everywhere you look, states are passing laws that enable honest citizens to carry concealed weapons legally. I have just come from a state (Texas) which booted out a governor in large part because she went against the will of the people and the legisla- ture to veto any notion of a concealed carry law. In her words, she didn't want "more guns on the streets." I guess former governor Ann Richards didn't ask Dr. Suzanna Gratia her opinion. Suzanna (a lady I have met and talked with personally) was in Luby's cafeteria that fateful day in Killeen when a crazed man drove his truck through the plate glass window there and started shooting up the place. Suzanna was there with her parents; her aged father made a move on the killer and was shot and killed for his efforts. Her mother rushed to his aid and was herself shot and killed. Suzanna had reached for her purse, where she usually carried a concealed .38 in direct defiance of the Texas law against concealed carry. She knew that in that purse, she had the capability to put a stop to this senseless killing. To her chagrin, she realized that she had left her gun in the car, thinking she would not need it in a peaceful restaurant. The crazed man went on to kill more people before the police finally got there; he finally put a bullet through his own head. In the aftermath of this debacle, Suzanna got fighting mad over the state of Texas frowning on good citizens carrying fire- arms concealed, because she knew she probably could have prevented her parents and others from being killed that day if she had only had her firearm. Today, in Texas, only two kinds of people carry concealed: criminals intent on doing harm to others, and peaceable citizens seeking to prevent this from happening. These citizens are forced to break the law to be able to protect themselves and others from harm. In the last state election, Anne Richards spoke against honest citi- zens having the right to protect themselves with the best means avail- able. George Bush, Jr. spoke out for citizens having that right, and told everyone that if the legislature would pass a concealed carry law, he would sign it. He won. That law is even now working its way through the legislature for his signature. Dr. Gary Kleck, noted criminologist in Florida, has done studies which show that the lowest incidence of harm to a victim comes when that intended victim has and utilizes a firearm. It beats calling 911; it beats screaming; it beats running, it beats succumbing, it beats fighting back with fists; and it beats fighting back with a knife. In short, it beats any other means of thwarting a personal crime. Most often the mere presence of the firearm defeats the criminal act with- out a shot being fired. In Florida, which passed a concealed carry law several years ago, the statistics tell us that the violent crime rate went DOWN after its passage, giving lie to the old saw that main street would turn into a virtual OK Corral. It just didn't happen that way. Crooks now don't have any idea whether their intended victim might indeed be fully capable of killing THEM - a most sobering thought for them. The scumbags of society have been put on notice that the citizenry can and will fight back; that little old lady that might have been a mugging victim now has the capability to put a complete and permanent stop to any such attempt. If I were goblin, I think I would take up another line of "work," because it's getting way too dangerous out there! In Anniston, Alabama not long ago, a man was eating in a restaurant when a gang of thugs came in armed and started herding employees and patrons into the walk-in freezer; whether their intent was to kill them in a St. Valentine's day-style massacre or simply to hold them hostage, we don't know. You see, in Alabama, citizens may carry concealed in accordance with the law. One of the intended victims WAS armed with a .45, and when the smoke cleared, the score was the good guy 3 and the bad guys zero. No innocents were killed, kid- napped, or subjected to being held hostage. This event received little notice in the press, as the media is evidently more intent on ballyhooing criminal tragedies with guns rather than taking any notice of citizens fighting back effectively with firearms. My home state of Arizona passed a concealed carry law last year. It's always been legal to carry openly in Arizona (unlike Texas, where even that is prohibited except at a shooting range on within the confines of your own property or business). I'd like to talk about the Arizo- na law, because now I've had direct experience with it and I'd like to share my thoughts. First off, let's talk a bit about the "right to keep and bear arms" as it relates to this law and others like it. Some might resent saying "mother may I" to the state in order to do what the Constitution says is the natural right of a free citizenry. But let's back up a minute. The Constitution has been held to basically be a restraint on our national government; some of the amendments in the Bill of Rights have been "incorporated" through judicial action under the 14th amend- ment so as to also impose restrictions on the individual states and other political entities, and some haven't. Unfortunately, the Second Amendment has not yet been subjected to judicial interpretation to the point where it's considered binding on states, counties and municipalities. That is why states, counties and cities often have laws which fly in the face of the Second, and why they have gotten away with it - so far. We don't have to like that, we just have to understand it, and work towards the day when the Second will have the same universal binding power as the First with respect to freedom of speech. But back to Arizona and its newly-passed law. The law was debated far in wide in this state before it was adopted, and not everyone agrees that it's the BEST law possible. It is, however a "will issue" law in the sense that the Department of Public Safety MUST issue a con- cealed carry license to any citizen of good repute who has successful- ly proven that he or she is not a criminal, is knowledgeable of the laws governing the use of deadly force, and is capable of handling, firing and maintaining a firearm effectively. Of course there is a fee for the license to cover administrative expense - whether that fee and the charges imposed by private concerns for the course required by law are fair and reasonable is another issue which can be debated pro and con. But I digress. Let's look at this law. In Arizona, it was already legal to carry concealed under certain circumstances without a permit. You can do so in your own home, on your business premises, and on real estate owned or leased by you. Also, local, state and federal authorities have been and are permitted to carry concealed in the course of their specific duties. You could also carry partially concealed - so long as any part of the gun or holster (and recognizable as such) was showing. For example, the tip of a holster showing beneath a sweater would qualify, but a fanny pack would not - the fanny pack not being recognizable univer- sally as a holster. Citizens in Arizona may carry firearms anywhere in a vehicle - out of sight so long as in a holster or case, or openly on a seat with no holster or case. You can also carry a firearm in the glove compartment or console of a car. I have had personal experience with the benefits of this allowance; once in a lovers' lane while in college, the fact that I had a Ruger Mark 1 .22 pistol loaded and in my glove compartment was the saving grace that avoided my girlfriend and I from being raked over by a truckload of drunken wahoos. I've always loved my native state of Arizona, and this is one of the reasons why: citizens with firearms are trusted. As of July 17, 1994, Arizona residents can also apply for a concealed carry permit. That permit, when obtained, must be carried whenever you have a concealed weapon of any sort on your person, and you MUST show it to any law enforcement officer who asks. If you don't, it's a class 2 misdemeanor. If you have a permit but don't have it on you and you are discovered carrying concealed, the Department of Public Safety (DPS) is notified, and the permit is suspended. If it's sus- pended, you must then show it to the law enforcement agency that found you without it, or to a court. As soon as DPS has been notified that you've presented the permit accordingly, they will restore the permit. If you are arrested or indicted for an offense that would bar you from a permit in the first place, after you've obtained one, the permit is suspended and seized. If you're convicted, it will be revoked. If found not guilty or the charges are dropped or dismissed, you can get it back after presenting proper documentation to that effect. One benefit of having a concealed carry permit in Arizona is that you can bypass the Brady nonsense when you go to buy a handgun from a dealer. No wait, no check; just cash and carry. You're blessed by the state as being fully qualified not only to carry, but to buy without hassle. Filling out that yellow form is all that's required. As I mentioned, the DPS in Arizona MUST issue your CCW permit if you meet the requirements, which are: 1. You are an Arizona resident (having a full-time job in AZ qualifies you). 2. You are at least 21 years of age. 3. You are not under indictment for and have not been convicted of a felony in any jurisdiction. 4. You are not mentally ill, mentally incompetent or committed. 5. You are not an illegal alien. 6. You pass a DPS-approved course. Honorably retired federal, state or local peace officers with at least 10 years of service do not have to take this course. Here's the process by which you get your permit in Arizona: First, you must register for and take the DPS-approved training pro- gram. It is not offered by the DPS, but by private individuals or companies (and they may - read do - charge you for it). Charges are up to the training entity, but currently run between $50 and $150 for the complete 16-hour course. It's possible to complete the course in a weekend, or to spread the segments out over more time. It varies, and lots of latitude is allowed. The course is conducted on a pass or fail basis, and covers the fol- lowing subjects in a manner approved by the DPS: 1. Safe handling and storage of weapons 2. Weapon care and maintenance 3. Legal issues about the use of deadly force 4. Mental conditioning for the use of deadly force 5. Marksmanship 6. Judgmental shooting In greater detail, here's what's covered in a typical course: Familiarization instruction on loading, unloading and handling single action revolvers, double action revolvers, and single, double and selective action semiauto pistols. Choices available for handling comfort, ease of carry, stopping power, controllability and holstering options. Safety rules, locking devices, gun safes, storing ammo, and training household members to be safe around firearms. Extensive coverage of liquor laws, criminal law, justification, re- sponsibility, assault, kidnapping, trespass and burglar, public order, weapons and explosives, etc. Shooting techniques - including the isosceles stance, Weaver stance, modified Weaver stance, one and two-handed grip options, sight align- ment, sight picture, target identification, trigger control, etc. Shoot/don't shoot situations. Avoiding conflict and control of the muzzle and trigger of the weapon. Behavior when encountering a law enforcement officer, declaring the CCW, approaching law officers during pucker situations, and responsi- bilities for reporting shooting incidents whether anyone was shot or not. Mental conditioning for use of deadly force, including conditions, white, yellow, orange, and red modes of awareness, stress and post- shooting trauma. Gun cleaning and maintenance, unloading, field stripping, lubrication and safety checks. A written 10-question test, passed or failed based on a 70% "right" rate. A ten-round marksmanship qualification, fired on an NRA TQ15 (silhou- ette), where the secondary scoring ring is not greater than 14" by 16". There is no time limit. 5 shots are fired at 10 yards, and 5 shots are fired at 5 yards. Any handgun may be used, and any standing unsupported position may be used. Shots outside the outer ring are not counted as hits; you must have 7 of the 10 rounds inside the outer ring. There's no particular challenge in this if you have fired a handgun much; I personally recommend trying it with a double-action center-fire snubby with full-house ammo in rapid-fire mode for more of a test of your ability. Otherwise, it's a snap. Few fail. Once your course and qualification shooting have been completed and certified, you must submit the following to DPS by mail with a certi- fied check or money order for $50: 1. The CCW application form. The form requires your name, address, social security number, driver's license number and state, home and business telephone numbers, race/origin, sex, height, weight, eye and hair color, and date and place of birth. There are boxes to check indicating type of permit (new, renewal or trainer), and to confirm that you are an eligible applicant with no prior felonies, and a place for your signature and the date. You don't have to identify the firearm or firearms you will carry; the permit will be good for any- thing and any number you wish to carry. If you lie on the form, it's a class 4 felony. 2. A certificate of course completion completed by the trainer; this is on the back of the application. 3. Although the law requires two sets of fingerprints on cards, the DPS is asking for only one, and this is the current mode - the finger- print cards can be done by law enforcement agencies or other entities equipped to do it properly. Once these items are sent in to the DPS, you wait. Some have re- ceived their permit cards in about a week; the law requires that it be done in under 75 days. The DPS has a policy of processing the appli- cations as soon as possible, and I think they do that fairly well. When received, your permit is good for 4 years; it must then be re- newed in a procedure that requires a refresher course and another fee. Neither the content of the refresher course or the fee have yet been determined because the first ones won't be due until the year 1998. There are places you can't carry concealed even though you have a permit, including places where liquor is served, schools, polling places, airport passenger loading areas, federal facilities, and posted premises. These are not all-inclusive or definitive places, but it gives you an idea that you still do not have carte blanche to carry concealed under any and all circumstances. All in all, I think Arizona has done a fairly good job of crafting a law which will permit citizens with clean records, good training and some ability to defend themselves, if necessary, with a concealed weapon. I think the training is a good idea; somewhat laborious if you already know how to handle firearms safely and effectively, but very worthwhile from the legal knowledge standpoint. At least there is some assurance that those who go legally armed in a concealed mode have a uniform minimum level of training. I can't knock that. The attitude of the DPS and law enforcement officers I've talked to in Arizona is one of acceptance and/or encouragement. They know that an armed citizen can be their best friend, and they don't worry about us much; they'd rather concentrate on the crooks. That's enlightened, and I'm delighted to be back home in a state which looks with great favor on the armed citizen as an essential element in deterring crime. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9504H RV ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS: BOOK REVIEW by Anne B. Watson *RV *ELECTRICAL *BOOK REVIEW A motorhome or trailer may meet the qualification of a second home according to the IRS but its electrical suppy is much more complicated. So, when I saw "RV Electrical Systems" by Bill and Jan Moeller at the library I figured this is a book I definitely want to read. The subtitle, "A basic guide to Troubleshooting, Repair and Improvement" is a definite understatement of all the information that Bill and Jan have researched, tried out and included in this 265 page softback book. They have included charts, recommended suppliers, wiring diagrams and tips for updating the different parts that make up an RV or trailer electrical supply. The book is divided into 2 basic sections: 12 volt and 110. These two sections must interact and compliment each other, so that one night the electrical componets will work while hooked up in a RV park and then the next night one can use these same components while spending the night in the middle of nowhere. They explain solor systems, which eliminate the need for a noisy generator and how to determine just how much solar power is needed. Since they are full time RVers, the concepts that they detail have the ring of truth. The ideas have been tried out. There is a short section in the back that goes into the details of trailer brakes. Overall this is an excellent book with more detail than most RVers will ever use, but with enough detail that any every RVer needs to know if he is going to keep all those little electrical gadgets working. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 9504I RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS: NRA NEWS by the NRA staff *RKBA *SECOND AMENDMENT *LEGISLATION *NRA Initial Evaluation of University of Maryland/CDC Study of State Right to Carry Laws(1) by Paul H. Blackman, Ph.D. (March 17, 1995) This study is being rushed into the public debate before publication in a "peer reviewed" journal(2) in an effort to influence decision making. The title is misleading: Since Florida's homicide rate has been falling dramatically since adopting right-to-carry legislation, the study looks only at three counties within the state, at one county in Mississippi, and at three counties in Oregon.(3) The study is by the same research group which studied a handgun ban in Washington,(4) D.C., and pretended they had shown a dramatic decrease in homicide, even as Washington's homicide rate first inched upward, declined slightly in response to a mandatory- penalty provision, and finally skyrocketed to set national records for big-city homicide rates. That study established the researchers' anti-gun bona fides for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is thus funding this study. It uses the same discredited(5) methodology employed in their earlier study, one which is unable to isolate or test various other factors which might lead to changes in homicide trends (demographic changes, sentencing and other legislative changes, trends in drug trafficking, etc.). Having proven to their own and the CDC's satisfaction that D.C.'s handgun ban reduced homicide even as the homicide rate tripled, the same authors now assert that right-to- carry legislation increases homicide even though the states adopting it have homicide rates which are defying the dramatic national murder-rate increase. The only thing that the methodology used in this research can show is whether there was a temporary or permanent, sharp or gradual, change in a measured item -- in this case, homicide, as all other violent crime is ignored -- at a given point in time; testing different points of time will often lead to various other time frames similarly indicating changes, whether there was any explanation for the change or not. The methodology cannot, however, explain why a change occurred, or which of a variety of factors explained it; it is pure post hoc ergo propter hoc even though there may have been nothing happening to prompt the change. By averaging homicides or homicide rates for a long period of time -- nearly 15 years for two Florida counties and over that for the Mississippi and Oregon counties -- prior to adoption of the law, impacts of the carry reform are disguised by relatively low homicide rates in the early '70s and the early '80s; worse, the authors changed the time frame used for Miami -- adopting a 1983 rather than an 1973 starting point. If they used the same time frame, it would have appeared that Miami's homicide rate had declined sharply,(6) using the pre-law averaging method they like to report. They thus excluded some high homicide rate years which would make the post-law period seem a decline. The use of long pre-law time periods can obscure high homicide rates in years immediately before right-to-carry reform. The study used only three Florida counties, representing one-fourth of the state's population, one Mississippi county, representing one-tenth of the population, and three Oregon counties, representing over 40% of the state's population and where even their study showed a decline in homicide. The authors noted a 21% homicide rate decline in Florida by 1992, the end-point for their research.(7) The research uses National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) data on "homicide" instead of FBI data on "murder and nonnegligent manslaughter." The major difference is that some civilian justifiable/self-defense homicides are excluded from FBI data but self-defense and justifiable homicides by civilians are normally included in NCHS data. In D.C., the difference was enough so that applying their methodology to FBI data failed to show the pretended decline the NCHS data showed, hinting that only non-criminal homicides were prevented by the handgun ban. Similar use of the wrong data here could disguise more defensive gun homicides. More importantly, the study utterly ignores the fact that the law affects only carrying of handguns in public, not possession. There were no data reported on homicides involving persons with carry permits -- presumably because there were no such criminal homicides. The authors hypothesized that criminals might increase unlawful carrying where law-abiding people are allowed to carry, but presented no data or citation to any other study to support the hypothesis. The study also ignored the location of homicides. In a previous study of Detroit in which the same authors were involved,(8) the authors at least acknowledged that one would have to look at circumstances where carrying was involved in order to evaluate the change -- and in that study nearly half of the homicides were indoors, where carrying either with or without a permit was largely irrelevant. The authors separated gun-related from non-gun-related homicides, ignoring the distinction between handguns, subject to liberalized carry laws, and other firearms, and found greater increase in gun than non-gun homicide, just as their D.C. study found a greater decrease in gun than non-gun homicides. Criminologically, firearms crime leads homicide trends, either upward or downward, since such fluctuations are normally indications of crime trends among active criminals, who are more apt to use firearms. Thus, unsurprisingly, the sharp drop in Florida's homicide rate since adopting its right-to-carry law was faster for gun- than for non-gun-related homicides. Disingenuously, the lead author has asserted that a possible reason for Portland's decline in homicide is that, while adopting right-to-carry, it also toughened its waiting period provision. But Prof. McDowall has, using the same methodology, concluded that "waiting periods have no influence on either gun homicides or gun suicides."(9) Incredibly, the authors suggest that laws against carrying in public are "easy to enforce and they do not inconvenience most gun owners." Easy enforcement may be relatively true of laws regulating licensed firearms manufacturers, importers, dealers, and distributors, and enforcement of carrying in public may be easier than enforcement of possession bans in the home. But concealed carry laws are very difficult to enforce without violating Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.(10) In short, the study ignores that lawful carrying is apparently involved in none of the criminal homicides reported, it uses unrepresentative and small segments of three states' populations, it uses carefully selected time frames, it uses a discredited methodology which makes it impossible to isolate possible causal factors for trends, it uses data which counts criminal and self- defense homicides as equally bad, and it sloughs over the fact that the homicide trend nationally was increasing while dropping in two of the three states allegedly studied, and rising minimally in Mississippi.(11) ---------------------------- (1) David McDowall, Colin Loftin, and Brian Wiersema. Easing Conceal Firearm Laws: Effects on Homicide in Three States. Violence Research Group Discussion Paper 15. College Park, Md.: University of Maryland, January 1995. (2) The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology is to publish the study this summer, in a symposium of "gun control" papers edited by David McDowall, lead author of the paper. (3) Indeed, they only wanted to look at one county, Multnomah, containing Portland, but found too few homicides and so expanded to three counties, all described to the news media as "Portland." (4) Colin Loftin, et al. Effects of Restrictive Licensing of Handguns on Homicide and Suicide in the District of Columbia. New England Journal of Medicine 325:1615-1620 (1991). (5) Gary Kleck, Chester L. Britt, and David J. Bordua. The Emperor Has No Clothes: Using Interrupted Time Series Design to Evaluate Social Policy Impact. Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Phoenix, 1993. (6) "Except in Miami, we studied the period between January 1973 and December 1992 (240 months). Miami homicides increased sharply in May 1980, following an influx of refugees from Cuba. Miami's monthly homicide totals appeared to stabilize by late 1982, and we thus analyzed the period from January 1983 through December 1992 (120 months)." (7) Through 1993, the handgun-related homicide rate in Florida had fallen some 29% in Florida while rising 50% nationally. (8) Patrick O'Carroll, et al. Preventing Homicide: An Evaluation of the Efficacy of a Detroit Gun Ordinance. American Journal of Public Health 81:576-581 (1991). (9) David McDowall. Preventive Effects of Firearm Regulations on Injury Mortality. Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Phoenix, Arizona, 1993. (10) Paul Bendis and Steven Balkin. A Look at Gun Control Enforcement. Journal of Police Science and Administration 7:439- 448 (1979); and J. Star. Why the gun law doesn't work. Chicago 27:128-131+ (February 1978). (11) FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Crime in the United States, 1987, 1989, 1990, and 1993. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1994. ***** MARCH 17, 1995 THE FOLLOWING LETTER WAS DELIVERED TO THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 1995 IN RESPONSE TO ONE OF SEVERAL RECENT EDITORIALS ATTACKING THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS AND THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA. NRA MEMBERS ARE URGED TO CONTACT THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION'S EDITORIAL BOARD AND COURTEOUSLY INQUIRE AS TO WHY THEY SEEM UNWILLING TO PRINT MRS. METAKA'S LETTER. PLEASE ASK THEM TO PRINT THIS LETTER IN ITS ENTIRETY. ---------------------------------------------------------------- March 8, 1995 Cynthia Tucker Editorial Page Editor Atlanta Constitution 72 Marietta St., N.W. Atlanta, Georgia 30303-2804 (404-526-5084) Dear Ms. Tucker: The foundation of American democracy really is the Constitution, so perhaps you'd set aside your utter hatred of the law-abiding American gun owner long enough to reconsider that document ("NRA's Tenuous Grip on Reality" March 5) and what it guarantees -- even to peaceable Americans who choose to keep and bear arms. Take the right to be secure in our homes. This past summer, fifteen to twenty armed men (IRS and BATF agents) burst into the rural Pennsylvania home of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Lamplugh. The family cooperated -- opening safes, handing over papers -- but cooperation did not cool the intruders' wrath. One held a machine gun in their faces. Another uttered a racial slur. One emptied vial after vial of cancer medicine, crushed it on the bathroom floor and confiscated cancer treatment records. Another stomped a pet cat to death. The Lamplughs are gun show promoters. BATF's purpose here seems clear: reduce or eliminate lawful commerce in a lawful product through intimidation, if not blatant terrorism. Your basic editorial equation is fewer guns and gun owners equal less crime, a theory struck down by decades of research. Yet, it must be gratifying to learn that, when your theory is translated into action, federal agents rough-up cancer patients. Remember the Fourth Amendment? Monique Montgomery doesn't. All the St. Louis woman remembers is four masked men breaking into her bedroom at four in the morning. The glaring lights and the timing of the hit were meant to maximize Monique's disorientation as she woke from a deep sleep. She accessed a gun for self- defense, but the intruders -- BATF agents -- already had their guns drawn and shot her four times. In covering this government assault on an innocent woman, the St. Louis Dispatch wondered editorially whether BATF learned any lessons in patience from the debacle In Waco. The Atlanta Constitution wonders whether NRA leadership, aghast at such outrages, has "lost touch with reality." Finally, consider effective crime control. You state, "The Brady Law" (you should refer to it as the Brady Act, by the way) is "cracking down on bad guys." Since when does one crack down on criminals by telling them "no?" And that's what Brady does. It says no, usually to the good guys. That's why the NRA-backed Instant-Check is better. With it, authorities can effect an arrest. Denial means nothing. Arrest means no. In the ad you criticize, the National Rifle Association called upon the Clinton Administration to (1) regain control of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; (2) expose and prosecute those guilty of civil rights abuses and (3) institute strict policies that honor the Bill of Rights. That prescription is indicated by the facts. It's that prescription you oppose. Who has really lost touch with reality? With nearly an editorial a day on Second Amendment issues, odds are you'd get it right at least once. But you've defied the odds. Sincerely, Mrs. Tanya K. Metaksa Executive Director ***** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For further information, March 17, 1995 call: NRA Public Affairs 703-267-3820 Freedom :1, Feinstein: 0 NRA Reponds to Senator Diane Feinstein Washington, D.C. -- "It's the pursuit of freedom and the process of democracy that troubles Diane Feinstein." That's the reaction of the National Rifle Association of America to comments today by Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.). "Law-abiding American gun owners made it clear in Election '94 that the Clinton Gun Ban is bad public policy, a constitutional outrage and a wrong-headed answer to the problem of crime," said Mrs. Tanya K. Metaksa, Executive Director, NRA Institute for Legislative Action. "We have a voice, and the Congress is listening. If Diane Feinstein has a problem with that, she has a problem with democracy." Mrs. Metaksa noted that NRA has long been public about opposing gun prohibition, especially the Clinton gun ban, and equally vocal about working for repeal. "What has changed is not the NRA. What has changed is the craftiness of politicians bent on wholesale gun confiscation." Mrs. Metaksa was referring to comments made by Senator Feinstein on CBS "60 Minutes" (February 5, 1995): "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. And Mrs. America turn them all in, I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren³t there." "And the votes weren't there either on November 8, as gun ban zealots lost reelection bid after reelection bid. But the votes were there -- and will continue to be there -- for the agenda of freedom." Mrs. Metaksa applauded a recent letter by Senator Bob Dole in which he pledged his continuing support for the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens and his support for a repeal of the Clinton Gun Ban. ***** March 17, 1995 NRA Range Department Sponsors "Get Ahead on Lead" Conferences The NRA Range Department, will be presenting a conference and workshop called "Get Ahead on Lead". The conference will be related to metallic bullet lead and lead shot common to indoor and/or outdoor firearm facilities. The Environmental Lead Issue is confusing to say the least. This conference will address questions and concerns regarding lead on your range. The proper procedure for cleaning your range, transporting lead from your range, responsibility for educating the users and workers of your facility, and possible lead ingestion are just a few of the areas of concerns to be addressed. The conference will be presented by NRA Technical Specialist, Robert N. Pemberton, Sr., AAS, BS, MA, MS. The training outline covers topics such as OSHA's Lead Standard for General Industry, Definitions, Health Effects of Lead and Methods of Compliance , Time Weighted Average and Exposure Monitoring, Requirements when Action Level is met or exceeded, Blood Lead Levels, Respiratory Protection and Protective Clothing and Equipment, Medical Surveillance and Medical Removal, and a great deal more. The cost for the conference is $145.00 per participant and includes a presentation workbook, a Lead Compliance Program (where you can simply fill in the name of your facility and put it to use), and a Certificate of Achievement. Dates & Locations: April 29, 1995 - Rangemaster Firearm Training Center Houston, Texas May 13, 1995 - Cincinnati Revolver Club Cincinnati, Ohio July 15, 1995 - Memphis Sport Shooting Association, Inc. Memphis, Tennessee To register, please contact Chris Kettelle at (703) 267-1417. ***** 185 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 212 696 1342 Telefax 212-545-0446 March 15, 1995 Robert L. Bartley, Editor Wall Street Journal 200 Liberty Street New York, NY 10281 Re: Associated Press story, about Maryland University report, relaxed guns laws increase homicides Dear Mr. Bartley: An Associated Press story, distributed today or yesterday, and which appears to be receiving much interest, says that a report from a Maryland University Violence Research Group shows that since concealed carry gun laws were relaxed, gun homicides have gone up in Florida, in Miami, Jacksonville and Tampa, and in Jackson, Mississippi. They declined in Portland, Oregon. The Maryland folk are in effect saying _post hoc ergo prompter hoc_--what comes after is caused by what came before. But that's a fallacy. _Unless_ the shooters were persons who _received carry licenses under the liberalized controls_, there can be no causal nexus between the loosened gun laws and increased homicide and the report is meaningless. But there were no data on homicides by licensees--perhaps because there were none. Second, unacceptable selectivity was exercised in picking the before-and-after periods that were compared. This skewed the result. For instance, the researchers went back to 1973 for the "before" in all the cities except Miami, where they only went back to 1983. Had they gone back to 1973 for Miami too, they would have found a decrease, not an increase, in homicides after the Florida gun law changed. Of course, this would have ruined their conclusions. Finally, since the Florida gun law was liberalized in 1987 over 260,000 concealed carry licenses have been issued. Since then through the end of 1993 (I don't think the 1994 FBI figures are out yet) the overall state homicide rate dropped 22% while it went up 15% nationally. The firearms homicide rate for the whole state went down 29%. This suggests that specific conditions in Jacksonville and Tampa account for those increases, not gun law changes. In short, the Maryland study is a doubtful proposition. I am reminded of the Seattle/Vancouver report of a few years ago, noting that Vancouver's homicide rate was much lower than Seattle's and assigning the cause as Canada's tighter gun laws. That study failed to say that the homicide rate for whites in Seattle was a little lower than in Vancouver-- it was the minority populations in Seattle that pushed up the average. But if strict handgun laws kept down homicide rates then the Vancouver white rate should have been lower than the Seattle white rate. It wasn't. Even the people too many journalists think of as the good guys on this issue like to play games with statistics. In this case, however, the game amounts to one of intellectual dishonesty. Very truly yours, (signed) Mark K. Benenson President NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR FIREARMS EDUCATION 185 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 212 696 1342 Telefax 212-545-0446 BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chairman R.L. Wilson has written over 25 books on collectors' firearms and their users, including most recently _Theodore Roosevelt-Outdoorsman_ (Trophy Room Books, 1994) and _The Peacemakers: Arms and Adventure in the American West_ (Random House, 1992). President Mark K. Benenson was successively general secretary, chairman, vice-chairman of, and counsel to, the United States brance of Amnesty International, 1966-1980. The organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977. Secretary and Treasurer Leslie D. Line was editor of _Audubon Magazine_ 1965-1991. Directors-at-Large Roy Innis is chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality. Michael V. Korda is a novelist and editor. ***** March 15, 1995 Dear National Rifle Association Member, You have spent uncountable hours writing letters, making telephone calls, sending faxes, and your efforts have made a difference. The tide which was sweeping away our freedoms is turning, because of you. Now, NRA presents a unique opportunity to take your activism to a higher plane. On April 2-4, NRA will co-sponsor the Second Amendment: Right Under Fire? Conference, and I am encouraging every NRA Member to attend this important national forum on freedom and the Second Amendment. You should consider this conference to be your graduate school for Second Amendment advocacy. This is your opportunity to learn from Second Amendment scholars, medical experts, prominent journalists and contenders for the U.S. Presidency. You will witness top-flight discussions on topics ranging from the history of the Second Amendment to gun ownership and public health. You will hone your understanding of all aspects of the right to keep and bear arms and develop your skills in defending this right. This conference is being held for every American dedicated to the preservation of liberty, so that you can continue into 1995 and 1996 the work you began in 1994. I hope you will be able to attend. Sincerely, Tanya K. Metaksa ---------------------------------------------------------------- Second Amendment: Right Under Fire? Conference Ramada Renaissance Techworld 999 9th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001 April 2-4, 1995 Registration Fees: Single Attendee: $ 395.00 Spouse accompanying attendee: $ 195.00 Student: $ 40.00 Groups of 10 or more: $ 40.00 each Simply complete the attached registration form and return it no later than March 22, 1995 via FAX to (703) 267-3980. Please refer all inquiries to Rich Cooper at (703) 750-3934. Your fee includes Sunday night's reception, continental breakfasts and lunches Monday and Tuesday, Monday dinner and all associated conference materials. Rooms have been reserved at the Ramada Renaissance at special rates. For reservations call the hotel at (800) 228-9898. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Second Amendment: Right Under Fire? Conference REGISTRATION FORM (Please type or print) NAME ____________________________________________________________ SPOUSE (if attending)____________________________________________ ORGANIZATION ____________________________________________________ ADDRESS _________________________________________________________ CITY ___________________________ STATE _______ ZIP ____________ PHONE __________________________ FAX ___________________________ CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FEE (Please check one) _____ $395.00 Single Attendee _____ $590.00 Single Attendee with Spouse _____ $40.00 Student Rate (Please provide photocopy of current student ID) _____ Group Rate (Please attach list with names of members of group and their telephone numbers): $40.00 x ______ # in group (minimum 10) Total $ ______ (minimum $400.00) METHOD OF PAYMENT (Please check one) _____ Discover _____ VISA/M.Card _____ American Express Card# _____________________________________ Expiration Date ___/___ Signature_______________________________________________________ Please call Rich Cooper at (703) 750-3934 with questions. ***** The following letter concerning Florida's "Right to Carry Law" from Florida's Commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) was distributed on official Department letterhead to Florida officials. March 15, 1995 MEMORANDUM TO: Office of the Governor Office of the Attorney General Office of the Secretary of State FROM: Commissioner James T. Moore SUBJECT: Florida's Concealed Weapons Program Over the past several months this department has received numerous inquiries from media in several states regarding Florida's Concealed Weapons Program. Recently, the frequency of the calls has increased as bills are introduced in the various legislative assemblies which are considering concealed firearms laws. The vast majority of the media questions deal with the impact of Florida's Concealed Weapons program on crime in the state. It appears that sponsors and/or proponents of the proposed bills are representing that Florida's program is responsible for the recent downturn in Florida's overall crime rate. Given the continuing interest in this issue, it is likely many of us will continue to receive calls from the media. Accordingly, following is a brief summary, in general terms, of this department's responses to questions regarding Florida's experience with concealed weapons permitting and its impact on crime. These responses were coordinated with the Office of the Secretary of State. 1. From a law enforcement perspective, the licensing process has not resulted in problems in the community from people arming themselves with concealed weapons. The strict provisions of 790.06, Florida Statutes, preclude the licensing of convicted felons, etc., thus allowing the permitting of law abiding citizens who do not routinely commit crimes or otherwise violate the law. 2. Since the program's inception October 1, 1987, through January 31, 1995, a total of 266,710 permits have been issued. During that same time period, 470 permits have been revoked. Of that number, 242 revocations were for crimes committed by the licensee after issuance, 19 of which involved the use of a firearm. 3. No formula exists which is capable of establishing a link between the existence of Florida's Concealed Weapons Program to any increases or decreases in crime in the state. We will not speculate regarding various perceptions which suggest the law is directly tied to any upturn or downturn in crime. NRA-ILA FAX NETWORK 11250 Waples Mill Road * Fairfax, VA 22030 Vol. 2, No. 12Phone: 1-800-392-8683 * Fax: 703-267-3918 3/17/95 SECOND AMENDMENT HEARINGS SCHEDULED IN U.S. HOUSE To punctuate (with an exclamation point) the end of Rep. Charles Schumer's (D-NY) "reign of terror" in the U.S. House Subcommittee on Crime, sub-committee Chairman Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL), in support of the Firearms Legislation Task Force chaired by Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA), has announced three hearings on gun laws designed to pave the way for repeal of President Clinton's gun ban. The first hearing, scheduled for March 31, will discuss the inalienable right to self-defense. On April 5, the Committee will explore and reaffirm the true meaning of the Second Amendment. And finally, in the first week in May, Committee members will hear testimony on the need to enforce existing gun laws. Members should contact their U.S. Representatives and encourage them to testify before the subcommittee in support of Rep. McCollum's and the Firearms Legislation Task Force's recommendations. Urge your lawmakers to stress the importance of protecting the civil liberties of law-abiding gun owners! U.S. CONSTITUTION -- LEAVE IT ALONE! For many years, a number of governors and state legislators have been calling for a Conference of the States to, among other things, host a convention to re-examine the U.S. Constitution. Currently, there isn't sufficient support for this constitutional convention to take place. NRA is and has been opposed to the Conference of the States and its call for a constitutional convention for some time, and believes that the law of our land does not need rewriting. Stay tuned! A LOOK AT THE STATES: Georgia: Huge victory for gun owners! The State Senate passed SB 58, a bill containing NRA-supported state firearms preemption and instant check language. Passage of SB 58 repeals 10 local waiting periods and ends the Brady Act waiting period in Georgia. Despite a daily barrage of anti-gun editorials by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, SB 58 is now on its way to Gov. Miller for his promised signature! Illinois: HB 568, NRA-supported firearms preemption, passed out of the House Agriculture & Conservation Committee and will soon be voted on by the full House. Members should contact their State Representatives and urge them to support HB 568. Kansas: The House Federal & State Affairs Committee passed HB 2541, NRA-backed state firearms preemption legislation, and it now joins HB 2420, NRA-supported right to carry legislation, on the House floor. HB 2420 will be voted by the House on Monday. Members should contact their State Representatives at (913) 296- 0111 and urge them to support HB 2420 & HB 2541. Minnesota: On Thursday, March 23, the House Local Government & Metropolitan Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on House File 1227, NRA-backed shooting range protection legislation. Members are encouraged to attend Tuesday's hearing at 12:30 p.m. in Room 200 of the State Office Building in St. Paul and to contact their State Representatives in support of House File 1227. Nevada: A resolution encouraging schools to adopt the Eddie Eagle Elementary Gun Safety Education Program is scheduled to be signed by legislative leadership next week. Ohio: On Wednesday, March 22, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on SB 68, right to carry legislation. NRA is working with the bill's sponsor to amend it so that it best protects your fundamental right to self-defense. Members are encouraged to attend Wednesday's hearing at 10:00 a.m. in the North Hearing Room of the Senate Building in Columbus and to contact their State Senators in support of SB 68. Oklahoma: HB 1374, right to carry legislation, passed the House and now moves to the Senate for consideration. Another NRA- backed right to carry bill, SB 3, has passed the Senate and is pending in the House Rules Committee. Members should contact their State Representatives and urge them to support SB 3. Texas: The Senate has passed SB 60, right to carry legislation, and the bill now moves to the House for consideration. Meanwhile, the House Public Safety Committee will hold a hearing on the House version of a right to carry bill on Tuesday, March 21. Members are encouraged to attend Tuesday's hearing at 4:00 p.m. in Room 030 on Level 2 of the Capitol Extension. NRA supports both bills with modifications to best protect the rights of all law-abiding Texans. Washington: Bills calling for a rollback of restrictions on FFLs, reducing fees for carry licenses and repealing the ban on open carry, passed the House and were referred to the Senate Law & Justice Committee. Members should contact their State Senators and urge them to support these critical reforms. Special Federal Alert for West Virginia: Pro-gun U.S. Representative Bob Wise is taking quite a beating from the Charleston Gazette for his public support for repealing President Clinton's gun ban. WV members should write the Gazette and voice support for Rep. Wise's commitment to our freedoms! For helpful tips on crafting these letters, please call 1-800-392-8683. Wisconsin: The Assembly's Criminal Justice & Corrections Committee will vote on AB 69, the NRA-backed state firearms preemption bill, next week. Meanwhile, the Senate's State Government Operations & Corrections Committee will hold a hearing on SB 85, the Senate version of NRA-supported preemption, on Wednesday, March 22. Members are encouraged to attend Wednesday's hearing at 1:30 p.m. in Room 421 South at the State Capitol and to call their legislators and urge them to support AB 69 and SB 85! ***** (Editor's note:) In New Mexico, Senate Bill 222, NRA-supported, passed out of the NM Senate Friday March 11, and was to be voted on by the House Judiciary Committee March 13. If passed, it was to be sent to the House Finance Committee. New Mexico Residents may call their state representatives at (505) 986-4300 to support this right-to-carry-concealed bill. ***** RESERVE YOUR SEAT AT THE 1995 SECOND AMENDMENT CONFERENCE: We're three weeks away from the history-making "Second Amendment: Right Under Fire?" conference -- and we want you to be a part of it! Scheduled for April 2-4 in Washington, D.C., this conference will cover all aspects of the Second Amendment, and will feature prominent speakers including Presidential candidates Senators Phil Gramm and Bob Dole. The $395.00 registration fee covers receptions, meals, and meeting materials. We have several discounted packages as well: spouses may attend for $195.00, students and groups of 10 or more for $40.00 per person. To reserve your spot at this unprecedented event, please call Tom Hodgkins at 1-800-392-8683. ***** UNITED STATES SENATE OFFICE OF THE MAJORITY LEADER WASHINGTON, D.C. 20510 March 10, 1995 Mrs. Tanya Metaksa Executive Director National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action 11250 Waples Mill Road Fairfax, Va 22030 Dear Tanya: I appreciate you stopping by last week for a discussion of firearms issues in the 104th Congress. The long-standing trust and support of those who value their right to keep and bear arms has been one of my strongest assets throughout my public service. I appreciate your advice and counsel on issues of mutual concern. In my view, vigorous protection of the individual freedoms secured by the Bill of Rights -- including the Second Amendment -- is crucial to our nation's future. It should go without saying that as long as I am Senate Majority Leader, I will continue to do everything within my power to prevent passage of anti-Second Amendment legislation in the Senate. Repealing the ill-conceived gun ban passed as part of President Clinton's crime bill last year is one of my legislative priorities. The Senate will debate this issue in the near future, and I hope to have a bill on the President's desk by this summer. President Clinton has said he will oppose repealing this measure, an indication of one of our many differences. I voted against the gun ban in 1994, and I will vote to repeal it in 1995. Experience, and I might add common sense, has taught me that because criminals don't obey the law, gun control will only limit those who do. It may be old fashioned, but keeping criminals behind bars still seems the most effective approach in fighting crime. Gun control is a completely ineffective approach to the lack of safety and security in our communities. Disarming law- abiding citizens only places them at the mercy of those who break the law. Again, I enjoyed our visit and look forward to continuing to work with you and the membership of the National Rifle Association on the concerns we share. Sincerely, BOB DOLE ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9504J EDITORIAL by John Marshall *EDITORIAL *RKBA *LEGISLATION My message to you all this month is "Keep up the pressure." There are a few politicians who still did not get the message that an aroused electorate sent to them last November - we want the government to back off from restricting honest citizens in their right to keep and bear arms, and we want our country back. We want it back NOW. As this is written, both the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader have written for all to see that they support the right to keep and bear arms, and will work to repeal the unwarranted and unconstitutional ban on so-called semiautomatic assault weapons. The ban in the bill which became a crime was enacted under specious circumstances by the narrowest of margins in the last liberal-controlled Congress. In their pro-gun stance, the new leaders undoubtedly have the support of the new majorities in Congress. We must NOT back off, thinking a repeal is made in the shade. It's not. We must increase the drumbeat until it will be politically INcorrect not to support the repeal. Our outcry must be heard. It must be heard in the halls of Congress, on the streets of America, in the newspapers, on radio, on TV, and over the computer networks. It must be heard so loudly and so clearly that the one man who has the power to say "yea" or "nay" changes his mind (as he so often does) in the face of overwhelming public opinion against his present anti-gun stance. The armed citizen is NOT the problem. There must be more of us, not less. We will be heard, and if we are not heeded, the political consequences must be shown to be enormously bad for those who are deaf to our words. Freedom. Its price is constant vigilance. Let's hold the politicians' feet to the fire, and never let up. Not for an instant. John Marshall (The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author, who is solely responsible for its content) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright(C) 1995 by the Outdoors RoundTable and GEnie. May be reprinted &/or distributed only with this notice intact. 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