Snowflakes in Hell

Many people who are unfamiliar with firearms, which includes many people who work or volunteer for gun control organizations, don’t really understand shooting as a skill. They tend to want to treat is as knowledge. Knowledge is beneficial, but it can’t make one a proficient and safe shooter. I’ve spent my whole life in pursuit of some form of skill based discipline at one time or another, and I find shooting to be most accurately compared to playing the piano, in terms of what it takes to achieve proficiency. Actually, piano is much much harder, but it’s learned the same way, just piano takes much more self-discipline to master.

I took concert piano from the time I was four years old until my junior year in college. I was far more proficient at that than I am, and probably ever will be at shooting. But ask me to play something now, and I’d be lucky to clunk out the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (if you listen to the Wikipedia recordings of it, they are appalling, just to warn you). At one time, I could play all three movements. The last piece of music I ever played in public was this one, my junior year in college. I couldn’t even begin to play it now, despite a working knowledge of the piece, knowledge of how keys are laid out on the piano, what the pedals do, and knowledge on how to read sheet music. Why? Because when I quit piano, I really quit. I never went back to it, and that skill I spent all those years building up has been purged from whatever part of my brain controls muscle memory. Granted, if I picked the piano up again, I would pick up the skill much faster than someone who had never played piano, as my brain rebuilt all those connections from long term memory.

Shooting is the same. I can spend an afternoon and give someone enough knowledge to go out and become a safe shooter, and that’s really all training can do. Shooting, and shooting safely, is a skill. Skills must be practiced, over and over again, until they are muscle memory. Firearms training is a good thing, because it can impart knowledge, and help you on your way to skill, just like piano lessons can help you learn how to play piano. But proficiency, and safety in the case of shooting, are entirely up to the person to develop. If you aren’t committed, and don’t practice, you’ll never be any good at either piano playing or shooting.

Some might try to argue that this means no one except police should carry a firearm, but police aren’t immune to this problem either, and many of us who’ve been shooting long enough have a story about cops at the range who have appalling shooting skills and gun handling practices. And those are the ones who at least practice some! Imagine how bad the ones are who only ever shoot their qualifier? I can put someone in training for twenty or forty hours, and I won’t make a good shooter. I can promise you over that time they will improve, but that won’t last long once they head out the door if they aren’t committed to polishing and maintaining the skill on their own.

This is why I say training is a good idea, but shouldn’t necessarily be a requirement. I think we should teach the basic knowledge of gun and shooting safety in schools as part of PE requirements. But I am about as much in agreement that legally mandating a training requirement for firearms ownership or carry will result in safe and proficient shooters as I am that mandating taking a piano lesson as a condition to buying a piano will result in more concert pianists. People who believe that don’t get the difference between knowledge and skill.

I can almost hear the gun control crowd now, “But Sebastian, aren’t you concerned with all those people who might carry a gun and have no idea what they doing with it?” No more than I worry about cops. The people who will end up carrying regularly are going to be, far more often than not, the people who are committed and serious about their skills. The person who gets a permit for the macho/cool factor or some other bad reason is going to very quickly tire of it once the novelty wears off, and once they realize that carrying a gun around with you is a pain in the ass. Most people who get toters permits don’t stick with it, and even if they renew their permits, they aren’t carrying very often if at all. It makes sense even in a musical context. If you see a guy on the subway every morning with a violin case, I’m going to bet you serious money he can play. He might not be Itzhak Perlman, but I’m going to bet he can play well. He wouldn’t be carrying it if he wasn’t committed. I’d be willing to take the same bet with a guy who carries a gun every day on the subway too.

Seeing Stars is how we’re starting out this season. I wish I had more time to hit the range these days, but I’m going to try to shoot a few of these this year. I think when I’ve hosted these, I’ve generally been a bit bad about rule number one :)

In this month’s copy of the PRPA Newsletter, the Pennsylvania Civilian Rifle Team from Camp Perry National Matches in 1935:

Click for a closer look. Everyone has what would have been the “assault weapon” of the time, the M1903 Springfield. But man, look at the size of those spotting scopes. Have optics really come that far in 75 years?

Not something I think the Brady Campaign wants to see in a major media outlet — an article that laments not enough kids like to hunt and shoot because of video games, and because they never get exposed to shooting sports. Of course, as bloggers have pointed out before, video game exposure can be as much an opportunity as a curse.

It would seem like the organizers of the London Olympics want to pretend as though gun control doesn’t exist. I noticed that their page on Shooting has a “Get Involved” section that pretends shooters don’t have to leave the country to practice.

Shooting is a fun way to learn discipline and responsibility. In the UK, more than 350,000 people currently practice the sport, with equal numbers of boys and girls entering competitions.

If you want to get involved, British Shooting is a good place to start.

As with many sports, there are schemes to encourage young people to reach a high level.

Find details of all the Shooting clubs and facilities in your local area in the ‘related websites’ section.

It’s just so casual, like British shooters haven’t been effectively ostracized by society and the UK sporting world. Let’s just pretend like there’s a local gun range where you can pick up any gun to shoot so conveniently for every British youngster! It’s almost as if they choose not to mention that the only reason the world’s shooters are even allowed to compete in the London Olympics is by special exemption and that these athletes will have to go abroad to even practice.

But there is one thing that stands out to this description of how to get involved in the sport. There’s a justification for why people would even want to consider involvement. There’s no list of reasons why people want to play handball or go swimming. It’s as if they feel the need to make excuses for why shooters are even being listed as athletes.

Apparently if you’re fast enough on your skis it doesn’t really matter as much, but man, spend some time shooting and you’ll be unbeatable.

That’s really all I have to say about that. They can ski across my country and shoot at my range any day of the week.

Caleb has something good to say about the Call of Duty Effect, and I have to agree:

But here’s the thing – yeah, those kids can be annoying at times.  But instead of shunning them or casting them aside, I truly believe that we need to embrace the video game generation and their love of firearms.  You see a kid that’s interested in learning about the Bushmaster ACR, or M4 Carbines or whatever because he’s been playing Modern Warfare?  Talk to that kid.  Educate him, don’t dismiss him.  Someone come to your range with his freshly purchased semi-auto Thompson because it was awesome in a World War II game?  That kid is the future of our shooting sports, right there.  Take him to a USPSA match, because that kid needs the adrenaline from Run and Gun.

I have probably said this before, but I honestly believe that the video game generation is our future in the shooting sports.  Think about it for a minute – kids growing up playing games that involve firearms are going to have fewer mystical beliefs than those that have never been exposed to any type of firearm, digital or otherwise, so there is the potential for great teaching and recruiting opportunities.  It’s up to us to capitalize on that opportunity.

Video games are about the only way boys can play with guns these days. BB guns? Pretty much out. Cowboys and Indians at the playground at school? Hell no! No in the days of “zero tolerance.”  I think Caleb is right. The future shooting sports participants are going to be the Counterstrike Kiddies, or whatever it is the kids are playing today.

… only SASS Outlaws will have guns.

SayUncle is reporting Todd Jarrett would seem to be leaving Para to start his own 1911 company. ParaUSA and Todd were gracious enough to host gun bloggers a few summers ago, and I think I can safely say we all wish Todd the best of luck in his new endeavor. That 360 degree shoot house was the most fun I’ve ever had with a gun.

I covered the first part a while ago, but Mr. C has added a part two, and part three to the series. Basically everything you ever wanted to know about tweaking rimfire magazines.

Via Cemetery, here’s an NSSF report that shows the distribution of guns sales. AccurateShooter.com has some commentary, as well as visual aids.

Our normal Thursday club indoor silhouette matches were moved to Wednesday this week because of the holiday. Since I finished up work early, I came home to clean my pistol first. It was really gunked up. I had been having problems with FTEs and FTFs with light strikes in the rim.  With that cleared up, I tied my personal best of 35 out of 40 animals. Last week I scored 34 out of 40, so I would seem to have improved by several animals, which I am happy about since I’ve been absent from Thursday nights for a while because of work demands.

I would have had a good chance of beating it my personal best, but tonight Dave, our match director was running long runs for a brick of .22 ammo, and a set of earmuffs, so anyone who shot all ten animals could shoot off after the match for it. I shot 9 chickens, and missed the tenth, then shot 9 turkeys, and missed the 10th. The pressure was just too much. It doesn’t take much to make you rush the shot, or pull the trigger when you shouldn’t. What I’ve been good at lately is clearing the mind, mostly because I’m too busy worrying about work to think too hard or care too much about how good I am or am not shooting.

It’ll be interesting next week, to see how I do. I am off work until the Monday after the new year. Blogging might be a bit off schedule, but I will still post. Not much going on right now anyway.

… and apparently you can do quite a lot to help keep your men’s rooms clean.

I just got word that the NRA stat book for 2010 are going to be grey for rifle, and pink for pistol. Pink pistol stat books? Is this a new partnership program?

Chris Byrne talks about how to get into 1000 yard shooting without spending a fortune. Well, it sounds like you’ll still spend a lot of money, just because it’s not a cheap sport. It’s something I might be interested in if there were more places to shoot that kind of distance. They are scarce, especially on the east coast.

In New Jersey? Apparently. There are small but still vibrant shooting communities in most of the states which could be accurately described as “behind enemy lines.”  I’ve wanted to try more than a few matches over in New Jersey, because there are clubs that run some good ones, but that’s a legal risk.

The Washington Post runs a very positive story about how West Virginia brought its championship rifle team back from the brink.

Caleb is speaking about rule violations, and SayUncle notes that they aren’t as cut and dried as people would imagine:

And it’s not even for photos. If you’ve ever dry fired, you’ve broken a rule. If you holster your weapon in an IWB holster, you’ve broken a rule. If you draw from a shoulder holster, you’ve broken a rule. When you pull the trigger on your Glock before you disassemble it, you’ve broken a rule. Boresighted your rifle on your kitchen table, you’ve broken a rule. It goes on and on.

Exercise caution and use your head.

I don’t think anyone’s ever argued that the four rules are to be taken absolutely literally, but they are meant to create a culture of safety, so that you have to break two rather than one in order for someone to get shot accidentally. There are plenty of situations one can think of which represent legitimate gun use, such as drawing from the holster, dry firing, or disassembly where you’re going to technically violate a rule. But I would hope for the case of dry firing, disassembly, or holstering, they will take care to make sure the gun is at least pointed in a safe direction for the former two, and rule three is being meticulously followed for the latter.

I agree with Uncle that people need to use their heads. There are times when you’ll have to drop one of the rules in importance and be really really sure you’re raising another. Draw practice, dry fire, and cleaning are all good and necessary reasons to violate rule, because we know we’re violating it, and know to be meticulous with the others. We are still part of the culture of safety. The examples Caleb gives…

Recent controversies across the gunblog world have sparked this train of thought on how quick we are as a community to point and holler “they have their finger on the trigger” or “she’s muzzling people with that gun“.  In both of those linked instances, those people would be correct: the SniperBabes have several pictures that are in clear violation of Rule 3, and even Breda is clearly violating Rule 2 in that video.  So technically, the people that called them out for those violations of The 4 Rules are quite correct if you’re holding to the letter of the law.

… are not good reasons for violating the rules. The point of the rules is to make people think very seriously about their gun handling. Obviously poster babes on a calendar are not of that mindset. They are not part of the safety culture we’re trying to promote among responsible gun owners. That’s why I have a problem with it. I can sympathize with frustration at people who swear up and down you can always at all times take the four rules as literal gospel, but the point really is, if you are in a situation where you have to violate one, you should think, think, think! “I am dry firing, better do it into a solid backstop and not into the wall that goes to the next room where my kids are,” think about “I am holstering my gun, so I should make sure no one is directly behind me, and my finger is off the trigger.” (at least until you do that without thinking), and thinking about the direction your gun is pointed when you drop the hammer for disassembly. As long as all those things are being followed, the most you risk is some property damage and embarrassment, rather than quarts of blood and a lot of questions from the police.

The issue with the SniperBabes poor gun handling is not that they violated a technical rule, it’s that they violated it for no good reason, this indicating they have no regard for the safety culture we’re trying to promote. I would like to think that should bother everyone.

I feel like I won’t recognize the range when I finally go back on Monday night. During one of the last airgun competitions, my gun broke. Sebastian bought himself a new airgun, but the one I stole from him is still broken. But then I went out of town. And then I got sick. And then Sebastian got sick. And before you know it, it’s a holiday. I haven’t been to the range in more than a month, and illness has kept him away for almost a month.

How long does it take before you start feeling like a stranger on your regular shooting range?

Looks like Joe Huffman has been trying to refine the formula to Boomerite, which is how they convert ammunition into explosions out in Idaho every year, and has turned Joe into a bit of a rock star. Hey, explosions work for those guys too.

We haven’t heard much about the bill banning pigeon shoots, but I suspect now we will begin hearing about it once again. That Philadelphia Club is going to end up being the reason why we end up with a ban. I am not a fan of the sport, but I think a ban is improper, and I don’t trust HSUS not to try to get more. Pigeons are disease carrying vermin, and I don’t have much love for them either. For that matter, so is Wayne Pacelle :)

Not taking away from Caleb’s argument that we spend too much time arguing about stopping power. We do. Shot placement matters a whole lot more. But that aside, I do want to look at one thing Caleb mentions.

When you look at a 9mm, a .40, and a .45 ACP all right next to one another like that, the size difference is almost laughable

You have to look at it from a mathematical point of view, because your instincts when it comes to area and volume are deceptive. For the same reason, a 21″ monitor doesn’t look that much bigger than a 19″, but it is. Area for a circle is A=πr². In that case, let’s take a look at 9mm vs. .40S&W vs. .45ACP. After all, it’s the area of the bullet that slices through the target, not the diameter.

So you can see when it comes to diameter, the difference is minimal, but that doesn’t translate when you think about it in terms of surface area cutting through the target. In this view, .40S&W is 27% larger than 9mm, while .45ACP is 62% larger than 9mm and 28% larger than .40S&W. That’s not even considering expanding ammo, which is going to make the numbers even more dramatic.

That also holds when it comes to how much mass you can throw down range, and since stopping power is arguably derived from momentum, sending a 230gr bullet of a .45ACP downrange is going to matter a lot more than the 200gr .40S&W bullet or the 115gr 9mm. Never make the mistake of just thinking about bullets in terms of diameter (caliber). When you start thinking about area and mass, the numbers change more dramatically than instinct would have you believe.

The Firearms Blog has a post up about racking a Glock with just the inertia of the slide. I was skeptical, so I decided to do that math. I only have a Glock 19 at my disposal for measurement, but it can’t be that radically different than any other Glock. We can get a ballpark figure for how fast a Glock has to be moving for the slide to rack.

We can figure out how fast a Glock has to be traveling in order for the slide to rack when the Glock comes to a halt. We can do this through conservation of energy. The Glock 19 spring takes about 15 lb. or 67 Newtons to move the spring the 3.5cm it needs. Given that the energy of a spring is 1/2 Fx, that give us 0.5 * 67N * 0.035m or 1.17 Joules. To generate enough kinetic energy, the 350g Glock slide would have to move at 2.6 m/s. The human body is certainly capable of generating this kind of speed, but I’m a bit more skeptical one could stop the movement of the gun quickly enough. From a matter of force, it would take an acceleration (using F=ma) of 191 m/s^2, or about 19.5x the force of gravity. That sounds like a lot of acceleration, but it’s not beyond human capability.

What makes me skeptical is the fact that I can’t seem to reproduce this, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

In what could be bad news for the shooting sports, it looks like Olympic Pentathalon will be replacing their air pistols with specially engineered pistols that shoot a laser beam at the target. The reason it’s bad news is the reason they give for thr move:

UIPM President, Dr h.c. Klaus Schormann stated that “the decision to introduce non-air pistol shooting was the second big step for the sport following the decision in 2008 to change to the combined run/shoot format. This is a significant development in terms of lowering the environmental impact of the sport.”

So they claim environmental impact, even from air guns, which fire a tiny 7 grain lead pellet, and which are easily recovered and recycled.

We should not fear the technology, which is something the shooting community could make positive use of, but the reasoning of the committee is disturbing. I hope this doesn’t portend bad things to come with other Olympic shooting sports, who’s environmental footprint is arguably worse.