Holcomb, Kansas, late 1950s. Two vicious punks named Perry Smith and Richard Hickock invaded the farmhouse of the Clutter family. Minutes later, Herb Clutter and his wife, and their son and daughter, lay dead. In April of 1965, both of the murderers would die at the end of righteously-tightened nooses…but it would not bring back the four innocent lives they had extinguished. The killers, motivated by the erroneous belief that the prosperous farmer had a safe full of cash, left the murder scene with approximately forty dollars.

This mass home invasion murder in a rural home was the focus of Truman Capote’s classic book “In Cold Blood.” I read it as a high school kid when it came out in 1965 or ’66, and reread it over the past few weeks. I was reminded of the same stark lessons I’d seen when I first read it.

The Clutter home was not an unarmed household…but the guns weren’t where any of the victims could reach them in time. Capote wrote that the police “found some shotguns in a closet.” They didn’t do much good there when the murderers, armed with a hunting knife and a Savage 12 gauge shotgun one of the parolees had taken without permission from his parents’ home, caught Herb Clutter alone and unarmed and forced him to lead them to the bedrooms where, one by one, they bound and then murdered his wife and his son and his daughter, and Clutter himself.

A gun you can’t reach in an emergency is useless. When I read that book as a high school kid, it struck me that since I had long possessed guns in my bedroom including a loaded Colt .45 automatic, I would have had a lot more options than Clutter’s son did when the homicidal intruders entered his bedroom…and, knowing my dad, in Herb Clutter’s situation my old man’s regularly-carried Colt Cobra .38 revolver would have probably gone into action long before things got even that far.

In a lifetime among cops since, I’ve noted that investigators who piece together the aftermaths of home invasion murders tend to keep their guns on all the time after that, even when off duty in their own house, and keep them by the bed when they go to sleep.

They have learned from the helplessly-murdered dead.

The rest of us can learn from them in turn.

If an intruder’s footsteps sound outside your bedroom right now, how soon will your hand be able to reach something with which you can defend yourself and your loved ones?

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I had grown up reading about Ray Chapman, the man the late, great Jeff Cooper called “the maestro” of practical handgun shooting, and got to meet him in Los Angeles in 1978 during a practice session for the National Championships of IPSC, the International Practical Shooting Confederation.  I was running a particularly difficult stage, and since he was watching I asked, “Mr. Chapman, could you give me any pointers?”  He replied that I should start the stage with my toes pointed in a slightly different direction, and should slap the barricade (the second firing point of the stage) with my support hand when I reached it.

I remember thinking “Wow, big deal…the World Champion’s only advice is move my toes and slap some wood.”  But I tried it…and cut a significant few seconds off my time on the next run. The slight change in foot angle had saved me a turn as I started the run, and the slap on the wall brought me to a stop and into firing position on the barricade much more quickly.  Ray Chapman had just given me my first preview of his extraordinary coaching ability.

I got to his Chapman Academy advanced pistol school in Columbia (actually adjacent Hallsville), Missouri a couple of years later, and wound up teaching with him for many years.  Trained as an engineer, Chapman brought an engineer’s analytical eye to teaching the gun, and I learned more from him than from any of my many other mentors over the decades of my shooting career.

Ray’s retirement and subsequent death were sad chapters in firearms training, as was the temporary shutdown of the Academy program.  2012 is a banner year in that Chapman Academy is now open for teaching again, at the same famously well-equipped facility!  Head of the program now is Rich Greiner, one of Ray’s protégés. There is no doubt in my mind that Rich will continue Ray’s successful approach of starting with accuracy and building to speed.

I’m delighted to see Chapman Academy open again. What you learn there can cut years off a trial-and-error learning curve in making you a fast, accurate shooter.  Info is available at http://www.chapmanacademyofpracticalshooting.com/.  I’m proud to be a Chapman Academy alumnus, and believe me, you will be, too.

The Chapman Academy is open again…

…in the picturesque Missouri heartland, on the same great facility that has hosted the Bianchi Cup since 1979…

…and now headed by Rich Greiner, one of Ray Chapman’s proteges.

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Let’s not forget Mother’s Day tomorrow, Sunday the 13th…

It gladdens this old shooter’s heart to see how many gun clubs have scheduled Mother’s Day shoots.  Around the country we’re seeing more women purchasing guns on their own, getting training, and even applying for concealed carry permits.  Say what you will about Sarah Palin, but she was spot on with her “Mother Bear” meme.  (Speaking of which, I’ve heard that more women are applying for hunting licenses these days, too.)

Your commentary is welcome. It seems that “pistol-packin’ mama” ain’t just a figure of speech these days…

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Darn, I hope this doesn’t signal the beginning of a season of them…

For some time now, this space has been fielding comments from a fellow who calls himself “quick joey small,” taking to task all who think President Obama might not have the best interests of gun owners at heart.  His challenges have been met by myself and others, and he says he has read the provided links. I don’t mind his opinion, I mind his insulting, disingenuous approach.  I explained to him in earlier commentary that while adverse opinions were welcome here, trolling was not. This morning, I found the following waiting for me to moderate on this board (click to make bigger):

The record will show that over the years I’ve been doing this blog, I’ve deleted damn few posts and banned fewer posters than that.

The deleted posts generally involved extreme obscenity, foaming at the mouth racism, threats, or attacks on other posters in the comments section. (I’m fair game here; the blog guests who post are not.)

In the last thirteen months, I’ve had to ban two posters.  One was a foul-mouthed (expletive deleted) who couldn’t accept being told not to do that any more, and degenerated into thinly veiled death threats. He’s gone.  Another was a young man who appeared to be emotionally disturbed, and couldn’t or wouldn’t take the well-intentioned advice given him by me and other posters. He’s gone, too.

“quick joey small” said he checked the links others and yours truly provided to answer his questions and comments, but still ignored the information therein.  While I can probably live with willful ignorance, I won’t abide outright lies.

“Joey,” you call yourself “quick,” but you apparently ain’t too swift.  You accuse me of deleting your post. That never happened.  Your posts of today are seen here above, bigger than they would have appeared in the commentary section.  Enjoy them. They’ll be your last here.

You accuse me of calling our President a Marxist, an African (as opposed to African-American), and a dictator.  You lie.  I never said that, here or anywhere else.

You implied that if I allowed someone to post here that they wanted to shoot the President it would be the same as me saying I wanted to do the same, and I replied in commentary on that post to the effect that I allow YOU to post here, but that doesn’t make me an idiot.  (Upon reflection, I may have been wrong on the latter.)

Furthermore, you claim that such statements WERE posted here.  To the best of my knowledge, you’re lying about that, too.

In your last post, you apologized. Too little, too late. If I had any reason to believe your apology was sincere, I would have respectfully accepted it…but you presented no such reason.

I am happy to host opposing viewpoints here. I will not abide lying trolls.  You now join the short list of those who are banned from this blog.

Enjoy your disengenous trolling wherever you find a place that will accept it…but that place will no longer be here.

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We recently kicked around the ammo shortage situation.  Here’s a look from a fresh business-oriented eye at current and short-term future availability of guns and ammo:

http://www.emissourian.com/more_news/business_news/article_b891b686-95eb-11e1-8f32-0019bb2963f4.html

Most of us shooter folk have enough guns to last us for a while – they are, after all, the ultimate in durable goods – but ammunition is a different commodity altogether.

Dunno about y’all, but I just got in a small pallet of 9mm ammo for competition and training purposes.  “Buy it cheap and stack it deep” is the mantra, but the trick these days is the “buy it cheap” part…

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