Last week, I had the pleasure of watching the second annual Thin Blue Line match in Anderson, South Carolina at the outstanding Skip-J range. It’s a win-win event where armed citizens who appreciate their local police do something good for them, turning out to run a several-stage practical shooting event where the cops compete in realistic, simulated gunfighting scenarios with their on-duty service pistols…and the entry fees go to local charities.

It gives the street cops a chance to show that they care about the most disadvantaged members of society, who so often need their assistance in disproportionate degree. It gives law-abiding armed citizens a chance to better know the boys (and girls!) in blue who protect them while they sleep, and it gives society’s designated centurions a better chance to get to know the self-sufficient Americans who are prepared to hold the line and take care of themselves until the folks with the badges get there.

Kudos to Ron Griffin and his team, mostly IDPA (International Defensive Pistol Association) shooters, who busted their butts to do something good for local charities and local cops.

I attended the eight-stage event (though I didn’t compete: it was for the South Carolina cops), and it was a helluva good match. If you patrol rural areas or communities big enough to have their own airports, there’s a chance you’ll have to interdict a small drug plane on the ground. When was the last time you actually shot around one? They had an airplane set up on the range! See photos.

More than one shooting has taken place in or around an ambulance; after all, that’s where surviving gang-bangers get loaded, and occasionally they’re down but not out, or their counterparts come back to finish the job. When was the last time you fired live ammo inside an actual ambulance, at hostile threat targets both inside and outside? At Thin Blue Line, the cops got to do both.

What goes around, comes around. Lavish props donated for the police match remained on the range the Saturday after the Thin Blue Line shoot for the armed citizens of the local IDPA group to test their skills upon. A match entry fee is same cost as a medium-priced box of ammo; most of us would find that setting up these elaborate stages is impractical and unaffordable. However, training should be authentically replicated experience, and both Thin Blue Line and IDPA deliver that in spades.

Congrats to all involved in this exemplary effort! If you’d care to donate a prize for next year’s match, or offer your services to help out on the range, or just get an idea of what’s going on and maybe see about your club doing the same locally in the future, go to www.thinbluelinesc.org. For more info on IDPA and to find a club near you, go to www.idpa.com. Finally, a tip of the Backwoods Home shooting cap to the winning squad, Anderson County Team 1, and to the high overall individual shooter, streetwise police instructor Sgt. Heath Clevenger of the York County Sheriff’s pistol team. And…a “biggest cojones” award to Sheriff John Skipper, who took time out of running for reelection to show his support for brother officers and armed citizens alike as he stood in front of an audience of 132 law-dogs and won the hard-fought, man-on-man “dueling tree shootoff” to prove himself the straightest-shootin’ high sheriff in South Carolina!

County, state, and city cops joined together for the Thin Blue Line event.

This officer fires on the move as he scoots between cover points on the “drug plane” stage. How’s this for realistic scenario props?

Note flash at muzzle of duty Glock as this officer “repels boarders” from inside an actual ambulance, live fire.

Winning team was Anderson County squad #1.

Flashlight is mounted on holstered duty Glock of Sgt. Heath Clevenger, high individual contestant.

Sheriff Skipper, right, comes from behind to win dueling tree event for fastest/straightest shooting High Sheriff. At left is Sheriff Steve Loftis.

Sheriff Skipper took time out from running for reelection to show his support for both brother/sister law enforcement personnel, and armed citizens.

While we all watch the Presidential campaign getting uglier and more desperate as it approaches its end, I find myself wondering why the pro-gun-owner candidate puts so much effort into nebulous maybe provable allegations against his anti-gun-owner opponent, when he could be nailing him to the wall with demonstrable, provable lies by Barack Obama.

My old friend Alan Korwin, a long-time fighter for the civil rights of firearms owners, had this to say after the last debate between McCain and Obama.

I ain’t no political savant, but I also try not to be a schmuck. In the last couple of days, I’ve been inundated with Democratic campaign mail quoting that phony Trojan Horse organization that pretends to be pro-gun, telling me that it’s OK to vote for Obama. Read the link above. Decide for yourself.

As you read it, please understand that the Brady Campaign, the most virulent gun-banning organization extant, has just publicly endorsed Barack Obama. Will Obama refute their support, despite the radical stances those people have taken over the years? Not hardly.

It is frustrating for me to watch a debate in which McCain never brings up the gun owners’ rights issue. Instead, I see his supporters sending out Obama rumors over the Internet, rumors which they can’t substantiate. These would-be “swiftboaters” are launching torpedoes that are backfiring and sinking their own credibility.

Hey, I don’t want to see Barack Obama elected. I see all this crap about him being a Muslim, and his name spelled “Barack HUSSEIN Obama,” and I cringe, just as I do when I see the “Osama/Obama” play on words. I think it would be particularly hypocritical for a guy named “Massad Ayoob” to play that card, and I don’t happen to be Muslim, but I just don’t think that’s the issue. The issue is, dammit, Barack Obama has provably, demonstrably lied to the public about his position on firearms ownership, and a man who will lie about one thing will lie about the other things.

It ain’t about Osama Bin Laden.

It’s about Obama Been Lyin’.

Don’t believe it…

One of the things I love about shooting is that, in many respects, it is the most egalitarian sport. Millionaires shoot alongside laborers as equals. All the color lines are crossed, and the gender lines too.

Another rare element we find in competitive shooting is that us ordinary puppies are allowed to run with the big dogs. Few of us will ever golf against Tiger Woods, or race against Jimmy Johnson in NASCAR. But, by God, we can shoot in the national championships against the best our nation has to offer, across all the rifle, shotgun, and handgun disciplines.

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of shooting the National Championships of IDPA, the International Defensive Pistol Association. This is the “concealed carry sport,” in which you have to draw a more or less stock combat handgun from under a concealing garment, and then shoot several stages of what might be called replicated defensive gunfighting scenarios. At this match, held in Allentown, PA, start positions ranged from lying in bed with the gun on a nearby table, to sitting in a chair, to astride a two-wheeler. Electronic timers tick silently and ominously behind you as you draw, shoot, take cover at various positions, reload, and shoot some more. Fastest time wins, with every point down from a perfect score adding half a second to your time.

Contestants have a choice of five divisions, determined by type of gun, and in all of them they have a crack at separating the crème de la crème from their national titles. The beauty of it is, gun people being the good folks they are, it’s a win-win situation. If you win, you “live the dream.” If you don’t, you got to shoot pretty much side-by-side with fine human beings you are proud to have as the champions of your chosen sport. Egotistical prima donnas are, thankfully, very thin on the ground in the shooting world.

If you favored a single action .45 auto like the 1911, you had to beat David Olhasso, who successfully defended his title this year in the Custom Defense Pistol division using a modern Smith & Wesson Military & Police .45. I don’t know David well, but I do know he is universally respected in the shooting community. If you prefer double action semiautomatic pistols in 9mm or .40, your division is the most popular one, Stock Service Pistol, which this year was won by Dave Sevigny, with a 9mm Glock 34 pistol. Dave is a humble, friendly young man, self-taught, whose story belongs in Reader’s Digest every bit as much as it does in gun magazines. David brought himself to the pinnacle by virtue of hard work, dedication, and self-discipline, and never has allowed it to swell his head. His score this year was the single best one posted.

If you choose a single action pistol in a medium caliber, such as a Browning Hi-Power, your division is Enhanced Service Pistol…or you can shoot a stock service pistol there, too. Rob Vogel took that route, shooting a Glock 34 to win the division. I first met Rob at the Midwestern Regional Championships in 2005, where I won the Stock Service Revolver title and he captured Enhanced Service Pistol and the overall match. I didn’t get any better in the interim, but he sure did. Rob is a career cop, and those who live where he works should feel all the safer when they sleep. Vogel travels to matches with his lovely young wife, who’s as friendly and free of conceit as he is.

If you’ve watched the “shooting shows” on cable TV, you’ve seen the awesome feats of Jerry Miculek. He may well be the fastest man with a double action revolver who has ever lived, and Jerry used one of his trademark guns, a Smith & Wesson Model 625 .45 six-shooter, to win the title in the Enhanced Service Revolver division. He repeated as National Champion there this year. They call this Louisiana man the “Ragin’ Cajun,” but he’s one of the finest and most soft-spoken gentlemen I’ve ever met in the gun world, which is so densely populated with such gentlemen. Those of us who’ve competed with him will tell you that it’s like arm-wrestling Superman, but will also tell you that Jerry is a super man. I’ve been proud to call him a friend for about a quarter century.

Another super man was the one I was after, the long-reigning champion of the Stock Service Revolver division, Curt Nichols. I first met him at the 2006 Nationals, where I noticed two things: his blinding speed with a Smith & Wesson .357 Combat Magnum, and the kind patience with which he helped all the competitors, including the ones seeking his title, through the stage he was running. Yes, you heard me correctly. Alone among the national champions, Curt devotes his time to working his butt off and supervising a stage at each such match, and does so with exemplary fairness.

In this great country, most any of us can run for President; we just ain’t guaranteed the victory. Same with shooting against national champions. Try as I might to unseat Curt, I got my backside handed to me on a silver platter. I was able to shoot a little more accurately than he, with fewer points down, but he shot so much faster that he left me in the dust. I only beat him on maybe three of the seventeen stages, and my condolence was that no one else beat him either, and Curt retained his well-deserved National Champion title. I learned at the Nationals that he is deeply involved in HAVA, a group that works for the benefit of handicapped American veterans.

I’m proud to have such men as the champions of my chosen sport. And, such women: this year the National Champion IDPA female is once again Randi Rogers, a young woman who made her first splash in the shooting world by outgunning every male on the ranch at the National Single Action Shooting Society Championships to win the overall title. She won with a Glock 34…and with skill, style, and grace toward those she had defeated.

It’s wonderful to be able to compete against national champs. It’s at least as wonderful to know that they are the fine people they are, the exemplars of the sport and the lifestyle that so many of us have chosen.

Curt Nichols, National Stock Service Revolver Champion

Getting to shoot with great people is part of the competition experience. Back row: Massad Ayoob with Fernando Coleho, Tom Yost, and Robert Vogel. Front row: Super Dave Harrington, Tammy Sharp all of Team Elite.

The Glock 34 9mm pistol was the choice of national champs Randi Rogers, Dave Sevigny, and Robert Vogel. This one is fitted with Tritium Fiber Optic sights and Tac-Grips.

I’m a boring guy with little imagination, which is why my writing has always been focused more on fact than fiction. (Fact is easier to write than fiction. It’s already happened, and all I have to do is record it. That doesn’t take me beyond my limited writing capabilities.)

This weakness is reflected in my reading habits as well as my writing style. I read more biography and history than fiction. The “willing suspension of disbelief” thing comes pretty hard for me, and there’s little made-up stuff that makes the cut for being worth my time for entertainment.

Let me share with you two novels that made the cut.

Both are written by Lt. Dan Marcou, a cop retired from a distinguished career in municipal law enforcement in Wisconsin, where he served on a SWAT team and earned a national reputation as a trainer of lawmen. In fact, I first met Dan at a police training seminar in an international venue. I thought his course was excellent (after I was fortunate enough to get out of his demanding force-on-force role-play scenarios in one sweat-soaked piece), and he stayed on my radar screen ever since.

Recently, in well-earned retirement, Marcou came out with a couple of novels that gathered in all he learned and experienced in his decades as a street cop. Dan’s first novel is “The Calling: The Making of a Veteran Cop,” and the second is “SWAT: Blue Knights in Black Armor.” Where does it come from? Well, can we say “autobiographical novel”?

Some of the “fiction” comes from Dan’s decidedly non-fiction experience, and some from his brothers and sisters on The Job where he worked, and some from other departments. There is one chilling vignette that reads as if it came from real life. It should … it did. The female officer who experienced that particular terror was from Ohio, not Wisconsin where Dan had to place her to keep the storyline coherent, but I expect Dan and I were both in the same training hall when her story unfolded. Except for the patch on the shoulder of her uniform shirt, and the fact that Dan had to make her gun a Glock to keep the storyline consistent with the department where it’s supposed to be taking place (she actually used a 9mm Smith & Wesson), this segment of the novel is blow-for-blow, shot-for-shot what actually happened. Yes, right down to the part where the investigators thought one of her two shots had missed her savage and deranged assailant, until the autopsy revealed that both bullets had gone through the same entry hole, and came to rest next to each other in the body of the would-be cop-killer.

If you want perfect grammar and spelling, go read something written by an English teacher. If you want from-the guts, from-the-heart, you-are-there-with-us, and here is why we do it, read Lt. Dan Marcou’s two novels, The Calling and SWAT. You can get them through Barnes & Noble or Amazon, but I would suggest that you go straight to the source and order an autographed copy from the man himself. Hit http://www.ltdanmarcou.com/signed.html, and you can get it done.

I hope you enjoy reading his novels as much as I did.