Since blog reader feedback on the last couple of entries – regarding new Smith & Wesson products – had gone so heavily toward discussion of the internal lock feature on S&W revolvers, I had planned to make that the topic of this blog entry. However, the recent death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy eclipses it for news value, as it did on TV news stations for the past few days, which seem to have been “all Ted Kennedy, all the time.”

There’s actually a connection between the two topics. Kennedy vehemently supported mandatory internal locks on all firearms, and all manner of other Draconian measures that would have profoundly infringed on the civil rights of the firearms owning community…and sometimes did.

We can all understand the visceral reaction he must have had to his two gifted brothers being shot to death by assassins.  What was harder to understand was his blaming of objects for human hatred, and his willingness to punish and dis-empower good people because of the acts of bad ones.

They called him “the lion of the Senate” when he died, but his advocacy of banning private citizens’ ownership of certain firearms because it would somehow enhance the public good, smacked more of “lyin’ in the Senate.”

I’ve worked for decades as a Trustee of the Second Amendment Foundation with SAF stalwart Dave Workman. HERE brother Workman provides a rich trove of links and reading for those who want to refresh on what the late Senator from the Bay State tried to do to gun owners and their rights, occasionally succeeding to a degree.

As you remember the last of the Generation of Princes in America’s Royal Family, remember him whole.  His commitment to civil rights seemed to be limited to the ones he approved of.  I recall Ted Kennedy’s private bodyguard being arrested for attempting to carry a fully automatic Beretta machine pistol into a Government building.  Apparently, the guns he didn’t want the peasants to have were OK for protecting the Royal Family, whose immense wealth allowed them to hire high-priced private Praetorian Guards…

I’m just glad I managed to get through all that without mentioning Mary Jo Kopechne.

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Finished the S&W seminar last night, and the thirteen or so of us who were there were by and large pleased with what we saw of the latest introductions.

On the rifle range, we were all impressed with the accuracy and smooth function of the Thompson/Center high powered, bolt action hunting rifles. T/C was famous for accurate, value-priced guns even before they became an S&W subsidiary. The distinctive Icon Precision Hunter, new this year, lived up to its name with groups well under an inch at a hundred yards. Even their low-priced ($500 manufacturer’s suggested retail price) Venture model was doing under an inch at that distance. We were shooting the Precision Hunter in .22-250, and the Venture in .30-06.

Those cute little .22s I mentioned in the last blog entry endeared themselves to all. Factory insiders told us to expect an inch and a half shot grouping for five rounds at fifty yards. We did that easily with CCI Mini-Mag ammo, which is a small game hunting and general purpose round. Chris Christian, who writes for Outdoor Life, got 1.1” in a strong crosswind. In the course of two days we put thousands of rounds through an assortment of these cute little AR15 clones, and I never saw one malfunction. It’s going to be interesting to see, down the road, what these rifles can do with standard velocity Match grade ammunition. I’m down for two of ‘em, one for me and one for the Significant Other and Adult Supervisor.

The comments on the previous entry on this topic showed the intensity with which firearms traditionalists dislike the integral lock system that S&W has been putting in its revolvers for the last several years. The keyway is an unsightly hole above the cylinder release latch, and the key that comes with the gun can be used to lock the action frozen, preventing firing if the gun gets into unauthorized hands. This produces a visceral negative response from gun folks on several levels.

First, it changes both the appearance and (subtly) the frame shape of the gun. It’s an esthetics thing. Second, it’s like dumping mandatory helmet laws on motorcyclists: experienced practitioners believe they can handle their own safety needs, thank you very much, and don’t like someone else’s safety concepts being forced upon them. Third, it’s a constant reminder of the anti-gun Clinton Administration’s attempt to force unwanted things down the throats of free American gun owners, which is why so many disparagingly call that little keyway the “Hillary hole.” Finally, there have been a few – not an epidemic, but definitely, a few – cases where the damn thing has locked itself spontaneously during firing, and that just sends cold chills down the backs of those who rely on firearms for life-saving purposes. I’ve generally run across that happening only with the very powerful guns in very light formats, the Model 329 super-light .44 Magnum with hot loads for example.

I discussed this with the S&W folks at the seminar, and frankly, long before then. There is strong sentiment among some at S&W to get rid of the lock, just as there is among those consumers who prefer classic firearms. However, the company is going to stay with them for a while because of the liability climate, and the fact that integral locks are required to sell their products in jurisdictions such as California. The feedback S&W gets from firearms retailers and general consumers is that only a small, hard-core group of gun fanciers consider the lock a “deal-breaker.”

For those who don’t like that feature, S&W added this year another gun to their “lemon-squeezer” line, a retro re-introduction of the Model 42 revolver of 1952. “Hammerless” in external configuration, it has a grip safety that will only allow the trigger to be pulled when in something approximating an intentional firing hold. Action was sweet, workmanship was good, and the little Model 42 snub-nose (weighing under a pound thanks to its aluminum frame Airweight construction) shot where I put the sights. Buying one of this series, also available in all-steel from an earlier introduction, can help send S&W the message that you’ll spend your money for their guns if they DON’T have those internal locks you don’t like.

More later…

Here’s the new version of the classic-style K-22…

Chris Christian of Outdoor Life got this 1.1 group with the 15-22 in a crosswind at 50 yards with CCI Mini-Mag .22 LR ammo.

This is the reincarnated Model 57 in .41 Magnum.

Newly introduced .38 Special Airweight Bodyguard, the Model 438, is blackened stainless with aluminum frame. Red arrow points to the internal lock keyway…

…while the lock is notably absent from this Model 42-1 Airweight .38 Special “lemon squeezer.”

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Industry wide, a lot of the new guns introduced and promised at the SHOT Show the first of the year have been held up. The reason is that demand for certain current-line models has been so great that to keep up with it, the newer entries had to be pushed to the back burner. It’s true of many companies, and it is certainly true of Smith & Wesson.

I’m presently at a gun writers’ seminar in Tulsa, on the splendid USSA (United States Shooting Academy) range. We’re getting to play with some of the cool new rifles and handguns from this maker that should have been available to the consumers by now…and would have been, if the post-election gun buying frenzy natinwide hadn’t thrown production schedules into a cocked hat.

As nature gave us a panoply of its broad range of Oklahoma weather through the day — by turns windy and still, pouring rain and unremitting sun — we got briefed by S&W executives and engineers, and got to put lots of rounds downrange.

Star of the show, I think, was the coolest little .22 rifle to come along in a while. It’s the .22 Long Rifle version of their M&P 15, which in turn is Smith & Wesson’s take on what has truly become “America’s Rifle,” the AR15. Rendered with lots of polymer, including even the accessory rail, it weighs only about five pounds or so. More than a dozen of us poured 25-round magazines of CCI ammo through it, and I didn’t see a single malfunction. Accuracy was good on the “practical range,” shooting all sorts of steel knockdowns and silhouettes. We will be taking it to the longer rifle ranges tomorrow and hope to be able to bench test it for accuracy. It will sell for $499.95 suggested retail, and I predict it will definitely be a hit.

We plan to work with a precision rifle from Thompson/Center, now of course a Smith & Wesson subsidiary, tomorrow.

On the handgun side, the adjustable sight version of the 1964 Model 57 in .41 Magnum proved eminently “shootable.” Something of a “niche cartridge” these days, the .41 Mag has always had a strong following among those who really knew their guns and appreciated a heavy-duty outdoorsman’s revolver. We also got to shoot the new iterations of the great old K-22, in both 6″ barrel Model 17 and 4″ barrel Model 18 configurations. These are recent additions to S&W’s successful “retro” line they call the Classic Series.

There are also new variations in their super-popular Military & Police semiautomatic service pistol line, and their 1911 series semiautomatic pistols, and more.

I’ll get back to you after tomorrow’s shooting session, with more info, and should have some pix for you by the end of this week.

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That line was funny in the movie “Crocodile Dundee.” It ain’t funny when you had to use force to keep yourself or another innocent person from being stabbed or slashed to death, and “the other side” claims that the blade-wielder’s weapon was harmless.

We saw that classically last week in Maitland, Florida when police were desperately called to a home where an 18-year-old man was stabbing his 60-year old mother. Two cops arrived to find a pool of blood in the house. They quickly followed the blood trail to discover a stabbing in progress. Officer Steve Mendez took the blade-wielder at gunpoint and ordered him to drop the weapon. Instead, the young matricide-seeker sneered at the officer and raised the weapon in a classic position for a final, potentially fatal downward stab.

The officer responded exactly as trained, and the attacker fell mortally wounded, hit by two .40 caliber service pistol bullets.

The mother, whose life was saved by those two police bullets, now says that the police didn’t order him to drop the weapon until after he was killed. (!?!?!?) Moreover, critics of the police said the poor boy only had a “butter knife.”

Thankfully, the Maitland Police Department has a stand-up chief. Police Chief Doug Ball called a press conference and showed reporters the evidence. That included the cutlery in question. He explained that far from a butter knife, one of the two weapons the murderous son attacked his mother with – the one he was stabbing her with when Officer Mendez first saw him – was a thirteen-inch barbecue fork. The Orlando Sentinel newspaper reported, “The knife, reported earlier to be a butter knife, was a 9-inch serrated dinner knife with a point. The fork had been used with such force, its tines had been bent 90 degrees.”

The terminology still leaves some things open to interpretation. Was the “butter knife” the round-tip slicing implement that sits between the fork and the spoon in a restaurant? That’s my Chicago-born sweetie’s definition of the term. For me, “butter knife” is the even more fragile little thing that was by my Boston-born mom’s butter dish. Does “nine-inch knife” mean nine inch blade or nine inch overall length?

A Google search last night of the term “butter knife” turned up a photograph of a child with a butter knife embedded in the side of his head, to the hilt. It looked like the little one my mom had by the butter dish. A steak knife I took from my kitchen drawer at random was shorter than nine inches from pommel (the butt of the handle) to point, but still had a blade close to five inches long. As I’ve proven before for trial as an expert witness, in soft tissue a knife can stab to a depth roughly twice its blade length. Soft tissue (the human abdomen, for instance) compresses. More than once I’ve stabbed a four-inch blade knife into eight inches of pork roast (swine muscle tissue is the closest there is to human muscle tissue) and impaled it through the Styrofoam beneath it. (And at least once through THAT and into the cutting board below.) That depth equals into the chest and all but out the back of the average adult male human torso.

In the wake of their monstrous acts, psycho offspring become “sweet kids gone wrong” who “only made a mistake,” and “were just putting their lives back together.” When the monster child or husband is killed, it’s safe to be their mother or their wife again, and misplaced love seeks to punish someone for the loss of one once – and in this case I’m sure, still – loved. It’s a sad thing, but it happens.

Attorney Sam Mitchell took critics to task with a letter to the Sentinel. Thanks for giving those folks a reality check, Sam.

To the Orlando Sentinel

You owe the involved police officer and the public an apology. Headline: “MAN WITH BBQ FORK KILLED BY POLICE.” You then reported that “a man was stabbing his mother with a butter knife,” and went on to slant the article by quoting a friend of the crazed attempted murder as saying, “they got beanbag guns right? ” . . . “But no, he’s got to shoot him.” After savaging the responding officer in this manner, you later mention in a different article that the knife was a 9 inch serrated knife with a point and that before the violent attack was ended by the officers appropriate action, the attack had already caused the victim to have “suffered multiple stab wounds to her torso, arms, and hands” and it is confirmed that in fact she was “critically injured.”. I can tell you that the law is clear when dealing with this circumstance. The responding officer was presented with a crazed and admittedly psychotic person who is stabbing a prone victim with a knife and the officer’s sworn duty and training tells him one thing – the use of deadly force is the only appropriate action. Less than lethal methods are not adequate and always uncertain and are legally and morally unjustifiable given these facts. As to your reporting concerning what and when the office may have shouted instructions; it is also true that the officer has NO duty to first say drop the weapon and in fact, pursuant to appropriate policies that govern the use of deadly force, the officer must act immediately to stop the other person’s ongoing use of deadly force against this victim. Whether or not he said drop the weapon before are after shooting – or not at all – is of no consequence in judging this matter. I must also note that the fact that the victim is unable to objectively add anything of value to this discourse is also of no consequence. Your faulty and slanted reporting is unjustifiable and ev en to say, “I’m sorry for the mistake,” which you did not do, is inadequate. You also have a duty. The officer fulfilled his. You did not.

Sam C. Mitchell
Attorney at Law
618-920-3632
samitchell70@gmail.com

Congratulations to Chief Doug Ball for standing up and telling the truth … and to Officer Steve Mendez, who apparently saved this woman’s life. The Chief intends to put Officer Mendez back to work some time next week.

I’m certain the community they serve will be the safer for it.

There are those who would call each of these a “butter knife.” Neither is entirely harmless.

Nine inch KNIFE or nine inch BLADE? Either one can open you up like a zipper bag.

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I deliberately waited until the furor over the Cambridge incident had died down before discussing it here, now. I figured a lot of folks would assume I was the guy with time wearing a police uniform who would automatically side with the cop.

Nope. It ain’t that.

From President Obama on down, folks saw it as a “racial incident.” I honestly don’t think it was. I don’t even see it as a cop-versus-citizen thing.

This reviewer’s two cents worth is: it looks like a “class” thing to me, in more than one sense of the word.

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, who happens to be black, comes home to the nice house he has earned the hard way, in a hired limo. The front door is stuck. He and the limo driver try to push the door open. A neighbor sees two men shouldering a door inward, looking for all the world like a break-in, and calls the police. She does not mention the skin color of the men involved: she can’t see that in the dim light. She’s just a good neighbor reporting what looks like a burglary in progress.

Police respond with alacrity. “Contact” officer James Crowley, who happens to be white, asks the professor for his ID. The Prof offers only his Harvard ID: after all, being a Harvard professor is where his ego is invested. Now, no one has ever shown us in the rest of the world a photo of that ID, but I’ve never seen a college ID that had a residential address on it. A driver’s license with his picture and his address that said “Hello, this is MY house, I LIVE here” would have been nice. Something that merely says, “I’m an important, prestigious person from an important, prestigious place” does NOT say that.

The cop, who was a designated instructor in race relations and racial sensitivity, had HIS ego invested in keeping his community, himself, and his brother officers safe. Put yourself in his place. You are the officer called to the scene of a potential burglary (or even home invasion) in progress. The obvious suspect refuses to cooperate and merely screams at you that you’re a racist cop. You KNOW that if you just take his word that he lives there and you leave, and an hour later the legitimate homeowner calls your chief and says “My neighbors told me that the cops were right there with the guy that broke into my house, but the burglar said he was me, and the cop just took his word for it and left!” your badge will grow wings and fly away.

Professor Gates made a career of studying racial hatred, and of fighting it. He can be proud of that. But if his own powers of critical thinking equal the intellectual horsepower that fueled his career, he can’t be proud of the knee-jerk reaction that made him shout “racist cop,” and “I’ll see your mama outside!”

The Cambridge cop, on the other hand, managed his end of things with professionalism and dignity. HE is not the one who automatically defaulted to racial stereotyping, as the Professor did…and as, sadly, the President did.

Race, my butt. It was about status, and societal “class.” The Harvard professor was accustomed to being the alpha in his world, and was not prepared to obey an appropriate command from a lower-class, blue-collar member of society. Yes, face it: the blue collar is at its bluest on a police uniform shirt. And if the most prestigious members of Boston/Cambridge society didn’t follow a “caste system,” they wouldn’t have become known as “Boston Brahmins,” would they?

Beers in the Rose Garden? Barack Obama’s brilliant sense of media manipulation pulled a rabbit out of the hat on that one. But let’s face reality: this was about a privileged member of the liberal elite, who not only knows the President but mentored him, overbearingly “pulling rank” on a public servant who was trying to keep the professor’s home safe. It’s about a member of the Urban Elite who lacked the “ordinary folks’ common sense” to realize he had just done a very convincing imitation of a burglar.

The deepest of my sympathy in this whole cluster-coitus goes to the black Cambridge officer who was publicly excoriated as an Uncle Tom for being honest enough to speak up for a brother cop who did the right thing. Of the players who got the most coverage, my hat is off to the Cambridge cop who made the controversial arrest. He was the same man who helped the physically handicapped professor down the stairs (see photo below) after the brewskis and the media moment were done … as President Obama strode ahead, leaving both the Cop and the Professor more than symbolically behind him.

In the end, it was the cop who showed “class,” in the best sense of the word.

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