VPC - Combat Shooting Video Transcript

VPC - Combat Shooting Video Transcript

Several months ago (Saturday, January 15, 2005) I posted a summary describing the way that the Violence Policy Center (VPC) twisted reality to suit their own purposes. The name of the VPC piece was "Gold Medal Gunslingers", and it was a real piece of work.

VPC worked overtime to put IPSC competition in the worst possible light.

IPSC didn't help. Darth Nick had led the fight to include IPSC competition as a "demonstration event" at the Olympics, hoping against all odds that the IOC would allow IPSC to at least show that this was just another shooting sport. You know, 'nothing happening here, move on'.

The worst possible result would have been that the IOC rejected the proposal entirely and with snotty disdain, so of course this is what happened. Thus the title for the VPC series "Gold Medal Gunslingers". They rained on our parade of pistol shooters, and took full advantage of our collective naivette.

This political push from IPSC was the progenitor of the "Classic" target, which was proposed because some regions objected to the politically incorrect "Metric" ('looks like a person') target. The whole thing was a major boondoggle, and the best that can be said about the entire affair is that IPSC leadership seemed to be trying, at least, to make Practical Pistol Competition acceptable to the world-wide audience.

What a bunch of Maroons. But I digress.

This opened the door to criticism from organizations which had a hidden agenda of making money by publically denegrating competitive shooting (and all other kinds of shooting & firearms ownership.)

Thus, the entrance upon the world audience of Gold Medal Gunslingers.

That was in the year 2000.

Here it is 2005, and VPC has revived the attack on IPSC.

The link provided at the top of this article is a compendium of quotes taken from IPSC training videos. It features some of the best-known IPSC practitioners, and without much commentary . . . simplyl by sly selection of quotes . . . attempts to make IPSC look silly.

I think you have to be already pre-disposed to believe that private ownership of firearms is an indication of cultural maladjustment, if this attack is to succeed. But we know that there are plenty of people who are predisposed to think the worst of anyone who owns a firearm, and I expect that this feeds their sick fantasy.

Got look at the site, see what you think, and report back here. Tell us what message YOU think the VPC is attempting to deliver.

UPDATE: Comment-Spammer Alert!

Femme, you fickle french filly, I've told you once and now I'm telling you twice. Do NOT spam the comments section. This website does not accept self-promoting comments from commercial websited. Your comments are being Geekasized, and your website rated.

Your rating is:

September Blog Meat

Time for another Monthly Blog Meat. This is where I defer relating embarrassing personal foibles, eschew ranting about abrogation of civil rights and/or IPSC rule books, minimize Geek-Length Musings and instead share with you some of the interesting things OTHER people say, or do.

You may think I do this because I'm too lazy to write anything original, and in large part you would be right. More important, though, it's because sometimes I'm just a poor but honest reporter of news, situations, events and opinions I discover in my casual surfing of the Internet.

Let's get started, shall we?

One in a row....: Explanations

Hat tip to Geek with a .45 for this short story about one father's effort to explain the consequences and ramifications of the New Orleans Gun Grab. Elder Geek is correct, it's difficult to resist the temptation to give away the punchline.

Kim Du Toit is GONE!
That's right, the link over there on the sidebar is no longer operative. Kim took a sabbatical from blogging a week or two ago because his new job no longer allowed him the personal time to maintain his prodigious blogging output. Instead, he posted 'The Best Of' from his archives.

Then, yesterday, it was just . . . gone! Apparently he locked it up, because attempts to open that URL returns a 403 "Directory access is forbidden" screen.

Tonite, however, Elder Geek provided this link. There's a forum available with a format (and URL) which looks hauntingly familiar. Given that the first post is dated 12/24/04, the huge number of posts and bloated hit-counter, it must have been running for some time although this is the first time I have ever heard of it.

Which only proves my own ignorance. [sigh]


Geek Blog DOWN!
Yup, I was offline last night. Saw that right off. I mentioned it to The Hobo Brasser, told him how much I was going to miss it, sniffed a couple of times and then realized I had nothing to say so I wasn't missing much.

I did send a Trouble Report to blogger.com, however. This evening they confirmed my suspicions that they had a server error and this compromised several (though not all) blog accesses. They say it was cleared up by midnight, but i was in bed catching up on my reading. I finished "Banker" by Dick Francis, one of my favorite easy-reading mystery writers, this morning. Thanks, blogger.com, for giving me a guilt-free night off.


Presidential Pee!


According to one of my favorite tell-it-like-it-is sources, snopes.com, POTUS actually did (probably) ask 'permission' to leave the room at a UN meeting last week. Actually, it was a question of protocol, but as far as I'm concerned any man with such a sever regard for protocol under . . . ahem . . . uncomfortable circumstances deserves my vote.

News Two Hours Old: God Is My Co-Pilot

After three hours of tension and fear a passenger airplane landed safely at LA International Airport despite landing gear which would not retract because the nose-wheel had locked perpendicular to its normal attitude. I got home from work just in time to hear the live broadcast on the radio describing the landing. Disaster adverted, Al Queda apparently not involved.

With 146 souls on board, who are now alive due to the experience and skill of the pilot, I can only say "Thank God!"

Can I say that without the ACLU forcing me to a Supreme Court confrontation?

Screw 'em. "Thank God" I say, and "Thank God" is what I mean.

(And thanks to World Net Daily for the link.)


Can't We All Just Can't Get Along?
John Wayne Bobbitt (was there a more appropriate surname?) is up to his old tricks.

After being arrested last weekend for spousal abuse, Bobbitt posted bail and filed for divorce.

This article is only of interest to people who just can't resist the lure of bad puns.

Knock yourself out. Here's my punchline:
(Some men need SOMETHING to abuse, I guess, even if they can't indulge in 'self abuse')


Fish (or Man) Walks?

Last December I mentioned the case of a Washington (state) resident who was arrested for open carry of a firearm.

The latest news, dated July of 2005, suggests that charges may be dropped because the laws which the Ellensburg, WA, Police applied to arrest him may have been contradictory to other law and common sense, and badly written.

Nobody seems to be tracking this, and FISHORMAN isn't posting very often these days, but it seems worthy of at least a brief follow-up.

Jeff Cooper for September, 2005
The Colonel is UP!

Once again, I heartily encourage reading the comments of The Colonel.

Not only is he pithy and confrontational, but he provides a wealth of information which is not generally available. This is probably due to his longevity and active life-style (I hate that word!) when was a much younger man.

I propose for your consideration the following two comments (Quoted, but not necessarily quoted in full)

First quote: Hiroshima

When we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, there was certainly no reluctance for this dire act. Amongst the men involved in the fight in the Pacific, we gathered the idea that the Nips were simply not going to surrender, and that if we went forward with the invasion of the Japanese homeland, we could expect to suffer about 1 million American dead, at the same time killing about 20 million Japanese. That was the figure that I gathered in my job as an assistant G2 for the landing on Kyushu. It meant to me that the only way that I could avoid being killed in the invasion would be to suffer a critical injury and be evacuated alive - not a pleasant prospect. Historical review seems to agree that Japan had been so reduced by our submarine campaign that, coupled with the B29s, the Emperor might actually have decided to surrender. We did not know this, nor did we suspect it, and we were prepared for a very nasty campaign - on both sides.

Further research discloses the presence of a Japanese policy directive which called for the murder of all American prisoners being held at the time. This comes to the number of 144,000, all to be put to death immediately upon the landing of the first allied soldier on the homeland of Japan. I thought the decision to drop the bomb was fully justified at that time, and I think so even more now. The atom bomb was a dreadful thing, but its use turned out to be an enormous life-saver.

Note that this was included in his September, 2005, contribution. The Japanese surrendered on September 2, 1945, almost exactly 60 years before the Cooper comment.

Approximately (according to news reports) 80,000 Japanese died in the initial bomb blast on August 6, 1945, and a further 60,000 died from the resultant effects. This estimate of 120,000 Japanese casualties, due to the immediate and post-immediate effects of the American attack on Hiroshima,is markedly less than the slaughter of 144,000 Americans which Cooper postulates.

Other references cite the dead at Hiroshima at 135,000, at Nagasaki 64,000. This is a horrendous casualty count, especially considering that these were predominately civilian casualties.

Compared with the Fire bombing of Dresdon (Germany, estimated at 40,000) . . . there is no comparison in terms of casualties. Yet these wartime actions are all to be deplored.

But who was at fault?

The Japanese deaths at Nagasaki are the sole responsibility of the Japanese authorities.

I don't propose to question the figure of millions of Japanese casualties from nuclear bomb, or the estimated 1 million US casualties (added on to the slaughter of POWs), which Cooper cites.

I only remind us that the Japanese military then in power were responsible for the initial attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1940, and thus were responsible for all loss of life incurred by both American and Japanese citizens afterward.

It is a matter of historical record that Truman considered the deaths of thousands of Japanese preferable to the deaths of thousands of Americans. I expect never to be in the position of making such a fatal decision. It's to the credit of President Truman that he was able to do so, and thus end the war with Japan. It's to the credit of Colonel Cooper that he can so succinctly provide us with the perspective of one of those Americans who could expect to die during the landings on Japanese beaches if Truman's decision had been otherwise.


Second quote: Medal of Honor Recognition

We are delighted to learn that our suggestion about income tax remission for winners of the Medal of Honor has been accepted by various persons of consequence. This is such a nifty idea that we can't see why it has not been acted upon long ere this. It is a no-lose proposition without any negative aspect. Anyone who holds the Medal of Honor has paid in full for his membership in the Liberty Club, and his individual periodic contribution is too slight to dent the budget.

The idea needs important support. The President is the one to act. Write him!

The Colonel. I don't always agree with him, and occasionally I find myself in dramatic opposition to his opinions.
But he is always . . . ALWAYS . . . worth reading.

Go thou and do likewise.

New Orleans Survivors - The Bad Guys?
We resort to The Michael Bane Blog and New Orleans, LA. (NOLA) for the Parthian shot.

THR (The High Road) features an excellent summary of the NOLA Survvors Experience. Maybe, just maybe, having the foresight, resources and courage to stay behind in a disaster and defend your home is NOT the very best choice.

Don't count on your 'friends and neighbors'. When SHTF happens, you may find yourself back in the Bomb Shelter conundrum envisioned in the 60's. It ain't all "Blast From The Past" or "Farhnam's Freehold", but it's bad enough.

. . .

That's it for tonite. Hope you found it as interesting as I did.

New Orleans Flood Map

New Orleans Flood Map

Because the battered state of Louisiana, and the damage to New Orleans as a result of Hurricane Katrine, are such newsworthy items, I thought you might be interested in this.

I've chosen not to write about The Big Not-So-Easy because everybody else in the Blogosphere is writing about it, or has been. But the flurry of commentary has eased off a bit, and this is entirely non-political.

You can see which areas have been flooded, and where the floodwaters yet remain. That should be enough for anyone.

Gargantuan Gunsite Gossip

While I was reviewing (and responding to) comments tonite, I mentioned Jeff Cooper's "Gargantuan Gunsite Gossip". I had bought this book about fifteen years ago, new, and read it with great interest. Then I loaned it to my father.

A few years ago, I took it to loan to a friend and while my car was parket in a public lot it was burgled. The book was stolen, along with a pack of cigarettes, the cord to an electrically heated coffee cup, some parking meter change, and a pair of sunglasses. Curiously, a 50-cal ammo can with about 1000 rounds of .38 super ammunition wasn't touched.

Given the odd selection of stolen items, I'm guessing that it was kids who made a target-of-opportunity raid on my car. If you're one of those kids, please GIVE THE BOOK BACK! No questions asked, you can keep the parking meter change.

On the other hand, if you're someone who has a copy of the book and have no immediate use for it, I would appreciate the loan of it. I'm contemplating an extended series on The History of IPSC, and the book contains (as I remember) some useful references which I would like to cite.

Amazon offers a copy for $95; Barnes and Noble has it at $200. Other internet book dealers have it listed at even higher (by about ten bucks) prices. As much as I would like to own this book, it's beyond my means at these prices. I've been looking for it in used book stores in Oregon for several years, and haven't seen a copy yet at any price.

Just so you know, I'll boil that last paragraph down to simple terms: it's a valuable book, but the market is small. I probably can't afford to BUY it from you, if it's priced competitively. So I'm reduced to begging for the loan of a copy.

There. I've been as honest as I can be. I lust for the book, but my immediate need is to use it as a reference source. The writings of Col. Jeff Cooper are among my favorite readings, and I have copies of his later volumes. This special volume has information which I would like to use on this website.

If you own a copy, please contact me at the email address encoded at the bottom of the page. I will be happy to reimburse you for shipping charges, and will return the book when my research is completed.

Croc Match Photographs

A couple of weeks ago, we in the Columbia Cascade Section (Oregon) hosted a hi-round-count match called the Croc Match.

This was an annual independent presentation hosted by the Dundee Practical Shooters (Chehalem Valley Shooting Club) featuring 8 stages of 50+ rounds per stage.

It's a colorful IPSC match, highly demanding of both man and machine. Pistol malfunctions are part of the game here, and anyone who can get through the grueling demands of firearms reliability combined with heads-up situational awareness can honestly claim to have accomplished Something Special.

SWMBO didn't compete in that match, although I did. We plan to write and article describing the match to the Front Sight Magazine in the future, so I will write the commentary from the perspective of a participant and she roamed the range for the entire two-day duration taking hundreds of photographs.

The response from other competitors was much more than we had anticipated.

While she was taking photographs, SWMBO talked to a lot more people than I did. She was essentially the reporter in this endeavor. She met a lot of new friends, interviewed them, and took their pictures.

In fact, she took over 650 photographs, along with a significant number of movies (which cannot, of course, be included in the proposed Front Sight Article.)

Here's the problem:
We don't expect more than a half-dozen of the photos, at best, to be included in the magazine article. That's less than 1% of the photos she took.

But the people who competed are writing to say that they are interested in seeing the photos that she took.

In fact, I've received a number of emails asking me directly whether and where the photos have been posted to the internet.

unfortunately, I haven't yet established webhosting for this volume of photographs . . . they are all High Resolution, each photograph taking up over one megabyte of storage. Including the movies (video) and photos provided by other photographers, we have in excess of two gigabytes of photos available . . . all unedited, and none of them organized. (We have between 50 and 100 photos of people who were awarded trophies during the award ceremony; many of these photos are worthy of storage and distribution, but some are of such average quality, due to lighting conditions, that they are of interest only to the award winners and their friends and family.)

There are concerns about distributing these photos because we haven't acquired releases from the people whose images are depicted. The volume is too great to be manageable without editing, and this editing and image selection takes a lot of our personal time. And we are disinclined to take to time to indiscriminately 'burn' copies of the CD's for general distribution.

Because of these and other factors, and also because we have a proprietary desire to preserve the 'freshness' of the photos for inclusion in future magazine articles, we are disinclined to provide copies of the CDs for general distribution.

However, we acknowledge that some people would very much like to have access to at least a few photos which are of special interest to them. Why? Because they were having FUN at the match!

So here's what we plan to do:

With the permission of the Match Director of the Croc Match, we will purchase webhosting of sufficient server storage to make these photos available on the Internet. It is my hope that we can present them in a format which allows the casual viewer to scan the photos in a 'thumbnail' format, select the photos of special interest for full-screen viewing, and the download the photos for personal storage and use.

If it seems financially and legally feasible to do this, we will announce the availability of these photos on this website, probably sometime in October. If you are interested, you will have a limited time in which you can download the photos before we are forced to remove them to make room for other match photos from other Columbia Cascade Matches. (These might include the Albany Single Stack Match and the Columbia Cascade Sectional, both match having occurred previous to the Croc Match.)

No guarantees are possible now, and this entire 'photo gallery' scheme is dependent on the availability of webhosting at a reasonable price. Please understand that this webhosting is expected to be at my own out-of-pocket expense, and subject to constraints beyond my immediate control. I have been negotiating with section-related webhosting resources (ARPC and CCS both) for inexpensive, plentiful hosting of a photo gallery, and it may happen that the potholes in the road to providing a photo gallery is much smoother than I anticipate.


If I can provide general access to these photos, I will do so. If it turns out to be impractical, it won't happen. I'll regret it, because SWMBO has done a wonderful job of covering the matches photographically.

I'll keep you informed.

Brain Phart From Heck

A funny thing happened to me at the TCGC IPSC match today.

We were on the last stage, which was a truly ODD stage requiring us to haul The Tazmanian Devil Monster uprange on a green garden cart, when I experienced The Brain Phart From Heck.

You know how it goes when you finish a stage. The official range commands are:

If Clear, Hammer Down, Holster. This comes AFTER you are obviously finished shooting and the Range Officer has give the official range command "If You Are Finished, Unload and Show Clear".

I had done that. The Range Officer glanced at the gun (as did I), didn't see any brass showing, decided the gun was unloaded and said the next official range command "If Clear, Hammer Down, Holster".

I did that.

I returned the STI Race Gun in the black Dillon pistol bag, zipped it up, and the Range Officer said the final phrase of the litany: "Range is Clear". At that point, he moved downrange to score the targets. I had stored my first magazine in my magazine carrier rather than to dump it on the ground (don't ask, it was a weird range and I wanted to keep the partially expended magazine because I didn't trust my backup magazine), so nobody had to pick up any magazines from the ground on this 24-round stage.

I was holding the round I had ejected from my 2nd magazine, and grabbed for that magazine from my belt, where I usually place magazines during the "Unload And Show Clear" process.

It wasn't there. I couldn't find it.

Huh?

Did I dump it on the ground? I usually don't do that. No, it wasn't on the ground.

Funny, I didn't remember removing the magazine. That's the first thing I ALWAYS do when I Unload and Show Clear.

Always.

As the light slowly dawned on me, I partially unzipped my range bag to check the gun (you can do that, you just can't touch the bagged gun.)

Oh oh.

I took a deep breath, zipped the pistol bag up again, and shouted out:

"Oh, Mister Range Officer! Mister Range Officer! Excuse me, we need to talk."

The RO was confused, as he had already scored the first target and was starting to score the second target. I said: "We need to get everyone back behind us, and you need to check my gun."

So the RO stopped what he was doing (scoring targets), pushed everyone back, and asked what was wrong.

"You and I have just experienced a Major Brain Phart. We need to get this sorted out before we can do anything else."

He came over to where I was standing, said "WHAT!" I handed him the round I had unloaded, and watched as I move downrange and unzipped the bag.


The magazine was still in the gun.

This time it was HIS turn for a sharp intake of breath. Then he walked me through the entire UNLOAD AND SHOW CLEAR regimen, we got the (empty) magazine out of the gun and into my magazine carrier. I zipped up he bag, he declared RANGE IS CLEAR again, and handed my my last round which I carefully placed into the just-now recovered last magazine.

What had happened was: I shot the first four targets with my first magazine, then placed it in my belt magazine carrier in case I ran out of ammo later, and replaced it with an 18-round magazine.

I engaged six steel targets and one IPSC target, grabbed the prop (a garden card carrying a HUGE stuffed doll representing the Tazmanian Devil Monster), and started dragging it uprange while shooting at IPSC targets 'strong hand only'.

It was a tough stage, because it included features not normally included in IPSC stages. The most difficulty was provided by the need to pull a wheeled cart uprange while engaging targets which could not be engaged until you had moved uprange of them. You couldn't point at the targets until you were uprange of them because that would require breaking the 180 degree line, which would lead to Match Disqualification. And you couldn't wait too long, because there were vision barriers (barrels) which would obscure the targets if you were situated past the point were you could see the target. Finally, you couldn't STOP the cart, because of inertia and the lack of brakes, so you had to keep moving all the time.

I solved this by shooting extra shots at the targets, and thus (thankfully) expending most of the remaining shots in the loaded magazine.

When I finished shooting at the last target, I had only one round left in the magazine. This was according to my cheesy plan. When I unloaded, I dumped my last round, leaving the magazine empty.

Because of this, we (the RO and I) didn't notice that I had somehow failed to remove the magazine. We only noted that there were no bright brass-colored thingies left showing, and assumed that the gun was empty.

Well, it was . . . except for the magazine with it's dull-black finish.

So when I dropped the hammer, there was no KerBANG, and I didn't get DQ'd.

The RO didn't notice that the magazine was still in the gun. The Assistant RO ( the scorekeeper) didn't notice. Even I didn't realize that I hadn't dropped the magazine.

And everybody in the squad just assumed that I had correctly unloaded the gun, even though I hadn't.

I have NEVER failed to drop the magazine at the end of the stage. After all these years, I had assumed that it was impossible that I would NOT do so. This is the kind of routine that you do without even thinking about it . . . it's a matter of training and experience. Right?

Wrong.

I suppose I could have just kept my mouth shut. After all, it was the last stage of the match and the gun was on its way to the car. If I hadn't said anything, nobody would ever have known. Of course I would have known when I got home and found the magazine still in the gun, but I didn't have to say anything.

The funny thing is, earlier in that stage I was the RO, and the guy who was RO-ing me (PacMan), was the shooter.

After I gave the "Load and Make Ready" command, he inserted a magazine in his XP and took a sight picture.

I said: "Excuse me, but according to the current version of the rule book you're not allowed to take a sight picture with a loaded gun."

He turned his head and looked at me, and said "I haven't chambered a round; the gun isn't loaded."

I replied: "I'm sorry; but if there's a magazine in the gun, it's loaded. It's not me, it's the rule book. Look it up."

(N.B.: Yes, that's true: 10.5.13 defines a 'loaded gun' as "... having a live round in a magazine inserted in a firearm.)

I got The Look (as if he was thinking "Jeez, what kind of Range Nazi am I dealing with here?") and I'm wondering if it wasn't justified.

The rule against taking a sight picture with a Loaded Gun is Rule 8.7.1.
This is superseded by US 8.7.1
"Not Applicable".

I'm wondering if I should have mentioned it to the PacMan?

So here are the two questions I have:

1. Should I have mentioned the cautionary note against taking a sight picture with a 'loaded firearm'?
2. Should I have been DQ'd either because I didn't remove the empty magazine from my firearm at UNLOAD AND SHOW CLEAR, or because I partially unzipped my range bag to look for my missing (unloaded) magazine?
3. Should I have been DQ'd for failing to remove my (unloaded) magazine?

I know what I think.

What do YOU think?

UPDATE:
The Unofficial IPSC List kindly points out that those were THREE questions, not TWO.

Dammit Jim, I'm a Geek, not a mathematician!

As for rule 8.7.1, 'Earthworm' (who hates to be called that, but it's the only nickname I have for him and I have a policy against identifying people by name without their permission) points out that there is little justification for distracting a competitor by mentioning an inapplicable rule. Point well taken. Perhaps it wasn't 'legally' wrong, but it wasn't the right thing to do.