16Aug04

Police in Australia, from a friend living there:

"A common saying among the senior officers here is, 'We don' t want to become like you Americans.' That means they naively believe all the rubbish, circulated my America haters, about America being a violent and terrible pl ace, and their 'solution' is to remain majestically ignorant of g uns and utterly incompetent in their use. 'Let no one be more incapable than us, ' is their real motto! It was leaked recently that 'armed' police, as signed to protect international VIPs visiting Queensland were mostly deployed without ammunition! Local bureaucrats ascribed the whole sad affair to an =80 administrative mix-up,' as if that automatically excuses their bungling, uncaring imbecility.

Since Glocks have been issued, numerous NDs have occurred, mainly during cleaning and reholstering. Although all such incidents have been the direc t result of poor training, stupidity, and ignorance, senior officers in Queen sland have publicly condemned Glock pistols, calling them 'accident prone .' One of the 'solutions' proposed is to train officers to holster their weapons after first regripping them, so that all fingers are on the grip, underneat h the trigger guard.

The blind leading the blind here!"

Lesson: When a nation exterminates its gun culture and its warrior spirit with it, even police officers are left with no legitimate knowledge base to

consult in formulating training doctrine. They flounder in ignorance, tryi ng desperately to pretend they have a clue. Inability to effectively deal wit h criminals and NDs abound as a result.

/John

16Aug04

On "compensated" pistols, from a friend in SA:

"I presented an Instructor's Course in Eastern Cape this past weeke nd. We had one Taurus PT945 (integrally compensated). It made it through all of tw o hundred rounds before malfunctioning so badly that its owner had to replace it with another gun. When we pulled it off the line, it was a gummy, sooty mess!

Its owner also discovered, to his displeasure, that the compensator made it

extremely painful to shoot this gun from close-retention and insufferable to shoot in the dark."

Lesson: Compensators and barrel cuts have no legitimate place on serious pistols. Such guns need to be labeled, "for unimportant purposes o nly."

/John

16Aug04

S&W CS9

A major retailer in TX tells me that the S&W CS9 (Chief's Special 9m m) is going out the door as fast as they can get them in! Not so with the CS40 a nd CS45.

Customers, mostly women, tell him that the CS9 is "the right size. " "They work just fine, and they don't come back," I=80=99m told.

Comment: S&W may have a winner here. They're making something thei r customers just have to have. Sounds like a formula for success to me!

/John