22Aug05

Text messaging:

Within minutes of the recent terrorist bombings in London, the UK's entire cell phone network became hopelessly overloaded and went into meltdown. Fo r several hours afterward, cell phones throughout the country were all but useless.

We can expect something similar with the next disaster, there and here. Fortunately, cell-phone TEXT MESSAGING was not nearly so intensely affected . Most text messages went through, even during the height of confusion. Text

messages use a different part of the RF spectrum than voice, take only an instant to transmit and therefore are less likely to be interrupted , and, unlike voice, can be stored in the system and delivered seconds or minutes later.

All of us need to become familiar with text messaging, so that during the next crisis we'll still be able to communicate effectively. Text messaging is becoming a critically important skill. Highly recommended!

/John

22Aug05

Reduced-capacity Magazines:

At a Defensive Handgun Course last weekend in MI, a student brought a G19, which, of course, worked fine, except when it occasionally stopped feeding reliably. I examined his pistol and magazines. Magazines were a mixture o f normal-capacity and "reduced-capacity." The G19 ran fine wi th standard, normal-capacity magazines. All feeding difficulties were associated with t he use of two, reduced-capacity magazines that were in the mix. I suggested to th e student that he deposit the two, aforementioned magazines into the nearest garbage can! He did, and feeding problems, along with all other functional

difficulties, promptly and permanently disappeared!

Like all pistol manufacturers, Glock was compelled to produce reduced-capacity magazines after the passage of the 1994 "Crime =9D Bill, another unhappy legacy of the Clinton Administration and yet another illustration of the contempt in which Congress holds American citizens. Of course, the smart a mong us shunned these new "Clinton Clips," as they were dubbed, and found ways to continue to use magazines for which affected pistols were originally design ed. But, many reduced-capacity magazines made their way into normal commerce an d into the hands of unsophisticated gun owners.

With the merciful expiration of the Crime Bill last year, reduced-capacity magazines are, praise God, now just a painful memory! My advice to all who

own them is to get rid of them and replace them with normal-capacity magazin es, the magazines for which the pistol was, from the beginning, designed to be used.

In my experience, no reduced-capacity magazine, from any manufacturer, is reliable. None have any business in a serious pistol. None are recommende d.

/John