Category: Personal

Big Fun at the National Rifle Association Annual Meeting

This weekend (April 28-30), I attended the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) Annual Meeting in Atlanta.  I went with my dad and brother, so we were guaranteed to have a good time!  The meetings and exhibition were held at the Georgia World Congress Center, which is about the size of a small city.  The exhibit hall covered 15 acres, which does not include all of the meeting rooms and auditoriums that were in use throughout the weekend.  There was something for everyone in the shooting sports.  If you were looking for information on gun laws, it was there.  Like to hunt?  There was a session for you.  Want to put your hands on that brand new model you’ve seen in the magazines?  It was there.  Heck, even the President was there!  The big draw for the Avery men was the exhibit hall, however.  Imagine the biggest gun show you’ve ever seen.  Now multiply it by 10 and you’re about there!

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View of a tiny piece of the exhibit hall from above.

 

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Panoramic view of the exhibit hall.

The amount of guns, accessories, knives, flashlights, clothes, and general cool stuff was just incredible.  It was difficult at first to figure out how to go about trying to see it all.  I must have handled 200 different guns through the course of the event, some more interesting than others.  We visited all of the big guys, plus a whole bunch of smaller companies, some that I’d never heard of.  I tried to visit all of the booths for the companies whose equipment I use, which was really cool since I was able to talk to upper management level folks in several cases. For example, I use a Comp-Tac holster and magazine pouches in competition.  I walked into their display to discover that the founder of the company, Gregg Garrett, was not only working the floor, but had found a stool so that my dad could sit down for a few minutes.  We talked with him for several minutes and had a very nice chat.  I like their gear a lot and it turns out I like their founder pretty well, too!  I also spoke with Randy Lee, president of Apex Tactical Specialties.  I have their Competition Action Enhancement Kit in my M&P 9 Pro, which made it a different gun!  I thanked him for making a great product and for the instructional videos that made installation possible for people like me.  There is nothing more frightening than seeing the guts of your pistol laying on the bench!  Randy’s videos made it much less scary.

I have been wanting to get my hands on Walther’s Q5 Match pistol and finally got to at the show.  It is similar to the PPQ that I carry, but has a full five-inch barrel and even better trigger.  If I was going to buy another gun for Production, I’d have to consider it.  The ergonomics and trigger are top-notch.  As a Smith and Wesson fan, I was pleased to see the M&P 2.0.  They have improved the trigger significantly over the old factory trigger.  The M&P is hard to beat.  If I were itching to get into the Single-Stack game and money were no object, the Colt Gold Cup Match in .45 ACP would be my choice.  I made the mistake of picking one up and trying the trigger.  My knees got a little weak and I broke out in a cold sweat!  It is a gorgeous gun and appears to do justice to the Colt name.  The $1700 msrp price tag is not out of scale with other 1911s and I’m pretty sure that no further work would have to be done to it.  Another good choice would be Remington’s yet to be released 1911 set up to the high standards set by pro shooter Travis Tomasie. While I was at Remington’s display, Tomasie and his team mate, Gabby Franco, walked up and started talking.  You might remember Gabby from Season 4 of Top Shot.  Both were very nice and extremely knowledgeable.  I thought it was pretty cool to talk to a guy with his name on a gun!  If punching paper is your sport and you want to look good doing it, the Sig P210 is an absolutely beautiful target pistol meant to put multiple projectiles into a single hole.  The bore axis is extremely low and the grips are, well, perfect.  At over $2000, they should be!

Thompson

I can’t leave out the old guns and the new versions of old guns that were prevalent at the show.  I have a soft-spot for the Single Action Armies and Winchester lever guns that I saw in use on my favorite Westerns.  Cimarron Firearms and Uberti USA‘s reproductions of these classic arms are well made and nothing short of beautiful.  There is something just wonderful about the fit of the SAA in the hand and the smoothness of pulling back the hammer and squeezing the trigger!  I loved Cimarron’s 1876 Centennial Rifle, chambered in buffalo-stomping .50-95 caliber!  Then there was Auto Ordnance’s reproduction of the 1927A1 Thompson submachine gun.  The modern version is a semi-automatic in .45 ACP and appears to be very well made.  It’s hard to not feel like a bad-ass when you hold a Thompson!  I don’t know if they’re USPSA-legal, but I’d like to see a Pistol Caliber Carbine shooter bring a Thompson to a match!  They’d win the cool points for sure.

All of the guns and gear were great, but the best part was the people, both the industry professionals and celebrities as well as the visitors like me.  I met several professional shooters representing the cream of the crop in the shooting sports; the very ones you see on TV.  I understand these folks are there to represent their sponsor’s brand, so they’re getting paid to be nice to all of us commoners.  But not one of them gave me the impression they were anything but genuine.  They all seemed to enjoy being there and spent way more time than it takes to get a photo and an autograph.  I almost expected that, but was still very impressed to see it actually come to pass.  It was just like talking to my friends at the range.  I’ll admit a certain level of fan-boy came out in me, especially talking to Jerry Miculek and Julie Golob.  But they were both very nice people and easy to talk to.  There is a list of the folks I met at the bottom of this article with links to their websites.  I hope you’ll check them out and consider their sponsors when you’re looking to buy your next toy.

Even with all of the stuff and celebrities to see, I most enjoyed the crowd.  I haven’t heard any official attendance figures, but 80,000 were expected.  I believe at least that many people were there.  Normally, I hate crowds, but this one was different.  It was simply a friendly crowd.  We talked to several people during the course of the show, either at lunch, in line to see a celebrity, or just in passing.  Rudeness is one of my pet peeves and will set me off pretty fast.  I almost expect it in a crowd that size.  That didn’t happen in three days of walking the show floor.  The other aspect of the crowd I really enjoyed was the diversity.  The leftist media wants you to think the NRA is made up of a bunch of angry, white, male, John Wayne-wannabe, rednecks.  They’re wrong.  I saw men, women, children, families, fathers with sons, fathers with daughters, mothers with their children, people across the age spectrum, and people with a wide array of ethnic backgrounds.  All were there together and getting along just fine.  That is what makes the NRA the strongest lobbying organization in this country.  It does not appeal to any one group, but to everyone who believes the Founders got it right when they wrote the Constitution.  If you’re forming your opinion about the NRA and its members based on what the mainstream media is telling you, then you’re just flat wrong.

If you have any questions about the NRA, or any other shooting or gun related issues, please feel free to contact me anytime.  If I don’t know the answer, I’ll find it or find someone who does know.  Thanks for reading, and as always, feel free to comment and share!

These are the folks I was privileged to meet at the meeting.  Each is linked to a website where you can find out more about them.

Rob Leatham – A pro shooter with Springfield Armory.  He is one of the people that has built the action shooting sports into what they are today.

Julie Golob – Veteran, mom, author, champion shooter, and very nice lady!  Shoots for Smith and Wesson.

Jerry Miculek – The fastest man on Earth in terms of shooting.  His You Tube channel is hours of entertainment. Shoots for Smith and Wesson.

Max Michel – Max is an incredible shooter for Sig.  Also a very nice guy.

Lena Miculek – The daughter of two great shooters, she was destined to be great.  And she is.  Shoots for Sig.

Travis Tomasie – Travis is a veteran and incredibly talented. I got to talk with him for several minutes at Remington’s display, shooter to shooter.  Very cool!

Gabby Franco – Gabby is a former Olympian and appeared on Top Shot.  She’s a mom and a great shooter, and a very nice lady.

Colion Noir – Colion is a spokesperson for the NRA, doing excellent videos on gun rights issues and the shooting sports.  I was very excited to meet him.

Eric Blandford – Eric is owner of the extremely popular You Tube channel, iraqveteran8888.  The kind of guy with which you could drink a beer.

Chad Sims – Chad is also part of the iraqveteran8888 team.  As nice as guy as his coworker!

Please take some time and check all these folks out.  It’s worth it!

How did I get here?

Social media is full of phrases defining what you believe or support based on your vote in the last presidential election or your political party affiliation.  If you’ve been on any of the popular sites, you’ve seen it.  “If you voted for Trump, then you’re a (insert insult here)” or “Hillary voters are a bunch of (insert insult here)”.  I really hate this broad brush approach, but I’m sure I’m guilty of it too.  I’ve been accused of all kinds of horrible beliefs and behaviors since November last, none of which are true.  I just shrug it off to modern times and the explosion of ignorance which reliance on the media has set off.  But it started me thinking about how I came to think the things I actually do believe.

I am chock full of opinions and obviously, patient reader, I am not afraid to share them.  I’m well educated, I think I’m reasonably intelligent, and I try to stay informed.  I’ve been on this planet for over 46 years and I joined the work force at 15 years of age.  My opinions tend to be based on my personal experience, the experiences of people I know, and generally just paying attention to the world around me.  I also try to throw in a good dose of common sense along the way.  But, I also realize I have much to learn.  I don’t claim to be any sort of authority on any particular subject, so I welcome intelligent conversation about any number of topics.  I enjoy sharing my thoughts here and I look forward to generating more dialog as we add to our content.

So, back to the question of how I came to my current state of thought.  I didn’t follow politics closely in my teen years.  My parents weren’t very political and we seldom discussed politics that I remember.  We were raised with a good, solid moral base, and to think for ourselves.  I could have voted in the 1988 election, but didn’t because I didn’t really feel like I knew enough about what was happening.  By 1992, I had graduated from college (the first time) and was pretty sure I knew all there was to know.  Even in those days, college was very much a haven of liberal thought.  I suppose I absorbed some of that thought.  I felt like the world owed me and my peers a little something anyway.  I knew I had to work hard thanks to my excellent upbringing, but still I somehow felt entitled to a good job and a nice salary by virtue of my brand new college degree.  I thought corporations were inherently evil.  I had no problem with abortion because there were too many people on the planet anyway. I wasn’t completely brainwashed, as I abhorred the idea of drug use, legal or otherwise, and I thought gun control measures were stupid.  Still, when the 1992 election rolled around, I voted for Bill Clinton.  I’ll pause while those of you who have known me less than 20 years pick yourself up off the floor.

OK, now that you’re back upright, I’ll continue.  By the next election cycle, I was starting to see the world differently. The Clintons had shown themselves to be reprehensible human beings by then.  I had been married for 4 years and out of school long enough to have learned that the world owed me exactly nothing.  It became increasingly clear to me that the politics of liberal democrats were not for me.  As I got older and gained life experience, I just didn’t buy it any more.  From that point forward, I realized the core tenets of the Republican Party more closely resembled those of my own.  In every election since, I have voted Republican, usually not because I really liked that candidate, but because I could not abide the Democratic candidate.

That’s where I find myself today.  It is clear to me neither party truly has the best interest of the American people at heart.  Their primary focus is doing whatever it takes to gain or remain in power so they can forward their agenda, regardless of whether it would be good for this nation or not.  Those who hold the power are beholden to their special interest donors, not their constituents.  The media perpetuates this as they report what they want reported about the candidate, rather than the facts about their actual platform.  A disturbing byproduct of the media’s obvious bias is the ever widening divide between Americans identifying with either party.  This is dangerous and will only serve to divide us further.  We cannot solve problems when both sides try to paint the other as extremists.  All of those who voted for Trump are not fascists, any more than those who voted for Hillary are socialists.   This attitude is counter productive, intellectually immature, and lazy.  In my opinion, there are far more true socialists in the Democratic party than fascists in the Republican.  But we have to be careful to apply these labels where they actually belong, not to those with whom we simply disagree.

The point of this blog, besides serving simply as a place for me to vent, is to generate conversation.  Hopefully, mature, logical conversation based on facts and not emotional knee-jerks and name-calling.  If you don’t agree with what I’ve written, then comment.  Come to the party with facts and logic, and we can have a conversation.  Who knows?  We might both learn something.  Come at me with vitriol and personal attacks, you’re comments won’t be posted or acknowledged.  Pretty simple.  Thanks for reading and I’ll look forward to hearing from you!

Porch Sittin’

We are blessed in East Tennessee with some simply beautiful days in early spring.  Today was definitely one of those, with nice warm temperatures and a pleasant breeze.  It’s a great time of year, before the itchy bugs start their annoying habits and the humidity creates a literal wet blanket across the South.  The air was fresh and clean, with the warm smell of emergent vegetation on the breeze.  After work I decided to enjoy the near perfect conditions by indulging in an activity that is nearly forgotten in the modern world; sitting on the porch.  The phrase “sitting on the porch” is far too formal for this marvelous past time.  I prefer “porch sittin'”.  In my Georgia drawl, it would come out “porch settin'”, but I’m afraid that too much vernacular might give the editorial board here at TFA a migraine.  Anyway, porch sittin’ more effectively conveys the relaxed and subdued nature of what is taking place when one spends time on the porch enjoying the spring breeze.

Those of us who were fortunate enough to have spent our formative years in the South should be very familiar with porch sittin’.  In those dark days before the invention of air conditioning, houses were constructed with porches on multiple faces of the house so that one could have access to shade and try to catch the breeze throughout the day.  Today, we’re lucky if a house has any sort of porch whatsoever.  Pap and Grandmother’s house had a front porch and a back porch.  The back porch was enclosed and housed Grandmother’s washing machine and Pap’s tools.  That’s where we broke beans, shucked corn, and did other chores.  The back porch was for work.  The front porch, however, was more relaxing.  It faced US Highway 41, which used to be the main route from Florida northward and is still a very busy highway.

When I was a boy, I spent many hours on that porch with Pap, just sittin’ there, watching cars go by and talking about stuff.  They had these old wooden chairs with seats made of woven metal strips that we used for porch sittin’.  If I remember correctly, those chairs were some of the first things they had when they set up housekeeping.  I have one of them and I treasure it.  You could lean them back on their back legs just enough to get your feet up on the banister, a fine position for watching the world go by.  Sometimes we’d count cars and sometimes Pap would tell stories.  If a neighbor happened by, there was a Howdy! and a bit of conversation.  All in all, I found it to be a fine way to spend an afternoon.

Somehow, I had almost forgotten just what a pleasure porch sittin’ can be.  I haven’t done it in years.  The porch at my house isn’t very big and there is no banister upon which to put your feet.  But it’s on the shady side of the house in the afternoon and overlooks our road.  There are bird nests in the corners that I just don’t have the heart to remove.  It is a perfectly serviceable porch for sittin’, but a person has to slow down long enough to actually sit.  Like most of you, my life is very busy and driven by a schedule.  I rush to get out of the house in the morning, I hurry to get my workout done, hurry to the office, rush to meet deadlines, get home as fast as I can after work, then rush around trying to get everything done at home that has to be done in the evening so I can hurry off to bed.  I spend entirely too much time looking at some electronic device or other and just rushing around.  Porch sittin’ is a potent antidote for the toxins created by our crazy lives.

Today, I decided that I was going to get out a folding chair and do some porch sittin’.  I’m not sure what triggered my desire to do it.  I had been outside most of the day and knew it was a perfect day, and I’d been thinking about my grandparents, too.  I think about them often, but some days, they are really with me strong.  Today was one of those days for some reason.  Something in all of that led me to the porch.  I sat there for about 45 minutes, just watching the cars go by, the birds fly, listening to dogs bark and kids play.  My phone was with me but I never looked at it.  It was wonderful!  Maybe it was the simple fact that I didn’t do a darn thing for nearly an hour.  I think it was more than that, though.  I think it was porch sittin’.   There is something especially therapeutic about being outside on a warm day with a cool breeze blowing across your face and just sittin’.  It is an environment perfectly suited for allowing yourself to slow down, clear your head, and refocus on what’s important.

I wish I could say that porch sittin’ is going to become a regular part of my day.  I know better than that.  But, I do plan to do more of it before the heat of summer drives me inside.  It seems like such a simple thing, and it is.  But that’s the beauty of it!  All you need is a comfortable chair and a porch.  Do yourselves a favor, friends.  Go do some porch sittin’.  Sit with your spouse, your kids, your dog, or just go out by yourself, but leave your phone in the house.  Take a few deep breaths and remember what spring smells like.  Focus on how good it feels to just sit there.  You’ll thank me.

Good, but Not Good Enough

In November of last year, in McMinn County, Tennessee, a 13 year old boy was attempting to unload a rifle and accidentally shot and killed his 17 year old sister.  Incidents like this frustrate me terribly because they are 100 percent preventable.  There is no reason that this should ever happen.  As a gun owner and parent, gun safety is something about which I am passionate.  I demand safe gun handling in my house and anywhere else that I go where firearms are being handled.  Its actually very easy to handle modern firearms safely.  Its almost impossible to make one fire without actually pulling the trigger.  And yet we still have accidents.  I think that’s unacceptable.

The good news is that incidents of unintended injuries and deaths caused by firearms is at an all-time low.  According to the 2016 report on firearms related injuries issued by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (nssf.org/PDF/research/IIR_InjuryStatistics2016.pdf), the incidence of unintended fatalities involving a firearm have decreased 57 percent over the last 20 years.  In 2013, 586 unintended fatalities out of 136,053 involved a firearm, or 0.4 percent.  Keep in mind that there are approximately 350 MILLION guns in the U.S., but only 586 unintended fatalities involved a firearm.  Only 0.6 percent, or 400, of the 69,500 unintended fatalities that occurred in the home involved a firearm.  The news is also good when it comes to unintended fatalities involving children (14 years of age and under).  In the last 20 years, the incidence of unintended deaths of children involving a child decreased 73 percent.  Only 1.3 percent (50) of the 3,857 unintended fatalities of children involved a firearm.  Almost every other sport is more dangerous than shooting.  A cheerleader is 29 times more likely to be injured than a hunter with a firearm!

Those numbers are undeniable proof that, by and large, gun owners are safely handling and storing their firearms.  Modern firearms are manufactured to be as safe as possible and still be useable.  Training programs provided by the NSSF and the National Rifle Association are working to make people safer.  This is great news, but we can do better.  These numbers should be zero.

The way to accomplish this is training.  Training takes many forms, from formal classes to a parent instructing their child to all of us correcting people that we see at the range doing something unsafe.  Parents, it is incumbent on you to teach your children how to behave around a firearm.  I don’t care if you think guns are inherently evil and should be eradicated from the earth.  If you pretend like they don’t exist and that your child will never be around them, you are drastically increasing their odds of injuring themselves or someone else.  Children are naturally curious and you simply can’t control their environment all the time.  You do have control over your firearms and it is your responsibility to control access to them.  It takes some thought, but there are ways to keep them away from your kids but accessible to you.  The other way to tame that curiosity is to familiarize your kids with firearms.  If you aren’t comfortable doing that or don’t have that knowledge yourself, then find a trusted friend that can.  If you ask me to help you with this process, I will not say no.  At a minimum, your kids must know that they are never to handle a firearm without you present and that they should tell an adult immediately if they find one.

As for formal classes, I am not for mandatory training.  “Mandatory” requires some form of governmental involvement.  We’ve got plenty of that already.  But I would like to see gun sellers offer free classes on basic gun safety with the sale of every firearm, especially those buying their first gun.  New shooters should seek out a formal class or consult with a friend that has experience with firearms.  Again, if you ask I will help you.

Being safe with firearms comes back to the Four Rules of Gun Safety.  Many of you will know them by heart, but for those that might not be familiar, they are:  1. All guns are always loaded; 2. Never point a gun at anything that you aren’t willing to destroy; 3. Do not touch the trigger until your sites are on target and you are ready to shoot; and 4. Be sure of your target, what is around it, and what is beyond it.

If everyone would follow these four simple rules, there would be no negligent discharges, and therefore, no unintended injuries or deaths involving firearms.  But break just one of these rules, something bad can happen.  Break more than one and it’s almost guaranteed.  Anytime that I hear of a negligent discharge because “the gun went off”, my immediate thought is “bull”!  Guns do not, will not, CAN NOT go off unless the trigger is pressed or there is a major mechanical malfunction.  Given the quality of modern firearms, the latter seldom happens.  People get injured because other people break one or more of those four simple rules.

If you don’t know, I’m a competitive pistol shooter and I carry concealed every day.  I handle a pistol a lot.  I took a training class a few years ago with a Grand Master level shooter.  At the end of a drill, I was preparing to holster my pistol and I forgot that I still had a round in the chamber and I failed to clear it.  We always drop the hammer before we holster, as another layer of safety.  When I pulled the trigger, it went bang, much to the chagrin of my instructor and my embarrassment!  Fortunately, I was obeying the other rules and no one was injured and no damage was done, other than to my nerves.  I tell you this to emphasize that even those of us who handle firearms every day need to be aware of our safety.  It takes one lapse of attention to make a major mistake.

The bottom line is that the shooting sports are some of the safest activities in which you can participate.  But when injuries do occur, they tend to be serious and often involve innocent bystanders.  American gun owners do a great job of keeping themselves and those around them safe.  I’m very proud of that.  But we can do better.  Every single negligent discharge is preventable.  Let’s work to make the number of unintended injuries involving a firearm zero.

Aunt Lou’s House

I’m fortunate that my job sometimes involves wandering around and exploring places where most people don’t, or won’t, go.  Sometimes that means woods, swamps, or forgotten corners of old farmer’s fields.  But sometimes it means places right out in the open where people have just stopped looking.  Every now and then, these explorations result in finding something interesting; maybe not significant in terms of the legal definition of that term, but important just the same.

Last week, we were heading to an area to survey by crossing over a large clearing where a housing development is being constructed.  In the middle of an area that has been cleared down to the bedrock in places, stood a small farmstead.  The house was very small, just three rooms.  Two of the rooms were part of a frame house that looked to have been built sometime in the early to mid-20th century.  The third room was a hand-hewn log pen that formed the rear of the house.  It was still standing, but in poor condition.  The windows were mostly gone so the elements have begun to take their toll.  There was no sign of indoor plumbing and no fireplace.  A flue marked the location of a wood stove in the corner of one room.  The only thing that we would consider a necessity that we could see was electricity.  The farm buildings around the house were constructed of small logs left in the round and rough-sawn lumber.  All were obviously built by the farmer and showed that ingenuity and adaptability that most farmers seem to possess.  I could tell that they made do with what they had.

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Looking around the interior of the house was a little disturbing at first, as the entire floor in all three rooms was covered by what appeared to be trash.  There were some pieces of busted furniture, cans, and jars, but most of it appeared to be paper.  We could see newspapers, magazines, and lots of unidentifiable stuff.  But we could also see envelopes that held letters and cards, coloring book pages, and school work.  Two small school portraits were found on the stove just inside the log pen, one of which was inscribed to “Aunt Lou”.  This house wasn’t just full of trash; it was full of somebody’s memories, full of their history.

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I’ve seen this kind of thing before, and I always wonder about the people who lived there and what happened for all of this stuff to get left behind.  Did “Aunt Lou” have to leave her little farmstead to live with relatives or in a facility in her later years?  Did her family move away before she passed?  Did they not have the means to go through it all?  Did they just not care?

I don’t know how this place came to be the way it is and I don’t know what happened to “Aunt Lou” and her family.  I’ll probably never know.  But part of my job is to record this exact kind of place, and it’s a part that I take very seriously.  It’s very easy to say, “eh, it’s just another little farmstead”, write my report, and go on to the next project.  Honestly, that’s just the reality of this business.  But I know that I may be the only person who cares about this place at all.  I may be the last person who looks at it as anything but an obstacle.  This house isn’t a mansion or a plantation house, and as far as I know, no one who you’ve ever heard of lived there.  But it’s a place where someone’s Aunt Lou lived.  It’s a place where tough people worked hard in rough conditions to make a living.  It’s a place where kids were raised and came to visit.  It’s a place like thousands of others in the rural South, but like no other to the people who lived and visited there.  Yeah, it’s important.

By this time next year, there will be beautiful new homes, with manicured lawns and HOA fees where Aunt Lou’s house used to be. I suppose that’s progress.  But somebody out there remembers Aunt Lou’s house, and I’ll make sure that it’s remembered in the historical record, too.

Privilege

One of my friends (an actual friend, not just a Facebook friend) told me this week that I have nothing to worry about from a Trump president, seeing as how I’m a straight, white male and all.  Basically, I was told that my white privilege would save me.  In a week where I’ve been called many names based on my vote, this is the only one that really made me mad.  One of the concepts so widely pushed by the left that makes me the maddest is that of some sort of privilege based on skin color, gender, or whatever.  I hate it.  It makes me crazy!

But I’ve been thinking about it, and honestly, I am privileged in a lot of ways, but not the way that my friend meant.  Here’s what I mean.

I am privileged to have been raised by two loving parents that worked their butts off to provide us with everything we needed and a lot of stuff we just wanted.

I am privileged to have had great educators that were willing to share their knowledge about their subject and life in general.

I am privileged to have had the opportunity to work my butt off to educate myself and pursue a career that I love.

I am privileged to be married to an amazing lady that has supported me always, no matter how stupid the decision!

I am privileged to be the father of a great daughter and have the challenge of raising her to be a decent person.

I am privileged to get to work my butt off in a career that challenges me every day.  I am privileged to have the scars, callouses, bad knees, sore shoulders, and gray hair that go with it.

I have the privilege of having a mortgage, a car payment, and a kid that is going to need braces and will be going to college before I know it.

I am privileged to live in a country where I have the opportunity to do these things.  I am privileged that so many have been willing to sacrifice to protect that opportunity.

None of these things is the result of my skin color or gender.  I had the privilege of putting in the work to capitalize on that opportunity.  Don’t come at me with any ‘white male privilege’ crap.  Because here’s the truth of the matter.  We ALL have that privilege, if you’ll get past the excuses and just take it.

What I Carry

When I first started to consider actually carrying a handgun, I began looking at the various models that fit that role.  I knew that I wanted a semi-automatic pistol rather than a revolver.  I love revolvers, but the cylinder creates a lot of bulk for the ammo capacity that it gives you.  I wanted the caliber to be .40 Smith and Wesson (.40 S&W), as 9mm ammunition at the time wasn’t great and I didn’t want the bulk of a .45.  At 6′ 1″ tall and 175 pounds, I’m not a huge guy, so that pretty well meant that full size pistols were not going to work.  Not long before that, Smith and Wesson had released Compact versions of its Military and Police (M&P) series pistols.  They came in the major defensive calibers, including .40 S&W.  The M&P 40c came with a 3.5″ barrel and a 10 round magazine.  Two magazines were included, one with a flat floor plate and one with an extension so your pinky finger had a place to go.  I decided that I liked it and was able to buy one.  It was a great little gun!  It was relatively accurate, easy to shoot, and easy to conceal.  It shot well enough that I actually used it when I started shooting competitively!  I don’t recommend that you do that, but that’s what I had at the time.

In the meantime, Ruger released its LCP, a tiny little .380 pocket pistol that started the current craze for little bitty guns.  I thought that it made a lot of sense, especially since I had discovered that concealed carry was more work than I thought it would be.  It seemed like a great idea to have a smaller pistol that I could just stick in my pocket if I didn’t want to deal with the bigger gun.  And it filled that role nicely.  But with its size came issues.  It was very hard to shoot and impossible to shoot well due to its short barrel, light weight, and incredibly long trigger pull.  I get it, you don’t want a sensitive trigger on a pocket gun, but this was ridiculous.  The .380 ACP round is pretty marginal as a defensive round, but it produces recoil all out of proportion to its size.  That, combined with the pistol, meant that I hated shooting the thing and didn’t practice with it.  I ended up selling it.

So, fast forward to last year.  The Action Pistol group at my club does a big match every year as a benefit for Toys for Tots.  Part of your entry fee is a toy that goes to this very worthwhile program.  Its a lot of fun and we always have a great turn out.  The prize table is also pretty impressive.  I wasn’t too concerned with the prize table last year as I had a terrible match.  I had some ammo issues on one stage and messed up some others on my own, so I wasn’t expecting much.  The way we do the prizes, however, worked to my advantage.  The final scores are divided into thirds; Gold, Silver, and Bronze, with Gold being the top third, etc.  The top finisher in each third gets to pick from the prize table first, that way everyone has a shot at a great prize.  Just by blind luck, I was the top Silver and won a gun!  I could not believe it!  I honestly thought they were yanking my chain, but it was true.

The gun was a Walther PPQ M2 in 9mm.  My first thought was that I could sell it for enough to buy the AR-15 that I was coveting at that time.  But then I picked it up.  I was immediately struck by the ergonomics of this gun!  The grip was very comfortable and angled in a way that lends itself to getting on target quickly.  I liked the way it pointed and the balance was correct.  None of that top heavy feel from which many polymer guns suffer.  Then I tried the trigger.  Wow! Light, but not too light for a defensive weapon, crisp, no creep or grit, and an extremely short, tactile reset.  Yeah, it had the makings of a real shooter!  I decided to keep it and sell my M&P, which ultimately funded the AR, but that’s a post for another time.

brand-new-walther
The new Walther in the box. It came with 2 magazines, a magazine loading tool, 3 interchangeable backstraps, an empty chamber flag, and a lock, all in a plastic case.

The PPQ M2 is the second version of Walther’s PPQ.  The original had the weird European magazine release lever at the base of the trigger guard.  The M2 has a button on the grip behind the trigger guard like God and John Moses Browing intended it to be!  Otherwise, the controls are very familiar to anyone that has every fired a polymer striker-fired pistol.  The barrel is 4 inches long and it holds 15 rounds in the magazine plus one in the chamber.  It isn’t a small gun, but it isn’t a full size service pistol either.  There isn’t a lot of wasted metal or polymer on this gun, so it isn’t difficult to conceal most of the time.  It compares in size to the Glock 19, which is a very popular carry gun.  I think it strikes the perfect balance of capacity, concealability, and shootability.  Click here if you’d like to see the specs on the PPQ M2 or any of Walther’s other offerings.  http://www.waltherarms.com/handguns/ppq/ppq-m2/

At the range, I really started to like it!  The first group that I shot out of it impressed me.  From a rest at 10 ft it put 5 rounds into just under an inch!  I’ll take that anytime out of a 4 inch barrel with factory ammo.  The group was  centered to the left, but that’s pretty typical for me.  A quick adjustment to the rear site and it put round 6 dead center, as you can see.  It showed a definite preference for the factory 115 grain bullets over my 147 grain handloads.  I’m not sure what the issue is, but it may just prefer the lighter bullet.  Either way, it is more than capable of putting the bullet where you want it at any normal defensive range.  walther-group

As for ammunition, the 9mm cartridge has come a long way over the past few years.  In the past, the 9mm was not known for its accuracy or its ability to stop bad guys quickly.  A quick trip to your local gun store will clearly demonstrate how much that has changed!  There are dozens of good, accurate, 9mm loads out there now, made with bullets that will ensure that your assailant leaves you alone from now on.  My personal favorite and what I keep in the Walther is Hornady’s Critical Defense round.  Hornady is really on top of the ammunition world right now, and this round is one of their best.  It is made with a 115 grain FTX bullet that has a polymer insert where the hollowpoint cavity is usually located.  This helps produce consistent expansion of the bullet at a wide range of velocities and through barriers, such as heavy clothing.  The recoil is very mild and the round is accurate.  I’ve never had a failure to feed with this load, although I’ve never had a failure to feed with any ammo in the Walther!

That’s what I carry and why.  I’d love to hear from you about your weapon of choice!  Next time, we’ll talk about how I carry.

Thanks for reading!

Why I Carry

I’m tired of writing about the sad state of politics, so I’m going to shift gears a little, if you’ll indulge me.  Most people that know me well know that I carry a concealed handgun most of the time.  The number of people who are getting their permit to carry is on the rise as more states remember that we live in a free nation.  With that in mind, I thought I’d do a series of blogs about my experiences as a permitted concealed carrier.  We’ll talk about why I carry, what I carry, and how I carry it.  I hope you’ll respond in kind so we can all learn something.  Please keep in mind that I am no sort of professional when it comes to concealed carry or firearms in general, so everything presented here is my opinion based on many years of shooting and carrying handguns.

I decided in 2007 to get my concealed carry permit.  In Tennessee, you are required to take an 8 hour class that consists of 4 hours of classroom instruction and 4 hours of range time.  You are required to pass an exam in the classroom and on the range.  I took the course at the Loudon County Sheriff’s office from a SWAT officer who was very serious about his job.  My class was made up of men and women with very different levels of experience with firearms.  The lady sitting next to me had a revolver that she had been given.  I had to show her how it operated, including how to open the cylinder!  The class was very well done, touching on most of the questions that I had coming in.  The range session was pretty easy since I had experience with handguns already.  Needless to say, I passed both exams.

With my class done, I got my fingerprints sent to the state and submitted my application and fee for a concealed carry permit late in 2007.  Honestly, it was a while before I carried after I got the permit.  It is an unnerving experience until you get used to it.  I felt like the gun was standing out a foot and that everybody around me was looking at it.  After a while, I realized that no one was paying any attention to me.  The gun became part of my daily routine, part of my wardrobe.  I’ve learned to dress to effectively hide it and have improved my rig over the years so that its more comfortable.  Now, I feel awkward without it, kind of like when you forget your wristwatch and keep looking at your arm.

So, why go through all of that? Why incur the expense and put up with the discomfort and inconvenience?  There isn’t a simple answer to those questions, and I think everyone that carries probably has different reasons.  The most obvious reason is simply for safety.  We all carry to protect ourselves and our loved ones.  In my case, its not so much about my safety as it is that of my wife and daughter.  They mean everything to me and I will do whatever I have to do to keep them safe.  Obviously, we avoid places and situations where trouble is more likely to occur, but trouble has a way of sneaking up on you when and where you least expect it.  Part of my job as a husband and father is to be ready if it does.

That leads me to another reason that I chose to carry, a sense of responsibility.  I am responsible for my own safety, as well as that of my girls.  I have nothing but respect for law enforcement and I am more than willing to let those brave men and women deal with the evil that lurks in the world.  Unfortunately, though, when seconds count, the police are minutes away.  That’s not criticism in any way, just the truth.  They can’t be everywhere all the time and I personally don’t want them to be.  That leaves me.  At another level, I feel responsible as a citizen to be available if trouble comes calling on someone around me.  I made the decision to get training and to make myself proficient in the use of my weapon.  I feel like I almost owe it to society to be prepared.  I’m not Matt Dillon and I’m not out looking for trouble in which to involve myself. I hope I never fire a round other than at the range.  But I am going to be prepared.

One question that I’ve been asked is could you actually take a human life?  My answer is yes.  I don’t answer that way lightly or without considerable thought.  If the choice was between the bad guy and either of my girls getting hurt, then there is no question.  I know having to shoot somone comes with a heavy emotional toll, regardless of the circumstances. I sincerely hope that never happens.  But, here’s the bottom line; I could live with shooting someone that was trying to hurt me, my girls, or someone else.  I could not live with it if one of them got hurt because I couldn’t prevent it.  That’s the real reason.

Next time I’ll tell you about my current carry gun, how I came to own it, and why I love it!

Never Forget

It has been 15 years since 2,996 Americans were killed by cowardly terrorists on our own soil.  Fifteen years and this day still bothers me.  Every year on this day, all of the emotions come back, just like on September 11, 2001.  The edge has dulled, but the sadness and anger are still there.  My memories of that day are still sharp.  I picked up a rental car at Lovell Field in Chattanooga and headed for Birmingham for a project.  I was listening to the John Boy and Billy Big Show on the radio when they said that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers.  I assumed that it was a small plane and was reminded of a similar incident in the 1940s when a B-25 crashed into the Empire State Building.  Then, while they were on the air, they saw the second plane hit.  From that point, I knew we were under attack.  The rest of the trip was filled with radio coverage that sounded like planes were falling out of the sky all over the country.  The plane hitting the Pentagon and the crash in Shanksville emphasized that point.  I freely admit that I was scared as I drove by the Birmingham airport on the way to our office.  Once I got there, everyone was gathered around a small television, where I actually saw the attacks for the first time.  No work was done that day as we all tried to deal with what we had seen.

I spent that night alone in a hotel room in Birmingham.  All I wanted to was be home, but that just wasn’t possible.  One of the things that I remember most about that day was President Bush’s address to Congress that evening.  It was one of the most emotional and well-written political speeches that I’ve ever heard.  The sight of Republicans and Democrats sitting in unity for a change gave me hope that we, as a nation, would recover.  I honestly felt a little better after watching it.  The only exception was Hillary Clinton, who wore an expression on her face that clearly showed her annoyance at having to sit there while Bush was in the spotlight.  I will never forget that, either. In the days that followed, there were no news stories slamming either party.  Nobody was talking about race.  Why should there be?  People of every race were affected by that day.  We were all Americans working toward a common goal.

I was in New York City for work in 2009.  I had part of an afternoon off, so I went into Manhattan to the temporary 9/11 Memorial.  It was in a building near NYFD House 10, a station that lost 6 men.  Inside the memorial was a museum containing items that had been recovered from the site.  In the rear of the memorial was a small room that made a huge impact on me.  Three of the walls were covered by photographs of the victims. Monitors on either side of the room had a continuous scroll of the names of the victims.  You can see photos below.  To say that this made it personal is a major understatement.  To see it all on television is one thing, but to look at the faces of nearly 3,000 dead Americans is quite another.  I wanted to look at every face, but I just couldn’t do it.  The ones that I saw were a true cross-section of America.  I saw skin of every color, janitors, executives, and everyone in between.  The minutes that I spent there had a major impact on me and I will never forget it.

But forget is what we, as a nation, have done.  It has only been 15 years since we were as united as a nation as we have ever been in my lifetime.  Look at us now.  The news is nothing but insults slung at one candidate by the other candidate, over-hyped stories of racial divide, stories about how ignorant people that believe this or that are, and the most outrageous example of Hollywood misbehavior they can find.  Now, we are more divided than we have ever been in my lifetime.  As a nation, we have forgotten what I think is the most important lesson of September 11; that we are all Americans, and that we are at our best when we work together.  I sincerely hope that we remember that lesson someday.  I just hope that it doesn’t take another moment where we all remember where we were when it happened to remind us.

victim-room

victims