From Longtime Friend & Reader Dave L. comes this excellent thought about carry guns:
I have a couple of nice carry pieces, including an Officer’s Model Kimber .45 and a Smith 640 which dates back to my wheel gun days.
Of late I’ve been thinking about what would happen if I did a bad guy during a church service. I’m very confident that I wouldn’t be charged with anything because Oklahoma and Baptists, but I remember from my sheriff days that firearms used in a shooting, even a totally righteous one by a retired deputy, have a way of disappearing into the system and never showing up again. I guess the DA can brag that he took another gun off the street.
With that idea in mind I started thinking about a lower priced pistol that wouldn’t bother me when it went into the evidence room.
After a lot of research I bought a Taurus G3C as my church gun.
In the past most gun people had nothing good to say about Taurus, but that reputation goes back 30 or 40 years when their quality was somewhat questionable. My son bought a PT92 Beretta clone about 20 years ago which has given him excellent service. I don’t care for the feel of the gun – I think that I’m shooting a brick – but it feeds everything and goes bang every time.
The G3 definitely isn’t pretty and we old timers don’t have much to say in favor of polymer pistols. Even so, the gun runs all of the time, every time and is more than accurate enough for my 71 year old eyes. I carry it in a Kydex inside the belt holster and have two spare magazines in my left front pants pocket (that’s my old school sheriff training showing). I’ve got it loaded with 115 grain Israeli Military Industries hollow points because the Israelis should know something about putting down terrorists and bad guys.
Should I need to use the pistol for the betterment of society, I don’t feel that I’ll be out a lot of money when it disappears into the system. I pity the poor fool who decides to rob the collection plates or make a political statement in our church. (We have a church member who is a town PD officer and he provides paid security during our Sunday morning services. We also have at least 8 or 10 retired law enforcement officers (myself included) and serious “constitutional” carriers who will act as backup for our PD guy should things ever go to shite.
Dave sure knows how to give me the Warm & Fuzzies, oh yes he does.
You know, it pains me to think that if some time I am forced to ventilate some choirboy, my treasured 1911 may disappear as described above.
It sucks, and there’s just no justification for such an event even when, as Dave says, the shooting is completely Righteous.
And frankly, I’m not that interested in getting a cheap gun as a “throwaway” so to speak, because if I need to shoot someone, I want to be sure that my gun will work every single fucking time, with no asterisks. I know very well that my life may depend on the gun, which is why I never stint on quality — but to see it just vanish… you get my point, I think.
Maybe we gun owners should have a friendly chat about this topic with our local lawmakers and get some legislation in place to allow for the speedy return of our guns — e.g. the court case happens, everything turns out well (for the law-abiding citizen, of course), and he’s given a pat on the back and told he’s a free man.
In that case: what’s wrong with his gun being returned to him within 24 hours of the verdict — with stiff penalties for the relevant PD if this doesn’t happen? I’d like to think that the local PD would be happy to follow such a law, but at the same time, I’m a realist and the chance of a grandstanding DA behaving as Dave describes is more the way to bet than the other.
I know I have a couple lawyers (nay even prosecutors and defense attorneys) among my Readers, so if any of youse guys care to comment on my suggestion, have at it.
