Posted on 12/16/2007 10:43:41 AM PST by marktwain
Jeanne Assam, the heroine of the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, would likely have been unable to carry the Beretta that she stopped the shooting with if she had been a licensed security guard.
An AP article published on 12 December noted that licensed security guards in Colorado Springs are restricted to the use of revolvers.
As Jeanne Assam was a volunteer parishioner who was performing security guard duties because the church did not want to hire “mercenaries”, she was almost certainly not affected by the regulations, which only apply to government regulated security guards.
Fortunately, her lack of official status with the state and city allowed her to carry a firearm with sufficient firepower to accomplish the necessary task.
Jeannette had to fire 10 rounds to keep her fellow parishoners safe.
You’re right. There is confusion about whether she was in official capacity as a security guard at the time. Meanwhile, this is a real wake up call to other religious institutions around the country to get people with guns in the buildings.
Thank you. I think the confusion is partly deliberate. I want people to realize that there are advantages to having private volunteers. They are not constricted in the same way as legally licensed security people are.
.357 Sig ballistics are nearly identical to .357 mag. The primary difference is .357 Sig is a semi-auto pistol round. One of our local SWAT officers took a .357 mag in the back. His vest stopped it, but it still left a big red bruise.
Consider
So the headline reflects, IMHO, two problems with modern US English, we don't know the sequence of tenses in conditional sentences, and we don't know the inflection of the verb "may".
IMHO, when language loses the ability to make distinctions, it loses something inmportant. There's an real difference between "She MAY not be able," and "She MIGHT no be able", but the uses of the tenses of "may" is vanishing, so we're having to find different ways to draw that distinction.
In this "headline", what we have is a hypothesis contrary to fact. Here's a restriction on registered security guards. She isn't a registered security guard, so it's not a restriction on how she can be armed. But if she HAD BEEN a registered security guard (which she, in fact, wasn't) then she MIGHT HAVE BEEN (Or, I wouldd htink, would certaianly have been) restricted from carrying her lovely Beretta 92-FS, which is one of the sweetest guns I own, though I prefer my sigp226, and, if I AM ombliged to carry a revolver, I usually carry my S&W 686P.
Don't get me going on grammar and "may" -- instant pedant, AND if I WERE to be disagreed with, I MIGHT draw one of my weapons, though I think I WOULD get more satisfaction from using my knife, up close and personal, than I WOULD from using a gun at some distance.
I trust I make myself obscure.
I do not know the legal definition of “security guard” in the city ordnance. I used “may” because the ordnance may apply to her, though I think that unlikely.
I don’t claim that grammer is my strong suit, but I am willing to learn from those more learned than I.
Evil guns...at least that is what the libs in the Colorado legislature think...
Do you know that it was a Beretta 92-FS? Or are you merely speculating?
Are you kidding me? THat’s all you got? You seriously need an upgrade.
500 smith&wesson
hehe, just kidding.
Depends on barrel length.
With long barrels, a 357mag outperforms a 357sig. With short barrels, the 357sig is the winner.
Actually, with really short barrels, say a 1-7/8” snub revolver compared to a 3”bbl auto, even a 9mm luger +P outperforms a 357mag.
Unless you are a handloader, 357mag does very poorly with short barrels.
I don’t think anyone’s complaining. I know if I was there, I woulnd’t be complaining any.
As you can tell, I like grammar and related issues. But at least I know I’m weird! I hope my pedantic rant didn’t sound like it was aimed at you. It’s just the kind of thing that happens sometimes, you know, too much coffee, too much fee time, a strong desire to avoid getting ready for Xmas, suddenly the difference between May and Might is the most important thing in the world!
hehe, just kidding.
I know you were just kidding, because the weight of that 500 S&W pistol is almost twice that of this baby. So the S&W is a wimp in the recoil department. I wear a brace sometimes when I fire the Linebaugh as I am not as young as I used to be.
You’re kidding, I assume.
What I hear/read is that she engaged the guy and advanced on him while yelling "Surrender!" and firing. If a reliable and more detailed account is available, I'd love to see it.
It MAY not be accurate to say she NEEDED all ten shots. I can imagine in a situation where you are advancing on an armed person who has already started shooting that you focus on lining up your front sight with his general outline and pull the trigger until all you hear is "Click, click, click." (So why did she have only a 10-round mag? Who knows?) She may have kind of forgotten to stop shooting until she ran out or the guy was obviously on the floor and more or less motionless.
Your average LEO or security person doesn't get a whole lot of practice dealing with major adrenaline dumps. I don't think it's within reasonable bounds to expect Dirty Harry-like cool and deliberation from such folks. I think she did fine.
Are there any indications she hit anybody else? From one account that I heard, she did a lot better than her two male companions who sat around and dithered while she actually engaged the bad guy. Yeah, I guess she wasn't perfect. I kind of like her imperfection and would like to think I'd do as well in a similar situation.
Didn’t bother me a bit. In fact, I rather enjoyed it. Feel free to chime in any time.
12 FPS?
Elmer Keith’s tobacco spit is deadlier than that! :)
That’s 1200 fps not 12!
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