Responding to a comment from an old post.

I just got a reader comment about a post that I had written over two years ago, in which I was asked,

"Why is your off duty course different from your duty course of fire?

Wednesday, October 12, 2016 12:25:00 AM

The answer I gave was: "A worthy question. Frankly, we want our officers armed while off-duty, but we don't want them inserting themselves into every hazard which they might come across. By policy, if they carry off-duty, they are are to carry concealed. For that, and for convenience's sake, off-duty guns are typically much lighter and more compact than duty guns. They are frankly harder to shoot well. An Airweight Chief 1 7/8" barrel five-shot revolver just isn't as easy to hit with, as a full-sized Glock with good sights is. Our duty qualification far exceeds the state-mandated qualification minimums, includes multiple timed reloads, and shooting on the move. (In fact, 24% of our shots are fired while moving, at 10 yards.) Our off-duty qualification, however, meets the state mandate." For the past couple of years, we've considered differentiating between "Off-duty" and "Backup Gun" qualifications, but have decided not to. However, if an officer wants to wear a gun that he's qualified with for off-duty, but wants to wear it in uniform (say, for an off-duty gig, or if it is approved for carry on duty), he must shoot the full duty qualification course with it, from his proposed duty rig. The question may be posed: "Why aren't you holding your off-duty shooting to the same standard as you hold your on-duty shooting?" The answer is that, usually, the off-duty officer is not going to have the same duty to intervene as he would when on-duty. The off-duty officer is carrying, first and foremost, to defend himself and his family in the face of retaliation. Some of us will carry bigger guns (which are easier to shoot) during the cooler months, and then switch to lighter, smaller guns during the summer months. The fact of the matter is, we need to adjust our response to an off-duty deadly force encounter to meet what we are equipped and prepared to work with.

October 1st. The best month.

--The weather has finally taken a cooler turn, with highs only in the low 80s, or even, on some days, in the high 70s. This has done wonders for my mood.

--We've been having minor car problems. The aged-beyond-its-years-and-miles '97 Honda Civic which I passed on to my elder daughter has required three rescues in the past month and a half. Two of these were simply old hoses needing replacement. One was a new coil. The Check Engine light came on about the time that the muffler started getting loud, so I replaced the muffler, and it got quiet, but the light came back on after being reset, and the code continued to say that the catalytic converter was the problem. On this car, that's on the exhaust manifold (stupid design; don't put one of the most expensive parts on one of the cheapest parts, the latter of which is likely to need replacement due to cracking.). I had this replaced about 130k miles ago, and it was a $900 part back then. This time, it was about a $650 part, and that's getting too close to the cost of the old car. I shopped around, and found an aftermarket one for $189, with just $8 for shipping. My shade tree mechanic said that he'll change it out for about $50 for me. (I always tip him heavily, though.) So for under $300, I get that problem fixed. Come March (when the lack of an AC makes my daughter whine again), I'll sell it, and buy my elder daughter (now a freshman in college) a newer car. Nothing fancy, you understand. Maybe a 10 year-old Accord with a manual transmission. (Did they still make them with manuals, in 2007?)

--I've been working a fair bit of off-duty, lately. Gotta pay for those car repairs, those college expenses not covered by scholarship (they are legion), a little trip up to Colorado I'm taking, soon, and a little rathole money for this fall.

--I'm training a new guy at work. Smart young fellow. New to the work.

--I went shooting yesterday, and was surprised that, at 15-17 yards, my shots were dropping off the bull that I was shooting. I approached, and found that some of the missed shots were keyholed. They had tumbled. This was Speer Lawman 125g TMJ .357 Sig out of a fairly-clean Gen 3 Glock 31. I checked the bore: still shiny. WTH?

I suspect that the two in the 7 ring were also tumbling, as well, but they weren't full-profile when they struck the paper.

--I just got a Don Hume leather pocket pistol for the G42, and it has a useful feature: a hook on it (cut into the leather pattern), to drag against the bottom of your pocket when drawing (as seen on the Emerson Wave lockblade pocketknife), so that your pistol pulls free from the holster every time. At $35, this was an inexpensive piece of decent kit. No, I don't carry a .380 as a primary gun, but it makes a nice BUG on my vest at work, and there are times when I can't get away with any kind of gun burka, and must pocket carry.