New Defensive Pistolcraft Newsletter

 Jon Low published a new Defensive Pistolcraft newsletter earlier this week. 

    Jon leads with another example of why you should never talk to the police after a shooting until you've had time to discuss your case with an attorney. (In fact, you need to affirmatively indicate that you are asserting your Fifth Amendment right to not speak or the police will be able to use your silence against you). The example he uses is that of George Alan Kelly, the Arizona rancher that is being prosecuted for killing an illegal alien that had crossed the border and onto Kelly's property. Although there is no physical evidence linking Kelly to the death--the police never recovered a bullet--Kelly admitted that he had confronted "five illegal immigrants in tactical clothing he believed to be armed and trafficking drugs across his property" and fired warning shots over their heads. Thus, as the lead detective reasoned: "'The moral of the story is:  You shot.  Someone’s dead.', Detective Jorge Ainza, the lead investigator, told Mr. Kelly before his arrest." 

    Do you really think that you are going to get a fair shot with a detective named Jorge Ainza if he thinks you killed his fellow Mexicans?

    In any event, as Jon goes on to relate:

... On April 12, Mr. Ainza testified it was the defendant’s “inconsistent” statements, demeanor, and behavior that amounted to probable cause to charge him with first-degree murder.  Prosecutors later downgraded the charge to second-degree murder, which requires proof that Mr. Kelly acted in a reckless manner that caused the victim’s death . . .  

     (Two key points here:  

     First, do not give detailed statements or submit to lengthy interviews without legal counsel and, preferably, not before three normal sleep cycles.  

     Second, the claim of having fired “warning shots” can be used to argue that you knew that you lacked the justification to use deadly force on the person you claim to have been your assailant.  

     Seated in the border city of Nogales, Santa Cruz County is one of the four of Arizona's 15 counties that consistently votes Democratic in presidential elections.  -- Stephen P. Wenger)  

Moving on, some other things that caught my eye:

• Jon links to the "Free Handgun and Rifle Instructional Training Series" by Mike Seeklander which offers 14 videos on training. It is available on YouTube.
• Jon links to the April Rangemaster Newsletter (it is a downloadable PDF). He cites it for the comments at the end of the newsletter from Col. Cooper. I suggest that you also read the the account of the home invasion, rape and murder of the Petit family from 2007. Although Tom Givens main takeaway is the need for situational awareness (the murders picked out the family at a store, following them around inside the store, before following them to their house), I would also suggest that a secondary lesson is that the police are not going to be there to help you. In regard to the Petits, the mother was taken by one of the murderers to a bank to withdraw funds, but was able to alert the clerk who called police. So even though the police basically followed the murderer and soon-to-be dead victim from the bank back to the home, the police merely set up a perimeter and sat on their butts while the two murderers raped and killed members of the family.
  

 Anyway, there are a lot more links on training tips, safety tips, dry fire practice, etc., etc. Be sure to check it out.