Bang

by Ben Small


Many mystery and thriller writers use guns in their stories. Guns are perceived as simple, deadly and hard to track, assuming the murder weapon is not found.

But that’s not always true, just as it’s not always true that ballistics can match the gun to the bullet. And in some cases, DNA might be a bigger threat to the perp than ballistics.

Many writers don’t use the research tools available to provide realism to their character’s gun use. Ignorance or error may cause the writer to overlook what might be a fascinating plot turn, or worse yet, there's an error that turns off the reader. Trial judges usually give juries a form of the following instruction, “If you find that a witness has been untruthful in one part of his or her testimony, you may disregard the testimony in whole or in part.”

Many readers apply the same rule to the books they’re reading.

So let’s discuss some interesting aspects of gun use, some mis-conceptions, and I’ll toss in some research resources where you can learn other tidbits useful in your writing.

First, DNA may be as large a hazard to the gun-toting perp as ballistics. Probably the most famous and best American gun designer to date was John Moses Browning. The famed 1911 pistol was a Browning design, as are most non-striker-fired semi-automatic pistols. A recent enhancement, most notably developed by Ed Brown, a high-end custom gun manufacturer, is the beavertail, a looping attachment at the butt end of a gun that looks like an extended thumb. (See image on right.)
The purpose of the beavertail is to protect the shooter's hand from slide-bite, caused by a meaty hand or a high grip on many semi-automatic pistols. As the trigger is pulled, hot gases from the discharge rocket the slide backward. Anything caught in this movement, like the webbing of the hand between the thumb and first finger, will be torn, leaving the shooter’s DNA on the slide and the perp wearing a bandage. Slide-bite can occur on any most any semi-automatic pistol lacking a beavertail, even on a Glock or Sig Sauer, but it’s most prevalent with guns that follow Browning’s designs more closely, guns like the Browning Hi-Power, still with a high market share, and the famous Sig Sauer P-210, perhaps the most accurate production pistol ever made.

These babies can take some skin.

For this reason, many shooters use shooting gloves, usually possessing nylon webbing where slide-bite may occur and thinner material for the trigger finger, so the shooting finger will still fit within the trigger guard.

But slide-bite isn’t the only DNA risk. If you’ve loaded many semi-auto mags, you no doubt know how sore your loading thumb gets. If you’re not wearing gloves, you’ll not only leave prints on the cartridge casing, you may leave some skin, too. Saavy shooters use auto-loaders for their semi-auto pistols, little plastic devices that fit over the magazine. A bullet is inserted and you push down; the bullet slides into place. Easy on thumbs, but no protection against prints.

The shooter may wear gloves as he’s loading the cartridges, but will he wear them when he’s removing the cartridges from the box? Not doing so will leave at least partial prints and maybe some loose skin tissue on the bottom of the cartridge. Wearing gloves will make cartridge removal awkward, unless the shooter just dumps the box out, in which case a cartridge or two may roll away, perhaps rolling under a couch or chair.

Another hazard exists in racking a semi-auto’s slide. While slide grooves or serrations usually exist front and back, to provide traction with a somewhat difficult slide, racking the slide using the front grooves exposes the meat of the hand to hangfire risk. A hangfire is an accidental discharge caused by something striking the bullet primer hard enough to fire the round. Note, the trigger has not been pulled. Until recently, when Hornaday developed the LeverEvolution bullet, lever guns with tube feed used rounded, soft lead bullets. The guns were loaded in a horizontal position. All this because of hangfire danger, risk that the tip of one bullet might bump the primer of the bullet on top of it. Well, hangfire can occur in semi-automatic pistols, too, which is why experts caution people to only rack the slide using the rear serrations. Needless to say, a semi-automatic pistol hangfire can do serious damage to a hand exposed to an open slide via the front serration pull. The problem is that some guns, especially 1911s, custom guns, and new guns are tight, the slides don’t move easily. Many women and men with small hands have difficulty racking these slides. So they use the front serrations.

That can be an oops the shooter will remember.

Another oops can arise from shooting a revolver the same way one usually shoots a semi-auto. Many semi-auto instructors teach one to use the support hand to point at the target and support the firing hand in anticipating recoil. This positions at least one finger in front of the trigger guard. Do this with a revolver, and you may be missing some fingers, or you’ll at least suffer a bad burn. Why? Because there’s a gap between the cylinder and the barrel, and hot gases explode out of the revolver’s cylinder and leak around the barrel. The preferred support hand positioning for a revolver is below the firing hand, not in front of it. Screw up this rule and your perp will be in a bad way.

And what about ballistics? It’s not foolproof, you know.

First, one must find the bullet. If the perp used a FMJ (full metal jacket) bullet, the traditional ball ammo, the bullet probably passed through the victim and may never be found. If a JHP (jacketed hollow point) bullet was used, it may be a mostly flat blob of metal inside the victim’s body. Some barrel marks may be visible under magnification, but maybe not. If a .223 round was used, the bullet will likely fragment, break up into little pieces. These bullets don’t often pass through windshields or body armor, one of the reasons the M-4 and M-16 rifles aren’t popular with troops.

Did you know replacement barrels are available? Barsto is one company that makes replacement barrels for almost any semi-auto pistol. And gun manufacturers sell replacement barrels, too. Some of these barrels may have to be fitted by a gunsmith, but others are drop-in. It would be easy for a perp to switch gun barrels, kill someone, then replace his old barrel and dispose of the new one. Ballistics might be able to match a strange firing pin profile on the primer, but they’d never match the barrels. Replacement barrels can be ordered by anybody, and some gun shops have them on hand. Nothing to sign, no background check required. Throw that into your ballistics stew and chew on it.

Another company, Otis Technology, has come out with a ceramic barrel liner. Just coat a bunch of bullets, fire them, and whamo, you’ve got new life in an old barrel. And new life in the old barrel probably means a new ballistics pattern, although there may be some carryover. Can ballistics determine if this ceramic coated barrel is from the same gun before the ceramic treatment? Stay tuned. This stuff is too new for anyone to say with certainty. http://www.otisgun.com/cgistore/store.cgi?page=/new/fcatalog.html&setup=1

It’s widely believed that hollow point bullets are rare, that usage of them demonstrates intent to kill. This is just false. In fact, hollow points are considered the standard defense round and the round cops carry in their guns. Why? Because they’re safer to bystanders than ball ammo; they tend to keep the damage limited to the target.

Many people don’t believe the 9mm bullet to be a man-stopper. While proponents complain it’s all about aim, and protest that a 9mm bullet aimed correctly will do the job, most people believe the 9mm bullet is not the preferred man-stopper. In fact, the FBI developed the .40 cal S&W cartridge after a fatal Miami bad guy encounter. The bad guys were pumped full of 9mm bullets, but still managed to keep firing and killing FBI agents.

Many people feel the primary risk associated with a .45 acp round is over-penetration, the likelihood that a round will penetrate walls and strike people even at distance. But tests with ballistic gelatin show that .45 acp bullets, because of their mass, travel at slower speeds than 9mm bullets and penetrate less. Make that bullet a hollow point, and there will likely be no .45 acp over-penetration at all.

I’ve often heard the statement made by experts that mystery writers who claim a gun can be identified by a bullet alone are wrong. And in most cases, that’s a correct statement. But as with most things, this isn’t the full story. In fact, in some cases, the crime investigators and CSI folks can come mighty close.

For instance, short barreled pistols are popular for concealed carry, for obvious reasons. But hollow point bullets shot out of a Baby Glock (G26, G27, G28, G29, G30, G33 and G36) for instance, may not open up. Hollow points need to reach a certain velocity to open upon impact, and the extremely short barrel of some guns prevents the velocity from reaching terminal energy limits of the round. These hollow point bullets may perform like ball ammo. An investigator who sees an unopened hollow point will likely determine it was shot out of a short-barreled gun.

That narrows the field somewhat, but let’s carry this scenario further. What if someone is shooting a .357 round? The .357 round was designed for a revolver; the semi-auto version is the .357 Sig. They’re different bullets. There are very few short barreled revolvers shooting a .357 round; fewer still semi-auto models shooting the .357 Sig round. (A side note is necessary here. If you’re an investigator investigating a .357 indoor shooting, look for someone who’s deaf. Most crimes are spontaneous, and even if not, how many mysteries or thrillers have someone wearing hearing protection? The deafening affect was recently used very successfully as a plot point in Jeff Deaver's latest book The Bodies Left Behind.)

What if the bullet was lead? Well, if you’re thinking Glock, which has the largest gun market share, lead bullets should not be used. Most guns have lands and grooves inside the barrel. These are used to start the bullet spinning, which like a spiral pass in football, makes the bullet more accurate. But Glocks use a proprietary system, different from the typical lands and grooves found in pistols. Read your Glock manual; it says not to use lead bullets. Lead bullets in a Glock, even just one firing, will foul a Glock barrel, affecting accuracy and velocity. Only someone who doesn’t know much about Glocks would fire a lead bullet in one.

Issues like these abound in shooting investigations. If you’re looking for ways to trip up your perp and make your protag more brilliant, knowledge of some of these facts or issues may be of help. In future columns, I may add some more interesting factoids that make your book a little more special.

But you can also research these things yourself. I got interested in guns when my editor excoriated me for a gun safety error I'd made in an early draft of Alibi On Ice. So I researched guns, bought some and found I'd caught the addiction. No, I haven’t shot anybody, and I don’t intend to. But the gun is America’s weapon of choice, and I decided if I was going to write about them, I should learn something about them. And I’ve found some really good resources.

I subscribe to many gun magazines. The three best, I believe, are Combat Handguns, Guns and Ammo, and The American Rifleman, the magazine of the NRA. Additionally, Personal Defense, Guns and Ammo, and The American Rifleman are television programs broadcast weekly. Another good television program is Tactical Impact, where not only are stalking skills taught but also comparative analysis of the positives and negatives associated with various weapons assigned various missions. Interesting and useful stuff.

But by far the best resource I’ve found is the internet. My favorite site is Http://SigForum.com. You’ll find over forty-five thousand members talking guns, not limited to Sig Sauers, and most of the members are military or law enforcement. Ask a question, you’ll get an answer. Or use the search function. This site is extremely well run and is focused on being helpful. Jerks are not tolerated.

Other useful sites are Http://GlockTalk.com, Http://The HighRoad.com, Http://WarRifles.com, Http://AR15.com, and Http://ArizonaShooting.com to name a few.

Bottom line: If your perp used a gun, make sure you know what you’re writing about.

Clinging To Our Guns

by Ben Small



In anticipation of an Obama swearing-in ceremony, America has been buying guns in unprecedented numbers. Of course, Obama-phobia isn’t fully the explanation. Americans feel threatened; they’re afraid. Gang and drug warfare are on the rise, as are home invasions, and in some cities, like Chicago, which is setting murder records, only the cops and bad guys have guns. (Ordinary people aren’t supposed to defend themselves in Chicago. Mayor Daley won’t permit it.)

But there’s no denying the Obama effect. Overnight, prices of AK-47s skyrocketed, in some places as high as 200%. Same with AR-15s and other weapons carrying more than ten rounds. You may remember the Clinton Assault Weapons Ban. That didn’t do much to stop the proliferation of serious weaponry. It was a joke. Yes, magazines were limited to ten rounds. But there were no limits on how many magazines one could carry.

Several articles have appeared about surging guns and ammo sales across the nation, and the gun stores I’ve visited have been packed full of purchasers eager to beat expected new anti-gun measures. Barack Obama has said he supports gun control, and his legislative record backs him up. Yes, there was the Supreme Court’s Heller decision, but that victory for Second Amendment gun rights was by a one vote margin. Change a judge, and it’s a new ballgame.

But something else, too is driving the buys. A different fear.

Mexican drug gangs are storming our border, shooting up border towns and killing police officers and border guards from El Paso to Tucson to San Diego, and of course, their Mexican counterpart cities. And the Latino gangs that support these drug lords, like MS-13, are spreading across our lands like an infection. MS-13 is in Los Angeles, San Diego, Tucson, El Paso, Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and other cities as well.

Just last Halloween in Tucson, my home turf, three teenagers in three wrong places at three wrong times were shot down, two of them killed. All three were students at Sunnyside High School. Three normal kids with bright futures, students of a friend of mine. One of these kids, a young girl, was at a party. Some gang-bangers tried to crash, and an argument ensued. Later the bangers came back. They shot up the house from their car. The girl, inside dancing with friends, died.

My teacher friend says the kids know the ropes. You’re sitting at a stop light and a car pulls up. Someone in the other car flashes a gang sign. You’re not in a gang or you’re in a different gang; you don’t respond or you give the wrong sign.

That's disrespect.

Bang, bang, you’re dead.

Amazing. Imagine being a teenager today...

A few weeks ago, my wife and two of her friends took their Concealed Carry Class and submitted their permit paper-work. The class was jammed. The instructors said classes have been packed for more than a year; they're struggling to keep up with demand.

Now these are ordinary citizens. Not gang-bangers, not criminals. You can’t get a concealed carry permit if you’re a criminal. Nor can a criminal buy a gun – legally. But criminals don’t have any problem getting guns, all kinds of guns, even automatic weapons. They just smuggle them in from Mexico and spread them around the gangs. The guns that are terrorizing Chicago aren’t guns held by law-abiding citizens; they’re gang guns. No gun ban is going to stop that trade. Only law abiding citizens are denied the means to protect themselves in Chicago.

Our growing security anxiety is fueled by several very real concerns: 1) fear that our institutions are breaking down; 2) fear that wealth re-distribution policies will heighten tensions; 3) fear that anti-gun measures will limit purchases by law-abiding citizens of weapons and ammunition; 4) fear that like the L. A. riots after the Rodney King beating and the looters and marauders during and after Katrina, there will be roving gangs of looters and predators following any future catastrophe or breakdown of food delivery, power supply, energy or social order; 5) fear that terrorist or gang or drug lord raids within our borders will increase; 6) fear that our borders are so porous, we have no ability to stop drugs or the growing illegal gun trade, and 6) fear that the police cannot adequately protect us.

A Harvard study a year or so ago examined the effectiveness of strict gun control measures worldwide. The study concluded that those jurisdictions that have the more severe gun limits, have higher crime rates. Look at Chicago or Washington, D.C. Indeed, Britain, which completely banned most guns many years ago, has seen violent crime rise since.

Already, some silly measures have become law, and are being considered elsewhere. Like the California law that requires every handgun sold by 2010 to imprint on its cartridge identifying marks traceable to the gun. This law was passed last year by the California legislature and signed by the Governator despite no proof that such technology exists or would be effective. In fact, a study by the University of California at Davis, showed that such technology does not work. And what about revolvers? Their cartridges are carried away with the gun.

Imagine how easily you could be framed. Go to the gun range, fire your weapon. Someone picks up your brass and leaves it at a crime scene.

Boom. You’re in jail.

The gun industry has reacted slowly to the California measure, although at least one manufacturer has decided not to sell guns to police or anyone else in California if this law remains in effect. A few other manufacturers are considering similar actions.

So called “assault” weapons are defined very loosely. The term is usually described as semi-automatic weapons, those that don’t have a rotating cylinder feeding a bullet to the chamber. Banners claim these weapons aren’t used for hunting; they're only used to kill people.

That's not true. On either front.

Varmint hunting is popular these days. Rats, prairie dogs, coyotes, they're fair game in many areas. And semi-automatic weapons, both pistols and rifles, are popular choices for hunting them.

I've owned semi-automatic weapons for over ten years, and I don't hunt.

I haven’t killed anybody.

I shoot paper, lots of paper. I compete in paper-shooting contests. Fun stuff, shooting in competitions, part of our American heritage. Sergeant York, an American hero, used to compete in turkey shoots. So do I, but my turkeys are paper, and they’re taped over cardboard.

And what’s wrong with that? Good clean sport. Nothing gets killed, and only a few pieces of paper and cardboard are damaged. The paper, bullets and cartridges are all recycled.

Shooting is green.

So who gets hurt by me owning a gun... or several?

Semi-automatic weapons fire one bullet at a time, just like revolvers do. Yes, magazines for these guns may contain more bullets, but some revolvers shoot as many as eight rounds, and there are speed loaders available. Speed loaders facilitate a revolver rate of fire not far slower than a semi-auto's.

Pick up any gun magazine; there are many from which to choose. Check out the ads. Yes, they may scare you. But remember, these are the guns the good guys, law-abiding citizens, are buying. They're used for self defense and for sport. A gun ban won't stop gangs from getting guns. Criminals don't file for concealed carry permits, and they don't buy their guns in U.S. gun stores. You bump into a bad guy at the wrong time and place, and the only thing between you and the coroner may be your ability to defend yourself.

The bad guys may have machine guns. And sometimes, grenades.

Back in Connecticut, a Revolutionary War cemetery adjoined my back yard. Stones dressed with flags mark the war's graves. In those veterans' days, every home contained a gun.

We may return to that notion.

Day at the Range

by Ben Small

We Americans celebrate our holidays, and we’re creative in ginning up new ones. Washington’s Birthday, Columbus Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Vasco da Gama Day, Casper the Friendly Ghost Day…

And these are just proper name holidays.

We also honor bosses, secretaries ― even though nobody has one any more ― dogs, April Fools, groundhogs, mothers, fathers, and black history.

Very few things we don’t honor with a day, week or month.

But not the NRA, the group that gave us the Denver celebration after Columbine. Who can forget Charlton Heston, a Juda Ben Hur oarlock grimace set on his face, as his strong hands pumped a rifle over his head and a dare slid from gritted teeth?

“From my cold dead hands...”

Moses waving his staff. Impressive. The French surrendered.

No, the NRA doesn’t get a holiday.

And that’s not fair.

I went to the local constabulary. Thought I might pump up some NRA support and maybe get some gun totin’ ideas from toters. Nope. The sheriff didn’t like my suggestion: standing at the U of A gates and chanting while firing AK-47s Mid-East-style into the air.

I think feds followed me home. There’s a black service van parked just outside my driveway. It’s got more antennas than NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Black, a Fed’s favorite color. Black, in the Arizona summer sun.

The Blues Brothers had more sense.

I called the NRA, hopeful they’d turn their lobbying clout on Congress. But a spokeswoman said Congress wanted to adjourn, that Congressional leadership was closing out the session working up new taxes to bail broke buddies who’d contributed heavily to campaign coffers.

Stuffed to the gills with Fanny-and-Freddy money. Something fishy going on.

Forced to curry NRA support locally and on my own, I donned my range gear, jeans, red John Wayne cavalry shirt, cowboy boots, wide leather belt with a gold-plated bull-head buckle, red patterned kerchief, and a straw cowboy hat with a fake eagle feather. On the top of my hat, on the flat spot under the furl, I stuck an NRA sticker.

Then I took my guns to the range.

The black van followed me.

The two best gun ranges in Tucson are almost next to each other, about thirty miles southwest, along the I-19 corridor, also known as Smuggler’s Alley, because it’s not far from Mexico is the preferred drug and human cargo smuggling route. County planners must have figured that so many guns were going off there anyway, local residents wouldn’t mind a few more. And smugglers and illegals need gun practice, too. Why not make the location convenient for everybody?

One of the ranges is for shotguns, the other for pistols, rifles and machine guns. Each range covers about five square miles.

Arizona loves its guns.

I borrowed a target stand from the range master and purchased some tape-on pictures of bad guys who are fun to shoot. Folks like Dillinger, Capone, Howard Stern, and the PC guy in the Apple commercials.

I picked the hundred yard range. Target berms are set at twenty-five foot intervals. Choose your distance.

The range was crowded. Several shooters had brought family members, some of them children. The only stall open was the last one on the right, next to a Mexican group. Three men, two women, a couple young children. They stopped shooting as I approached and eyed me warily. A heavy-set fellow with a pock-marked face and Chinese-symbol tattoos on his neck, held a semi-automatic pistol ― looked to be a Glock with an elongated magazine. He swung the gun in my direction and whispered to a skinny guy, five-o'clock-shadow bald. That man lifted a pistol from the table, and racked the slide.

He looked at me. No smile in his eye.

"Hi fellas," I said, waving like a windmill. "Belong to the NRA?"

They looked at each other, and their muzzles drooped. The bald guy made an eh-shrug. His pistol went back to the table.



Numerous guns decked their stall. I'd already seen two pistols. An AR-15 rested on the stone shooting table, and two more assault rifles, an SKS and an M1A stood against a beat up wooden rife stand.

I glanced beyond them to the range. They were shooting at a giant pepper.

I pointed and laughed. “Nice pepper,” I said.

I meant my tone to be friendly, but the two men snarled at me. One of the women, her brows furled, deep leathery creases tightening across her forehead, grabbed a rifle off the stand and swung it by the sling over her shoulder.

One smooth move. She’d done that before.

I raised my hands and tried to smile. Looked to our left. Several green and white Border Patrol SUVs were parked at the next range over, a hundred yards away for the far end of our range. Machine gun fire burst from that border patrol range. Some laughter and whooping followed.

My next door neighbors made the Sign of the Cross.

Careful to make my moves slow and deliberate, I taped Howard Stern to the stand, and then signaled that I wanted to take my target onto the range. The shooting stopped, and I walked out into the firing field.

I strolled straight out. Thought about walking backwards, but didn’t want my target so inviting that someone might plug it ― and me. I wasn’t gone very long, and as soon as I returned, shooting commenced.

There’s a problem with shooting semi-and-automatic rifles. They eject spent cartridges to the right, far to the right.

Hot metal rained down on me as my neighbors riddled their pepper.

I went back to the range master, borrowed another target stand. He didn’t have the Taco Bell dog, so I taped up Che Guevara and stood him facing my neighbors. I hoped they appreciated the gesture, even though Che was Argentine. Argentina’s a Latin country, isn’t it?

Now hot cartridges bounced off Che instead of me.

I looked over at the black van, saw it parked next to the range office. A guy in a suit climbed out; he looked tumbled dry. A camera hung from his neck, and he clicked some shots of Che and me before walking into the range office. A few minutes later, the man emerged, several water bottles in his arms. He climbed back into the van.

Time for my guns.

Arsenal disclosure is like the red carpet on Oscar night: Everybody’s all eyeballs. I opened up the truck and started carrying out guns. Silence along our range; everyone turned to watch me. The van-guy climbed out once again, camera at the ready.

I pulled out a few bolt actions, an AR-15, and a Ruger 10/22, perhaps the most popular plinking rifle in the world.

I waited for applause.

More bursts from the machine gun range. Laughter. Sounded closer this time.

Well, I’d dazzle ‘em with my shooting.

Smack. Heart shot. Again. Poor Howard, he never knew what hit him.

Someone called for a cease fire, a target check. But I didn’t need one; I could see my one ragged hole from my stall. As everybody walked out to their targets, I pointed at mine, pumped my arms and shouted, “NRA! NRA!”

People on their way to targets stopped and stared at me.

A toddler from the stall next door wobbled over. Most of my collection stood on my stall’s old wooden stand. The kid was stroking my pre-’64 Winchester 70, a collector’s rifle, handmade, known to most in the gun culture as “The Rifleman’s Rifle.”

I grabbed the rifle and caught it. Then I swatted at the kid.

Missed.

A woman, the child’s mother I guessed, overweight and all decked out in reds, oranges and purple, rushed over and snatched the kid away. The woman scowled at me, spit rapid-fire Spanish. Not throwing compliments my way, I discerned. She shook her fist at me and then slapped her backside.

“Well, keep your brat away from me,” I said. “Bang bang.”

I don’t think saying that was wise. One of the men dropped back and pointed an AR-15 at me. His finger was on the trigger.

Hands up. Just like on TV.

Another burst from the machine gun range. More laughter.

I ducked at the burst, afraid my stall-neighbor’s finger would tighten on the trigger and I’d end up air conditioned.

When I came up again, the guy’d put his rifle back on the stand. But he was still staring at me. And he wasn’t smiling.

I shrugged and went back to my Ruger. I’d mounted it on a precision Caldwell stand, a setup made for ten-ring shots. I fired round after round, emptied two twenty-five round magazines.

Somebody called for a target check. Firing stopped at our range.

I snatched the Ruger and replaced it with the Winchester. Then I opened the bolt and pulled out my .30-06 cartridges. Stood aside to await the all clear signal.

I’d expected to see those out on the range clustered around my target, marveling at my accuracy. Trophy-target, I thought. But nobody was there. People were admiring their own targets, busy measuring groups and counting holes.

Harumph. So much for lesson-giving. Some people just don’t recognize talent.

One of the men in the stall next door shouted something out onto the range. Must have been the Spanish version of “Hurry up!” because people started running. A moment later, somebody yelled, “Going hot!” and lead started flying.

Having blown out Howard Stern’s heart, I fixed my sights on his mouth.

I know: big target. Well, you should see it now.

TTFS (Tired Trigger Finger Syndrome) can strike at any time. Your finger twitches, you flinch with the twitch, and your other digits, feeling abandoned, go soft around the stock’s pistol grip. You’re at risk for Scope-Eye, when recoil drives the scope into your eye socket so hard that you look like the spotted dog from The Little Rascals.

I laid my trigger hand out on the stone table, saw the twitching digit.

Time to pack up. No Scope-Eye for this cowpoke.

Besides, the people next door were still checking me out, peeking from behind Che. They were making me nervous.

My brass was mostly nearby, so a few minutes crawling around and I’d gathered it all. I cased my rifles and deposited them in the truck. Then I went back for my targets.

There were three round holes in Che.

I hadn’t put them there.

A quick dodge to the truck, and a turn of the key. The engine fired, and my tires tore up a dust-and-rock storm.

Good cover.

I turned the wheel hard to the right, toward the machine gun range. I couldn’t see anything but dust behind me.

The border patrol agents were only too happy to listen. Their eyes lit up when I told them my stall neighbors were coyotes, people who traffic in people. And when I suggested they might want to tread carefully, that the coyotes had automatic weapons, the agents really went bonkers. Loaded magazines flew back and forth. I might have tried to snag one, but doing so would’ve affected my credibility. And stealing from the federal government ― unless you’re in Congress ― is not a sign of intelligence.

Next, I stopped at the black van. Told the surveillance team I was giving up on the NRA and was gonna join Amnesty International instead. The driver, a man wearing mirrored sunglasses, a dark suit, white shirt and black tie ― Fed-dress ― stared at me, not saying a word. The guy next to him tapped him on the shoulder and pointed out the window at the armed border patrol agents converging on the hundred yard range. “Coyotes,” I said. “Those guys,” I pointed to the running border patrol agents, “might need some help.”

I split, and watched through my rear-view as the van emptied and agents pulling their Sigs joined the stall-party.

As I turned the corner and picked up speed, I looked once more in my mirror. Alone, separate and distinct from the chaos erupting at the stall next to mine, stood Howard Stern.

No heart, no mouth, just a smiley face made of holes.

Next time, I’ll move my target a little further out. Like maybe to twenty-five yards.