Category: All About Guns
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- For more than 50 years, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Inc. battled segregationists, challenged Jim Crow laws, and bankrupted the Ku Klux Klan and other violent extremist groups. But ever since 2019, when the SPLC fired its co-founder and media frontman, Morris Dees, after accusations of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism surfaced, the nonprofit quietly shifted its focus. Now, rather than advocating for civil rights, the SPLC is fighting against civil rights, specifically those protected by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Today, SPLC’s press releases, position papers, and rhetoric make it nearly indistinguishable from any traditional gun control group, like Brady, Everytown or Giffords, with whom the SPLC has partnered on several occasions. But there are two major differences: The SPLC is flush with cash – far more than all other gun-control groups combined – and it still wields a powerful cudgel, its Hatewatch list, which it uses to publicly shame anyone – including members of the gun-rights community – who disagrees with its principles.
Although their numbers are dwindling, some members of the legacy media still regard the Hatewatch list as gospel, even though it is nearly always wielded against conservative groups rather than progressive ones like Antifa, which the SPLC defines as a “broad, community-based movement composed of individuals organizing against racial and economic injustice.”
It has become relatively easy for SPLC to marginalize gun owners and gun-rights advocates.
If someone opposes the government infringing upon their Second Amendment rights, they’re opposed to the government, which makes them antigovernment, in SPLC’s view. The nonprofit always adds extremist to any negative label like a dose of seasoning, so now the victim is transformed into an antigovernment extremist. Once labeled, SPLC quickly adds them to their Hatewatch list and publicly compares them to real antigovernment extremists. Within minutes the poor victim is associated with Klansman, Nazis, and actual terrorists, such as Timothy McVeigh. This process is lightyears worse than the tactics used by other gun control groups, which may call someone out on Twitter or in a position paper. This is professional character assassination, pure and simple, and it works. If you don’t think it can happen, ask Cody Wilson. The SPLC hit that poor young man like a freight train.
If you’ve ever wondered how the Biden-Harris administration can claim with a straight face that domestic terrorism and white supremacy are on the rise, take a look at the statements and testimony the SPLC provided them and their Jan. 6 Committee. The SPLC and the Biden-Harris administration have formed a symbiotic relationship. Each group buttresses the other’s spurious claims.
To be clear, SPLC’s newfound gun-control focus does not bode well for those who value their constitutional rights. The SPLC is the wealthiest civil rights charity in the country. Dees was well known as a wealth hoarder. In 2019, one nonprofit watchdog gave his group an “F” grade because it had amassed more than six years of assets, which were held in reserve. As a result, the nonprofit now has more than $800 million in net assets, offices in five southern states and approximately 250 employees, including 80 attorneys who have already started filing anti-gun litigation.
While SPLC dabbled a bit during Dees’ tenure, it did not fully embrace gun control until after he was fired. Why the group pivoted so quickly is not fully known. Some say it’s like any other progressive group that suddenly becomes leaderless, rudderless and in search of a purpose. When times are tough, default to guns. Others have speculated it is a carryover from Dees’ leadership style – he always sought sensational cases that would garner media attention, such as filing suit over a copy of the Ten Commandments displayed in a county courthouse, rather than using SPLC’s massive financial strength to combat more immediate problems such as homelessness, joblessness or crime, which are ravaging the minority communities the nonprofit claims to champion.
In addition, the group’s powerful lobbying arm, the SPLC Action Fund, spent more than $2 million last year lobbying in Washington, D.C. and state houses across the country.
As a result, SPLC has more financial and political power than all other gun-control groups combined, and it poses an extreme threat to Second Amendment rights.
Shadow mission
Officially, gun control is not part of the SPLC’s mission, which states that the group “is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people.” The term appears nowhere in SPLC’s most recent annual report, nor is it listed as a “program service accomplishment” on its 2021 IRS form 990.
Instead, the group has four “impact areas” and gun control is not among them: “protecting democracy, combating the incarceration and criminalization of communities of color, eradicating poverty and fighting extremism and white supremacy.”
Still, SPLC’s gun control platform mirrors that of most traditional gun control groups. In other words, they touch all the usual bases.
Stand Your Ground Laws
The SPLC partnered with the Giffords Law Center to produce a report condemning “Stand Your Ground” laws, which the two groups claim, “fuel racist, lethal violence” and cause “30-50 homicides every month.”
“Highlighting the systemic racism and sexism perpetuated by Stand Your Ground laws, the report calls for the repeal of Stand Your Ground laws in the 27 states where they are enacted and for laws to be passed overturning harmful court decisions that have imposed Stand Your Ground standards on eight other states,” the report states.
In reality, all Stand Your Ground laws do is eliminate a victim’s duty to retreat. The law allows the threat of deadly force to be met with deadly force, instead of legally requiring the victim to run away and possibly get shot in the back.
In Florida, rather than fueling “racist” violence, the law has been used more often by defendants of color than by white defendants.
Homemade Firearms
The SPLC has targeted homemade firearms and castigated Defense Distributed owner Cody Wilson, who released 3D printable gun files on his personal website. The group labeled Wilson an “antigovernment wunderkind.”
“Wilson stops short of direct incitement to violence, though he doesn’t voice opposition to mounting calls for violent reprisal against the state in antigovernment circles,” the report states.
The SPLC quickly added Wilson to its Hatewatch list, describing his ideology as “Antigovernment movement.”
UN Arms Control Treaty
Anyone opposed to the United Nation’s Arms treaty is a conspiracy theorist with twisted panties, the SPLC claims.
“Nothing spooks antigovernment conspiracy theorists like the United Nations and its international treaties – particularly when it comes to perceived threats to their right to bear arms,” the report states. “So naturally, far-right paranoiacs really have their panties in a twist over the proposed Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which would establish standards for the international trade of weapons.”
Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act
The PLCAA protects gun manufacturers and gun dealers by barring most lawsuits based on “the criminal or unlawful misuse of a [firearm] by [a] person or a third party, 15 U.S.C. § 7903(5)(A).” It is often misunderstood and mischaracterized. It does not bar a lawsuit if a product is defective.
In a 2009 story, the SPLC admitted that a recent appeals court ruling upheld the PLCAA but added: “When hate criminals and others who shouldn’t have guns get their hands on them, it puts everyone at risk.”
Second Amendment Sanctuaries
More than half of the counties in the United States are now Second Amendment Sanctuaries and the list is growing, according to SanctuaryCounties.com, which tracks the nationwide movement. The movement is growing so quickly that the website’s owner, Noah Davis, has trouble keeping it updated. More than a dozen states have declared themselves sanctuary states.
These counties and states are “legally problematic and threaten to override the very democratic systems upon which the country was built,” the SPLC claims, adding that the sanctuaries are popular among “antigovernment extremists.”
“This wave of proposals is the direct result of hysteria around potential new federal and state gun laws and age-old conspiracies about Democrats’ desire to confiscate guns,” the report states. “These are the same fears antigovernment extremists have used to fuel and unify their movement for decades.”
Even Joe Biden disagrees. Biden has never kept his confiscatory plans secret.
“Our work continues to limit the number of bullets that can be in a cartridge, the type of weapons that can be purchased and sold … attempt to ban assault weapons, a whole range of things,” Biden said last month.
Gun Shows
Dees himself castigated gun shows in a 1996 book. He claimed, “militia leaders use gun shows to disseminate their anti-government strategy. Dees also notes that in its efforts to take its anti-government and anti-law enforcement message to Middle America, the National Rifle Association utilized gun shows as a key communications conduit. Dees writes that “amid tables laden with Ruger Mini-14 semiautomatic rifles, Mossberg shotguns, and Beretta 9mm pistols, and piled high with holsters, military ponchos, and camouflage uniforms, they peddle the idea of militias as a defense against a tyrannical government.”
While the SPLC has checked all the boxes on the most common gun control issues, it reserves its most extreme vitriol for gun-rights rallies and armed teachers.
Opposed to Freedom of Assembly
All gun owners are racist, Nazis, militia members, violent antigovernment extremists or all of the above, the SPLC would have the public believe, because at pro-gun rallies attended by thousands of people, one or two individuals may have a pin, a patch or a tattoo from one of these groups. It is the ultimate in guilt by association and it defies belief. The SPLC never mentions the thousands of law-abiding Americans who peaceably assemble in support of their Second Amendment rights. If there’s a Confederate flag or a III-Percenter tattoo anywhere in the crowd, the SPLC labels the entire group as extremists.
“Recent nationwide gun rallies tied to far-right extremists and attract hate groups,” one SPLC headline screamed.
“Gun-rights activists and antigovernment extremists are planning a protest in Richmond, Virginia, on Monday fueled by antigovernment conspiracy theories and accompanied by online calls for violence,” read the secondary headline on another SPLC story.
Whenever the SPLC is actually able to identify an extremist group, it usually has only a mere handful of members and no one has ever heard of it, but that never stops the nonprofit from ramping up the group’s potential for violence. Overhype has always been SPLC’s mainstay.
Another tactic is to make bold claims without supporting evidence or attribution. “The Lobby Day event, organized by the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), has drawn the interest of at least 33 militia groups from across the country,” the Richmond protest story claimed. Not one of the militia groups was identified by name, nor was the source of the information cited.
In a follow-up story, an SPLC report claimed, “At least 18 militias and 34 hate and extremist groups tracked by Hatewatch turned out for the protests that day, with some pledging violence in the face of proposed gun regulation by the Virginia General Assembly.” Of course, no evidence or attribution to bolster these claims was provided. Readers were left wondering: How do they know this?
Opposed to safeguarding students
One of the recommendations of the multidisciplinary commission that investigated the 2018 Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida was to arm teachers.
The 16-member commission was comprised of sheriffs, a chief of police, educators, child advocates, school board members, mental health professionals, a state senator and the fathers of two of the shooting victims.
In its 439-page report, the commission recommended that the state legislature should expand Florida’s School Guardian program to allow teachers who volunteer to receive training from their local sheriff on how to carry concealed firearms. But evidently, the SPLC knew better.
Just two weeks after the Parkland massacre, the SPLC released a “statement on arming teachers with guns.”
“Some elected officials are proposing common-sense solutions to create safe and supportive school environments. But in multiple Southern states, spurred on by the most toxic voices of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and President Trump, legislators are recommending a misguided and harmful approach that would turn teachers into police forces by allowing or asking them to carry guns,” the statement reads. “Having teachers bring firearms into their schools would make classrooms more dangerous, and would increase the chance of more innocent lives being lost. There are many steps we must take to make our schools safer and stronger, but putting guns into classrooms is not a serious – or safe – solution. Our children deserve better.”
Instead of arming teachers, SPLC said in a report five months after the killings and before the commission’s 439-page report was released that “the commission should focus on evidence-based approaches to discipline like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, restorative justice, and social and emotional learning.”
“Placing more counselors, nurses and mental health professionals in schools, and conducting school climate assessments and behavioral health interventions, are additional and essential measures school districts can take to create the kind of welcoming and safe schools that foster learning and growth,” SPLC said.
Three months later, the SPLC and Giffords Law Center sued the Trump administration for “records detailing how it has unlawfully permitted the use of federal funds to arm teachers with guns in classrooms across America.”
“Turning teachers into armed guards is both reckless and insulting to the millions of American children and parents who want to see their schools become more safe – not less,” Adam Skaggs, chief counsel for the Giffords Law Center is quoted as saying in an SPLC press release.
In November 2018, the SPLC and Giffords sued the Duval County (Florida) Public Schools and the Duval County School Board over their decision to arm staff. The lawsuit claimed Florida state law prohibits anyone from carrying firearms on school property unless they are a law enforcement officer. The suit also states that while state law “requires every school to hire a ‘safe-school officer,’ it does not require those officers to be armed with guns.”
Florida is not the only state to be sued by the SPLC over armed teachers. Just five months ago, the nonprofit sued the Cobb County (Georgia) School Board over their decision to allow select personnel to carry concealed firearms on campus, on school busses and at school events.
“These school board members routinely enact school policies that are ineffective for the stated goals. To be clear, more guns, more police, and more punishment do not make schools safer. The new policy is not rooted in data, community input, or evidence-based solutions. And, not surprisingly, it will endanger lives and disproportionately impact students of color and students with disabilities who are already subjected to discriminatory discipline and over-policing in the district,” Mike Tafelski, SPLC’s senior supervising attorney said in a press release announcing the lawsuit.
Suspicious financials
According to the charity watchdog Guidestar, SPLC has more than $801 million in assets. The assets of Everytown, Giffords and Brady – combined – total $31 million, or around 3% of what SPLC has amassed.
SPLC’s most recent IRS form 990 confirms that the nonprofit is swimming in money, but the form raises more questions than it answers. The names of the nonprofit’s donors and the amount of their contributions are “restricted.” And there are very suspicious investments.
“The Center has ownership in several foreign corporations. However, the Center’s ownership percentage in these corporations does not rise to the level of reporting on the Form 5471,” the document states.
The nonprofit’s endowment fund is staggering. It has total assets worth more than $731 million. It was started shortly after SPLC was founded to ensure “that the SPLC has the financial strength to address, over the long haul, the entrenched problems our country faces.” Its assets consist of $10 million in cash plus bonds and an assortment of public and private equity funds.
SPLC’s salary structure is massive. As its critics have said, the nonprofit’s senior staff is extremely well compensated. SPLC’s interim president/CEO Karen Baynes Dunning received a salary and benefits package worth more than $386,000. The man she replaced, outgoing president/CEO Richard Cohen, received more than $413,000 in salary and benefits. The nonprofits chief fundraiser was paid more than $260,000. Its “director of teaching tolerance” made more than $200,000.
The average household income in Montgomery, Alabama, where SPLC’s headquarters is located, is $68,149 with a poverty rate of 24.24%.
The salaries of the nonprofit’s support staff, who voted to form a union shortly after Dees’ firing and successfully unionized last month, are not addressed in the IRS form.
“The SPLC’s work is supported primarily through donor contributions. No government funds are received or used for its efforts,” the nonprofit’s website states. “The SPLC is proud of the stewardship of its resources.”
‘Plantation’ boss
Morris Seligman Dees Jr., 86, may be the only nonprofit chief whose life and career inspired two Hollywood movies.
Corbin Bernson played Dees in the 1991 made-for-TV movie “Line of Fire: The Morris Dees Story.” Wayne Rogers of M*A*S*H fame played Dees in “Ghosts of Mississippi,” which was released in 1996.
Dees has been described as charismatic and has received dozens of accolades and professional awards, but he has also been the subject of many serious complaints. For decades the legacy media ignored any criticism, even when the complaints came from members of Dees’ own staff. Things changed in the early 1990s, when his hometown newspaper, the Montgomery Advertiser, launched an investigation into SPLC’s finances and how Dees and other senior managers treated their predominantly Black support staff.
Jim Tharpe, the Advertiser’s former managing editor, recounted the details of his newspaper’s investigation in a column he wrote for the Washington Post, which was published shortly after Dees was fired.
“SPLC leaders threatened legal action on several occasions, and at one point openly attacked the newspaper’s investigation in a mass mailing to Montgomery lawyers and judges. Then they slammed the door,” Tharpe wrote.
After three years of investigative reporting, the Advertiser published an eight-part series titled: “Rising Fortunes: Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
The journalists uncovered a plethora of problems inside the nonprofit, including “a deeply troubled history with its relatively few black employees, some of whom reported hearing the use of racial slurs by the organization’s staff and others who ‘likened the center to a plantation’; misleading donors with aggressive direct-mail tactics; exaggerating its accomplishments; spending most of its money not on programs but on raising more money; and paying its top lavish salaries.”
Dees and his staff denied all wrongdoing, launched an aggressive damage-control campaign and condemned the series. It’s an age-old tactic: when someone can’t handle the message, they attack the messenger. It didn’t work. In 1995, the series was named as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
In his Washington Post column, Tharpe calls on the IRS and the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to investigate the SPLC.
“Any investigation should take a close look at the SPLC’s finances. It should look at what the center has told donors in its mail solicitations over the years. And it should take a close look at how that donor money has been spent. Investigators should also look at how SPLC staffers have been treated over the years. Where was the center’s board when this mistreatment was going on? And why did no one step up sooner?” Tharpe wrote.
Tharpe was not alone in his criticism of the nonprofit. Bob Moser, who worked as a staff writer at SPLC from 2001 to 2004, recounted similar concerns in a column he wrote for The New Yorker, which was published shortly after his former boss was shown the door.
“For those of us who’ve worked in the Poverty Palace, putting it all into perspective isn’t easy, even to ourselves. We were working with a group of dedicated and talented people, fighting all kinds of good fights, making life miserable for the bad guys,” Moser wrote. “And yet, all the time, dark shadows hung over everything: the racial and gender disparities, the whispers about sexual harassment, the abuses that stemmed from the top-down management, and the guilt you couldn’t help feeling about the legions of donors who believed that their money was being used, faithfully and well, to do the Lord’s work in the heart of Dixie. We were part of the con, and we knew it.
“It wasn’t funny then. At this moment, it seems even grimmer. The firing of Dees has flushed up all the uncomfortable questions again. Were we complicit, by taking our paychecks and staying silent, in ripping off donors on behalf of an organization that never lived up to the values it espoused? Did we enable racial discrimination and sexual harassment by failing to speak out? ‘Of course we did,’ a former colleague told me, as we parsed the news over the phone,” Moser wrote.
At the time, the SPLC did not publicly address the reasons for Dees’ firing. Then-president/CEO Richard Cohen issued a short statement shortly before Dee’s bio was scrubbed from the SPLC website.
“As a civil rights organization, the SPLC is committed to ensuring that the conduct of our staff reflects the mission of the organization and the values we hope to instill in the world,” Cohen’s statement reads. “When one of our own fails to meet those standards, no matter his or her role in the organization, we take it seriously and must take appropriate action.”
Shortly after Dees’ firing, the Alabama Political Reporter and several other local news sites obtained copies of an internal SPLC email, which was signed by numerous employees.
“Specifically, the employees’ email alleged multiple instances of sexual harassment by Dees, and it alleges that reports of his conduct were ignored or covered up by SPLC leadership. A subsequent letter from other SPLC employees demands an investigation into the alleged coverup of Dees’ alleged harassment,” the APR story states. “The emails noted that multiple female SPLC employees had resigned over the years due to the harassment and/or the subsequent retaliation by SPLC leadership when they reported the incidents.”
Dees, according to these news sources, denied any wrongdoing.
Anti-gun Democrat
The SPLC has never been able to achieve its stated goal of nonpartisanship. It is a far left-leaning organization from the top down.
According to his personal campaign donations, Dees has a long history of supporting Democratic candidates, including John Edwards, John Kerry and Bill Clinton. Earlier in his career, he served as finance director for George McGovern’s, Jimmy Carter’s and Edward Kennedy’s presidential campaigns.
Nine months after he was fired, Dees was linked to an anti-NRA group, which listed him as its founder on its now-defunct website, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.
Dees denied that he founded the group – The Association for Responsible Gun Ownership (TARGO) – but admitted he did support the group’s goals. He told the newspaper he joined another anti-gun group and was asked to help with TARGO.
Dees said he did not know what tactics the groups would use against the NRA. “We’ll fight them any way we can,” he told the newspaper. “We’ll work closely with other gun control groups.”
Inciting violence
On Aug.15, 2012, Jessica Prol Smith was working as a writer and editor at the Christian nonprofit Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., when her office was suddenly locked down because of a security threat.
An armed assailant, who was later convicted of terrorism and other crimes, entered the building with the intent to kill as many staffers as he could. He later admitted he brought 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches, which he intended to smear on his victims’ faces as a political statement. He had chosen the Family Research Council because the SPLC listed it as a hate group.
Thankfully, an unarmed security guard managed to subdue the assailant and hold him until police arrived, but he was shot once in the arm during the takedown.
Ms. Prol Smith agreed to answer questions about the SPLC. Here is the exchange:
How dangerous is SPLC’s Hatewatch label?
“The SPLC’s Hatewatch label is deceptive and profoundly dangerous. The group did some good work decades ago, when it fought segregation in the South. But for years, now, the SPLC has chosen to smear its political opponents and lump mainstream conservatives together with violent neo-Nazis and the KKK.
That’s obviously an effective fundraising strategy but it destroys our ability to get along with neighbors, friends, or family who don’t share our identical beliefs.
The SPLC also doesn’t appear to show any remorse over the reality that their ‘hate’ label has inspired violence. Back in 2012, a troubled young man took a cue from the SPLC hate list, packed his backpack with ammo and Chick-fil-A sandwiches and decided to target the Christian nonprofit where I worked. He planned to shoot the place up and smear sandwiches on our lifeless faces.
When I reflected on the incident and told my story in 2019, the SPLC responded by repeating their smear and fundraising off of it.”
Do you have any advice for people who find themselves on the Hatewatch list?
“It’s uncomfortable to be smeared as a hater and a bigot, but I think it’s possible to care too much what others think of you and your convictions. My Christian faith has taught me that it’s possible to be thoroughly loving and meticulously civil—but still face irrational abuse for speaking truth. If you’re the praying sort of person, I’d suggest praying that the SPLC’s leaders benefit from a redemptive, Damascus-road experience.
It’s reassuring to know that federal courts, former SPLC employees, and even some reluctant progressive advocates have been dismissing the SPLC’s Hatewatch label as subjective and, in some cases, a total scam.
But while the ‘hate’ labels harm dialogue and hold far too much influence in politics and corporate America, I’m optimistic that the SPLC’s strategy of abuse and deception isn’t ultimately a winning one.”
What is your reaction that the SPLC has now shifted to gun control?
“The SPLC has shown an appetite for fundraising off of the fears of liberals so it’s hardly surprising that they’ve expanded their portfolio to include gun control. Passions understandably run high when American citizens debate gun policy and I have very little confidence that the SPLC will help this debate be more constructive.”
In your opinion, will Dees’ firing change the SPLC, or will it continue on unchanged?
“As long as they are alive, people and their organizations can change, but I’m hardly optimistic that the SPLC will improve because Dees is gone. Mr. Dees may have contributed to the corruption and discrimination, but the SPLC is making a financial killing by fanning the culture wars in an aggressive and uncivil manner. Just a brief glance over recent blog posts lead me to believe that—at least for now—they’re going to paint ‘HATE’ in big red letters over anyone and anything they don’t like.”
Uncertain future
Dees may be gone, but his legacy still permeates throughout the nonprofit he co-founded 51 years ago, because he hired many of SPLC’s senior staff. The nonprofit’s future is uncertain. Will the SPLC continue with Dees’ style of partisan attacks on Second Amendment supporters, or will it chart a new course or resume its original mandate? It’s not clear. The SPLC did not respond to requests seeking their comments for this story.
It is hoped that the once-vaunted nonprofit will return to its original mission.
“During its formative years, the Southern Poverty Law Center did some great work. They took on the Klan, Nazis and the Aryan Nation, but nowadays they seem hellbent on conflating law-abiding gun owners with these hate groups,” said Alan M. Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation. “This needs to stop, and quite frankly they should be ashamed. The SPLC should return to its roots and its original core values. This country can always use another true civil-rights watchdog. We don’t need another gun-control group. We’ve got more than enough of those already.”
This story is presented by the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and wouldn’t be possible without you. Please click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support more pro-gun stories like this.
About Lee Williams
Lee Williams, who is also known as “The Gun Writer,” is the chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Until recently, he was also an editor for a daily newspaper in Florida. Before becoming an editor, Lee was an investigative reporter at newspapers in three states and a U.S. Territory. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a police officer. Before becoming a cop, Lee served in the Army. He’s earned more than a dozen national journalism awards as a reporter, and three medals of valor as a cop. Lee is an avid tactical shooter.
All 300 or so pages of it! Grumpy
- House Bill 22, House Bill 106, House Bill 284, House Bill 324 & House Bill 662 requiring the REPORTING OF LAWFUL SALES of certain firearms and magazines to state and/or local law enforcement. [nope]
- House Bill 76 & Senate Bill 172 CRIMINALIZING the failure of a victim of gun theft to report having his or her firearms stolen. [unenforceable, according to the State Police]
- House Bill 88 & House Bill 447 further TAXING the sale of firearms and/or ammunition and firearms accessories. [higher taxes? in Texas? lol]
- House Bill 110, House Bill 146, House Bill 308 & Senate Bill 360 BANNING private firearms transfers at gun shows. [was that a unicorn I just saw?]
- House Bill 123, House Bill 136 & Senate Bill 144 so-called “red flag” GUN CONFISCATION legislation requiring firearms surrender without due process. [no due process… yeah, maybe they could get away with that in Illinois]
- House Bill 129, House Bill 565, House Bill 761, House Bill 781, House Bill 925, House Bill 996, House Bill 1072, Senate Bill 32 & Senate Bill 145 RAISING THE AGE for firearms sales, restricting firearms transfers to, or purchases by, young adults. [lowering the age would have more chance of passing]
- House Bill 155, House Bill 236, Senate Bill 170 & Senate Bill 370 BANNING private firearms transfers between certain family members and friends, requiring FFLs to process these transactions that would include federal paperwork for government approval at an undetermined fee. [yeah, we just love getting the feds’ noses stuck in our bidness in Texas]
- House Bill 817, House Bill 925 & Senate Bill 32 BANNING the manufacture, sale, purchase or possession of commonly-owned semi-automatic rifles, pistols and shotguns. [there aren’t enough body bags to enforce this little wet dream]
- House Bill 197 & House Bill 632 BANNING the sale or transfer and possession of standard capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. [see the point above]
- House Bill 179, House Bill 216 & House Bill 244 RESTRICTING long gun open carry, with limited exceptions. [you mean, over and above the restrictions we already have, and that most Texans hate like poison and mostly ignore?]
- House Bill 298 establishes a 3-day WAITING PERIOD for firearms sales. [uh huh — I know we’ve got a lot of Californians come here recently, but we still ain’t California yet]
- House Bill 887 CRIMINALIZING the practice of home-building firearms. [sorry, I need to go get another hanky]
- House Bill 925 requiring enforcement of a whole host of newly-established firearms restrictions through PRIVATE CIVIL ACTIONS. [once again, this isn’t California or New fucking York]
- House Bill 1092 REPEALING Texas’ firearms industry non-discrimination act from the 2021 session. [considering the margin by which the latter was passed in 2021, that ain’t gonna happen either]
- Senate Bill 205 REPEALING Texas’ campus carry law. [because of all the dozens of mass shootings on Texas campuses over the past few years, maybe?]
- Senate Bill 253 STREAMLINING signage requirements for posting areas off-limits to gun owners, making it easier for property owners to ban carrying on-premises. [actually, that we have any such signs at all is something I and others intend to take up with our legislators]
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Reach out & touch someone!
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The S&W Military & Police .38 Special rests on a copy of early advertising.
From the Taffin Dictionary of Sixgunning — “Perfect Packin’ Pistol is a title given to a sixgun or semi-automatic with a barrel not less than 4″, nor more than 5-1/2″, which can be carried easily all day in a well-designed holster, placed under a bed roll comfortably at night and can be expected to handle any situation which should arise.”
This definition takes in a lot of territory and obviously it depends where the bearer of such a PPP normally finds himself/herself. Whether daily travels take one on concrete, sagebrush, foothills, forests, or mountains, the encounters likely to occur have a great bearing on the caliber chosen have the duty. We will be taking a look at the epitome of Perfect Packin’ Pistols, namely the 4″ Double Action Smith & Wesson.
This pre-war long action .38/44 Heavy Duty is probably the finest
double-action shooting sixgun ever offered.
In The Beginning
To come up with the .38 Special, D.B. Wesson, along with his son, took a good look at the .38 Long Colt, the official U.S. Military Chambering at the time. The brass case was lengthened to accommodate 21-1/2 grains of black powder instead of the standard 18 and the bullet weight was increased from 150 grains to a round-nosed 158-grain bullet.
The new revolver was the first K-Frame and was given the name of Military & Police. For the next half-century plus, it would be found in the holsters of thousands upon thousands of police officers. Over the decades it would be made in the standard barrel configuration as well as a heavy barrel model in both blued and stainless finish. Bill Jordan especially liked the 4″ Heavy Barrel Military & Police in his exhibitions of fast double-action shooting.
With the coming of smokeless powder, the .38 Special was found to be especially accurate and from the very beginning the M&P was offered with target sights. Production of all civilian revolvers was shut down during WWII, however with the end of the war S&W began the development of what would become one of the finest target revolvers ever offered — the K-22.
The Personification of the PPP is the epic S&W Combat Masterpiece.
A Masterpiece
The K-22 was introduced in December 1946 and six months later the first K-38, followed almost immediately by the K-32, arrived. These were all given the title of Masterpiece, which was definitely fitting. I have examples of all three revolvers chambered in .22 Long Rifle, .32 Smith & Wesson Long and .38 Special. They were and are excellent target pistols but too long to be classified as a PPP. This matter was handled in 1950 with the arrival of the 4″ Combat Masterpiece. This magnificent revolver was available in both .22 and .38 with a few examples and .32 Long.
In 1957 the .38 Special Combat Masterpiece became the Model 15 with the .22 Long Rifle version known as the Model 18. For situations where either one of these chamberings will suffice, it would be pretty difficult to find a better choice than the Combat Masterpiece.
The .38 Special, although a great choice for target shooting or plinking, left a lot to be desired in its original round-nosed 158-grain version. After WWI ended, our society was rapidly changing from an agrarian one and many of those who had been content to stay on the farm were now gravitating to the large cities; couple this with Prohibition and the easy money to be made outside the law — as well as the arrival of a new breed of criminal robbing banks escaping in a super-fast V8 powered sedan — and peace officers certainly found themselves behind the times.
The standard .38 Special that had served law officers for nearly 30 years suddenly had to compete with criminals firing .45s and automatic weapons from an automobile. Those little slow moving .38s either bounced off car bodies and windshields or at the very best, offered shallow penetration. Something had to be done to help officers. Smith & Wesson decided a newer and, more powerful, .38 Special was needed and the result was the .38/44 Heavy Duty.
Smith & Wesson, in conjunction with Winchester, in 1930 changed the standard .38 Special using a round-nosed bullet at around 850 fps to a flat-nosed semi-wadcutter design traveling 300 fps faster, and also added a metal-penetrating version. To house this new round, S&W simply used their 1926 Model, or 3rd Model Hand Ejector .44 Special with a .38 Special barrel and cylinder. The result was a much heavier sixgun than the S&W Military & Police and it did an excellent job of dampening recoil even with the new load.
The Military & Police has always been a relatively easy gun to shoot, however this new .38/44 had such a slick action and heavy cylinder it almost seemed to shoot by itself once the trigger action is started. From my perspective it is the finest .38 ever produced; and I am certainly not alone in this assessment. The following came from Elmer Keith.
“About a year ago Smith & Wesson heeded the demand for a heavier .38 with their new .38/44. This weapon was designed primarily as a police weapon and brought out on their .44 Military frame, to my notion the best sized and shaped frame of any double action for my individual hand.”
Whether in the standard barrel configuration or the Heavy Barrel
version at right, the .38 Special M&P delivers.
A New Start
The introduction of the .38/44 sixgun and cartridge did get the .38 Special up off its knees. However, this was only the beginning. The fixed-sighted .38/44 Heavy Duty was offered in barrel lengths of 4″, 5″ and 6-1/2″. In 1931 this latter model was upgraded with the addition of adjustable sights and introduced as the .38/44 Outdoorsman. Just as its name suggests, it became very popular as a field and hunting sixgun. A few were made with the 5″ length and I am certain there were those who shortened the barrel to an easy packing 4″. I had planned to do this someday, however someday has not yet arrived. My itch has been scratched with the use of .38 Special loads in the 4″ S&W Highway Patrolman.
In the early 1930s Col. Doug Wesson and writer/ballistician Phil Sharpe began working together on a new project using the .38/44. Sharpe had the .38 Special lengthened and their work together resulted in one of the finest sixgun/cartridge combinations, the .357 Registered Magnum and the .357 Magnum itself. Smith & Wesson Historian Roy Jinks called it the greatest sixgunning development of the 20th century. I will not argue with the assessment!
Both Model 57s shot very well, partly because they had great triggers.
The .41 Remington Magnum is in many ways the handgun equivalent of the .280 Remington and 16 gauge, a cartridge regarded by a relatively few True Believers as a perfect combination of ballistics and recoil. Like the .280 and 16, the .41 refuses to die, but all three rounds lag far behind the popularity of the dominant cartridges in their categories, the .44 Remington Magnum, .270 Winchester and 12 gauge.
While most 21st-century shooters remember Elmer Keith as the father of the .41 Magnum, other notable handgunners also had a part in its 1964 introduction, including Bill Jordan and Skeeter Skelton. The .41 was originally conceived as the perfect law enforcement round, more effective than the .38 Special and .357 Magnum then used by most American police departments, but more controllable than the .44 Magnum, considered the world’s most powerful handgun cartridge even nine years after its introduction in 1955.
The public’s fascination with the power of the .44 affected the success of the .41. Even the so-called “police” load produced by Remington, a 210-grain cast bullet at 1,050 feet per second, produced about twice the recoil of the typical .38 Special service load. The “hunting” load was a 210-grain bullet at 1,500 fps, developing over 1,000 foot-pounds of muzzle energy, and nearly the same recoil as the 240-grain “Hi-Speed” load of the .44 Magnum.
The two test revolvers were both Smith & Wesson Model 57s, one a blued model with a 4″ barrel (above),
the other nickel-plated with an 8-3/8″ barrel.
Too Big And Heavy
Also, Smith & Wesson chambered the .41 in the same large N-frame as the .44 Mag, calling it the Model 57. Instead of being somewhere between S&W’s smaller K-frame revolvers chambered for the .38 Special and .357 Mag and the .44 Model 29, the Model 57 weighed slightly more than the Model 29, due to the smaller hole in the barrel, so didn’t have any advantage as a carry revolver.
One of the oldest rules of breechloading firearms is there’s only so much space in any given cartridge category, and sales of the .41 lagged far behind the .44. Like devotees of the .280 and 16, the .41’s True Believers keep pointing out why this shouldn’t be so, citing small advantages in ballistics, including saying it shot flatter than the .44, a claim that originated with Elmer Keith.
Keith took a Model 57 along on a polar bear hunt, and he and his guide used the .41 to collect meat caribou. His published story pointed out the flatter trajectory of the .41. But if we run the numbers of 1964’s full-power 210-grain .41 and 240-grain .44 factory loads through Sierra’s Infinity ballistics program, using a zero range of 50 yards, we find the .41 only .3″ flatter at 150 yards—a long distance to be shooting at any big game animal with an iron-sighted revolver. With today’s factory loads the .44 shoots flatter, given equal bullet weights, even beyond 150 yards.
Please don’t take this wrong. My first handgun larger than a .357 Mag was a S&W Model 657, the stainless version of the 57, with a 6-1/2″ barrel. It was purchased new in 1989 as an all-around handgun for hunting big game, plus carrying as an emergency sidearm in Montana’s backcountry. The 657 shot very accurately, with a couple of loads grouping five rounds into around 2″ at 50 yards, not 25, partly because the trigger broke incredibly cleanly at around 3 pounds. Eventually I ended up owning two other .41s, a Ruger Blackhawk with 7-1/2″ barrel, and Thompson/Center Contender with a 10″ barrel. Both shot very well too.
New Competition
The 657 served its intended purposes over a decade or so, but eventually I grew weary of carrying 3 pounds of steel even when riding a horse. It also didn’t seem to kick a heck of a lot less than my friends’ .44 Magnums. Expanding handgun bullets had also improved enormously, making the .357 Mag a more definite self-defense round, and a number of single-action shooters had started heating up the old .45 Colt in new revolvers, with modern brass and heavier bullets. The .41 was not only competing with the .44 Magnum but the .45 Colt.
With .44 Magnum and .45 Colt components available in any Montana sporting goods store, I’d also grown weary of trying to find .41 Magnum brass and jacketed bullets. After accumulating a diverse collection of other revolvers, including a Taurus .44 Magnum with a 3″ barrel and a Ruger Blackhawk .45 Colt with a 7-1/2″ barrel, I sold my .41s and their reloading stuff.
Not too long thereafter, of course, the editor of GUNS asked for a handloading column on the .41. After putting an ad for a used .41 in the classified section of the popular Internet chat-room .24hourcampfire.com, but apparently the True Believers had driven up the price of .41s over the past few years.
Luckily, a couple of Montana friends, Kirk Stovall and Billy Stuver, saw the ad and offered to loan me their .41s and some fired brass. Both guns were S&W 57s, Kirk’s nickel-plated with an 8-3/8″ barrel, Billy’s a blued 4″ model. Both had the same great trigger pull as my departed 657, testing right around 3 pounds on a Timney trigger scale. Kirk offered the use of his RCBS dies, and Billy also provided some cast 230-grain bullets. Jacketed bullets were accumulated from several companies, and another 24hourcampfire guy, Ed Musetti, sent some BRP 270-grain cast bullets.
After a search through current data, nine loads were selected for testing. The original plan was to stick with newer powders, but H110/W296 turned up so often in the search it had to be retried. (They’re the same powder in different canisters.)
The first 25-yard group with Kirk’s nickel-plated .41, 16.0 grains of Accurate No. 9 and the 210-grain Nosler jacketed hollowpoint, was very reminiscent of my 657. Five shots went into barely over an inch! Not all the bullet/powder combinations shot as well, of course, but overall both revolvers shot very accurately.
Most .41 Magnums do shoot extremely well. One theory is that since .41s aren’t cranked out like .44 Magnums, the chambers, throats and overall alignment tend to vary less. The .41 also recoils slightly less than the .44 Magnum or a hot-loaded .45 Colt, while still providing sufficient power for most revolver tasks. By the end of the tests I was starting to believe again!