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Staring this guy down all night long would likely put anybody’s problems
into perspective. (Source: Mika Brandt, Unsplash)
It is simply breathtaking to look back on two decades of medical practice and appreciate some of the things that drive patients to seek a physician’s attention. I have had folks with snakebites, active strokes, gunshot wounds and evolving heart attacks aplenty inexplicably report to my humble urgent care clinic for treatment. Most, but not all, of those individuals get a quick ride to the local ER.
I have also had patients become genuinely put out with me should I respectfully refuse to excise their quarter-sized facial lesions or not expeditiously remove their gallbladders in the procedure room because they, “really hate going to the hospital.” I once had an elderly lady tell me that she would sooner die in my waiting room than go back to a hospital. However, on the other end of the spectrum, sometimes a visit to the local sawbones is somewhat more social than medical.
If they are of the proper age and comportment to manage them responsibly, I frequently make inflatable animals for my pediatric patients out of rubber gloves. I derive markedly more enjoyment out of this exercise than do they. On two occasions I have had kids fake illnesses just to get a fresh rubber animal.
While such antics will invariably precipitate the screaming habdabs in mom, these represent some of my proudest moments as a physician. Sometimes, however, grownups will come to the clinic for things that are, shall we say, not terribly critical.
“I can’t describe it,” “I just don’t feel good,” “My (insert random family member) is crazy,” and “My teeth itch” are perennial favorites. In each case, I do my utmost to discern some underlying treatable pathology and proceed accordingly, but sometimes the problem has a more esoteric origin.
We Information Age Americans have become awfully domesticated these days. We are now quite far removed from our rugged hunter-gatherer forebears. Sometimes what we need is not some expensive medication or rarefied medical therapy so much as a hefty dose of perspective. I think after so many years as a small-town doctor I have finally divined the answer.
Behold the implements of America’s game. Under slightly different circumstances,
they could also be viewed as medical instruments. (Source: NeonBrand, Unsplash)
Go North, Young Man
When some verklempt unfortunate reports to the clinic with itchy teeth, sometimes I just want to retrieve my prescription pad and scrawl out, “Lion Therapy — #1, Refill PRN” before scribbling my John Hancock across the bottom. I would then instruct the patient to take the prescription and drive 78 miles north to the Memphis Zoo, planning to arrive at the front gate around closing time. Don’t bring spare clothes or a bag. This novel but effective therapy demands neither.
You present the little medical writ to the gate attendant at which point they usher you back to the big cat enclosures. Once at the lion paddock you are shown into a nicely appointed climate-controlled dressing room painted in soothing pastel colors. In the privacy of your dressing room, you then strip naked and place your clothes and belongings in a secure locker provided for your convenience.
While all this preparation is taking place, the keepers are nearby vigorously feeding the lions. The lions are gorged, having consumed all the Purina Lion Chow they can manage. Once you are divested of all vestiges of civilization to include your cell phone, eyeglasses, beauty products, cross trainers and underpants, the zookeeper issues you with one standard baseball bat. They then plop you into the lion paddock and go home for the night.
Itchy Teeth Be Gone
When the keepers return the following morning, chances are you will not have been eaten. The lions were well-fed, after all. However, armed with nothing but a baseball bat after spending an evening standing naked while being curiously ogled by half a dozen African lions you now have your previous problems in perspective. You have been successfully treated with your first round of lion therapy.
The aforementioned wistful rambling should not be misinterpreted to minimize the import of mental illness or one of several zillion serious medical maladies that can manifest in ways that are both ethereal and mild. But compared to the rugged individualists who settled this great nation, our current generation seems to me to be not quite so durable. While my malpractice carrier would undoubtedly take umbrage with this radical course of treatment, I think it might be just the ticket in certain narrow circumstances.
How many folks do you know might benefit from a round or two of lion therapy? I’ve got my pad ready.
Mas (left) on his last day as a cop, carrying Range Officer .45; then-Chief Walt Madore wears a department-issue S&W M&P .45.
I’m writing this while teaching a class in Arcadia, Calif. I was pleased to note the issue sidearm for Arcadia cops is the Colt Government Model .45 auto. Those who pack the company gun have nothing to apologize for.
The first American lawmen to pack the 1911 .45 appear to have been the Texas Rangers. I read that Ranger Paul McAllister reportedly carried one as early as 1912. The Rangers and Colt have always had a special connection; the Texas Rangers first proved the efficacy of Colt’s seminal Paterson revolver, and Ranger Captain Samuel Walker secured the order for the big .44s that later bore his name, kick-starting Colt’s empire.
During the violent 1930s, 1911s got another boost. Federal agent Charles Winstead used a “government .45 automatic” to kill John Dillinger outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago in 1934. Unfortunately, bad guys of the period used them, too. The 1911 was the favored pistol of not only Dillinger himself but Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd and Clyde Barrow.
In the late 1960s, LAPD’s trend-setting SWAT team chose the 1911 as their trademark sidearm. Los Angeles also armed their Special Investigations Section with 1911s early on, but not until the 21st Century were these SA autos authorized for rank-and-file patrol and detectives. A special course was required before authorization to carry on duty.
The 1960s saw a renaissance of the 1911 with some other departments in California. Hollow point bullets were just coming in during that decade, and the big .45 slugs were considered more effective “man stoppers” than the non-expanding .38 Special rounds of the period, with less recoil than a .357 Magnum. A seven-round magazine with an eighth round in the chamber constituted a one-third firepower improvement over the traditional six-shot service revolver, and in a time before speedloaders were common, they were dramatically faster to reload. Eight-round single-stack magazines came later, and higher capacity double stacks later still.
On NYPD’s famed Stakeout Squad in the late ’60s and early ’70s, Jim Cirillo’s partner Bill Allard killed more criminals in face-to-face gunfights than any other member of the unit. His preferred gun was the National Match .45 auto, which he had special permission to carry. Legendary DEA gunfighter Frank White was another famed 1911 .45 man in the late 20th Century. Gun expert Scott Reitz, late of LAPD SWAT, is another very satisfied user of John Browning’s classic pistol.
This silhouette is the shape of the future: a Staccato 9mm 1911 with carry optic.
Life-Saving Features
Many chiefs and firearms instructors disallowed the 1911 because it had to be carried cocked-and-locked, and they feared officers would forget to thumb off the safety in a fast-breaking defensive incident. One reason this is less of a concern today is the AR15 rifle, which has all but completely supplanted the shotgun as the standard patrol car long arm, has a thumb safety that works with the same movement as the 1911, and at least in theory this should make it second nature to a trained officer.
A cardinal 1911 advantage is found in weapon retention. A 1981 study published in Police Chief magazine found the average person could fire a double-action revolver in about 1.2 seconds, but the average person in the test group took 17–18 full seconds to find the safety lever on a 1911: The department in question accordingly adopted 1911s. This “proprietary nature to the user” feature is a proven lifesaver.
Its short, easy, straight-back trigger pull makes the 1911 a perpetually match-winning pistol. That same feature improves hit potential under life-threatening stress. The single-stack cartridge capacity mitigates against “spray and pray” mentality. The result seems to be a high hit ratio in police shooting incidents.
A 1911’s cocked and locked carry, as seen on this Springfield Ronin, is a proven lifesaver.
Perspectives
I started carrying a 1911 Colt .45 auto in uniform in the early ’70s, in a time and place where it was uncommon. I heard other cops mutter, “He’s a maverick! He’s a radical!” By 1990, I was lecturing for the Washington State Law Enforcement Instructors Association, and a young police trainer in the front row spotted the Middlebrooks Custom Colt Government .45 on my hip and said in a stage whisper, “Look! An old 1911! Hasn’t this dinosaur ever heard of GLOCKs?”
I wore a Springfield Range Officer .45 on the day I retired from police work in 2017. Today I see young cops with the Staccato 9mm and optical sight — currently seen as cutting edge in police sidearms and standard issue for the U.S. Marshals Service Special Operations Group — and realize the 1911 design has come full circle from state-of-the-art to “geezer gun” and back to cutting edge again. The 1911’s place in modern American law enforcement is not predominant but still secure and here to stay.
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BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — A ban on dozens of semi-automatic rifles cleared the Washington state Legislature on Wednesday and the governor is expected to sign it into law.
The high-powered firearms — once banned nationwide — are now the weapon of choice among young men responsible for most of the country’s devastating mass shootings.
The ban comes after multiple failed attempts in the state’s Legislature, and amid the most mass shootings during the first 100 days of a calendar year since 2009.
The Washington law would block the sale, distribution, manufacture and importation of more than 50 gun models, including AR-15s, AK-47s and similar style rifles. These guns fire one bullet per trigger pull and automatically reload for a subsequent shot. Some exemptions are included for sales to law enforcement agencies and the military in Washington. The measure does not bar the possession of the weapons by people who already have them.
The law would go into effect immediately once it’s signed by Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, who has long advocated for such a ban. When the bill passed the state House in March, Inslee said he’s believed it since 1994 when, as a member of the U.S. Congress, he voted to make the ban a federal law.
After the bill passed, Inslee said the state of Washington “will not accept gun violence as normal.”
Inslee said lives will be saved because of the semi-automatic rifle ban and two other measures approved by the Legislature this session: one that introduced a 10-day waiting period for gun purchases and another to hold gunmakers liable for negligent sales.
Republican state lawmakers opposed the ban, with some contending school shootings should be addressed by remodeling buildings to make them less appealing as targets and others saying it infringes on people’s rights to defend themselves.
“HB 1240 clearly violates our state and federal constitutions, which is why it will end up in court immediately,” Sen. Lynda Wilson of Vancouver said.
The U.S. Congress reinstating a ban on semi-automatic rifles appears far off. But President Joe Biden and other Democrats have become increasingly emboldened in pushing for stronger gun controls — and doing so with no clear electoral consequences.
Nine states including California, New York and Massachusetts, along with the District of Columbia, have already passed similar bans, and the laws have been upheld as constitutional by the courts, according to Washington’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson.
In Colorado, lawmakers debated on Wednesday about similar gun measures, but a sweeping ban on semi-automatic firearms faces stiffer odds.
Lawmakers in the Texas Capitol set aside a slate of proposed new gun restrictions without a vote after hours of emotional appeals from Uvalde families whose children were killed last year. The hearing didn’t end until the early morning hours Wednesday.
During debate on the Washington state bill, Democrats spoke of frequent mass shootings that have killed people in churches, nightclubs, grocery stores and schools.
Sen. Liz Lovelett of Anacortes said that kids’ concerns about school shootings need to be addressed.
“They are marching in the streets. They are asking for us to take action,” Lovelett said. “We have to be able to give our kids reasons to feel hopeful.”
Another gun-control bill that passed in Washington this session would allow people whose family members die from gun violence to sue if a manufacturer or seller “is irresponsible in how they handle, store or sell those weapons.” Under the state’s consumer-protection act, the attorney general could file a lawsuit against manufacturers or sellers for negligently allowing their guns to be sold to minors, or to people buying guns legally in order to sell them to someone who can’t lawfully have them.
A second bill would require gun buyers to show they’ve taken safety training. It would also impose a 10-day waiting period for all gun purchases — something that’s already mandatory in Washington when buying a semi-automatic rifle.
Some gun-control legislation in other states has been struck down since last year’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which set new standards for reviewing the nation’s gun laws. The ruling says the government must justify gun control laws by showing they are “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
What I think is that only the lawyers will win out of this! 
Don’t have medical gear or training? Code “IAN” gets you 10% off med kits and training classes:
About 6 years ago, I had an accident at the range. We talked about it at the time, but didn’t say what the gun involved was, in order to keep the discussion focused on safety and first aid issues. Well, I think it’s been long enough now that there’s no reason to keep it obfuscated.
The rifle I was using was a reproduction 1860 Henry in .45 Colt. I loaded the magazine tube about half way to get a few shots on camera for b-roll, and just dropped the follower instead of gently lowering it down onto the top cartridge. When it hit the rounds in the tube, the top two detonated, spraying powder and some brass shrapnel out the open slot in the magazine tube. I got a bunch of powder sparkling up my face, but my shooting glasses protected me from any eye injury. One piece of cartridge case about a centimeter long hit me right about at the top of the sternum, and embedded itself in the flesh. We weren’t filming at the moment, so there is no video of this happening.
We had a first aid kit on hand, and knew how to use it. Fortunately, the injury was actually pretty minor, although we didn’t know that at the time. I was fully conscious and responsive, and I held pressure on a bandage over the injury while Karl drove us to the nearest hospital.
One hears unpleasant stories about hours-long waits in emergency rooms, but if you walk in with a trail of blood down your chest, someone tends to take a look at you right quick! After an x-ray and a CT scan, they determined that the shrapnel was not in a position to do any real damage, although it would cause more tissue damage to remove than to just leave it alone. So I got a couple stitches, and was sent on my way. It’s a small enough piece (and non-ferrous) that no, I don’t set off metal detectors. 🙂
While my experience here is simply a single anecdote, it does bring some significance to the periodic trials reports of tube-magazine detonations in trials or in service. The ammunition that exploded here on me had flush-seated primers, and flat-faced bullets. This was not a pointy bullet lined up with a proud primer. “Not only can malfunctions be stranger than we think, they can be stranger than we can think.” (Werner Heisenberg, probably)
EXCLUSIVE, updated with lawyers statement: Less than two weeks before a mini-trial is scheduled to begin in New Mexico over the October 2021 killing of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, all charges are going to be dropped against Alec Baldwin and the film’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed
Recently appointed special prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis are expected to file paperwork soon, perhaps even today, to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter claims against the multi-Emmy-winning actor and the crew member without prejudice, we hear. That means, as they are set to investigate further into what actually went down that terrible day on the Bonanza Creek Ranch set near Santa Fe, this case could be resurrected in the future.
“We are pleased with the decision to dismiss the case against Alec Baldwin, and we encourage a proper investigation into the facts and circumstances of this tragic accident,” Baldwin attorneys Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro said in a statement. Representatives for the Santa Fe’s District Attorney’s office had no comment on the situation when contacted by Deadline on Thursday.
“The new special prosecutor team has taken a very diligent and thorough approach to the entire investigation, which we welcome and have always welcomed,” said Reed’s lawyers Jason Bowles and Todd Bulllion today. “They are seeking the truth and we are also. The truth about what happened will come out and the questions that we have long sought answers for will be answered. We fully expect at the end of this process that Hannah will also be exonerated.”
Both Gutierrez-Reed and Baldwin had pleaded not guilty earlier this year.
Since an interview on ABC just weeks after the slaying of Hutchins, Baldwin repeatedly has insisted that he did not pull the trigger on the 1880s prop gun that killed the DoP — an insistence the FBI disagreed with in its report on the matter released last year. With Baldwin lawyers last month contesting the state of the gun, further investigation into the firearm looks certain to be undertaken as a part of any renewed probe.
These latest developments are occurring as production on a resurrected Rust was set to start in Montana with Baldwin and director Joel Souza, who was wounded in the October 2021 shooting. Originally scheduled to begin earlier this week, Rust 2.0 now is looking at starting tomorrow, we hear — though that could shift based on these new developments. The timing of the charges being dropped against Baldwin just before the new Rust production commences seems almost uncanny, though we are told it is purely coincidence.
The looming move by the special prosecutors also comes mere days after the filing of the witness list for the May 3-starting preliminary examination became public. Even with charges against Gutierrez-Reed still active, it looks unlikely that the preliminary examination aka mini-trial will go ahead as scheduled, especially with prosecutors digging anew into the evidence, context and circumstances of the on-set tragedy.
More than a year after Halyna Hutchins died on the Rust set, Baldwin and co-defendant Gutierrez-Reed were charged in late January with two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Along with a mandatory five-year firearm enhancement that later was cast aside as “unconstitutional,” those charges carried a maximum of 18 months behind bars and around $5,000 in fines if a jury delivered guilty verdicts to Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed. At the time, New Mexico officials made a plea deal with Rust assistant director Dave Halls, who was sentenced to six months of unsupervised probation.
In the past weeks, Baldwin had received approval from Judge Mary Marlow Sommer to be absent from the preliminary examination/mini-trial on the involuntary manslaughter claims against him. Still, in a sign of just how fast events were moving this week, the state released its 35-person witness list for the mini-trial, where Judge Sommer would determine if there is enough evidence to go to a full trial. Right near the top of that list is Rust director and co-creator Souza. The list also includes Rust script supervisor Mamie Mitchell — who is suing Baldwin and his fellow producers in one of the many suits against them still in L.A. Superior Court and New Mexico — armorer mentor Seth Kenney, more members of the crew and a ton of cops.
The sudden turn of events now for Rust star and producer Baldwin follows Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies stepping down from the case late last month and the duo of veteran New Mexico attorneys being put in charge.
While rare, that decision by the besieged DA looked almost inevitable over the past few weeks.
Almost from the jump after Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed were formally charged, the DA hit several self-created potholes, including a lost February 24 attempt to block Gutierrez-Reed’s request to possess a gun in her home for self-defense. More embarrassingly for the DA, there also was a dismissal of the firearm enhancement charge from the case in late February and the stinging loss of previous special prosecutor and GOP state lawmaker Andrea Reeb in mid-March. Then, almost certain to lose an attempt to be co-counsel with a new special prosecutor, Carmack-Altwies finally removed herself from the case altogether on March 29. At the same time, the DA brought well-respected New Mexico lawyers Morrissey and Lewis on board as special prosecutors.
As the State of New Mexico pondered bringing charges against Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed, the Hutchins estate settled its wrongful death suit against Rust Movie Productions LLC and Baldwin in October. As part of the deal, the DoP’s husband Matthew Hutchins is executive producing the new Rust production, as well as a documentary on his wife’s life and burgeoning career.
“I have no interest in engaging in recriminations or attribution of blame (to the producers or Mr. Baldwin),” Matthew Hutchins said at the time. “All of us believe Halyna’s death was a terrible accident. I am grateful that the producers and the entertainment community have come together to pay tribute to Halyna’s final work.”
Earlier this week, that settlement was ordered sealed to protect the privacy of the Hutchins’ young son.
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From the Vault: Colt Boa Revolver
Of course the The people of LA is another story. Grumpy