the saturday nite special

just stayin' busy for the moment and ran across this old paper i had typed up last year.

for those who have not read this elsewhere, it's food for thought. For those of you who have read it--it's just a friendly reminder...........

In defense of the Saturday night special (or—how being laid up gets one to thinkin’)
Been laid up with a nasty upper respiratory infection. Nothing to do but watch the idiot box or read. Seems most of my buds around here know what I’d rather do and they brought me a collection of gun rags to help pass the time. Well after a time one gets to thinking about all the guns that a feller runs across over the years. From time to time the Saturday night special (SNS) kept coming into my mind and how many I’ve had the pleasure (or displeasure) to come across in working the streets over the years. Yep, it seems that guns such as the RG.22, Raven .25, Davis, Jennings/Bryco, Lorcin----they just kept popping into my mind over and over as the weapons used in a tremendous amount of shootings that I had worked. Even my most recent shooting involved one of those FIE .22 imports that everyone looks at and then will go and buy a Ruger instead. Heck a feller tried to kill me once with a Davis but he was a poor shot thank goodness. Hmmm I said to myself, must be because they are cheap, small, and one could afford to throw one down to ditch the evidence. Lord knows that we had found plenty of these guns at shooting scenes and found a few thrown out on the side of the road before. Even some States are passing laws targeting the SNS in specific such as melting points of the metals, safety features, etc. Heck, the NRA and numerous other gun boards that have mentioned these bans by states never really voiced much concern about “melting points”. Seems that no one really gave a crap about the SNS and no one championed its right to exist. Even the most vocal 2A crowds have remained silent. After all, they are just really cheap trash guns that only criminals use right?

Then is dawned on me---boy am I a hypocrite. By what right do I have to judge an entire line of guns as worthless, a black eye to gun owners everywhere, and a scourge of the 2A? So I decided to cool my jets and really think about the guns and people that I’ve runned across over the years. Seems that stopping to think about it, quite a few of these shootings were self-defense and justified. A lot of these shootings were on the poor side of town. These Brycos and Davis guns that they had were not stolen guns either. They had gone to the local gun shops or pawn shops and had bought these guns because it is what they could afford.

Now I have been guilty of it. Swearing that I will never trust my life to a cheap inexpensive gun and holding a critical eye towards anyone who would own one or depend on one to save their skins. Then the other day, a well to do feller made a comment to me that amounted to the same---all because I use a Ruger p90 as my weapon instead of a kimber 1911. Seems his argument was specifically based on costs. Suddenly I was down in the valley while someone else was up in the ivory tower passing judgment………..

As my memory kept working on past SNS shootings, the same theme kept coming up again and again. The housing was poor, the neighborhood was poor, and the people were poor. Often times the folks were retired or semi-retired and living on a fixed income. They had little education but they had worked all their life and the vast majority of them were honest decent folks. Trouble is, they did not have the option to move away to a better area. By all observations, money was tight. It seems that the SNS is the only choice that they had for a self defense handgun. The BG’s? Seems that the predators were mostly young punks who often broke into homes to go after prescription drugs, tools, or anything that they could sell to promote their drug habit. And guess what else was stolen if no one was home???-yep the SNS would wind up getting stolen. Seems to me that everyone is always claiming the BG does not buy his gun he steals it. Your right, and the SNS therefore ends up in the BG’s hands and used in other crimes. Of course the news media blames the SNS instead of the bad guy. It’s much easier to hold up a $70.00 gun that on average no one in the gun community will defend, buy, or use and proclaim it as evil. Seems no one in the media wants to talk about revolving door justice, plea bargains, and slap on the wrists. (getting off track so I better back off).

So just what is really going on here? Where have I been in these arguments? Despite what the media might say, most leo’s recognize a person has a right to defend themselves and it actually is sort of a nice change of pace to run into someone who refuses to be a victim. Cut me and I thought I would bleed NRA blaze orange. But it seems that I have done the 2A a dis-service and all gun owners a dis-service in my bad-mouthing of the SNS in years past. For this I apologize. Will I run out and buy an RG revolver today? No, I won’t, but by the same token, I will recognize that the RG does have a purpose in the grand scheme of things and that one person’s red beans may be another person’s steak if you know what I mean.