El Chapo

I use mine all the time.....in Wild Bunch.

If the spirit of the game requires shooters to wear hats, the rule book should specify that every shooter has to wear a hat. There is no such rule. And there is no rule that if I have a hat, I can't complete a stage without wearing my hat, either. No rule specifies any of that. Which is a good thing, my had has an 8" brim and I'm sure there's some day that will come where I have to finish shooting a stage without my hat when nature takes its course. Other than that, I agree with your basic idea. If the start position is hands on hat, and you don't have a hat on your head, then your hands go where your hat would be, it's really not that difficult. There's no penalty involved, you simply don't start the shooter until his hands are in the right position.

But they don't require that it be worn at all. As usual, I disagree with his interpretation.

Another example of trying to figure out a way to ding someone where there is no rule so requiring. The call is no call. What would you do if the person didn't have a hat at all? There is no requirement for most categories that a cowboy wear a hat.

Your view is also not quite there, empirically. The certainty of getting caught and going to jail, even for that night, has a very high deterrent effect. The probability of getting convicted, sentenced, or even very long sentences, have very small effects, much smaller than most people realize. I have worked in the criminal justice system for ~12 years and I had no idea until I saw the data. That's also why the data are so concerning. There is such a low chance of ever seeing a day in jail, much less a criminal prosecution, that the criminal side is doing nothing. It's hard to ignore that those who were denied did not leave the store with a gun, though, and that probably has a much greater effect than any criminal anything, but I don't know because I'm not sure how you'd measure that. If we had an evidence-based criminal justice system, it'd look far different than most people would think who are not familiar with the data. The money we have spent for nothing is astonishing and ridiculous.

The data point is the number of prosecutions per year. You need no support to know there are more than 20 prohibited possessors that walk into stores and attempt to receive firearms while (insert prohibited reason here). I'm not even sure if there are data on that, but it is certainly hundreds of times that number. The last time I got a call from the FBI about one of mine who was under indictment, the response I got when I asked if a field investigator was going to investigate the case was pretty astonishing. There they were with a 4473 in the guy's own handwriting, probably with a lie on the form that he wasn't under indictment for a felony (another crime for lying on the form) trying to buy a gun. A few months later I got a call from the ATF TFO about it, apparently because I said something, they did investigate. Not sure what ever came of it, but I'd be willing to bet it went nowhere, because like I said, it isn't about guns or prohibited possessors, it's about control. The field investigator wasn't too excited because it was only an attempt, and acted like he didn't know that lying on the form is a felony on its own. Let that sink in for a while. Edit: Just for you, I asked chatgpt for the answers to these data and its sources and I got the following answers: In 2025, there were 98,898 NICS denials according to the FBI out of 31 million background checks. 44,139 of those were felons or otherwise convicted of crimes that carry more than one year of imprisonment. Another 7,273 were people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence offenses. The most comprehensive data it had was from 2017, when there were 112,090 denials, 12,710 referred for ATF investigation (11%) and 12 prosecutions (.01%). Like I said, speaks for itself.

You have no idea what the source of my information is. In any event, the data point speaks for itself.

What I find interesting about that situation is while they will not be transferred a gun if the FBI issues a denial, they are historically not investigated and there are something like 20 prosecutions a year for prohibited possessors who try to buy firearms. If Congress really cared, they'd issue some sort of policy directive that encouraged prosecution, created grant funded positions for enforcement and prosecution, etc. They don't because it isn't about guns or prohibited possessors. It's about controlling the rest of us and feel good measures like "background checks" that probably trap dozens or hundreds of times more innocent people in the net than actual prohibited possessors.

I also hope everyone who is competing against me follows their front sight to the next target. That costs you even more time than following the front sight back down after the bullet is gone, and would make it at least a little bit easier for me.

The Dillon die for revolvers is a taper crimp at light settings and a roll crimp at a heavier setting. I haven't found anything better. I use Lee FCDs for .223 but I would never use one with lead bullets in a pistol. It will size down your bullets. If you have a tight barrel it may not matter, but you'll know if it does, because you'll have leading and possibly tumbling.

No you aren't. Watching the sight return after the shot is gone will cost you .2-.4 seconds per target transition. Once there is a recoil event, the bullet is gone. Your eyes, then head, then gun, should be on their way to the next target as soon as the shot is gone.

It's not my opinion. It's the result of decades of empirical research. You're arguing with a straw man about cruel and unusual and all of that. It isn't about the criminals. It's about public safety. Our criminal justice system is broken. The primary cause is that people still believe that making it even more punitive than it is would create additional deterrence, which is absolutely not supported by the available evidence. Effective probation is one of many reforms that could save taxpayer money and improve public safety tremendously. The problem isn't probation, it's that probation is a joke compared to what it could be if evidence-based reforms were applied. Nobody is saying that there shouldn't be prisons or that people don't deserve punishment. The mistake in reasoning is thinking that making the law harsher without doing anything else will reduce crime. That is almost universally untrue. Even those who are strong believers in prison and punishment can recognize that 1) almost all people who go to prison have to return to the community and 2) sending them to a place where they become "better" criminals without a transition plan is a disaster. For my entire life, and probably many generations before that, we have made the law harsher and harsher, with no improvement in overall public safety. You can take whatever "financial burden" you want into account. The United States has a tremendously punitive and expensive criminal justice system by any measure. Look at it from any angle you want, just look at the data. Any rational analysis of what we are getting versus what we are spending would show that we are wasting money that would be better spent with a different approach for some of the people who enter the criminal justice system. That doesn't mean that murderers and child molesters shouldn't go to prison. It does mean that burglars and thieves who would otherwise be decent and law abiding if they weren't drunks or addicts may have to get treatment to either shorten their sentence or stay out of prison completely. We know that works, shown over and over again over the last ~40 years, that when addicts are in recovery, they are much less likely to return to the criminal justice system. And that is just one such example of a behavioral modification that is proven to work and far more cost effective than simply locking them in a cage for as long as we're willing to pay for. I learned all of this because for years, I believed it was my job to lock as many people away for as long as possible. Some of them are still locked away. Many of them, probably most of them, were people who might have deserved a taste of punishment but ultimately needed structure and direction to not come back to crime. Unfortunately, too few of them got that, and we're all paying for it (me included).

We have the highest incarceration rate in the civilized world, at great expense to the taxpayers. I don't think a lack of harsh punishment is the problem, in fact, there's a great deal of evidence to the contrary. Stiffer penalties do not create deterrence. Fear of victims resisting or getting caught, do. Harsh punishment years after the fact does nothing and costs a ton of money.

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Ideal length? If they'd let me have 12" I'd do that. And if I was allowed to use 12", I might even learn to prefer 8" after a while. Okay, maybe that's a stretch. But if it was a realistic option, my answer would be far shorter than 18-20 inches.