OUTRAGE!

Couple who adopted 12 children slain

That was the CNN headline of a news story that caught my eye. The more I read about this story, the more outraged I became. The story isn't finished either. Three suspects were arrested over the weekend and more are still at large, says Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan.

What Happened
On July 9th, just around 7 p.m. three men dressed in black were seen on surveillance video approaching the home of Byrd and Melanie Billings in a late 1970s or early 1980s red van about 7 p.m., authorities say. Their home in Beulah is about 17 miles northwest of Pensacola.

Just before 8 p.m. the police received a call of shots fired at the address. When they arrived, they found both Byrd and Melanie Billings dead. Both had been shot to death, one of the couple had been shot in the head.

The Billings have 16 children, twelve of whom are adopted. At the time of the killings, eight of the children, ages from infant to about 11 years-old, were asleep in the home. Police are still searching for the three men and the red van. As yet, the public doesn't know the motive for the killings.

The Family
That Byrd and Melanie Billings were a very special couple is evident. Byrd was a successful business man and the couple owned a number of local businesses, including Worldco Financial Services and Purshu Autos. Their home has nine bedrooms and sits back off the street at the end of a long driveway for the safety of their children.

In a special Christmas story, published Christmas day, 2005, the Pensacola News Journal profiled the Billings family as a story of love and commitment.

They were the proud parents of 16 children. Twelve are adopted -- among them, children of drug users, children who were sexually abused and children with developmental disabilities. Six of the 12 have Down syndrome. Two have died.

In the article, The Journal said: The Billingses' life is paved with challenges, a journey they never expected. But if they could do it all over again, it's the only path they would take.

"Our life, our children, is about choices we have made," said Byrd, 63.

"Holidays are so special." said Melanie, 40. "You never know when you won't have this time," she said.

Today, those words sound almost prophetic.

The children do not wear hand-me-downs. Their bedrooms are suites with bathrooms lighted by chandeliers and with walk-in closets. Byrd and Melanie give their children only the best. To them, all their children are perfect.

Thoughts and Commentary
So we have this very loving couple who have dedicated their lives to caring for children others don't want. They give them a first class home with two parents, a caretaker who helps out and the children are treated like the Billings' own.

Then, in the span of less than an hour, three sociopaths enter the home, one with eight children inside and, before they leave, they kill two extraordinary people. The only good thing is that none of the children were injured.

We can only surmise what happened for almost an hour inside that home. The criminals were likely looking for money or valuables in such a large home. It is likely that they were not gentle or polite in their demands either. Suffice it to say, that those who were there were probably subjected to an hour of terror at the hands of these three men.

It would be easy to sit here and say something stupid, like suggesting if either adult had been armed they might be alive today. That's simplistic and not realistic. With that many children in the home, many of them with Downs Syndrome or autistic, you'd most likely keep any firearms strictly secured for everyone's safety.

It would be equally stupid to say that if guns were banned this incident wouldn't have happened. Such a myopic view ignores the myriad ways three men could arm themselves with axes, machetes and other items to commit the same acts.

No, what I'm going to say is that this incident really proves a point that I have argued with anti-gun zealots for years. And that is that the concept of compliance and non-resistance can be fatal to the victim. Anti-gun lobbyists and police will point to statistics that say compliance is the safest thing to do.

But I posit that non-resistance and compliance puts you at the mercy of the criminal. What if that criminal has no mercy?

That's the big drawback. You may not know until it is too late. The person you are facing is a criminal, someone who does not feel bound to honor the laws of society. If he doesn't feel bound by laws against theft, robbery, rape, murder, et al, then neither are we bound to believe a word he says about us "not getting hurt" or letting us go.

Too many criminals today exhibit sociopathic tendencies. Big, burly 20-somethings that'll beat down a 101 year old woman for the $33 in her purse show their contempt for anyone but themselves. Recently a 20-year-old thug in our bay area beat up and robbed 12-year-old girl. But before walking off with the $9 she had, he used a rock to smash her teeth. Yeah, there are real men for you -- beating up the elderly and children.

The three thugs in the Billings case are another example. If there was even an ounce of empathy or consideration in their souls for other people, they would not have deliberately orphaned those children. But they lack any compassion for others and mercy, to them, is a weakness.

These guys are running a close second to Richard Allen Davis, the perverted sociopathic career criminal who kidnapped, raped and killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1993. Davis was the poster-boy for California's 3-strikes law. Davis also told Klaas he wasn't going to hurt her.

I don't care what color these people are. I don't care what religion they follow (if any). I don't care if they were disadvantaged children. Nor do I care if their parents absused them. Killing the parents of so many children and knowing that they're going to orphan those kids is beyond comprehension.

Sheriff Morgan tells the media that this is a hum-dinger of a case and it has twists and turns worthy of a Hollywood movie. One media outlet surmised that because one suspect turned himself in, he must feel some remorse about the killings.

And, I don't care.

No child deserves to lose both their parents. Not like this. Especially children used to the patient love that comes from those rare few who can handle so many special needs children. Life is hard enough for these kids already. Depriving them of the love they've known is simply an act of sadistic cruelty.

I can think of a lot of creative ways that these three men could meet their maker. So far, the leading candidates are the 3,000-ft helicopter high-dive and being towed behind a boat as alligator bait in the Everglades. But I'm sure the Billings', being good and kind people, would have said the proper thing to do is let justice slowly grind along and do its job.

Condolences to the Billings family and requiescat in pax Byrd and Melanie.

One thing is for sure, though. More people will be willing to show mercy to these killers than they showed the Billings' family.

Comments? Suggestions? editor@handgunclub.com

Gun Shop Aggravations

How Gun Shops Lose Customers

Time to rant a little.

Walk into any store that sells high end merchandise and ask to see something. Watch how the sales person handles their products for a good clue as to their education and experience with the products. Also watch carefully and see how some will abuse products right before your eyes.

Several year ago, while shopping for a new truck, one dealer had plenty of nice shiny Ford diesels several thousand dollars cheaper than any other dealer. But I adamantly refused to buy anything from that dealership.

The reason was simple. The salesman offered a test drive, then promptly showed his ignorance of diesel products and abused the machinery. He insisted on revving a cold diesel engine. Worse was that he kept running the diesel up almost to the redline before shifting.

It's the same when I enter a gun shop and see really sloppy handling of guns. I'm especially annoyed by two things clerks do, it seems, in too many gun shops. Any time I see these behaviors, I know it's unlikely I'll buy a gun from that shop.

First, with a semi-auto pistol, watching a clerk drop the slide from it's locked-open position to the closed position just grates on my nerves. Without the resistance of a cartridge, habitual slamming of the slide can peen the barrel hood or the breechface.

The second especially alarming thing I've seen is a crop of younger guys who've never handled revolvers, emulating old movie scenes by flipping the cylinder open or shut instead of closing it by hand. Not only does this risk springing the yoke (the arm holding the cylinder) but can burr the center pin that locks the gun closed.

Recently a friend of mine scratched a southern California gun shop off his list because every time the idiot clerk removed a gun from the case, he had his finger on the trigger, violating rule #2 of safe handling. If that wasn't bad enough, when my friend remarked that the trigger of a certain Ruger was too heavy, the clerk took the gun back and, without checking to see if it was loaded, pulled the trigger with the gun pointed at my friend! There is no excuse for such poor discipline. He complained loudly to the store owner, but he'll never be back.

Yet another thing that annoys me and loses customers for gun shops - elitism. Not long ago, I wanted to check out a CZ P01 pistol. I like CZ's, but their traditional safety is too far forward for my thumb to reach without altering my grip. The P01 has a decocker right where the 1911 safety would be. Perfect.

The shop has a dozen CZ pistols and I ask if they have a P-01. Do I get an answer? No."Y'know, the CZ's are cheap guns made on beat up Russian machines." says the shop owner. "If you're looking for a quality 9-mike, you should be looking at this Sig 229. It's quality in every part, not just the ones one the outside." I nod and tell him I'd really like to look at the P-01. Even after I tell him that Sigs feel like a piece lumber in my hand, he won't let up on selling me on a Sig. Thanks a lot, moron!

Then there are the gun-shop ballistics experts. The ones that tell you that you that the nine milly-meter will "just go all the way through" an opponent without slowing him down. Or that a .357 Magnum will "make an exit wound the size of a softball". Neither are true of course, but it's part of the "lore" around handgun ammo.

My pet peeve are the .44 Magnum bigots. For these masochists, for whom heavy recoil is like being kissed by Angelina Jolie, nothing short of a full-bore .44 Magnum load is worthy of the term "Magnum". If you want a gun to hunt deer, cougars, ram or pigs or protection from bears & wolves, their favorite gun is a one-size-fits-all solution. I've even had them tell me it's good for shooting gophers and rabbits! Or home protection in an apartment. C'mon guys, get a clue!

Speaking of one-size-fits-all, let's talk about the Glockophiles. If you want a pistol for any purpose, well, just buy a Glock. Any Glock. While I am an ardent fan of Smith & Wesson products, I don't limit myself to that single brand when recommending a gun for someone else. I watched a younger fellow, who had a list of features he wanted (external ambi-safety, DA/SA, adjustable sights, etc.) at a gun shop and several gun shop commados were trying to convince him how superior Glocks are. Never mind that the Glock doesn't fit his requirements - just by a Glock. I just pointed out a nice FN Hi-Power to him and let him make his decision (he bought it without any urging).

Do you have any pet peeves when it comes to seeking gun advice or shopping in gun shops? I'm sure you do. Let's hear from some shop owners too. I'm positive we'll hear some really bizzare customer stories as well.

Comments? Questions: editor@handgunclub.com

Ballistics 101

Power by the Inch

Ever wonder how much velocity and energy you give up if you select a 2-inch barrel over a 4-inch barrel? We all know that the longer the barrel, the more velocity we can get out of a cartridge. We also know that shorter barrels are the less velocity and power we get.

But have you ever wondered how much you're really giving up by selecting a 2-inch revolver or a 3-inch 9mm? What about using a 3-inch .45 instead of a 5-inch Government model? Well, now you can find out some real-world examples.

In years past, gun writers have promoted, as a rule of thumb, that you lose 50 fps per inch of barrel. As it turns out, that's not quite true, depending on the load's construction. For example, for a selection of 9mm rounds in barrels between two to six inches long, the average variation ranges from 41 to 81 fps.

This information is at your fingertips, thanks to four very inquisitive guys. Jim Kasper, Jim Downey, Steve Meyer and Keith Kimball took it upon themselves to find out and document the question of how barrel length affects velocity. And they've done an outstanding job with their results posted at their Ballistics by the Inch.com.

These gentlemen used a Thompson-Center Encore pistol as their platform and commissioned a gunsmith to make 18-inch barrels in various calibers. From there, after each round of testing, the barrels were cut back by one-inch, recrowned and returned for the next series of tests. This gives us direct comparisons based on the same barrel with the same characteristics as the previous length.

It takes a little more work than just reading their charts to understand the data, however. For instance, how much do you lose by choosing a 3-inch concealable 9mm pistol over a 4-inch "service" pistol? The answer, depending upon cartridge ranges from 99 fps to only 49 fps. The average is 69 fps.

Think your .40 S&W round is plenty no matter what barrel length you're using? If you're using Cor-Bon's 135 grain JHP, you're losing a whopping 100 fps per inch (103 to 138 fps) between a 5-inch barrel and a 3-inch tube.
This type of data is there, but you still have to work it out on your own. The good news is that you can directly cut and paste their data tables into a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel. That allows you to crunch your own numbers if you're familiar with spreadsheets.

In preparing this article, I used Excel to help analyze some of the data. Since we're handgun oriented, I focused on the two to six-inch barrel figures. When I looked at .38 Special data, some intriguing things stood out. Something unexpected.

It seems that the losses when dropping from a 4-inch gun to a snubby 3-inch or 2-inch are much higher than losing an inch between four and five inches. In fact, for the ammo listed, the drop from a 4-inch barrel to the shorter barrels was the highest loss of velocity. This indicates that revolver cartridges are optimized for 4-inch and longer barrels.

Most surprising to me was that some .38 Special cartridges actually gained velocity when the barrel was cut from 6-inches to 5-inches! Both Cor-Bon 110 and 125 grain loads showed this behavior. Now, this could be some quirk of the barrel used, or it could be some odd error with the chronograph, but it remains interesting. Overall, the least loss in the .38 Special occurred by cutting a six-inch down to five-inches. Makes me appreciate my 5-inch S&W Model 10 just that much more.

Check it out for yourself. Look up your favorite cartridge and see what you're giving up by using that shorter barrel. Or perhaps you'll find you won't lose very much velocity by moving from that 5-inch Gov't model to a 4-Inch Commander. They've listed the sixteen most popular calibers, including .357 Sig, 10mm, .41 Magnum and .45 Colt. Even the new .327 Federal Magnum is included.

Ballistics by the Inch

Your comments are welcome: editor@handgunclub.com