Reloading ammo for self-defense

[762xIan]

all this talk of not using your own load is just that talk. if it is a good shoot you will nothing to worry about. back in the old days a lot of small town p.d carried reloads. I knew two md. state troopers that loaded their own.

A "good shoot" is a good shoot...period. Your ammo won't even come into question unless you bring it up.

Then again if you are ever involved in a shoot in the first place you only say 2 things....I was in fear of my life and I am not saying anything else without a lawyer done.

I make all my ammo, I don't care what allegedly high end name is on the box, I don't care if everyone buys and uses it, I don't care if they buy all the ad space in every mag and everyone claims it is the best.

I have worked in factories and mass production lines. I will gladly "one at a time" my own loads to my own QA and QC methods over the unknown.

[Bang]

The potential of losing a trial over having used hand-loads is exactly why I never became a certified martial arts expert. I didn't want to have to run from a fight.

[Sshuker]

I am a lawyer, I practice a bit of criminal law, I reload and I carry a Glock 26 loaded with 9mm Hornady Critical Defense.

I am not offering this as legal advice, but rather just my own personal thought process behind the choices I have made.

Self defense shootings fall into a spectrum.

On one end: gunman actively firing a gun at you and a crowd of school children and nuns, in a place where there is no question about the legality of your presence or possession of your gun, you return fire. You will likely be hard pressed to find anyone to say you were not justified in shooting at that gunman. In this scenario, hand loads are most likely never going to be an issue.

Towards the other end: Zimmerman

Here is the thing, you are not going to be in court needing to justify everything unless you are on the end of the spectrum where there is a question, in the minds of some, as to weather it was a good shooting.

So, on this end of the spectrum, I want to have the fewest possible ways that the prosecution could possibly try to paint me as a lunatic that left the house that day looking to provoke a situation for the purpose of killing someone.

There are very few if any cases on much of this because these small things are not going to make or break a case and therefore will never become the core issue of the case that will become precedent for future cases. I can tell you from real time in a courtroom, that things too little to become precedent can have real impacts on which way your particular judge or jury finds.

So, what kind of thing does this impact in my actual behavior?

I carry all day every day in every place I am legally permitted. I never want to be able to be painted as someone who does not carry all the time, but I was in a killing mood that day, so I brought my gun.

I carry 9mm. I never want to exceed the caliber the local police have determined is appropriate. It is pretty tough to demonize the most common caliber and it is pretty tough to say that I got the baddest hand cannon I could because I was fantasizing about killing someone. I have seen the statistics and realize every handgun caliber averages two shots to kill, so I am confident with a 9mm and should have no issue defending that choice. Look to Zimmerman, even with all the shit he caught, the 9mm round was hardly even mentioned.

I carry Hornady Critical Defense and would never carry R.I.P, Hydra-Shok or anything else that has a name that might suggest I stood at a register fantasizing about killing someone. Just think of some libtard on my jury hearing Critical Defense or Radically Invasive Projectile and the different picture that paints in their mind of me standing at a counter buying it.


Now, would any of these things be a deciding factor in a case against me? Almost certainly not. However, could all of these things or any one of them be used to paint me in a light that might make a jury lean in a direction where they do not give me the benefit of the doubt? Of course.

So, if I find myself on the margin where people can disagree between good shoot or guy going out looking for an excuse to kill someone, I personally would rather stack all of the factors that I have control over in my favor.

[Bang]

We all have to decide our own order of priorities, I suppose.

Speaking for myself, my first priority is being able to stop a threat as quickly as possible, thus increasing the chances of survival for myself and any other person who figures into my threatened situation.

I cannot understand how anyone allows any outsider(s) to establish a different priority. I am not in the least interested in being dead right in the eyes of anyone alive while I am not.

[Bang]

SSHUKER, thanks for your reasoned post and your offering thoughts based upon real experience. I have some thoughts on some of yours:

"I carry 9mm. I never want to exceed the caliber the local police have determined is appropriate. It is pretty tough to demonize the most common caliber and it is pretty tough to say that I got the baddest hand cannon I could because I was fantasizing about killing someone. I have seen the statistics and realize every handgun caliber averages two shots to kill, so I am confident with a 9mm and should have no issue defending that choice. Look to Zimmerman, even with all the shit he caught, the 9mm round was hardly even mentioned."

Being satisfied, after reflection and research, that 9mm will do the job is one thing....but as you travel you are in differing "caliber arenas" where LE variously use .40 S&W, .45 GAP and .45 ACP, so conforming to 9mm as a personal safeguard as to attackable state of mind brings me to being concerned about how the media has vilified the "nine millimeter" on par with "weapons of choice".. As I see it, it could go either way depending on the array

"I carry Hornady Critical Defense and would never carry R.I.P, Hydra-Shok or anything else that has a name that might suggest I stood at a register fantasizing about killing someone. Just think of some libtard on my jury hearing Critical Defense or Radically Invasive Projectile and the different picture that paints in their mind of me standing at a counter buying it."

I'm having a problem reconciling what seems a clashing of reasoning. Help?

[Sshuker]

We all have to decide our own order of priorities, I suppose.

Speaking for myself, my first priority is being able to stop a threat as quickly as possible, thus increasing the chances of survival for myself and any other person who figures into my threatened situation.

Not even disagreeing. That is my priority as well. There are many options that keep that priority though. Some would look better than others to a libtard jury. I see defending my actions as a continuation of the self defense situation. Not only do I want to be the one alive, but I would also like to continue leading my normal life and not just be alive in jail. Surviving the jury is a part of your self defense plan that should not be an afterthought.

I cannot understand how anyone allows any outsider(s) to establish a different priority. I am not in the least interested in being dead right in the eyes of anyone alive while I am not.

I think your missing that I am talking about the situation where there is no agreement that you are 'dead right'. When the situation of the shooting is 'dead right', you will have no issue with dual .44 magnums hand-loaded 50% over max with poop-dipped explosive projectiles.

My priority is to defend my life, not just stay alive. It is naive to ignore how your self defense plan will look to a jury that may be asked to decide if you should spend time in jail.

[Sshuker]

SSHUKER, thanks for your reasoned post and your offering thoughts based upon real experience. I have some thoughts on some of yours:

"I carry 9mm. I never want to exceed the caliber the local police have determined is appropriate. It is pretty tough to demonize the most common caliber and it is pretty tough to say that I got the baddest hand cannon I could because I was fantasizing about killing someone. I have seen the statistics and realize every handgun caliber averages two shots to kill, so I am confident with a 9mm and should have no issue defending that choice. Look to Zimmerman, even with all the shit he caught, the 9mm round was hardly even mentioned."

Being satisfied, after reflection and research, that 9mm will do the job is one thing....but as you travel you are in differing "caliber arenas" where LE variously use .40 S&W, .45 GAP and .45 ACP, so conforming to 9mm as a personal safeguard as to attackable state of mind brings me to being concerned about how the media has vilified the "nine millimeter" on par with "weapons of choice".. As I see it, it could go either way depending on the array

I would just rather defend the smaller 9mm round as the most common round produced, carried and fired then find myself in a place and situation where my round is larger than the cop testifying at my trial.

I am not sure I agree that there is media vilification of the 9mm, but any media vilification of the 9mm is easily rationalized for a jury since it is by far the caliber most produced and therefore most likely to be encountered.

"I carry Hornady Critical Defense and would never carry R.I.P, Hydra-Shok or anything else that has a name that might suggest I stood at a register fantasizing about killing someone. Just think of some libtard on my jury hearing Critical Defense or Radically Invasive Projectile and the different picture that paints in their mind of me standing at a counter buying it."

I'm having a problem reconciling what seems a clashing of reasoning. Help?

I do not see the clash of reasoning. If I end up in front of that jury, I want my choices for my self defense plan to seem reasonable because reasonable is the standard that I am being measured by. The cop on the stand will have a hard time convincing anyone that my choice of 9mm shows more intent to go out looking for a reason to kill than the .40 on his hip. The name Critical Defense vs R.I.P. just sends the same message that this was all a comprehensive and thought out self defense plan and not my plan for how to kill someone if I ever got the chance.

[Sshuker]

I want to add this without editing the prior post as we are both online and you may be replying to the prior post as I type this.

I am not saying my thought process is the only right one or even the best one.

I am saying that you should have a thought process in your comprehensive self defense plan.

Be able to verbalize your choice of caliber, gun, holster, times you carry or don't, how much time you spend at the range...

Be able to make that comprehensive plan roll off your tongue in a way that is hard to make you sound like someone who is just waiting for the opportunity to kill someone.

Consider how each of those choices will sound to a libtard on a jury.

You want to come off as the most reasonable guy in the room when given time to make the decision, so that if your actions in an emergency situation are being questioned, you get the benefit of the doubt.

[wanneroo]

I guess you are screwed then if you use "Critical Offense" ammo

I think a lot of it matters where you live. People here in mountain, rural PA are not going to care about such things such as reloads or what type of ammo you use. If a heroin junky kicks your door down at 2 AM with a knife in his hand, absolutely no one will care what you shoot him with. It's irrelevant to the issue at hand whether it's justified or not. Assuming that bizarrely ended up in some trial and it came up that you shot the guy with a reload, WELL, probably half of the jury reloads themselves, so good luck with that angle.

Also I have yet to see anyone cite PA law that has anything to do with the type of bullet you shot them with, how and when you carry, or any other such details in regards to whether a defensive shoot was justified or not. Until I see such a thing, I believe this is a mythical creation in people's minds.

[Bang]

Yes, there was a chronological lag introduced, my bad :-)

Actually, my first post was just a general post to the thread, not to anyone in particular.

I was wondering how you can buy and carry Critical Defense and also acknowledge that a libtard hearing the words Critical Defense might think the worst. It kind of self-cancels by being the opposite to what you were describing before. If you don't see it, it's understandable...that's why it is inadvisable to proof-read one's own writings :-)

I'm just concerned about so many street stories (urban legends if you prefer) guiding people, like the one I cited in another thread about when I was a teen everyone in the neighborhood "knew" about a guy with a black belt who "had to register with police" because he was regarded as a "weapon".