Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day: Tom Carter

By Johannes Paulsen

One of my regrets is never taking a firearms class from the late Louis Awerbuck. My impression of him is that he brought a deadly seriousness to his classes that only someone who had ‘seen the elephant’ repeatedly – and had lost family members to violence – could. Louis used a deactivated 1911 with a plugged barrel for demonstration purposes while he taught. I recall one of his students testifying that Louis showed the gun to his class, then asked if any of them wanted to examine it. When no one took him up on his offer, he immediately chastised them . . .

They should take no one’s word on a firearm’s state of readiness — not even, and especially his, since he made mistakes just like everyone else. When it comes right down to it, if you’re training and someone is pointing a ‘dummy’ gun at you, you’d better be damned sure that the gun is the dummy, and not you.

That rang in my ears when I read the story of Tom Carter, a member of the Tombstone Vigilantes, a troupe that re-enacts old West gunfights and mock hangings in the town of Tombstone, Arizona. <a class="colorbox" …Read the Rest

Source:: Truth About Guns