Question for the 1911 guys?

[STAGE 2]

And yet the issues are brought up in court all the time, especially if there is a civil lawsuit.

I don't know if I'd say all the time, but even if we split the difference and say semi-frequently, what does that tell you if Ayoob or anyone else that parrots this stuff can't point to a single case where someone was convicted of an otherwise good shoot because of a gun modification.

Ayoob for example always gives specific court cases where the issue came up, and while a jury may see through the BS opposing council is trying to sell, every minute spent in the courtroom is costing the defendant $$$, Look at Kyle Rittenhouse, ya think the fact he used an "evil assault rifle" in an otherwise good shoot scenario factored in at all in the prosecution and trial? How many hours/days less of lawyer fees ya suppose Kyle would not have had to pay if all that idiot prosecutor had to wave around and point at the Jury was a S&W model 10?

If you think that the type of firearm Rittenhouse used would have made his legal bill any more or less tells me that you're not an attorney and have never been involved with a jury trial, either civil or criminal. However your example is very
telling, because Rittenhouse used a factory AR to defend himself not unlike many people would do here. Yet you dont see Ayoob writing articles saying dont use an AR to defend yourself because a prosecutor might use it against you. We have a concrete example here (even though it didn't result in a conviction). So why wouldn't he do it even though it was there for everyone to see? Could it possibly have anything to do with pissing off companies who generate advertising revenue? I wonder...

And I seem to recall the prosecutor talking about how hollowpoints were designed to explode inside someone. Seems he thinks ammo is an issue.

Yup. That was an Issue in the Harold Fish case as well. So once again, we have concrete examples of prosecutors using this against defendants in court. But again, Ayoob doesn't write an article warning against using factory HP ammo. Again I wonder why... (how much do you think FederalHornadyWinchesterRemingtonSpeer pay yearly for ads in these magazines).

Ayoob is a court recognized expert witness that has testified in hundreds of trials over the years, mainly for the defense. You don't pay people like him unless there is an issue with your defense that needs some heavy duty explaining, which if he believes the shooting is justified he gives.

I wonder about that part. Despite searching, I can't find any definitive evidence as to how many trials that Ayoob has testified in which is really odd because expert witnesses almost always keep a listing of what cases they have testified in and what attorneys retained them. The reason being is because this is almost always a question that comes up at deposition. So I'm gonna question that statement.

The Alvarez case in Miami was one that stands out as one where gun mods had become an issue...



Then there was the Gary McFadden case where the fact he used a legally owned Ruger AC556 machine gun to kill an attacking motorcycle gang member resulted in a prosecution that likely would not have happened if a "normal" gun had been used. Note the cost of the trial.

Alvarez was a cop, not a private citizen... and he wasn't convicted. McFadden was also (you guessed it) not convicted. So neither of these cases stand for the proposition that a gun modification will land you in the slammer for a good shoot.

BTW, what are the criteria for an "otherwise good shooting"? A guy modifies his gun to have a really light trigger, he shoots an intruder with it. He says he meant to shoot him, self defense. Prosecutor says his "hair trigger" caused the gun to fire "accidentally" ,making it negligent homicide and he came up with the intentional shooting story to cover his butt. Guy is convicted, which way does that go down in the study?

Exactly the way you said it. With a 5 second google search I can literally pull up Ayoobs testimony in the Magliato case all the way back from 1980 something, so this isn't an issue of not having records. The simple fact stands that Ayoob can't cite to a single case where a prosecutor obtained a conviction because someone defended themselves with a modified gun. Not a single one.

What makes this all really silly is the fact that by simply carrying a gun a person increases their potential for legal exposure, both criminal and civil, exponentially, but no one, even Ayoob, has a problem with this. Most people have made the risk assessment that its better to have to deal with a legal aftermath than end up in the morgue. So why act like shaving some ounces off a trigger is going to make any difference when you've sent the ship sailing by deciding to carry a gun in the first place. Cart before the horse if you ask me.

 

[migunner]

Experimented with disabling the grip safety once on a new build using an old used safety. I observed no improvement and installed a new grip safety to return the pistol to it’s original function.
I was admittedly a little skittish when handling that gun while the safety was disabled.

 

[freekforge]

I had a bear that was extremely interested in me for a while so I put some medical tape on the grip safety on my 10mm while I was hiking. I figure a bear nibbling on you might make you grip a little iffy.

 

[88E30M50]

Experimented with disabling the grip safety once on a new build using an old used safety. I observed no improvement and installed a new grip safety to return the pistol to it’s original function.
I was admittedly a little skittish when handling that gun while the safety was disabled.

How would that differ fron an sao CZ or HiPower? I've handled some sao CZs that have a trigger that's every bit as light as a 1911 trigger.

Again, I think that it is a testament to gun owners sense of safety when removing a safety makes someone uncomfortable even though it is no different than what can be bought commercially. This speaks well of the gun community.

If anti-gunners did not exist, I'd like to think that as a society, we'd have done enough training to put that mindset into almost everyone