Custom Handgun just as bad as Handloads for protection?

I must be missing something, I didn't find any case of a self defense shooting where a civilian carrying a concealed weapon had an issue in court because of a custom handgun.
So now you're going to limit it not just to custom handguns used for self-defense but also to shootings involving custom handguns used ONLY by civilians, and ONLY if they are concealed weapons.

I thought you said that it had never happened. Your attempt to try to limit the scope of the discussion at this point strongly suggests that you actually do know of cases where custom handguns have been an issue in court and you're trying to restrict things so as to try to avoid having to discuss those cases.

Here's a guy who posted in the middle of his court case.

http://smith-wessonforum.com/concea...ying-gun-used-self-defense.html#post135838596

"The gun I used was a slightly modified 4006TSW. By slightly modified I mean I added night sights, a light, had the feed ramp and breechface polished and added a lighter hammer spring . All this was done by S&W at my request. Everything I mentioned above has been brought into question by the plaintiff's attorney to make it sound like I did these things because I wanted to kill the deceased..."

Here's another person who was told by his police department that he must "not do a thing to this weapon, leave it as it is, or face discipline!". The context was that the PD was concerned about their liability. If a police department is concerned about liability, shouldn't we be concerned too? After all, few of us have the resources to defend against a lawsuit that even a small police department has at their disposal.
http://forums.officer.com/t129352/#post1975321

I already mentioned the Luis Alvarez case.
http://nframeforum4812.yuku.com/sreply/16419/---trouble---grip-safety---Centennial-
http://www.xdtalk.com/forums/general-sa-xd-xd-m-talk/50734-xd-trigger-work-ccw-11.html#post757695

One thing people often don't understand is that for plaintiffs and lawyers looking for the big payoff, insurance companies are the targets. Here's the kicker. An insurance company isn't liable for the consequences of your decision to use deadly force in self-defense, but they often ARE liable if someone is injured or killed accidentally on your property.

That is why civil suits aimed at home defenders are often crafted to try to make the shooting look accidental. It makes a lot of sense for us to take this into account and to make sure that the guns we plan to use for self-defense don't play well to the tune that an unscrupulous lawyer will be singing to the jury.
Saying that it "will" happen or that it is a "reality" is ridiculous.
It is reality that it can happen because it has happened. I don't believe I, nor anyone else on this thread has said that it "will happen".
 
Here's a guy who posted in the middle of his court case.

That guy himself said "mods on your gun MAY be an issue" not real definitive there.

If a police department is concerned about liability, shouldn't we be concerned too?

Like you said insurance companies are a big fat target for lawyers, and police departments are easy prey, a lot of cops have violated policy, shown poor judgement, and acted as if the law doesn't apply to them, time and time again. The Alvarez case you cited is a perfect example, the city of Miami paid out a Million$ to the family of the kid Alvarez shot.

I already mentioned the Luis Alvarez case

Yes, Alvarez

By most accounts Luis Alvarez was not a good cop.
Alvarez seemed to think that dept. policy did not apply to him, he had violated it long before and right up to the shooting.

The DA in the Alvarez case tried to show that he was reckless in the way he handled his service revolver. Initial witness accounts said he had his gun cocked in single action, like a "cowboy", that! was the basis for the prosecutions claim that he shot the kid accidentally.

There must have been something to it, the Miami police converted all their service revolvers to double action only before this case even went to trial. Many on the police force refered to their converted revolvers as being "Alvarezed", not a big show of respect/concern for a beleaugered colleague is it?
Had Alvarez followed procedure he would not have been at the arcade where the shooting occured. He also didn't follow procedure by not telling dispatch his location (apparently he liked to roust places up and didn't want to explain why he was there).

The fact that he had modified his gun is another example of him violating procedure.

Alvarez was charged in that case because of his conduct a a police officer, very poor. Had he followed procedure that shooting would never have happened.

Portraying Luis Alvarez as a poor cop who was the victim of a hell bent district Attorney is a stretch, a BIG one, one that I can't jump on board with.

Further more.. the Alvarez case could be just as easily cited as an example of how a gun mod has no bearing on the outcome of a trial. The fact that he modified his gun was one of the things the prosecution was able to prove! YET HE WAS STILL AQUITTED!

I agree that civil cases are commom with shootings involving the police, you have cited three. There is a reason for that, a big payday!

Police and civilians are on different ends of the spectrum. Many, many times there have been examples of overzealous cops making very poor choices, unfotunatly the good one's sometimes pay the price.

Luis Alvarez was not a good one.
 
A justifiable shooting is still justifiable no matter what gun or ammo you use. My HD gun is a 6" K38 Masterpeice that has been tuned for DA accuracy, loaded with hand crafted target loads. I use home cast 148 WCs with 3.2 grains of Bullseye. The firearm and load is designed to punch one ragged hole in paper, with very low recoil, not to be some sooperwazooie grizzly bear killer that kicks like a mule and blinds the whole neighborhood with fireball like a mushroom cloud. I choose this combo for accuracy, the gun points like my finger so night sights are not needed, recoil and flash are low and won't blind me in the dark of the night. I live in the city with neighbors 50 feet away and with my target loads over penetration is a non issue. I would love to take on some pencil neck lawyer who thinks I made this combination up for bloodthirsty Vigilante work.
 
A justifiable shooting is still justifiable no matter what gun or ammo you use.

That may be true, but if you find yourself in court it means that someone doesn't think the shooting was justified.
 
Didn't have time to wade through all the responses but here's what I do. I would have no problem carrying a custom if I would afford it. I carry an FA 454 WITH hand loads. I'm not worried about much at this stage of my life. If it's a good shoot it's a good shoot.
 
That may be true, but if you find yourself in court it means that someone doesn't think the shooting was justified.

Very true.

Yet, it seems that every time a case is cited as a "warning" there is always something left out, specifics, if you look closely you will almost always find that there was something "fishy"

I have yet to see a case involving someone in a justified shooting who had an issue with a custom handgun or reloads.
 
Very true.

Yet, it seems that every time a case is cited as a "warning" there is always something left out, specifics, if you look closely you will almost always find that there was something "fishy"

I have yet to see a case involving someone in a justified shooting who had an issue with a custom handgun or reloads.

That's because you'd never hear of the case.

Purely, plainly justified shootings with no arrests and no charges don't make the Collective Consciousness.

Fact is, the shooter doesn't get to decide if it's justified or not. Could be 100% and get charged anyway. Could be cold-blooded murder and they get off with a defense claim.

The world is a messy place. Shooting someone doesn't make it less messy. There's simply no reason to add to the variables.
 
That's because you'd never hear of the case.

Purely, plainly justified shootings with no arrests and no charges don't make the Collective Consciousness.

Fact is, the shooter doesn't get to decide if it's justified or not. Could be 100% and get charged anyway. Could be cold-blooded murder and they get off with a defense claim.

The world is a messy place. Shooting someone doesn't make it less messy. There's simply no reason to add to the variables.

I am sorry Brian..but...

That may be the most vague thing I have heard.

What we need are specifics.
 
A lot of the reason for using factory loads is that it gives the forensics people a known standard. In fact they can probably get a sample of the ammunition from the same lot through the manufacturer so that any argument about the ammunition becomes a moot point as it is a proven factory load and not something "special."

Both defense attorneys and prosecutors play chess games with each other from the start of a trial. I was selected as a juror for five (5) separate criminal cases - this must be a near all-time record for one person on two weeks of jury duty. Why was I selected so many times? Very simple. I'm male, caucasion, over 60 years old, work in a technical occupation, and listed my political party affiliation as Republican.

I was the prosecuting attorney's prime pick to sit in the front row of the jury box each time directly across from the defense table during jury questioning. I was never asked one question by either the defense attorney or prosecuting attorney during any voir dire. In fact, I was pointedly ignored. Both attorneys knew what the game was.

I was always immediately tossed off the jury by the defense attorney as one of their peremtory challenges. That's exactly why I was there - to make the defense attorney waste a peremtory challenge simply because of their misperception of my ability to be impartial based on age, looks, education, job, and political affiliation.

And that's just day one in court....frankly, if you're a defendant you're fighting an uphill battle - you wouldn't be there if the legal system wasn't trying to determine if you're a criminal or not.

From my two week stint as the prosecutor's prime peremtory pawn - I'd advise there's a game afoot even before you get to court. Don't give them any help in any way. I carry a stock Sig RCS with factory ammunition - not much for the gamesters to start with and I intend on keeping it that way.
 
Yet, it seems that every time a case is cited as a "warning" there is always something left out, specifics, if you look closely you will almost always find that there was something "fishy"

The problem is, you can't guarantee that there won't be some detail that will appear odd, suspicious, or "fishy" to the police and/or DA if you're involved in a shooting. The fact of the matter is that neither you, I, nor anybody else can control every possible detail of the world around us and that circumstances entirely beyond our control may look "fishy" to an outside observer.

I concede that it's likely true that in a clear-cut, black-and-white, unquestionably justified case of self-defense that custom guns and ammo probably won't make a difference because the authorities probably won't be inspecting the hardware all that closely in the first place. Unfortunately, we don't live in a clear-cut, black-and-white world and what may be perfectly obvious to one person might be a complete mystery or "fishy" to another.

Look, I'm not totally against customization as I've made reference to several times. All I'm saying is that gun/ammo choices including customization thereof should be looked at from a benefit vs. risk standpoint. Customizations such as improved sights, accurized barrels, smoothed (though not lightened) triggers, and work which improves reliability represent much more benefit than risk IMHO. However, features like overly light triggers and ridiculous images or slogans represent little, if any, benefit but a whole lot of risk.

Likewise, I think that in most cases handloads represent too little benefit for too much risk. Modern premium ammunition for most common handgun cartridges is excellent in terms of both terminal performance and reliability. The only significant advantage I can see to handloads is cost, but I've yet to meet anyone who could afford a quality gun but not at least a few boxes of quality ammunition. On the risk side, however, I think handloads are quite problematic because of possible discrepancies in gunshot residue. While not a case of self-defense, the Bias case did illustrate how handloads can contradict a defendant's story when GSR is brought into evidence.

The only cases in which I would consider handloads to be advisable for self-defense would be if the cartridge was a particularly odd or rare one for which good quality factory ammo is generally unavailable. I do admit that I own one gun for which I'd use handloads before factory ammo, but that is because the cartridge for which it's chambered (.38 S&W) has only a few types of factory ammo available and the terminal performance of all of them can only be described as abysmal.
 
Right, well just about everything in your life may come to pass in a court case where you are being charged with homicide (at whatever level) if either the prosecution or defense can work it into their arguments. In business law (of all places) we discussed a case where it was claimed that the guy accused of breaking into a company and stealing proprietary information knew that he would leave footprints that could be traced back to him and so he wore shoes that were too large so as to help hide his identity. In reality, the guy was indigent and if he found a set of shoes in the garbage that were better than what he had on his feet, he traded up, even if the shoes didn't fit properly.

Heaven forbid that you ever end up in a self defense shooting against your spouse's ex and you happen to be wearing all black and the shooting takes place at night because the prosecution could argue that you were dressed in that manner so as to not be seen when you shot the other man.

People worry a lot about giving ammunition to the opposition. Harold Fish had hollowpoint ammo and the prosecution made a big deal out of that. His caliber was 10mm and they made a big deal out of that. So does that mean you won't use 10mm or hollowpoint ammo?

Of course, the argument is that a good defense attorney should have been able to squash such extraopolations, and one should, but that doesn't mean it will happen in your case. So then what are you going to do?

Likewise, I think that in most cases handloads represent too little benefit for too much risk.

While I completely agree with this, I also have a certain amount of respect for those folks who don't trust factory ammo. There are examples of factory ammo that was problematic in regard to everything from improper powder loads (for which there have been recalls), seating issues, missing flash holes, inverted slugs, inverted primers, out of round, etc. Such folks feel that if they can't inspect all of the components going into a round, then they don't want to trust their life to it. Over the course of 8 years or so and maybe 2000 rounds, I had 4 Federal Hydrashok rounds that were problematic. Two of the problems were visible via casual examination. Two were not.

So no doubt everything will be scrutinized and things that you didn't even think might be an issue can become an issue.
 
That guy himself said "mods on your gun MAY be an issue" not real definitive there.
What IS definitive is that he's in the middle of a court case being sued and one of the issues is the modifications on his gun.
Further more.. the Alvarez case could be just as easily cited as an example of how a gun mod has no bearing on the outcome of a trial. The fact that he modified his gun was one of the things the prosecution was able to prove! YET HE WAS STILL AQUITTED!
He was acquitted, in large part because he was able to get a high-powered expert witness to testify on his behalf. Had that not happened, it's likely that the outcome would have been different.

And even if it hadn't, the fact that these issues were raised, complicated his defense and cost him more time and money.

The real lesson is that some plastic grips and a couple of missing coils off his trigger return spring cost him money, time and considerable worry.
I agree that civil cases are commom with shootings involving the police, you have cited three. There is a reason for that, a big payday!
If a lawyer thinks he has a good chance of making a citizen's self-defense shooting in his own home look accidental, he'll be in for a big payday too because an accidental death will get a citizen's homeowner's insurance company involved and insurance companies have deep pockets.
Yet, it seems that every time a case is cited as a "warning" there is always something left out, specifics, if you look closely you will almost always find that there was something "fishy"
The problem is that you won't be the one who gets to decide what qualifies as "fishy". It will be a DA and a grand jury and then, later, probably a civil jury. You can make it harder for those people to make your shooting look "fishy" or you can make it easy for them. It's not hard to figure out which option will work out the best for you.
I would love to take on some pencil neck lawyer who thinks I made this combination up for bloodthirsty Vigilante work.
Unless you're independently wealthy and don't have to work for a living you certainly wouldn't love it.
 
People worry a lot about giving ammunition to the opposition. Harold Fish had hollowpoint ammo and the prosecution made a big deal out of that. His caliber was 10mm and they made a big deal out of that. So does that mean you won't use 10mm or hollowpoint ammo?

Right, where does it stop?
An overzealous D.A. can make an issue out of anything. Should we be scared of every aspect of gun ownership? Should we let our fears (real or imagined) limit our ability to protect ourselves to the best extent possible?

Just because someone says night sites are ok because you can get an "expert" to testify for you, does it mean that that expert will be effective? Will he convince that soccer mom on the jury that hates guns that your not a gun toting nut?
Same with a laser.
a high cap auto
high dollar ammo like Cor-Bon DPX
An Apex trigger on your M&P (or similiar)
Heck, the simple fact of carrying a gun itself!! should we stop doing that?


The real lesson is that some plastic grips and a couple of missing coils off his trigger return spring cost him money, time and considerable worry.

I think his questionable conduct and the fact that he killed someone had a lot to do with that also.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if the D.A. in the Alvarez case brought the charges against him before he even knew about the gun mods. In the whole context of that case it was Alvarez's actions that cost him, not a modification. Had Alvarez conducted himself professionally and not used his badge to let himself behave anyway he wanted, he would have had no worries.
 
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JohnKSa said:
He was acquitted, in large part because he was able to get a high-powered expert witness to testify on his behalf. Had that not happened, it's likely that the outcome would have been different...complicated his defense and cost him more time and money
So, reality in court seems to lie in who has the better paid testimony/representation; as opposed to the actual issues/truth.
357 Terms said:
An overzealous D.A. can make an issue out of anything.
Is the glass half
A) full
B) empty
C) none of the above
D) all of the above

Is the person:
enthusiastic or obstructive
tolerant or undisciplined
generous or short-sighted
self-assured or bossy
determined or wasteful
patient or stubborn
dedicated or greedy

You don't need to give an opposing side anything in a courtroom, they already have the English language and with enough "motivation" they will do whatever it takes for their side to "win".

In my opinion do what you need to do, if lightening strikes... it strikes... you still need to be able to live with yourself regardless of lightening strike or not. And really what are the odds...

Prepared is good, spending my life worrying about what the District Attorney's stance on Hornady versus Remington versus handloads and Glock LEO issue versus customized Colt 1911s is not high on my to do list.
YMMV
 
An overzealous D.A. can make an issue out of anything. Should we be scared of every aspect of gun ownership? Should we let our fears (real or imagined) limit our ability to protect ourselves to the best extent possible?

Just because someone says night sites are ok because you can get an "expert" to testify for you, does it mean that that expert will be effective? Will he convince that soccer mom on the jury that hates guns that your not a gun toting nut?
Same with a laser.
a high cap auto
high dollar ammo like Cor-Bon DPX
An Apex trigger on your M&P (or similiar)
Heck, the simple fact of carrying a gun itself!! should we stop doing that?

You're right, an overzealous D.A. can make an issue of anything and I don't believe that anyone's disputed that. The point we're trying to make here is that, when considering customization of your gun, you should be considering whether or not the particular customization is worth the increased legal risk associated with it. Lasers, high capacity magazines, hollowpoint ammo, and even some moderate trigger work can all make your choice of weapon more effective and thus increase your chances of surviving a self-defense situation so those attributes are, for the most part, worth the risk. Hair triggers and menacing-looking cosmetics don't give you much, if any, practical advantage so they aren't worth the risk.
 
Custom Handguns: One lawyer's perspective

First, my usual caveat, which I probably shamelessly stole from a post by another attorney on this board.

Caveat: I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. What I'm about to say is not legal advice. It is merely commentary, but I've spent ~9 years in litigation, so I'm not totally unfamiliar with the processes involved.

Not to long ago, I read a quote that said, "if there's a fair fight, then I was unprepared." I don't recall who wrote it, but it wasn't me, and I like it. That is how I approach the issue of both SD and the legal aftermath. If it's a fair fight, I was unprepared.

If I remember correctly, this whole thread started with the question of whether using a custom gun for SD is as bad as handloads. For me, there's no simple "yes or no" answer to that. The issue is more one of risk management.

In our daily lives, each and every one of us weighs risks and rewards, often without thinking much about it. Example: Do I go to work each day? Yes, because the risk of losing my job outweighs the reward of staying home and throwing the Frisbee with my dog. By the same token, everyone who carries a pistol for SD has made a similar decision: The risk of being caught unarmed outweighs the reward of having a slightly easier time arranging our clothing to accomodate concealed carry (for example). Once this decision is made, then several questions follow:
1) What will I carry?
2) How will I carry it?
3) What will I put in it?

Under the theory of the "fair fight" laid out above, as I answer these questions, two of my goals is to make it as hard as humanly possible for the prosecution or the potential plaintiff's civil attorney to win; and place as many tools as I can at my attorney's disposal.

Down in L&CR, I created an archive thread as a repository for all of the threads that we see on SD & handloads. It's stickied at the top of the page, and just about every argument that can be made for or against handloads has been made in one or more of the threads linked there. Accordingly, I'm not going to go on ad nauseum (sp?) on handloads, at least not this time. Just a couple of quick comments.

First, as has been pointed out:
A) It is not the shooter that decides if the shoot was justified or not; and
B) If you're in court, someone doesn't think it was*.

*(In some cases, you may be faced simply with a plaintiff's attorney trying to shake out a settlement. It's not exactly the glamorous side of the legal profession, but it would be disingenuous of me to claim that it doesn't happen.)

Second, the risks posed by handloads are qualitatively different from those posed by custom guns. It's a question of "what kind of risk am I assuming by using them," not one of "how much risk am I assuming by using them." The latter is a quantitative assessment. The handload risk is an evidentiary one. By using handloads, you run the risk that certain evidence beneficial to the shooter may be excluded. The Daniel Bias case is an example. Now, before someone jumps in and says, "that's not a SD shooting case," I'll concede that. It's not. That's not relevant, though, because the rules of evidence are the same, regardless of whether the case is a criminal trial, an SD shooting, a quiet title action or a divorce. What's more, the Bias rulings (excluding the GSR evidence from the defendant's handloads) are consistent with my knowledge of the rules of evidence.

Custom guns, on the other hand, are a different beast in the courtroom. From an evidentiary perspective, and barring something relatively rare, such as having the shooter's pistol explode, the gun is not destroyed in the shooting. That means that it's available for testing both by the prosecution and defense. So the gun, custom or stock, does not suffer from the same evidentiary infirmities that handloads do.

The other risks involved with custom guns tend to be what I think of as "perception risks," and involve the prosecutor's, judge's and jury's perceptions. They will be used by the finder of fact both to determine what kind of person the shooter is, and his credibility. I cannot control their past experiences and prejudices, but I can control what is available for them to see.

The risks involved with a custom gun vary with the types of modifications made. Better feeding by polishing the feed ramp? That's a "function modification," and it's not too hard to make a jury understand how that works. Better sights? Same thing. Engraving "watch for flash" right below the bore? Or "kill them all and let God sort them out?" Those things add nothing in terms of functionality, and are easily used to give a jury the impression that the shooter was out looking for a reason to kill someone. Triggers are slightly trickier, in that smoothing out a trigger can be justified on function. A competent lawyer can get a jury to understand the shooter's position that he had his trigger smoothed out because: (a) he's a better shooter with a smoother trigger; thus (b) reducing the risk of missing his target; and thus (c) endangering bystanders with the stray round. A lighter trigger, on the other hand, is only justifiable to a point. The shooter can claim that he is a better shooter with a lighter trigger, the same as outlined for the smoother trigger, but (and this is a big "but") at some point, the trigger can be so light that the prosecutor or the plaintiff's civil lawyer may well claim that the shooter just pointed the gun at the target and accidentally shot the target. To say that such a claim cannot happen is folly. There are simply too many variables involved (evidence, state law, castle or SYG laws, and of course, the facts of the shooting) to make such a pronouncement.

For me, it's not a matter of fearing the lawyers or the lawsuits. As much time as I spend in courts and around lawyers, I'm not afraid of them. I do, however, respect how much financial damage one could do if I were to be successfully sued over an SD shooting. For that matter, even if I were to be unsuccessfully sued over an SD shooting, my own legal bills could far outweigh what I can afford. So I don't want a fair fight. If there must be a legal fight of any sort, I want it quick, I want it cheap, and I want to win.
 
As far as cases - you may recall that Chris Cox in the American Rifleman mentions a self-defense claim that the NRA is involved in. The defendant was a competitive shooter and the DA suggested that this indicated premeditation. The defendant was convicted and sentenced to life.

An appeal seems in the works. However, the decisions are based on all the factors. We know appearance issues influence such. No reason to add to such unnecessarily and it seems very important that a lawyer be deeply cognizant of such issues.

A friend of mine is an expert witness and makes quite a bit of money testifying. Even if you win a good shoot, the cost of the witness alone will exceed most custom handguns, unless you are carrying the USS Missouri.

PS - for the crowd that thinks what you say on the Internet won't interfer with your good shoot - check out how they dug up some real crap that George Zimmerman posted on myspace back in 2005 or 2006 ish, if I heard correctly. DON'T DISCUSS THAT CASE HERE in specifics. I was just pointed out how a good shoot may not be so good and what happens when they are after you.
 
So, reality in court seems to lie in who has the better paid testimony/representation; as opposed to the actual issues/truth.
If there are issues then you're going to need experts and good ones to make those issues go away.
An overzealous D.A. can make an issue out of anything.
So why do we have people arguing that if a shoot is justified, then the modifications to the gun won't be an issue.

If an overzealous DA can make an issue out of anything then he can certainly make an issue out of a modified gun!

The point is that you can hand him issues on a silver platter to make his job easier (and your case more complicated and expensive) or you can make him work hard to dig up issues. It's not hard to see which option works out better for you, and it's not hard to see that the harder he has to work to invent issues, the harder it will be to sell them to a jury.

By the way, I don't have any way of comparing the relative legal risks of handloaded ammunition and customized guns so I'm not even attempting to answer the original question. I'm just responding to the easily disprovable claims that modified guns can't ever and/or haven't ever been a legal issue in court.
 
By the way, I don't have any way of comparing the relative legal risks of handloaded ammunition and customized guns so I'm not even attempting to answer the original question. I'm just responding to the easily disprovable claims that modified guns can't ever and/or haven't ever been a legal issue in court.
So, it is all rather moot then; unless we are discussing theoretically.
Original question is not quantifiable.
Modified guns can be an issue, again not realistically quantifiable.
However, the norm would suggest that these have not been or are not currently prevalent issues; but probably a very small minority of outliers.

And yes, I personally don't really want to be the "crash test dummy" in court, or for a direct meteorite strike for that matter either, yet at the same time this is far down on my list of concerns. The squirrel that is attempting to make a home in my roof, where some of my home wiring lies, is a bigger threat to me and my personal well being at the moment.
YMMV
 
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