Some thing to ponder..
HANDLOADS FOR SELF-DEFENSE:THE DANIEL BIAS CASE
The Ayoob Files
Situation: Authorities try to determine if a death was suicide, blameless accident, manslaughter, or murder by replicating gunshot residue.
Lessons: Load easily replicable factory rounds in your defense guns … and don’t leave firearms where suicidal people can access them.
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Trouble With Handloads
I decided to focus on this case this month after an interminable discussion that ran over five computer threads on four electronic Internet forums on the subject of liability that can be incurred by using handloads in defensive firearms. I took the position I take here — don’t use handloads in defensive firearms — and challenged those who preferred them to give a tactically sound reason why.
With thousands of views logged, the only reasons for carrying reloads were: “I get an inch at 25 yards with my loads, and only 2" groups with Hydra-Shok.” This, I submit, is not a decisive advantage, and if you think it is, there are many affordable factory handguns that will put five shots in an inch at 25 yards with the right factory ammo. See American Handgunner 2006 Tactical Annual, page 82.
“I save as much as 50 cents a cartridge with my carry reloads.” Balance that against Danny Bias’ sixfigure legal bill in just his first trial, not at all uncommon in murder cases, and factory ammo can be extraordinarily cheap insurance. Once you know your gun feeds with your preferred factory round, you can pretty much duplicate it for practice and get your cost savings there.
“My ammo is more reliable than factory.” One poster noted his pistol had locked up on him when he fired a factory cartridge that didn’t have a flash-hole, a one-in-million occurrence. While you may well be one of those very few who can actually handcraft better ammo, is it enough to warrant the liability it brings? And when you’re accused of handloading “to make deadlier ammo” (as happened in another case, N.H. v. James Kennedy), can you convince a jury of 12 lay people you make better cartridges by yourself, after work, with a few thousand dollars worth of hobbyist equipment, than is produced at a vast ammunition factory with quality control and trained engineers?
The “regular bullets weren’t deadly enough for you” argument is not the big reason I recommend against handloads for defense. The forensic replicability factor is the main reason. Listen to John Lanza, who had to fight for Danny Bias’ future in court.
“When a hand load is used in an incident which becomes the subject of a civil or criminal trial, the duplication of that hand load poses a significant problem for both the plaintiff or the prosecutor and the defendant. Once used, there is no way, with certainty, to determine the amount of powder or propellant used for that load. This becomes significant when forensic testing is used in an effort to duplicate the shot and the resulting evidence on the victim or target. Stippling or powder residue, and its amount, would relate to the distance between the barrel of the firearm and the victim or target. Lack of powder residue would reflect a distant shot as opposed to the presence of powder residue which would reflect or prove a close shot,” explains Attorney Lanza, who adds, “With the commercial load, one would be in a better position to argue the uniformity between the loads used for testing and the subject load.”
When I asked Elizabeth Smith about the handload crippling Danny’s defense, she replied, “You’re certainly right about that. Gunshot residue was absolutely the focus of the first trial. The prosecution kept going back to the statement, ‘It couldn’t have happened the way he said it did.’”
For several years, certain “Net Ninjas” have been spreading the false belief that no one has ever gotten in trouble in court from using handloads. Now you know better. The records of the N.J. v. Daniel N. Bias trials are archived at the Superior Court of New Jersey, Warren County, 313 Second Street, P.O. Box 900, Belvedere, NJ 97823. Those wishing to follow his appellate process can begin with the Atlantic Reporter at 142 NJ 572, 667 A.2d 190 (Table). The only reason handloads have not been a factor in more cases is that most people who go in harm’s way are already smart enough not to use them for defense.
