Guys,
A lot of times when this is discussed or argued online, people don't seem to understand where the argument comes from. It's very easy to build up a straw man that you don't even realize is a straw man, and then knock it down as the silliness that it is. But I think when we understand why the advice is actually given, that can make a big difference in how we understand the issues in play.
A foundational point: I don't believe anyone who has done the research actually believes that anyone would be convicted
FOR using handloads. There isn't a jurisdiction in America where handloading is illegal and there sure aren't any laws on the books anywhere that I'm aware of where it says that using a handload sends you to jail. So if you want to understand the deal, get that idea out of your mind because it just isn't the source of this advice and it just isn't going to happen.
Sometimes people say something like, "Well, as long as the shooting itself is justified, that's all that matters." And that's absolutely true. But... The cops and prosecutors don't just walk up on a situation and sign off on it. First they have to
find out what happened. Investigators investigate. They might be sympathetic, they might be hostile, but in either case their jobs require them to get the facts and then compare those facts against the law of the land. And if any part of the facts are even slightly muddy or ambiguous, they will keep looking until they find more information. Further, the way the system is set up, it often happens that the investigators spend most of their time and most of their energy looking for "inculpatory evidence" (that is, evidence that would tend to prove someone's guilt) than they do looking for "exculpatory evidence" (evidence that would tend to prove innocence). This isn't malicious; it's simply the way the system works. Cops and prosecutors get paid to find criminals and bring them to justice. That's the job. So when you hear someone say, "As long as the shooting itself is justified," that person has just skimmed right past the most important concept of all:
the shooting isn't justified until the cops and prosecutors say it's justified.
Of course, if you commit murder and get tried for murder and convicted of murder, that's one thing. But if you reasonably and vigorously defend your life in a somewhat muddled or confusing set of circumstances, and someone dies as a result, that's when you end up in court and that's when all of this comes into play.
As one example of a muddled or confusing circumstance (handloads weren't involved, but ambiguity certainly was), read the defendant's statement at the conclusion of the first Harold Fish trial:
here, then poke around that site until you get an understanding of the case. THIS is what a self-defense case looks like in court. Is it pretty? No. There are lots of good, gun-carrying people serious about self defense who (even today!) think Harold Fish was guilty of murder. Why do they think that? Because the man was tried and convicted in a court of law. But there are also lots of people who’ve looked at the facts in the case who think the man should never have been charged at all, let alone convicted—that it was a clear, simple case of fully justified self defense. And yet he has gone through hell trying to clear his name. THIS is what self defense looks like when it gets to court!
Here's another example of what self defense looks like in court:
http://www.armedcitizensnetwork.org/images/stories/journal/Network_2010-9.pdf . Read the entire thing: THIS is what self defense looks like in court.
Does it always look like that? Nope. Sometimes things go perfectly and everyone understands that the defender simply did what they had to do and that's the end of it.
But sometimes it does look like that. Sometimes the circumstances are muddy. Sometimes there's a prosecutor up for election and needing to make a name for himself. Sometimes the attacker's family has enough political pull to get a huge furball going and keep it going. Whatever. Sometimes it looks like that.
You don't know in advance what kind of circumstance you might end up in. If you have a nice clear case, it can still go south. If you've got an ambiguous or questionable one, it can go a lot further south a whole lot faster. Either way, the only smart thing to do is to be prepared to deal with
either type of situation. Just as you carry a firearm to defend your life in the gravest extreme, it’s worthwhile to arm yourself with knowledge so you can defend your freedom in the worst circumstances.
And that brings us back to handloads. Okay, it's true that a malicious prosecutor can make a big deal out of your "killer" handloads. That's obvious. But it's equally obvious that there are things you can say in response to that: you can say it's about the money, you can say it's convenience, you can say your pistol was tuned to be most accurate with custom ammunition, you can say they were
light loads rather than heavy ones. Whatever. But the point is,
the prosecutor can bring it up at trial.
Think of the trial as a sort of seesaw: if there's enough weight on one end of the scale, you get convicted. If there's enough weight on the other end, you go free. Then realize that every single thing the prosecutor puts on his end of the scale is something your attorney has to knock back off the scale--and that's
before your attorney can add any weight to your own side. So your attorney can spend a whole lot of time and energy swatting away at pesky issues on the prosecution side without ever giving the jury any reason to set you free.
Sometimes attorneys have bad days, and miss knocking one of those weights off the scale. Sometimes they don't realize it's there. Sometimes they see it, but they don't know how "heavy" the thing will be when the jury looks at it. Whatever it is, when it gets into the trial, it also goes into the jury room. And no matter how heavy the evidence on your own side is, the more stuff there is piled on the other end of the scale, the easier it is for the jury to say, "Well, we can't quite tell what the facts are, but we can see what kind of person the defendant is! Look at this, this, this, and that--he's not a good person, let's convict him based on our gut feelings." And nobody in the entire system can second guess a jury. They debate in private and make their decisions based on everything they've been shown.
All of that adds up to, it is absolutely to your advantage to keep unnecessary stuff out of the jury room. Every single little issue that makes you look worse to the jury
can absolutely affect the final outcome. So it might just be in your best interest to cut off that line of attack by using factory loads, or even by using loads that the police themselves use. That makes knocking that weight off the scale a simple, two-sentence move that requires no effort from your lawyer and no work for the jury to understand. It’s a slam dunk.
Personally, I love shooting reloads because I’m a cheapskate. It’s all I shoot in practice and if I had to shoot only factory ammunition I sure couldn’t shoot as much as I do. But I won’t carry handloads for defense, for this reason:
I want my attorney to have every possible advantage at trial.
One of the advantages that factory loads give the attorney at trial is this: the opportunity to introduce physical, forensic evidence that can
prove the distance between me and the attacker if necessary. When you use a factory load, you’ve got the opportunity to call up the factory and ask for an exemplar of the same product run as the one you used. Your people can test it, note the gun powder residue patterns, the ballistic factors, all of that. It can be introduced into court and it’s unimpeachable.
But when you use handloads, that evidence simply won’t be available to you. Even if you keep absolutely perfect and pristine records (you should!), it’s extremely unlikely that the judge will allow you to manufacture evidence for your own trial. Your handloads won't be admitted at trial because you have manufactured or created the evidence yourself.
What about the rounds left in the gun? Couldn’t they test those? Those are unambiguously part of the crime scene and obviously they are what you used. So couldn't they use those for ballistic testing? Sure, they could—but they won’t. Firing the rounds to test how they behave destroys the rounds. That would be “destruction of evidence” and it’s every bit as unlikely as them allowing you to manufacture evidence to clear yourself. Either which way, if you need that ballistic or residue evidence, but it isn’t available, that’s one less thing you can give the jury to help them set you free.
Anyway, that’s the basis of the "no reloads" advice. To me it seems pretty compelling, but of course it’s your choice. Personally, I want to be readily prepared to deal with the
worst self defense situation, and not just the easy ones.
pax
PS-- I'm not an attorney and this is simply my researched, layman's understanding of how it works. I do have a certificate that says I'm qualified to teach Ayoob's Judicious Use of Deadly Force material, which is where a lot of this information comes from. Do your own research!
