Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick Lee
I've done plenty of my own reloading and rarely had any issues other than some loads feeling a lot weaker or more powerful than others in the same batch. But then I was usually drinking while making the ammo  . Still, for legal reasons, I like to carry whatever the local cops carry. It'd be hard for a DA to make a stink about the ammo if it's good enough for the cops.
The Harold Fish case, FWIW, was tried in Coconino County, which is pretty liberal, he had a very bad lawyer and the DA was able to find the 12 most gun-ignorant jurors in AZ. Fish had a great gun and it saved his life. But he spent most of the rest of his life in prison before he was freed due to a change in state law specifically because of his case. No thanks. I think he passed away last year. |
I had not heard of this case, so I did some cursory "google" research (such as that is).
He did spend three years in prison, unjustifiably, before winning his appeal and gaining release. Not really "the rest of his life", although he has since passed away.
It does sound like he was attacked by a prosecutor with an agenda, that's for sure. He was certainly portrayed as a "gun nut", where the violent history of his attacker (a "violence nut"?) was not allowed into evidence. He did stick around to try to help the guy, waiting for authorities, when he could very well have just left (it was a remote area, with no one else around). An obvious miscarriage of justice all the way around. The kind that changes laws.
Nowhere, however, in the half dozen accounts I read (mostly on gun-friendly sites), was it mentioned that his use of handloads was in any way a determining factor in the outcome of his trial. Certainly not
the determining factor, or even one significant enough to be noteworthy. Hell, it's not mentioned at all, at any level, in any of the accounts I just read.
I suspect that's pretty much what Pearce discovered in his far more in-depth research. I would guess this case was examined in the course of that research, as locally famous as it appears to be, coupled with the fact that is resulted in a significant change in the law.
I would also be less than surprised to learn that the mass collective of what passes for modern-day "gun writers" has blown this completely out of proportion, focusing on what they focus on - the gun and load. Probably cheered on by "expert" nitwits like Massad Ayoob, who has made a pretty fair living by being a professional "expert witness" on such matters. He desperately needs to keep these flames fanned, and his adoring followers will simply never contradict him or challenge him, lest they go looking for another gunwriting job.