by Marty Hayes, J.D.
I wish a happy holiday season to all our members. I am writing this a couple of days after Thanksgiving while sitting in a campground in my RV.
Last week I was at Gunsite Academy where I attended the excellent revolver training event, the Pat Rogers Memorial Revolver Roundup. The Roundup was held the weekend before Thanksgiving, so while in AZ, I can visit my 90-year-old mother for the holiday. I will go to Phoenix on Monday to meet with an attorney, then I’ll head home.
While taking a little personal time, I am still on the job. A few days ago, we had a Network member involved in a self-defense homicide, and my personal time stopped for a couple hours until we got it sorted out. Here is how that went.
On Tuesday afternoon, I received a call from the Network home office on our Boots on the Ground emergency response phone, telling me we had a member involved shooting.
Our member’s daughter had called us after the member told her to contact us to arrange for an attorney to represent him. The daughter was a huge help, both calming her father and relaying information to us about the incident (which will remain confidential at this point).
Fortunately, the shooting occurred in a metropolitan city in which we have several Network Affiliated Attorneys. Which one to choose? In a perfect world, the member would have already consulted the list, and selected one. Well, this is not a perfect world, and since the member was detained by police, I could not speak to him. I received guidance from the daughter, and with help from the Network team, I learned that one of the attorneys had provided a personal cell phone number for me to use in just such emergencies. Gila forwarded his number to my phone, and I called the attorney. Fortune was shining down on the member because the attorney was available to talk to me. We discussed the incident, and I asked him if he could help. He enthusiastically responded in the affirmative, and so I gave him the daughter’s phone number.
It was going well so far. The daughter was still at the scene with her father, so she was able to hook up the attorney and the lead investigator by phone. Within half an hour, I received a text from the attorney telling me no charges would be forthcoming at this time. An hour or so later I got a call from the member, who confirmed he had not been arrested, although we agreed to talk more when he got official word that no charges would be brought. Talk about a perfect resolution!
In a month or two, after it is official that our member is not going to be prosecuted, we will have the attorney work to get the member’s gun back to him, as we have done in similar instances. I do not anticipate publishing detailed reports about the incident, because there is always the threat of a civil suit, and we would not want to do anything to hurt our member’s chances in a civil suit. I did think you would share my pleasure in seeing the Network serve this member exactly as it was designed to do.
In closing, let me share a little taste of a report I want to share with you next month. As mentioned at the beginning, I just attended the Pat Rogers Memorial Revolver Roundup, a yearly gathering of many of the top revolver instructors and about a hundred or so students, and for three days much learning occurs. Next month I will give a complete report, but for now, will leave you with this picture. In it, instructor Caleb Giddings, who was on Top Gun and is now the head of marketing for Taurus Firearms, is demonstrating a drill for the students. I have known Caleb for over 10 years, and am impressed by his growth as an instructor.