2005 Texas State IDPA Championship
by
Gary W. Burris
The PSC IDPA Club was the host of the 2005 Texas State IDPA Championship for the fifth year in a row. The club is located a few minutes south of Houston and they hold a monthly IDPA match on the first Saturday of every month. This was the third year that Dale Hunnicutt served as Match Director and I served as Range Master. We worked with the club officers to make this match one of the best yet for Texas.
Again this year we had a large contingent of foreign competitors. They came from far away places with names like Austria, Italy and Slovenia. We Texans have big hearts so we warmly welcomed our “foreign” shooters by flying their country’s flag and making them honorary Texans. Of course, we consider anyone who is not from Texas a foreigner and shooters from other foreign places like Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas were welcomed with their state’s flag.
The scenarios selected this year simulated a wide verity of everyday activities. These include things like getting a hair cut, golfing, riding a bicycle, walking down the street and working out at the gym.
Competitor’s favorite courses of fire included two that challenged their shooting skills. The first was a scenario named “Enchanted Forest”. We collected artificial Christmas trees from garage sales and used them to create a forest of trees. There were only nine shots required in this scenario. It is really amazing how something as simple as a tree can frustrate a shooter.
The second scenario that was a lot of fun to shoot was based on a home invasion. The shooter could see only a little bit of each of the four bad guys and had to neutralize them by shooting through walls. I think a number of shooters went away from this stage with a new understanding of the difference between hard and soft cover.
We invited shooters to shoot with the staff on Friday before the Saturday match. By doing this we can run as many as 1/3 rd of the competitors through and reduce the number of shooters during the regular match day. Every little bit helps to speed things along.
We utilized new match scoring software this year. It generated barcode stickers that the shooters put on their score sheets. This made it very simple to scan and enter data for the shooters.
Again this year we had a killer prize table including a top prize of a Bushmaster AR-15. There were several handguns donated by Glock and others as well as timers, sight systems, gun safes, bullets, holsters and on and on. Without the support of our sponsors the prize table would look pretty lean.
What Were They Thinking?
by
Gary W. Burris
I work in a large office building with a population somewhere between 800 and 1000 people. The building is located near the Galleria in Houston, Texas. I guess you could call it the “high rent” district with duck ponds, a large water fall and high rise condos starting about $1 million.
A few weeks back I noticed that a sign showing a gun inside a circle with a slash through it appeared at the entry doors to our building along with the words, “No concealed handguns allowed.” A side note: such a sign is not legally binding in Texas for Concealed Handgun License holders. My company has a policy of no weapons on company property anyway so why these signs?
After a little investigation I discovered that it was not my company, but the building managers that had the signs installed. And, “What?” might you ask prompted this action? No. A person, such as me, that has a license to legally carry a concealed handgun was not the cause of this action.
It seems there was a cab driver that was shot near the Galleria and three criminals ran different directions from the scene with the police in hot pursuit. One of them ran through our parking lot and in the back door to our building. He went directly to an elevator bank and pushed a button. He was carrying a briefcase and had a handgun concealed in his waistband. He became nervous when the elevator did not immediately appear and quickly departed via the front door. He was promptly captured without incident by the police about half a block away.
This all happened around quitting time and an announcement was made on the building public address system that due to “police activity” in the area that everyone should remain at their assigned work area until notified otherwise. About 15 or 20 minutes later the “all clear” was given and things returned to normal.
As best as I can determine, some grass eater decided that putting these signs on our entry ways would protect us from the criminal element. Beam me up Scotty! Their reasoning boggles the mind. Who knows what they will come up with next.
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