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controversial attorney’s suit before
Baca dropped him with his own .32-20
S&W “Hand-Ejector” model pistol.
The dapper young Elfego Baca, shown here as he
would have looked around the time of the Frisco
War, with his preferred sidearm the Colt Single
Action .45. Art by Jesse L. “Wolf” Hardin.
Finally, James Cook and the newly
arrived Deputy Ross of Socorro convinced
Baca to come out, personally
guaranteeing his safety. With both
guns in hand and every cowboy’s rifle
trained on his chest, Elfego slowly approached
to make his truce. Yes, he
would surrender, but only if he could
keep his weapons, travel in the back of
a buckboard with his and McCarty’s
Colts, and with all accompanying cowhands
keeping at least 30 feet behind
them for the entire trip to the Socorro
courthouse! The ever-blessed Baca
even missed an ambush planned for him
on route, when two different groups of
avengers each mistakenly thought the
other had carried out the mercenary
deed. In jail only 4 months, Elfego was
tried on 2 separate occasions, and was
surprisingly acquitted each time.
It was this episode that earned Elfego
his lifelong reputation as a tough
hombre, a reputation that followed him
throughout his years as a flamboyant
criminal lawyer, school superintendent,
district attorney, chief bouncer of a Prohibition
Era gambling house in Juarez,
and a bout as the American agent for
General Huerta during the convoluted
Mexican revolution. In 1915, Baca
turned himself in for shooting down
another revolutionary figure, Celestino
Otero. While never proven, evidence
supported his contention that Otero had
fired first, the bullet from a newfangled
Savage self-loading pistol piercing the
Elfego owned and used all kinds of
firearms in his lifetime. His favorites
were the various Colt Model 1873
single-action revolvers, usually in .45
caliber, and he liked to show visitors a
custom bolt-action Mauser he says he
arranged to have “appropriated” from a
disgruntled Pancho Villa. Never one to
obey gun laws or any other laws that he
didn’t believe in, Baca is said to have
never gone anywhere – even into a
courtroom – without a revolver hidden
somewhere on his person. But as much
as anything else it was big-bore attitude
that Elfego came armed with.
For slightly over 80 years Elfego Baca
remained a lively part of New Mexico’s
cultural landscape, telling spirited stories
to anyone with the time to listen.
In the year of his birth, horses were
the primary means of transportation
even in the more civil East, and Winchester’s
engineers were hard at work
on an improvement of their Henry
lever-action repeater: the Model 1866
“Yellowboy.” He died as 8-cylinder
roadsters zoomed by outside his Albuquerque
office, on August 27, 1945,
exactly 3 weeks following the first wartime
deployment of an atomic bomb,
and within months of the appearance of
the first ball-point pen, the aerosol can
and the frozen “T.V. Dinner.” By then
the M-1 Garand was in standard use by
U.S. troops and precision scoped rifles
were fast becoming the norm for stateside
hunting.
While a lot has been written about
Baca’s remarkably good fortune, the
trait that best defined him was nerve –
or as we call it here in the Southwest,
huevos. Like other notable Westerners,
Elfego set an example for us, not
of propriety and submission but an enthusiastic
willingness to put excitement
and adventure ahead of comfort, and
principal ahead of physical safety... accomplishing
the seemingly impossible
with nothing more than clear intent, a
dependable wheel-gun and unshakable
will.
The author tracked down and was the first to publish
this photo of the rascally Charlie McCarty,
who in his younger years was a catalyst for the
Frisco shootout in 1884. Photo from the author’s
collection.
Baca poses here with a customized German
Mauser rifle that he claims to have had stolen
from his nemesis Pancho Villa in response to
Villa’s $30,000 bounty on his head. Period photo
courtesy of the Museum of New Mexico.
Even in old age, Baca liked to frighten visiting
reporters by suddenly pulling out and leveling
a pair of Colt’s famous sixguns... gun laws be
damned! Period photo courtesy of the Museum
of New Mexico.
Legal
Corner
by Grayson Penney
NFA Launches
New Legal
Defense &
Compensation
Fund!
As a result of recent decisions by the RCMP to begin the
unilateral reclassification and seizure of legally owned and
properly registered semi-automatic sporting rifles and shotguns
– namely the Norinco Type 97A and High Standard
Model 10B; National Firearms Association has created a
new NFA Legal Defense & Compensation Fund.
Given the stakes involved and the dangerous precedent that
will be established if the RCMP is permitted to unilaterally
reclassify and seize any registered model of firearms they
deem unnecessary, or allegedly dangerous to the public
good, the current executive felt it was necessary to take direct
action.
This new defense fund is intended to aid owners of targeted
firearms in mounting a competent legal defense and thus protect
the future right of all law-abiding gun owners to continue
to own their legally acquired firearms. We are in the
process of launching the first legal challenge “test case” as
this issue of Canadian Firearms Journal goes to print.
While representatives of the Public Safety Minister have announced
that they will be offering compensation to affected
owners involved in this most recent reclassification, a number
of owners have expressed fear that should they opt to
fight this unnecessary seizure, they may find such compensation
denied them.
In order to remove this fear, and thus any hesitation affected
owners may have over proceeding with a court challenge,
we are hopeful sufficient funds will be raised in order to provide
adequate compensation to these brave owners should
the worst happen and the prohibition order stand. We are
confident, however, of a positive outcome to these challenges
with your help.
Therefore, a new separate bank account has been set-up solely
for the purpose of the new legal defense fund. The national
executive felt it necessary to do so in order to provide necessary
separation from general National Firearms Association
accounts.
Donations can now be made on-line by visiting our website
www.nfa.ca and following the instructions there or simply
entering the direct URL found below. At the request of members,
we can also now accept Email Money Transfers or
EMT via Interac. Donations will also be accepted via mail
at the address below or by calling our toll free line at 1-877-
818-0393. If you are sending your donation in, please be sure
to indicate on your cheque or money order that the donation
is intended for the Legal Defense & Compensation Fund.
Thank you for your support.
Donate on-line:http://www.nfa.ca/donate-legal-fund
Email Money Transfer: nfa.diane@gmail.com
Send cheque or money order to:
NFA Legal Defense & Compensation Fund
c/o Canada’s National Firearms Association
P.O. Box 52183, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2T5
Donate via Telephone:
Ph. Toll free @ 1-877-818-0393
26 June/July www.nfa.ca www.nfa.ca June/July 27