Rivalries among neighboring schools is nothing new. It starts in high school, and goes into college: here in my slice of heaven, it's Oregon State University Beavers versus the University of Oregon Ducks. In Texas, it's the Aggies and the Longhorns. Alumni from the respective schools can get downright cantankerous when discussing the "other" team.

So too with shooting schools. Graduates of one school (or, more commonly, one instructor) hold their alma mater or guru to possess the "true way" and refuse to even acknowledge that others exist. In the worst cases, the arguments end up sounding an awful lot like "my Dad can beat up your Dad".

This came up the other day in a discussion I had with AFGWWWTRA. The term that sparked the conversation was "disciples", and I think that conveys the thought quite nicely. Once one has invested time, effort, and money into an area of interest it's hard to accept that there are other, competing, interests in the world which might just have validity as well. The guru becomes infallible, because if he/she isn't then then disciple has wasted time, effort, and money - and who is ever going to admit to that?

I'm not immune; I went through a mild episode of school spirit some years back, but since then I've progressed a bit. I'm open to new ways of thinking and new methods of doing, and my attitude has gone from "so and so says this and it is immutable" to "show me why." The litmus test of any technique or opinion is not the logical fallacy of argument from authority, but rather that it makes sense given an open and agreed-upon criteria.

In an odd coincidence, I just started reading a book that explains this behavior, and as it turns out the concepts involved may have profound implications for self defense. They go well beyond the guru, school, stance, grip, or anything else, and deal with our behavior at a surprisingly base level. In other words, discipleship in and of itself, irrespective of doctrine or dogma, may affect how one performs in a violent encounter.

I'll have more to say when I finish the book.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: gun.skool, dogma, afgwwwtra

A while back I shared my concept of the shooting stance, about how it was really a type of scaffold - a device by which one can build skills, and of limited utility past that point.

Well, it turns out that I'm not alone at the Blessed Bovine Abattoir - Rob Pincus has a new video up at the Personal Defense Network giving his take on the concept of the stance. Watch it with an open mind.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: rob.pincus

Today we have two tales of poor gun handling. Pharmacist Tommy sent me this story about a police officer who shot himself in the head.

From Carteach's blog we get the tale of an Army soldier whose buddy shot him. The young man is quite lucky to be alive.

What do these two incidents have in common? People do stupid things with guns they perceive to be unloaded. (The problem isn’t that the gun is or is not loaded, but that people are doing stupid things with them in the first place.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: safety, i.told.you.so, bloggers

Over the years, a number of 4x4 vehicles have come under fire for being "prone" to rollover accidents: the Suzuki Samurai. The Jeep CJ. The Ford Explorer. The Isuzu Trooper. While the government probes their safety and juries award inflated damages, one pertinent fact is conveniently ignored: a four-wheel-drive isn't a family sedan, and can't be driven like one. The results are predictable.

Guess what? The same relationship exists between the autoloader and the revolver.

In the last couple of decades, the revolver has become the red-headed stepchild of the shooting world. Since autoloaders became the dominant handgun platform, the necessary skills to efficiently run a revolver have fallen by the wayside. Many instructors, particularly in police service, have little to no experience with the wheelgun. This lack of familiarity has led to the wholesale adoption of handling and shooting techniques that work fine with autos, but don't work so well with revolvers.

Last week I linked to a little problem that Robb Allen experienced, and used the phrase which serves as today's title. The thumbs-forward grip that works very well on the autopistol is simply out of place on a revolver, as Robb painfully discovered. Robb's singed thumb is the perfect illustration of my contention: the auto and the revolver are different tools, and need to be handled differently.

Autoloader techniques imposed on the wheelgun lead to reduced efficiency, and sometimes more. For instance, trying to emulate the reloading techniques of the autoloader - shooting hand staying gripped on the gun while the support hand does the reloading - forces the revolver shooter to perform a complex, fine motor skill with the hand least suited to do so.

That's not all, though; leaving the cylinder unsupported can result in crane damage during the reload cycle, particularly on the newer light alloy guns. It's much better instead to use a reloading method that is designed from the ground up to work around both the shooter's and the revolver's weaknesses. (One such method, and the one I espouse because it has the fewest operational weaknesses, is the Universal Revolver Reload.)

It's time that firearms training reflected the strengths and weaknesses of the revolver, instead of assuming it's just like an autoloader "except for that round part." I'll have more to say on this in the coming months.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Having trouble coming up with anything to say today - a consequence of working too hard combined with some sort of illness (nothing serious, just annoying.)

I'll simply suggest that you first read this little tale from Robb Allen over at Sharp As A Marble, then repeat the following until you attain enlightenment: "the revolver is not a low-capacity autoloader...the revolver is not a low-capacity autoloader...the revolver is not a low-capacity autoloader..."

-=[ Grant ]=-

MY WEEKEND: It's not often I get to be a student these days, but it's important for any instructor to do so now and again. Last week I got an invitation from Jeff Varner, one of ICE Training's certified Combat Focus instructors, to sit in on his class in Vancouver. Unfortunately I had to cut out a bit early due to a prior commitment, but I enjoyed the class nonetheless. Thanks, Jeff, for the invite!

DRAW FAST, HOLSTER SLOW: Tam alerts us to a ND that happened at a Todd Green class. In his commendable reporting of the incident, Todd says "Never be in a rush to holster your pistol. We all know it, we say it, we teach it. Not all of us do it." So true.

As instructors it's easy for us to forget that reinforcement, and sometimes enforcement, are necessary parts of our job. Especially when we're dealing with "advanced" students, we tend to go easy on the reinforcement of fundamentals for fear that we'll be resented for belittling their ability or experience. We have to resist that tendency, and we need to do so consistently. When warranted, enforcement (up to and including ejection from class) has to happen.

The only instructor I've ever seen who is absolutely consistent in this regard is Georges Rahbani (TBRIYNHO.) Even in his advanced rifle classes, which are invitation only and have stringent prerequisites, you will hear "safety on" and "finger in register" (index, if you prefer) commands at the end of a string of fire. He never wastes an opportunity for reinforcement at any level of training or ability.

When Georges encounters failures to heed commands or instruction, he has a way of bringing the point home to the student: he/she has to publicly deposit a dollar bill into a pot. (The students have a friendly shoot-off at the end of class to win the pot.) This has a non-confrontational, yet still very chastening, effect on both the offending person and the rest of the students; I've seen it work on countless occasions. I don't know where the idea comes from, but I'm giving Georges the credit.

THE PROBLEM WITH ELECTRONIC SCALES: I recently sat down to work up a new .308 load. I turned on my RCBS electronic scale, waited a couple of minutes, and starting weighing charges. Much to my surprise, the weight of the charges thrown by my powder measure increased each time! I'd forgotten that electronic scales need protracted warmup periods before accuracy and repeatability can be expected. After a half-hour of warmup, it settled down and gave correct readings. Word to the wise: keep your mechanical scales around to double check the electronic ones, or buy a set of check weights.

HERE COMES DA JUDGE: From The Unforgiving Minute comes this gem:

"The inexplicable success of the Taurus Judge still depresses the hell out of me. Taurus keeps cranking out new versions, each more grotesque, hideous and nonsensical than the last, and people KEEP BUYING THE GODDAMN THINGS. Just another sign that our culture is doomed, I suppose."

(The opinions of the contributor do not necessarily reflect the views of the Management of this blog. Then again, they just might.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: combat.focus, gun.skool, safety, bloggers, georges.rahbani

This week is dominated by SHOT Show news, and in the midst of all the shiny new goodies it's hard to remember that self defense isn't just about hardware. Guns and ammo are easy to write about, so that's what most people concentrate on. As a result, you find lots of sites that deal with hardware, but precious few with the software so necessary for survival.

That situation is about to change: the Personal Defense Network has gone "live"!

PDN is the new source for self defense articles, tips, and video lessons on the net. Rob Pincus, the Managing Editor, has gathered some of the best authorities from around the country to staff PDN, with a simple goal: PDN aims to be the leading destination of high-quality, personal defense content online, as well as a no-nonsense gathering place for those serious about arming themselves for defense in every aspect of their lives.

This isn't the same old "9mm vs. .45ACP" stuff you find in the magazines or on the gun forums - the information at PDN is at a higher level. You'll learn some new techniques, some refinements of your existing skills, and some vital topics that other sites just won't touch (check out "Dealing with a Gun Shot Wound During Training Class".)

It isn't all about guns, either; self defense is more than simply shooting people, and PDN delivers vital information to help you expand your hand-to-hand and less lethal skills ("Don't Bring A Gun To A Knife Fight" is a great introduction to why the gun isn't always the right answer.)

There's lots more, from fitness to legalities to tactics, all written by some of the best people in the business. You'll hear from master trainer Rob Pincus as well as such renowned experts as Tony Blauer, Michael Janich, John Brown, Marty Hayes, Andy Langlois, Kent O’Donnell, and Paul Haberstroh. (Oh, and some guy named Grant Cunningham - anyone know who he is?)

Check out the site, watch the videos, read the articles, and join the forum. Check in often, as there's a lot more great content coming at PDN.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: pdn, rob.pincus

I got an email from Massad Ayoob recently, in which he told me about his new venture: the Massad Ayoob Group (MAG). He's got a great website where you can read the official announcement.

While the curriculum will be new, the principles he teaches aren't. No one knows more about the legal and ethical side of deadly force, and his updated classes will build on that expertise. I asked Mas about how the new curriculum will translate to his old courses:

"I'm trying to keep the new curriculum such that, say, an LFI-I in a previous course will be acceptable as a prerequisite for second level with [the Massad Ayoob Group.] The analog to JUDF, for example, will be MAG-20 Classroom, with the suffix indicating the hour number. The commonality goes two ways: just as I'll structure MAG-80 so it will be suitable for an LFI-I graduate, I'll make sure MAG-40 gives the student strong enough a foundation to be an acceptable prerequisite for an LFI-II."

For those not familiar with his work, 'JUDF' refers to 'Judicious Use of Deadly Force' - perhaps his best-known course and the gold standard on the topic. The live fire accompaniment to that will be MAG-20/Live Fire, and the two combined - what corresponds most closely to the old LFI-1 - in updated form will be called MAG-40.

The Massad Ayoob Group also signals a new emphasis on teaching lawyers how to handle self defense cases. In conjunction with the Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network, he's initiating his Continuing Legal Education (CLE) classes. First in the new schedule is "Defending the Deadly Force Case", already on the calendar for Anchorage and Seattle this year. He tells me that more are in the works.

That's particularly important news, as it ensures that there will be more properly trained counsel to help you and me if we ever find ourselves in court. This is the kind of class that Mas is uniquely qualified to teach, and it's great that he's taken up the cause.

Check his site; if he's teaching anywhere near you, take advantage of the opportunity to learn from one of the good guys.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: massad.ayoob

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2010 is finally here, and I'm still surprised about that. Back in 1979 the twenty-first century looked sooooooo far away that I thought I'd never see it. Here we are in the second decade already; where did the last ten years go? (So, this is what it's like to age....)

I took a four-day weekend for the New Year, though it wasn't really time off: I spent the time doing work around the farm, to the screaming protest of my muscles and joints. This brief respite reminded me that it's been many years since my last vacation (which, as it happens, I spent in a shooting class), and I think it's high time for another. I say so every year, but this time I'm going to do it. Of course, I say that every year too!

S&W GOES PRO: Remember a year or so ago, when I wrote about a limited run of no-lock Model 642? At the time S&W claimed that they'd "found" a stash of pre-lock frames and decided to put them together for sale. Apparently they were popular enough that the company has managed to "find" some more NOS frames, as they've brought out a couple of new editions: the "Pro" series 442 and 642. They're just like the non-Pro models, except they have no locks and have cylinders cut for moonclips. There are a whole lot of questions one could pose about the decision to bring these to market, but I'm glad to see them all the same.

(I do wish they'd get consistent with their naming conventions: they have the 642 PowerPort Pro Series revolver, which has a ported barrel AND a lock, but no moonclip capability. The only thing these models have in common is a matte black finish, which harkens me back to the days of selling high end camera gear: you could get many cameras in either chrome or black finish, the black models inevitably referred to as "professional". At least they're not calling them 'tactical'!)

SPEAKING OF MOON CLIPS: I get several queries per month regarding moonclips for a carry revolver, and I recommend to all that they be limited to range use. Yes, they are faster to reload (the margin depending on the cartridge) - but I don't believe that outweighs the fragility of the clips themselves, as even a small bend will tie up the gun. (There's always someone who writes back "well, I've carried moonclips in my pocket for years and have never had a problem!" I'm sure that's true, just as I'm sure that someone, somewhere has a perfectly reliable Colt All American 2000. I'm not willing to bet my little pink bottom on either one, however.)

MORE SMITH NEWS: The regular Model 642, along with the 637 and 638, will now be available with 2-1/2" fully lugged barrels instead of the 1-7/8" tubes. I always liked the .357 version of the Model 640 for its slightly longer barrel, and am glad to see it come to some other models. That little extra weight up front helps with control on the lightweight frames, as well as providing longer extractor travel. (Sadly, they are still afflicted with the silly lock.)

WELCOME TO OREGON: This holiday season saw three groups of people lost in the Oregon woods - thanks to an over-reliance on GPS navigation. This should serve as a cautionary tale: ceding your health and safety to something (or someone else) is an invitation to disaster. Take responsibility for yourself; make sure your brain is always engaged. You'll notice that these are consistent themes here at The Revolver Liberation Alliance, and they have application well beyond protecting yourself from human predators. (Oh, and buy a decent map when venturing out of the confines of the suburbs.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: s&w, snubby, oregon

Personal Defense for Women: Practical Advice for Self Protection by Gila Hayes

It is only now that society is beginning to recognize what those of us who've been married for decades know all too well: men and women are different. 'Equal', as it happens, does not mean 'the same', and we are slowly coming to realize this. (Back to the future!)

Because we're different, it's difficult - if not impossible - for a man to understand, let alone sensitively address, the feelings and fears that women experience as they approach the very concept of self defense. "A good man always knows his limitations", says Dirty Harry, and all men have this one. (Any man who believes he doesn't is in denial.)

Recognizing my limitations requires that I refer the women in my life to the best source of information for their personal safety. For the last decade-and-a-half, that source has been the book "Effective Defense" by Gila Hayes. It deals with the gritty details of self defense from that particular perspective only women possess.

Last year, Gila was given the opportunity to completely rewrite her landmark tome, to bring it up to date and expand on many of the topics. The result is "Personal Defense for Women", and I'm happy to say it is even better than the original. That, folks, is saying a lot.

Though the word "defense" is in the title, Gila's book is a comprehensive guide to women's safety, which goes well beyond what we think of as defense. Gila explains: "...I earnestly advocate crime avoidance over fighting, and escape over shooting. Safe housing, safe behavior, and awareness of danger when you're at home, work, in your car or in public, are among the first survival lessons I want to emphasize."

This is evident just by looking at the table of contents: the first nine chapters deal with avoidance, not shooting. Gila tackles things that would be taboo for me to even broach; for instance, the delicate topic of drawing unwanted attention with a revealing wardrobe. She points out that certain activities are inherently more risky than others, and the aware woman needs to acknowledge that choosing some pleasures may carry larger risks than less exciting options.

Gila talks about responsibilities as well as rights, gently pointing out that the self-reliant woman chooses her safety level through her actions. This sounds simple, but as she expounds on the topic the power of that concept becomes evident.

The rest of the book deals with the active defense - fighting in all forms. She starts with information on empty hand defenses, and moves through various less-than-lethal tools before starting a particularly comprehensive discussion about firearms. Gila is a renowned trainer and champion shooter, and her fluency with the subject is obvious. Women just starting out with firearms could not be in better hands. She provides authoritative and clearly articulated information about guns, ammunition, shooting techniques, and even a great exploration of the merits of the home defense shotgun.

One chapter I liked very much was devoted to the use of the Taser, and one very needed chapter deals with dressing around a handgun. (Men have it incredibly easy compared to women, and we always fail to appreciate the difficulties they have concealing a pistol!)

While all the chapters are good, there are a couple of standouts that make it a "must buy": one deals with safety on school and college campuses (including the active shooter scenario), and the other is a sensitive discussion of rape prevention and survival. These are important topics, and Gila deals with them in the way that only she can.

If it seems that I like this book, I do - very much. It has instantly become my new recommendation for all women interested in self defense, and I can hardly think of a better gift for a wife, girlfriend, sister, mother, or daughter than "Personal Defense for Women."

Now a disclaimer: At Gila's request, I provided some of the pictures in this book, and my name appears in a couple of places. Many of the actors in the pictures are people that I know well. It would seem that I am biased with regards to the merits of "Personal Defense for Women", and you're right - but it's because I've been consistently and actively recommending its predecessor for 15 years! The old book was good, and this edition is even better. I'm proud to have played a small role in its production.

This is a worthy update, and there is so much new information that owners of "Effective Defense" would be well advised to pick up a copy of "Personal Defense for Women."

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: books, women

THAT TIME OF THE YEAR: I hope everyone had a great (as in safe and happy) Christmas weekend. I hope you'll accept my sincere wishes for a happy New Year - may 2010 be a darn sight better than 2009!

HERE WE GO AGAIN: Maryville, TN has had a couple of accidental shooting deaths in the past weeks. Both incidents involved guns that (brace yourselves) people thought "were unloaded." The Maryville Police Chief, one Tony Crisp, concludes that people just weren't pretending hard enough:

"Treat a gun as always being a loaded gun," he said. "Once you cleared it, check it again."

A more nonsensical statement I cannot imagine! I hope that you will save me the trouble of tearing it apart by seeing for yourself the logic failures therein. How much better it would have been had he taken the opportunity to do some real education by saying something like: "never point a gun - any gun, loaded or unloaded - at anything you're not willing to shoot. Don't let anyone around you do so, either."

SOMEONE ELSE FOR A CHANGE: A couple years back I made an offhand remark about Charter Arms guns. That one little sentence generated a ton of hate mail, including some from Charter's president/owner and their largest distributor. Well, M.D. Creekmore over at thesurvivalistblog.net made a more pointed statement regarding Charter's "quality", and he too heard from Charter's owner. It's in the comments; scroll to the bottom.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: safety, i.told.you.so

I've just had an interesting email exchange with an instructor. Said instructor read my articles on safety, and opined that anyone who didn't teach the 'industry standard' was opening himself (or herself) up to liability problems. "Everyone teaches the Four Rules for a reason", he concluded.

I've heard this argument before (more than once, in fact) and it makes less sense each time I hear it - on several levels. I'm sure this view is quite common, so let's tackle the subject head-on.

First let's address the very notion that there is such a thing as an industry standard for firearm safety (and by extension that there is a version of the Four Rules which can be held to be that standard.) There is enough variance regarding the wording of the Four Rules that I'm not sure you could hold up any one and say "this is the standard, but these other similar examples are not." To be a standard requires consistency, and the Four Rules are hardly consistent in their wording, interpretation, or application - particularly Rule One, which is the one I take most issue with.

Second, even if the wording of the Four Rules was consistent you'd have to establish that they were in use by the majority of instructors in the business of teaching firearm safety, and further that they were being taught to a majority of firearm students. This isn't even close to being true.

I submit that the only candidate for establishment of an industry standard would be the NRA. The NRA has more instructors teaching more students every year than (probably) all the independent training venues in the country combined. As a certified NRA instructor, I know that the NRA has its own safety rules, and they are not the Four Rules. I further submit that if one is not teaching the NRA safety rules, verbatim as presented in their course material, one is in fact NOT teaching anything remotely resembling an industry standard and the argument/defense is moot. (This should not be construed as either an endorsement or criticism of the NRA safety curriculum.)

Third, even if the Four Rules were consistent among all their users AND it could be shown that they were being taught verbatim by a majority of instructors to a majority of students, the industry standard argument is simply an admission that one can't be bothered to seek anything better. 'Industry standard' is not the same as objective standard!

Back in the early '80s, the photographic industry was rocked by several high profile suits regarding handling of hazardous chemicals in photofinishing plants. The common defense was that the industry had its own standards with regard to safe handling, and that they were being followed. That proved to be no defense at all, and several companies paid out large settlements and/or fines. The government stepped in and required that the industry's standards be replaced with up-to-date and independently verified practices, and a for a while there was a small boom for businesses who provided compliance packages tailored to the industry. (I should know, as I was one of those entrepreneurs who made and sold such packages.)

Were I sitting on a jury in a liability case, I'd want to know if what the defendant did was the best that could be done. If the answer was no, regardless of how widespread the behavior happened to be, would cause me to find in the plaintiff's favor. Relying on a defense of compliance with 'industry standards' when there are demonstrably better practices is probably not going to win any juror's favor!

Integrity says that It's not enough to show that you do what everyone else does; you have to show that it is the best thing to do, and that there is nothing better. I'm a big believer in excellence over compliance; of going above and beyond when possible, particularly in the area of keeping people safe from harm.

Bottom line: defending the Four Rules using the 'industry standard' argument is roughly the same as a teenager screaming to her Mom "but everyone else does it!" No, they don't, and even if they did it's irrelevant. That didn't work with my parents, and it doesn't work with me.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: safety

AN ADVENTURE: Spent some time last week working on a project with Rob Pincus. You'll have to wait a while to hear the details, but a good and educational time was had by all. (Yes, Rob, it's still raining here.)

LUBRIPLATE COMES THROUGH: Got an email from Alex Taylor, a District Manager at Lubriplate. They're now selling the superb SFL #0 grease in consumer quantities in their online store! Comes in a 14oz can for $23.01, plus shipping. Glad to see them recognizing the firearms market; now let's see if we can get them to sell their FMO-AW oil in small quantities too!

THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN EVERY DAY: Remington recently announced that they've produced their ten millionth 870 series shotgun. I knew they were popular, but ten freakin' million? I would never have guessed anything close to that. The shotgun, it appears, is alive and well in America.

THIS IS JUST WRONG: I'll take some of what I just said back: certain shotguns are alive, but not well. Apparently trying to out-silly the S&W TRR8, Stoeger recently announced the availability of the Double Defense - a tactical side-by-side shotgun. Yes, a SxS with a fore-end rail. Black, of course. (Folks, I couldn't possibly make up something like this. It takes a marketing department to do so.)

I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW: A University of Alabama prof has claimed to have invented a revolutionary sighting system that promotes "intuitive aim." Knowledgeable readers will recognize the concept as being eerily reminiscent of the Steyr "trapezoid" sights as used on the 'M' and 'S' series pistols, which have been available for a decade now. Hmmm...

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: rob.pincus, lubrication, s&w, ugly, sights

GETTING THE MESSAGE: I've been harping on the failures of "Rule #1" for some time now, and it seems that the attitude is catching on. Slowly, but at least progress is being made.

IT ISN'T JUST ME: I've recently expounded on the issue of dogmatic teaching in the self defense world, and I'm not alone in my criticism. Check out this post from Roger Phillips over at warriortalk.com, then read the entire discussion. (I've never met Roger, don't know him from Adam, but he makes sense. Can't say that about everyone.)

POCKET COMPANION: no, not a J-frame! From Dustin's Gun Blog I learned of a new iPhone/iPod Touch app called Legal Heat. It's an interactive version of their printed guide to concealed carry and gun laws in all 50 states, written by attorneys and instructors. It' a great idea, and something that's needed. Unfortunately, despite the viability of the concept I cannot in good conscience recommend this particular app.

There is a big issue with Legal Heat's usability. The pages are just images of the book, which means they're pictures and not text. This sounds inconsequential, but it's not. When you bring up the laws on a state, because it's showing the whole page the text is tiny; unreadably small. To read it, you need to magnify the image by pinching. (The usual double-tap doesn't work, because it doesn't work on full-frame images!) Once you magnify the image to read the text, you have to continually scroll back and forth because images don't wrap text. Finally, the app doesn't support screen rotation; it only displays in portrait orientation, which exacerbates the scrolling issue.

Frankly, iPhone users are accustomed to a higher level of application quality than Legal Heat delivers. If they would simply make their pages actual text and enable screen rotation I'd be comfortable recommending it. As it stands, even at $1.99 it's not worth the hassle.

DEAL ALERT: My background in commercial photography has left me more than a little anal retentive with regards to optics, particularly when it comes to binoculars. I'm a fan of porro-prism designs, as they a) have better three-dimensional perspective, b) are brighter, and c) cost less than roof-prism types for any given level of optical quality (resolution/contrast.)

Minox makes some of the best porro-prism binocs. The optical performance is exceptional, and the build quality matches the glass. They make an 8x and a 10x version, and at a street price of roughly $550 they are something of a bargain; you'll need to spend roughly twice as much to get a roof prism of comparable performance, and you still won't get the perspective advantage that the porro-prism design gives you.

Despite their advantages, porro-prism designs are distinctly unfashionable these days and don't sell well regardless of brand. Roof prisms are what people buy, and Minox has bowed to the market: they've discontinued the 10x model. SWFA is closing them out at $299.95, which has to be classed as a screaming good deal. You won't find anything even approaching their optical performance for that kind of money. (Yes, I grabbed a pair - for that price, I wasn't about to pass them up!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: safety, dogma, apps, optics

Last week I heaped scorn and derision on AR-15 foregrips ('Pharoah's Beards'), and feedback suggests I need to expound on the subject.

The issue with foregrips is that they limit how you interface with your rifle. That's a fancy way of saying that they get in the way; instead of the hardware (the rifle) allowing flexibility in use, it becomes more specialized - less flexible. The rifle no longer responds to the user's will, rather the user now must adapt to the accessory's limitations, in addition to the rifle's.

As long as the AR-15 is being shot from a standing, squared off position, the Pharaoh's Beard feels like a great invention. A real incident, however, may demand more. The shooter may have to contort himself into a stable firing position because of the surrounding cover; the opponent may be at a radical angle (in any direction) from the defender's point of view; rapid fire from a compromised 'stance' may be needed as the defender rapidly moves relative to the attacker.

When any of those things happen, the changed body position requires a modified relationship to the rifle. With a plain forearm, the support arm simply moves to the necessary position and the shooting commences. With some sort of foregrip hanging off the rifle, one of two things will happen: the shooter will doggedly maintain a grip on the thing, all the while trying to get his body to do things that it isn't structurally capable of doing, or the shooter will realize that the grip isn't working, and try to maneuver around it to get to the best placement. Sometimes he can, more often he can't, because that accessory is taking up the very space he needs. Bottom line: less-than-optimal shot placement and less-than-optimal response times.

Most people test these things in a range-perfect stance of some sort; they don't push themselves or their equipment. In such undemanding circumstances, foregrips seem to work well. The further from that ideal world, the less well they work. You can decide for yourself if that's meaningful to you.

I see this frequently with students in class. Georges Rahbani, who I've mentioned many times in this blog, runs his 'Fighting Rifle' course as a triad: three separate 2-day classes, based on real-life encounters, that rapidly ramp up critical survival skills. The first class has the students working on fairly traditional range platforms: standing, kneeling, etc. Foregrips seem to work in that environment, because they're designed to facilitate just this kind of handling. The environment isn't asking much of the shooter, which is important to understand.

By the time the second class rolls around, students discover that they're not in Kansas any more. The environment now asks much more of the shooters; the concept off 'ideal' is dispensed with, and 'field expedient' becomes the new paradigm. As that occurs, the students who showed up for the first class with gizmos and gadgets on their rifles find themselves hurriedly removing them during breaks.

Why? Because they've discovered that their options are limited, not increased, by added hardware. They've learned that the situation dictates their response, not the other way around. The more universal their equipment, the easier they can adapt their response to the situation; the more specialized the gear, the less they're able to do so. Conceptually, this is the same thing I said last week; substitute 'gear' for 'technique', and the same lessons apply.

There is also an issue with attitude, with perception of the rifle's role. Georges asks his students: "Is your rifle a fun toy, or a serious tool?" If it's strictly a recreational object, a ballistic tinker toy, go wild - hang whatever you want on it. (Tacticool accessories, it must be admitted, are a heck of a lot of fun and building just the "right" configuration can be an enjoyable hobby in itself. Machined aluminum is like bacon - it makes everything better!)

Otherwise, save that money and use it to buy more ammo. You'll be better off.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: ar15, tacticool

From The Firearm Blog comes news of yet another AR-15 accessory: the Magpul AFG (Angled ForeGrip). Just for fun I ran it by Georges Rahbani, TBRIYNHO ("The Best Rifle Instructor You've Never Heard Of"), a man who's actually used said firearm - uncounted times - to protect innocent lives in a war zone. His reply was succinct, and one for which he's become slightly infamous: "Thou shalt not hang crap on thy rifle."

(We have a running joke about foregrips in general: we refer to them as 'Pharaoh's Beards', for their uncanny resemblance to a certain dead King of Egypt:



If you're getting the idea that Georges isn't a fan of the things, and that I've been slightly influenced by his "less is more" philosophy, you're right. I do not apologize for repeatedly emphasizing that hardware is not a substitute for skill, no matter how vitriolic the response from the Mall Ninja Society of America.)

===

The Management wishes to apologize for the previous crack about Ninjas. We do not mean the real ones, of course. And now, for something completely different...

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Reader Mik alerts me that The Daily Gun Pictures blog has some new images of the Chiappa Rhino revolver, including the longer barreled variants. Interesting stuff.

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I'd be surprised if you haven't heard of the murder of four police officers in our neighbor to the north. There is a training lesson in that tragedy, though it may not be the one you're expecting. I'll get to it next week.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: ar15, georges.rahbani, tacticool, rhino.revolver, bloggers, attacks

In a previous episode, I talked about doctrine, dogma, and cliché. One particular subject is very often the source of instructional dogmatism, and sometimes spills over into cliché: the shooting stance.

Since we're talking about self defense, let's start with the conclusion: as I study surveillance films of actual shootings, and as I play with the concepts of force-on-force training, I'm struck by the fact that violent encounters rarely involve an identifiable stance. The players, especially the defender, are shooting from whatever position in which they happen to find themselves.

If that's the end result, do we even need to worry about stances? Why do we bother spending the time working on the isoceles, Chapman, or Weaver stances when we're probably not going to be using them when reality comes barging into our lives?

Over Thanksgiving I was discussing this with Georges Rahbani ("The Best Rifle Instructor You've Never Heard Of".) For many years his 'Fighting Rifle' triad has started with basic stances ('platforms', in rifle-speak) and ended up with shooters using whatever stance they happened upon in the course of the encounter. He explained that a basic stance allows the student to do two very important things: first, to eliminate a variable that keeps them from focusing on the necessary stuff like trigger control and sight picture. Second, it helps to develop the level of confidence necessary to be able to control the shot no matter what. Once those have been achieved, the notion of a stance can be jettisoned on the way to a better understanding of a violent encounter.

Some may immediately think of the term 'training wheels', but I prefer to call the stance a 'scaffold': a temporary device that allows us to build something. In the case of a defensive shooter, we're building a skill set. Without the support of the scaffold - the solid, repeatable stance - it's difficult, if not impossible, to build those skills. With it, the student can focus on the truly important things, secure in the knowledge that they are operating from a stable base.

The problem comes when the instructor doesn't understand the true nature of the shooting stance. In those cases, the stance becomes an end unto itself: it drives the instruction, rather than serving as an instructional tool.

A few years back I had an encounter with an instructor who didn't understand this. He went to great lengths explaining why his preferred Weaver stance was the "only stance anyone should ever need." When queried about physical makeup, gun/hand fit, and other variables that affect the success or failure of any given stance with any given student, all he could do was sputter that the Weaver was "proven" to be superior. His dogma was well on the road to cliché.

I've met many shooters who were victims of such shortsighted teachers. More than once have I observed graduates of multiple shooting classes displaying the necessity of getting into just the "perfect" stance in order to shoot. Forced out of that comfort zone, they literally cannot hit the target. Their teachers were so focused on stance that they forgot about the rest of the act of shooting. The stance had become a destination, rather than the journey which it should be.

Roger Phillips, one of the new breed of fight-focused instructors, puts it very well: "Situations dictate strategies, strategies dictate tactics, and tactics dictate techniques……techniques should not dictate anything." Yes, you need to learn a stance that is comfortable and repeatable for you. Understand, though, that when shooting for your life your favorite stance is more than likely going to be abandoned for whatever position the situation allows. Wouldn't it be a good idea to train for that eventuality?

Use a preferred stance to build your trigger control and sighting skills; once that's done, learn to shoot from a 'non-stance'. Get used to being able to deliver combat accurate hits from any angle, any position, while still or moving. If you've used the basic stance properly, you'll find that you no longer need it (at least, for this kind of shooting.)

Ironic, isn't it?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: gun.skool, georges.rahbani, dogma

A few weeks back, I took some flak for suggesting that a working knowledge of cognitive science - especially neuropsychology - was a valuable instructional tool. Such knowledge allows an instructor to better serve his/her students, and gives the students the tools they need to self-correct aberrant behaviors. Some apparently don't believe this, or perhaps simply don't understand why.

Some years ago I was having a specific shooting problem, one which I had a great deal of difficulty solving. During a course I approached my instructor, a person of some renown in the business, with the issue. I was hoping to gain an insight as to what I could do to solve the problem, but the response was a curt and dismissive "dry fire." I countered that I had done quite a bit of that, and it wasn't helping. "You need to do it more," was the conversation-ending reply.

As it happens the problem couldn't have been helped by any amount of dry fire, but it took me quite some time to figure that out. In retrospect it was obvious, but only because I'd gone to a great deal of trouble learning how the brain works (without which I'd never have found the solution.)

Why was dry fire not the answer? Well, Rob Pincus recently wrote a terrific piece titled "Dry Reps can lead to Poor Performance" which answers that question. Rob is one of the few people in this field who has a good grasp of how the brain interprets information and makes decisions, and he's applied that knowledge to his Combat Focus courses.

A little close observation will support his contentions; for instance, I notice that even relatively new shooters have no problem learning how to reload their autopistols. Push the button, the magazine drops out, insert new magazine, release slide using whatever method one prefers. Easy, right? Physically, yes.

The issue comes when it's time to reload during a string of fire. When the gun goes empty, the student usually try several times to shoot again, only slowly realizing that there is a problem. They tip the muzzle up and observe that the slide is locked back, then stop for a second or two while their mind confronts the situation: "Oh, I need to reload!" The physical manipulation of the reload proceeds smoothly and quickly, compared to the awkward moments before the decision to reload was made.

Dry reps will not make the situation better, but rather will reinforce this behavior. Rob explains why.

(Interestingly, I've observed the same phenomenon among some "experienced" instructors. They may have practiced slide-lock reloads dry, but since that practice lacked context they never developed the reflexive sequence of recognizing an empty gun and reloading it efficiently.)

Read the article carefully, as there is some terrific information to be gleaned.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: practice, rob.pincus

In my experience, those who teach the martial art of the gun exhibit several styles of instruction: doctrine, dogma, and cliché.

'Doctrine' is that core body of concepts/techniques which are (or should be) taught as a cohesive whole. They are the things for which an instructor or school becomes known. At their best, those concepts and techniques reflect reality; they fit together and support each other. They make sense when thought of as a unit. They reflect an overriding philosophy of instruction, and should not be in conflict with that philosophy or each other. Doctrine should be verifiable, and it should stand scrutiny. It should be open to question, and be able to answer for itself. Doctrine evolves, it progresses, as the world around it does.

When doctrine becomes stagnant, or a teacher becomes enamored with his/her own perceived infallibility, doctrine is replaced with dogma. Pronouncements are made, not based on reason or experience or research, but on the strength of the teacher's personality or reputation. Questions are answered dismissively, in a manner that reinforces the inferior status of the student. "Best practices" are replaced by "one true way"; dogma does not evolve, because it is self-reinforcing. Learning, in the sense of adoption of the dogma, may happen - but understanding rarely does.

The worst form of instruction occurs when the teacher has neither doctrine nor dogma. Instead, he relies on cliché: pithy sayings and one-liners that replace dialogue and reason. The cliché is delivered in such a manner as to take on a life of its own, as it has no context. It allows neither questioning nor independent thought, but rather aims to eliminate both. Its relationship to the world at large is tenuous at best; it is the perfect embodiment of the famous quote from Mythbuster's Adam Savage:



Cliché travels far and wide, because it's easy to remember. People may not understand it, but they sure can repeat it!

It's rare that an instructor spends all of his time in one style. He may switch patterns or incorporate elements of another style, depending on his goal and talent. The doctrinal instructor, for instance, may use cliché as a memory aid or mnemonic tool to help his students retain information, while the dogmatic instructor may use it instead to quash dissent or inquiry that threatens his authority. Every instructor will have a primary style, though, reflecting his abilities and grasp of the subject matter.

It's not unusual to find what started as doctrine is presented as dogma in less capable hands. For instance, an instructor may be a devotee of a certain school of arms. That school may have the best doctrinal approach to teaching, but when the student instructor brings the information back to his students, something is lost in translation. The instructor may not have understood what he was being taught, or simply lacks the talent to transmit that information to others. In either case, he may translate the doctrine into dogma and present that to his students. Like the grade-school game of 'telephone', the original intent is garbled.

That is, unless great care is taken to make sure that the student instructor truly understands the material, and is held to the same high standards as the school itself. That's rare in the firearms field.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: gun.skool, dogma

One of the hardest things to predict in this business is workflow. The shop will be humming along, work flying out the door, then suddenly a few large projects (total customs or heavy restorations) come in and the work slows to a snail's pace. Those bottlenecks seem to come in groups, when they're most difficult to deal with. It makes mincemeat out of the most conservative projections!

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Occasionally someone will suggest that being a one-man shop is limiting the amount of business I can do, and that I should take on employees. Aside from not wanting the hassle (I was once a corporate lackey with a pile of employees to handle - I know of what I speak), there's also a bit of personal pride involved: if my name is on the work, I think it's important that I actually do said work. If it's good, I want the accolade, and if it's bad I don't want to be reduced to pointing like a 5-year-old and screaming "but it's HIS fault!"

There exists today a well-known gunsmithing concern whose very talented owner used to do all his own work. He "progressed" to having employees, but supervised their work closely. Judging by the recent experiences of several of my clients, he's been reduced to sending out emails explaining why their shoddy work is actually better than the quality product he used to provide.

Personally, no amount of money (or time savings) will convince me to do that - my clients deserve better.

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I've written about this before, and others continue to make my case for me: people have a different mindset about guns they perceive to be unloaded. You may get tired of hearing it, but safety is so important that I'm going to keep bringing it up: there is a solution.

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Dog people, I need some advice. We have a year-old Shepherd/Newfoundland mix who won't sleep in the spacious, insulated doghouse we've provided. He'll go in to eat, and he's been known to voluntarily pile his toys in it, but he sleeps on our porch exposed to the rain and wind. One would think that sooner or later he'd get cold enough and wet enough to use it for the intended purpose, but it has yet to happen. Should I just leave him to his misery, since it appears to be of his own choosing?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: safety, i.told.you.so

Last week I mentioned that I'm not a fan of the Cooper Color Codes of Awareness. In fact, I think they're downright silly. Why? Because they serve no purpose, which makes them a distraction from learning something that might actually be useful.

The Cooper Color Code system was popularized by Jeff Cooper, the founder of Gunsite. The four Codes are, as Cooper explained them, "a means of setting one’s mind into the proper condition when exercising lethal violence." They describe "a mental state which enables you to take a difficult psychological step."

Let's start with his explanation: "into the proper condition." Who is to say what the proper mental condition is when facing a threat to one's life? Having talked to a few survivors, and having read the accounts of many more, one's mental state can vary tremendously: some are angry, some scared, some confused. To arrogantly proclaim that there is one mental condition with which to confront an attacker is quite presumptuous, particularly when all of those I've mentioned (and probably more I've not encountered) were sufficient to handle each incident.

I submit to you that the "difficult psychological step", which is the decision/willingness to use lethal force, is made before the attack occurs. In fact, it's one of the first decisions one makes when starting into the armed lifestyle. The sequence for most people looks something like this:

1) You first acknowledge that your life has value to you, and such value is greater than that of the person attacking you.
2) Because of that, you decide that you are willing to use lethal force to protect your own life, and the life of your loved ones.
3) You learn to recognize a threat (stimulus) in such a way that you have time to defend (respond.)
4) You train to perform the proper defense (response) to the threat (stimulus.)

Cooper says that the Codes are "a means of setting one’s mind." This says that they're intended as a guide or a system to achieve a specific result. This requires that one judge any input (the stimulus or threat) against the system (the colored 'conditions'), then adopt the indicated response. Who is really going to do that? "Ooops, I can't go into Condition Red yet, because the situational parameters aren't all in accordance!" Silly, no? Silly, yes!

It also assumes that one is in complete control of one's physiological state. The problem with this line of thinking is that the response activity isn't digital or discrete. It is a continuous spectrum, with many things (including adrenal response and activation of the sympathetic nervous system) completely out of the individual's control. What happens when one component is in one condition, and another is at a different one? Nothing, of course, but a system requires that they must be reconciled - otherwise, of what use is the system?

The Codes are completely arbitrary combinations and ignore the fact that fights are idiosyncratic things, as are the responses of the defenders. The state of mind of the person holding the initiative (say, as a soldier or a law enforcement officer) is quite different than that of the person forced into a reactive response to an attack. Particularly for the latter, the states are quite irrelevant; the only thing that matters is the appropriate response to a specific stimulus at a particular time.

The Codes do nothing in the way of guiding those responses. Cooper himself said that they were not intended to do so, but again: if they are not a guide, of what use are they? If what he says is true, why are there specific response recommendations for each condition - down to whether or not your gun is in its holster? The system, at least according to the originator's own description, is self contradicting.

When faced with a threat a human being performs both instinctive and intuitive actions, the specific combination of which will vary depending on the situation. To try to constrain a person's responses to an arbitrary combination (whether one admits to doing so or not) is the equivalent of forcing everyone to wear size 14 boots regardless of their foot size.

It seems to me that instead of memorizing a bunch of colors, then obsessing about what color you are "in", it is better to spend your mental currency on training appropriate stimulus/response combinations. The Codes sound tacticool as all get-out, but that's about all they do. They serve no real or actual purpose, and in my opinion only obfuscate the situation.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: gun.skool, awareness

Most people go to Gun Skool because they believe it will teach them "how to be safe." As I opined last time, learning to shoot does not necessarily make one safe; learning how to identify and avoid conflict does. These folks are simply asking more of the institutions than they're able to provide.

As I noted in one of the first installments, the market for firearm training is quite small relative to the number of gun owners. If a firearm trainer wants to stay in business, he/she must provide what the market demands, and the market demands SHOOTING!

In class after class I've seen student evaluations come back with a consistent complaint: "not enough!" They want more shooting, more "super ninja warrior secrets", and more talk about 9mm vs. .45ACP. Gun Skools respond by upping round counts and shoehorning in more techniques ("we'll show you 53 different ways to perform a tactical reload!") to satisfy the preoccupation with hardware. This leaves precious little time for teaching any of the 'soft' skills that would actually keep the students safe.

Consider this: the typical class is 2 days long, usually over a weekend. I once roughed out a syllabus for a very basic class in observational skills, one designed to improve the student's ability to gather and analyze the information that abounds in the world around him/her. That's a pretty narrow focus, but even given that - and a reduced number of skill building activities - it still wouldn't fit in an 8-hour day. (I'm very big on actually building skills in class, not just introducing a topic and then dashing off to another topic.)

Now imagine a Gun Skool offering a self-defense class where the students spent more than half their weekend working on things that don't go "bang", are never going to go "bang", and in fact are all about NOT going "bang". I can confidently guarantee that the students would complain to high heaven: "I came to shoot, not sit in a classroom!" A few sessions like that, and the Gun Skool would be out of business.

Because of the hardware-centric curricula, whatever proactive/preventive elements that could be covered usually get reduced to a short and ambiguous lecture about 'awareness' (remember what I said last time?) and a presentation of the Cooper Color Codes (which I abhor - but that's another article for another day.) Again, they are providing what the market demands.

There are also limitations on what they are capable of providing. Sadly, in my experience, most Gun Skool instructors just aren't conversant enough with the concept of proaction/prevention to do it any justice, even if their students would allow them to try.

In order to properly address the issues, an instructor needs to have familiarity with a wide range of fields related to how the brain acquires and uses information: neuroscience, psychiatry, cognitive development, neuropsychology, and emerging fields such as neural hermeneutics. It requires him/her to know about things like thin-slicing, pattern matching, mirror neurons, and conscious and unconscious functions of the brain. That's just for starters.

How many 'gunnies' do you know with that breadth of knowledge, and how many of THOSE are capable of transferring that knowledge in usable form to a student? Not many - if any - I'll wager.

It's the chicken and the egg: without a good institution to teach those topics, there is no place for other instructors to learn them to teach the next generation of trainers. Instead, they focus on what they already know: hardware. The result? More classes that teach people 53 different ways to reload their pistol.

That 'other stuff' is intellectually challenging to study, difficult to present, and on top of that isn't terribly sexy. That's a tough sell.

More to come...stay tuned.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: gun.skool

In the last installment we looked at the idea that most people - due to a lack of training and resulting options - tend to use the gun as a first line of defense. To those owners the gun is a talisman, imbued with the ability to keep its bearer safe and sound simply by its presence. The problem with this line of thinking is that the gun, being a reactive tool, cannot keep you safe. It can only help you deal with that which has made you unsafe.

Let's look at the word 'safe'. It means "not exposed to danger or risk; not likely to be harmed." The implication is clear: to actually be safe, one must avoid violent incidents in the first place. That's not what the gun does.

The gun's function is to extract the user from an incident once it has begun. Massad Ayoob often says that the gun is best thought of as a "rescue tool", in the same functional league as a fire extinguisher or first aid kit. Neither of those items prevents anything, but they do make it possible to survive something. The gun needs to be approached with the same attitude.

Safety in the personal sense requires layers of protection that are operational before the gun is ever needed, (hopefully) precluding the need to even draw the thing. These layers consist of both early warning (to let you know that something is a potential threat) and deterrence (prompting the threat to migrate to another, easier, target.)

It's important that you not think of layers in broad terms; they are individual things that together are stronger than they are alone. One layer might be a thorough understanding of criminal behavior, another could be the manner in which you walk, still another could be a flashlight to illuminate dark corners or a motion sensing alarm system. Think "micro", not "macro".

You can't, for instance, say that one of your protective layers is "awareness." Awareness isn't a thing that you can acquire in an of itself; it's a state that exists as the sum total of a number of observational or data-gathering skills, some of which are instinctive and some of which are intuitive.

Once the proactive/prevention layers have been breached by the criminal, then - and only then - is it time for the reactive or rescue layers to be brought into action. By now you should guess where this is going: most of us spend our training time on the reactive/rescue skills, because it's a lot more fun than the other stuff. The result is that the 'soft' skills are often woefully underdeveloped. The prevention part of the equation is weak, leaving nothing but the reaction part to pick up the slack.

The result is that no matter how nice and tight the groups are, no matter how fast the draw, an increase in shooting skill probably makes one no safer than the person who didn't get that level of training. The quantity of shooting classes and the number of certifications and master ratings is really quite irrelevant, if the gun is being used for relatively low level tasks. Without security layers interposed between the gun carrier and the assailant, that's what happens.

(Be very clear: this doesn't address the personal gratification that one might get from achieving those things, which may be considerable. We're focusing solely on the safety aspects of increased shooting skills.)

That's because you generally can't learn the proactive/prevention stuff at Gun Skool, and next time I'll explain why.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: gun.skool

How much training is enough? That depends, of course, on the nature of the training - but it also depends, perhaps to a greater degree, on how it's used.

As I hinted last time, an onion gives us a good framework to both build and evaluate a defensive posture. The onion, as you know, is composed of many layers; to get to the center requires that one remove layer after layer. It requires a certain amount of dedication to do so, because you can't go through Layer #3 without first getting through Layers 1 & 2.

Ideally, our self defense posture should be similarly layered. To breach each successive layer should require more skill and determination from the attacker than the last. The assailant has to be capable of getting through the layers, and must really want to do so. The thinnest layers stop the less able criminals, while the more robust layers serve to thwart those whose skill level is higher.

As it happens, there are more of the former than the latter. For instance, there are lots of people who play baseball as a recreational activity. Go to just about any park and you'll see lots of local league games. Most of the players are better than the average guy off the street, but usually not by a lot. A subset of those might have been good enough to play ball in high school; fewer still on a college team; maybe, occasionally, you'll encounter one who managed to make it to a semi-pro club. The chances of finding a player who ever took the field in the majors is slim to none - there aren't a lot of those people around. The lower the skill requirements, the more people participate.

Criminals are like that, too - there are more petty shoplifters than jewel thieves, because the skill necessary to rip off a DVD from Target is considerably less than stealing a million-dollar necklace from Donald Trump's home.

The outer layers of our defensive onion are those things that serve to discourage the least skilled, and the largest number, of the criminal fraternity. One of those outer layers might consist of a well honed ability to unconsciously make visual observation of what goes on around you, and to predict from scant data an impending assault. This doesn't seem to come naturally; it is learned. Because there is virtually no place where it can be learned (short of a self-directed study regimen), I think most people end up with observational skills that leave something to be desired.

For them, the gun tends to serve as a replacement. It defaults to being one of their outer defensive layers because there is no other outer layer. When it does get pointed at an assailant, it is probably against the least skilled and least motivated of attackers, simply because they are the most numerous. (I am not suggesting that the gun is necessarily used inappropriately, only that it may end up being used in situations that developed outside of the defender's base of knowledge.)

This, I think, partly explains why so many people are able to defend themselves with a gun, even without specialized training. If the situation is relatively simple, with an adversary who is not all that motivated, you just don't need to be a Navy Seal to prevail. As attackers ascend the ladder of skill, motivation, or numbers, so too must the ability of the defender.

Ironically it's the person with the well developed outer defensive layers, the one who is least likely to find him or herself in trouble, who needs firearm training the most. This is because the gun will be one of their inner layers and only exposed to attackers with a superior skill set, the inferior having been put off by the lesser layers.

In other words, the less likely it is that you'll need to use your gun, the more training you'll need in how to use it - because your assailants will be more dangerous.

Unfortunately, most people do it backwards. I'll save that can of worms for next time!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: gun.skool

Does firearm training have any real value?

(In this discussion understand that I'm not referring to basic handling and safety instruction, such as the NRA famously provides. By training, I mean the defensive or 'tactical' courses provided at various private facilities: Gunsite, Front Sight, Thunder Ranch, and all of the smaller and lesser known schools across the country.)

Getting back to the reason for this missive, I'm intrigued by the notion that if one possesses a gun, then one must have (with the emphasis on must) a certain kind of training in order to stand a chance of successfully using it in a self defense role. History would suggest otherwise.

The wide availability of training in the martial art of the firearm is of relatively recent vintage. Despite practical firearms for personal carry being available for more than 150 years, it's really only been in the last 30 that firearms schools oriented toward self defense have become commonplace. For well over a century, people apparently got along just fine, thank you, with no tactical training at all. Perhaps their father or uncle showed them how to load and unload the gun, and perhaps they got a few pointers on shooting, but that was it.

Even in this day, with quality instruction more available than ever, the number of people who take serious firearm training is still a very small fraction of total gun owners; a niche, if you will. A huge percentage of the gun owning public apparently doesn't feel a pressing need to go to Gun Skul, yet they seem to prevail far more often than not in encounters with criminals.

Why? Because the highest probability of personal attack comes in the form of what can be termed the low-level crime. There are more simple attacks, perpetrated by the simplest of attackers, than complex attacks carried out by skilled criminals. It stands to reason that a low-level attack can be defeated by the simplest of tactics - that of presenting a gun. This explains why so many confrontations are thwarted without firing a shot, and while people without training seem to win with great regularity.

The problem is that not all attacks fit that mold. As we get further out on the scale of attack magnitude, training becomes more important. This opens up a serious can of worms, however: what kind of attacks justify more training? How much training, and of what kind, is enough? Is enough ever enough?

The answer is more complex than you might think, but can be explained just by looking at an onion. Seriously.

Next time.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: gun.skool

Last Wednesday I asked you to consider the concept of self-defense training, specifically as it relates to the use of firearms. This was inspired by the comments over at Breda's, some of which I think show an incomplete understanding of the concepts involved.

Specifically, I'm interested in the assertion that one needs to learn some amorphous concept called 'mindset' in order to prevail in a defensive encounter. In discussions of this nature, one often sees simplistic equations like "gun + mindset = success", along with the assertion that this 'mindset' can only be learned at Gun Skool. Without 'mindset', the proponents claim, the gun is next to useless. (Some stop just short of saying that the gun moves from being an asset to being a liability without it, a belief which comes uncomfortably close to one of the gun-grabber's favorite arguments.)

I've taken - and helped to teach - a few 'advanced' gun classes, and I've sat through many a lecture on 'mindset'. Perhaps it's my own insistence on precise terminology, but I must confess that even my 158 IQ cannot attach a consistent meaning to the term! Trying to derive one from the myriad of explanations extant makes me feel like I'm in the famous Monty Python sketch regarding the Spanish Inquisition:



Let's start at the beginning. When we look at the data brought to us by people such as Gary Kleck, one thing stands out: in the vast majority of self defense cases involving a gun, a shot is never fired. The mere presence of the gun, lawfully presented, is enough to convince the assailant that it would be prudent to select another (softer) target.

The gun, though, is just the medium through which the staunch resistance of the defender is the clearly communicated. Without that desire for and dedication to self preservation, the gun would most certainly be rendered ineffectual. Massad Ayoob has said it best: "Understand that criminals do not fear guns. They are, after all, an armed subculture themselves. What they fear is the resolutely armed man or woman who points that gun at them."

"AHA!", some of you are thinking. "That's the mindset that you can only get with training!" I contend that it is not.

In order to be resolute, as Ayoob describes, one must first possess the innate belief that one's life has value. One must value one's own existence above that of the criminal, otherwise one is unlikely to muster the unwavering commitment to self preservation that so unnerves the attacker.

Domestic violence provides us with the most visible lesson. Part and parcel of the abuser's behavior is to nurture within the victim - slowly and methodically - the idea that her life has no value. Once conditioned, the abuser has no fear that the victim can ever mount an effective defense against his cruelty, because she assigns greater value to her tormenter's existence than to her own.

(Please note that the genders are simply for your author's convenience. I am aware that domestic violence is sometimes woman-on-man, and in gay and lesbian couples there is obviously no gender difference. The dynamic of the abuse/abuser relationship, though, remains pretty constant.)

The unthinking spout "if only the woman would have a gun and proper training, she would never be a victim of her partner!" Here's the reality: it doesn't matter how many rounds she fires, how many mindset lectures she attends, or even if she openly carries her gun. If she doesn't believe, deep down and completely honestly, that her very life has value, she may never be able to defend herself against an attacker - whether or not that attacker is known to her.

Again, this isn't just a female thing. There are plenty of males who lack that basic belief in their own right to self preservation, such attitudes having been systematically denigrated over the last couple of generations. Man or woman, if the belief in one's own value as a human being is missing, it needs to be restored before self defense can become a reality.

This requires some extended time with a mental health professional who understands the issue and can guide the patient to a new understanding of his/her place in the universe. It can't be done in a weekend course with a shooting instructor who barks orders and carries a custom blaster on his hip - no matter how many times he works the word 'mindset' into his collection of cliches.

Am I saying that training has no value? Of course not, but that's the subject of Wednesday's treatise. Stay tuned.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: gun.skool

About a week ago, Breda wrote an interesting little piece on self defense. It's interesting to me because of the amount of conflict that the commenters managed to inject into the discussion. I believe that this is because of some fuzzy thinking in regards to the subject, and I'll have more to say in the coming days. (Need time to get the words from my brain through my fingers and into something that resembles coherent thought. Some days that's easier than others!)

In the meantime, read her post and the comments. Think: why do we train? Why should anyone?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: bloggers

Did you know your eye dominance can be changed? I didn't!

I recently had a problem with shots hitting several inches off my point of aim (at only 5 yards.) That's odd, I thought, it's as if I'm seeing out of my left eye. But that's impossible - I'm right eye dominant.

For some reason I did a quick dominance test, and I was shocked that it showed I was left-eye dominant! I must have done it wrong, I thought; I did the test again, and it showed the expected right eye dominance. Whew! One more time, just to be sure - darn it anyway, it came up left again. And again.

That's odd. Dominance, as I've always understood the mechanism, is neurological, not optical. Your brain simply prefers the vision from one eye or the other, and it appears to be hardwired from birth. I've always thought it to be unchanging, as most people do, yet mine had definitely changed.

Guess what? Turns out it's not as immutable as I'd believed. According to my ophthalmologist, who I called the next morning, eye dominance spontaneously changes only in a very, very small percentage of adults - usually as a symptom of an underlying neurological disorder.

Neurological disorder? Doesn't that mean...tumor?? YIKES!

As it happens, I'd had a complete physical (including a thorough eye exam by this doctor) just a couple of months ago. I had no other symptoms, and he reassured me that lack of symptoms and my recent positive tests made me an unlikely patient for surgery.

As it happens, he said, eye dominance can be trained away. The usual trick is to wear glasses with some Scotch-type tape on the lens of the dominant eye. The out-of-focus image forces the brain to use the other eye, and in time becomes used to the arrangement - thus changing the dominance.

But, I protested, I haven't put any tape on my glas....oh, wait.

For years I've worn a jeweler's loupe over my right eye. When I'm working, I swing it down so I can look through it and back up when I no longer need it. It's a hassle to swing it in and out of my vision all the time and get it perfectly aligned again, so for the last year I've just sort of looked around it instead of flipping it up. I use my left eye for distance vision, and the right when I need to do closeup work.

What I normally see in my right eye, then, is...an out-of-focus image. It's the same as tape on the lenses, and by doing that I've unintentionally trained away my right eye dominance! At this moment I'm part of the small number of people who have no strongly dominant eye. If I continued using the loupe in that manner I'd end up strongly cross-dominant.

I immediately swapped loupe positions to force my brain to accept the right eye again. It's been a month or so, and I'm already seeing results. Once I'm back to my normal, strong right eye dominance I'll swap my beloved loupe for a binocular magnifier.

Trouble is, I hate those things! Decisions, decisions...

-=[ Grant ]=-

You've no doubt seen mention in this blog of Mr. Georges Rahbani, "The Best Rifle Instructor You've Never Heard Of." That title isn't flippant; Georges is truly the best rifle teacher I've encountered (and I've encountered more than a few.) He speaks from the heart - and hard experience - about using the rifle to defend home, family, and community.

He's holding his Urban/Defensive RIfle class in the Salem, Oregon area on July 11 & 12, and he has a number of spots still open. Seems that people are hoarding their rifle ammo rather than getting the training they need to learn how to use it properly! That's short-sided, in my view - better to use that fodder building serious shooting skills, rather than just blowing it in another plinking session at the local rock pit.

This class, held under the auspices of The Jacobe Group, is subtitled "Controlling the Rifle", and is the first in his triad. It is a two day, intermediate level course of 800 rounds designed for the dedicated shooter who wants a good grounding in rifle technique for self-defense. This class concentrates on the finer points of platforms, manipulation, sighting, and trajectory from which all "tactical" shooting is done. This isn't a beginning or introductory class - it is a foundational course focusing on the skills that must be mastered by all serious shooters. Novice or veteran, you will learn some "new tricks"!

Hey, if that's not enough you may just get a chance to meet me - in person! How cool is that?!?

My silly ego aside, you really shouldn't miss this opportunity. If you're interested, contact Jim Jacobe ( jimjacobe@comcast.net ) and tell him you want to sign up. If you'd like more information on the class itself, feel free to drop me a note.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: georges.rahbani

There is a concept that, in order to properly teach the use of a firearm for self-defense, one must have been in a shootout. The term most often used to describe that state is "seeing the elephant." (I'm not sure how the phrase got corrupted to mean shooting at someone, but I am sure that I find it quite annoying.)

The assertion, of course, is that only those who have drawn blood with their weapon are in a position to talk about it, and anyone else isn't worthy of attention. This harkens back to the days of the warrior caste, when knights were the privileged class and could own mere peasants who weren't supposed to voice their opinions. The same dynamic is in play today, especially amongst a certain cadre of defensive shooting instructors.

I'll admit that I've gone through an evolution with regards to this. There was a time when I thought that only experience counted, but over the years I've come to realize that experience is just another data point, and one point may or may not be adequate to promote a conclusion.

Rory Miller, whose book "Meditations On Violence" I've already gushed over, deals with this up front. As he correctly observes, all fights are idiosyncratic - one will not necessarily be like another. While there are some characteristics that are true of a large number of incidents, there are many more that vary from encounter to encounter. As he puts it, no one person can have been in enough fights to generate enough data to make generalizations. Experience is important, he believes, but not to the exclusion of everything else.

This was brought home to me in a recent ABC News story out of Tampa. A woman was carjacked, and successfully ended the encounter with her own gun - but not in the way you might think. She punched the assailant in the forehead with the muzzle, which caused him to jump out of her car.

She did everything wrong (starting with her beliefs about the use of deadly force), and yet she came out on top. Would you want to emulate her in any way? I would hope that you answer "no"! Imagine this, though: she could start teaching other people how to defend themselves with a gun, claiming authority based on experience. How silly would that be?

If you didn't know the nature of her experience, and/or had no other reference with which to evaluate it, it wouldn't seem silly at all. It's only when you can put her performance up against the experiences of a large number of others can you gain the perspective necessary to draw conclusions. It's what we call 'research', and is just as important as optical observation of the genus Loxodonta.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: attacks

It finally dawned on me that I forgot to write a Friday Surprise for last week. That's what happens when you're too busy to remember to eat!

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You've probably heard by now that Ruger introduced a new rifle last Friday. It's an AR-15 with a gas piston upper, sporting an MSRP of two grand. There's lots of speculation about whether Ruger's customers will pay that much for a rifle, but my primary concern is reliability. Ruger's last foray into autoloading .223 rifles was something less than stellar, both in reliability and accuracy, so I'll be taking a "wait and see" attitude with this one. (I'm sure Ed Harris will be along soon with his anecdote regarding Bill Ruger's attitude toward the Mini-14 problems. I, for one, am thankful that there are no Rugers running Ruger these days.)

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Recently I mentioned the Major Caudill episode. Last week we learned that Ted Nugent has perpetuated the travesty, much to Marko's completely justified chagrin. By now I'm sure lawyers have been consulted, and The Nuge will no doubt be receiving a letter soon. (Note to Ted: your diatribe condemning piracy will no doubt be used against you at trial. Were I you, I'd settle out of court for a public apology, payment for use of copyrighted material, and an agreement to make a specified number of public appearances to promote Marko's upcoming book.)

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I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but people continue to feel comfortable doing stupid things with guns they perceive to be unloaded.


-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: ruger, ar15, bloggers, safety, i.told.you.so

The archives over at Force Science News continue to fascinate. Issue #68 deals with several myths about the use of deadly force, myths that a large percentage of the population (regardless of their level of firearms knowledge) believe. The whole article is interesting, but it's the first myth - that of the Demonstrative Bullet - that is most immediately useful.

The article discusses the myth from the standpoint of those who judge an incident after the fact. However, the material is also of great importance to the person in the incident. The lawful user of lethal force needs to understand that bullets don't act like we see in movies, including the fact that one bullet simply isn't enough to guarantee rapid incapacitation of a determined attacker.

Belief in the "one shot stop" is prevalent at gun counters, in classrooms, and on firing ranges all over this country. The simple fact is that no handgun round - no matter what caliber or weight or velocity - will reliably incapacitate an attacker, immediately, with a single shot. It just doesn't happen all that often, which is why we need to train to put rapid, multiple, appropriately placed shots on our target. Any time, at any realistic distance, one hand or two, in all lighting conditions, from any stance, while moving, in the rain, from behind cover or in compromised positions. Can you? Be honest with yourself.

Yes, it's a tall order, but that is the reality of the situation. I've said it before: you either acknowledge reality and use it to your advantage, or it will automatically work against you! What you can do on a nice range, in perfect lighting, after carefully working yourself into your favorite stance, isn't the same as what you will be called to do when feral man chooses you as his prey. You need to train for the latter, not the former.

Of course it's easier (and cheaper) to simply Believe, which is what most gun people choose to do. Listen, if you want to believe in the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy, fine and dandy! Those things are inconsequential. Belief in the Demonstrative Bullet, on the other hand, can get you killed. Educate yourself, get relevant training, and practice.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: mythbusting

The March issue of Force Science News contained a very interesting article about how police and private citizens differ in their views of "justified" shootings.

While some may see the article as having application to law enforcement only, they would be wrong - it is well worth reading because it deals with differences in perception of a critical incident, differences which are not necessarily "cops vs. civilians" but more like "trained vs. untrained."

Private citizens are both more critical of decisions to shoot, yet simultaneously less skilled in making those decisions themselves. This has grave implications for those who carry concealed weapons for self-defense; it suggests that an untrained person might shoot with less justification, while at the same time be held to scrutiny that is not commensurate with the risks of an evolving scenario.

My take on the research is that it is imperative the person carrying a defensive firearm be very well trained in the judicious use of deadly force. (Sadly, very few are.) At the same time, that person has to retain defense counsel who can educate a jury in the dynamics of a deadly encounter, so that they can judge the defendant's actions more realistically. You need to be able to show the jury what you knew, and when you knew it.

Think carefully: how's your knowledge of the judicious use of force?

-=[ Grant ]=-

In college I minored in music performance. Being just out of high school (read: thoroughly stupid) I thought I was a hot musician, harboring dreams of becoming a professional trumpet player. Like so many other aspiring performers I really had no idea what the world of a professional musician actually entailed, but I was absolutely sure I had what it took.

One of my professors, an accomplished professional trombonist, made it his job to bring us post-adolescents into the real world. Shortly into my freshman term, he was talking with a few of the members of the trumpet section after class. The talk turned to the requirements of a "pro", and all of us were convinced we had the Right Stuff. Our prof had heard this kind of chatter before, and bet our first chair player that he didn't yet possess the bare minimum skills necessary for the job.

Trumpet players are usually narcissistic personalities, the kind who don't back down from a fight, and the kid said "you're on!"

The prof sighed and said simply "get out your horn. I want you to blow a perfect half-note G above the staff" (trumpet players in the audience will understand.) The kid smirked, dropped his case to the floor and pulled out his horn. "Wait a minute", said our teacher. "I said a perfect G. No warmup. Just one perfect note; in tune from start to end, solid attack, no slop or waviness, crisp decay. You have one and only one shot. Go."

I shouldn't have to tell you the kid failed - miserably. Then again, none of the rest of us would have done any better. We were clueless: none of us yet knew enough to understand how much we didn't yet know.

Fast forward a few decades, and the shooting range serves up the same lesson. Georges Rahbani, "The Best Rifle Instructor You've Never Heard Of" , has a way of impressing on his students how they should assess their own abilities:

"You are only as good as you are, on demand."

What you can do right now, without warm up or sighting shots, without excuses or alibis, is the true measure of how good you are.

This is different from how most people gauge their ability. Most folks would take their rifle to the range on a nice sunny day, settle in comfortably at the bench, fire a bunch of rounds, then shoot a 1" group. They're so proud of that group they take the target home and hang it in their garage or office. "I'm hot stuff!", they'll think - after all, they have the target to prove it!

The next day at the range it's raining, they've had a fight with their spouse, can't get comfortable on the cold bench, and now their best group doesn't even break 3". "That's not me", they'll say to themselves, "I shoot one-inch groups!" The alibis flow like PBR at a fraternity house, and serve to obscure the fact that the 3" group wasn't the anomaly - the 1" group was. The larger one is the true indicator of their skill.

It's not what someone can do when everything is going their way that shows ability; it's what they can do under suboptimal conditions that does. If a person can't shoot until getting into just the right stance, with perfect foot placement and textbook body positioning, then that person still has a lot of work to do to master the fundamentals. (I've seen people who can shoot pretty well on a concrete pad, but go all to pieces on a gravel range. They can't get into their comfort zone.)

This is one thing if we're talking about plinking, but becomes another thing entirely when the subject turns to self defense. The other guy isn't going to wait for us to get into the perfect stance we learned from our guru; we need to be able to deliver rapid, multiple, properly placed shots from whatever position the situation dictates, under whatever conditions it hands us. That requires the courage to admit to ourselves that maybe - just maybe - we aren't quite as good as we think.

Right here, right now, no warmups, no excuses - how good are you?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: georges.rahbani

Lots of linking to avoid thinking on my own!

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Xavier recently posted a letter from - and his response to - one of his readers. The exchange (and the comments that follow) bring up important issues in the area of Second Amendment activism. It isn't always black-and-white.

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When you've finished reading Xavier, pop over to Breda's place and read this related article she posted about a month ago. (I realize it's a bit late, and I'd meant to bring it up earlier, but just kept forgetting.)

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Rob Pincus is one of the more thoughtful trainers working today. He's got a great post up on the Breach-Bang-Clear blog about putting techniques on pedestals. Highly recommended read.

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Speaking of Rob, I discovered that he has a blog of his own. Good stuff.

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Not just techniques get put on pedestals; equipment does too. There are the 1911 people, the Glock folks, the "any caliber as long as it begins with '4' " crowd, and so on. I suppose one could accuse me of doing the same thing with wheelguns (retro pedestal?), but I'm on record as saying - more than once - that the revolver isn't the perfect tool for everyone and every purpose.

For example, a number of years ago I was engaged in an activity of some risk. For that, I forsook my beloved revolver for a Glock and all the high capacity magazines I could fit under a suit coat. I believe in picking the right tool for the job; it just so happens that, for some jobs, the revolver is at least one of the right tools.

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Rejoice! Tam has finally posted a new article over at The Arms Room. (I was beginning to think she'd given up writing about guns...)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: bloggers, rob.pincus, dogma

I used to love shooting steel. The plates dropping, the loud "clang" from a Steel Challenge target - no matter what the venue, reactive metal targets are just addicting. This addiction, I discovered, can be broken - even if you don't want to!

A number of years back I was shooting a Steel Challenge-type match. On one stage I was watching someone else shoot when a piece of bullet jacket bounced back from the steel plate, sneaked around my safety glasses, and caught the corner of my eye. (Mine was not the only injury that day - my buddy Hunter Dan suffered a leg cut from shrapnel, and another fellow caught a piece on his cheek.)

My physical damage was minor - lots of blood, though no permanent damage - but the psychological impact was greater than I could have imagined. You see, I'm somewhat paranoid about my eyesight to begin with; always have been. I don't like the thought of anything heading straight for my eyeball, let alone touching it. (In the old days, when glaucoma exams meant a little pressure gauge touching the cornea, having my eyes checked was absolute agony.)

This close call with the jagged piece of copper left me more than a little skittish around steel targets. Ever since then, regardless of size or distance of the target, shooting a steel plate causes me to blink just as the sear releases. (The problem never occurs on paper targets, only steel.) I can't help it, and I shouldn't have to point out that it makes hitting the target more than a little challenging!

Early last year I resolved to cure this affliction. I'm lucky to have a range on my own property, and last year I acquired a self-resetting, half sized Pepper Popper. Whenever I go out to shoot, I make it a point to do so on that target first. I shoot it repeatedly, and with every shot I consciously force my eyes to remain open.

The first few times I tried this were pathetic; no matter how hard I concentrated, my eyelids always won by doing what they're designed to do - protect my eyes. As time went on, and the round count increased, it became easier to keep them open, though I still have to do it consciously as opposed to subconsciously. (The latter will only occur when my mind has been retrained to accept the idea that shooting a steel target is perfectly safe, and that nothing will happen to my precious eyesight. I'm still working on it.)

I could have just ignored the whole issue and simply avoided shooting steel targets, but a) it's not practical - they show up in the most unexpected places, and b) it's not very much fun. Instead I decided to address the issue, and I'm hoping to be in shape to finally shoot a steel match again this summer.

Whether sports, music, or martial arts, if all you ever do is practice stuff that you've already mastered you'll never make progress. When you go to the range, work on those things that you don't do well. By facing your demons with your eyes open and brain engaged, you can eventually conquer them.

-=[ Grant ]=-

I meet many people who possess concealed handgun licenses, but don't carry on a regular basis - let alone every day. The explanation is usually something along the lines of "I carry when I'm in a bad area" or "if I'm going into a situation where I'm more likely to need it, I'll take my gun". There are myriad variations, but the excuse always boils down to confusions between likelihood and consequence.

Likelihood (probability of attack) is variable. Yes, there are areas (and times) in which one is more likely to be attacked. This is what most people base their carry habits on: the less likely they are to be attacked (the lower the probability), the less compulsion they feel to carry a firearm.

While likelihood changes, consequence doesn't. Consequence refers to the impact on the victim of an attack; consequence is a level, a magnitude. An attack that justifies the involvement of a personally carried firearm is, by definition, of extreme magnitude and thus high consequence. For such incidents, consequence is a constant - it is the same for all times and places. Thus, the necessity of response is the same.

The problem is that most people base their carry habits not on consequence, but on likelihood. I'm not sure of the reason, but perhaps it is societal: we have a tendency to defer issues of consequence to others, because facing them is unpleasant. Dealing only with likelihood allows people to focus on the pleasant (the probability is, after all, that everything will be fine) rather than dwelling on the unpleasant.

Acknowledging the consequences of an attack is frightening to a lot of people; not only do they have to contemplate their own death or injury, they also have to consider that of their opponent. It's ultimately about mortality, and that is more than many people can handle.

You'd think that the possession of a carry license would mean that the person had considered these issues, at least minimally. My experience says otherwise. Even serious gun enthusiasts seem to only face up to the realities of consequence when they have to, which is why even they don't carry all the times that they could.

Are you basing your carry habits on likelihood or consequence? If the former, you're not as safe as you believe yourself to be.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: ccw

Sometimes it's hard to understand the mindset of gun prohibitionists, because they come from a different perspective than those of us who hold the opposite view. Unless you can relate to their perspective, you will always look at them in the same way one might look at the monkeys in the zoo.

From ManiacWorld comes this enlightening video. Watch it and learn what you're up against. (I wanted to embed it here, but couldn't find a way to do so. Sorry.)

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Steve over at The Firearms Blog posted this superb analysis of Remington's new triangular barrels. I had thought that the tensioned upper and compressed lower ribs would serve to reduce barrel flex, but didn't have the engineering background to verify my belief. Steve's correspondent does. Great information.

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From The Anarchangel comes this cartoon with implications for the CHL holder:



The lawfully carried firearm doesn't necessarily make you safer, folks - it simply gives you a means to resist initiated force. Without awareness and a basic understanding of the nature of violent attacks, all of your painstaking preparation can be rendered moot by a simple blow to the head.

If you carry, but aren't truly aware of your surroundings, you aren't as safe as you think you are. The bad guy can still come out of your blind side and achieve the same result. I've met lots of gunnies who profess to always be in "condition yellow", yet stare straight ahead while crossing a parking lot to their car. When was the last time you looked under your car as you approached, or flashed a light in the back seat before unlocking the door? Do you understand why you should never take a parking space you have to back out of? Do you know the difference between "looking" and "seeing"?

Just as having the most expensive kitchen won't magically turn you into Wolfgang Puck, carrying the currently fashionable handgun in your guru's favorite caliber won't automatically make you safe. (I've often thought about teaching a class on self defense from the basis of situational awareness, but sadly the topic isn't sexy enough to sell.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: prohibitionists, bloggers, tactics, ccw

In the comments to last week's post regarding safety rules, someone asked why checking the condition of a firearm is never listed in any rules. It seems logical enough - why not check the condition of a gun when you pick it up?

I'd like you to think about that for a minute - really think: why are you checking it?

If you plan to shoot it immediately, I can understand wanting to make certain that it was loaded. If you were going to disassemble it for cleaning, or do dryfire, or some other specific task that would require it to be sans ammunition, I understand why you'd want to verify that it was unloaded. But checking just to be checking? I'm not sure that it keeps anyone safer.

Other than those obvious examples, I can't come up with a good reason for someone to obsess about the load condition of a gun - unless it's because, consciously or unconsciously, they want or plan to do something unsafe.

Look at it this way: why are you verifying the condition if you're just going to pretend it's loaded anyhow? The answer seems to be quite obvious: because you're not really going to treat it as though it's loaded, and the reason you're not going to is because, deep down, you want to do something that you know isn't all that safe.

When I'm handed a gun, unless I'm going to do something that requires a particular state, I don't feel a need to immediate check it. Why? Because I treat all guns to the same standard:

1. Never point a gun - any gun, loaded or unloaded - at anything you are not willing to shoot.

2. Always make sure of your target, and of where your bullets will land.

3. Keep your finger out of the trigger guard until your sights are on target, and you are in the act of firing the shot.

I'm not going to point that gun at anything I'm not willing to shoot, regardless of whether it's loaded; I'm not going to have my finger on the trigger, either, loaded or not. I don't make exceptions, because the Three Commandments neither contain nor allow exceptions. That is why they are superior to any form of the existing "Four Rules."

There's yet another dynamic at work, which I've observed over the years with a wide variety of people. Those who do the habitual check often display an absolutely frightening tendency: after they've checked the gun, they relax. Visibly. You can see the changes in their body language and facial expressions, showing that they are now at ease - and less vigilant - with that firearm.

I've seen this with new gun owners, and I've seen it with the most experienced instructors. I've seen it with combat vets and with gunsmiths, with gunstore jockeys and seasoned competitive shooters. People check the gun, see that it's empty, and drop their guard. The situation is obvious to anyone who has the courage to look for the signs. You can almost hear them thinking: "don't worry, it's not loaded!"

(Of course, not every single person does this - but you'd be surprised, when you start looking, how large the percentage is and how it cuts across all levels of experience.)

When people are handling firearms, I want to see them completely engaged. Dropping one's guard because the gun has been verified as empty is the genesis of negligent discharges. Never become complacent - the consequences are simply too great.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: safety

First, please read this sad story over at Xavier's place. When you're done, come back and we'll talk about it a bit.

I wasn't going to comment on the tragedy, but I simply can't ignore it. I'm so tired of reading this kind of story, and I'm even more tired of the shooting community failing - in many cases, simply refusing - to do anything about the situation.

(For some background, please read my article "On Safety." It lays out my arguments, which I will be referencing in these comments.)

Note that Joshua had in fact completed a gun safety course. I can almost guarantee you that his instructor taught him not just Traditional Rule #1, but the very worst, most ignorant, most negligent version of that rule: "all guns are always loaded, until you've verified that they aren't."

What leads me to that conclusion? Simple - I've demonstrated that people feel free to do stupid things with guns that they think are unloaded. The caption to one of Joshua and Alaina's pictures, according to Xavier, said "We triple checked to make sure ALL of the guns were unloaded!"

There, ladies and gentlemen, lies the proof. They did just what their instructor had told them: they checked to make sure that their guns were unloaded, and once that was accomplished they were completely at ease doing (and chronicling) stupid things with them. Monumentally stupid things. That caption says, in effect, "it's OK - we're doing just as we were told."

As a result, a beautiful young woman lies in the cold, hard ground.

In my view, Traditional Rule #1 is more than partly responsible for her death, because it set up the circumstances under which it could happen. It created a mindset that wasn't devoted to safety, but in fact evasive of it. It gave Joshua a mental "out": "I thought it was unloaded!"

Understand this: I think Xavier is a great blogger, a fellow with whom I agree on so many topics. He deserves kudos for putting this story together, but this time his conclusion is dead wrong. He posits that had Joshua and Alaina just followed the rules more closely, this tragedy wouldn't have happened.

My rejoinder is that they did just as they were taught; it's not that they had any lack of adherence. They followed the rules, starting with Traditional Rule #1, just like they were supposed to. If you've read the article I referenced earlier, you know why I believe Traditional Rule #1 abrogates all of the other rules, setting up situations just like this one. It did not prevent this tragedy, any more than it has prevented any of the others I've written about.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. Simply repeating Traditional Rule #1, in a progressively louder voice, isn't working. It can't. Isn't it time we did something better?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: bloggers, safety, i.told.you.so

I've written about this before, but it's getting worse. All across this country are people standing behind gun counters who need to be taught that women are people, too.

I've lost track of the number of times I've run into a woman who was sold (as opposed to deciding to buy) a revolver for self defense. Now it should be pretty clear to even the densest web denizen that this is a revolver-friendly blog, so it should not come as a shock that I think revolvers are a great tool.

They are not necessarily, however, the right tool. As I mentioned last week, the revolver is the easiest gun in the world to shoot, but the most difficult gun to shoot well. That long, heavy (in stock configuration) trigger requires a certain amount of hand strength, without which the gun cannot be fired.

Herein lies the problem: the female of the species, in general, tends to have less strength in her digits than does the male. It's not unusual, therefore, to find a woman saddled with a brand-new revolver on which she cannot manipulate the trigger. I've seen countless numbers of women who actually have to use two fingers to get the trigger moving!

It's not so much a matter of gun fit (though that enters into the equation far too often), but simply the trigger offering more resistance than a slim finger is capable of overcoming. In reality most women would really be better served with the shorter, lighter trigger action of an autoloading pistol, but the wisdom of the gunstore commando is that autoloaders are just "too complicated for the little lady."

Hey, Bubba, I've got news for you: women actually drive cars these days! Yes, automobiles, with their myriad switches and levers and pedals and buttons. Women have no problem figuring those things out, yet you think they can't handle the concept of a slide stop lever?

The usual rejoinder is that women don't have the upper body strength to manipulate the slide of an autoloader. This is fact turned on it's side to bolster a flawed assumption; yes, women tend not to have our arm strength, but that deficiency can be rendered immaterial through proper technique. It's a simple matter, and nearly any female (and a more enlightened male) firearms instructor can teach it inside of thirty seconds.

This whole issue wouldn't bother me so much - and I wouldn't be writing about it again - but the inferiority attitude is so pervasive that some women are themselves buying into the notion that they're not "capable" of handling an autoloader. I've actually had students to whom I've taught the autoloader manipulation techniques (and who've shot very well with one) go out and end up with a revolver. Not because they wanted one, mind you, but because some dolt behind a counter convinced her that it was all she could handle.

Mind you, I'm not some new-age "sensitive man". I'm as big a neanderthal as the next guy; I believe that women and men are different, and you can thank your favorite deity for the difference! I'm just tired of people assuming that my wife, sisters, nieces, and mother are so stupid that they can't handle a simple mechanical device. I'm annoyed that they are doing their level best to indoctrinate women to this nonsensical point of view, and I'm appalled that it actually seems to be gaining some traction among women themselves!

I don't have a prescription for this problem, other than to continue to educate every person - man or woman - I run across. If that means I repeat myself every so often, I'm willing to do so. I hope you'll forgive me!

Yes, revolvers are wonderful, but they're not for everyone. We need to help people to make intelligent decisions, and if that means they choose a self-shucker, so be it. Heretical? No, just realistic.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: gunstore.goons, women

There is a perception amongst a large percentage of the gun-toting public that guns are magic wands: one shot and the bad guy flies backward, landing in an unconscious heap at the bottom of a wall or tree.

Think I'm exaggerating? Spend a few minutes at a gun counter sometime. Random samples would tend to support the supposition that the majority of people carrying guns get their information from Hollywood, not Paulden.

This incident from east Texas should serve to remind us that real life ain't like "reel" life.

There are, of course, a number of unanswered questions: was the good guy's gun not adequate for effective defense? Was he not able to draw and shoot in time? Did he make an effort to "get off the X" or did he simply "stand and deliver"?

We don't know. Sadly, we may never know. All we do know is that something went horribly wrong, leaving the good guy six feet under and the bad guy getting three hots and a cot.

Let's review how to avoid the same fate:

1) Select a gun and cartridge that are suitable for self defense. (At the risk of tooting my own horn, read my series on this topic.)

2) Learn how to be aware of your surroundings (it most assuredly does not come naturally to modern man); study and memorize the precursors to violent attacks.

3) Practice drawing and shooting from your holster; don't carry your gun in an unaccessible place, and carry it the same way all the time.

4) Break the habit of just standing and shooting; learn to get off the axis of a violent attack. (This is not the old "take one step to the side and shoot" exercise - it is far more dynamic. Love him or hate him, Gabe Suarez has been preaching this for many years, and only now does the concept seem to be gaining traction.)

5) Understand that one shot is quite unlikely to do the job, and that the old "two shots center of mass, then evaluate" doctrine may just give your opponent the opening he needs. Learn how to quickly put multiple, accurate shots on target - while moving.

6) Understand that you can do everything "right", and still lose. This is a concept that seems to be lost to even the best instructors: luck plays a huge role in survival. Do everything you can to put as much of it on your side as possible.

Be careful, stay safe.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: attacks

A couple of weeks ago, I linked to the story of a thug who showed no remorse about killing a couple of musicians.

Well, it seems that there was more to the story, and Jim Jacobe (www.jimjacobe.com) sent me a link to an article on the U.S. Concealed Carry Association website. It's the "other side" of the incident - the mother and the instructor of one of the victims.

It is a must-read. (You'll have to scroll down their page just a bit for the article, titled "No Safe Places", by Don Myers. It's worth the effort.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: attacks

I've been asked to provide a permanent link to my articles on the failings of gun safety rules. Happy to oblige; I've added them to the Library as well.

The original article: "On Safety"
Followup article: "Following the safety rules religiously"

Please read them and consider them carefully. Of course, I'm always happy to hear comments from readers!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: safety

Go read this article over at Xavier's place. NOW.

Then take the time to read this terrific piece over at Michael Bane's hangout.

Then spend a bit of time considering the intersection of the two. You'll be safer and more confident for doing so.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: attacks, bloggers

A reader sent me this link to an old Richard Davis "Second Chance" video. The video has Davis shooting a fellow - who is wearing one of Davis' vests, of course - with a .308 rifle and himself with a .44 magnum revolver. The reader's comment was "if this doesn't show an energy dump, I don't know what it shows."

I agree. With the second part of the statement, at least. Going back to our "Stopping power" series, as I pointed out the term "energy dump" is nonsensical - energy isn't "dumped", it is used to do work.

What is the work in this case?

First, I can guarantee that the bullet itself was grossly deformed in its contact with the vest material. It takes energy to deform the bullet, and that energy only comes from one place: the bullet itself.

Second, there is a huge amount of work being done by that slug. It is trying to part and sever the fibers in the vest material, which are quite tough and designed to resist such force. The bullet does manage to defeat some of the fibers - which is why it's buried between the layers of cloth - but the energy required to do that job, again and again (there are many layers in a vest) rapidly depletes the bullet's stored energy. The result is that all of the energy is used up doing the work of penetrating the vest.

Again, the bullet's energy wasn't "dumped" - it was used. Understand the difference, and terminal ballistics won't seem so mysterious.

(Notice also the second myth busted in the video: that a bullet has enough energy to knock a man down. As you can see, even full-power .308 NATO, at near contact distance, isn't sufficient to knock over a man standing on one foot. Again, there is nothing mysterious at work - simply basic physics.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: stopping.power, mythbusting

Last week I promised a story. I heard this from "the horse's mouth", and if you knew this particular horse the story would not surprise you...

Anyhow, I happen to know a fellow (I'll call him "Ted") who, back in the '70s, was a Detective in a very large eastern police department. He had just been promoted from patrol, which meant that for the first time in his career he got to dress in plainclothes.

Ted and his more experienced partner were headed to lunch one day. They worked in a not terribly good part of town, and picked a restaurant in the vicinity of their last call. They pulled up in front of the restaurant, just behind a taxicab.

As they were exiting their unmarked vehicle a male climbed out of the cab ahead of them. He drew what Ted described as "a chrome-plated automatic", and started firing at another person who was still in the back seat of the cab.

(Allow me to digress as I explain that Ted, taking advantage of his now much looser dress requirements, had taken to wearing all manner of holsters. He alternated between a shoulder holster, crossdraw, strong side hip, appendix, and even ankle. He made the decision about which one to wear almost on a whim each morning. I'm sure you're beginning to see where this is going.)

Ted, who was exiting on the curb side of the vehicle, was in direct line of sight of the suspect. Being the gung-ho young cop that he was, he yelled "police, freeze!" as he reached for his gun. The perp turned toward the source of the command, and seeing two witnesses in suits raised his pistol in their direction and started firing.

Here's where the story gets interesting: Ted habitually reached for the spot where his uniform belt had always placed his gun. Of course, it wasn't there! I wish I could convey the level of comical panic that he did, but the gist is that he started patting himself all over, trying to find his gun while at the same time diving for cover behind his car door. "I couldn't remember where my gun was," he exclaimed to me. "I suddenly had the horrible thought that maybe I'd left it on my dresser!"

In the meantime his older and wiser partner simply drew his "snubby" revolver from the crossdraw holster he always used, and proceeded to drop said perp in his tracks. Ted found his gun just in time to help clean up the mess.

Ted told me that this incident convinced him to carry his gun in the same holster and in the same place every day. His advice to me was that I should do likewise - and I always do.

A firefight, gentle readers, is not the time to try to remember where you put your gun, or where your bullets are landing relative to your sights. Standardize on your load and your holster, and practice regularly so that you can quickly draw and reliably put your shots where they need to go!

-=[ Grant ]=-

(For convenience, you can access all the installments at this link.)

Stick with what works

You've all heard of the "Gun of the Week" club, right? That's the term used to describe an "enthusiast", the guy (gals are too smart to engage in such nonsense) who carries or competes with a different gun every time he goes out. (Closely related is the "Holster of the Week" club. I'll post an amusing story about that, soon.)

There is also the "Bullet of the Week" club. Some folks read the gun magazines assiduously, loading up with the latest and greatest "stopper" from the current issue. The next issue (or possibly a competing magazine) tells them about yet another new bullet, and off to the gunstore ammo shelves they go!

There are problems with this approach. Aside from the fact that one is unlikely to see any major performance differences between modern designs from major makers, there is a reliability issue. If you're shooting an autoloader (an affliction which elicits my sincere sympathies), you need to fire a minimum of 200 rounds of your chosen ammunition to ensure reliability. That's a lot of ammunition to buy and shoot every time you change loads!

Even with a revolver, you should shoot a full box of that ammo to ensure ignition reliability in your gun, especially if you've had action work performed.

The other issue is with the sights on your gun. Fixed sights, as featured on both revolvers and autos, will not shoot all ammunition to the same point of aim, necessitating on-the-fly windage or elevation corrections. Trying to remember whether this week's ammunition choice shoots up or down, right or left, relative to the sights is hard enough. Imagine trying to do that with someone lobbing rounds into your personal airspace!

If you have fixed sights, you should regulate them to match the load you'll be using - then use that load, and only that load, for "serious" use in that gun. If for some reason you change the standard load for that gun, have the sights adjusted to shoot to point-of-aim for that load.

That's why I say "stick with what works." Pick a decent load that proves itself to be reliable in your gun, have the sights regulated properly, and just use it. Constantly switching between different bullets gains you nothing, and may in fact cost you in a dynamic self-defense incident. Pick one load, practice with it, and use only that bullet in that particular gun.

I go even further - I've standardized on one load for all my .38/.357 guns, and I've regulated all of them to shoot that load. That way, I don't have to maintain a huge stock of ammunition to fit a bunch of different guns.

I think this finally does it for the "Self defense, stopping power, and caliber" series. I'm just about "talked out"! I hope that it has given you some insight into the task of selecting a gun/cartridge for your self defense needs.

Stay safe, make sensible choices, and practice. It's all you can do - but, as it happens, all you can do is enough!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: stopping.power

(For convenience, you can access all the installments at this link.)

"So, smarty pants - what gun should I get?"

I receive many emails asking, in essence, what the "best" self-defense caliber might be. (Those emails, in fact, have served as the motivation behind this series.) The correspondents are probably expecting sage advice, the wisdom of years, a sort of Ballistic Oracle. What they get is a non-commital "it depends!"

If you take nothing else from this series, take this: there is no such thing as "best" - there is only "suitability for purpose."

Why is that? As we learned in the first parts, there is a pretty large envelope - caliber, weight, and velocity - of performance criteria that have shown themselves to work well. Thus, any cartridge you select within that envelope is likely to do the job, as long as you do yours.

That's the most important part: that the gun in question enables you to do your job. It is the first place you should start. You need to be honest with yourself, accurately assess what you can and cannot handle. Remember that a self-defense scenario often will call for multiple, rapid, precisely-placed shots. Can you do that with the guns that you're considering? Really? Be honest with yourself!

I see many people who are talked into a gun that is touted as a "better stopper", but who are unable to handle it to the standards given above. Most of this is technique, and technique can be learned, but everyone has some upper limit. Remember: only accurate hits count, and you should strive to maximize your hit potential. As we've explored, power is irrelevant if it doesn't get to something important!

Once you've passed that hurdle, the choices almost make themselves. In any given cartridge, if you pick a hollowpoint load in the middle of the caliber's normal weight range, you'll generally have most of what you need. There are exceptions, of course: at the lowest ends of the energy spectrum (say, standard .38 Specials) penetration becomes an issue, so you should tend to the heavier rounds. At the other end (the heavy magnums), the more powerful loads often need lighter bullets to limit penetration and enhance expansion.

For everything else, stay away from the lightest and heaviest bullets, pick a decent hollowpoint, and you'll most likely be just fine.

The most important part of this whole selection process is to practice with the load that you've chosen. If the cartridge/gun combination is "too much" for you to do so, that's a sign that you need to pick something else. You need to practice with your safety/rescue equipment, and if you can't or don't want to, then you will be less prepared to face a deadly encounter. The old trick of practicing with Specials while carrying Magnums on the street has been thoroughly discredited, because it doesn't allow the user to get used to the dramatic difference in handling between the two.

(This isn't to say that you have to do all your training this way; I do a lot of work with light loads when I'm diagnosing a trigger control issue, or to help develop a specific skill. When I've got them down, though, I switch to my carry load and train extensively with that.)

So, what do I carry? Most of the time, I load up the trusted and proven .38 Special +P 158 grain all lead semi-wadcutter hollowpoint. I've spoken with many people who have actually used this load against an adversary, and to a person they were all very satisfied with the ballistic effect. Massad Ayoob tells me that his research showed police agencies who switched from that load to hot autoloading cartridges did so not to get "better" bullets, but to get "more bullets." I'm confident in it's abilities, and in my ability to handle the cartridge from any gun under any conditions.

This is a tradeoff for me. For instance, I really like the .44 Special. It's a great round, but in a concealable gun I just don't handle it as well as other calibers. I'm honest with my limitations; increasing joint pain, particularly in my elbows, is beginning to limit what I can handle, which means that the sweet .44 Special is no longer a good choice for my primary caliber.

In fact, a hot .357 Magnum from a Ruger SP101 is easier for me to control than a .44 Special from a small gun, and the Magnum has become to be too much for me in a normal range session. I like the .357 too, but I have to admit to myself that if I want to live relatively pain free, I can't shoot it from my carry guns any more.

The result is that I've picked the most effective round that falls within my limitations, and practice with it extensively. I think that is the most rational way to approach this whole topic!

Next time, we'll explore some less obvious considerations when picking your "ideal" self defense cartridge.

<--- Click here for the previous episode ..................... Click here for the next episode --->

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: stopping.power

Here's the whole series for your perusal!

Part 1: Introducing the Twin Tasks.
Part 2: If it doesn't get somewhere, it can't do something.
Part 3: Once it gets there, it has to do work.
Part 4: The bullet is more important than the caliber.
Part 5: More energy can be a good thing - as long as it actually does something useful.
Part 6: What would I want with a reputation?
Part 7: There Is No Such Thing as a Magic Bullet.
Part 8: "So, smarty pants - what gun should I get?"
Part 9: Stick with what works.

Tags: stopping.power

(For convenience, you can access all the installments at this link.)

There Is No Such Thing as a Magic Bullet

What does that mean, you ask?

One of the last bastions of the snake oil salesman is in the field of ammunition promotion. Claims that would make Professor Harold Hill blush are the norm, and are repeated in gunstores, shooting ranges, and deer camps across the country. They sometimes even make their way into magazines and the internet - though the latter's instant exchange of information has helped to quell the worst of the hyperbole.

Still, many hold on to their belief in "magic bullets", hoping that there really exists something that will transform their .25ACP into an elephant killer. (I exaggerate, of course, but one ammo maker used to claim that their product for the little .25 had the same "one shot stop" percentage as a .45. That, my friends, is a true belief in magic.)

Like many fables, the legend of the Magic Bullet has its roots in reality. As Arthur C. Clarke said, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In the bullet world, that advanced technology is the hollowpoint bullet.

The hollowpoint, as we've learned, is a good mechanism to control the penetration and wound profile of any given cartridge. Sometimes, it can work what seems like a miracle - transforming an otherwise unremarkable cartridge into a respectable "stopper."

One of the best examples of this is the .30 M1 Carbine cartridge. Many servicemen had experience with the little Carbine in World War II and Korea, and they either loved it or hated it. Those that hated it often complained about a lack of "stopping power" - enemies who were hit often didn't go down with alacrity. (Some even claimed that the rounds "bounced off" the heavy wool coats worn by the opposition. That wasn't true, and was easily shown as such, but when someone is running toward you screaming his head off, a lack of convincing ballistic effect makes the distinction unimportant.)

The .30 Carbine, as it turns out, is a penetrator. Its sleek bullet usually went straight through the target, making a quick-closing wound and doing little damage along the way. (Sound familiar?) After the war, one of the ammo makers got the bright idea of stuffing a semi-jacketed hollowpoint into the casing. When they did that, the entire complexion of the carbine changed.

The penetration was now more controlled, and the expanded bullet had a much larger frontal area that did more damage along its path. So changed was the round that Jim Cirillo, the famous member of the New York Stakeout Squad, proclaimed it one of the two most effective weapons in their entire arsenal - the other being the formidable 12 gauge shotgun. High praise indeed!

He wasn't the only one who made note of the "enhanced" Carbine. The late Gene Wolburg, wound ballistics expert and one of the most knowledgeable people in the field, once said that his home defense weapon of choice was the M1 Carbine loaded with that semi-jacketed hollowpoint.

It may have seemed like magic to the servicemen who had bad experiences with the round, but the effect of the hollowpoint loading was simple physics. It did its job better - it just happened to be a lot better.

A "magic bullet", in contrast, appears to violate the laws of physics, or so skews its sales copy that you think it does. For instance, magic bullet purveyors play up the "energy" of their load, to the exclusion of everything else.

Now, understand that energy is the result of multiplying the mass of the projectile by the square of it's velocity. Without boring you with the math, what that means is that a small change in velocity makes a big change in the energy of the projectile. In other words, if you drop the projectile weight you can up the velocity, which will make a huge increase in energy figures. Sounds great, right?

Well, as we've already studied, energy isn't everything. A light projectile might be moving very quickly, but when it contacts solid matter it loses velocity quickly. That translates into shallow wounds. (Remember the last installment, where we looked at the .357 Magnum? Same thing, only worse.) The projectile needs weight as well as velocity in order to penetrate well, and if you sacrifice enough weight for more speed, you'll fail at the First Task: reaching something important.

Exotic bullets that claim to do something others can't should set off your B.S. detector. Any cartridge that proclaims a "massive energy dump" as the wounding mechanism or pushes velocity over everything else is probably vying for a magic bullet award. Personally, I'm not going to trust my life to that kind of ammo!

What I'm getting at (and have been for this entire series) is that there is nothing mysterious, nothing magic about the way a bullet works. It has to get to something important, and it has to do rapid and significant damage when it gets there. That's it. Any claims that seem to skate around the topic should be looked at with great skepticism, for there is truly no such thing as a "magic bullet."

<--- Click here for the previous episode ..................... Click here for the next episode --->


-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: stopping.power, magic.bullets

(For convenience, you can access all the installments of this series at this link.)

"What would I want with a reputation? That's a good way to get yourself killed!" - Jason McCullough, "Support Your Local Sheriff" (my favorite movie of all time!)

What about "reputation"? Some cartridges or loadings have reputations for better effectiveness than others. Sometimes that's valid, but other times it may not be.

Let's take the mighty .357 Magnum, one of my very favorite cartridges. The 125 grain semi-jacketed hollowpoint loads have the reputation of being superbly effective; some believe that they are the "best" manstoppers ever made. I've talked with people who have actually used them in real shootings, and they were very happy with the performance. But there are instances of stupendous failures.

For those who hold that energy is everything, this may come as a shock. How could all that power possibly fail? Simple - if it doesn't do both of the Twin Tasks!

Let's consider what happens with the 125 grain Magnum loads. Leaving the barrel at nearly 1500 feet per second, the bullet enters the target with a huge reserve of energy. As the hollowpoint fills with fluid and starts to expand, it uses up some of that energy to grow dramatically in diameter. The increase in diameter means more resistance in the tissues, which uses more energy and further slows the bullet. Because the relatively light weight of the slug doesn't have great momentum, and thus not a lot of stored energy, it doesn't travel very far before it finally runs out of steam. The result can be a shallow wound - one which doesn't reach something the body finds important.

This is the "ugly secret" that proponents of the .357 125 grain JHP don't want to talk about. Shallow wound profiles with these "barn burner" loads are not unheard of, and occasionally prove to not be as effective as expected. As one noted trainer once told me, when they work they are superb - but when they fail, they fail spectacularly!

Suppose you've decided that you'd prefer something a bit more predictable, but want to retain the superb performance of the round - is there a solution? Yep! Simply go to a slightly heavier bullet, one which carries a tad less velocity and a bit more momentum. Winchester, for instance, has the 145 grain Silvertip bullet, and Speer is now making a 135 grain Gold Dot Magnum load. Both are obviously designed to retain the Magnum's reputation as a fight-ender, but do so on a more consistent basis.

This is a good illustration of the tradeoffs involved in cartridge selection. Speed isn't everything; bullet size isn't everything; bullet weight isn't everything. It's a combination, a concert of all of those (plus good handling qualities as defined by the shooter) that make a round effective. One can't simply say "I've got a Magnum" or "I carry a .45" and smugly claim that one has the "perfect" self defense gun. While it may work, there is always the chance that it may not; handguns, after all, are underpowered things.

Through intelligent selection, you can dramatically improve the performance envelope of your chosen gun, regardless of the cartridge it shoots.

<--- Click here for the previous episode ..................... Click here for the next episode --->

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: stopping.power

(For convenience, you can access all the installments of this series at this link.)

More energy can be a good thing - as long as it actually does something useful.

Last time we discussed the concept of the hollowpoint as a way to increase the frontal diameter of the bullet in the target. I also introduced the idea that it takes energy to expand the bullet, energy that is also needed to push the projectile into something that it needs to reach.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. If we want the bullet to expand, it doesn't happen by magic. Somewhere the energy has to be found to deform the metal used in the bullet, and that energy can only be found in the bullet's own movement. If there is too little to start with, then there won't be enough to continue the bullet on its path.

If the cartridge has insufficient energy, when the bullet expands it will stop forward movement too rapidly, resulting in very shallow wounds that may or may not be effective. This tends to explain the lack of expanding bullets for the venerable .38 Special cartridge - there just isn't enough energy to drive a bullet deeply into the target and expand it at the same time.

How do we get around this problem? Well, the first alternative is to simply switch to a cartridge with more energy. In the case of the .38, we could bump up to the .357 Magnum. The .357 certainly has enough energy! Of course, that energy reserve comes at a price: greatly increased recoil and muzzle blast.

The other alternative is to make a higher energy version of the cartridge we already have. This time-tested tactic results in what's know as "+P" ammunition, which is the designation for a cartridge loaded beyond what is considered "normal" pressure. The idea is to increase the energy delivery of that cartridge to accomplish a specific task. Generally, it works pretty well!

You'll see criticisms on the internet of some +P loadings, usually centered on the idea that "it's not much of an increase in power." If you consider what we've explored in this series so far, you'll realize that it doesn't have to be a "lot" - it just has to be "enough"! If a cartridge at normal pressure can't quite deliver an expanding bullet to where it needs to, but a +P version does, then that is sufficient for the task at hand.

Remember: if the energy doesn't do something useful, then it is wasted from our perspective.

Get away from the idea that you need vast increases in power for defensive applications. You simply need enough power to perform the Twin Tasks. Is it better to have an large reserve amount of energy on tap? That's a question that only you can answer, after being honest about your own abilities and needs.

In the next installment we'll bring together the things we've discussed, and look at the tradeoffs you need to consider to pick your "ideal" self defense cartridge.

<--- Click here for the previous episode ..................... Click here for the next episode --->

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: stopping.power

(For convenience, you can access all the installments of this series at this link.)

The bullet is more important than the caliber.

We know that our bullet needs to do damage to whatever important thing it manages to find. How, exactly, is that going to occur? It just so happens that most animal tissue (including that of the violent felon who has just attacked you) is remarkably elastic, and consequently difficult to damage. Most tissues have a tendency to "close up" around puncture wounds, in the same way that they close up after a hypodermic needle withdraws. If they didn't, every time we get a booster shot we'd spring a leak!

The upshot (pardon the pun) of this is that our bullet needs to die-cut or crush the tissues in its path, rather than sliding cleanly through. The reputation of the old .38 Special 158 grain round nose bullet as a "widow maker" was well deserved, as it often went in one side and out the other with very little blood loss. That smooth, aerodynamic profile travels through water-filled tissue about as cleanly as through air, for all the same reasons. It neatly parts that tissue in a way that facilitates immediate closure and minimal blood loss. In our sefl-defense scenario, that's what's known as "A Bad Thing."

In fact, round nose (or "ball") ammunition is an unremarkable performer in just about any caliber; "they all fall to hardball" is right up there with "the check is in the mail" for statements you should never believe, no matter how authoritatively (read: arrogantly) delivered.

If we can get a bullet to cut or crush a non-closing hole in the target, we stand a better chance of doing the kind of work necessary to cause that target to stop in its tracks.

The amount of disruption that a handgun bullet delivers to the target is dependent on its shape/construction and on the overall diameter (caliber.) A shape that encourages efficient travel through the target is to be avoided; a shape that is non-aerodynamic will generally produce the kind of result that we seek. All other things being equal, flat-faced bullets usually beat pointy bullets.

(Personally, I pay more attention to bullet construction than caliber. Hunting and shooting experience, plus a lot of research with those more knowledgeable in the field of wound ballistics, has convinced me that there is more variation in effectiveness within calibers than between them. In other words, you're more likely to see performance differences by changing your bullet type, rather than changing calibers. )

This isn't news to any old-timers out there! Hunters in bygone days were always told to use flat-pointed bullets over round-nosed varieties, because they delivered more "shock" to the quarry. That was their non-scientific way of explaining why the bullets obviously performed differently, and what they lacked in technical jargon was more than compensated by their acute observations.

Of course there just isn't a free lunch; those flat bullets don't usually work in autoloading actions, and they make speed reloading of a revolver more difficult. There is an answer: the expanding bullet. We can actually enhance the terminal results by using a bullet (usually a hollowpoint of some sort) that grows in diameter as it goes through the target.

A hollowpoint bullet works because, as it enters the target, it expands to a greater-than-caliber frontal diameter and assumes a very flat-faced shape. This means that the bullet can crush a much larger hole than normally possible for the caliber, ensuring the kind of target damage necessary to complete the task at hand.

There are, of course, issues in making these things perform as desired: first, the work of deforming the bullet takes energy. This energy can only be come from the bullet itself, which means there is that much less available to enable the bullet to continue its travel. Second, the resulting increase in drag from that wide face also uses energy at a tremendous rate, and thus also drastically limits penetration. Because of these factors, shallow wounds from hollowpoint bullets are not at all unheard of, both in hunting and in self defense.

The solution is to a) use a different cartridge that has enough energy to spare to begin with, or b) increase the energy of the existing cartridge. We'll tackle those issues next time!

<--- Click here for the previous episode ..................... Click here for the next episode --->

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: stopping.power

(For convenience, you can access all the installments of this series at this link.)

Once it gets there, it has to do work.

In today's installment, we're going to look at the second of the Twin Tasks:

2) The bullet has to do rapid and significant damage to that thing when it arrives.

It may not be self evident, but kinetic (moving) energy is either used or conserved (stored.) In the case of a bullet, it starts being used simply by fighting the friction caused by traveling through the air. Unless it encounters a target, the bullet will use all of its energy in flight and gravity will pull it to the ground. We're interested in using that energy for lawful purposes before it's wasted in the atmosphere!

I usually refer to the second Task as "doing work", because that's exactly what is expected of the bullet. From the perspective of the target, the kinetic energy in a bullet can only do one of two things: it can be used to do work, or it can be wasted beyond the target.

(There is no such thing as an "energy dump" in a target, no matter how many times you see that nonsensical term. The energy does some sort of work, whether doing damage to tissue or pushing the bullet through the air. The bullet may use up all of the energy available, and stop inside the target, but it doesn't "dump" anything. The energy in such an event is depleted in expansion/deformation and in forward movement, both of which are work. Whether or not the work performed was useful to the goal depends on what it encountered along the way, which brings us back to the First Task.)

As the bullet traverses the target, its energy is used to push it through material more dense than the air it previously encountered. The amount of energy used in this endeavor is dependent upon the shape of the bullet; the more streamlined the projectile, the smaller the frontal profile, the less energy is expended in pushing it through the target. Conversely, the "flatter" the bullet profile, the more energy is necessary to move it through.

Think of a rowboat paddle - easy to move through the water edge first, much harder face first. If the bullet expands in the target, some of the energy is used to deform the bullet itself, and the rest is used to push the much larger, flatter profile through the target. In some cases, it uses up all its energy trying to get through the target and never makes it out the other side. This is why, as we touched on in Part 2, penetration can be controlled through the use of an expanding bullet.

At some point, we hope that the bullet finds something that the body deems necessary for function - and disrupts that functioning. That item could be structural (skeletal) - where disruption causes collapse; It could be electrical, where interruption of signals causes instantaneous nervous system malfunction; or it could be vascular (plumbing), where large leaks cause a loss of pressure that eventually results in unconsciousness.

Whichever system is compromised, the bullet needs to use some of its energy to do the necessary work of disruption. This is why I say that the bullet has to do rapid and significant damage to something when it arrives; if it gets there, but has so little energy left that it is incapable of inflicting necessary damage, then it might as well have not gotten there to begin with.

(This is not to suggest that the bullet's wound in such a case is benign or trivial! Remember, we have a task for that bullet to accomplish; if it doesn't do so in the necessary time frame, then it is useless to us. The classic example is the attacker shot with a .22 but still able to complete his assault. He might die of peritonitis a few days later, proving that the wound is not unimportant. However, it didn't complete our goal of stopping the criminal before he could harm an innocent, making it irrelevant to our situation. Keep the end in mind!)

Now that we understand the Twin Tasks, we'll take a look at the mechanisms by which all this might be accomplished. Until next time!

<--- Click here for the previous episode ..................... Click here for the next episode --->

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: stopping.power

(For convenience, you can access all the installments of this series at this link.)

If it doesn't get somewhere, it can't do something.

OK, so we know about the Twin Tasks, the two things that a bullet has to do in order to stop an attacker:

1) It has to get to something the body finds important, and
2) It has to do rapid and significant damage to that thing when it arrives.

Today we'll be taking a look at Task #1: getting to something important.

Let's start by pointing out that the user of the bullet must be capable of putting it on a course that will lead it to something important. If the cartridge in question presents too much of a challenge for the shooter to handle with the requisite accuracy, it doesn't make any difference how "good" the cartridge is!

This is only given lip service by trainers and enthusiasts; they'll repeat the mantra "a hit with a .22 is better than a miss with a .45", then in the same breath give some arbitrary limit on "acceptable" calibers for self defense. Folks, there are people in this world who do not wish to, or simply cannot, practice to become proficient with a "correct" caliber. When the time comes that they need the weapon, wouldn't it be better that they possess a bullet that they can send where it really needs to go? Of course!

Step One, then, is pick a cartridge that is within your ability to control.

Once the bullet is in the air, it has to negotiate all obstacles to reach a vital organ of some sort. This requires that it get through any outer shell (clothing), past the skin (which is a lot tougher than you might believe), and alternating layers of bone and muscle. It has to have what's known as 'penetration'.

Penetration is dependent on several things: the weight of the bullet, the diameter (caliber), the velocity, and the shape. If we were to take two bullets of different weight, but of the same caliber and shape and traveling at the same velocity, the heavier one would penetrate further. We can do the same comparison for any of the factors, as long as the others remain the same. If we had two bullets of different shapes - a round nose and a wadcutter - with everything else the same, the more streamlined bullet (the round nose) would penetrate further. Simple, right?

When we look at expanding (softnose or hollowpoint) bullets, which increase their diameter at some point in the target, the situation changes. The increased frontal are of the expanded bullet acts like a parachute, slowing it more rapidly and reducing penetration. Sometimes penetration can be reduced so much that the bullet will not reach anything important, and we're back to that unreliable psychological incapacitation thing again.

Remember that too much penetration can be as bad as too little. Having a bullet that sails through the target without doing much work, or (worse) encountering another (possibly) innocent target beyond, is not a good thing. Hence it behooves us to have a bullet which demonstrates sufficient penetration, but not an excessive amount.

It's not uncommon to find a cartridge that, when loaded with streamlined, roundnosed bullets, goes through multiple targets - but when loaded with expanding bullets stops inside the desired one. As it turns out, this behavior has major benefits in terms of terminal effects, which we'll cover next time.

<--- Click here for the previous episode ..................... Click here for the next episode --->


-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: stopping.power

I'd hoped to have Part Two of the Self defense, stopping power, and caliber series up today. As I was writing over the last couple of days, I found myself adding more and more information to try to make sense of it all. That's a problem when trying to explain a complicated subject in a manner that is clear, concise, and still readable. It's proving to be a challenge for this amateur wordsmith, but I'm not giving up!

Stay tuned, it's coming...in the meantime, take a look at this story. What an idiot.

-=[ Grant ]=-

I've gotten a bunch of emails recently regarding the choice of an appropriate self-defense caliber and/or bullet. Around this one topic swirls more misinformation - and outright inanity - than any other I can think of. And now, here's mine!

What follows is a layman's understanding, backed by research of available literature and years of hunting and shooting experience, of the practical mechanics of wound ballistics. It is not intended to be a complete and exhaustive study of the subject. Instead, I hope to give my readers - who are, in all likelihood, laypersons themselves - a solid base of information to help make good decisions when choosing self defense ammunition.

Let's start by understanding that in a self-defense scenario our goal is simply to cause the perpetrator of a crime to cease immediately his/her antisocial activities. That's it - we want the miscreant to quit doing whatever it was that caused us to draw our gun in the first place. The closer to "immediately" that this occurs, the better for all concerned.

There are two mechanisms by which this can be accomplished: psychological incapacitation and physical incapacitation.

The first - psychological incapacitation - is the least predictable of the two. Some people will stop and run when grazed by a well-thrown rock, others will soak up all manner of chemical, electrical, and physical deterrents without so much as flinching. Since it's all in the mind, and minds vary significantly (especially when intoxicated in some form), we cannot count on delivering a reliable jolt to a criminal's psyche. We must instead focus on doing enough physical damage to cause cessation of action through reduction of motor skills.

On this subject has been constructed all manner of measures, each attempting to quantify the unquantifiable: "One shot stops." "Knockout index." "Wound channel volume." There are more, and none of them ever seem to agree (at least most of the time) on what actually works.

Well, folks, hunters have known something for a very long time, and it has been proven in the field again and again: to reliably put the brakes on a living entity, a bullet must do what I call The Twin Tasks.

1) It has to get to something the body finds important, and
2) It has to do rapid and significant damage to that thing when it arrives.

That's it. Either, by itself, simply won't deliver the results we seek (at least, not in the physical sense.) If the projectile fails at either of these Tasks, any success that occurs is in fact a product of psychological incapacitation, which we already know to be both unpredictable and unreliable.

Keep in mind that as the bullet traverses the target, it may repeat the Tasks; in other words, it may encounter more than one thing the body finds important. The more times that it does, and then completes the second Task, the faster the incapacitation is likely to occur. (Note that I didn't say "will", only "likely to". Handgun rounds are underpowered things, and with them nothing is ever certain.)

Within certain limits, it doesn't really matter what the caliber is or what the bullet is made of or how fast it travels, as long as it does both of the Tasks. That's why there seems to be such a wide range of calibers, weights and velocities that have shown "good" results in self defense shootings, and why arguments about "stopping power" rage on the gun forums: there is, as the saying goes, more than one way to skin a cat.

Remember, as long as both Tasks are accomplished, the envelope of "how" they are is large enough to encompass a variety of approaches.

The reason that the "heavy and slow" and "light and fast" bullet camps exist is because, generally, their choices just happen do both of those Tasks on a fairly regular basis. Arguing about which is the "better" approach is really quite silly, because when they work it's because they did both Tasks, regardless of the actual mechanism; when they fail, it is simply because they didn't do one (or both) of the Tasks, again regardless of their physical attributes.

It's at this point that someone invariably chimes in "but my cousin is engaged to a girl whose brother-in-law heard about a guy who saw someone shot fifteen times with a 9mm, and the victim was still able to walk into a French restaurant, order a 5-course meal, eat, chat with the sommelier, and stiff the waiter before finally collapsing on the sidewalk while waiting for his cab! That's why I carry a .467 Loudenboomer Ultra Grande - if it hits them in the pinky the hydrostatic shock wave will knock them down!"

I'm exaggerating, you understand, but if you regularly haunt the gun forums you'll recognize that it isn't all that far off.

Yes, small caliber bullets fail. Guess what? Large caliber bullets fail, too. As someone once told me, "put on your big-boy pants and deal with it!"

A good friend gave me a first-hand account of a battle incident wherein a fellow absorbed several very large caliber, solid torso hits, and was still able to jump from his vehicle and cross a road before finally collapsing.

The gun in question? A .50 caliber heavy machine gun.

Yes, you read that correctly. Sometimes, folks, nothing works.

Our job is to choose those calibers and bullets which seem to do the Two Tasks fairly reliably, and prepare to deal with the times that it just isn't enough. With handgun rounds, those times are more common than the gunshop commandoes would have you believe.

In the next installment, we'll take a layman's look at the physics involved.

Click here to go to the next article --->

Or, you can access the series index at this link.


-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: stopping.power

As I mentioned a while back, I recently decided to acquire new hearing protection to replace my aging Peltor electronic muffs. Durability and water resistance were at the top of my list, followed by sufficient clearance to comfortably shoot a rifle.

I chose the Swedish-made Sordin Supreme Pro-X unit, based on rave reviews from other users (and a very good friend.) Sordins have a great reputation in the "tactical" community for ruggedness, which is what I wanted. I also paid extra to get the ultra-cushy gel earmuffs, which (in my estimation) was money well spent!

The Sordin circuitry is a big step up from the old Peltors. (In all fairness, so are the current Peltors!) Instead of completely shutting down the electronics when a sound over it's threshold is detected, the Sordins simply reduce the volume to match that of the background. This is a great improvement, and makes for a far more natural sound than my old muffs.

What really surprised me was the sound quality: it is superb, far better than my old Peltors. When the earpiece volume is set to normal - that is, no amplification relative to the environment - the sound is crisp, clean, and darn near like not wearing the muffs at all. In contrast, my old muffs had a bit of a hollow sound, and a greatly attenuated upper register. Compared to the Sordins, they literally sound like a cheap AM radio!

The gel earpieces, as noted, are incredibly comfortable - well worth the premium over the standard foam one, which themselves are quite comfortable compared to others I've used. The gel pads, though, are just in another league altogether - and they seal around the ear for better protection to boot!

All in all, I'm happy with the Sordins (so far...we'll see how I feel about them a couple of years from now!) I got mine from a company called CSUK (yeah, I know, but keep reading.) Not only did they have the best price, their delivery was lightning fast. Frankly, of all the online companies I've dealt with, these guys are by far the fastest; incredible, actually. I've placed three orders with them so far, and all have been delivered before I ever expected them. That's service; CSUK gets two thumbs up from me!

-=[ Grant ]=-

From Michael "Fashion Plate" Bane comes a story about cops and the 'Triangle of Death' (no, not THAT 'Triangle of Death' - this one is serious.) If you're a cop, you need to read it.

Reed and Malloy were in constant danger and didn't even know it!
---

After my lament last week, I went to a gunshow this weekend and found - of all things - a stainless Ruger Speed-Six in 9mm! The owner and I are dickering about the price right now, but (unfortunately) there is little recent sales data to go on. If you've seen such a beast sell in the last 6 months, please drop me an email and let me know what it went for. Much appreciated.
---

Crazy Rumor Department

Hey, Bane, you missed this one! Overheard at the gunshow: Colt has been sold to Norinco, so that they can have a domestic plant to get around import restrictions.

Ohhhhhh-kayyyyyyy....
---

'It Must Be Something In The Water' Department

Also overheard at the gunshow: the 9mm "doesn't work, so you need to go to a bigger caliber like .38 Special."

A math genius he ain't...
---

So much for my weekend. Back to the salt mines!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: bloggers, gunshows

It's time to shop for new hearing protection.

My wife and I bought Peltor Model 7 electronic muffs quite a long time ago - over 10 years, if memory serves. They've held up remarkably well, even through torrential rain (common here in Oregon) and the inevitable bumps and knocks from being thrown into the back of the car. They're not terribly comfortable (though far more so than the infamous "vise-like" Wolf Ears), the interior padding is coming apart, and they're starting to pop and hiss and make crackling noises. Their time, sad to say, is coming to a rapid end.

As I shop I'm paying particular attention to suitability for use with rifles. The old Peltors are quite large, and getting a proper cheek weld on a rifle stock invariably knocks them slightly off of a perfect seal, resulting in sound leakage. It's not so much a problem when shooting by myself, but try it on a class firing line with another shooter next to you and you'll appreciate the issue!

The choice came down to the Peltor ComTac and the Sordin Supreme XL. Just a few minutes ago, I ordered the Sordins - the Peltor has a big battery compartment bulge on the left side, which meant that I'd have the aforementioned rifle problem when shooting from my weak side. (You don't do that? There are lots of good reasons to practice shooting a rifle from your weak side - just like your handgun.)

The Sordins have a phenomenal reputation for durability and waterproofness, and I have a close friend who has worn a pair for the last couple of years - and raves about them compared to his old Wolf Ears.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to put them through their paces.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Students of espionage and surveillance (which every security-conscious person should be) understand how intelligence is actually gathered, and it isn't the way it happens in Hollywood.

Those who watch too much TV think that security breaches come fully formed - that damaging information is gleaned nearly whole, needing only a few minor details filled in to make it valuable. While that may occasionally be true for satellite imaging, when putting together information gathered "on the ground" it is more like doing a jigsaw puzzle.

In reality, it is the small bits of information, gleaned from many sources, that form the picture one's opponent seeks. Even seemingly innocuous minutiae, in the hands of a skilled intelligence analyst, can help to flesh out a growing body of actionable information. Such little things - usually gathered informally and from the unwitting - are amazing valuable to the right person.

Back in World War II, the military needed to impress this concept on the U.S. population. "Mass media" back then meant radio, newspapers, and - most graphically - posters. Lots and lots of posters. Eye catching, colorful posters - works of art in their own right.

Check out some of the urgent messages they conveyed.

Here's a bunch more.

-=[ Grant ]=-

I'm reading Monster Hunter Nation's SHOT Show report, where I find this article about Simunition's new offering. Seems their attitude is that, since they only sell to military and law enforcement, and those users follow their safety protocols, there won't be a problem.

Now, read MHN's first-day SHOT Show report. See the connection?


-=[ Grant ]=-

There are times that I feel I'm harping on the safety issue, but with the number of grievous injuries and deaths that occur I don't think it is unwarranted.

The latest, sent to me by an alert reader, is a self-expose (complete with pictures) of a nasty handgun incident. Short version: this fellow, in an attempt to test a recently installed grip safety, pointed his gun at his leg and pulled the trigger. The sequence of events was predictable. (Warning - the pictures may be graphic for some people.)

Once again, I'm going to place the blame squarely on Traditional Rule #1: "All guns are always loaded", or any variant thereof. He felt free to do something blatantly stupid with his gun, because he was sure that he had unloaded it. Since he was sure that he unloaded it, in his mind the other rules obviously didn't apply. If they did, he wouldn't have pointed it at his leg as he intentionally pulled the trigger!

What bothers me most about this fellow's misfortune isn't that he was injured, but that he still doesn't get why it happened in the first place. He is so clueless about this, in fact, that he cites the classic Four Rules of Firearms Safety, starting with the offending Traditional Rule #1 in his article, and explaining to his readers that they should follow them. This is in fact the wrong thing to do, and is what caused his injuries.

It is my opinion that the more people who follow Traditional Rule #1, the more accidents like his will occur. Again, Traditional Rule #1 leads people to do dumb things with guns, because once they're convinced the gun is unloaded they feel at liberty to ignore the other three. In my opinion, we should instead be teaching people to follow the Three Commandments of Gun Safety religiously:

Never point a gun - any gun, loaded or unloaded - at anything you are not willing to shoot.

Always be sure of your target, and the backstop behind it.

Keep your finger out of the triggerguard until your sights are on target and you are ready to shoot.

Let's look at his accident: he violated the First Commandment, because he thought the gun was unloaded.

He then violated the Second Commandment, because he thought the gun was unloaded.

Finally, he proceeded to violate the Third Commandment, because he thought the gun was unloaded.

The result? A large emergency room bill. Lots of pain. All because Traditional Rule #1 allowed him to do stupid things with a gun once he was "sure" it was unloaded!

(It is worth noting that the gentleman in question, one Darwin Teague, is on Usenet record as declaring that he would never carry a Glock, as he considers them to be "unsafe." With all due respect, Mr. Teague, if you do stupid things with guns, loaded or not, all the safety features in the world won't stop you from shooting yourself - as you have found out. I wish you luck, as you seem to need it.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: safety, i.told.you.so

I usually don't get into politics in this blog (I don't feel it's appropriate to the subject matter I cover.) But, since the future occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will have a direct impact on 2nd Amendment issues, I'd like to address the upcoming primaries, both "D" and "R". I keep hearing that this election is about "change." Call me a curmudgeon, but I just don't see where shifting from one overspending, big-government candidate to another overspending, big-government candidate is "change."

---

Here in the Pacific Northwest, it seems that those who want to "protect and serve" don't handle firearms very well. Just the other day a former Marine and aspiring police officer shot and killed himself at a New Year's Eve party. Though the news accounts played up the "alcohol is involved" angle, in a television interview his girlfriend said that he simply believed that he had unloaded the pistol, and wanted to assuage his guest's fears by putting the gun to his head and pulling the trigger.

Sound familiar? Once again, the problem is that people treat guns they believe to be unloaded differently than those they don't.

---

I've been installing Bowen "Rough Country" rear sights on Ruger GP100s for a while, and the clients are very happy with them. The stock Ruger front sight, though, is very indistinct - rounded corners, irregular serrations, and sometimes uneven top surfaces. The Bowen front sight is a great alternative, though pricey - it is an expensive part, and has to be fitted and machined to desired shape. However, if you want the best sight picture possible on a Ruger, it is the way to go.

---

It's a new year, and still no Dan Wesson .357 revolvers from CZ-USA. I'm wondering if they're going to show the shop-worn prototype at the SHOT show next month, and once again claim that they're "coming real soon now!"?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: safety, i.told.you.so, sights

A recently discharged Marine decides he wants to become a cop - a member of a SWAT team, no less. So he signs on with a local Sheriff's Office, and prepares for his new career by practicing his quick draw.

With a loaded gun.

In the house.

With his wife home.

With his finger on the ?#$@!!*&^% trigger.

Unusually strident for me, you say? Maybe it's because the victim worked at the pet store where my wife and I shop. We even know her dog. We're pissed.

Is this another failure of Traditional Rule #1? Possibly - likely, even. One thing is certain: this guy had some mental justification for doing something stupid with a gun, and his wife paid the ultimate price. I haven't seen any interview with him - yet - but I'll bet one of the first things he'll say is "I thought it was unloaded."

(And to think that one of the "talking points" of the anti-gun crowd is that "only the military and law enforcement can be trusted with guns." Yeah, right.)

If there are any readers of this blog in Clark County, make absolutely sure Sheriff Lucas understands that hiring this fellow would be a really, really bad idea.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: safety

By now you've no doubt heard about the attempted massacre at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO.

To recap: man takes rifle into church parking lot, where he proceeds to shoot four people (two would later die) before making his way into the sanctuary. Luckily for the 7,000 people there, the church had a volunteer armed security staff, one of whom engaged and killed the attacker before he could get fully into that "target rich" environment.

It's no secret that many churches have, in the last decade, recruited armed volunteer security forces from their members. The media is doing it's level best to imply that the security person involved was an off-duty cop or paid security guard, but the fact is that she was a volunteer member of the church's security team. She was a concerned member who donated her time and skills to help protect her fellow congregates.

The outcome was, at least in my point of view, quite acceptable. I'm sure, however, that the more left-leaning religious organizations in this country will fail to learn from this example. (Were I a member of such an organization, I would reconsider my affiliation.)

Contrast this with last week's mall attack where eight people died - the mall was, like many others around the country, posted to be a gun-free zone. (Interesting tidbit: the mall management apparently removed all signage regarding their weapons policy shortly after the shooting occurred. Perhaps they're trying to cover their rears for the inevitable civil suits heading their way...) The result was the creation of a huge pool of potential victims, of which the gunman took full advantage.

Sadly, the lesson is lost on a surprisingly large percentage of the American public. The media certainly isn't on our sides, so it's up to us. When you find yourself in gatherings this holiday season, and the topic comes up, be sure to give a calm, rational, and factual response to those who fail to grasp the concepts ivolved. The more people whose minds we change, the fewer victims we'll have.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: attacks

It's been several years since Speer introduced their Gold Dot Short Barrel Personal Protection 38 Special +P loading. It looked good on paper, and the Gold Dot line has a superb reputation for performance, but many of us prefer to carry well-tested ammunition. Let someone else be the guinea pig!

Sporadic reports have come in that the Gold Dot load is "working"; Massad Ayoob told me that he's heard around the country that people are "satisfied" with the performance. Still, I'd not been able to run down anything more specific.

That is, until yesterday, when one of my clients called. He's a higher-up in a large metropolitan police department and a long-time revolver carrier. He indicates that his department has had several shootings with the Speer load, and that he personally knows two of the officers who have used it. His verdict? The load performs as advertised - very effective at stopping violent action.

He notes, based on his agency's long experience with the famous 158gn +P loads from various makers, that the new Speer 135gn appears to be very similar in terms of terminal effect. "No complaints", was his succinct summation.

Good news for those who have chosen this load!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: .38

Ever run across someone who does something so much better than you, that you are simultaneously awed and angered?

I get that way when I read Marko's blog "The Munchkin Wrangler." His writing positively sparkles; he's able to relay conceptual topics in an elegant and concise manner that is so much better than my lame attempts.

His latest missive deals with the idea that one should simply "give criminals what they want and they'll leave you alone." It's so good, it should be required reading for everyone - whether they carry a gun or not.

Don't miss it.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: bloggers

I just can't think of anything to say today. This is beyond writer's block - my mind is simply blank.

I'd thought of commenting on an email I received that was critical of my position in the article On Safety, but it seems like beating a dead horse.

Tam put up an interesting post on the S&W Model 53, but a simple link is hardly sufficient for a whole blog post.

A tragic shooting in small-town America shows just how ridiculous it is to insist that only the police and military have guns. I could comment, but I think the story is self-explanatory.

I guess I'll just fall back on this: it's stupid to make pets out of wild animals. Especially heavily-armed wild animals.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: s&w

In last week's article, I mentioned that there was an ancient religious principle that can help keep you safe from firearms accidents. Allow me to digress for just a moment to give you the necessary background.

As you may know, Orthodox Jews have a rather rigorous set of rules that they follow. According to their tradition, there are 613 commandments in the Torah (their Bible, which consists of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.) Imagine trying to keep track of, let alone follow, 613 commandments!

To make the job easier and to prevent the unintentional transgression of a commandment, they have a concept called gezeirah, which is explained as "building a fence around the Torah." This idea, which goes back roughly 800 years, refers to the additional precepts that one should follow to avoid even coming close to violating a commandment itself. They supply a sort of early warning system; if you know that you've broken the lesser rule, you know that you're in danger of violating the more sacred one.

Now I'm not saying that everyone should run out and become Orthodox Jews (you'd have to give up Saturday morning cartoons and pepperoni pizza, for starters), but the concept of a "fence" around a core set of rules is as good for keeping us physically safe as it is for safeguarding their spiritual well-being.

So, if our overriding precepts are the Three Commandments of Gun Safety:

Never point a gun - any gun, loaded or unloaded - at anything you are not willing to shoot.

Always be sure of your target, and the backstop behind it.

Keep your finger out of the triggerguard until your sights are on target and you are ready to shoot.

What kinds of rules might constitute our "fence"? Well, they might include the "Seven Rules of Dry-Fire":

- Select the proper time and place (alone, no distractions, safe backstop).
- Remove all live ammunition from your training area (including those in your own gun and the gun that you will use for dry fire).
- Go into “practice mode” state of mind. Say out loud: “This is practice time, I am going to practice now.”
- Perform practice.
- When practice is over, go into “reality mode.” Say out loud: “Practice is over, this is real.”
- Put the gun into the condition in which it is normally kept.
- Put the gun away immediately (secured).

The NRA has a poster of 10 or 12 firearms rules that could constitute another fence, and I'm sure you'll find more. Some may be very general, others may be specific to the range you're using or the particular shooting activity in which you're participating.

These additional rules don't relieve you of the need for always following the Three Commandments, and are never to be considered any exception to any of them. They are a supplement. They provide one extra guard, one extra layer of security, before you're put into a situation where the "fail-safe" of the Commandments is all that stands between you and grievous injury. They set up an attitude, a frame of mind, that makes an accident all the less likely.

For instance, I have my own fence: my shop is a sterile area, meaning that there is no live ammunition in the shop area proper. (Need I mention that there are no exceptions?) I still follow the Three Commandments, mind you, but following the rule of no live ammo in the shop area makes the constant handling lots of guns even safer.

Now go and sin - ballistically speaking - no more!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: safety

A reader alerted me to this thread over at GlockTalk, where a debate about the first of Jeff Cooper's "Four Rules of Gun Safety" is raging. Specifically, the argument centers on the allowable "exceptions" to Rule #1: "All guns are always loaded" (or, alternatively, "Treat all guns as if they were loaded.")

I feel entitled to comment, inasmuch as the observance of said rule by gunsmiths has been invoked as one of the "exceptions." I take exception to that exception, and in fact take exception to the very notion of exceptions! Allow me to explain, and perhaps start some exceptional controversy of my own.

To be blunt: I don't like Rule #1. In fact, I believe that it is not just unnecessary, but that it actually sets people up to have accidents. I don't believe it makes anyone safer - I contend that it has the opposite effect.

It boils down to this: people do stupid things with guns that they perceive are unloaded. (Re-read that line, focusing on the word "perceive.") Once people have convinced themselves that a gun is unloaded, they treat it differently. That is where accidents occur.

The trouble with Rule #1 is that it encourages such shoddy behavior.

Follow me here: "treat all guns as if they were loaded" tacitly admits that there are, in fact, two states for a firearm - loaded and unloaded. If there were not an unloaded state, it would not be necessary to admonish someone to treat a gun "as if" it were in the loaded state, would it? If unloaded guns did not exist, the statement would make no sense. Therefore, the phrase itself establishes that there exists such a thing as an unloaded gun. Clear so far?

While Rule #1 logically admits that there is such a thing as an unloaded gun, it asks us to pretend that it doesn't really exist. This is important, as the rule only makes sense if the state of being 'unloaded' exists, but it implores us to make believe that such a state doesn't really exist. This situation is called cognitive dissonance: holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously. It's a state of mind that humans don't tolerate all that well.

If one accepts the fallacy that an unloaded state doesn't exist, it becomes clear in the mind that the remaining three rules apply only to loaded guns. After all, the first rule says that there is no such thing as an unloaded gun; therefore, the other three rules can apply only to loaded guns, because - remember! - unloaded guns "don't exist."

Here's where that cognitive dissonance thing comes back to bite us. The human mind cannot maintain two contradictory concepts ("there is such a thing as an unloaded gun, but it doesn't exist because all guns are always loaded") without resolving them in some fashion. The way that most (if not all) people apparently resolve this is to apply the rules to all guns, unless they've convinced themselves that the gun in question isn't loaded.

In other words, to resolve the logical conflict that Rule #1 establishes, the mind translates it to say "treat all guns as if they are loaded, unless you've verified that they aren't." The other three rules are tossed right out the window, because they obviously don't apply to unloaded guns!

See how this comes about? If not, re-read the preceding paragraphs.

That, gentle readers, is the crux of the problem! The sad side of Rule #1 is that it implies once you've verified a gun is unloaded, the rest of the rules don't apply to it; you may handle it differently. That's when the accidents come, and is why I say that people do stupid things with guns that they think are unloaded.

Proof? Easy: it is axiomatic that all gun accidents occur with unloaded guns. Those are guns that people had convinced themselves were not in the loaded state, and therefore didn't fall under the rest of the rules. No matter what the experience or training level of the person involved, "I thought it was unloaded" is the first excuse out of their mouths when something bad happens.

Need more? Here's an interactive proof: go into any gun store, and watch as customers (and often the counter clerks) sweep muzzles over everyone in the store. Now complain to a clerk about the shoddy practice; I guarantee the first thing you'll hear from his or her mouth is "don't worry, it's not loaded."

Still not convinced? Ask Massad Ayoob to tell you the tragic story of a well regarded and highly experienced competition shooter who accidentally killed his wife - with an "unloaded" gun, of course. My contention is that he followed Rule #1 like most people, but that its logical failings caused him to treat the gun differently because he was sure it was unloaded. The result was sadly inevitable.

This is why the forum debate runs so many pages, and ultimately devolves into the attitude "of course, Rule #1 doesn't apply to experienced shooters, who understand what the exceptions are." I'm sorry, folks, but I believe that any safety rule that implies or encourages "exceptions" - experienced operator or no - is a "rule" that should be thrown out.

One of the best shooting instructors I know - Georges Rahbani - has done just that. He acknowledged the problem and dealt with the issue by eliminating what I'll call "Traditional Rule #1" from his curriculum. Instead, he teaches that any and all guns, loaded or unloaded, are treated to the same standards, which he calls The Three Commandments of Gun Safety:

Never point a gun - any gun, loaded or unloaded - at anything you are not willing to shoot.

Always be sure of your target, and of where your bullets will land.

Keep your finger out of the triggerguard until your sights are on target and you are ready to shoot.

There are no exceptions, and thus less chance for the accidents that usually result from them.

These rules build on and cover for each other; should someone accidentally violate one of them, the other two remain operative to prevent an injury. The goal of gun rules is to prevent injury or death, to the shooter or others; if one follows these rules without exception, whether the gun is loaded or not, it will reduce that risk to the lowest probability.

As you might guess, in my line of work the chances of a negligent discharge are somewhat higher than usual. Consequently, my interest in the safety rules is higher than usual! The online debate mentions that gunsmiths must, out of necessity, violate the Traditional Rule #1 and thus don't need to follow the other rules.

Not in MY shop, bunky!

I follow the Three Rules as codified above. I don't point a gun (any assembly capable of igniting a cartridge) at anything I'm not willing to shoot. That means, in my case, a solid concrete wall in the back of my hillside shop. Because of that, I know what my target is, and what the backstop is. Finally, I don't put my finger into the triggerguard until my sights are on target (the gun is pointing at that backstop.) Yes, all the time and every time; I'm rather fond of my various body parts, and desire to retain them in full operating condition!

I think that's enough pot-stirring for one day. Next time, we'll see how an ancient religious principle can help to reinforce the constant observance of the safety rules.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: safety

A gentleman wrote in asking about small backup revolvers - that is, a revolver to carry as a backup to a primary revolver.

I know that many people carry their primary gun on their hip, with a lightweight (aluminum, titanium, scandium) wheelgun in an ankle holster, and I know a couple of folks who carry a S&W "J" frame in a front pants pocket as a second gun.

This is not what the writer had in mind, though. He was thinking of a very small (smaller than a "J" frame) "subcompact" revolver for a second gun, in the same way that there are subcompact autoloaders (Seecamp, Kel-Tec, etc.) to serve as backups to a larger autoloader. Sadly, the market in this case is pretty limited.

The only one that comes quickly to mind is the North American Arms "Mini" revolver in .22LR and .22WMR. (The Magnum, of course, would be a better choice than the Long Rifle, ballistically speaking.) The trouble with these guns is that 1) I've never seen one that could be even charitably referred to as reliable, and 2) they are harder than heck to even keep on an IDPA target at 7 feet, let alone be assured of a solid hit in the vitals.

Beyond that there are only the much larger S&W "J" frame guns (and the Taurus equivalents, though I'm not wild about them.) However, there may be a "blast from the past" that is worth considering: the Colt Pocket Positive. Never heard of it? Well, you're in for a treat!

The Pocket Positive was nothing more than a scaled-down "D" frame (Detective Special, etc.) After all, the "D" frame was just a scaled down "E" frame (Official Police, etc.) so why not go even smaller? The Pocket Positive was a tiny little gun - considerably smaller than even a "J" frame. (A cylinder on the Colt measures 1.240", while the "J" frame comes in at 1.310". What really makes the difference, though, is the frame - the Pocket Positive is a tiny, almost jewel-like gun, noticeably smaller than the popular "J".) The action is, as noted, of normal Colt design, and should smooth up as nicely as its bigger brothers.

The Pocket Positive was most commonly chambered in the .32 Colt Police round, aka the .32 S&W Long. Now the .32 S&W round isn't terribly powerful, of course, but neither is the .32ACP - a cartridge used and praised in the backup role for many years. The .32 revolver round has a significantly heavier bullet, so it should have better penetration than the .32ACP - always a good thing when shooting a "mousegun." Ammunition is still being made, though the factory offerings are limited to lead round nose.

Pocket Positives have not yet captured the collecting world's imagination, and are still available at reasonable prices. I picked one up a while back for $150, and it's been sitting in my "to do" pile awaiting some spare time. I think I'll dig that out and put it back into working order; I think it may be the answer to the need for a good backup revolver!

(Now if only someone would reintroduce it in titanium...)

-=[ Grant ]=-

In the Gunsmithing pages of this site, I endorse the practice of rendering defensive revolvers double action only (DAO.) Many people ask why, and I thought I'd give you my thoughts on the matter.

Let's start with the usual argument for retaining single action capability, which I call the "Walter Mitty scenario": the mythical need for making precise long range head shots. Let's face it, folks - this just never happens in real life!

However, let's say that you're having a Jack Bauer kind of day and are now facing just this scenario. Mightn't that be just a tad bit stressful? Wouldn't that make you even more nervous, knowing that you'll be trying the toughest possible handgun shot under the worst possible conditions? With all that adrenaline now flowing through your system, is this really the time that you want a light, short trigger pull that is very easy to accidentally release? Not me, bunky!

This is the reason for DAO: light single action triggers are great on the calm shooting range, but pose a liability risk for unintentional discharges under stress. As Massad Ayoob says, single action triggers are great shooting tools, but lousy threat management tools.

Now I I know what you're thinking: "OK, but I promise I'll never use it!" I'm sure you mean that sincerely, but It's been well established over the decades that people tend to do in combat what they do in training.

It's human nature to practice what we're already good at, and to do that which is easiest for us. At the range, it's not uncommon to watch someone shoot a revolver at, say 50 feet and become disenchanted with their groups. At that point, they usually switch to the easier pull of the single action, and shoot that way. This imprints their subconscious to use single action when they are unsure of their abilities, and this may be what they revert to under stress.

Once that act of thumbing back the hammer has become habit, another problem crops up: the Hollywood-inspired (and reinforced) act of cocking the gun to show the bad guy that you "really mean it!" I'll refer you back to the second paragraph, with emphasis.

(Yes, I know you'll promise not to do that either. But if you've told your subconscious that cocking the hammer is accepted shooting technique, do you think it'll ask your conscious mind for permission when the time comes - especially if decades of TV and movies has told it otherwise? Of course not! "Besides", your subconscious thinks, "if Tyne Daly can do it, why can't I?")

Removing the SA capability eliminates the chances of any of this happening. (If you make the conscious decision to carry a gun with SA capability, I recommend that you attend the Lethal Force Institute's "LFI-1" class, where you will learn how to defend that choice - and counter any false claims that may arise from it - in court.)

From a gunsmithing perspective, I've found that eliminating the SA capability can, on some guns (Colt and Dan Wesson), give a bit more leeway in terms of honing the double action. Without the need to worry about the single action sear, the double action can be tuned far more radically than is otherwise possible. In S&W and Ruger guns, reducing the DA pull to the barest minimum (as some request) will result in an unconscionably light SA pull - often below 32 ounces. Eliminating the SA notches means that this ceases to be a worry.

Speaking for myself, I didn't start to shoot DA well until I'd gotten rid of the SA capability completely. True story:  one day (many years ago), shortly after transitioning to shooting only revolvers, I was participating in a match (Bianchi type.) I was having trouble with missing those little round steel plates they use for one stage, and it was making me madder and madder. At one point the buzzer sounded, and I drew the gun (a Python) and cocked it for each plate. I downed all of them, but my happiness was shattered by a taunting voice of a 1911 partisan that said "hey, Grant, I've got a gun that does all that for me!"

After that I removed the SA from my revolvers and started shooting DA exclusively. It wasn't long before I was beating the guys (including the loudmouth in question) who were shooting 1911s with crisp single action triggers. It can be done!

If you have any doubt as to how accurately a double action can be shot, go watch your local PPC match - there's one just about everywhere in the country. You'll see lots of folks shooting DAO revolvers at up to 50 yards and producing groups that can be covered by your hand. That should be good enough for any defensive use, and you too can do it with just a bit of practice!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Time and again, the party line of law enforcement is to cooperate with criminals, to give them what they want, and they in turn will politely leave you alone.

This is occasionally true, but there are many times when it is not. How do you tell the difference, and what should you do?

Over at the AnarchAngel, Chris Byrne has an absolutely terrific article on how to determine when you should resist, and gives you the hows and the whys.

This is such an important topic, I urge you to read it, print it out, and keep it in your training documents file. (You do have one, don't you??)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Xavier Thoughts chronicles the story of an elderly gentleman who, using his gun, confronted a burglar in his home. The outcome was that the perp got sent to jail. Great, right? Well, maybe not. This may get ugly when the inevitable civil suit is filed.

You see, the perp was injured because the homeowner fired an unaimed "warning shot" which fragmented and struck the intruder. As if that wasn't bad enough in these litigious times, the gentleman couldn't help running his mouth on television, which didn't do any good in terms of his legal defense.

I'll leave the analysis to Xavier, who does a much better job than your humble correspondent. I will, however, leave you with this thought: this is exactly why I strongly encourage anyone who even contemplates keeping a firearm for self-defense to take Judicious Use of Deadly Force from Massad Ayoob at the Lethal Force Institute. Had this fellow done so, he wouldn't have left himself open for what will probably be a whale of a civil lawsuit.

-=[ Grant ]=-

I admit up front that I'm not a professional firearms/tactics instructor. I do some assistant teaching now and again, but I'm no Clint Smith. However, I have been a student, I have been involved in the teaching side of things, and I am a general all-around busybody. As it happens, those are better qualifications than some "instructors" I've met!

Here's my two cents worth: avoid "checklist" shooting classes. What do I mean by "checklist" classes? Those where the instructor provides a long list of the things that you will (ostensibly) learn in his/her class, implicitly (or explicitly) inviting you to compare how many things he teaches versus how many things another instructor does. It's a variation of the "mine is bigger than yours" game played by adolescents of all ages.

This topic came to mind recently when I read a review of a "tactical carbine" class someone had taken. The student - gushing with praise over how great the class was - had a long list of things that the class had "learned" over two whole days. My assistant teaching experience happens to be in that type of rifle class, and I know for a fact that there is no way to adequately cover even half of his long list in a single two day class. Note the term "adequately."

Just getting proper explanations (lecture portions) of the techniques he listed would take a couple of days, let alone a single repetition of each technique by each student. (A single repetition, you understand, doesn't even begin to develop a skill.) In this case, the sheer quantity of techniques presented would have necessitated a "demonstration only" type of curriculum for many of the techniques. Heck, just doing a proper sight-in procedure with a dozen (or more) students will take a good portion of a day, and sight-in was one of the things he listed!

Beyond that, even those things that were actually treated to live fire would not have allowed time for any feedback from the "instructor." Without feedback, without critique, how do you know how you've done - and how to increase your skill? Isn't that why we train in the first place?

The student who runs his finger down a checklist (see why I use the term?) of things he "learned" in a class will come away impressed - but no more capable. There is a difference between developing a skill (which is what you should be doing in a shooting class) and simply being exposed to the topic (which is undoubtedly the experience of this fellow.) Sadly there are some, both teachers and students, who don't know the difference.

It's that old quality vs. quantity equation all over again. In the immediate area we have a couple of shooting schools; one is of the checklist variety, while the other is more concerned about what their students actually retain. The former trades on quantity, while the latter is concerned with quality. Guess which one I recommend when locals ask me where to train?

When you're shopping for schooling, what you really want to know is if the teacher covers his/her material thoroughly, and is concerned that the students actually make progress - not how many items are on the checklist. It make take a little more effort to find such a school, but your effort will be rewarded.

Unless, of course, you just want to compare your checklist against your buddy's. In that case, there are lots of places that can take your money, and they're a lot easier to find!

-=[ Grant ]=-

For the 3rd time in 3 months, I'm working on a 9mm revolver. It is the 3rd Ruger SP101 in a row that has CrimsonTrace LaserGrips installed. Finally, it has the 3" barrel.

All these "3"s are starting to become unnerving...I feel a bit like Rod Serling.

---
Michael Bane has a podcast at the top of his blog page these days, and it's pretty darned good. I'm hoping one of these days he'll see fit to make it available as a subscription through iTunes (or one of the other podcast sites) like every other podcast! (Hey, Michael, that's a hint! I listen to podcasts as I work, and having one that's not in the same place as the others interrupts my workflow!)

Seriously, though, it's a great listen. Check it out.

--
Funny how training manifests itself. We're remodeling the kitchen, and I'm making good use of my Bostitch nail gun. I've noticed that I keep my trigger finger straight along the side of the head when I'm not actually nailing, just as one should with a firearm. I guess that safety training really has been ingrained!

--
Speaking of safety: handling guns all day long, as I do, always has a certain amount of danger for accidents. That's why I don't allow any live ammunition in my shop, period. If you do any dry fire practice, follow that same rule: no live ammunition anywhere in the room where you're practicing, no exceptions!

--

-=[ Grant ]=-

Lately I've been hearing from people who've decided against attending training courses because of the cost of ammunition. If I may, I think that this is a shortsighted attitude!

Yes, ammo prices are the highest they've ever been. Yes, the number of rounds necessary to complete a decent shooting class is a significantly higher expense than it used to be. It's still worth it, and it's a bargain that you should take advantage of.

If you plan to carry a handgun, or if you keep a shotgun for home defense, training - proper training - may make the difference between a successful outcome and a tragedy. Isn't that worth the few extra dollars that the necessary ammunition is going to cost? I sure think it is!

By the time you add up travel, lodging, registration fees, meals, and incidentals, that little extra the ammo costs really isn't a big deal. Spend the money - it's important to you, and to your loved ones, that you not miss that class!

-=[ Grant ]=-

If you're here, it's probably because you like (or at least appreciate) our friend the revolver. My feelings, of course, are well known: I believe the revolver to be the single greatest firearm that one could ever hope to own. I believe that people who shoot revolvers demonstrate themselves to be of above average intelligence, more refined sensibilities, and generally better looking than those who do not. (I exaggerate, of course. Except in my own case, where these things are certainly true. I tell my wife so every day.)

However, even in my zeal I cannot recommend the revolver to every single person; it is not the best choice for everyone or every circumstance. I've said this before, and I'll probably being saying it again and again as time goes on.

I particularly cringe whenever I see some fellow buying (or hear someone recommending) that the revolver is always the "best choice" for a woman, hinting that women are incapable of operating a semiauto properly. Sometimes the revolver is the best choice for a female, just as it sometimes is for a male - though not always, and not even most of the time!

Not being a woman, I've been at a loss to explain my discomfort in any terms other than "that seems stupid to me." Luckily, over at the View From the Porch, Tam does a good (and concise) job of explaining just why.

-=[ Grant ]=-

This article in the Tennessean newspaper explores the "phenomenon" of women who choose to carry a gun for their own protection. It's an interesting read, and when I saw it I was reminded of my own wife's journey to self-empowerment (in the ballistic sense.)

I'm of the belief that women should always be proactive with regards to their own safety. Sadly, our current society has inculcated a fear of weapons into the collective conscious of the female half of the population. It takes real fortitude for a lady to swim against that tide and arm herself, and I salute those who choose to do so.

Drawing from my own wife's experience I've formed some very specific opinions on the topic of introducing women to shooting. Guys, if there is a woman in your life who has decided to travel down the road of self protection, I offer you Grant's Rules For Helping Ladies Who Want To Shoot.

1) Don't try to teach her yourself. Aside from passing on bad habits that you have (I don't care if you did qualify as "expert" when you were in the Army), it's difficult to impart what you do right no matter how sincere your desire to help.

Women learn differently than men; precious few men understand this, and even fewer understand how to teach to it. It's not uncommon for women to become extremely frustrated under these conditions, and give up entirely. It may not happen until the lessons are over - you may never know of the damage you've done. Let someone else - someone who is experienced teaching women - do this for you. It doesn't mean you're any less of a man, and it just might save you some grief.

2) Rule #1 is increased by a factor of 10 if she is your GF or wife! Ignore this at your peril! I am not kidding!

3) If possible, get her to a women's only class that is actually taught by a female instructor. (If you're on the west coast, I highly recommend that you take advantage of the women's only classes taught by Gila Hayes at the Firearms Academy of Seattle. She's tops. Seriously.)

4) Don't pick her gun for her. So many times a woman, bowing to the desires of the man who proffers her shooting advice (solicited or otherwise), ends up with a lightweight titanium or scandium revolver that is incredibly ill-suited for her physical makeup. The recoil is brutal (hey, even I don't like shooting them), and their stock triggers can be difficult for petite forefingers to actuate. Yes, you could send it to me and have that problem eased, but let her decide if it is right for her!

(Listen, if you've read my blog for any length of time you know that I'm a rabid proponent of the revolver for personal protection. As far as I'm concerned, there isn't a problem extant that a good revolver can't solve. Even so, I acknowledge an autoloader is often the better choice for a woman.) The very best thing you can do is curb your own opinions and take her to a gun range that rents guns, where she can pick her own way through the models. If she picks an autoloader, it won't hurt my feelings. (Not for long, anyhow.) The important thing is that it be her own choice.

Following these simple rules will result in an excited new shooter and harmony at home (where appropriate.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

I'm surprised how many people still haven't read - let alone own a copy of - the best work on shooting a revolver that has ever been written! Ed McGivern's "Fast & Fancy Revolver Shooting" is, after 70 years, still the standard reference work on the subject of revolver shooting.

McGivern, who set the first revolver speed shooting records, was a phenomenal shot. Not only could he shoot very quickly, he was also accurate and excelled at shooting from odd positions, at aerial targets, and using two guns simultaneously. Jerry Miculek, this generation's equivalent to McGivern, has repeatedly referenced this book as being his inspiration and instructional manual. If it's good enough for Jerry, it ought to be good enough for the rest of us!

You can order it through Amazon by going to my store and clicking the link to the book.

Read it, practice it, and maybe someday you can beat Jerry!

-=[ Grant ]=-

When I meet new people (who are not clients), I am often very circumspect about revealing what I do for a living. Paranoia on my part? Perhaps, and I sometimes think that working and corresponding with (and being married to) fellow gun owners has warped my view of the non-gun owners amongst us.

Have I adopted an "us vs. them" attitude? Though loathe to admit it, I think I have - at least, the germination of that mindset is definitely underway. My more naive associates sometimes accuse me of being a bit too sensitive, telling me that just because someone chooses not to own a gun for themselves doesn't mean that they think less of me for doing so.

I almost believed them. Until this article in the Seattle PI got printed. This may be the single most sickening such opinion piece I've seen, for it attacks not the article itself - a strategy that has been increasingly ineffective - but the very mindset of the gun owner.

Thanks to the View From North Central Idaho blog for alerting me to this tripe.

-=[ Grant ]=-

You know that old saw. My Uncle Bob, for instance, has hunted for most of his adult life with one gun; aside from being the best hunter the family, at 80-plus years he can easily outshoot me and all of my cousins. It would seem that there truly is no substitute for familiarity with your weapon.

One well known personality in the firearms field who shared this sentiment was the (late) Mike Harries. He was best known for the Harries Flashlight Technique, and was a renowned trainer in his own right. At the Gunzone I ran across this essay that Harries wrote back in '92 about this very topic.

He expands on the one gun idea, even proposing that one should use a single type of ammunition. It's a great read, and and gave me a lot to think about!

-=[ Grant ]=-

This article over at the GunZone alerts us to the sad end of a nice gun. Be sure to read the owner's narrative - and note the reloading press used.



I've been following such stories of gun blow-ups for several years, and in the cases I've run across a huge percentage - a majority by far - have been the result of ammo reloaded on a Dillon RL550b press.

No, I don't think the RL550b is inherently dangerous, nor do I believe that it should be blamed; blame always rests with the person doing the work. However, that particular machine does make it easier for a momentary lapse of concentration to result in a catastrophic failure, because it doesn't auto-index. Relying on the human being to remember whether or not he/she advanced the shellplate makes it far too easy to end up with either double charges or squibs. I've documented this happening with relatively new reloaders, and with very well experienced reloaders.

If you own an RL550b, you need to make absolutely sure that you are not distracted when reloading; this means no radio, television, screaming children, or talkative friends in the room when you are operating that press. (This is good practice regardless of the press you're using, but absolutely imperative with the 550b.)

Reloading is generally safe and rewarding - as long as you supply the appropriate vigilance!

-=[ Grant ]=-

..and it isn't what you think!

As you may have gathered from hints in my previous writings, I'm of somewhat shorter stature than the average American male. Because of this, my hands are proportionally smaller; I have short, relatively thin fingers. Heck, my wife's hands are bigger than mine!

It goes without saying that finding guns that fit is a challenge. Even a S&W "K" frame, which very few people would describe as being "big", are on the outer edge of comfort for me. Your basic "N" frame? Not even close!

I've discovered that I'm not alone. One well known instructor of my acquaintance is a much larger fellow than I, yet he has small hands as well. There are a lot of us who have trouble finding guns that are comfortable to handle and shoot. Happily, we're not restricted to small-frame revolvers, as there is a good option in a larger gun.

That gun is the Ruger GP-100. It's a large frame .357 Magnum revolver, but they've done some superb engineering to make it fit a wide variety of hands. Ruger ships the guns with two different grips, depending on the gun's features - adjustable sight models come with the standard (large) grip, while the fixed sight versions ship with the "compact" (small grip.) The great thing is that the grips are completely interchangeable between models, easily changed, and cheap!

The compact grip fits even my small hands well, and makes for terrific concealment. Of course, it's of the same construction as the standard GP-100 grip - soft rubber with wood inserts. This makes it comfortable to shoot with the stoutest loads, but less likely to grab onto a concealing garment. They are, in my estimation, the best factory grips available on any revolver.

Want a pair of the Ruger compact grips? You can get them from Brownells - only $23.70!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Forgive my deviation from revolver centrism, but a recent rifle class in which I assisted brought to mind a topic which is just not understood amongst gun owners: "reliability."

What is "reliable"? You'll hear all kinds of definitions, all kinds of criteria. My definition is deceptively simple: the next time you pull the trigger, the gun will function perfectly. That means zero, zilch, nada, nyet failures. Every single time, regardless of how many rounds you've just shot. Not just "bang", but feed, fire, eject, and feed again.

Sounds like I'm easy to please, right? You'd be surprised at how few guns actually do perform to this standard. I expect a reliable gun to do this after a full weekend of shooting, regardless of the number of rounds I've shot, as well as right after cleaning. Every single time, without exception.

Note that I don't specify any particular number of rounds, because I've encountered instances where reliability was defined by some arbitrary round count, such as 500 - and when the gun crapped out on the 501st round, it was still deemed to be reliable since it had met the number! Sorry, not in my book.

One test I've heard (for autoloading rifles) is "six magazines of duty loads, fired as quickly as you can change magazines." Sounds great, right? I've seen an AR-15 which would only pass such a test one time, yet the owner decided it was reliable because it met the test criteria! The fact that it couldn't perform the feat again did not dissuade him in his opinion.

The only caveats are that 1) the gun be maintained according to the maker's recommendations and 2) fed ammunition which conforms to industry standards for that caliber. Anything else - such as the ever-popular mud wrestling test, making it into a popsicle, and other such activities - can be considered the ballistic equivalent of a Harlem Globetrotters game: entertaining to watch, but no indicator of an ability to win the NBA finals.

I've seen more than one gun which happily ate a magazine of ammo after being dropped into a mud puddle, but couldn't be counted on to function perfectly at any unannounced time. Mind you, it malfunctioned maybe once every 400 or so rounds, but sooner or later it would fail. Reliable? Not by my definition.

You'll run into many people who will tell you that this is "no big deal - I've got lots of guns that will do that." At the risk of offending someone - believe me, it's not my intention - I will quote Hugh Laurie, playing the namesake character in the TV series 'House': "everyone lies."

When I say "every time you pull the trigger", I mean EVERYTIME. When I say zero failures, I mean ZERO. One fellow of my acquaintance is known locally for his promotion of a particular gun, which he insists is "absolutely reliable." This is a fellow with a good reputation, someone that other people consider honest and, presumably, look up to. Trouble is, he lies - I've seen his gun fail, and I know others who have witnessed it too. Yet, he continues to insist that his gun is "perfectly reliable." In one class, I met someone with an HK 91, supposedly the epitome of functionality; of course, the owner insisted it was "reliable". It suffered a FTF the first day, and an FTE the second. The owner continued to refer to it as "reliable".

If your gun will not function with ammunition that meets industry-standard specs, then it is unreliable. I had an encounter with a gunstore commando a while back; he was going to loan his "custom built" AR-15 to another employee. He gushed that his pride and joy was the most reliable gun he had ever seen - then, almost in the same breath, told the other fellow not to shoot Winchester ammunition in it, as "it won't feed Winchester all of the time." Even if it functioned 100% with everything else (though I doubt it), that it wouldn't work with one specific brand means that it simply wasn't reliable. (Back to revolvers - if your wheelgun won't fire every brand of ammunition in its caliber with zero misfires, it's not reliable!

My favorite rifle instructor, Georges Rahbani, always says that you are only as good as you are on demand - the same goes for your gun!

-=[ Grant ]=-

I'm not a fan of Garrison Keillor; personally, I just never got his appeal, in the same way I never understood why people thought Seinfeld was funny. Guess I'm just humor impaired.

Nevertheless, I recently ran across this piece that he wrote for The Salt Lake Tribune, on airline security. He's got a funny bit about allowing people to carry guns on board, and I have to agree with his final question:

The way to stop terrorists on planes is to encourage passengers to bring loaded firearms aboard: guys in orange vests sitting in exit rows with deer rifles on their laps, ladies with Mr. Colt in their purses, kids with peashooters. Somebody wake up the NRA. Does the Second Amendment say ''The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed except on commercial airliners''? Where is the right wing when you really need them?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tamara K., over at her blog The View From The Porch, says this:

"For what it's worth, I don't carry a gun to protect me from muggers at the mall. I don't even carry a gun to protect me, period. I carry a gun every day despite living in an area where I'm more likely to be hit by an asteroid than attacked by a mugger as a symbol of my refusal to buy into this culture of teat-sucking victimhood for one day longer. I carry it because I can."

Recite this, word for word, next time some busybody asks (with the inevitable sneer) why you need to carry a gun.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Many people ask me where to get finger grooved grips for various guns (often for the Colt Python, but the Ruger GP-100 seems to be a common request as well.) Personally, I usually try to talk them out of that style grip, and I'd like to share my reasoning.

First, the grooves rarely fit any given person perfectly; for my hands, for instance, every grooved grip I've ever tried required me to spread my fingers to an uncomfortable degree. If I didn't, my fingers would wind up on top of the separating ridges, making shooting far less comfortable and secure! Women, who often have hands that are significantly smaller than their male counterparts, are particularly sensitive to this problem.

Second, anytime you add spacing between your fingers the combined strength of your grip is reduced. You simply grip harder with your fingers together than apart. There's a reason that hammers don't have finger grooves!

Third, having grooves on your grips slows down your acquisition and draw. No less a personage than Jerry Miculek, in a television interview, eschewed finger groove grips. As he put it, "no one gets a perfect grip out of the holster every time." A smooth, non-grooved grip allows you to get a workable grip immediately, where a grooved model requires that you get perfect finger placement from the outset. That is not what you want on a self-defense firearm!

I could point out that another revolver shooter who was "pretty good" was Bill Jordan, and you'll note that the grips he designed and used don't have finger grooves.

It's possible that if one is accustomed to holding a revolver in a light target-shooters grip, finger grooves may help in control. (I don't, I don't know anyone who does, and it's not what most trainers teach today.) Outside of that, I think they are an abomination and suggest that you not use them!

-=[ Grant ]=-

The New York Times ran this article on getting a concealed weapons permit in Texas. What's surprising is the relative lack (for the NYT, of course) of fear-mongering, class bigotry, or gratuitous put-downs.

Does this mean they've come over to our side? Nawww, but maybe some of their on-the-fence readers will!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Sheeple are afraid of flashing red lights.

The short story: a bartender lost his grip on reality when he saw a flashing red light on a window display for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Apparently convinced that this was a bomb, he called the police - who, rather than using their heads, evacuated the hotel.

Why is this important to you? Because the people now taking the reigns of power and influence in this country have had their world view shaped by prime time television - where all bombs have flashing red lights and all guns are bad, and giving up a little freedom for some safety is perfectly acceptable. See the connection?

These are the people who vote for anti-freedom politicians; they sit on juries and award ridiculous "pain and suffering" judgments; they go to town meetings and, no matter what the topic, scream hackneyed phrases such as "won't someone please think of the children?" They do these things because they live in a permanent fantasy, where all bombs have flashing red lights, and they have no clue that the real world isn't like what they see on "The West Wing."

It would be funny if their actions weren't so onerous...

-=[ Grant ]=-

Apparently the experts at the National Nuclear Security Administration aren't as careful with their computer data as their name would indicate. Approximately 1,500 people who work for agency contractors were stolen in September 2005 - but not reported until June 9, 2006!

Yep - these are the guys I trust to keep me safe, you betcha. (In case you missed it, that's what we refer to as 'sarcasm'.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Maybe you shouldn't be...

Seems that BofA is shipping some of their jobs to India (where else?) Not only are they displacing workers, tearing apart lives and contributing to the outflow of jobs from this country, they're adding insult to injury by requiring the to-be-fired workers to train their Indian replacements - under threat of not receiving a severance package!

Read the whole nasty story here.

I'm not a BofA customer, but if I was I'd pull my money out in a heartbeat.

-=[ Grant ]=-

It seems that the stolen data from a misbehaving VA employee's laptop covers more people than originally thought: it now includes 2.2 million current U.S. military personnel.

But don't think that this is unique - there have been a huge number of data leaks like this in the last year, most of which you never heard about. Check this list of recent data security breaches, then go check your credit report.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Lots of people ask me about speedloaders - as in "what speedloader should I buy?"

Well, there are really only a couple of choices these days: Safariland and HKS. (The superb SL Variant models are no longer imported, the Maxfires don't - at least in my mind - qualify for the "speed" part of the name, and the Australian "Jet" loaders are close enough to the Safariland Comp III that we'll consider them the same.)

Personally, unless I'm using a gun for which they don't have a model, I use only Safariland speedloaders. Here's why.

First, they're simply a whole lot faster to use. Not only are they faster to release their payload, they hold the rounds in a solid, fairly rigid package. That rigidity makes it faster to align the bullets with the chambers than the "floppy" HKS style. This is an important, and often overlooked, advantage.

Second, they're more secure. Over the years I've listened to people bad-mouth the Safariland speedloaders, with the statement that they release their rounds too easily - when in a pocket or dropped, the story usually goes.

I've been carrying Safarilands on my person for about 10 years now, and I've never had a single round released when I didn't want it to. They won't, unless you forcibly jam an object into the release button which is in the middle of the rounds. I've had more than one HKS let go while in the speedloader pouch, let alone my pocket!

Dropping? When this argument comes up I pull out the oldest, most used Comp II that I have. (It's been used for practice for a decade, and I stopped counting when it reached 5.000 reload cycles. I keep it loaded with dummy rounds - regular bullet, case, but no primers- for practice.) I drop it on the floor or ground, then pick it up and throw it on the ground; if there's a wall nearby, I'll either kick it or throw it into the wall. I've done this little demo hundreds of times, and I've never had a round fall out.

However, the only way to get this kind of performance and reliability is to load the things correctly! Safariland doesn't help their case, as they sell competition "loading blocks" that force you into loading the things improperly.

Most people will put the rounds into the speedloader, then turn it face-down onto a table so that they can push on the button to lock the rounds. This is almost guaranteed to leave a round (or two or three) that isn't fully seated, and when the speedloader is dropped it/they fall out. No wonder people think they don't work well!

The key is to hold the speedloader BULLETS UP, and push the button up while simultaneously turning it to the right. You'll feel the rounds "lock in", and they won't come out until you want them to!

UPDATE: I've now seen several guns whose cranes (yokes) have been bent apparently due to the side loading forces of Maxfire speedloaders. I strongly recommend that you not use Maxfires!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: speedloaders