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Welcome to the Hump Day Reading List! Here are what I believe to be the three most important articles you can read this week to enhance your personal and family safety:
Back in the ‘olden days’ of defensive shooting training (which I’ll arbitrarily define as the 1990s), ...
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Welcome to the Hump Day Reading List! Here are what I believe to be the three most important articles you can read this week to enhance your personal and family safety:
This article is better than most I’ve seen on the subject. The author brings up a point that most people ...
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Welcome to the Hump Day Reading List! Here are what I believe to be the three most important articles to read this week.
Sometimes it’s about bad animals! This news story out of Georgia shows us that dangers don’t always look like our preconceived notions, and sometimes your defensive firearm ...
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Welcome to the Hump Day Reading List! Here are what I believe to be the three most important articles for you to read this week.
This is, in many ways, a companion article to last week’s entry, which talked about the need to use verbal commands in the early stages of a ...
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Welcome to the Hump Day Reading List! Here are what I believe to be the three most important articles for you to read this week.
We in the defensive training world spend most of our time talking about the neat stuff: shooting, punching, kicking, and the like. We spend very little to no time on ...
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Over the years I’ve gotten occasional feedback that the Hump Day Reading List is too long. More than one person has emailed me to the effect that their time is limited, and that they’d like me to identify the most important information for them.
I’ve been getting more of those emails lately, which tells me people really do need help “de-cluttering” ...
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It’s the first Wednesday of 2019, and thus the first Hump Day Reading List of the new year! Sit back and treat yourself to my hand-picked selection of this week’s best articles to increase your safety, security, and survivability!
I’m sharing this article not because I necessarily agree with the base assumptions (or the terminology), but because the exercise described ...
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It’s Wednesday, and time once again for my hand-picked selection of this week’s best articles to increase your safety, security, and survivability!
It never has been, and it never will be. Self defense is about the resolute refusal to be a victim, and using whatever means you have at hand to enforce that decision. This group of middle-school girls ...
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It’s Wednesday, and time once again for my hand-picked selection of this week’s best articles to increase your safety, security, and survivability!
Cecil Burch is “the guy” when it comes to dealing with attackers who are in physical contact with you. In this informative PDN video, Cecil introduces a simple yet effective “survival posture” to ensure you’ll stay ...
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It’s Wednesday, and time once again for my hand-picked selection of the best articles to increase your safety, security, and survivability!
The holidays are a time when we typically invite guests into our homes to share in the celebrations. Everything gets cleaned and spruced up — but what happens to those defensive tools you have staged “just in case”? Those need to ...
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I unearthed some really good articles for you this week. Read them and increase your safety, security, and survivability!
Whether it’s a criminal attack or a natural disaster, many people — perhaps, even, most people — simply don’t believe it will happen to them. This is an insightful article about why people don’t take threats ...
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It’s the first Wednesday of November, and I’m starting the month off right with some great articles for you!
This article explains what that means, and why it’s important to understand. It’s possible for a violent criminal to appear normal and “safe” until they’re put into the environment where it’s necessary to use violence to ...
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It’s Halloween, and I’ve got some great stories to help you tackle frightening topics!
In the self defense world, many people seem to have comfortable ideas of how things happen in defensive incidents. That was fine back in the days when we didn’t have objective evidence, but today we do — and yet many misconceptions still exist. Cecil ...
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Another Wednesday, another great collection of articles for your enjoyment and enlightenment!
One thing I do before renting a room (or AirBnB) is to check the neighborhood’s crime stats. This used to be a tedious process, but there are new tools out which make it easier.
I know a lot ...
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More great defensive preparedness articles for you this week!
I’ll acknowledge that the author of this article goes a little over the top at times, and that I think his mania for protecting his identity is a little silly in this day and age, but his article has some excellent information and looks at the topic ...
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The ability to judge risk is critical to the long game of self defense. (As it happens, it’s also critical to efficient preparedness, investing your retirement funds wisely, and the choice between flying or driving to your vacation destination.) Yet, despite its importance, it’s very rarely talked about — especially in the self defense community.
While it’s true that ...
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It’s the first Wednesday of October, and I’ve got some great defensive preparedness articles for all areas of your life. (Oh, and one article about an idiot with a gun that we should all avoid emulating!)
If you’re having trouble deciding what to do first, one approach is prioritizing based on scope of impact. It has the advantage of helping ...
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Lately I’ve been allowing myself to do something I caution others to never do: read the comments.
Whenever I’ve come across a news story that has something to do with self defense or disaster preparedness, I read a few of the comments left by others. I’ve noticed something interesting: they often use the word “should”.
Continue Reading →“I should be able to shoot anyone who comes into my ...
Some great articles for the last Wednesday in September!
Jeff Gonzales has some good advice for what to do with your family when you’re in a public space and a violent incident unfolds.
…you’ve got a stock of food, medical supplies, defensive tools, survival kits, generators, and everything else a well-prepared home needs. But what ...
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This story made the rounds of social media last week. For those who haven’t seen it (or the graphic video shot by the girlfriend of the man who was eventually killed in the confrontation), the story boils down to neighbors having an ongoing disagreement over trash between their domiciles.
The argument had apparently escalated over time, to the point that one party showed ...
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It’s easy to think of self defense as a thing you do in response to a bad guy. After all, that’s what most self defense courses focus on: bad guy appears and you perform the indicated response.
So neat. So tidy. So precise.
And so misleading.
Self defense doesn’t start when the bad guy appears, or when he starts his attack, or when you make the decision to ...
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Sorry for not having a Hump Day List last week, but I was down with a nasty cold. What’s worse than a cold in summer? I don’t know and I don’t want to find out!
I get lots of questions from people who are just starting to suffer from arthritis, scared that their shooting days are coming to an end. It doesn’t ...
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Most people’s vacations are over and it’s back to the grind — but the Hump Day Reading List is here to give you a mid-week break!
What would you do if you or someone around you had a severe allergic reaction? It might be from a bee sting or a food allergy, but either (and more besides) can be dangerous ...
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We may be in the dog days of summer, but I don’t think you’ll find any dogs in this week’s selection of defensive preparedness articles!
This year I finally became an Uber user and I’ve enjoyed it immensely. Turns out, though, that there are scams Uber drivers can (and do) pull on people. Here are the most common ...
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It’s the first Wednesday of August — time to get your learning on!
Turns out that carbon fiber knives are, in fact, detectable. The author of this article looks at materials for undetectable knives, what works and what doesn’t, as well as looking at whether these are tools you should even be considering. Excellent information.
I found more interesting articles for this week’s List, some of them guaranteed to make you think twice!
I’m not sure where to start with this article, but I’ll boil it down to this: Just because an alarm goes off doesn’t mean there’s a threat, and blindly firing through a closed door without first ascertaining an actual ...
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I haven’t let this heat wave stop me from gathering more great self defense and preparedness articles for you! (Now, where did that iced tea go…)
“I don’t need to identify my target, because I can tell my girlfriend’s steps from an intruder in the dark”. Someone actually told me that, in explanation for not having ...
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The great physicist Werner Heisenberg is responsible for describing a very interesting phenomenon in quantum physics: our observations effect the behavior of quanta (quantum particles). In other words, by simply observing an experiment, it’s possible that we inadvertently change the outcome.
Quantum physics gets really weird after that, but this is as far we need to go. For now.
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Wow, is it ever hot here in Oregon! If it’s scorching where you are, cool off with a nice beverage and these great articles!
This is an article about how a photographer gets access to make pictures at the top of high-rise buildings. But it’s not a photography article! The reason it’s interesting and ...
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No matter what the preparedness focus, be it just self defense or a full-blown disaster, in the back of everyone’s mind is a little voice that wonders if they’re not being just a little silly.
“After all”, the little voice says, “you’re spending a lot of your time, energy, and money on something you don’t know for sure will ever come to pass. What if it ...
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