More great articles to help you and your family stay safe and sound!
…but do you know how to use it? Caleb Causey from Lone Star Medics shows you the basics of applying a tourniquet properly.
…but have you practiced applying it to yourself under a realistic scenario? Caleb’s back, this time with ...
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Daughter, 22, shot by dad who says he mistook her for intruder
Hardly a week goes by that I don’t see an article like this cross my electronic desk, and they bother me. Quite a lot, actually. Why?
Because I don’t think we in the firearms world are doing enough to truly educate people. We do a pretty good job of teaching folks how to pull ...
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Spring is taking its sweet time getting here, but that hasn’t stopped me from collecting great articles for you! This week: a look at how you walk influences predators; what not to do for home security; why you should stop buying and start practicing; a proper response to a potential intruder; and, believe it or not, someone used a snubby to defend ...
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It’s a short List for this week, but good things come in small packages! I’ll start off with an important article about securing your online profile; some tips about hotel security; the courts have not violated the 4th Amendment rights of concealed carriers; how to institute active shooter drills at your company; and what to look for when you buy locksets and ...
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I remember my first serious (multi-day) defensive shooting course. It was a spring day in the early 1990s and, as is normal here in the Pacific Northwet (no, that’s not a typo) it was raining like crazy. It was a cold, wet, miserable day.
Being a native Oregonian I was prepared for the conditions, but that didn’t make them any less miserable.
As ...
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It’s the first of March and the Reading List is coming in like a lion! Today you’ll learn about squib loads and how to identify them; how to deal with the HK VP9 magazine release lever; how to prioritize your skills and preparations; the medical skills you need to know to deal with life-threatening trauma; how to unload a pistol for beginners; ...
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It’s a great day for snubnose revolver owners!
My newest book, Protect Yourself With Your Snubnose Revolver, is now available and being delivered from both Amazon (paperback/Kindle) and the Apple iBooks Store!
The snubby is the quintessential defensive firearm; it was born of a need to have a compact, portable, concealable arm ...
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I recently posted about the need for instructors to teach, and for students to learn, how to think during a defensive incident. Everyone agrees that it’s a necessary thing to do.
The problem is that many of the people agreeing don’t really know what it means.
Case in point: someone sent me a link to yet another video of a shooting drill. In it, ...
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A couple of weeks ago someone posted an interesting video on social media. It wasn’t the video itself which was interesting, but rather the reactions to it.
The video was of an exercise from a defensive shooting class. The exercise was a good example of forcing cognitive processing rather than a Pavlovian draw-and-fire response, which is good; a defensive encounter requires far more information processing ...
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My apologies if you’re not a fan of the show South Park, but an old episode has a training lesson for us.
On that episode, some little people known as Underpants Gnomes presented their 3-part success plan:
Phase 1: Steal underpants.
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Profit!
The joke, of course, isn’t that there’s nothing in Phase 2; it’s that you can’t ...
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A really interesting List this week! We start with geese as a defensive tool (no, I’m not kidding); considerations to make before deciding to engage an active killer; a woman is dead because of an irresponsible and untrained gun owner; women shopping for defensive handguns; what to do and what not to do at a drive-through; how to secure private information on your smartphone; and how to use that phone to deal with 9-1-1.
I’ll admit ...
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Lots of people have standards they steadfastly defend, even when those standards have no integrity. What does that mean?
I was recently told of a defensive shooting “standard” for draw-to-first-shot time, one a lot of instructors apparently use in their classes: 1.5 seconds if the gun is carried openly, or 2 seconds from concealment.
That seems quite odd to me. Not the times themselves, mind you — the fact there are two of them.
If you have a draw-to-first-shot standard for a defensive ...
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If your goal is to make you and your family safer, to learn how to survive dangerous events, you need a generalist’s perspective.
That’s because there are a wide range of things you need to know to make safety happen consistently, which means that you need to study and prepare in many different areas — most of which have little overlap. Most importantly, you need to know how everything works together to protect you.
In order to learn about each of those ...
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One of my recurring nightmares (probably influenced by television) is being in a critical, terrifyingly dangerous situation with my wife. In every episode of this nightmare she can’t see the danger coming and I’m forced to yell instructions to her — instructions on either what do do (“run!”) or what not to do (“stay still!”) Instead of trusting my judgement, she uncharacteristically turns around and starts arguing! She’s then promptly swallowed by the expanding chasm, or eaten by the devilish apparition, or ...
Continue Reading →Is it Wednesday already? Well, no fear — I have information for you! Today: a look at the problems with secure areas, especially when they’re really secure; an article explaining striker-fired pistols; a civil suit can be worse than the criminal trial; Greg Ellifritz shares how NOT to take care of your carry gun; Sheriff Jim Wilson looks at “scanning”; what training overload is and how to avoid it; some information about kidnappings; if you’re at work when a disaster ...
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I received quite a number of emails, blog comments and social media interaction about Friday’s topic, “Meaningless increments of precision.”
A large percentage of them asked questions or made statements which revealed that the person was fixated on the notion that becoming a better shooter makes or keeps someone safer. This is going to sound strange coming from a “gun guy”, and it’s going to make a lot of gun guys (and gals) mad, but that’s a really bad notion.
Because ...
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When we talk about self defense (and particularly when gun people talk about self defense), the topic of measurement will eventually come up. In the gun world we love to measure things, and we can measure just about anything. The problem is that the measurements we make may not be important.
I use the term “meaningless increments of precision” to refer to those measurements which don’t add to our self protection knowledge or to our ability to defend ourselves. The measurement ...
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The world of self defense seems to be full of polarizing opinions. While it can be said that any field of specialization has its strong opinions (and adherents to them), my observation is that this one is by far the most Balkanized. It doesn’t matter how you look at it, someone else will see it very differently and be ready with a quick retort to your point of view. The disagreements are almost religious in nature, with all the trappings ...
Continue Reading →More great self defense articles this week, including: Julie Loeffler takes a look at common concealment methods for women; a realistic approach to defending schools; Greg Ellifritz shows you what to do if your attacker has pepper spray; the Taurus Judge is a joke for self defense; how to tell if the place you’re in is about to get dangerous; why you should carry more than one trauma kit; and dissecting the post-shooting “scan”. As always, you’ll find something you ...
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Those who don’t spend all their free time in the defensive training world probably don’t realize that there is a lot of infighting — particularly in the defensive shooting segment. There’s intense rivalry between trainers with various backgrounds, each convinced that their own way of doing things (military, law enforcement, or competitive shooting) represents THE way for people in the private sector to train.
Each of them has held varying amounts of influence over the years. At one time, for instance, the ...
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Every once in a while I see the tired old cliché “we face the same criminals the police do!” It’s usually used to justify some particular type of defensive firearms training, too often centered around the trainer’s police experience.
The idea, of course, is that we need to adopt the attitudes, tactics, and armament of law enforcement. (If you know anything about typical police training, it’s usually substandard — so much so that cops themselves joke about it. With rare exceptions, ...
Continue Reading →More great self defense reading for this week! First, why you need to include a dog in your defensive planning; Greg Ellifritz considers what you should do after you’ve stopped the active killer; why you need a practice tourniquet in your kit; how to carry spare revolver ammunition; dealing with the spontaneous fight; how to properly analyze incident video; and dispelling some pervasive shotgun myths. Be sure to share with all of your friends!
In the last couple of years I’ve had a somewhat radical change in my thinking about self defense. Rather, a change in thinking about teaching self defense. I’ve always focused on helping that half-percent* of gun owners who are interested in taking shooting classes to improve their gunhandling skills. In that respect I’ve been like everyone else in this business. We all want the “serious” students, those people who will sign up for a 3-day weekend class and travel across the ...
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If you’re like most people who read this blog, you’ve already been through a CCW class of some sort. (CCW, of course, stands for Carrying a Concealed Weapon, which is a catch-all term for the practice, licensing and study to carry a handgun concealed on your person. The term ‘CCW class’ is generally applied to the courses which the law requires to be able to apply for a concealed handgun license.)
The CCW class is the first exposure many people have ...
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Those of us in the defensive training world usually talk about bad guys as though they’re complete strangers. The rapist on the jogging trail, the masked home invaders, and the carjacker at the gas station are all anonymous. We don’t know them, they really don’t know us, but fate causes our paths to intersect.
When we talk about “situational awareness” it’s always about spotting bad guys in the crowd. When we train defensive shooting, we assume our attacker is someone from ...
Continue Reading →This week we have a surgeon’s take on hospital safety; another look at church security planning; what you should do if you find yourself at the scene of a mass shooting attack; what to do when the guy you’re holding at gunpoint doesn’t follow your orders; storing water for emergencies; how to deal with mob violence; how to master the traditional double action pistol; and a look at tampons for first aid. More great information only on the Hump Day ...
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I want you to sit back and think for just a minute: you have 60 seconds to teach someone how to use a gun to defend herself from an imminent attack. What useful defensive shooting fundamentals can you give her in that small amount of time?
This little exercise strips away all of the nonsense, hype, and posturing that often surrounds defensive shooting training. I makes you really focus on the most important parts of teaching someone how to defend themselves ...
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“Situational awareness”. It’s one of the throwaway personal safety tips that are always trotted out after a horrific news story.
So you work really hard to have it; then what? No, seriously: what do you do with all that situational awareness?
It’s one thing if your situational awareness finds an imminent attack, but that’s not what I (or they) mean. Usually the advice is meant to caution the reader/viewer to be alert enough to spot cues which might signal an impending incident. ...
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It’s Hump Day, which means it’s time for education and enlightenment! Claude Werner talks about mindset, decision making, and training both; a defensive shooting what really wasn’t, despite what your friends think; Greg Ellifritz shows you how drug stores are really dangerous places, and what to do about it; some tips for women on learning defensive shooting skills; dealing with a disaster when away from home; how to properly evaluate a belt for concealed carry; some thoughts on what experience ...
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This week’s Hump Day Reading List is full of great information for the self-reliant! First, a new course promises to open your eyes to a new way of looking at personal safety; how to help your body adapt to summer’s heat; Greg Ellifritz looks at the question of giving first aid to someone you’ve defended yourself from; a look at what happens when you’re distracted in public; you’re a prepper and probably don’t even realize it; why you really do ...
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