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  Your Hump Day Reading List for September 18, 2019

  Welcome to your Hump Day Reading List!  This is your refuge from the impersonal Google and FaceBook algorithms that seem to run our lives these days. Instead of a machine deciding what we see, I personally go out and look for great articles that actually have value in the quest for greater personal and family safety. From all of the articles that I find, I weed out the “fake news” and those that don’t have direct application to some aspect of preparedness. Then, to fight the growing scour...

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  The Ambiguity Zone, Part 2: Crossing the line

  In the first installment I introduced the idea that there is a period in any incident timeline when the nature of the encounter is as yet unclear. Whether it’s the shady character hanging around the gas pumps or the storm brewing offshore, the threat that activates the “go button” hasn’t yet materialized but the likelihood of it doing so is greater than normal.  The Ambiguity Zone is that space of time, no matter how long or short, where potentially life-altering decisions must be made...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for September 11, 2019

  Welcome to your Hump Day Reading List!  This is your refuge from the impersonal Google and FaceBook algorithms that seem to run our lives these days. Instead of a machine deciding what you’ll see, I personally go out and look for great articles that actually have value in the quest for greater personal and family safety. From all of the articles that I find, I weed out the “fake news” and those that don’t have direct application to some aspect of preparedness. Then, to fight the gro...

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  The Ambiguity Zone

  A reader of this blog recently left a comment on social media, one which I think is worth exploring a bit: “What I think about a fair amount is that time period when everything is ambiguous. You can’t tell if its Katy bar the door all hell’s breaking loose time or something less that requires more restraint.” His comment was specific to self defense scenarios, but I think it applies regardless of the event timeframe; I saw it in action during the run-up to Hurricane Dorian this w...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for September 4, 2019

  Welcome to your Hump Day Reading List!  This is your refuge from the impersonal Google and FaceBook algorithms that seem to run our lives these days. Instead of a machine deciding what you’ll see, I personally go out and look for great articles that actually have value in the quest for greater personal and family safety. From all of the articles that I find, I weed out the “fake news” and those that don’t have direct application to some aspect of preparedness. Then, to fight the gro...

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  Going shooting in the wilderness? Be safe!

  Instead of belonging to a gun club or using a commercial range, many gun owners enjoy heading out into the countryside to shoot. In my area of the world, this is often an old gravel pit out in the woods. There are lots of such locations scattered around the Pacific Northwest, as they’re used to provide the materials to build and maintain the logging and access roads that criss-cross the mountains. Being outdoors, where the air is fresh and clear, with nothing but the sounds of birds and bees...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for August 28, 2019

  Welcome to your Hump Day Reading List!  This is your refuge from the impersonal Google and FaceBook algorithms that seem to run our lives these days. Instead of a machine deciding what you’ll see, I personally go out and look for great articles that actually have value in the quest for greater personal and family safety. From all of the articles that I find, I weed out the “fake news” and those that don’t have direct application to some aspect of preparedness. Then, to fight the gro...

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  Retrieving the rifle: an overlooked skill

  If you haven’t taken my Perimeter Defense Rifle class (or read Protecting Your Homestead), you may not know that one of the things I teach is the idea that the rifle is the gun we are most unlikely to have on our person when we need it. It’s the firearm that needs to be retrieved in order to use, and that affects how we train and practice. The popularity contest It’s quite popular in rifle classes these days to shoot from a slung-in-front configuration — with the rifle hanging in the per...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for August 21, 2019

  Welcome to your Hump Day Reading List!  This is your refuge from the impersonal Google and FaceBook algorithms that seem to run our lives these days. Instead of a machine deciding what you’ll see, I personally go out and look for great articles that actually have value in the quest for greater personal and family safety. From all of the articles that I find, I weed out the “fake news” and those that don’t have direct application to some aspect of preparedness. Then, to fight the gro...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for August 14, 2019

    Welcome to your Hump Day Reading List!  This is your refuge from the impersonal Google and FaceBook algorithms that seem to run our lives these days. Instead of a machine deciding what you’ll see, I personally go out and look for great articles that actually have value in the quest for greater personal and family safety. From all of the articles that I find, I weed out the “fake news” and those that don’t have direct application to some aspect of preparedness. Then, to fight the...

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  You are not a security camera, and that’s a problem

    Take a look at the picture illustrating this post. It comes from a security camera in the recent El Paso Walmart incident, and has been shared widely in social media as well as more than one blog. It’s also being used to sell an idea, a notion really, that I think is unrealistic and maybe even dangerous. Misinformation for fun and profit I’ve seen this very picture used to reinforce two different yet related points of view. The first is, essentially, victim blaming: “When the people...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for August 7, 2019

    Welcome to your Hump Day Reading List!  This is your refuge from the impersonal Google and FaceBook algorithms that seem to run our lives these days. Instead of a machine deciding what you’ll see, I personally go out and look for great articles that have value to the quest for greater personal and family safety. From all of the articles that I find, I weed out the “fake news” and those that don’t have direct application to some aspect of preparedness. Then, to fight the growing s...

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  Make up your mind, before you need to

    In my job I follow a lot of news stories about horrific events. Once I’ve dissected the event for any lessons, however, I usually don’t think about it much. After all, there will be another attacker, or another disaster, to study tomorrow. Whether I’m just jaded or truly lack empathy I’m not sure, but I don’t think much about such things — except in the proper context. I could do it in my sleep Last weekend’s attack at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California, however,...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for July 31, 2019

    Welcome to your Hump Day Reading List!  This is your refuge from the impersonal Google and FaceBook algorithms that seem to run our lives these days. Instead of a machine deciding what you’ll see, I personally go out and look for great articles that have value to the quest for greater personal and family safety. From all of the articles that I find, I weed out the “fake news” and those that don’t have direct application to some aspect of preparedness. Then, to fight the growing s...

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  All or nothing? Not in my world.

    (From The Management: This post was supposed to appear on Friday, but a technical glitch on the site prevented it from going live. My apologies! — GC) Getting started in preparedness, whether the entry point is in self defense or in disaster survival, can seem daunting. Even moving from one area of preparedness to another, particularly if they’re unrelated, can be intimidating. Unfortunately, sometimes the people who are well-versed in those topics don’t make the situation any easie...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for July 24, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: The defensive value of imagination In all the talk about guns and ammunition and shooting techniques for self defense that you can find on the ‘net, you’ll occasionally come across a reference to “wargaming”. That’s just the latest tactical hobbyist term for what we used...

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  New class scheduled: Threat-Centered Revolver in Phoenix, AZ!

    Teaching in Phoenix during the fall has become something of a tradition with me, and I’ll be back again this November to teach my flagship revolver course! On November 9 & 10 I’ll be at the wonderful Ben Avery Shooting Center teaching Threat-Centered Revolver. Also as usual, I’m being hosted by Phoenix Firearms Training. This is the course to take to learn how to operate the revolver efficiently in a defensive encounter.  In this course I’ll teach you what I consider to be th...

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  The myth of the “concealed carry lifestyle”

    People very often refer to concealed carry as a “lifestyle”. I’m not sure I can agree with that. A lifestyle is a behavioral pattern which expresses how someone sees him or herself, and how they want others to see them. Their activities, opinions, and even how they spend their money are all reflected in their lifestyle. In other words, their lifestyle is the dominant feature of their existence; it defines them.  A lifestyle is all-encompassing. By admitting to a lifestyle, one is s...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for July 17, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: Misinformation in the training world I’ve been fortunate enough to have been intimately involved in three completely different business sectors in my life (the jewelry/watch industry, the camera/photography business, and the firearms/defensive training world.) Of those, the most...

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  Is there value in competitive shooting?

    Much has been written about (and many arguments started over) the value of competitive shooting for the person who owns or carries a firearm for personal defense. There are generally two polarized views in this manufactured controversy.  The first states that a defensive shooting is always a competition and that only competitive shooters can possibly reach their potential against an adversary. The second believes that competitive shooting ingrains habits that are counterproductive to sel...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for July 10, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: “Stop practicing shooting!” It’s a provocative title, to be sure, but in this article Ralph Mroz makes the point that drawing and firing a handgun is one very small part of a defensive encounter. Yet, it’s the one almost everyone focuses on, to an almost ridiculous degree....

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  Following up on the Three Easy Steps: Readiness as a habit

    Last week I introduced Grant’s Patented Plan To Becoming More Self-Reliant In Three Easy Steps ™: Buy a pocket knife. Buy a small high-intensity flashlight. Carry them with you every day. My approach to preparedness, whether the subject is self defense or disaster readiness, is to start with becoming better prepared to handle common, daily sorts of inconveniences. I find it hard to believe that someone who isn’t equipped with tools or skills to open a blister package when need...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for July 3, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: “He’s just a kid” can be a fatal assumption There is a very strong tendency in the firearms training world to assume that a threat always comes from an adult male. (Frankly, I’ve seen too many instances where threats were assumed to be a specific ethnicity — but that’s...

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  How to get prepared in three easy steps

    I admit to a bit of creative over-simplification in today’s title, but there’s an important lesson in it. My wife and I were walking in the woods recently, and the topic of conversation touched on preparedness. Rather, the lack of preparedness amongst a large percentage of the adult population. How the other three-quarters lives She used an example from her previous life in corporate America: Her profession was accounting, and she worked as a department head in several large c...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for June 26, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: Don’t believe everything you see on YouTube My friend Cecil Burch, martial arts legend and expert in entangled fighting, has some things to say about fake martial artists plying their wares on the internet. It’s easy to get tripped up by these sorts of people. They’re usually...

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  Luck happens, but sometimes it happens to someone else.

    This is a sobering tale, and I share it for a lesson that’s not immediately obvious. Concealed Carrier vs. Armed Robber The story is relatively simple: Mr. Miller was at his son’s house looking at a plumbing problem. His son was not home at the time, but was on the phone with his father. The timeline is a little unclear, but it seems that Miller was leaving the property and locking the door when his assailant opened fire. His son heard the shots. Miller drew his legally-carried ha...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for June 19, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: Birdshot, self defense, and you Last week I received a request for information on the use of birdshot for self defense. Rather than writing a whole missive, I elected to share this article with the person. Then I thought I should share it with you, too! Greg does a good job of expl...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for June 12, 2019

  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 week in Defense and Training: Defending against a dog attack (Note: I hesitated sharing this article because of the rather violent techniques shown, and because it seems cruel to use them against an animal. However, vicious dogs do kill people, and knowing something of how to handle an attack in the absence of a weapo...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for June 5, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: Stop parroting home defense fallacies The defensive shooting world has worked overtime for the last few decades to teach people how to draw  faster, shoot faster, and hit smaller targets at greater distances. Very rarely, however, has it addressed when to shoot — to include the topic o...

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  This guy got lucky. You might not.

  One of my big peeves in this business is the number of bad lessons that are presented in the context of “he had it coming!” In these stories there’s usually a petty criminal (these are almost always minor property crimes) who is caught “red handed” by a virtuous (and obviously very manly) gun owner. The gun owner either heroically holds the suspect for police, chases him off at gun point, or fires a warning shot to scare the thief into submission. I know why these stories are popular:...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for May 29, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: Where is your line in the sand? This article from Greg Ellifritz is one of the most important I’ve read. Most people never think about where their boundaries are — the point beyond which they won’t comply. It’s something you should do frequently. If you have no pre-set boundar...

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  Yes, it’s been a while.

    I confess that I’ve been scarce around here lately. I haven’t posted much of substance for a couple of months, which means I haven’t recorded any podcasts either. It’s not like I’ve been sitting around doing nothing, though. I’ve been busy traveling, teaching, writing (yes, there are more books coming) and working on our little homestead. But that’s just my normal life. It’s not why I’ve been absent.  Introspection is vital to growth The reality is that I needed a hiatu...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for May 22, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: Timing is everything In the defensive training world, everything is always about “faster”. We train to draw faster, shoot faster, move faster. Our drills are always about shooting, rarely about thinking.  The result is that students very often go to the gun before they need to, or ev...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for May 15, 2019

  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 week in Defense and Training: Just because it looks cool doesn’t mean it will work When we speak of defensive shooting with a handgun, there are two likely ranges: within arm’s reach (yours plus your attacker’s), and everything else.  Most handgun training focuses on the “everything else” category, or that which i...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for May 1, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: Hiding in the bushes This is another thought-provoking post from Greg Ellifritz. A 62-year-old woman is out walking her dog at 9:pm when she’s kidnapped, robbed, and held by two men. They eventually let her go, which is something of a miracle; usually these kinds of cases don’t end we...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for April 24, 2019

    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 week in Defensive Equipment: A bullpup rifle review It’s been a long while since I’ve featured any gear reviews here on the List. I intentionally don’t do much talking about gear, because I believe skills, knowledge and concepts are generally more important. Sometimes, though, a piece of gear can be a concept un...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for April 17, 2019

  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 week in Defense and Training: Not everything is a shooting problem A while back I said that the lawfully carried firearm is a defensive tool with an extremely narrow range of application. I mean that in both the practical and legal sense; if the circumstances don’t warrant the use of lethal force, the gun isn’t the tool...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for April 10, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: Not everyone needs to be shot There is a persistent and vocal group of people who truly believe that just because someone is in their house, they have a right to shoot that person. As Greg Ellifritz points out in this article, however, being “justified” doesn’t make you right. It al...

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  Going to Indianapolis for the NRA Show?

  I’m excited to announce that I’ll be attending the NRA Show in Indianapolis on April 26 & 27! My PRAYING SAFE co-author, Joshua Gideon, and I will be signing books and answering your questions at three separate scheduled times: Friday, April 26 at 2:pm we’ll be at Evolve Range Solutions (Booth 2707). Saturday, April 27 we’ll be appearing at iMarksman (Booth 3605) at 10:am, and at Evolve Range Solutions (Booth 2707) at 2:pm. Please stop by and say hello! Of course, if you see me at...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for April 3, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: Context is everything. Still. About a decade ago, I started talking publicly about the idea of context: the condition or environment in which something can be understood or applied. At the time I was talking about defensive shooting skills, how a military or law enforcement context of sho...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for March 20, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: Before it goes too far… A large percentage of violent incidents start as ordinary interpersonal encounters gone horribly wrong. The term for this is social violence (as opposed to resource violence, which is a person or a group preying on another for gain of some sort.)  The bar fight...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for March 13, 2019

    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 week in Defense and Training: Preventing attacks through body language? I’ll admit I had a few reservations about sharing this article, largely because of the references to seducing women (and the machismo which supports it.) However, the art of seduction isn’t just about sexual conquests, and it isn’t an exclus...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for March 6, 2019

  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 week in Defense and Training: Is ‘round count’ a good way to judge a shooting course? Back in the ‘olden days’ of defensive shooting training (which I’ll arbitrarily define as the 1990s), it was common for students to talk breathlessly about how many rounds they shot in their two-day classes. 500 rounds barely elic...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for February 27, 2019

  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 week in Defense and Training: Carrying a defensive firearm at work This article is better than most I’ve seen on the subject. The author brings up a point that most people miss when they talk about carrying in what is usually a non-permissive environment: sustainability. Anyone can hide a full-size Glock or 1911 und...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for February 19, 2019

  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 week in Defense and Training: Concealed carry and outdoor activities I get a lot of questions regarding concealed carry for hikers, joggers, and other outdoor enthusiasts. There are a number of options, and this article at RECOIL goes over some of them. There are two important points about this topic, one which the article acknowledges and one which it misses. The...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for February 6, 2019

    Welcome to the Hump Day Reading List! Here are what I believe to be the three most important articles to read this week. This week in Defense and Training: Self defense isn’t always about bad guys 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 gets used for something that you didn’t anticipate (or perhaps trained for.) We all go to the range, or to shooting...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for January 30, 2019

  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 week in Defense and Training: A favorite criminal tactic: asking questions 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 criminal “interview”. This week’s article, from Greg Ellifritz, looks at some common questions criminal use in their interview. These question...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for January 23, 2018

    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 week in Defense: Your voice as a weapon 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 the “soft skills” of self defense, such as managing distractions, assessing risk, and — crucially — interacting with potential attackers. One of...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for January 16, 2019

  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” their weekly reading. So, I’m going to be like Marie Kondo and experiment with tidying up the Hump Day Reading List — starting today!...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for January 9, 2019

  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!    The Kimber K6s Deep Cover reviewed One of the things I’m most proud of is my involvement in the design of the Kimber K6s revolver. Getting the opportunity to make the vision of an ideal defensive revolver into an actual product that people can buy was a highlight of my career! It’s been three years since it was introduced at SHOT Sho...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for January 2, 2019

    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!    An interesting range experiment I’m sharing this article not because I necessarily agree with the base assumptions (or the terminology), but because the exercise described is very useful to get people out of the mindset that sights need to be perf...

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  Announcing my new book — PRAYING SAFE: The professional approach to protecting faith communities!

  Today I’m proud to announce the publication of a new book: PRAYING SAFE — The professional approach to protecting faith communities! This book is all about helping churches, synagogues, temples — religious institutions of all types — protect themselves from a wide range of threats. This book came about because my co-author, Joshua Gideon, and I have grown annoyed with the superficial and often misguided responses to attacks on houses of worship. We’ve watched as people have been hurt a...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for December 12, 2018

  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 isn’t about the weapon 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 understands.   Avoiding a widespread outbreak I decided to include this article for two reasons: first,...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for December 5, 2018

  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!    Positioning yourself to survive the attack 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 able to defend yourself when things get physical. This is a must-watch...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for November 28, 2018

  It’s Wednesday, and time once again for my hand-picked selection of the best articles to increase your safety, security, and survivability!    Protecting your guests 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 be kept out of the hands of children and other unauthorized people. Here are Cheryl Todd�...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for November 14, 2018

  I unearthed some really good articles for you this week. Read them and increase your safety, security, and survivability!    Remember what they say about that river in Egypt… 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 seriously and what happens when they don’t. (The only criticism I’ll make is that some of his �...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for November 7, 2018

  It’s the first Wednesday of November, and I’m starting the month off right with some great articles for you!    Have you ever heard the term “violent criminal actor”? 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 achieve the desired result. This is contrary to a lot of people’s thinking, but...

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  Revolver Knowledge: Resetting the double-action trigger

  A revolver shooting issue that comes up frequently is resetting the double-action trigger (or, more correctly, allowing the trigger to reset.) This problem seems to be more common among those who are accustomed to shooting autoloading pistols, as they tend to develop habits that shooters of lesser experience do not. (I’m not saying the problem is exclusive to that group, mind you, but they exhibit it to a much greater degree than their less-experienced counterparts.) I also see it in supposedl...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for October 31, 2018

  It’s Halloween, and I’ve got some great stories to help you tackle frightening topics!    Some people don’t want to learn 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 Burch looks at one of them, and wonders where the hypocrisy comes from.   Predators are a little different...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for October 24, 2018

  Another Wednesday, another great collection of articles for your enjoyment and enlightenment!    Another resource for travel safety 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.    What living off-grid is like, and why you should try I know a lot of people have fantasies of reverting to a simpler life off-grid. Well, it’s not all sunshine and unicorn...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for October 17, 2018

  More great defensive preparedness articles for you this week!    Making your home into a fortress (?) 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 in a logical, organized manner. It’s well worth reading.   You’re ready — but what about Fido? You need to prepare for your pet...

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  The critical skill no one teaches

  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. “You never know where evil will strike!” While it’s true that evil can strike anywhere, anytime, the reality is that it strikes more often...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for October 10, 2018

  I’ve got another great selection of articles for you this week!    This happens too often, and I’m tired of it This one happened last July; yesterday I read of a 3-year-old who died when he got hold of an unsecured firearm. Too many kids are dying from accidental gunshots, and we as responsible gun owners need to be at the forefront of reducing them. It’s simply not responsible to leave a firearm anywhere it can be accessed by children. Kids will always find guns, no matter how c...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for October 3, 2018

  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!)   Need some help prioritizing your preparedness? 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 you “group” your activities and purchases to ensure you’re focusing on what’s really mos...

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  You shouldn’t listen to the “shoulds”. Or should you?

  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”. “I should be able to shoot anyone who comes into my house uninvited.” “A couple of days of food should be enough for any emergency.” “I should be able to go...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for September 26, 2018

  Some great articles for the last Wednesday in September!    Keeping the family safe in public spaces 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.    Let’s see… …you’ve got a stock of food, medical supplies, defensive tools, survival kits, generators, and everything else a well-prepared home needs. But what about spare parts for all your stuff?    Alertness may have saved lives An inter...

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  Here’s your sign.

  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 up to the alley with a baseball bat, and his two antagonists showed up with a pistol and a shotgun. Like the game of rock...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for September 19, 2018

  I’ve got an interesting mix of articles for you this week, all of which I believe to be worth your time to read. Yes, even the infuriating one at the end!   Concealed carry and traffic stops How should you handle a traffic stop when you’re carrying a defensive firearm? Greg Ellifritz is a police officer in Ohio, and he has some thoughts on the matter. (I’ve noticed that the details vary a bit from region to region, and sometimes from agency to agency. It’s always a good idea to doub...

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  The “long game” of self defense

  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 respond in some preplanned way. It actually starts long before he even knows you exist. Self defense is a “long game”. Learning fro...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for September 12, 2018

    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!    Handguns and arthritis 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 need to happen that way, and this article from a physical therapist and shooter has some good tips on how to adapt to your changing physique. &...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for August 29, 2018

    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!   Medical preparedness most don’t think of 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 — or even fatal. This article has a good introduction to treatment and stabilization of the allergic reaction.   “Money is...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for August 22, 2018

  In addition to this week’s great articles, I have an announcement!     I’ve scheduled another revolver class! I’ll be in Phoenix, AZ on December 1 & 2 teaching my Threat-Centered Revolver course at the beautiful Ben Avery Shooting Center. The weather in Phoenix that time of year is gorgeous, and I can’t think of a nicer place to be. Please plan to join me for two great days of revolver training!   Body lock? What’s a body lock? I don’t know, but martial arts and self d...

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  Interchangeable chokes for defensive shotguns? Why not!

  Instructor Georges Rahbani showing a kneeling position with the defensive shotgun If any firearm could be said to be overlooked, it’s the defensive shotgun. While not a tool for the inexperienced, it must be acknowledged that the shotgun loaded with a defensively-appropriate shell (preferably in the buckshot category) is a force to be reckoned with. As a tool for self defense, the shotgun remains an effective choice. Not a fan of hanging things on the shotgun Back in the ‘90s the defensive s...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for August 15, 2018

  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!    Uber scams? Say it’s not so! 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 and how to avoid them. You can bet I paid attention to this article!   Another speedloader option for Kimber K6s owners When the Kim...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for August 8, 2018

  It’s the first Wednesday of August — time to get your learning on!    Is that “CIA Letter Opener” really undetectable? 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.   What if the bad guy doesn’t follow orders? This is a good article from the Statesville (NC) R...

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  Safe storage and self defense aren’t incompatible

  I recently shared to my social media accounts a story of an attempt by a local government to impose storage restrictions on gun owners in their city. The ordinance specified that firearms had to be locked up, except when they were “in use” (whatever that means). Of course this drew the ire of many people, including the NRA.  (Just to be clear, I am a proponent of gun owners storing their firearms securely to prevent unauthorized access. I’ve said this many times over many years, and I’l...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for August 2, 2018

    I found more interesting articles for this week’s List, some of them guaranteed to make you think twice!    Whatever happened to positively identifying your target? 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 threat is irresponsible in the extreme.    Speaking of stupid self defense tricks… I�...

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  “Justifiable” isn’t the same thing as “desirable”.

  It’s been my observation that only a very small percentage of gun owners think deeply about this business of shooting another person. By that, I mean beyond the aspects of sight picture and trigger press. What brought this to mind were the reactions of people to a recent story out of Oklahoma. A landowner’s tale It seems the owner of a vacant home had tired of people breaking into his empty house and developed the habit of frequently checking on the property. On one particular occasion he ap...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for July 25, 2018

  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…)   The gun shouldn’t be the first thing you grab “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 a flashlight with his home defense gun. I offer this article as counterpoint, and as a caution about handling “th...

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  Self defense, quantum physics, and negative outcomes

  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. Doing it means you won’t need to do it Heisenberg described something similar to what I’ve observed over the yea...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for July 18, 2018

    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 a scary story, and you need to read it 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 frightening at the same time is how easy it is for him to get into ostensibly secure areas through simple social engineering. It’s...

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  What if nothing happens?

  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 never happens? Aren’t you going to look like a sucker!” Opposite Day Things just seem to happen opposite to what we do. It is...

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  We interrupt Your Hump Day Reading List to bring you this important message

  Our country was founded on what was, at the time, a unique idea: that people have rights, and that their government should respect and defend those rights. One of the things our founding fathers left unsaid — perhaps because they thought it so obvious that it didn’t need to be said — is that with rights always come responsibilities. We spend a lot of time talking about the former, but rarely acknowledge the latter. This Independence Day, by all means celebrate our country’s birth. But do...

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  The best defense is still not being there

  A few weeks back I wrote an article on why I don’t entertain the notion of “what-if” scenarios. If you haven’t read it, you should. On a somewhat related note, I also don’t entertain the notion of the foregone conclusion scenario. It’s the one that presupposes a specific outcome or a specific event in an effort to support a particular conclusion. For instance, I was going through my reading file last week and came across an article from a shooting instructor that told the readers th...

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  Keep your perspective as safe as you keep your jewelry

  Believe it or not, the job I do isn’t actually all that pleasant. I’ve run into a lot of people who tell me they’d “love” to have my job; they tell me that “it must be fun”. They see the travel, or focus on the guns and shooting, without thought to what those things represent. Trust me, it’s not all sunshine. Facing reality isn’t always pleasant The reality is that I spend most of my working hours considering things that most people (the sane ones, anyhow) do their very best to...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for June 20, 2018

  It’s another Hump Day, and I’m here to share some more great personal defense and preparedness articles with you. (Which is actually redundant, because personal defense is but one form of preparedness, though  not everyone realizes that — yet!)   “People don’t plan to fail…they fail to plan” A self defense plan (which is really just a part of an overall preparedness plan) is, I believe, essential. Whether you have a gun for self defense or not, knowing what your defensive ass...

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  The fishing hook fantasy

  Why do so many survival kit suggestions have fishing gear in them? Over the years I’ve noticed that survival/escape/bugout/get-home kit contents always seem to include fishing gear. I don’t mean poles, reels, and aluminum boats with fish-finding radar, but hooks, line, and perhaps some weights. The idea is that if you’re stranded somewhere you can pull out the hooks, attach them to some line, and drop them in the nearest body of water and — like magic — life-sustaining fish will leap t...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for June 14, 2018

  Wednesday the 13th is extra lucky, and I’ll prove it by sharing some really great articles to help keep you and your family safer and more secure!   I wish I’d written this. It’s that good. This article from the Preparedness Advice blog is pure gold. The author looks at five pieces of common preparedness advice and takes each one apart, and I agree with just about everything he says. It’s worth reading for everyone, whether you consider yourself a prepper or not.   All in the f...

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  When friends are strangers

  Let’s assume, for the moment, that you have a perfect teenager. He or she is always polite, gets schoolwork in on time, excels in extracurricular activities, has above-average SAT scores, and has never been in trouble at school — or anywhere else, for that matter. This is a kid you can trust, and who has never betrayed that trust. You can rely on him or her to always do not just what you ask, but what is right. Congratulations! But…what about their friends? Their friends might not be frien...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for June 6, 2018

  It’s the first Wednesday of June? Why, let’s celebrate with some great self defense, personal safety, and family preparedness articles!   How will you protect your children? When you have children, defense planning gets substantially more complicated. The younger they are, the more impact they have. This article looks at the five biggest myths people have about keeping their kids safe, and it’s worth reading.   Can you really prepare in an apartment? Any amount of preparednes...

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  “But what if…”

  In my job I get some wonderful emails from people who’ve read one of my books or taken one of my classes. I also get awful emails, usually from people who’ve done neither of those things. There is a special class of email, though, that I really dislike getting. It’s the “but what if…” question about something I’ve said or written regarding the use of lethal force in self defense. These are almost always in response to something that people see as limiting their choice or somehow in...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for May 30, 2018

  This week I bring you more great articles to help you and your loved ones live safer lives. Why not grab a beverage and do some reading?   Gun thefts happen — too often An introduction to some of the ways to keep your guns from being stolen. (Frankly, I wish the author had simply said “never keep guns in your car, period.” I realize that sometimes circumstances dictate that you do exactly that, but it should never be a habit and should NEVER be done overnight. If you find yourself kee...

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  Can buying less actually give you more safety?

  The concept of minimalism intrigues me, because of its emphasis on personal growth rather than the acquisition of things. It forces one to ask “what’s important to me?” and “what do I really need?” rather than “oh, look, free shipping if I spend more money than I originally intended to!” Sadly, in this case the self defense and firearms media is always working against you. Thinking of less This came immediately to mind the other day when I saw an article that purported to show the...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for May 23, 2018

  I have no witty introduction this week, just a hand-curated assortment of articles that are worth your time to read. And a plug for my PDN show at the end (don’t miss it!)   A look at how to hold a revolver I cover proper grasp in depth in my Threat-Centered Revolver course, because I believe it to be the single most important step to shooting a revolver well. The ideal revolver grasp is also different than the ideal autopistol grasp, because the guns are shaped differently. This article...

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  A new way of looking at likelihood and plausbility

  A couple of decades back I started to talk to my defensive shooting students about the likelihood of being attacked and needing to use their firearm to defend themselves. It seemed to me that some people, based on their lifestyle and habits, were more likely to need to use lethal force than others. It also seemed to me that, even when the defensive firearm was actually needed, the mode of employment varied greatly; sometimes the sight of the gun itself was enough to scare the attacker away, whil...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for May 16, 2018

  Is it Wednesday again already? How time flies when I’m collecting articles to share with you!   Credit card thieves are amazingly enterprising Krebs on Security posted this article about credit card skimmers — but this time there’s a new wrinkle: they were placed on card scanners at the checkout lines of grocery stores, right under the noses of the clerks. He even ahs video of one being placed — watch how quickly it happens! Skimmers are everywhere, and it pays to be extra cautious...

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  The importance of rifle balance

  A recent talk with a colleague reminded me that in our zeal to embrace the new, we sometimes lose sight of the virtues of the past. Before you get all worked up and start calling me a “Fudd”, understand that I love the things modern technology has given us. Whether in firearms, electronics, or anything else, I’d never want to give up the progress we’ve made. I’m writing this on a modern computer, sending it into the modern internet, where (according to my site statistics) you’re prob...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for May 9, 2018

  Wednesdays are always better with great self defense and preparedness information!   Dealing with the verbally aggressive person Not every potentially dangerous situation is a surprise. Sometimes they develop from your interaction with another person. Anyone who has ever worked in a service job understands how unhinged people can become over seemingly innocuous things, and sometimes their anger builds to the point of violence. There are some ways to de-escalate the person who is becoming an...

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  Kids and gun safety on Training Talk!

  Keeping kids safe around firearms, and teaching them to use them safely and responsibly, is a big task. If you’re a gun owner and a parent, it may be one of the most important things you do. That’s what we covered on last week’s episode of Training Talk, with special guest Barret Kendrick — Instructor and Dad. We talked about how kids can live safely in a home with firearms, and he did a good job of dispelling some common kids-and-guns myths. He gave out some good pointers on how...

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  Your Hump Day Reading List for May 2, 2018

  April showers have brought…May Hump Day Reading List articles! Don’t miss out on any of these great references for all parts of your protected life!   Great examples of personal threat assessments If you’ve read Prepping For Life, you know that I recommend doing threat assessments for everyone in your family.  This is a very interesting article from the Active Response Training Blog, specifically on doing personal violence threat assessments. I highly recommend you read it as part o...