Retrieving the rifle: an overlooked skill

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.

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On August 23, 2019

How to get politicians to listen to you

There is a lot of activity, at the federal, state and local levels, on various bills of interest to those of us concerned with personal liberties. Because of the unsettled political climate, we’re seeing more and more calls to “write your elected representatives”, but no one ever explains just how to do so effectively (if […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On August 16, 2019

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

Surveillance cameras are all over, and sometimes they're used to sell ideas about self defense. The only problem is that sometimes they sell the wrong idea.

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On August 9, 2019

Make up your mind, before you need to

Daydreaming can be a good self defense technique. Here's an excellent example.

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On August 2, 2019

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 […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On July 19, 2019

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, […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On July 5, 2019

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 […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On June 28, 2019

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. […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On June 21, 2019

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. […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On October 15, 2018

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”. […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On October 1, 2018

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, […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On September 17, 2018

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, […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On August 6, 2018

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 […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On July 23, 2018

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 […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On July 16, 2018

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 […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On July 2, 2018

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 […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On June 18, 2018

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 […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On June 11, 2018

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 […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On May 28, 2018

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 […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On May 21, 2018

Selling defense without talking about prevention

“F**k marketing. There are too many people in marketing.” — Steve Jobs A while back I saw a slick promo video for a training organization (which will remain nameless), and it’s bothered me ever since because it makes the job of teaching people how to truly stay safe so much harder. The video showed footage […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On April 23, 2018

Do you have conflicting security priorities? You’re not alone.

A couple of weeks ago I talked about how the “I won’t go anywhere I can’t carry a gun” attitude affects the lives of those who pretend to put it into practice. The people who say things like that also have a tendency to insist that everyone can carry all the time, and fail to […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On April 16, 2018

You can find perspective in some odd places

It must be said that I’m not really a travel bug. Don’t get me wrong; I’m no hermit, but I don’t have the intense wanderlust many people do. I can appreciate it, even envy it to an extent, but I’ve never had it. So it was something of an oddity for me to be reading […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On April 2, 2018

How fast should you shoot?

For at least a decade I’ve subscribed to the idea that a teacher needs to be open to change, and that in fact one of the best ways to gauge the quality of a teacher is to ask what he (or she) has changed their mind about. If they’re learning, if they’re growing, they’ll experience […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On March 26, 2018

You don’t need to win. You need to survive.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a fan of macho nonsense. And I don’t particularly care where it comes from. So much of the defensive training world is built around the lifestyles of people who spend all their free time on the range or at the gym; some shooting instructors quite literally live at […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On March 12, 2018

Porn takes many forms

Ever heard of “defensive gun use porn”? It’s a term to describe a genre of stories where good guys use their guns to beat the bad guys. Such stories are a staple of many firearms-centric blogs and news sites, and they serve not so much an educational role as they do a cheerleading one. You’ll notice […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On February 26, 2018

Why do we teach moving while drawing a defensive firearm?

A popular concept taught in many defensive shooting courses (including mine) is movement off the line of attack. It’s variously referred to as “getting off the X” or “lateral movement”, and probably some other terms I’m not remembering, but the concept is pretty consistent: make it harder for the bad guy to hurt you by […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On February 5, 2018

What does “preparing for the worst case” mean?

In both the self defense and prepping communities, people talk about preparing — training and equipping — for “the worst case scenario”. “We train for the worst case”, schools brag (and their students claim). What, actually, is the worst case? The mind runs wild If you were to take a little time (or perhaps watch […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On January 22, 2018

Where are your tripwires?

Whether you’re prepping for survival or studying self defense against a criminal, you need to consider the circumstances under which you’d respond — where your tripwires are, the things that will trigger your response. Some people call them “a line in the sand” or “point of no return”, but no matter what the term the […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On December 15, 2017

More is not necessarily better, especially when you can’t take care of it

Any preparations you’ve made for your safety and protection — whether physical skills, gear and equipment, or storage commodities — need to be maintained to be useful. There is a cost to maintenance, and it’s one we often ignore in our zeal to always acquire more. That cost may affect your ability to respond efficiently […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On November 6, 2017

Bugging out, revisited.

As I’ve mentioned (and expanded on in Prepping For Life), I’m not usually a fan of the “bugout” concept — at least as it’s typically conceived. As many people think of it, bugging out is a semi-permanent relocation to a retreat preselected for its defensibility and likely stocked with survival provisions. Others think of bugging […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On September 15, 2017

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