Have I mentioned how I love living in Texas?
It’s not about guns folks, it’s about freedom. And yes, freedom of choice, and the ability to protect that freedom of choice. If you don’t understand what I mean, ask.
Month: June 2009
.308 Winchester
I have a friend that rags on me for my choice of .308 Winchester as a hunting caliber.
Hunting rifle
I’ve got a new rifle, specifically for (big game) hunting.
Lemonade and healthcare
Driving out of my neighborhood a couple days ago I saw a couple kids setting up a stand to sell shaved ice, $0.50. I thought that was pretty cool and consigned myself to stopping by on my way back home. Unfortunately the kids weren’t there when I returned. My guess, it was hot out, they were setting up in the middle of the day (i.e. little traffic), got bored, went to go play. Fair enough. I did think to myself that they should have set up in the evening when everyone had gotten home and was out walking their dogs or just walking around the neighborhood, as the increased foot traffic would have been better for business. Nevertheless, it was nice to see kids still continuing to do such things.
An old college buddy of mine just posted an article he wrote on lemonade stands and healthcare. Give it a read. Food for thought on these hot summer days.
Concealed Carry Supports Law Enforcement
Howard Nemerov examines the data, the conclusion of which is that yes, concealed carry supports law enforcement.
In Right-to-Carry states, private citizens have greater freedom to defend themselves in public. Because the ratio of justifiable homicides by police and citizens is more balanced, and because the level of police defensive justifiable homicide is lower, one can only conclude that armed citizens are adept at self-defense, enough to provide a quantifiable level of protection for law enforcement. In non-RTC states, the reduced self-defensive capability of the citizenry correlates with higher rates of violent crime and a more dangerous work environment for police officers.
Read Howard’s article for the data analysis. You can even email him to get the spreadsheet.
Gun control saved the day
So the shooting at the Holocaust Museum continues to be fodder for the anti-gunners. (h/t SayUncle)
“Congress should think very hard about their responsibilities for public safety before weakening gun laws in our nation’s capital, and should rethink their decision to allow more guns in our national public areas,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
“It is dangerous to force more guns into places that American families expect to be gun-free and safe,” he said.
Let’s see here. Our nation’s capital has about the strictest anti-gun laws in the nation. Yet those laws didn’t stop anything. That’s unpossible! So if the strongest laws didn’t stop it, how will more laws make any difference? No matter how many laws nor how strong they may be, they are not going to stop anyone but the law-abiding — criminals by definition don’t obey the law; if you are lawless that means you are without law, and if there are more laws these people will still be without them. Sorry folks, but towards the end of stopping violence, passing more laws that the people you’re targeting won’t obey anyways… the math doesn’t add up. Folks, even if you hate guns, can you not see the flaw in the logic?
As for being dangerous to force more guns into places…. there is no forcing going on. To force more guns somewhere would mean that you have no choice, you must have a gun. If you want to enter the museum, you must be at least this tall and have a Glock 19 on your hip. No shoes, no shirt, no Smith & Wesson, no service. No, sorry Mr. Helmke, that’s not how it works. Right now the laws restrict, the effort is to remove the restrictions. That way there’s choice so if you choose to carry a gun, you can. If you choose to not carry a gun, you can do that too. I thought people of this country liked having choice. That’s what this is all about: restoring freedom of choice.
Could the scene play out any differently if there were more gun-toting folks around there? I mean, in this situation guns actually did save the day. If there weren’t some people with guns at the museum, who knows how ugly things could have gotten. The “rampage” was stopped because Good Guys had guns. These Good Men had control over themselves, control over their guns, and their gun control saved the day.
Updated: Joe Huffman echos similar sentiments.
Act now to defend knife rights
It’s unreal to think that simple pocket knives are being worked to be made illegal, but yes, it’s true. So much for useful tools.
The trouble is, the comment period for this is very narrow so we must act now. For information check here.
Take a few moments to read the information and send in your comments both to CBP and to your US Congressman and Senators. You can probably email your Congresscritters (and there’s no excuse not to). But the CBP is refusing to accept electronic communication. They only want snail-mailed stuff — seems like someone doesn’t want to be bombarded by comments that they know are inevitable, and they are counting on you to be a lazy, apathetic citizen. So which are you? And that you can’t take 5 minutes to download, fill out, and print and mail a letter that could help to preserve your rights instead of allowing our freedoms to be slowly chipped away? If you can’t take 5 minutes to do this, how lazy and how (a)pathetic are you?
Do it now.
Visualization for self-defense
There’s been much said on the notion of “creative visualization” and how it can help improve performance. That said, we can and should use visualization techniques to help us in self-defense training.
Visualize yourself in self-defense situations and how you will respond and perform. There’s not really any right or wrong answer, except perhaps to say if you die it’s wrong and if you live it’s right, but even that isn’t necessarily so cut and dry. Certainly you should be visualizing yourself coming out a winner. Trouble is, often this creative visualization can get a little too creative and enter into the realm of fantasy, especially if you have unrealistic expectations or assessments of your skill level and ability. False bravado is not useful here. This is why visualization can only be a tool, reality-based training is certainly necessary.
Nevertheless, visualization is useful. What can help is to have a situation or a context that you did not come up with, thus you didn’t create something “perfect for your success”. The folks at Teddy Tactical have a fantastic archive of scenarios. There’s also a tremendous amount of other articles and information there, but really check out the scenarios. Read through them. Think how you would act.
Furthermore, take the advice of Tom Givens of Rangemaster. Every day look in your local police blotter. See what crimes were committed. Ask yourself what you would do in a similar situation. Furthermore, what could you have done to avoid the situation in the first place? You may be surprised to find that the answers to these scenarios often never involve drawing a gun, shooting a gun, or getting into any sort of fight or confrontation.
The goal of this visualization is to make yourself a playbook of sorts. That you may find yourself in a situation and instead of having to figure it out as you go along, risking precious time, risking making potentially costly mistakes, now you’ve got yourself a plan. You already know what to do so you can just do it. It’s easier to work with the familiar and known instead of the unfamiliar and unknown, especially in a pressure situation.
More Useful Acronyms
Previously I’ve mentioned some self-defense acronyms and the 3 D’s, and here’s a few more courtesy of John Farnam:
ADEE – Avoid, Disengage, Escape, Evade
AOJP – Ability, Opportunity, Jeopardy, Preclusion
BUIS – Back-Up Iron Sights
DOA – Dead On Arrival
DRT – Dead Right There
IBD – Israeli Battle Dressing
VBC – Victim By Choice
VCA – Violent Criminal Actor
June 2009 Rangemaster Newsletter
The June 2009 Rangemaster Newsletter is available.
Not only a nice write-up of the 2009 Polite Society Conference, but of great use to all is an article explaining how to read targets to spot and correct errors. For instance, if hits are at 6 o’clock, it’s usually due to anticipation; hits at 3 or 9 o’clock is usually from sideways pressure on the gun (typically due to the trigger finger); 5 or 7, trigger jerking/slapping; hits at 12, looking over the sights at the target; scattered hits, lack of consistency in shooting fundamentals. Read the article for further details.
Stuff From Hsoi 