Month: July 2009

There is a time to give them up

/ hsoi

When do we give up our guns?

Never!

“Cold dead hands” and all that.

Right?

Well, maybe not so much.

Joe recounts a personal story, which tells of a good time to give them up.

Aside from the personal drama, the lesson I want to impart is that there IS a time when we need to give up the guns.

The problem is that we won’t know when that time has passed. I know my uncle [who suffers from Alzheimer’s] wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he doesn’t understand the “sudden” mistrust. All he knows is that he does not want to hand over a prized possession, nor be disarmed.

But the doctor reports near 90% loss of short-term memory. He may take an “unloaded” pistol and find it loaded after all.

I empathize, but I know the guns have to go. My only option that night was to forcibly take it, but I was not prepared to devastate a huge, strong man for whom I care very much. Afterwards, he went in the kitchen and looked so absolutely hopeless and depressed… to say it was hard to watch is a gross understatement.

Give the whole piece a read. It’s moving.

National Reciprocity

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

There have been numerous attempts at national reciprocity, even within this current US Congressional session.

The latest attempt? S.1390, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2010. More specifically, amendment 1618 to that bill, sponsored by Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. This amendment appears to be the same as Thune’s stand-alone S.845 bill, just in amendment form.  I see Sen. John Cornyn has signed on as a co-sponsor of the amendment form but not of the stand-alone form (odd). Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, where are you on either?. Note, if my links to the bills don’t work, go to the THOMAS website, search for S.1390 by bill number, then you can see everything including the amendments. THOMAS is neat, but it’s linking system totally blows. Anyway…

I’ve been a bit torn on this topic because I don’t really want the Fed to step in. But when you consider some unexpected bedfellows in matters such as trucking interests, and then how Thune opted to word things, this is actually reasonable.

As well, while I normally am not hip to using amendments as a way to shuttle pet projects through, I think this is a reasonable place for such an amendment. If there’s one thing the Federal Government is supposed to do it is national defense. This is the defense appropriations bill, and bringing about national reciprocity falls in line there.

For those that expect this will cause doom and gloom, I suggest you do a little homework before you start with the hysterics.

If you haven’t contacted your Senator, now is the time.

Updated: Didn’t happen. This time. Still, I think it made a good showing.

12 Basic Strikes of Modern Arnis

/ hsoi

Here’s a video of Bruce Chiu discussing the 12 basic strikes of Modern Arnis

Good depth in this video, introducing the basic strikes, variations on the striking methods, footwork, blocking, drills, putting it together.

Why do you want my gun?

/ hsoi

So a liberal asks: why do you want my gun? (h/t to SayUncle)

After reading his story it reminded me of a “joke”:

Q: What do you call a Democrat?

A: A Republican that’s never been mugged (yet).

So what do you do?

/ hsoi

Caleb recounts how he just went to a concert and had to disarm himself. I’ve run into this same situation.

This is why we cannot be one-trick ponies, relying upon guns alone. To carry other weaponry such as a knife, collapsable baton, pepper spray (women will likely be able to get away with this more than men can) — a layered approach. But of course, even those may not be permissible given the venue. Thus all you are left with are your wits and your hands.

This is why it’s good to know how to use your empty hands.

But this is why it’s even better to know how to use your brain, keep your wits about you, be aware, and follow that first rule of self-defense: ABC — Always Be Cool. That seems to hold even moreso in a context like a concert, where cool is so much what it’s about.

Do children need guns?

/ hsoi

Howard Nemerov examines the question of children having access to guns.

He recounts a recent story where a 10-year old boy had access to his mother’s gun and used it to save the lives of himself and his 8-year old sister. This isn’t the first story I’ve heard where a minor had access to a gun and used it to protect themselves and their family members.

Nevertheless, out of the woodwork come those that decry that a loaded gun was accessible to the children. That children should even know how to use a firearm. That “what if the gun had been taken away and used against them”. And all the usual foul cries.

In his usual style, Howard sets aside the emotion and looks at the hard facts:

After compiling data from the FBI’s Supplemental Homicide master files for 2000 through 2002, it turns out that children shooting children is a rare occurrence.

[…]

This means that of the truly unfortunate circumstances where a child finds a gun and kills another kid, there are an average of 10 per year for entire country. Obviously, that is 10 too many. But considering that 633 babies under age 2 (211 per year) were beaten to death during this same time period, some perspective needs to be maintained. There are already laws against beating babies to death, just as there are laws against killing children with firearms.

Texas is one such state with “child access” laws. My wife and I have had discussions on this very matter. The law says I cannot leave a “readily dischargeable firearm” in a way such that a child could have access to it. That means that my children — who know how to safely and responsibly operate firearms — cannot use a firearm to defend themselves. Given that firearms are an equalizer, why shouldn’t my children be allowed means and mechanisms to level the field against larger and stronger invaders/attackers? I grant the intentions of the law, but I also see the perils the same law creates.

So Howard provides much-needed perspective:

Of these 31 incidents, 15 of them occurred in the 18 states (about 1 per state) that had child access laws on the books at the time. That means the remaining 16 incidents occurred in the 32 states without these laws (0.5 incidents per state), not the best testimony for child access laws!

Ten of these incidents involved shooters age 10 or less, about 3 per year. Four of these occurred in states with child access laws, still near that 50/50, coin-flip percentage that indicates failure for child access laws.

So based strictly upon percentages, this 10-year-old is a hero.

How can you label that 10-year old boy any other way?

What to do?

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Here’s an interesting story.

Basically, petty crime occurring (someone grabs someone else’s duffel bag and runs off, victim shouts for help). A citizen with a concealed carry permit pulls over to help out, draws his gun on the criminal and says “Stop, Police.” and works to detail the thief. However, a second armed citizen sees what’s happening and thinks that is a crime going down so he too stops to intervene. Eventually the police show up and things get sorted out.

The intentions of both citizens are good. Frankly, having more people that are willing to be helpful and not stand for criminal behavior? That’s a good thing. But the first guy to identify himself as police? That’s not good. My hope there is the guy either gets let off or only lightly punished because he did not have criminal intent in what he was doing; it’s certainly not worthy of a felony charge.

It does demonstrate a real issue however: that things may not always be what they seem. There’s stories of a bad guy coming out of the store he just robbed and complaining to the by-standers in a manner to make those by-standers think he was the victim and thus they help the bad guy get away. Things aren’t always what they seem, and we have to be careful. I do have thoughts about what would happen if I was in a self-defense situation with many others around, and there were other “sheepdogs” in the mix as well. What could happen? Could signals get crossed? Could the chaos of the situation lead to unintended things happening? It’s a situation that I don’t have an answer to, but have wondered if there is something that could be done and thus taught in schools as a part of “training and tactics” to aid in such situations. I don’t know.

But me personally? I don’t think I would have gotten involved in such a situation. To me the question to answer is “is this worth dying for?”. Petty theft? I don’t think it’s worth dying for. Actually I should check that. I may have gotten involved (all depends upon the specifics of the situation), but to pull one’s gun… that has to answer affirmatively the “worth dying for” question.

My Story

I think about what happened to me just this past Saturday evening. The family and I had gone out to dinner, then over to the bookstore. We left the bookstore, heading across the parking lot to our car. I noticed a man and a woman walking through the parking lot on a path that would eventually intersect with us. They appeared to be having some sort of a fight, a little physical, a little heated verbal exchange, and they kept walking in our direction. They appeared intoxicated, and by their appearance possibly homeless. Wife saw them too and became concerned, I just looked at her and said to get herself and the kids to the car. I was certainly in code orange, but didn’t think this would be a problem… they appeared to just be a drunk couple having their own spat, but with that level of irrationality going on who knows. Better safe than sorry. I kept my eye on things while Wife got the kids and herself into the car. As I was going to get into the car, the woman crossed behind our car and shouted to me “Want to buy some DVD’s? Brand new!” I just gave a firm “no thank you”. She kept walking; in fact, she never stopped. My guess is the fight was over the DVD’s, or at least her saying that to us was no true offer of sale… just something to piss off her male companion. As we pulled out, we saw the man had sat himself down on the curb and looked sad and upset whereas the woman had kept on walking.

I don’t know what the story was, and frankly I don’t care. My concern was for the safety and well-being of my family. There was a brief moment where both Wife and I were concerned of a physical altercation as it looked like the man might have opted to hit or otherwise rough up the woman. If that had happened, I may have intervened but initially from a distance (e.g. verbal commands, getting Wife to dial 911). I couldn’t stand by to let someone get hurt like that, but on the same token I had to ensure I didn’t put myself or my wife and children in danger either. Exactly what I would have done, again, impossible to say… all depends upon the exact situation and how things would unfold. But my guiding principle is keeping my wife and children safe; all else is secondary. In the end the question remains: is it worth dying for?

Filipino Martial Arts – Compare and Contrast

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

I’ve been studying Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) for about a month now. Between my classes and the reading I’m doing on FMA, I’m noticing some interesting differences between it and my past experiences studying a traditional Korean martial art. This is by no means any sort of a complete analysis, just some initial observations based upon my own experiences.

The approach to weapons study

In Kuk Sool, weapons study was saved for later. In terms of formal curriculum, there’s no real weapon study done until black belt. At the brown-black level there is a defense against knife technique set, but you’re not learning how to use the knife. As well, the WKSA tournaments allow brown belts to perform staff spinning techniques. Nevertheless, any actual “fighting” techniques with weapons is pretty much reserved until black belt level. Why? Reasons can vary, but I recall the reason I was given when I first started my study was that you needed to learn discipline with your hands. That if you’re moving a sword around, you need to learn where to put your hands both the hand holding the sword and the free hand; allows you to wield the sword effectively but also keep your free hand from getting cut off! There’s some sense to that and certainly I know after years of practice my hands have gained some good default positions to keep them in “proper places” when moving. Nevertheless, traditional arts like Kuk Sool have designs to first teach empty hand then weaponry.

On the other hand, Filipino arts teach weapons first and empty hand comes later. The reasoning is that they’re teaching people for combat. While it’s nice to be able to fight with your fists, weapons give you greater advantages. You can hit harder, have more reach, be more effective in combat and increase your chances of success, even if all you’re fighting with is a stick. This lies in stark contrast to Kuk Sool, not just because they have opposite locations for weapons teaching in their curriculum, but also the reasoning for it. Kuk Sool says you need discipline first; FMA says you need to be combat effective. I guess which you deem more valuable depends upon what your goals are. I tend to agree with the FMA approach, but only because my goals these days are to be more combat effective.

Open vs. Closed

Kuk Sool, at least as promoted by the World Kuk Sool Association, is very closed. They don’t want you to cross train. They don’t want to look at new ideas or different approaches to things. It’s their way, period. Kuk Sool is perfect as-is and never needs to change, adapt, or grow. If someone leaves the association, the association tries to prohibit you from any further ties with those that left. It’s very close-minded, very controlling.

FMA seems to be very open and encouraging of cross-training. Reading some history of the “recent” (within the last 100 years) FMA evolution, it seems to have willingly adopted useful techniques from other groups such as aikido, jujutsu, karate, kendo. Various FMA groups will even train with each other. There’s an openness towards finding what works and what can make you a more effective fighter.

Mindset

The Kuk Sool mindset (apart from the financial drive) seemed to be well… hard to define. Was it about preserving Korean martial heritage? Was it about physical development? Was it about internal development (e.g. “ki/chi”)? Was it about mental development (e.g. discipline, loyalty). Or was it actually about learning how to fight? I don’t think it was much about the latter. It tried to, but there just wasn’t enough being done to make that so.

The FMA mindset seems to speak a lot about actual self-defense. “Haging laging handa” or “always be prepared”. It’s not about paranoia, just being aware and keeping sharp. To be prepared for the unexpected. “Huwag kang magpapauna” or “don’t let the opponent get the jump on you”. “Pagmamasdan mo ang kamay” or “watch the opponent’s hands”. These are actual principles, tactical maxims towards helping you succeed. I saw no such things in Kuk Sool. If anything I saw there it’d be about being loyal, or how to practice hyung. You Won Hwa was perhaps the closest thing I saw towards actual fighting principles.

Body Mechanics

One strong point of similarity is the body mechanics. But I would say this has less to do with any sort of style vs. style trappings and more just with how the body works. The elbow only bends one way, so an arm bar is an arm bar is an arm bar regardless of what style you learn it in. Vital points at which to target strikes (e.g. eyes, throat, side of jaw, downward clavicle, floating ribs, etc.), all the same.

The nice part here is whatever existing knowledge I have, it all flows and continues to be useful. That is one strength of Kuk Sool is their “soo” emphasis; all the joint locking, throwing, and sweeping techniques. It’s a strong part of what makes up Kuk Sool. I just wish they would do more practical work with it. Nevertheless, the textbook knowledge gained from it is quite good.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t to disparage Kuk Sool. It’s just to point out the differences that I’m seeing between my old study and my new study. Certainly I am biased, but only because I have particular goals; Kuk Sool no longer served towards meeting my goals, and FMA appears to be serving those goals quite well. If your goals are different, you may find that FMA isn’t what you want and Kuk Sool is perfect. That’s the thing about martial arts: it’s a personal journey.

Going off about going off

/ hsoi

The story is short and simple.

Passenger in car takes out his gun to show off to the driver and winds up shooting himself in the leg. How did it happen? The gun “went off”.

Folks, guns do not just “go off”. That’d be like matches suddenly igniting and starting a fire. Or a car suddenly starting and driving itself somewhere. Or a lawn mower spontaneously starting up and cutting the grass. Or a book reading itself. For any of these actions to happen, it requires someone to make them happen. Someone must strike the match, someone must start the car or the mower, someone must read the book. And as such, someone must fire the gun.

When things like this happen, it’s usually due to negligence. They put their finger on the trigger and fired it. Sure it was unintentional, but it was also negligent.

Follow the rules.

If you follow the rules, things like this shouldn’t happen. I won’t say they won’t happen because we’re human and we make mistakes. But that’s one of the things about the rules (whichever ruleset you follow). They are layered. If one rule is violated, ugly things can be averted. It takes a violation of more than 1 rule for bad things to happen. If you do your best to always follow all the rules, you should be in good shape. Unfortunately in this case, the first 3 of Cooper’s rules were violated, and at least the first 2 of the NRA rules were violated.

Sotomayor and the NRA

/ hsoi

It took a while, but the NRA has officially come out against Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination for SCOTUS.

Certainly the NRA brings up Sotomayor’s anti-2A record:

Judge Sotomayor’s judicial record and testimony clearly demonstrate a hostile view of the Second Amendment and the fundamental right of self-defense guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

But I think a bigger judicial issue is involved, and one that should concern all US citizens, including those that may be pro gun-control:

The one part of the Bill of Rights that Congress clearly intended to apply to all Americans in passing the Fourteenth Amendment was the Second Amendment.  History and congressional debate are clear on this point.

Yet Judge Sotomayor seems to believe that the Second Amendment is limited only to the residents of federal enclaves such as Washington, D.C. and does not protect all Americans living in every corner of this nation.

This is a larger issue (14A), and one generally hostile towards protecting and preserving the freedoms this country was founded upon.

In last year’s historic Heller decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees the individual’s right to own firearms and recognizes the inherent right of self-defense.  In addition, the Court required lower courts to apply the Twentieth Century cases it has used to incorporate a majority of the Bill of Rights to the States.  Yet in her Maloney opinion, Judge Sotomayor dismissed that requirement, mistakenly relying instead on Nineteenth Century jurisprudence to hold that the Second Amendment does not apply to the States.

If she’s going to make such mistakes and disregard the ruling of the highest court — the one she’s now attempting to gain a seat upon — what sort of respect does she have for that court? And what sort of behavior is it to be so disregarding? Can the American Citizens trust such behavior?

What will make this rather interesting is apparently the NRA will count the Sotomayor vote towards NRA grade/score. We’ll see what happens.