Month: January 2010

3 Classes, Long Day, Lots Learned

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Yesterday was a long but satisfying day.

I spent it at KR Training helping with 3 classes: Basic Pistol 2, Defensive Pistol Skills 1, and AT-1A Low Light Shooting. It was a long and busy day, but overall a good one. Students were shooting well, worst thing really was helping some people break long-ingrained (bad) habits. Students were challenged, pushed, and they performed well.

One very cool thing was the weather — literally. It was quite cold, with a strong arctic wind blowing. It made being outside quite miserable. Consequently, Karl adjusted the course to utilize dry fire within the classroom. All the tables and chairs were cleared away, then the students made 2 lines back-to-back. Instructors walked behind the students and thus we always had safe directions. Various drills were worked on in the classroom dry. When we finally went out to the range, the student performance was higher than usual. We’re pretty sure it was due to the dry practice. We were able to hear each other better. We could give a lot more personal instruction. I think the big part as well was the students got more trigger time. Think about it. Depending upon the drill, in a live fire exercise a student would only get to fire a limited amount of shots per drill, just due to the nature of the drill and all the logistics of working on the range and having to rotate groups on the line. Working dry, a student could press the trigger a few hundred times per drill. They can work it over and over without any sort of time lost to administrative whatnot. There’s no question the dry fire paid off as a teaching technique. Yes it threw off the schedule a bit, but it was well worth it. Hopefully as well the students saw the value of dry fire and will continue to practice that way on their own.

I also got to do something I hadn’t done before. The AT-1A class contains a scenario to introduce students to a different mode of thought. You see, we spend all this time training and teaching people how to shoot and shoot well. Then when they get to this more advanced level of training we teach them not to shoot. That is, first we work on the mechanical skills, then we start to add in the mental skills. Is this situation worth dying over? Is there anything in there that’s worth your life? This is the lesson of the scenario. And…. I got to play the “person” in the scene. I don’t want to say too much and spoil the scenario, but it was a lot of fun to play the role. Didn’t hurt that I got to be inside the whole time out of the cold. 😉

Very good day. Many satisfied students. Got to see some familiar faces. Had a great time.

Oh, and TXGunGeek gave me some presents! A big box of .38 brass and a box of OC spray. Thanx!!

-[NSTableView setDoubleAction:] not working?

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

This is documented but in a subtle way, so I thought it’d be worthwhile to mention in a more obvious way.

If you are using NSTableView’s -setDoubleAction: method, the action is only invoked if the cell or column double-clicked upon is uneditable.

Thus, it may not be enough to go:

[theTableView setDoubleAction:@selector(myAction:)];

You may also have to do something like:

[theTableView setDoubleAction:@selector(myAction:)];
[theTableColumn setEditable:NO];

I ran into this just now because I had a single-column table (just a simple table to display a list of stuff, thus the user wasn’t allowed to edit anything) and I wanted to allow a double-clicking on the item (row/cell) to advance the user to the next stage of things (they could also single-click to select the item then click a “Go” button… double-click would just be a shortcut). It actually was working fine under Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, but the double-click was failing under Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Once I made the table column explictly uneditable, it started working and the table received the clicks, the clicks didn’t fall through to the table column.

Scanners at the Texas capitol?

/ hsoi

The Austin-American Statesman has an article about possible security increases at the state capitol building.

One possible sticking point: how to allow Texans with concealed-weapons permits to get through security with their guns. Perry, Dewhurst and Straus probably will make the final decision.

Yes, that is a big sticking point, especially given that many of our legislators are CHL holders.

Earlier this week, [Senator Dan] Patrick — who holds a state concealed-handgun permit, along with a number of other Texas lawmakers — sent his colleagues a letter advocating increased Capitol security. “However … I do not want to see those who have a legal right to carry a gun denied their constitutional right.

“Whatever new measures we may adopt, I would not want to stop law-abiding CHL holders from carrying their guns in the Capitol,” he stated in the letter. “The goal is to stop those who bring illegal weapons into the Capitol, not those who have a legal right to do so.”

Note that it was Sen. Patrick’s office that was visited by last week’s gunman. Hearing this sort of attitude and approach from him makes me happy.

Reached by phone Thursday, Patrick said Texans with concealed-handgun licenses might “put their gun in a tray, go through the detector, pick it up and go,” or perhaps they could show their state-issued license and walk around security-screening devices.

Well… I hope they don’t do the “gun in a tray” thing. To have to have people disarm right then and there is risking trouble. The more you handle the gun, the more risk of discharge. Leave it in your holster and don’t mess with it. So hopefully something like showing the license would suffice. In the end, I wouldn’t see the point of putting the gun in the tray anyway. We might have more than one gun, we might have other weapons too (e.g. pocket knife). We’re still going to set off alarms, all that disarming would be troublesome and probably make the sheep nervous too. If we show the license that’s really good enough… it’s reasonable enough to assume we’re armed and going to set off the detectors. Just show and go.

Why not make the Capitol a gun-free zone altogether, like schools and businesses?

“If you continue to restrict more and more places where CHL holders can carry their weapons, you’re tearing away at the intent of the legislation that established this program,” Patrick said.

Thank you!

Rangemaster February 2010 Newsletter

/ hsoi

The Rangemaster February 2010 newsletter is posted.

Half of the newsletter talks about the upcoming Polite Society conference (wish I could attend this year, but scheduling won’t work out).

The other half of the newsletter contains an excellent article by Tom Givens titled “Intelligence Gathering for Personal Safety”. A snippet:

In this article we will examine some of the facets of personal intelligence gathering and processing, to assist you in a realistic threat assessment of your environment, and to provide forewarning in street encounters with likely threat sources. While this will not be an exhaustive examination of every threat, it will at least expose you to the main elements of some of the more common criminal types with which you will likely deal.

The purpose of this endeavor is to allow you to recognize subtle danger signs that will be present prior to an assault. By recognizing these cues, you can place yourself on alert, and be thinking about a planned response. As we discussed previously, being aware of a threat and having a plan in mind to deal with it greatly decreases reaction time, and helps overcome the mental inertia that slows down our response. When interacting with strangers, these subtle cues, once learned, can assist you in evaluating the proper degree of vigilance and readiness to act.

The article goes on to talk about street gangs, drug abusers, mental cases, and plain old criminals. There’s discussion of behavioral cues to impending aggression as well.

If there’s nothing else you read today, you need to read that article. The information therein could someday save your life.

So… useless

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Last night my brain had enough of working so I plopped down in front of the TV to disengage my brain for a while.

I turned on The Outdoor Channel, since it was “Wednesday Night At The Range”.

Yeah I know the STOU was on but I wasn’t in the mood for my blood to boil.

Some of the shows are just good informational entertainment, like “Shooting USA” or “Sighting In”. I do like “Impossible Shots”… just good entertainment there.

But some shows attempt to be educational, like “The Best Defense” and a new one, “S.W.A.T. Magazine TV”.

Last night, it bugged me.

The “S.W.A.T.” show showcased Tony Blauer, which I thought was cool and thus I tuned in, but it was 30 minutes of nothing. No real teaching of anything useful. Sure they showed off one technique throughout the show, but there was no real instruction for the viewer on the technique, how to do it, how to apply it. So what was the point? Just P.R. for Blauer (which isn’t a bad thing)? Rob Pincus working to increase his visibility?

Then on “Shooting Gallery”, Michael Bane was doing some stuff with Mossberg shotguns, working on shooting, malfunctions, and transition drills. I found myself screaming at the TV for them to move faster! If this was to be a self-defense class, as if your life depended on it, damnit… practice like your life depended upon it! This is not the role model you were looking for. Granted, when you start a class and a new technique you have to be slower because you’re learning… but this pace was like a Sunday walk. Glacial.

The shows are fair entertainment, but like a lot of gun journalism it’s going to be so-so and never speak ill… because in such a small world, it’s not good to upset the advertisers or sponsors.

And… there goes my shot at getting swag. 😉

I still enjoy the Wednesday night lineup (“I’m Larry Potterfield… thanks for your business”), but I need to stop hoping I’m going to get much substance out of it.

The Scorpions to retire

/ hsoi

So, The Scorpions are going to retire.

Finish this album, world tour, then close the doors for good.

Hopefully this won’t be a “retirement” like KISS’s retirement… the farewell that just won’t quit. I suspect it won’t. Word basically is they’re getting old, they acknowledge that fact, and there comes a time when you need to stop.

There’s Aerosmith. I know they don’t want to pack it in, nor go out on a low note like they’re currently in. But geez.

Another such band is Slayer. They’ve been toying with retirement rumors because they admit, old guys up on stage playing their sort of music doesn’t make a lot of sense.

So to The Scorpions. They acknowledge reality, they’ll go out on top and with a bang. I applaud you for doing it right.