Band: Crowbar
Album: Sever the Wicked Hand
Song: The Cemetary Angels
Heavy. Brutal. Crowbar.
Month: March 2011
Iron and the Soul
Found over at RossTraining.com, a reprint of an essay by Henry Rollins.
I have never met a truly strong person who didn’t have self-respect. I think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off as self-respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on someone’s shoulders instead of doing it yourself. When I see guys working out for cosmetic reasons, I see vanity exposing them in the worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for imbalance and insecurity. Strength reveals itself through character. It is the difference between bouncers who get off strong-arming people and Mr. Pepperman.
Muscle mass does not always equal strength. Strength is kindness and sensitivity. Strength is understanding that your power is both physical and emotional. That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart.
Legislative progress
Sorry. Overwhelmed. But some good news from the Texas Legislative session regarding the gun bills.
SB 321 (parking lot) passed the Senate floor. Nice.
HB 681 (parking lot) is out of committee. Apparently there were some changes, so we’ll see how it fares on the floor and reconciliation. But so far, so good.
CHL on campus (HB 750) was heard in the House committee and passed out. Looks like HB 86, HB 1167, HB 1356, HB 2178, all variations on the theme, were left pending in committee.
Looks like SB 354, Senate version, is going to be heard in Committee on Tuesday March 22.
Range bill passed Senate committee. Good.
Looks like things are moving along nicely.
Support the TSRA. If you’re a gun owner in Texas, you owe a lot to the TSRA.
That bullying video
There’s a video that’s been going around lately where some small skinny kid is picking on some larger kid. The small kid gets in some punches to the big kid, and eventually the big kid has enough, grabs the small kid and slams the bully to the ground. Backstory is that the big kid has been bullied for quite some time.
Here’s a story telling what’s happened since then.
My personal feeling was the bully got what he asked for. I also bet the victim won’t be picked on any more now that people (everyone around the world, in fact) know he’s willing and able to stand up for himself.
What bothers me more is some typical reactions:
“We don’t believe that violence is ever the answer,” Mr. [John Dalgleish, head of research at Kids Helpline and Boys Town] says. “We believe there are other ways that children can manage this.”
[…]
[An older girl] physically stops a friend of the younger boy from going after the older boy, telling him to “back off”.
“The longer term way is about developing better relationships between kids in the school, that will then empower young people to not be passive bystanders when these acts occur but to stand up and say ‘this is wrong’,” Mr Dalgleish says.
[…]
St Marys Police duty officer Inspector Jason Green said posting the video had the effect of glorifying violence in schools.
Violence is never the answer. I used to believe this myself. The trouble with this belief is it takes our value system and imposes it upon someone else, someone who does believe violence is the answer or violence is the first resort. When someone is punching you, what are you supposed to do? Politely request them to stop punching you? It doesn’t work out very well. Walk away? They’ll follow you and keep punching you. Hope and pray for someone else to step in? If someone finally does step in, what happens when that person is no longer around to protect you? I do believe one needs to try to resolve situations in the best manner possible (e.g. maximize enjoyment of beer & tv), that we should work for non-violent dispute resolution, that we take steps to avoid such a situation in the first place. But when you are dealing with a predator that won’t back off, sometimes bearing teeth in return is the only response they will understand.
To deny violence’s place, to deny realities of violence, is a cover-up and a lie. When we don’t talk honestly and realistically about things, we do a disservice to all involved, including greater society. Jack Donovan wrote a great essay titled “Violence is Golden”. Give it a read.
The Chemistry of Beer
A visit to the Sam Adams brewery to learn not just how beer is made, but some of the science behind it. Quite cool.
Mmm. Beer.
Various rambling
Oldest and Daughter are now American Red Cross Babysitting, CPR, First Aid and Water Safety certified. Very awesome. Proud of them. Skills they can use for a lifetime.
I’ve been out of it. Many things going on in my life right now. Nothing necessarily bad, just some positive, some negative, some turbulence, some change. Some of the change is from myself, some of it comes from others. In fact, there’s some things I’m trying to change but still haven’t been able to… like the inability to get back to regular martial arts classes. It all adds up to just being in an odd state right now. I’ll get through, no big deal. Just makes it hard to find motivation to do things like blog. 😉
I am happy that my Hsoi Enterprises work is coming along well.
Still need to get tax paperwork to my accountant. *sigh*
Some hog hunting would be nice.
Going to be helping out with a women’s self-defense clinic. What’s cool about this is it will be something more than the “that’s my purse, I don’t know you!” sorts of clinics, which I think is great. It gives some hard skills, but also some more things to think about. I like it. More details as I have them.
I’ve gained some unexpected insight into the dog. It’s been very enlightening. Some of the things we suspected were there, and some of the things we suspected we were flat wrong about. I’ll write more on this sometime in the future.
Oh… and be careful what you wish for in life. You just might get it. 🙂
Why should we learn lifesaving skills, like CPR?
The local chapter of the American Red Cross has this babysitter boot camp. It’s a two-day course that teaches not just stuff about babysitting (and certifies you in that), but there are aspects of how to run a business. While that’s good, the “boot camp” adds CPR and First Aid certification. It was an opportunity that knocked, and I enrolled Oldest and Daugther in it.
Daughter wanted to be there. Oldest was made to go. I want Oldest to take the course because no only do I think it will help his gift in working with small children, but First Aid and CPR certified? To me, that’s worth it.
I think about the notion of CPR and the notion of First Aid. Why do we encourage people to learn these skills? Here’s what Citizen CPR of Tulsa, OK says on their website:
Why Learn CPR?
Cardiovascular disease is very common — it’s the #1 killer in US and in Oklahoma.
Heart attacks can happen suddenly, especially if you and your family have one or more risk factors (family history, overweight, poor diet, smoking, etc).
Most medical emergencies occur in a person’s home or other place of recreation.
You can’t count on medical personnel to be nearby when you have an emergency, because chances are greater for sudden cardiac arrest to occur at home. If your family and friends don’t know CPR, life can be lost in mere minutes while waiting for help to arrive.
The reasons for learning CPR and first aid are simple: because when a situation that requires those skills happens, the fastest person to respond is the person right there when it happens. In a case like CPR of course it has to be someone else. For first aid, the situation may be something you can perform on yourself and certainly no one can be closer to you than you nor respond faster to you than you.
So we seem to grant and acknowledge that life-saving skills are important to know. That the more people we have on our streets with those skills, the better it is for society in general. Just ask Howard Snitzer.
With that in mind, let’s do a little word substitution. Same sort of importance about life-saving skills, just a different skill:
Violent crime can happen suddenly.
You can’t count on law enforcement personnel to be nearby when you have an emergency, because chances are greater for sudden violent crime to occur anywhere. If your family and friends don’t know how to defend themselves, life can be lost in mere minutes while waiting for help to arrive.
If we believe it’s important to know how to save lives, why are there people who say saving lives with CPR is permissible but saving lives by carrying a firearm is not?
HB 2807 – fail. No.
Texas State Representative Lon Burnam (D-90, NRA “F” grade) recently introduced HB 2807 – Relating to creating an offense for the unlawful possession or transfer of a semiautomatic assault weapon.
There’s much that is wrong with this bill. What bothers me the most? Not just how it uses failed language. Not just how it places emphasis upon cosmetics and not upon anything of actual worth and meaning. Not just how it’s knee-jerk legislation. Not just how it criminalizes my ability to instruct children in gun safety and responsible gun use. But how it places undo burden upon the law-abiding. Why are there people who insist upon making the lives of good honest people more difficult and more cumbersome?
Use of profanity in issuing commands
BACK UP, MOTHERFUCKER!
or
BACK THE FUCK UP!
or
BACK UP!
or
Hey can you back up?
Is there a difference? Yes there is.
This past weekend I was assisting with classes at KR Training. One of the skills taught in Defensive Pistol 1 is issuing verbal commands. For instance, “STOP! DON’T MOVE!”. And yes, you must find your inner drill sergeant when you issue that command. The use of verbal commands is an attempt to control the situation as an alternative to and avoiding the use of deadly force. The issuance of commands isn’t black and white, there is a continuum.
You want to start out with the least amount of assertion, while still giving a firm command. “Hey, can you back up?” is an example. You’re telling the (potential) VCA what you want them to do, but you’re being reasonably polite about it. If they comply, great. The situation remains calm and they are doing what you want. If however they do not comply and the situation warrants, you may need to step up your command to gain compliance, perhaps yelling “BACK UP!”. Now you’re not asking, you’re telling, and with a louder, more commanding tone. One additional benefit of escalation is that of witnesses. Compare how it looks to uninvolved bystanders (potential witnesses) if you went from 0 to 100, especially if 100 didn’t balance out with the way the VCA was acting at the time, vs. if you went from 0 to 25 to 50 to 75 to 100, especially if the VCA’s actions were continued and non-compliant?
But this is where we get to the topic of profanity. It always happens in the DPS1 class, that someone will yell their flavor of command with a “fuck” or “fucker” or “motherfucker”. While we suggest something like “stop, don’t move”, in the end you need to find a command set that works best for you (and it may be more than one). So yes, people get creative as they work to figure it out the first time. In this particular class I was working the small range but came over to the main range to fetch a student. The class had just learned about verbal commands and students were back at the fumble tables reloading magazines, discussing, and joking about the use of profanity. I spoke about this with them, and figured it’d make something worth writing about. Hence. 🙂
The choice to use profanity is up to you. The use of profanity certainly adds a stronger tone. Compare “Back up!” to “Back the fuck up!”, and the latter is certainly a stronger command. As well, consider that criminal element likely understands and utilizes profanity themselves, so consider this in your choice. I personally will avoid the use of profanity, unless it escalates to a point where that additional emphasis is required.
If you choose to use profanity, you must be careful in your choice.
What’s the difference between “back the fuck up” and “back up motherfucker”? The first is a strong command, the second is an insult. The first just said what to do. In the second, you called the VCA a “motherfucker”… and now, you have escalated the situation, you have pissed him off more. I hope you can see how this could be a dangerous and bad thing.
Some may shrug that off as that you can’t control what comes out of your mouth when the flag flies. I won’t deny that. However, we can work to practice our scripts beforehand. Find the command set that works for you (I do like using “back up” and variants, thank you SouthNarc). When you are working on your dry fire practice, issue verbal commands. Work to find your script. Rehearse your script.
We all love working those hard-skills that involve throwing lead downrange, because that’s fun. But well-rounded self-defense should strive to avoid slinging lead as much as possible. There are other skills vital to learn, issuing commands is one of them. To use profanity in those commands can be an integral part of the command continuum, but you must be aware of the nuances and work accordingly.
It allows a woman to retain her humanity and dignity
This past weekend at KR Training I was assisting with classes, one of which was Basic Pistol 2. There were numerous women enrolled in the class, one of which stood out to me.
This woman was tiny.
I’d say she was 5′ nothing, if that. Very petite size, maybe weighed 80-90 lbs, if that. I mean, she was small; nothing unhealthy, just the way God made her. Plus, she was an older woman, probably in her 50’s. She came to learn how to shoot, and she did fairly well in the class.
You know what? I’m glad she’s learning to shoot, and shoot defensively.
Why?
Consider me. I’m easily twice her size. I’m 6’3″, 210#. I’m somewhat young, strong, skilled in martial arts. For someone built like me, someone like her is no physical match. It wouldn’t even matter if she was a 100th degree black belt ultimate supreme grandmaster in every martial art out there…. I’d still be able to flick her aside.
What good is pepper spray or a whistle when physically overpowering her would take almost no effort on my part?I doubt she could swing a baseball bat at me in a way that would do much to stop me. Heck, I’m not even sure she could kick me in the balls hard enough to make me fall over.
But I do know she can press the trigger on a gun, and that would do a lot more towards making someone built like me fall over.
A gun is a force equalizer. She is put in a God-given position of disadvantage. Should she be satisfied and forever relegate herself to being in the “easy prey” and “victim” category? Or should she be happy that Samuel Colt gave her the ability to be equal?
I fail to understand why there are people in this world hungry to deny women like her the ability to retain their humanity and dignity. To those people I ask, if you succeed in banning guns, what is she supposed to do? Look her in the eye and tell her.
Stuff From Hsoi 