Month: March 2012

Tulsa courthouse shootout

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Article in the UK (of all places to print it) about a recent shootout at a Tulsa, OK shootout.

Has many pictures of the incident, taken by a bystander in a nearby building.

Excellent pictures (yes, there’s blood, don’t look if that bothers you). What’s great to see about the pictures is 1. the trigger finger discipline by the police, 2. that they seem to have gotten good hits from a distance… that’s hard to tell for sure based on the pictures, but it’s reasonable to imply based upon what you see.

Training good.

Good-bye, Leslie

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

It’s being reported (and apparently confirmed) that Austin’s weirdest icon, Leslie Cochran, has died.

I didn’t know Leslie at all, but saw him more than enough times in town and he always brought a smile to my face.

In fact, Leslie was the first bit of Austin I saw when I moved here.

Moving to Austin, driving into town with a carload of stuff. Passing an Albertson’s grocery store up in north Austin, and there was some ugly dude wearing a bikini and standing on the sidewalk protesting Albertson’s.

I think Wife’s grandfather was taken aback. 🙂

And thus, we were introduced to the weirdness that was Austin.

So long, Leslie. Thank you for all the smiles and weirdness. You will be missed.

Looking deeper into the findings….

/ hsoi / 16 Comments

A few days ago I saw Unc had posted a link to this article on “Self Defense Findings”.

What struck me about the article was that it came from Claude Werner. I got to train with Claude a year ago, and as I wrote in my AAR:

After we finished FoF, we went inside for a presentation by Claude. Claude maintains a database of some over 3000 incidents of “gunfights” in America. This database of incidents has provided him with a great deal of information and perspective. Furthermore, he’s read the law enforcement records, such as the annual FBI reports. All of this has enabled Claude to really understand what “gunfights” are truly like, at least here in the USA. I refuse to spoil it by talking too much about it here, you’ll have to attend a class or conference to hear it. This alone was worth the tuition.

So this new article was interesting because, after having seen how Claude collects and reviews data, I thought there could be some good tidbits to take home.

You have to go read the article to understand what follows here. But just in the off-chance the referenced website goes away (the Int3rw3bz has a habit of that), I thought the information was worth archiving in a PDF.

My Thoughts

As soon as I saw this article, I shared it with my fellow KR Training instructors because we’ve all trained with Claude and know where he’s coming from. I started to formulate this article, but Karl beat me to a response by commenting at the original blog (I’ve been busy). Still, I wanted to write my thoughts down.

Given Claude’s nature and hobby for collecting and analyzing data, I certainly read the article with interest. But upon reading it, the conclusions felt in stark contrast to other data I’ve seen on “private citizen” self-defense incidents.

Locations

Claude’s data shows 52% of incidents happening at home, 32% in a business. That’s the #1 and #2 locations.

US Department of Justice Robbery locations in 2007 have the street at 43.8%, residence at 15.2%. This comes from the April 2012 Rangemaster Newsletter

So, you are almost three times as likely to be robbed on the street than at home, and in the home only accounts for 1 robbery in 6. Similar patterns exist for rape, aggravated assaults, etc. In fact, good locks, an alarm system, and proper lighting can reduce your risk of violent crime at home to very low levels.

This also jives with data on encounters with plain-clothes FBI and DEA agents. Furthermore, looking at Tom Givens’ own student incidents, almost none of them happened in the home. I have papers with Tom’s data, but am having a hard time finding them online since Rangemaster recently redid their website: good redo, but many old links broken and getting at all the newsletter PDF’s is tough. 😦  If someone wants it that bad, I’ll go find my papers and print them here.

The upshot is Claude’s data makes it look like most violent encounters happen in the home. But is that really the case? His data set is the only one I’ve seen that draws that conclusion. Thus, it makes me want to look at the data set. Claude’s data is coming from the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine’s “Armed Citizen” column. It covers 5 years from 1997 to 2001 looking at 482 reports. That leaves out the last 10 years, and that’s rather significant when you consider the changing landscape of “Gun Culture 2.0″… concealed carry has expanded rapidly in the past 10 years. Could that mean because there are more guns in public, we’ll have more “gun incidents in public”? perhaps. But more consider the NRA. The NRA is about gun rights, not pepper spray rights or karate chop rights, so is the “Armed Citizen” column going to cover stories where someone fended off a criminal with a right-cross to the jaw? Nope. So we can’t say what’s reported is necessarily indicative of crime in general: only what the NRA chooses to report, and then only from the submissions they receive or discover. And that’s the key to mind: this isn’t a cross-section of all incidents, just the incidents printed. I’m sure the NRA gets a LOT more submissions than they can print, just due to practical issues like physical magazine space in which to print the stories. Thus there’s going to be some editorial selection, that this story will be printed but not that one. Would the NRA print a story that makes gun owners look bad? How about a story where some “Tactical Tommy” fended off the bad guy with his AR-15? Or would it be better to pick a story where “the old white man used his old Colt revolver”? (sorry to stereotype). Does it look better to the public to have stories of home defense because that’s a bit less political, than it is stories of people toting guns in public and using them in that venue? And again consider, this is 10-15 years ago and what the landscape was like then vs. now.

I’m not saying the NRA is being biased as I have no idea what sort of editorial choices they make, but they have to be making them because only so many stories can be printed every month. To me, that taints the data set and limits the conclusions one can draw from it.

Distances

Claude’s data concluded that most, if not all, incidents happened about at arm’s length. To an extent this holds with other data, whether it’s the “3 shots, 3 yards, 3 seconds” mantra, or the 0-5 yards, or the “within a car length”. It’s generally because the attacker needs to be close to you either to injure you or because if they’re mugging you because they need to be able to talk to you. But if the majority of incidents happen in the home, according to Claude’s data, why are the homeowners even allowing someone to get that close? One advantage of firearms over other self-defense tools is their ability to overcome distance and be effective at distant targets. Why aren’t people taking up a fortified position in their house and shooting from a distance? Especially if, again as Claude’s data reports, people do not have the gun on them and have to go to another room to get the gun first? Why are they then coming back to be so close to the attacker?

One possible reason: “Defenders frequently communicate with their attackers before shooting.” And so, that suggests a few things to me. They feel in order to be heard they have to be near… but you know what? find your inner drill-sergeant and yell. Or if they can’t hear you, fine! Take up your fortified position and yell, because if they do eventually get close enough to hear you yelling, that’s far enough for them to come and get the message they’ll get shot if they come any closer. And that’s probably the other aspect of this. Most likely the communication before shooting is a lot of “don’t come closer, or I’ll shoot you” or “stay back” or other such things. But still, you can communicate this over a distance. Don’t go back to where you know there’s trouble, unless the trouble could be worse if you didn’t (e.g. spouse or child in there, etc.).

But what really got me about distance was Claude’s conclusion:

The perceived need for massive quantities of ammo, reloading, and precision shooting at distance is largely a figbar of people’s imaginations. There is simply no evidence to support the contention that any of those conditions occur during armed confrontation

That might be the case from the limited data set which Claude examined, and perhaps he’s meaning it within that context. But the presentation is such that it implies such conditions NEVER happen PERIOD in any sort of private citizen self-defense encounter. Thus you should never worry about these matters, because there’s “simply no evidence” to support they ever happen. And that’s wrong, and Mr. Werner might want to check with his friend Tom Givens for some data on this topic.

Which takes me to another reason for why people might draw closer to their attacker: they can’t shoot them from far away. If all you ever do is blaze away at a cardboard target that’s 3 yards in front of you, you’ll probably be pretty good at that distance. If you never shoot your pistol at targets 25 yards away, how much confidence do you think you’ll have if now suddenly you have to make that shot? Under stress you’ll default to what you can already do, and given a drive for success you’ll work to put things more in your favor, so if that means getting closer then you will. If more of these citizens had adequate training, training that pushed them to do things like shoot at 15 or 25 yards on a regular basis, how might this data be different? And again, with the sharp rise in Gun Culture 2.0 and more private citizens seeking formal training, what would data from the last 10 years show by contrast?

Ammo/Capacity

Throughout Claude’s examination of the stories, he finds that you just don’t need much ammo. He said:

If the defender fires any shots, most likely it will be 2 rounds.

And then the above comment that you don’t need massive quantities of ammo, and saying that a snub revolver (typically holding 5 rounds) is all you’d need.

When Karl commented on the blog posting, he mentioned how Givens’ students shot from 1 to 11 rounds. The blog owner replied taking Karl’s statement to task, and he was right in doing so because Karl left out one important part of Tom’s data: the average was 3.4 rounds. The FBI/DEA data holds about the same too.

So no, it’s not THAT much different from Claude’s data, but it’s still different.

But remember what average is, statistically. There were enough incidents that required more rounds, including at least 1 incident that needed more than 2 snubs worth of ammo, more than what a 1911 traditionally holds.

What’s hard to read about Claude’s findings is again the way it is presented, that 2 shots is all you need, you’ll never need more than 5 to take care of anything. This is simply not the case. Sure that might be the average, but boy… if you opt to train to just the averages, how do you think you’ll feel when you get to be the one statistical anomaly? Look at the edge cases in Claude’s own data and piece them together. The largest group had 7 VCA’s, and you’re going to need more than a 5-shot snub to deal with that many attackers. Again, this is about playing to statistics, about assuming you’ll be alright because the averages say. Does anyone say “gee, I wish I had LESS ammo”?

Gun

Claude writes:

At this distances, even .22s and .25s are highly immediately lethal.

A revolver, even J-frame, is perfectly capable of dealing with almost all of the incidents. The ones which were beyond the capabilities of a five shot revolver would be best deal with by a shotgun, anyway.

For those who do not practice, a revolver is far preferable to the autoloader because of the revolver’s simpler manual of arms. Eighty per cent of gunshot wounds are self-inflicted. Guns are handled many times more than they are shot and so safe gunhandling qualities are much more important characteristics than its ability to be shot accurately and reloaded quickly. Revolvers are much less likely than autoloaders to AD in the hands of novices.

Yes, I don’t want to get shot by a .22. I know a .22 could kill me. It’s not my first choice, but it’s better than no choice.

A shotgun would be better than a J-frame for sure. But I can’t carry a shotgun. Oh wait… this data shows that most incidents never happen out on the street where one might need to carry a gun. Hrm. Someone reading this data could draw the conclusion that we need personal protection in the home, but that we don’t really need it outside the home because most incidents happen inside and rarely outside. Thus why carry. Not sure that’s a good conclusion to allow people to draw.

And dealing with a snub? Folks, you have to know who Claude Werner is. He’s one of the masters of the snub revolver. He shoots IDPA matches and wins them with his snub. He was chief instructor at the Rogers Shooting School for a number of years. I’d say Claude’s abilities with a snub are far superior to the average citizen. Snubs are hard to shoot, and Claude knows that (again, see my AAR of his snub class). Yes, one reason I carry a snub as a back-up gun is because of the manual of arms: it is simpler, and if I had to give my BUG to someone else because the fur was flying that badly then I know at least I can expect them to “point and click” without having to worry about levers and gizmos and malfunctions and such: just keep pointing and clicking. But they are still very difficult to manage, very difficult to shoot well, all having very long and heavy triggers. Revolvers are not my first choice nor recommendation for anyone.

If we’re worried about AD’s? My suggestion? Get training. Understand and abide by the rules. And never think you’re above having an ND happen to you.

Conclusion

I don’t take odds with the data Claude collected, in terms of what he did and the summary picture that came out of the data set. I think it’s all reasonable collection and analysis of what was there. Furthermore, it does paint an interesting picture that’s worth knowing.

What I find problem with is some of the conclusions and suggestions in here, like that a snub is sufficient, that long distance shooting never happens, that reloads don’t happen. My fear is that someone could look at this data and use it as justification for developing a training program, or to justify they don’t need any training at all. “Why should I train how to reload? they never happen, and besides it’s a pain to reload my snub because it’s so small.”  I believe this is Karl’s fear as well, tho it wasn’t perhaps expressed well enough in his comment (given the response from the blog owner). Claude may have stated at the beginning: “You decide what suits your needs best to solve this type of problem.” but to the untrained and unknowing, they’re going to look at Claude’s data, conclusions, and suggestions as authoritative and will likely use his data, conclusions, and suggestions in formulating what suits their needs best — because they’re a n00b and don’t know what their needs are and how to satisfy them! That’s the problem.

There’s something to be said for understanding all the data, and how that generates some averages and yes how that can and should influence our training both in terms of what to train and what not to train. If most self-defense incidents end up fitting that “3 shots, 3 yards, 3 seconds”, it would stand to reason that’s something to first ensure you can do (e.g. can you clean the “3 Seconds or Less Drill” consistently, constantly, and on demand). That doesn’t mean your training should only encompass that sort of work, but if you can’t do that stuff it’s best to master it before you go on to things like group shooting at 25 yards, if self-defense is your shooting goal. But you should eventually move on to being able to shoot groups at 25 yards and not be satisfied with what the data says, what the averages are, because while certain data sets may not support a need for it, who knows… you may get to be the lucky one that establishes a new data set.

And then there were 11

/ hsoi / 9 Comments

Those ducklings that hatched a few days ago?

We’re down by 3. Only 11 left.

This morning as I left the house to walk to the gym, I saw why.

There’s some sort of predator bird.

I crossed the street, and it flew out of the nearby tree right in front of me. It was too dark, too suddenly there then too suddenly gone to get a good look at it, but I could tell enough that it was a falcon or a hawk or something of that ilk. I looked a little further and saw Momma duck and her babies all huddled in a neighbor’s lawn, Mother’s head up high in sentinel mode ever watchful.

I know the kids are going to be on the watch for this, to identify the predator bird and see if it’s the same one from before. If so, I wonder where it nests.

At this rate, I’m not expecting any of the ducklings to survive. The bird knows an easy (and plentiful) food source is here. We noted being down by one a day ago, and now two more gone. At this rate, maybe a week or two before they’re all gone. Get your “baby duck squee” in while you can. 🙂

It’s OK. It’s life. It’s how things go. Yes I’d like some of them to survive to adulthood, but this is just how life goes. And frankly, we’re all more OK with this than other means of population control. We just don’t like how the HOA and USDA folks come in, trap the ducks, then “relocate” them. Maybe they really are relocating them, but since they never give me details and get evasive when pressed, my only conclusion is they are destroying the ducks. To me, that’s terrible. Yes I understand population management, but to just destroy the ducks is a cruel waste. They taste good, and we’ve got hungry people in this city. Why aren’t we feeding them?

I did manage to finally snap a picture:

2012-03-07 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 7, deadlift 1

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Oh my… this day is going to be a butt-kicker on this program. 🙂

“Week 1” – BBB 3 Month Challenge

  • 5 reps – Deadlift (working max: 325#)
    • 1x5x135
    • 1x5x165
    • 1x3x195
    • 1x5x215 (work)
    • 1x5x245
    • 1x5x280
  • Asst. #1 – Squat
    • 5 x 10 x 135
  • Asst. #2 – Ab Wheel
    • 5 x 5 x BW (from the knees)
  • Foam Rolling

Holy crap. 🙂

This day is going to be a killer day. All that heavy deadlifting, then into the squats. What got me was my glutes and spinal erectors, natch. As soon as I put the 135 on my back, oye! But, things actually got easier as the sets wore on, because those parts aren’t taxed as much in squatting as deadlifting. Still, I can tell this day is going to be a tough one. But that’s all good.

I have never done an ab wheel before, so I had no idea what I could do. Man, that’s hard. 🙂 I opted to do 5 across and see how that went. Was fine… need to get some sort of padding under my knees, but otherwise OK. I’ll probably go up to 7 reps across next time and just work my way up.

Happy with today, but man… this challenge is going to be well, challenging. I’m up for it.

Oh, I should add… I’m going to lay off the “Captains of Crush” hand grippers for a while. I seem to have something forming on the palm-side of one of my knuckles. Don’t know what it is, calcium deposit maybe? But it’s affecting my grip… it hurts, very tender. I’ve been living with it, observing things, but once I laid off the grippers things weren’t feeling so bad. I refuse to let my ability to deadlift or shoot a gun be curtailed, and I should be getting enough forearm and grip work in the program as it is. So for now, I’m going to lay off the grippers. I may come back to them later because it would be cool to crush a #2 or #3 (or even #4) someday. But they won’t be a regular part of my program for now.

From the “where are they now?” files…

/ hsoi

Some years ago I saw Tesla live here in Austin. They were touring behind their “Real to Reel” albums.

One of the opening acts was a band called “Poets & Pornstars”. Had never heard of them before, but they put on one hell of a set and really rocked. I was an instant fan, buying their album during the break after their set and before Tesla hit the stage. The music was great, they knew how to put on a show. Just fantastic.

And they had a female bass player. No question she was a big draw for the band as I could hear it in the comments said by people in the crowd around me.

Her name? Sally Hope.

Alas, the singer of P&P opted to leave the band to return to acting. While the rest of the band tried to keep going, it looks like things fell apart. Alas… it was a good band with good potential, but these things happen. I have always wondered what happened to them, if maybe they found a new project and were able to keep going.

Well… sorta.

I just saw this post on A Girl’s Guide To Guns, which was guest-authored by Sally. Started from this post on her own site.

So it does look like she’s got a new gig, just a very different one. 🙂

Glad to see she’s still rockin’.

Squee!

/ hsoi

We have ducklings. 🙂

The muscovy hen that nested just outside our front door? The eggs finally hatched this past Saturday.

Being as they’re all still new, she hasn’t been out of the nest with them that much, but she’s now starting to bring them out. Looks like 3 eggs didn’t hatch, but 14 did. We’ll see how many survive. The weather isn’t as harsh this year, and what with all the rain and how green everything is, food and water aren’t in short supply like they’ve been in the past. So I reckon we won’t have another “buffet for hawks” like we have in the past.

No pictures yet. Just haven’t been able to take any since she’s only just starting to emerge with the babies.

But oh… they are mighty cute. 🙂

And of course, the children are totally distracted from their studies. Oldest even said “Hey Mom, this is zoology.” Uh huh… way to milk the homeschooling system there, son. How about a 5 page paper? *grin*

 

2012-03-05 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 7, Press 1

/ hsoi

Today begins not just cycle 7, but I’m embarking on the “BBB 3 Month Challenge”.

“Week ” – BBB 3 Month Challenge

  • “5 Reps” – Press (working max:155#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x65
    • 1x5x80
    • 1x3x95
    • 1x5x100 (work)
    • 1x5x120
    • 1x5x135
  • Asst. #1A – Bench Press
    • 5 x 10 x 115
  • Asst. #1B – Chinups (supersetted with Bench Press)
    • 3 x 3 x BW
    • 2 x 1 full rep, 2 negatives 2 BW
  • Asst. #2 – Face Pulls
    • 1 x 10 x 30
    • 1 x 10 x 40
    • 1 x 10 x 50
  • Asst. #3 – DB Hammer Curls
    • 3 x 10 x 30
  • Foam Rolling

I figured to go for it. I’m going to try the BBB 3 Month Challenge. I see no reason not to do it and every reason to do it. It’s simpler, it’s direct, and it’s going to kick my ass. However, it’ll take me 4 months to do it because I can only get to the gym 3x a week and not 4. Such is life.

I’m a little bummed that I can’t work to get rep maxes, but so long as there’s still strength growth, who cares. And if there’s some good muscle mass growth, all the better. 5/3/1 is about smart gains over the long haul.

As for today, the pressing felt OK but not great. My breathing was off, my head wasn’t feeling right, and I just didn’t have the tightness I needed throughout the movements. I figure if I actually tried for a rep max today on the 135 press I wouldn’t have done it. Couple weeks ago I did 135 for 7 and I actually am not sure I would have made that today. Just didn’t have the groove.

On bench, I can certainly do more than 115 and have been. But, I’m going to follow the program: first month is 50% of your working max, and so there I shall start. Thus all went fine. I of course supersetted this with chins and I am going for sets of 3 reps now. I didn’t get 3 full reps across all 5 sets, the last 2 sets getting 1 rep and then having to do 2 negatives. That’s OK in my book. I want to do “3 reps” no matter what it takes, and as each workout progresses I’ll work closer to 5 full sets of 3 full reps across. I’ll get there.

On face pulls… never done that exercise before so I had no idea where to start. I just picked 30 and that was WAY too light. Worked my way up to 50 and ran out of sets. 🙂 I’ll start at 50 next time and see where to go from there.

And I chose to do DB hammer curls because they work my grip and forearms more. Grip is more important than H000ge bicepts.

I didn’t feel mega killed by today’s workout, but this is only the beginning. I know I’m gonna be sore. 🙂

How could the answer be “no”?

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

I read about this CSM quiz on the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.

For giggles, I started taking the quiz.

But I haven’t finished it.

I answered question #5:

5. What did the Supreme Court decide in the 2008 case?

That’s the Heller case.

After you answer each question, it of course says if you’re right or wrong and gives a blurb expanding upon the answer. #5’s blurb was this:

The Heller case left open the broader question of whether the constitutional right to possess arms for personal protection extends beyond the home to include a right to carry those arms in public places.

That is correct, the Heller case did leave that open. I read the quiz blurb, clicked forward to the next question, but then hit my browser’s Back button because something about reading that struck me.

If we make it a yes or no question: “can/should people be allowed to possess arms for personal protection outside of the home, a right to carry them in public places… yes or no?” I cannot see how someone could answer “no” to that question. That is, if you understand the realities of life and the world we live in.

I speak with a lot of people on this topic, and so far I’ve yet to encounter someone against the notion of home defense. Home is very personal to us, not just because it’s where we keep all our stuff, but because it’s our little slice of the world, our sanctuary, our refuge. It’s very personal when our homes are violated, and I don’t know of anyone that would deny others the right to protect themselves and their posessions within the grounds of their own home. But then some of those I have spoken with that are fine with protection in the home feel that doesn’t extend outside the home.

And I don’t understand that line of reasoning.

Wife was outside our home when she was sexually assaulted. Are you saying she has no right to defend herself?

When I think about the almost 60 students of Tom Givens that have been involved in personal defense incidents, just about all of them were not in the home. They were in parking lots, parking garages, sidewalks. If the majority of assaults and violent crimes against people are not in the home, how can we say personal protection doesn’t extend outside the home! That’s where most of the incidents occur and thus where you are most likely to be the victim of a violent crime. Why are we denying that to the law-abiding citizenry?

Then you say people could use something like pepper spray, or a taser/stun gun. Before you go recommending such tools, you probably should increase your understanding of those tools, their applications, and their limits. They aren’t what you think. A gun is a lot more effective. It’s like saying we should still use carrier pigeons and pony express to communicate around the world, instead of the Internet. We have better technology, we have more effective technology, and we are happy to use it. So why are we discouraging the use of better, more effective technology when it comes to personal protection?

Remember, I wasn’t always a gun guy. Once I took my fingers out of my ears and started listening to the logic, I changed my stance. Once the ugly realities of the world pressed themselves upon me and I accepted them as unavoidable fact, I changed my stance. I’m willing to be swayed, I’m willing to be persuaded, because the only thing I keep a stake in is finding Truth. If that means I have to abandon everything I know and based my life upon, then so be it. I don’t want to be right, I want to know Truth. So if someone can present me with facts and logic as to why we should be denied the right to preserve and protect our own lives, and to do so with the best technology available, I’m all ears.

Our home may be personal, but it doesn’t get any more personal than your own person. Your home being violated is bad, your body being violated is worse. Society encourages us to protect our homes: alarm systems, big dogs, adequate exterior lighting, smoke detectors, fire extinguishers. Why does society fail at encouraging us to protect ourselves?