Guns

Life lessons from a weekend hunt

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

This past weekend I had the pleasure of going hunting with an old friend, Charles Coker of TacticalGunReview.com. We were able to harvest 2 whitetail does and a feral hog. From the 48-ish hours together, I took a few things from it.

Sometimes you have to be a little impulsive if you want to succeed in life.

I’m a planner. Deer and hogs don’t care about your plans. They’ll be here one moment, then gone the next. You may only have a few seconds of opportunity, so sure… plan so you’re ready when the opportunity comes, but the moment the opportunity presents itself, you better jump on it.

But on the same token, if you’re not totally certain, let it go; rushing in can lead to failure.

Suppressors are good things.

Suppressors, silencers, whatever you call them. They have this stigma of being some bad evil thing that must be banned or at least heavily regulated.

Why?

You know what a suppressor is?

A muffler.

Next time some dude on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle blares by you with his loud-pipes and rattles your dental fillings loose – those are straight pipes, no muffler. That’s how loud engines are, and why mufflers were invented. That’s how loud your car would be if you didn’t have a muffler on the exhaust.

See why mufflers are nice and desirable things?

Same with suppressors.

Good friends are those that put up with your shit, and still want to hang out with you.

Charles has invited me out hunting on numerous occasions over the years, and most of the time I have to say no because I’m busy (day job commitments, or KR Training weekend commitments). He gives me some friendly and well-deserved ribbing about it, but he understands. And despite all my turn-downs, he always keeps the door open and keeps asking me.

On top of that, he was a top-notch and most-generous host.

Those are the sort of people you cherish in your life.

Thanx, Charles for everything.

The waiting is the hardest part…

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

I’m waiting for something to arrive.

I finally have a tracking number, but not only do I have to wait for it to be delivered, I have to wait to be told when I can come pick it up.

I am hoping to have it in time for an event, because I’m itching to see if things truly will be better. It’s all about timing, and it’s all out of my control.

Sigh.

But I reckon you’ll be curious to hear my reports once I can deliver them.

Stay tuned…

Good fitness is self-defense

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

If you read my blog you may have noticed that I don’t write as much as I used to, but I sure lift weights at the gym a lot. 🙂

I lift because it’s the form of exercise I enjoy the most. Why do I exercise? Lots of reasons, but my main motivator is I don’t want to become decrepit.

Look around you. Look at how people struggle to do basic things like walking up and down stairs, getting in and out of a chair, or picking something up off the ground. There’s no need to start talking about things like running when people struggle to do even basic life functions.

Ever watch videos of self-defense events? They are rapid, dynamic, and to some extent or other involve physicality. Sometimes that physicality could be a brawl, or sometimes it’s just a need to run like a bat out of hell in the other direction.

If you struggle to get out of a chair, if you get winded walking up stairs (or you know you will so you avoid it and always take the elevator), if you can’t bend over to tie your shoes (or you say “fuck it” and always wear flip-flops) – how do you think you’re going to fare when the flag flies?

You don’t even have to be old or fat. Does your job involve you sitting in an office chair crumpled down in front of a computer all day? Cliché as it is, but there is truth to “use it or lose it”, and desk jockeys (and I’m one of them) are losing it.

I see it with students in classes. Shoot the gun, reload and drop magazine on the ground, then it’s a struggle to bend down to pick up the magazine off the ground. And yes, maybe your self-defense incident may be solvable purely by your gun and your wits, but when do you get to choose what your self-defense incident will look like?

This isn’t to say you have to bench press 300 lb., be able to run a 5 minute mile, and be as sexy as Dwayne Johnson. It just means you need to be able to function.

Speaking from personal experience, another useful reason for having some level of fitness is it improves your ability to deal with the physiological effects of the event and the aftermath. Given all I experienced both during and afterwards, I firmly believe a high-level of physical fitness helped me manage the intense stress. Heck, I lost 6 lbs. that day! My event in and of itself was not physical (wasn’t some brawl), but rare in one’s life is such a degree of stress and pressure, and being able to have a physically strong heart and body was unquestionably a benefit.

Or we can just look at it in a simpler way.

Your chances of being killed in a terrorist attack? Supposedly 1 in 20,000,000

Your chances of dying from a firearm? Supposedly 1 in 25,000

Your chances of dying in a car accident? Supposedly 1 in 100

Your chances from heart disease? Supposedly 1 in 400.

Of having a heart attack? 1 in 4.

Regardless of the specific numbers (data varies by source), the pattern remains: you have a far greater chance of death from poor health choices than violent crime.

If self-defense is all about protecting and preserving your life, then self-defense starts with taking care of yourself.

This doesn’t mean you need to stop reading this article, radically change your diet, join CrossFit, and do things that you won’t stick with 2 weeks from now. No, small things can make a big difference.

Season 4 Episode 183 of Ballistic Radio had Larry Lindenman as the guest. Larry spoke quite well about the role of fitness in self-defense, and provides an excellent overview of the topic as well as some good suggestions on how to get started. I was listening to it while doing my cardio at the gym the other morning, and it served as the impetus for this article. Thank you Larry (and John Johnston).

Take care of yourself first, so you’ll be around to take care of others.

 

My part in the ACLDN track record – and what you can learn from it

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Two years ago I had a life-changing experience – one I wouldn’t wish upon anyone.

I’ve maintained wanting something positive to come from the event; to find ways to make good, to make things better. One way has been sharing the event and answering any questions people may have about the event, my experiences, and living in the aftermath.

A few weeks ago, Gila Hayes of the Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network (ACLDN) contacted me (Disclosure: I am obviously a member of ACLDN, have been, and will continue to be). She was wanting to ask me and my lawyer, Gene Anthes, some questions about Gene’s services to me as a Network member, and explain why and what he did on my behalf and why it was important. As well, Gila wanted to gain some insights into my experiences from a post-incident legal focus, since that’s where ACLDN works. The goal of the article being to educate network members (or whomever wishes to read the newsletter, as the newsletter is freely available to the public) about things that happen post-incident.

Gila and I spoke at length, and the result of our talk is posted in the January 2017 issue of the ACLDN Newsletter, available here.

The article discusses the Network’s track record over the past 8 years. I learned a great deal from the article.

I will also say that reading the article was tough. When Gila sent me a draft for review, it really hit me hard. There were all my short-comings, laid bare for the world to see. Having already been subject to armchair quarterbacks in the court of ignorant public opinion, part of me didn’t want to go through all that judgment again. But that’s actually a teaching point in and of itself! We are human – we won’t do things perfectly, especially during a novel and high-pressure, high-stakes situation. This is why it’s so important to train to a high level, so when things go south and everything degrades, you still remain at a high-enough level to do what needs to be done.

What I hope you can take from the article is understanding that self-defense incidents are quick and relatively simple. But the aftermath is slow,  lengthy, and complex. I cannot imagine what it would have been like for me and my family if I didn’t have ACLDN and a lawyer like Gene Anthes.

You don’t get to choose when bad things will happen to you. But when bad things do happen, the more prepared you are the better you’ll fare both during and after the event. It’s good to prepare for events, but it’s also important to prepare for the aftermath of those events. You don’t have to join ACLDN – they are certainly my choice – just do your homework, and prepare. As I’ve said: the event lasts seconds, the aftermath is the rest of your life.

Lessons from observing 5000 gunfights

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

John Correia of Active Self Protection posted the following on Facebook.

I’ve watched about 5,000 gunfights at this point, and the patterns that emerge are pretty clear. Some thoughts you might want to consider that I don’t think that the training community really wants to hear:

1. Most gunfights aren’t entangled gunfights. Empty-handed skills are important, but very rare once the gun comes out. They’re necessary for LE more than CCW, by a long shot. For CCW, empty-handed skills are critical for the 80% of assaults that don’t rise to the level of deadly force response. So go to your martial arts training.

2. Reloads are almost vanishingly insignificant factors in gunfights. I have seen precisely 2 reloads in a real gunfight that weren’t on-duty LEO. And neither of those affected the outcome of the fight. I have seen about 7 or 8 where a higher capacity firearm or the presence of a reload might have affected the outcome. So 0.2% of what I have witnessed. Don’t spend much valuable class time teaching emergency and retention reloads…at least until your highest level classes where all the fundamentals are flawless. I like Tom Givens’ focus on the PROACTIVE reload once the fight is over. That has value in my opinion.

3. He who puts the first shot into meaty bits on the other guy, wins. Not 100%, but darn near, at least partially because of the FIBS Factor. Therefore, training a fast and reliable draw and first shot in the meaty bits is most important, in my opinion. It is THE critical skill to winning the gunfight. The best cover is fire superiority.

4. Follow-up shots are necessary. Seldom do gunfights END with that first shot, so keep at him until he decides he is done fighting. This is where multiple target acquisition is important, because it simulates a moving target to hit. (unless you have a fancy moving target that can move erratically, in which case you are high speed!)

5. People have a crazy tendency to use the gun one-handed, mostly because they have stuff in their support hand. Training people to drop what’s in their hands and get two hands on the gun is a necessary skill for #3 and 4.

6. You simply WILL NOT stand still while someone wants to kill you. Unless you’re counter-ambushing, when the gun comes out you will move. So training students to move with purpose while #3 and 4 are going on is also a critical skill. They’re going to do it, so teach them to use it.

7. Chasing deadly threats is another bad habit that I see all the time. Teach your students to shoot and scoot. Move AWAY from the threat.

8. Concealment ain’t cover, but it works identically in 99.9% of cases. People won’t shoot what they can’t see, so teach your students to get to concealment, and to shoot through it if their threat is behind it.

9. People love cover so much they give it a hug. Reliably. Like all the time. Teaching distance from cover/concealment is an important skill and one that is necessary.

10. Malfunctions happen. They just do. But unless you’re carrying a crap gun, they’re rare. In all my videos I have never seen someone clear a malfunction that needed a tap to the baseplate to get the gun back working again or whose mag fell out when the gun went click…rack and reassess is necessary though. In a couple of instances, a strip, rack, reload would have helped.

Just some random thoughts…I hope we have met your jimmy rustling needs for today.

John’s pretty spot-on here.

Point 5 I think is an interesting one. Something worth conditioning yourself for. But realize it’s not as simple as “drop what’s in your hands” (tho that is a good place to start). You have to consider what’s in your hands (e.g. a sack of groceries vs. an infant).

Corollary to that, if you have someone in your life that holds on to your hand, it’s worth conditioning them to drop your hand. It’s natural when frightened to want to grab, cling, and squeeze. It’s possible a small child holding your hand will continue to (how will you contend with this?). But your spouse ought to learn to drop your hand and move away.

Point 7 is another that may be worth having more training and condintioning. That is, to condition people to move away (perhaps to concealment/cover – Point 8). So many times you see people pursuing and closing in – it’s very natural (monkey-brain), so building in a conditioned response to get away is important.

Good stuff, John. Thank you for sharing.

 

 

The Costs

/ hsoi

Often when a story surfaces in which an armed citizen wounds but doesn’t kill an attacking criminal, statements such as [‘too bad they didn’t kill him’] will quickly show up in the comments section on the Internet. Persons who make such comments have no clue about the cost of killing someone. Even when there are no legal and financial costs, the emotional, psychological, and social costs will be considerable.

Claude Werner writes about “The Cost of Killing”.

From my own experience, I can tell you few people have considered and weighed the gravity of taking the life of another human being. There are legal costs, there are financial costs, but I dare say the emotional, psychological, and social costs can be greater.

If nothing else, legal and financial ends at some point, but emotional, psychological, and social can last the rest of your life.

This is why I believe it’s imperative for anyone that cares about their personal safety and takes steps to enforce it – which does mean things like carrying or owning a gun for personal/home defense, but also includes taking martial arts classes, carrying a stun gun or pepper spray, or simply just understanding your life and the lives of your loved ones is precious, valuable, and worth fighting for – that you need to do more than simply acquiring hard skills. Yes, it’s important to learn how to take and throw a punch, yes it’s important to learn how to use pepper spray, yes it’s important to learn how to effectively shoot a gun – but it’s more important to learn how to contend with everything that is the aftermath.

Because that event? It lasts seconds.

But the aftermath lasts the rest of your life.

Case in point. Claude mentions something Massad Ayoob calls the “Mark of Cain syndrome” – people seeing you differently because at one time in your life you killed a man. I have personally experienced it. There are people who think I’m a horrible evil person. There are some that frame me by one event. I had a student come up to me in class and ask if I was “THAT John Daub”. Of course I am, but instead of being John Daub the husband, father, teacher, long-haired metal-head, weight-lifting, peace and love hippie – I’m “that guy”. The student meant no ill towards me, but I’m still framed by one event.

And then there’s the reality of “the Internet is forever”. For the rest of my life, someone can Google-search my name, and there are things they will find. Your past can no longer be forgotten. Forever shall I wear a mark.

Are you prepared for this?

You need to be.

It’s heavy. The gravity of self-defense is likely far heavier than you imagined it to be, but it’s important to feel the weight, yet not be afraid of it. Face it, grow stronger, and make the decisions now. When you can be at true peace before it happens, it helps you contend with it afterwards.

Do Concealed Carry Permits Have Any Impact on Crime?

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Charles D. Phillips, Texas A&M University School of Public Health, published a paper in 2015 entitled “Concealed Handgun Licensing and Crime in Four States.” He and his research team concluded that concealed handgun licensing had no beneficial effect on crime, and that the main driving force behind more people obtaining a license was the presence of federally licensed firearms dealers. However, there are a number of errors, assumptions, and miscalculations in his research that justify revisiting the question of the relationship between concealed carry laws and crime.

This is a paper written and published by Howard Nemerov. You can obtain the paper here.

The TSRA Sportsman recently published Howard’s article, but unfortunately the printing had numerous errors. I asked Howard about it and he gave me the above link to the full paper.

Random things

/ hsoi

Shoulder/Arm Pain Update

Had my first session yesterday with Howard Nemerov. The easiest way to describe it was that it was massage but more than massage. What I can say is it hurt. 🙂  But it was good hurt, and it really showed where I have some problems. A big one? Pectoralis minor is hugely tight. Oh lawdy lawdy that hurt to be treated, but that’s pretty indicative of problems. But after the treatment and even this morning (18-ish hours removed from the treatment) I feel much better. Range of motion is noticeably improved. Pain isn’t present, but too soon to tell as the pain can come and go.

Seriously. Even right now as I write this, making the “air squat” position with my hands, like where my hands and arms would be holding the bar on my back for squatting? I feel no pain, no stretching, no tightness. Very telling where the tension was, and how severe it was.

What will be interesting will be Monday when I squat and Tuesday when I bench. We’ll see what happens.

Howard is away next week, so I go to see him again in essentially 2 weeks. Meantime I will just continue to exercise and stretch. Given what came out of the session, I’m going to work to find stretches to target my pectoralis minor, upper traps (just a lot of head circles and deeper “rotations” and range of motion stuff can help me there), and such. I’ll also see about doing some direct work in those areas, like with a lacrosse ball.

To be totally honest, it makes me think about making massage a normal part of my routine. I know people do this, but I just hadn’t thought about how impactful it would be on my specific situation. But it sure gives me something to think about.

Gun Stuff

Next weekend, Citizens Defense Research will be in town teaching their Armed Parent class. Looking forward to it.

I was actually concerned if I could perform given all the pain I was in. But feeling how I feel now? I expect I’ll be alright. TBD.

Lifting – PR

Looking at how the calendar falls, my current thinking:

Let the 5-week and 3-week be as normal. Push myself as normal, get the rep PRs, but if I have to, err on being conservative. I want to save for the last week. And so the 1+ week will not be a traditional 1+ week. I will warm up, then take some larger singles, working up to a 1RM and what I hope will be a PR. It won’t be all in one day, like a mock meet. It will just be the normal days, working to 1RM, then doing some light assistance work afterwards and calling it a day.

Months ago when I started to work on rebuilding my strength, I told myself to stick with the program and just keep working, no testing. I allowed myself to test at the end of the year, which is now.

On squat, my best is 325#, which was some time ago. The Defattening Project gave my squat a big hit and has been the hardest thing to rebuild. Last cycle did 310 for 4. I expect matching 325 is do-able. I don’t need the PR to be massive, just breaking, so right now my goal is 330. If I can nail that, awesome. I may go for 335 because “plate math”, if things are feeling awesome as I work up. But really, a 5# PR is still a PR. And to be totally honest? so long as I squat 315 (3 plates), I’m happy.

On bench my best is 255#, which was also some time ago (tho squat was even further back). While I lost some upper body strength in The Defattening, it seems I didn’t lose as much as lower body (relatively speaking). Last cycle I did 245, but only for 2 reps because of the pain; but on the 3-week I did 235 for 8 reps. So I expect as long as pain isn’t in the equation, 260-265 is achievable. Part of me would love to see about 275 because “2.5 plates” would be cool. But I’m going to bench what I can bench and get a solid PR – not “plate coolness”.

On deadlift, my best is 445#. Not only does this go back to the lower-body losses during Defattening, but I have also been working to improve my deadlift technique so it does have more leg/hip drive and less back — i.e. it’s not one big stiff-leg. I actually wonder if I could meet/break my PR if I just threw all into the wind, but I’m not going to go there. That said, I’m not expecting to PR here. I just want to work up and hit whatever I can hit, breaking at least 405.

And press. Heck, I’ve already PR’d there last week with a lifetime best of 170×3. Wouldn’t 185 be cool here? But at this point I really don’t care as every lift is just gravy. 🙂

So there we go.

Lifting – Beyond

I let myself get a little too fluffy. The weight I had gained wasn’t too out of line all things considered, but since before Halloween (read: candy in the house), I’ve indulged a little too much. To combat it, right now I’m keeping the proteins and fats as usual, but restricting carbs to morning. So breakfast, lunch, etc. I eat as I have been, but after lunch I try to avoid extra carbs. I mean, if Wife makes something for supper and it’s going to be a little carby (e.g. stew) I don’t sweat it. I’m just talking extras like I don’t need to put rice on my plate, nor do I need to have ice cream afterwards.

It’s a reasonable protocol to make it easy for me to keep things in check, and I hope that by the end of the year gets me back to a more reasonable starting point.

Because yes, the plan is to have the PR-week, then take a week completely off and enjoy the holidays. After that, it’s change-up to the lifting and getting a new set of Renaissance Periodization cutting diet templates. I want to spend about 12-ish weeks on a cut and shed all that I can, 10-20#, hopefully closer to that 20.

Lifting will support that protocol. I still want to stay on the general track tho towards my goal of 3/4/5. What I am going to consider doing tho is allowing myself a longer road towards that goal. I don’t mind if I put on a little fat, but getting fluffy and flat out fat again is out of the question. What I think could work, especially as long as I’m doing 5/3/1, is have my weight reset, then spend 2-4 months with the lighter weights and cutting. Then as the weights get heavier, 2-4 months with the heavier weights and massing. Which then ought to take me right up to another reset; lather, rinse, repeat. I don’t know if this will work, or if it does what sorts of results I’ll get. My hope is that I can continue to make some level of progress in the gym, but also work to keep my weight in check because both matter to me.

Time will tell.

Whiskey

Bulleit Rye.

So damn good.

Winter is coming

/ hsoi

For us in the northern hemisphere, winter is coming. Temperatures are dropping, and for most of us that means clothing changes.

If you carry some sort of self-defense tool: gun, taser, pepper spray, knife, whatever (and maybe you carry a combination of those), can you still access that tool quickly and effectively with your change of clothing?

Are you wearing more layers of clothing?

Are you now wearing a heavy coat? That you close?

Are you wearing gloves?

Take some time to practice with your change in attire. Make sure it all still works for you.