Guns

Mixed Martial Arts Serendipity

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Of course, in my world “mixed martial arts” combines something other than the “muay thai, wrestling, bjj” formula. 🙂

As I’ve mentioned before here and here, when it comes to shooting I need to back off my speed and improve my accuracy. At the dojang today we were emphasizing a similar thing: smoothness of movement. As the saying goes, “slow is smooth, smooth is fast”. I’ve been working on my handgun presentation, the “punch” I refer to in my AT-4 class writeup, and that’s all about slowing down, being smooth.

So it was nice that my work today at the dojang was also about backing off speed a bit and improving correctness and accuracy. It’s always a great thing in my book when different things in my life end up with overlaps like this. It’s a signal to me that I need to work on it in those realms, but also what else can I apply it to? How about just general living? To slow down a bit. Cruise on my motorcycle at 55 MPH… sure the speed limit is 70, but go at 55 and get techniques right and enjoy the scenery going by. Don’t rush around to various things, just mellow out with the kids around the house. Whatever.

Slow down. Smooth things out. Do things correctly. No one cares about the first one to get the wrong answer. All those things that I keep telling myself. Gotta work on them more. Heck, it’s worth it for me to remember Tao Te Ching #48.

SB 1164 to be heard today

/ hsoi

Texas SB 1164 will be heard today in committee.

Contact your State Senator to let them know how you feel about this bill. Also, contact the members of the Senate Committee on State Affairs. Keep it polite and to the point.

JR’s entry on this.

Updated: Seems it was heard but not voted on yet.

Let’s break down the members of the committee (party, district, NRA grade w/year of grade):

Chair: Duncan (R, 28, A-2008)

Vice-Chair: Deuell (R, 2, A-2002)

Members: Carona (R, 16, A+ 2008), Ellis (D, 13 F-2006), Fraser (R, 24, A-2008), Harris (R, 9, A-2008), Jackson (R, 11, A-2008), Lucio (D, 27, A-2008), Van de Putte (D, 26, B-2008).

We’ll see how it pans out. Stay tuned, true believers….

Updated 2: Fixed the “updated” link to a permanent one.

Gun folk taxonomy

/ hsoi

Tam has a look at the different ways to classify gun folk.

I guess I’d be a trainer (which of course makes me a shooter and owner too), who is looking to become a gamer, expects to be a hunter eventually.

Play date!

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

I actually dislike the term “play date”, but figure it’s amusing for a title.

TXGunGeek organized a play day. It was him, some of his friends, commenter Chimera was there, doc was there (it was a pleasure to meet you!), Barbie no-showed on us. But to me, the coolest part was TXGunGeek said it was cool if I brought my kids so Daughter came out with me.

Everyone got unpacked and there was just a smorgasbord of guns on the table. Everyone checking everyone else’s gear out, “Hey can I try that?” “Only if I can try that!”. It was quite cool. But, allow me to focus on My Little Girl for a bit, since that was the highlight of my day. 🙂

The main thing she was looking forward to was shooting the Buck Mark. A few days ago at house we did a little dry fire. She’s never fired a handgun before so we went over things like grip and stance, how the Buck Mark operates, etc..  She already knows about things like sight picture and trigger control, but we touched on those again as well. So once we got to the range and we could go hot, we shot steel. At the range there’s a nice set of steel targets, from 6″ and 8″ circles to larger rectangles and pepper poppers. Daughter had a blast. She liked shooting the Buck Mark. She liked the sound of lead hitting steel. She was doing really well. She would shoot a magazine then rest, since the gun would be heavy held out at arms length. As we went along I refined her trigger control so she would ride the trigger and properly reset it. Then working on regaining sight picture and shooting again as soon as she regained the sight picture. I think she really enjoyed that, being able to shoot a bit faster that she was before. I can’t disagree… there’s something satisfying about shooting fast and hearing all that “ping” on the steel.

Daughter also got to shoot a few other things. Chimera had a Henry lever-action .22, which Daughter really got a kick out of. I think she liked the lever-action. TXGunGeek had a .22 conversion kit for his AR and while the rifle was very heavy (you can see my right hand supporting the front), Daughter liked to shoot it.

Daughter was nothing but big smiles all morning long. She was shooting well, got to try some new (to her) and different guns. I’m a proud Daddy. 🙂

As for me, again I gotta say how much I like that Buck Mark. It is so much fun to shoot. 

The big thing of the day was a course TXGunGeek set up. Started off with a long gun (whatever you wanted to shoot, Chimera even tried it with his Henry lever-action), engage cardboard, shoot some clay pigeons, more cardboard, move, transition to side-arm, steel, cardboard, move, more cardboard, various distances, precise shooting. A fun little course.

Here I am, engaging the clays and missing because I was figuring out exactly how much holdover I needed:

And here I am after the transition to the XD.

We wrapped up just as it started to rain on us. Good timing. The weather was very nice: partly cloudy, a cool breeze, moderate temps. Just a great day for shooting.

I asked Daughter what she enjoyed: the Buck Mark. 🙂  I asked her what she learned: how to shoot a handgun, and a bit more about things like sight picture and trigger control.

I asked myself what I learned: it reinforced my need to make an effort to back off on speed and jack up accuracy. Not so slow that it’s akin to bullseye shooting, but well…. after I got home I was thinking that next time I’m shooting the Buck Mark on the steel range the thing to have in my head is “all hits”, that all 10 rounds in the magazine must go “ping”. That will require slowing down a bit, being 100% sure of sight picture before firing, keeping my eyes glued to that front sight.  I also learned I need to spend more time with my AR (and that I want an Aimpoint). What did I enjoy? Having a great time with my Daugther, bonding, teaching her things, creating fond memories. That was my highlight. 🙂

I want to thank TXGunGeek for setting this up and inviting me out to it, and for allowing my daughter to come along as well. Thanx to Chimera for letting us shoot his Henry (man, I want one of those now!). Doc, it was great to meet you! Everyone else, it was good to meet you too and I’m sure we’ll see each other again.

A good day. Now, off to clean some guns.

Updated: Gotta brag on my little girl a bit more. In the classroom at the range there’s a subtle but intentional thing done. I don’t want to say what it is because it’s better when students discover it on their own. It took me a few visits before I noticed it, then it was explained to me. This was daugther’s first time in the classroom and she noticed it immediately. I was tickled. 🙂

Updated 2: TXGunGeek has his write-up on the day.

Updated 3: Docbot finally wrote up!

Verbal commands

/ hsoi

A nice article about verbal commands. (h/t to Robb Allen) I’ve touched on this before, and the article provides some good “checkpoints” for the sorts of commands to use.

One of the commands I’ve been taught was “STOP! DON’T MOVE!”. There’s a great deal of utility in this. Using those “checkpoints” it’s clear, causes hesitation, provides direction, and it can alert witnesses. It’s good for the situation… if you have to draw your gun and point it at someone, it’s a very appropriate command.

Another command I’ve heard to use is “POLICE! CALL THE POLICE!”. Let it be known I’m not recommending this because there’s potential risk for problem (e.g., impersonating an officer). But if the shit hit the fan and you’re in a self-defense situation, especially one where you’re in civilian clothing and have to draw a gun to shoot, it may be useful. It’s important to look at the phrase as a whole and in parts. It starts with “POLICE!”, which is where you risk getting into trouble but if you need to draw a gun and yell this you’ve probably got bigger problems to begin with. You can see why it can be useful to say this, but then maybe it won’t be because if you “identified” yourself as police, could you end up drawing fire? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe any other good guys on the scene would avoid you and/or support you, bad guys might avoid you too but also might turn on you. You just can’t know. But then you follow with “CALL THE POLICE!” which changes the totality of the delivered message, that there’s an emergency and someone that hears this needs to call the police now!  I see a lot of advantages in this command, and disadvantages too. You just have to weigh it to know if it’s right. In terms of the checkpoints, ambiguity? sorta. hesitation? certainly. direction? no not really, tho “call the police” is a direction it’s a plea hoping for someone to call. alert witnesses? I think so.

One thing I’ll state about commands. Don’t cuss. STOP MOTHERFUCKER! DON’T YOU FUCKING MOVE OR I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU YOU PIECE OF SHIT!!  No… that doesn’t go over very well. I mean, when the pressure is on it might fly out of your mouth and if it does it does. But if you can avoid it, avoid it. It keeps the message from being simple and direct. It also may look worse, should what you say/said become an issue.

And folks, don’t be afraid to practice your commands. If you’re doing dry fire for defensive purposes, throw your commands in. Just like all the things we practice, you figure it out beforehand and practice it enough so that when it comes time to use it, you just fall into it and do it.

Who says revolvers don’t malfunction?

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Revolver malfunction failure. Epic failure, perhaps. (h/t to SayUncle)

As said before, revolvers may have some mechanical advantages over semi-auto handguns, but they’re still mechanical devices and like anything mechanical they can and will fail (tho hopefully not all like this one did).

Stop. Don’t touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult.

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

I became an Eddie Eagle volunteer and gave my first presentation last night. Went over fairly well, for a first time. I think it’s a great program that strives to be fun but teach a serious message. Afterwards I heard from various parents that agreed: even if you are anti-gun, it makes sense to teach your children to “Stop. Don’t touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult.” At the barest of minimums that helps you keep your child safe if they ever encounter a gun. We teach our children so many other things about being safe but this one tends to be avoided for whatever reason. With a program like Eddie Eagle, there’s no reason not to provide it and teach that simple mantra/message to your children:

As for the program itself, I used the “assembly format” which I think works fairly well. It aims to be fun, keeps the kids interested, but it doesn’t bog down with anything or even let the fun and silliness get in the way of the serious message of “Stop. Don’t touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult.”  and additional messages of respect (for always following all safety rules) and responsibility (for yourself). It uses various things to help imprint the message: rhymes, repetition, some physical movements (watch the video, you’ll see the “Eddie Shuffle”), repetition, a few scenarios to play out, repeating the 4 steps numerous times, “Stop. Don’t touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult.” You get the idea. 🙂  It’s very well developed, from an educator standpoint.

You can hate guns to your dying day. But if you love your children, be they your own kids or just kids in your care, please take the time to teach them about Eddie Eagle. Thirty minutes of discussion could save you from a life of heartache.