Guns

Why can’t we just ban “crazy”?

/ hsoi

A couple horrible stories in the news recently. But I think ones that are worth your consideration due to their greater implications.

One was about 4 NYPD officers attacked by a crazy man with a hatchet. Another was about a beheading of an Oklahoma teenager.

From what’s been reported so far, it seems what we’ve got are some random people with a heavy dose of “crazy”, attacking other people with an intent to inflict harm and death in a horrible manner due to their crazy.

Where are the calls for hatchet bans? or machete control? Because you know if these attackers used guns, it would become fuel for those bent on banning guns. Why aren’t we seeing calls to try to control this sort of violence? Is this sort of attack somehow less worthy of your political attention?

Or maybe perhaps it’s not about the tool/weapon. I mean, I think it’s pretty clear what’s in play here isn’t guns or hatchets or machetes, but plain old crazy.

So why aren’t we working to ban crazy? I mean, if bans are so effective at stopping things, don’t you think a law against crazy would be the most effective solution?

Of course we know there’s no reality in making that solution happen. Thus we look for other solutions, often things like “gun control”.

But let me ask you something.

Look at the NYPD hatchet case. What got things to stop? Was it legislation? Was it a ban on hatchets or the fact that murder is already illegal? Did they pee or vomit on their attacker? Was it talking to the attacker, be it begging and pleading, words of love and kindness, or stern words?

No. It was a swift and violent response on the part of the NYPD officers, using guns to stop the attacker. There was no ability to call for help; only the people immediately on site right there right then were able to respond.

Are guns, and swift, violent responses always the right answer? Certainly not! In fact, the overwhelming majority of problems in our world are not going to be rightly solved by the muzzle of a gun. However, there are some problems in this world that cannot be solved any other way.

For every solution you offer as an alternative, I ask you to consider the viability of that solution — with intellectual honesty. Would you equip those NYPD officers with your solution? Will your solution enable them to go home to their loved ones at the end of their shift? Will your solution be effective at keeping other innocent people on the NYC street from being brutally murdered? Will your solution effectively stop the danger, the madness, the crazy?

What if you were faced with the same imminent danger? If someone were charging at you wielding a hatchet with every intent on embedding it in your skull, can you honestly believe your solution will keep you alive? Are you willing to put it to the test?

A ban on crazy – just like most bans – doesn’t stop bad things from happening. Effective solutions may not always be palatable, but we must always be honest in finding and applying those solutions.

KR Training 2014-10-25 – DPS2/AT-2/AT-1A Quick Hits

/ hsoi

What a great way to close out the 2014 year at KR Training. Well, it’s not truly a close-out – there are still some things going on before the end of the year – but every November and December we go quiet for deer hunting season (how it goes when your range is in rural Texas), and that time is upon us.

But what a great way to end the year. We run this block of classes: Defensive Pistol Skills 2, AT-2 Force-on-Force Scenarios, and AT-1A Low Light Shooting only a couple times a year due to the needs of the Low Light class – need low light! and only certain times of the year work due to when sunset and Daylight Saving Time happens relative to a reasonable class time. It makes for a long day, but always a good one.

This one was especially fun because everyone that came for the morning class stayed for the entire day. Usually there’s people coming and going throughout the day, and we did have some people join us as the day went on, but the general timbre was people coming and staying. And it seems like everyone had a great experience, including Niki Jones of the Austin Sure Shots Women’s Pistol League.

I think the only down side of the day was the unusually hot weather – it got up into the 90’s! Come on… this is supposed to be the end of October! Weather was good, but this was just unusual.

Here’s my notes for the students:

Distance

Remember that distance is your friend. Use it to your advantage.

You have this wonderful tool that easily overcomes distance. Remember that we have to fight our monkey-brain tendencies to close in on the threat; yes that’s appropriate in some circumstances, but for most private citizens your key mission is to avoid, survive, and go home to your loved ones. Using distance to your advantage aids in that mission.

You can think of distance in the form of the Tueller Drill. You can think of using distance in terms of keeping away from corners, cover/concealment, and how it not only keeps you safe but lets you see more of what’s going on. You can also realize that most people can’t hit anything past 10 yards – but you can – so again, your advantage.

Tunnel Vision

We all fall victim to it. This is why we train for things like scanning to help break our tunnel vision. Don’t just focus on where you’re going, also be sure to see what else is around you (like that one reactive target beyond the back wall of the shoothouse that most everyone missed seeing until it was too late).

OODA Loop

I’ll just link to a good article on the OODA Loop from The Art of Manliness website.

Equipment Matters

Equipment matters. It only matters so much, and it doesn’t matter as much as Internet forum chatter makes it out to be. But it does matter and makes a difference.

I wrote an article “Pick your accessories, and move on” that covers this topic. Read it.

To expand upon that, hopefully you got a good idea of what matters in terms of flashlights. Strobes are great on the dancefloor, otherwise not so much. Switches and other controls matter too. Quality flashlights are expensive, but pay for themselves quickly.

Beer & TV

Remember: maximize your enjoyment of beer and TV.

Here’s something to read.

Or put it another way: is it worth dying for? Make sure you figure out beforehand what is and what is not worth dying for. Your standards are your own, they may not be the same as someone else’s. You don’t need to compare yourself or measure up to someone else’s yardstick here.

Fundamentals Matter

Ask anyone that performs at a high level and they’ll tell you it’s always about mastery of the fundamentals. This series of classes worked higher-level skills, especially the force-on-force requiring you to have to think and process so much information on the spot. This is not a time to have to think about trigger press and sight alignment, this is a time when those fundamentals need to be automatic.

While it’s good to practice the higher-level skills, don’t neglect the fundamentals. Drill them. Make them something you don’t have to think about, so it frees your brain to work on the things you have no choice but to think about.

Thanx!

So with the year basically winding down, thank you to all the students that came out. Many of the faces we saw this past Saturday were repeat students, and it’s so great to not only see the same people but to see how everyone progresses and improves.

Despite the weirdness of the political scene and the changes that came to the training industry this past year, it was still a good year. Karl’s been planning a lot for 2015, and next year should be really awesome too. Lots of cool guest instructors are already on deck, there’s good range improvements slated too.

We thank you for all your support and hard work, and look forward to seeing you again at the range. 🙂

 

An interesting legal study

/ hsoi

Eugene Volokh presents an interesting case about “Coming armed to see ‘an explanation from or discussion with the other person concerning the actor’s differences with the other person’“.

This is a rather interesting examination of laws and the legislative process. If you live in Texas, if you carry a concealed handgun or care about such matters from a legal perspective, or are just someone that finds the law an interesting – and sometimes strange – thing, it’s a good read.

Why not a TASER?

/ hsoi

I know people who desire some sort of tool to aid in their personal safety, but seek non-gun options. So the notion of a TASER comes up a lot.

Here’s a great summary from Kathy Jackson (posted to her Facebook page) on the use of TASER’s and other such tools.

A few days ago, someone asked me what I think about using Tasers instead of firearms for personal defense. My answer: It’s complicated.

1 – If I had access to a nice little Star Trek phaser that could be set to “stun” and would work without fail to drop attackers in their tracks with no possible negative consequences to either myself or the attacker, so the criminal justice system could grab them and choose the appropriate disposition for them with no risk to my own life, I’d hang up my defensive handgun and never carry it again. But that reliable, effective, no-consequences tool does *NOT* exist in this world. No matter what the ad copy says.

2 – Most “tasers” sold to ordinary people are *not* Tasers at all. They are simply low-power electric shockers that require physical contact. And no matter what the packaging says, most of them are about as powerful as the handheld buzzer your joker of a big brother used to use to make his buddies jump when they shook hands. Waste of money.

3 – A true Taser — which comes from the TASER International Inc. and costs about as much as a firearm — will in fact lock up the attacker’s muscles by blocking signals from the nerves back to the brain. Having one used on you feels about like a full-body muscle cramp. Not pleasant! Despite this, it’s *not* a pain compliance tool; it actually functions by blocking the nerve signals. That’s the upside.

The downside: You get exactly one shot, and it fires two projectiles at once at a relatively slow speed. Both probes have to hit. If they hit too close together (as they will if the attacker is too close to you) the signal isn’t blocked that well and the attacker will likely keep coming. If they spread too far apart (as they will if the attacker isn’t right on top of you), one of the probes may miss the attacker — which means you might as well have missed entirely.

Taser advertises that many of their products have a “drive stun” capability, meaning if you miss with one or both probes you can just shove the end of the Taser gun into the bad guy’s body and disrupt the nerve signal that way. This is painful for the attacker, but … it won’t get the same solid lock up and he can fight through that pain.

If you do hit him with both projectiles, the Taser will keep the electrical pulse going through the wires for a short while. The company suggests you leave the pulse going, drop the Taser product, and run away at this point while the attacker’s muscles are still locked up. Better hope you can run faster and farther than your attacker can follow in that amount of time, because as soon as the current shuts off, he’ll be able to follow you.

And finally, there’s this: because Tasers fire projectiles with wires attached, stuff like what happened in the news report below, can and does happen. That’s why law enforcement officers always have access to deadly force whenever a Taser may be deployed.

4 — Bottom line? A Taser can be a good tool for some situations, but it isn’t magic. The products can and have saved lives, mostly lives of law enforcement officers, or suspects being arrested. When LEOs use these things, most of them have backup officers on hand who can and will immediately use deadly force if the Taser fails to subdue the suspect. For us, who don’t have that kind of backup on hand, it’s more dicey.

Good customer service

/ hsoi

I like to give credit where it’s due, especially when it winds up being a good customer service story. IMHO good customer service should be the norm, but alas these days it seems it’s the exception. Still, it’s good to share the success stories because I think it helps us see who is worth doing business with.

This time, it’s Freedom Munitions.

I learned of Freedom Munitions via my work at KR Training, because some time ago Karl switched to them as the bulk ammo provider. I mean, when you have to go through thousands upon thousands of rounds per year due to classes and student needs, you need ammo that is available, reliable, and cost-effective. So Freedom Munitions ammo fits the bill, and thousands upon tens-of-thousands of Freedom Munitions rounds have been fired at the KRT range.

I needed to buy some .223 ammo for myself, so of course I turned to Freedom Munitions given the past track record and of course no one could beat their prices. Ordered 1000 rounds of .223 Rem 55 grain remanufactured ammo. No problem to order, no problem to ship… but there was problem to shoot.

Oldest and I were out shooting and the AR was malfunctioning quite a bit. Long story short? The primers were coming out of the fired rounds. Shoot, enough pressure to cause the primer to come out and basically stick to the bolt face, chamber next round, but firing pin strikes the old primer still stuck to the bolt face. Fix the malfunction, keep going… but then sooner or later it would happen again. I forget the failure rate, but it was pretty bad. We only shot 170 rounds in total, and if I remember correctly at least a dozen, tho I think a bit more, failed in this manner. It was pretty bad. And we know it’s the ammo and not the gun because anything else we fed the gun ran without a hitch.

I contacted Freedom Munitions about it. Another long story short? They offered to take the remaining ammunition back and offered me either a full refund or replacement with new (remember, I purchased remanufactured). The way it was worded I thought I’d get a 1-for-1 replacement, but no… I wound up getting a full 1000 rounds of new .223 Rem 55gr. FMJ.

As well, the lady handling the issue for me, Brenda Carrier, was very helpful. She apologized for being short staffed and that it took a while for her to respond to me, but she saw everything all the way through. She was responsive, straightforward, and worked to ensure I was satisfied.

I haven’t shot any yet, but I’m sure it’ll be good. Plus it’s all Lake City brass. Nice.

Am I bummed to have gone through all of this? Sure. But the reality is, it happens. When you crank out enough rounds of ammo, inevitably there’ll be issues here and there, so it happens. No big deal, and Freedom Munitions worked to make things right.

 

Open Carry – this was bound to happen

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Chuck Rives shared this story about a man open carrying a handgun, and getting robbed.

Investigators said the 21-year-old victim bought a handgun earlier in the day and was openly carrying it while talking to his cousin.

They said a man approached them and asked for a cigarette. Talk eventually turned to the victim’s new purchase, before the robber pulled his own gun from his waistband and said, “I like your gun, give it to me,” according to police.

The victim handed over his gun and the suspect ran away.

There’s numerous things we can learn from this.

First, with the growth of open carry, this sort of thing is bound to happen.

Second, if you are going to open carry, it involves a lot more than just sticking a gun on your hip and thinking you are good to go. You need to greatly improve your awareness and mindset.

Third, someone approaching asking for a cigarette? A classic way for a mugger to make contact and breach your space, to get close, and then mug you. If I can use SouthNarc parlance, the victim here failed to Manage the Unknown Contact. It’s critical to understand such things and how to deal with it so you don’t wind up in trouble.

Fourth, why was the victim engaging in conversation with this random stranger in the first place? Fine the cigarette, but after saying “no”, that should be the end of it. Even if you HAVE a cigarette, and I totally understand the social implications to a fellow smoker (I was one, I know how it goes), don’t let someone encroach on your space. I know it seems wrong to be selfish, but look at what the consequences were for not doing so.

Fifth, I can’t say for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the victim was selected precisely because he was open carrying. And I would say it wasn’t purely because of O.C. but likely the victim also displayed other mannerisms and behavior that demonstrated to the mugger that he’d make good prey. There’s lots of study out there on victim selection, and chances are good the victim was selected because he demonstrated all the traits of being a good victim.

Which… isn’t something you can afford, if you’re advertising that you have things on your person that others might want and would be willing to take, be it a gun or an iPhone or whatever.

To me, this isn’t reason to say “open carry is bad” and “we should ban open carry”. No, I still think from a purely legal and legislative standpoint there’s no reason to deny/ban open carry. But it does provide illustration that you cannot blindly go about this process. That to open carry brings great responsibility, some risk, and you had better have your head on right and some education into the realities you could face, then prepare, practice, and carry yourself accordingly.

Practicing by the Odds

/ hsoi

When I read “The Bell-Curve: Shooting Practice by the Odds” over at the Growing Up Guns blog, it bore a striking resemblance to the article series I wrote last year on “Minimum Competency for Defensive Pistol“. Just shows that great minds think alike. 🙂

We took similar approaches: look at the realities of private citizen gunfights (vs. military or law enforcement engagements, which are a different context), see what actually happens in them, and thus what has the highest probability of happening. Based upon that, it makes sense for those of us with limited training budget (time, money) to at least initially focus our skills in those areas. I mean, if no encounter ever uses weak-hand-only behind-the-back while hanging from the rafters shooting skills… is that really something you should spend 90% of your practice time on? Instead, if 90% of encounters involve being able to draw from concealment, get acceptable hits, in a small area, from close range, quickly, with both hands… maybe that’s where you should focus your training time.

It’s not to say other skills should be ignored, it’s just a matter of prioritization due to the fact we are all limited on time and money. So, spend that time wisely.

We arrive at some slightly different conclusions, and provide a different set of drills (tho we both started with Gila Hayes’ drill). But ultimately we’re saying the same thing in different ways.

I encourage you to give the DefensiveDaddy’s article a read. It’s further perspective on this important topic.

KR Training October 2014 Newsletter

/ hsoi

The KR Training (September) October 2014 newsletter is out.

Karl’s running some specials:

October 25 – Every armed citizen should train to this level. Our most important courses.
Defensive Pistol Skills 2 + AT-2 Force on Force + Low Light Shooting – all 3 for $180

Already taken these but haven’t practiced the skills in awhile? 
REFRESHER DISCOUNT: repeat any individual course you’ve taken before for $20 off.
The October 25 classes will include special drills using the range cars.

That’s one bonus that you normally do NOT get with these. There are a couple cars on the range from the prior guest-instructor visit by Dave Spaulding for his Vehicle Combatives class. So this particular iteration of classes will provide some extras you normally won’t get!

Move on… to what?

/ hsoi

Continuing the discussion on “pick your gear, and move on“.

So once you have your equipment picked out, where are you to move on to?

Getting the skill needed to run that equipment at an acceptable level.

This starts out with basic marksmanship skills: gripping the gun, stance, how to aim, how to press the trigger (without disturbing the sights), how to shoot faster, more accurately, on the move, how to reload, how to clear malfunctions, and so on.

Yes you can get this on your own, but I’d say finding good instruction is invaluable towards helping you get there in a more efficient manner. Learn something, then go practice it. Come back and learn more, then continue to practice it.

During this time, you’ll probably shake some issues out with your equipment and find out what does and does not work. Do not be afraid to refine your equipment or fully start over if that’s what is needed.

But once the equipment is settled, it’s then time to acquire the skill to use that equipment. Keep moving down the road.