Guns

Shopping

/ hsoi

I’m burned out. Taking a couple days off work for a long weekend to help me recoup a bit.

Working on my backlog of things to do, and one is some online shopping.

Ordered some 7-round magazines for my M&P Shield from Botach Tactical. I’m fine with the smaller mags, since that’s the whole point of such a gun.

Ordered various Fox Labs OC sprays from CopsPlus. Wife needs to replace hers, and I’ve been wanting to have a can for my gym walks — had a couple potential 4-legged interactions during my gym walks where OC would have been welcome. Never used Fox Labs’ stuff before, but Tom Givens commented they’re the best, so let’s give it a try.

Ordered a lot of fish oil (Meg-3) and some caffeine capsules from TrueNutrition.com.

Wife wanted 30# of einkorn flour from JovialFoods. If you haven’t tried einkorn flour, and you’re not in a dietary mode that would prohibit it (e.g. celiac’s, paleo, etc.) give it a try. Wife reports the switch to it has helped her feel better (vs. “traditional” wheat flours you buy at the store), and I’ll vouch that it tastes really awesome. I’m still waiting for her to make that beer bread with the Moose Drool Brown Ale. The beer bread with that ale was awesome, and I imagine it will be even more awesome with the einkorn.

Wife is also out hitting the H.E.B. grocery store, and the Sprouts. I finally got to visit Sprouts a couple weeks ago; neat store, I like.

Just a little peek into life… and I’m sure the NSA is minding all my credit card transactions and wondering something. 🙂

Springfield XDs recall

/ hsoi

Following Smith & Wesson’s lead for their “small gun” Shield recall, Springfield Armory is now issuing a recall for their “small gun” XD-S.

Springfield Armory® is initiating this voluntary safety recall to upgrade 3.3 XD-S™ 9mm and 3.3 XD-S™ .45ACP pistols with new components, which eliminate the possibility of a potentially dangerous condition. We want to emphasize that no injuries have been reported to date.

Springfield has determined that under exceptionally rare circumstances, some 3.3 XD-S™ 9mm and .45ACP caliber pistols could experience an unintended discharge during the loading process when the slide is released, or could experience a double-fire when the trigger is pulled once. The chance of these conditions existing is exceptionally rare, but if they happen, serious injury or death could occur.

This Safety Recall applies only to:
Springfield 3.3 XD-S™ 9mm pistols – serial numbers between XS900000 and XS938700
Springfield 3.3 XD-S™ .45ACP pistols – serial numbers between XS500000 and XS686300.

This Safety Recall does not apply to any XD® or XD(M)® pistols.

Visit http://www.springfieldrecall.com for more information.

Little woman vs. big man

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

A common sales pitch of martial arts is that learning my deadly art will allow a 100# woman to fight off a 300# gorilla.

As well, one common refrain about the use of tools in self defense, is that the tool becomes a way to overcome the force disparity that a 300# gorilla poses to a 100# woman. If you can have a baseball bat, pepper spray, gun, it “levels the playing field”.

So which is right? Or are both right? Or are both wrong? Or is there something else?

Rick Randolph writes that there’s actually something else that matters more:

While it may be unrealistic to think we can teach any 110 pound person to knock out a 220 pound attacker … or use pressure points or joint locks, that is not what self-defense is. See “fights” in a self-defense sense aren’t won with techniques, they are won with what Coach calls indignation.

Bad guys aren’t looking for a fight. They are looking for a victim. Give them a fight, even an unskilled one, and often times they will go look for a “better” victim

[…]

Lets face it: it wasn’t their physical skills that saved them. None of the stories tell of fancy techniques. Simply that they chose to fight. And that is the reality of self-defense. It is less about how you fight but more simply about the fact that you fight.

Make the decision you will fight now. You don’t want to wait until you have to.

Self-defense classes shouldn’t be so much about teaching people how to fight, and more about empowering them to fight and fight with everything they have.

And that’s what it is: mindset. You must have the mindset to fight. I’ve heard some say that you should become angry, or Rick above says to be indignant, which is probably a more accurate term. Use that. Let it drive you to drive them off.

Yes, I think there is great merit to using tools. That’s one of the things humans have that other animals don’t. We are gloriously mediocre in our senses and our skills, not really good at any one thing, but decently good enough at a lot of things. And one of those things we’re decently good at is using our brains to create stuff, stuff that helps us overcome our shortcomings and mediocrity. We can’t move fast, so we invent cars and planes. We can’t see well, so we invent telescopes and night vision goggles. And our fangs and claws aren’t much, so we have knives and guns. Tools are useful things and we should use them.

But the tool doesn’t matter if you’re unwilling to use it. If you buy a gun, shove it in a drawer, that does you no good. If you practice with that gun but merely plink or slow target shoot with it, that does you no good. Might you want to take classes to learn about good defensive handgun skills so you can use the tool well under pressure? Or how about taking Force-on-Force classes so you can be put into realistic scenarios and see how you’d react. Maybe see how you might be able to channel some indignation. When you read news articles, put yourself into the story and figure out how you would react to being mugged, beat up, raped, or otherwise left for dead. What would you do? Because if you play out these scenarios in your head, basically a visualization technique, and your response in them is to choose to fight, to choose to be indignant, you’re setting yourself up for success.

I don’t want people to become bitter or negative about the world and live their life in some ugly way. I do want people to acknowledge tho that the world does have ugly elements that are willing to infringe upon your life and turn it into something you could never imagine in your worst horrors. Hopefully it will never happen, but if it does, I hope you will have prepared beforehand. Whether it’s acquiring the tools, the skills, or more importantly the mindset and mentality to fight. That is what will enable a 100# woman to overcome a 300# attacker.

AAR – KR Training, 2013-08-24, Basic Pistol 1

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Another fine day at KR Training. Being as we’re in the worst of the Texas summer heat, we’re limiting ourselves to morning classes. So we held just a Basic Pistol 1 class. I was lead instructor for the class, and I had two assistants in Greg Howard and a special guest of Tina Maldonado, one of the co-Facilitators for the A Girl and A Gun Women’s Shooting League. Tina’s building up her instruction skills, so she was out to help and “intern”.

It was quite cool to have Tina there because the class was an all-ladies class. We had 8 ladies of varying ranges: 3 were teenagers (and family-related), 2 were a mother and daughter, and 3 were friends working towards their CHL together. There was no planning of having such a grouping like this – truly serendipitous coincidence – but it was really neat to have Tina there for this class.

Class ran smooth. Since I’ve been handling the BP1’s lately, I’ve been trying to stay true to the goal of the class and ensuring all the important points are made, but streamlining the presentation and ensuring focus and delivery are good. We love what we do and we just have so much to give, that sometimes we want to give it all… and it’s too much. At this level, most students are excited or afraid or unsure or simply overwhelmed. So it’s up to us to temper our delivery so we don’t overwhelm with too much information; that stuff can come later. I mean, isn’t that the right thing to do? always leave them wanting more? 🙂  I also want to ensure we hit all the important stuff and don’t skimp on the shooting time because that’s the fun part!

All in all things went well. I received some good feedback from the class participants and auditors (read: dads/husbands/chauffeurs), and am honored and humbled by your choice to come to us for your training. You’re starting down a road, and I know the first steps of the journey can set the tone for the rest of the trip. I do my best to ensure a successful start, and if there’s anything I can do better, please let me know.

I know some of the students will be back in a few weeks for Basic 2, and I look forward to seeing you then!

In other news…

After class was over I went out and did some of my own shooting. Since Karl made “version 4” of the “3 Seconds or Less” drill, I wanted to shoot it. I also wanted to shoot it with my snub, since I’ve been carrying it AIWB for a while now and should do some more live fire with it (not just dry).

Biggest take home is I need to be faster on the trigger, but not what you think. It’s not my press, it’s the release! I think it’s actually a symptom of too much dry fire, because it’s just not the same as live. I need to press then get off that long, heavy trigger faster, then get back on it faster. I’m focusing too much on keeping the crappy J-frame sights on target that I’m moving the trigger WAY too slow. I can’t buzz it as fast as my M&P, but I can have a better cadence than I’m shooting.

Going without

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I “lost” my eyesight for 24 hours.

Oh, nothing horrible here. I have pretty bad vision, very near-sighted. Things have to be maybe 2-3″ in front of my face to be clear. I wear glasses.

My glasses broke. Freak thing. I came home from teaching, was cleaning them, and in the process of drying them off the bridge just snapped. Odd thing too, being Nike Flexon… uh, what happened to flexing instead of being brittle and breaking? This isn’t the first time I’ve had a Flexon frame just break on me, but I opted to try for something else for my replacements. But that’s not the point of my writing.

I was without clear and useful vision for 24 hours.

Oh I know it’s not that horrible. I could still see somewhat well enough to get by and exist. Wife has a friend that is actually losing her eyesight completely. I know my problem is nothing like that.

But it’s enough to make you appreciate what you have.

I could get by, if I stuck my nose 2-3″ in front of things. iPhone was alright, computer was not so much. Walking around, interacting with the kids, avoiding stuff lying on the floor, no problem. Even walking around the crowded shopping mall where the eyeglasses store was, I had no problems seeing and avoiding (tho no window shopping to pass the time while we waited). I wouldn’t want to drive, and if I wasn’t able to get a replacement set “in an hour” I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about work (sick day?), but thankfully that didn’t happen.

I thought about my carry handgun. Pfft… what was the point? I really couldn’t see well enough to shoot anything beyond arms length. I did try some draws and dry fire, and if anything it did make me think I should practice more with my glasses off.

See, it’s very unsettling to not have clear vision. Or rather, to go from having it to suddenly not. There’s a lot you take for granted, and suddenly it’s gone. It’s unsettling, it’s disconcerting. And how to suddenly operate? After a few hours without my glasses, I was getting used to it and felt more comfortable. But there’s still no way I’d take a 15 yard shot (my vision is just that bad, it’d be irresponsible). But given most “interpersonal confrontations” happen 0-5 yards, well… yeah, I ought to see how I can manage.

I should dry practice to gain enough confidence here because I cannot see the front sight, so I have to ensure I can index well enough. I have to learn what I can do — and what I cannot. I should try some live fire work to see how I fair. If nothing else, to shoot and KNOW instead of having only ignorance, that will serve me better.

Shooting at that distance doesn’t actually require a perfect sight picture (read Enos, Stoeger, etc.). And while it’s somewhat about that, it’s more about dealing with the sudden loss of eyesight and knowing what I can and cannot do. To know what it will look like, feel like, what information and feedback I will be without and must find alternatives upon which to base my actions. And to have the confidence to know that this is not a problem, I can work through it. It’s better to have and know this stuff ahead of time.

Because to lose my glasses? It’s a distinct possibility. I ought to know what I can do, when I’m forced to do without.

Smith & Wesson M&P Recall

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

If you are an owner of a Smith & Wesson M&P Shield, you need to immediately cease using the gun and check it against the following inspection.

Here’s S&W’s written instructions.

And here’s a video S&W produced that explains how to check for the problem:

This applies to pretty much any and every Shield produced since they first hit the market. S&W believes it affects only a small number of pistols, but better safe than sorry. And truly in this case, it is about being safe as this issue pertains to the mechanical safety mechanisms of the firearm.

I just checked my own Shield and it did not exhibit the problem.

Check yours now.

Some data about knockouts

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Analyst James LaFond studied 1,675 acts of violence that took place between June 1996 and May 2000. At the request of the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, he then analyzed the incidents in his study that led to a knockout.

And here’s a summary of that data. (h/t Shaun Heyes)

Here’s a link to more of the data, from the original study author.

What gets me the most is how easy one can get knocked out. Sucker-punches are pretty typical, and tend to lead to bad things for the recipient.

Empty hands can be ugly things. Weapons (don’t limit yourself to guns and knives) can be uglier. Do your best to avoid the fight in the first place.

.38 Long Rifle is good enough

/ hsoi

KR Training Assistant Instructor Greg Howard pointed this article to me: Why Nine.

It’s a lot of the same caliber war rehash. I’ve said it before, I’ve said it again, I’ve said it a third time, spoken on 9mm and it goes on.

All pistol rounds suck.

I did like one thing from the article:

All other things being equal, the bigger the bullet the better

The problem with that caveat is that nothing else is equal.  No other “big boy” caliber handgun will carry as many rounds as a comparably sized 9mm and none of them are as easy to shoot as a 9mm.

Because the “all things being equal” line comes up all the time, but rarely does it follow up with the reality that everything else isn’t equal. So when you put it all together, it’s really hard to make the case for anything other than 9.

Speer Gold Dot 9mm Luger 124 grain +P (part #23617). Works for me. It’s about as good as you’ll get, even if Tom Givens likes to jokingly refer to it as .38LR. 🙂

Now can we move on and talk about more important matters?