Guns

It may not be what you think

/ hsoi

Claude Werner relayed the following story on Facebook:

The Dangers of Intervention and Threat Management

I had a conversation today with a police officer friend of mine who recently had a sticky situation. It emphasized to me that things are often not what they seem and that our firearms are used much more often for threat management than for shooting.

Popo – I’m rolling on domestic call. I stop the car and it’s active, they’re knocking the shit out of each other. Male half gets out if the car screaming ‘she’s got a gun,’ he runs off. I pull my Beretta 92, start moving around so I can see her more clearly. It’s 0200, dimly lit area.

I see her in the passenger seat, hunched over, moving her right arm in a way that looks like someone running the slide on a pistol. I bring 92 the up, flip the decocker/safety off, start pressing the trigger with the front sight centered on her ear. I’m yelling at her to put her hands up.

The hammer is starting to move back when she sits back, puts her hands up and they’re covered in blood. She was sawing a hole in her wrist with the tip of a nail file.

I really think the safety plus a long trigger pull saved me from shooting her. I was positive she was trying to charge a pistol. I would have been screwed; bad shoot all day. Especially in this political environment.

CW – Did she have a gun at all? Do you think he was trying to get you to shoot her?

Popo – She never had a gun, I think he was trying to get me to kill her. She was transported to the ER for a psych evaluation due to her statements and cutting herself.

CW – That’s what it sounds like to me. “Homicide by cop.”

Popo – Yeah, I’ve been in a lot of close ones but that one made me lose sleep over what would have come next.

CW – What was the outcome with him?

Popo – he went (in) for felony domestic battery (due to her being pregnant). He also had warrants and cocaine in his pockets.

I’m more concerned with private citizen self-defense than police action, and the two do operate under different constraints and circumstances.

But what I primarily take from this is that the scene may not always be what you think it is.

I know a lot of people who consider themselves to be sheepdogs. So many people want to get involved, to be the hero. I hear this in conversations, I see it posted online all the time. I don’t fault people for having this attitude, and frankly I wish more people did have it because it shows a love and care for one’s fellow man. A willingness to be involved, to help others, to protect others. This is a good thing.

Alas, when shit’s unfolding, our heart is pounding, our mind is racing, and everything is zooming past… can we adequately assess a situation?

A common scenario I like to throw out is that you roll up to the local stop-and-rob, and as you step up to the doors someone runs out followed immediately by a second person. This second person points towards the first, yells something like “he just robbed the place!” then runs off in the opposite direction.

What do you do? What is your assessment of the situation?

And does it occur to you first guy might be totally innocent guy trying to distance himself from the situation, and it was really second guy that robbed the place and was merely distracting you so he could get away?

Or, maybe the first guy was the robber.

How can you know for sure?

What if you were in a park and saw someone mounted atop another, giving him the old ground and pound? Should you stop the guy on top? What if I told you he was a father that just stopped his child’s (attempted) abductor, and he was dishing out a little fatherly justice? Would you stop him now?

I’m not saying what you should or shouldn’t do in these particular situations, merely trying to point out that your first impression may be a wrong impression. Or it may be a correct one. You cannot know, and you cannot get involved unless you do know, else you open yourself up for a lot of risk and liability.

Yes, we can get back to premises such as beer & tv or merely “is it worth dying for?”. Is getting involved in someone else’s problems going to lead to good things or bad things, and you really need to consider the complete and mundane impacts it will have upon your life (every day for its remainder). And unfortunately taking such attitudes tends to run counter to a hero mindset, because now you are being selfish and choosing to not get involved. But is this really a bad thing? or is it about finding a balance between getting involved when you know you should, and staying out when you know you shouldn’t.

 

AAR – KR Training, BP2 / DLG-E, 2013-08-10

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Had a Basic Pistol 2 and Defensive Long Gun: Essentials class this past Saturday. Classes were mostly full, some no-shows for some reason. And we were down one assistant instructor due to sudden illness. But apart from the oppressive heat, everything went pretty well.

Basic Pistol 2 was like most, with students getting used to the notion of shooting “faster”. But it’s not just actually going faster, but learning to be more efficient and simultaneous in our actions (see here). It’s a paradigm shift for sure, but an important one.

Another fun thing that came up was grip. And in short, grip harder. Whatever you’re doing with your grip, grip harder. And yes, it will be a workout, and yes you will get tired. Still, grip harder. Get stronger, build the endurance. It will only help. And those grippers? Captains of Crush.

This was the first DLG-E I helped with. I’ve been wanting to be a part of that class for some time, but schedule just hasn’t worked out. I like working with the shotgun folk because they don’t get a lot of love. 🙂 Plus, I like bringing out my “grandpa gun” — all those black guns, and there’s my wood-stocked gun. 🙂  A few reminders for folks there.

First, for everyone, if you can make your stock shorter, try that. We get comfortable with longer stocks and a shorter stock thus a shorter length-of-pull feels weird. And yes, too short and  you might end up kissing the gun. But try just going a notch or two shorter and see what it does for you.  The issue here is going from something like the high ready to shouldering the gun. If you have to push the gun out then pull it back into your shoulder, that’s wasted movement, that’s inefficient. You should be able to hold the gun in the high-ready position, then just snap it up into your shoulder. A short stock helps with that. So if your stock is adjustable, try shortening it and see what that does for you. Go as short as you can and find how short you can get it before it becomes a problem (e.g. you end up kissing the gun). Plus, a shorter overall gun length helps maneuverability, manipulations, etc., which can matter more inside a building (house) than outside where walls don’t get in your way.

This is one reason I like my wood-stock shotgun: was able to saw and size it precisely to fit me.  I’ve bought the synthetic shorter stocks, and they are still either too long or too short.

Second, for pump-shotgun folks, remember that the firing sequence is the “Tom Givens Waltz”: boom-chunk-chunk. You fire, then you must rack it, and THEN you are done with that shot and ready for the next. It’s not boom… and now wait, then chunk-chunk and boom. Be ready to go.

So on that note, third, when reloading, keep the gun loaded and ready to go. If there isn’t one in the chamber, getting one in the chamber is your first order of business. Then keep the gun in a firing position (e.g. holding/supporting with your firing hand), and feed the magazine from there. The point is, in a gunfight you don’t really have control over when you will need to “go”, so you need to keep the gun running and ready as much as possible. If nothing is in the chamber, you’re behind the curve. Get something in there first and be ready, because then you’ve at least got 1. Then if you keep the gun in a ready “firing” position, it’s not as much of a fumble and fiddle to get back into the fight, even if the gun gets only partially reloaded. You just have to remember we’re working with a limited-capacity firearm and one that’s slower to reload (vs. something magazine fed), so it’s important to keep it fed and running at all times.

Classes overall ran well. Good group of students. Only downside was the oppressive heat. Such is Texas in the middle of August. 🙂

This is why we can’t have discussions

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Marc MacYoung posted the following on Facebook:

Conflict and violence are very human behaviors. They serve a very important survival and social purpose.

Having said that we’ve kind of put ourselves into a self-eating watermelon situation about them because we’ve allowed our understanding of the subject to be controlled by an extremist ideological position.

There’s an old joke with the punchline ‘We’ve already established that. Now we’re negotiating the price.” That ‘negotiation’ is critical when we look at conflict and violence. Where do we set the line as to how much (and when is it) is acceptable?

This is where we need to recognize the extremists. Specifically those who think violence is always the answer to any problem on one side. But the other extremist position are those who maintain ‘violence never solved anything.’ The first are obvious, the second, not so much. But it is an extremist position.

If you ask the right questions, you’ll find that yeah, overwhelmingly people acknowledge there are times that violence IS the appropriate answer. And ‘now we’re negotiating the price.’ Where are those lines? When is it appropriate? When is it not appropriate and to what degree? These are all damned good questions that we need to hash out among ourselves.

Personally I come from a place where that bar is set pretty damned low. Having said that, I like living in places where the bar is set high. But this experience gives me an understanding that people will have different standards of where that bar should be set.

This includes an important understanding, that is ‘no matter what your use of force’ decision, someone is going to disagree with it.

Now being a cynical bastard I will often point out that the people who tend to disagree most strongly are the ones who didn’t get what they wanted because you chose to act. Those folks seem to take the approach that any level of force beyond which they are comfortable using to get what they want is ‘violence’ — and therefore bad (especially when it is used against them). But what they’re doing isn’t violent and therefore they don’t deserve to have violence used against them. This especially because it hurts their feelings.

That last paragraph may seem like a rant from left field — and maybe it is — but it is also common theme among the extremists who maintain that violence never solved anything. Or, and this is another weird form of mental gymnastics, physical violence is always bad and wrong. Hence anyone who uses it is also bad and wrong. And while we’re at it, if you agree that sometimes violence is the appropriate response then you’re …

Yeah, that’s a good way to encourage mature discussion, understanding, education and coming up with effective coping mechanisms to deal with conflict and violence.

The problem with the extremist position isn’t that it exists, it’s that they won’t shut up about it. In doing so they don’t allow other people to have different points of view and, by extension, a discussion. They will constantly attempt to control the conversation or — if they can’t do that — shut it down with outbursts about how violence is wrong and evil, should not be tolerated and how society must change.

Uh actually that’s what we’re trying to do by ‘negotiating the price’ and gaining a fuller understanding of the subject than ‘it’s evil and wrong.’

Oh you want society to change in particular waaaaaaay…

He’s quite right… we are negotiating on price.

I used to hold onto the notion of violence never being an answer. For anyone that reads even a bit of my writing, you should know I no longer hold that position. I believe that violence can be an answer, and sometimes it is the right and only answer. Case in point, if a woman is being raped, should she not respond with violence? Isn’t a kick to the groin, a palm strike to the nose, thumbs to the eyes, pepper spray, kicking, biting, screaming…. fighting (back). Is this not violence? Is this not a violent response? Is this not an aggressive action? Think about it for a moment. If violence is never the answer, then what other recourse does this rape victim have? lie back and enjoy it?  Because even responses like to vomit or pee on your rapist are arguably a violent response, if perhaps just on the lower end of the scale. If you truly stand by the notion that “violence is never the answer”, then you are damning women to being raped. However, I don’t think this is what you mean, nor what you want.

So in fact, if you think about it hard enough and if you’re honest with yourself, you do accept that violence can be an answer and that sometimes it is the right and only answer. As Marc says, we’re just negotiating price.

Pay heed to the latter point Marc is making. If you really are an open-minded person, you’ll shut up and listen. You will earnestly allow for the possibility that you could be persuaded, even if it means giving up all you know and have built for yourself, if in fact Truth shows you were wrong and “the other way” is right. If you are unwilling to admit you could be wrong, if you are unwilling to give it all up, then it becomes rather difficult – and perhaps pointless – to have any discussion, because you don’t want to discuss, you just want to be right.

Alas, today more people are interested in being right than in finding truth.

But he was unarmed!

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

There are those that make great effort to point out how someone was “unarmed” when they were shot/killed.

This is typically done in an attempt to make a case of wrongful force disparity. That is, if A has a gun and B has only hands, then A is automatically at the advantage, B automatically at the disadvantage, and thus it’s wrong for A to use the gun to stop B because B was “unarmed”.

This isn’t dueling.

There aren’t any gentlemanly rules.

This isn’t sport where we strive to contrive an environment of “equal footing” and a “level playing field”.

This also isn’t necessarily murder or some other accusation you wish to cast upon A merely because A had a gun and B didn’t (blanket statement; each particular case should be examined on its own circumstances, data, and merit).

What this is is a failure to understand what sort of damage an “unarmed” person can do.

Tim has written a good article explaining the sort of damage an unarmed person can do. It has pictures and video to demonstrate.

Being “armed” or “unarmed” does not correlate to the level of danger one can pose to others. There are folks that are armed and not dangerous, and there are those that are unarmed and quite dangerous. We should not assume that having a gun means one is dangerous and not having a gun means one is harmless. Issues of use of force, force disparity, and self-defense are more complex than media hysterics and ignorant Facebook posts make it out to be.

Science!

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Step off your political soapbox and put on your scientist lab coat. Here’s a lesson in cavitation physics, courtesy of slow-motion photography, a swimming poll, and an AK-47.

(h/t Shawn)

Yeah, the oscillation bubble was really cool.

Do you have ownership over yourself?

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

Do you own yourself? Do you have ultimate dominion over yourself, your body, your mind?

Or does someone else, like the state?

An interesting question put forth by Nico Perrino

Do you own yourself?

It seems like a simple question, doesn’t it? Not so, apparently. It has always been my belief that I own myself. That the individual is sovereign. That my body and mind is a ship that only I can captain, that only I can steer. This is one truism that I have always taken for granted. Call me naïve, but I didn’t think many people thought otherwise because to do so would be to admit to a state of enslavement.

Thinking about it, I guess I figured I always had ownership over myself. I cannot fathom it otherwise, that someone else could own me. I mean, ever since my childhood exposure to “Free to Be… You and Me” I thought we had that sort of freedom, right? OK, maybe my Mom has some right and dominion over me, but Mom’s get special dispensation here. 🙂  And even tho I take others into deep consideration, like Wife, ultimately I still own me, I still control me.

Right?

I mean, if it’s “my body, my choice”, doesn’t that imply one has ownership over themselves? That they do not want the State to interfere and control them? That you do not want the State to interfere with, control, dictate, harm, you?

From that, doesn’t it also flow that then you must take responsiblity for yourself? That you cannot, should not, and/or are unwilling to delegate ownership, control, and responsibility for yourself and your life to someone else, like the State?

The cognitive dissonance I’m experiencing here is saying it’s my body, it’s my choice, that on the one hand one doesn’t want the State involved in my life and controlling me, telling me what I can and cannot do. But then on the other hand, demanding the State control me and alleviate me of being responsible for myself, and telling me what I must do. Look around at the mainstream political issues going on right now, be it abortion, birth-control, self-defense, health care, whatever. Doesn’t matter what mainstream media, talking head, or politician we look at, because just about all are guilty of this behavior in some manner or other.

I don’t get it.

But this seems to be a common affliction these days, of wanting things that we perceive will achieve our desired end, even if the means conflict, even if the means are inconsistent, even if the means are hypocritical. But in many regards, it comes back to one issue:

A desire to alleviate the need to be responsible for yourself and your actions.

We want the good and not the bad. We want the benefits and not the cost. We want the glory but not the sacrifice. And if someone has to pay, you will pay for me.

And are you willing to give up your ownership over yourself to get there? I’m not, but apparently many are. Worse, they want to force me to do the same.

Wither society.

Plastic pocket holster

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

How to make a plastic pocket holster…. out of a milk jug.

From Claude Werner (h/t to Greg Ellfritz)

I’m not saying this is the right and best way to do things, but it’s something to keep in mind, because certainly this could be useful.

(and please, don’t show up to class with one of these).

It’s OK to make mistakes

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I spend time in a classroom, as a teacher. It’s not any sort of classroom, but a classroom full of intensity and pressure. It’s a pressure where people understand they are learning life-saving skills, and failure to master those skills could lead to their own death or the death of others, and mastery could save lives. Consequently, students tend to get pretty hard on themselves when they make mistakes.

Please stop.

You are human.

You will make mistakes.

You will fail, perhaps many times, before you succeed.

You are a student. You are in class. You are admitting you don’t know something, that you aren’t good at something. But by paying the money and spending the time, you are demonstrating your willingness to overcome, to fill that void, to improve yourself.

Don’t be so hard on yourself.

Some months ago while participating as a student in a class, I watched a gentleman fail and make mistakes. This guy is smart, very capable, and a master of certain realms in his own right. But here he was, admitting his lack of knowledge, remedying his void, and being humble in his learning. He didn’t cuss himself out when he failed. He didn’t get angry about his inability. He chalked it up, learned from it, and moved on. He’s traveled the road to success, and he knows that mistakes and failure is just part of the process. Just be willing to ultimately learn and grow from those mistakes.

Every so often I see students getting so hard on themselves when they don’t do something right. While it is understandable, it begins a descent into a hole that’s hard to emerge from. If it isn’t stopped, it makes the problem worse because now the student gets so focused on the mistakes and the act of “not making mistakes” when instead they should be focused on the class material. Where you focus is where you will improve; if your brain is thinking “don’t screw up”, then your brain is focused on “screwing up” and that’s what you will do. And things will snowball downward.

Acknowledge it’s OK to make mistakes. Acknowledge it’s acceptable to not grasp the concept quite yet or at the same rate as the other students. If you’re struggling, tell an instructor and ask for help. You may even find an extreme remedy is necessary like dropping out of the class and stepping back to another class that might focus more on what you need; build the stronger foundation. That’s OK, if ultimately it gets you where you need to be. That’s the thing to focus on: where you want to be. Focusing on your mistakes won’t take you to where you want to be. Learn from the mistake, and move on — that will get you there.

Framing the debate

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

There is no question that how one frames and presents things affects the tone and tenor of any debate or discussion. But sometimes we must step back and decide if the choice of words properly reflects and is guiding the debate in the desired direction.

“Gun control”. This tends to be the phrase bandied about, and there’s no question the use of those 2 words sets the tone of the discussion.

Some months ago I came across this article. The author writes:

Calling the debate “gun control” presupposes that there will be control — i.e., that government control over guns is the end, rather than the means. The only question remaining in such a debate is how much control the government will ultimately exert over citizens’ guns.

Most people, though, if they thought about it, would say that what they’re really aiming for is “violence minimization.” If one properly identifies minimizing violence as the goal, the debate changes dramatically. It forces those participating in the debate to ask, not “how many guns can we take away or how many magazines can we limit?” but, instead, “what approach results in the fewest number of gun deaths or overall violence?”.

When I speak with most people on these issues, I dig a little into their true intentions and most in fact are desiring to minimize violence and “senseless death”. Of course, they still tend to believe that banning guns would help achieve that end, but there’s data to support otherwise. The discussion continues.

But really, if the discussion is going to continue, we should strive to continue it towards the truly desired end. I mean, if what you’re truly interested in is minimization of violence, then let’s frame the discussion as such. There’s so much talk about “finding common ground”, I dare say you’ll find more on this discussion.

Of course, if you choose to keep the discussion about “gun control”, then perhaps that’s really what you are after. If so that’s fine, just be honest about it and stop hiding behind the children.

Denying the vulnerable

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Would you deny a woman the ability to protect herself from rape?

How about a pregant woman? Or an elderly woman? People who are more vulnerable than your average woman.

For all you women-empowerment types, that want to “stand by women”, and “girl power” and all that. You want to empower women, right? You want women to be able to stand on equal (or greater) ground than men, right?

Why would you deny her the best means of equalizing force?

Oleg Volk writes:

Opponents of firearms for effective self-defense tell others to run away from danger, to learn martial arts, or to “give the bad guy what he wants”. Not everyone can follow that advice…in fact, almost no one can. Least of all, the kind of people who are visibly vulnerable already, such as pregnant women or the elderly.

Ashley is a beautiful woman. She is currently three weeks away from delivering a child and one of the most fit looking expecting mothers I’ve seen. However fit and athletic she is, has little capability for hand-to-hand combat. It’s difficult to fight while carrying a heavy, fragile load within your own body.

Why might a woman like her have to fight? Pregnant women are easy prey for both human criminals and animal predators, especially dogs. They can’t fight effectively, nor can they flee quickly. Look up news headlines in your area and you will see examples of both kinds of attacks. Some women also face a threat from the future father who is not happy about having to support an unwanted child.

Indeed. People tend to get caught up in headlines and drama, instead of looking at the hard facts of reality. They tend to look at themselves or someone like them in a situation, not always considering there are those more vulnerable than they that may have needs greater than their own.

Those who oppose armed self-defense won’t be happy. Even though pregnant women are almost unknown to become violent criminals, the prohibitionists are against anyone other than the special people — the high-ranking politicians — having the benefit of effective protection. But they shouldn’t dictate how the rest of us take care of our own lives.