Guns

Problems, and Solutions

/ hsoi

This person looked at me for a moment and with a bit of exasperation and said, “Violence is never the answer! It never will be and we must stop violence throughout our society!” I looked at this person for a moment and said, “You know, you are right…violence is never the answer to society’s problems. But, unfortunately, all to often, it is the only solution.”

– Dave Spaulding (emphasis added)

A good way to phrase it.

The above was the ending of an anecdote from Dave Spaulding. He was telling of a conversation he had with a person, that upon finding out what he did for a living began to chastise him saying how what he does promote violence, and because people receive this sort of training they are more apt to resort to violence as a solution instead of non-violent solutions.

It’s probably safe to assume this person has no experience in such training. Never took a class, sat in on a class, or has any idea what goes on in such classes. So I’m not sure how this person can speak with such authority about what goes on with that training. Speaking as a professional trainer, I can tell you that certainly there is emphasis on firearm handling skills, but there’s also a great deal of emphasis on seeking alternatives. It is preferred to not resort to violence, because violence is costly. There’s a great deal of teaching about non-violent resolution, including walking away or even avoiding the situation in the first place. Look at trainers like SouthNarc and his Managing Unknown Contacts work. Look at Massad Ayoob and his MAG-20. Texas CHL curriculum is required to teach non-violent resolution techniques. But the difference is we accept that sometimes violence is the only solution.

Prior to the above, Dave wrote:

Knowing this person had never faced a violent situation in their lives and would have no concept of what fear does to a person I responded, “What would such a non-violent solution look like?” I was told, “I don’t know, but it would not result in a death.” “Whose death are we talking about here?” I said, ” You see, the person attacking you has already made up their mind to hurt or kill you…you can’t reason with them as they do not think like you do. The biggest mistake anyone can make is to apply how we think about a particular situation and apply it to a predator. The death you are referring to could be yours.”

This is what people often overlook or don’t even consider: it could mean their death. That yes, you are a reasonable person, but this other person — by virtue of attacking you — has already demonstrated they are unreasonable. Read this recent story for a perfect example of how random acts of violence occur, how they are performed by unreasonable persons, and how if not for a lot of luck and a will to fight and win, this person wouldn’t be alive to recount his grave error.

So what would you do?

If your answer is “I don’t know”, that’s not good for you. Think about every other aspect of life, every other thing you do from your family to your job to even your hobbies. You prepare. The better prepared you are in advance, the better you can handle the situation when it unfolds. Are you going to get up and give a speech, cold, to a room full of people? Or would you prefer to know your topic ahead of time, gather some notes, and practice a few times? Well, now you have a response should someone ask you to stand up and say a few words. But if you were asked cold and could only muster an “I don’t know”, how well do you think you’ll fare on the spot? Can you see how “I don’t know” isn’t going to serve you well?

Violence unfolds very suddenly and quickly. When recounting a violent encounter, so many victims start out with “I never saw them” or “They came out of nowhere”. It takes you by surprise. It’s sudden, swift, and you can only react. Why do so many people freeze when bad things happen? Because they have no response and their brains are frantically searching for a response; meantime, time — and the attack — continue forward, the situation ever-changing, and your brain having to reset its OODA loop constantly as it searches for a new response to the new situation. You will be perpetually behind the curve, and will suffer for it. If you prepare beforehand, you’ll be better off. This holds true for everything in life.

And yes, if your preparation is for a non-violent type of response, that’s fine — at least you prepared. But now take a step back and honestly assess the effectiveness of your non-violent solution. Place yourself in the above story and honestly assess if your solution would have been effective. And yes, you have to honestly examine this and not look to self-justify or make excuses, because this is your life at stake. If your solution works, great! Share it with us to help everyone learn solid solutions. Let the solution be vetted in the labs and field to see if it actually works out. Don’t be afraid to contribute, because we all want the same thing: to live peaceful lives. The more we can do to achieve it by less costly means, the better.

In the meantime, remember what Dave said: “You are right…violence is never the answer to society’s problems. But, unfortunately, all to often, it is the only solution.”

One Inch Tall

/ hsoi

If you were only one inch tall, you’d walk beneath the door,
And it would take about a month to get down to the store.
A bit of fluff would be your bed,
You’d swing upon a spider’s thread,
And wear a thimble on your head
If you were one inch tall.

– excerpt from Shel Silverstein’s “One Inch Tall“

I’d add to that: you can be a legal sign, if your lettering is at least one inch tall.

I’m referring to Texas Penal Code – Section 30.06. Trespass By Holder Of License To Carry Concealed Handgun. Specifically paragraph 3.c, about “written communication”. Where on B.ii it says

appears in contrasting colors with block letters at least one inch in height

So yes. According to statue, any sort of written communication given under this notice must have contrasting colored block lettering at least one inch in height. If it doesn’t have that, it’s not a legal sign.

And so, there are people that carry on with rulers or other means of easy estimation (e.g. comparing to the size of a coin or a dollar bill that they have measured and is of known height), go up to the sign, measure the lettering, and if it’s not at least 1.01″ tall, self-declare it an illegal sign and walk on by.

Fair enough, I guess.

Here’s the thing.

You can still be arrested. If not for this, maybe trespassing. There’s always the good-old catch-all “disorderly conduct” (and remember how DC affects your ability to have a CHL). Who knows, and does it matter? Because now you’re arrested, which means lost time out of work, family, and life in general. It could mean lost wages or a lost job. Then you have to deal with going to court, paying for a lawyer. And even if you are able to use “not a legal sign” effectively as a defense, how much did it cost you to achieve that? Is it really worth it?

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. That’s your own decision to make.

As far as I know, “valid signage” has yet to be tested in the Texas court system. Me personally? I don’t care to set the precedent.

You saw the sign, you understood the sign (that’s clear from your reaction of pulling out a ruler). Doesn’t matter if it’s the issue of letter height, font, colors, language, or whatever other nitpicky detail out of §30.06 you wish to take umbrage with.  Consider the intent of the sign, even if it’s a simple “no guns” sign or other statement of “we don’t like guns” policy. Vote with your wallet and take your money elsewhere.

(Of course this also shows the lengths law-abiding citizens are willing to go through to ensure they can both obey the law and still “feel safe”, because isn’t “feeling safe” what everyone is on about?. When was the last time a gang member, murder, deranged school shooter, or other such degenerate took such care about the details of the law?)

There’s a new range in town…

/ hsoi

Live in the Austin, Texas area?

There’s a new indoor gun range that recently opened up in Cedar Park called the Shady Oaks Gun Range.

I haven’t been there yet, but will soon. Check out their Education & Training page.

The facility has potential, so we’ll see how it pans out in time.

Homicide Trends

/ hsoi

The following information comes from Tom Givens. It’s a copy/paste (with minor edits only for formatting/posting). Take it for what it’s worth.

Homicide Trends

The US Department of Justice gathers and reports information on a number of crime classifications from all over the United States. They recently released a huge amount of data on homicides occurring during the time period 1976-2005. This is a 29 year period, so there was a lot of data to examine. Here are a few tidbits from that information.

Males are almost four times as likely to be murdered as females. Males are also far more likely to be the offender.

Among male victims, they were killed by:

  • Spouse, ex-spouse, or girlfriend 5%
  • Other family member 6.8%
  • Acquaintance/known person 35.3%
  • Stanger or unknown killer 52.9%

Among female victims, they were killed by:

  • Spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend 30%
  • Other family member 11.8%
  • Acquaintance/ known person 21.8%
  • Stranger/unknown 36.3%

Cases involving:

  • male offender/ male victim 65.3%
  • male offender/female victim 22.7%
  • female offender/male victim 9.6%
  • female offender/female victim 2.4%

Age of victims:

  • Under 18 9.8%
  • 18-34 52.7%
  • 35-49 22.8%
  • 50+ 14.7%

Circumstances of murder, 2005 only:

  • Felony murder* 2,432 15%
  • Argument 4,787
  • Gang related 955 5.7%
  • Other ** 2,223
  • Unknown ** 6,295

Felony murder is a murder committed during the commission of some other felony, such as armed robbery, car-jacking, rape, etc. “Other” and “Unknown” accounted for 51% of all homicides. “Other”, “Unknown” and “Felony Murder” together comprised 66% (2 out of 3) of these homicides. These are the ones we go armed to prevent.

Please note that gang related murders were the smallest percentage. The common notion that most murders are gang members killing each other is nonsense.

A couple of other quick facts:
Each year about 4,400 unidentified human bodies are recovered in the US. About 1,000 remain unidentified after one year. At any given time, there are approximately 100,000 active missing person cases in the US. Many of these are soon found, as they are voluntary disappearances due to marital discord, domestic violence, credit issues, etc. However, several thousand each year disappear without a trace and are never seen again. Obviously, these are undetected homicides that add to the data detailed above.

Other Violent Crime
These figures are also from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a branch of the US Department of Justice. These deal specifically with 2006.

Total Violent Crime Incidents for 2006 = 5,685,620 (1 for every 54 people)

A common fallacy is that this violent crime takes place in the wee hours, after midnight. Wrong!

  • 6 am-6 pm 52.4%
  • 6 pm-midnight 32.8%
  • midnight-6 am 10.9%

Robbery = 645,950 with injury to the victim= 232,380

Rape = 255,630 Victim’s advocacy groups believe about 1 rape out of every 6 is reported to the police. Do the math.

Aggravated Assault = 1,209,730 (an assault involving a deadly weapon and/or serious bodily injury to the victim) Many Aggravated Assault victims are permanently disabled, have to have multiple surgeries, or are permanently disfigured, they just didn’t die and become homicides.

Failing at advocacy – You’re not helping

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Yes, it’s perfectly legal in many states. So is staring at a woman’s cleavage and making comments about it. Yet it’s bad form to do both.

– Paul Martin

So the latest “gun rights” ruckus is a group in Texas did an “open carry” meeting at a Chipotle restaurant. And everyone’s got their panties in a wad about it, on all sides of the issue.

Chipotle is asking people to not do this (full statement in this article). While parts of the statement do sound like they “personally” are anti-gun (given their choice of words and phrasing), in the end it seems they ultimately want to stay out of this political issue and want to just focus on selling burritos. I can’t say I blame them, and frankly that’s probably the best stance they can take on this issue.

So please, open carry folks, stop it.

Look I get it. You want to normalize open carry. If we keep it under wraps, how will it ever be normal? Frequently it’s compared to bigotry against blacks or Jews or homosexuals — if you keep it hidden, if you never allow it to just integrate and be part of everyone’s daily life, how will it ever become normal? I get it.

Here’s the problem.

Pro-gun people will see you, nod and smile and move on; but these aren’t the people you’re trying to convince. There will be strong anti-gun people that you will never win over (just like there will always be racists and homophobes that will never be convinced otherwise); so don’t worry about them too much. So who is there to convince? The people in the middle.

Alas, the primary message the people in the middle receive is that “guns are bad”. You know it, I know it. Part of why you’re doing what you’re doing is precisely to counter the notion of “guns are bad”; you’re trying to show people that “guns are normal”. So you KNOW “bad” is the primary message being broadcast and received. It’s because that’s how guns are portrayed in the mainstream media, and thus it’s the dominant message received by the eyes and ears of the masses.

How does you sitting in a restaurant with a rifle on your back convince people that such behavior is normal? Remember, a person defines normal as “what I do/say/believe”, and since they don’t sit around with guns on their backs hanging out with other people who have guns on their backs, therefore what you are doing isn’t “normal” (in their eyes). They don’t know you, if you really are a good person or not, if you’re normal, if you’re trustworthy. And throw in their (irrational) fear of guns, and you’ve made a horrible first impression. And yes, it’s irrational, but the present zeitgeist has made everyone afraid of and skeptical of everything, from the food we eat to the air we breathe to the people we interact with. If people are going to be operating from such an initial state, how do you think they are going to perceive you? Why are you acting surprised that  people (the “sheep”, the “grasseaters”), are scared of you?

How does this win anyone over to the cause?

How is this good advocacy?

You have to stop thinking about the message you think you’re sending, and start thinking about the message being received. If you want to show people that gun owners are normal, then act normal — or perhaps more importantly, act in a way that others perceive is normal.

What do normal people do when they want to convince someone of a position? They engage them and talk with them in a comfortable manner. If Jane Soccermom sees a big scary guy with a big scary rifle, do you really think she’s going to allow you to walk up to her and engage her in a dialogue? I know, it’s not fair, it’s not right to judge people by the way they look, but it’s how our monkey-brains work, so get over it and learn to use it to your advantage instead of having it perpetually work against you. Again, the message you are sending is failing because the message received is NOT the message you intended to send.

If a co-worker expresses something about guns, don’t get in an impassioned battle with them to shut them down and prove them wrong. Instead, just talk with them — or more importantly, listen to them. Address and validate their concerns. It’s not a time to push agenda, but to listen and understand their point of view. If you can, invite them to the gun range some time to shoot a gun (and make it reasonable, like an outdoor range shooting a .22 at a bullseye paper target; and make it fun).

Look, if Ted Nugent can help Anthony Bourdain gain understanding, then you can too. But until people can see things like Bourdain sees them, they’re going to see them as they see it — and you with an AR strapped to your back looks not-normal, and will only serve to make them think that Bloomberg and Erika Soto Lamb and their ilk are actually right and rational.

The next big “gun rights” issue here in Texas is precisely open carry. If we want to win on this, we need to proceed in a manner most likely to garner positive public support. Because despite what Chipotle thinks, it’s the role of the people — not elected officials — to set policy in this area. So let’s work to win the minds of the people by helping them understand. Help them see what is normal by acting normal. And most of all: stop focusing on the message you are trying to send and instead focus on the message being received. When the message being received is the message you’re trying to send, then you’ve succeeded — until then, you’re not helping.

Updated: Even Linoge, one of the biggest open carry supporters I know, agrees. You’re not helping.

Minimum Competency for Defensive Pistol – Revisited Again

/ hsoi

I just re-read an article from Claude Werner on “Practice priorities for the Armed Citizen“. (h/t Greg Ellifritz). As I was reading it, it reminded me of my article series on “Minimum Competency for Defensive Pistol“. I did revisit the series a few months back, but Claude’s article gave me a few more things to think about, and perhaps revise/refine in my suggestions for practice and skills progression.

Claude speaks about a progression, a “where do I go from here?” sort of thing. Claude offers his own suggestions, like the NRA Defensive Pistol Qualification. But what really got me was pointing out a key problem most people have when it comes to live fire practice:

Most people have to limit their livefire practice to indoor ranges where drawing from the holster is not allowed. This presents an issue to those who carry pistol in holsters. There are solutions, though.

Indeed this is a problem. I’ve gotten quite spoiled at KR Training and with the host of good ranges around Austin where you can do things like practice drawing from a holster. Of course, there are still those people that go to one of the local indoor ranges that have these restrictions, and of course others around the country tend to have these restrictions as well. I overlooked that reality. Claude offers:

Like many of my colleagues, for a long time I said the hard part of the drawstroke is establishing grip. I’ve changed my opinion on that. The hard part of the drawstroke is getting the pistol indexed on the target enough to get a good hit with the first shot. John Shaw, a World Champion shooter, clued me in to this many years ago. Note that I didn’t say a ‘perfect’ hit.

Indexing the pistol to the target (presentation) is easily practiced from a high ready position starting at the pectoral muscle of the body’s dominant side. Starting this way is not generally a problem at an indoor range. And since I recommend practicing one shot per presentation, the ‘no rapid fire’ limitation at many indoor ranges isn’t an issue either.

This is one of those smack your head because you wish you could have had a V-8 sort of moments. What Claude writes is so true. The press-out, the presentation, whatever you want to call it, it’s the hardest part and such a vital skill. When you draw? You then must press-out. After a reload? You must press out. Clear a malfunction? You must press out. The press out is such a vital skill (it’s a key thing stressed in so many of the KR Training courses). And yes, you can practice this at the indoor ranges. You can start from that high, compressed ready position (step 3 of the 4-step drawstroke), and press out and break one shot. While you might end up eventually moving fast in doing this, your single-shots will still be “slow” relative to each other (i.e. you’re not double-tapping) and thus no range rules broken. So so so true, and so important.

Thank you Claude for my “V-8 moment”. Regardless if you take a progression like Claude recommends or I recommend, the underlying issue remains the same: that you’ll use some particular course of fire (e.g. TX CHL test), assess your skills, then focus on improving the areas you identified as weak. For example, my last live-fire practice session I shot numerous drills not so much to shoot the drills (i.e. throw lead in a semi-organized manner), but to exercise the fundamental skills I consider important and identify what I was doing well and what I needed work on. I saw I needed to move faster, and doing a lot of one-shot draws are in my future. So yes, working that press-out is in my future.

Another thing Claude touched on.

…to get a good hit with the first shot…. Note that I didn’t say a ‘perfect’ hit.

Also:

What I like about it most is that it is a 100 percent standard, not 70 or 80 percent like a qualification course. We need to accustom ourselves to the concept that if we shoot at a criminal, ALL the rounds we fire must hit the target. That’s being responsible.

These remind me of my concept of “(un)acceptable hit“. I just prefer that phrasing over “good hit” or “miss”, because like Claude said, it’s not necessarily a “perfect” hit. It’s also understanding that all the rounds must hit what we need it to hit; we must make acceptable hits.

Thanx, Claude!

Shootin’ practice

/ hsoi / 15 Comments

Got to do some live fire practice.

It was telling. sigh

Started with the Farnam Drill, cold. Whoa, I’ve gotten slow. My accuracy was spot on, but I was just too damn slow. As well, the auto-forward “feature” of the M&P continues to irritate me. I opted to just let it go, then the gun proceeded to go “click” because it didn’t put one in the chamber. Sorry, but this is not a feature unless it’s 100% reliable, and it’s not. I actually had a serious thought about switching to a Glock 19 and being done with it. Seriously.

Ran Karl’s current version of “3 Seconds or Less“. Was doing great until I pulled the one-handed shots. Dang it.

Shot the first stage of the IDPA Classifier. That went alright. My transitions were, you guessed it, slow. Slow was the theme of the day. I got better tho. Certainly was much faster here than I was when I started.

So I wound up shooting a bunch of Bill Drills at 3 and 7 yards. My goal was to just push myself and watch the front sight bounce. I wanted to get faster, push myself faster faster faster. I was hitting .33 or so splits at 7 yards (ugh) but had a really good cadence and all A-zone hits. I pushed myself and got down to .25 splits, with good cadence and all A-zone hits. See? That’s what I needed. I also started around like a 2 second concealment draw and got down to like a 1.5 concealment and a 1.3 open carry draw.

Finished up with some slow-fire group shooting.

A lot came down to some simple things:

  1. Just go faster, damnit. I can go faster, it’s not above the speed I can go. But I’ve always been a “mosey” kind of guy, and I just need to go faster. This is mostly about just physically being faster (i.e. sprint, don’t mosey). But it’s also mental: to let/allow myself go faster. To push myself faster because….
  2. No matter how much I know better, my brain still wants to see more than it needs to, in terms of sight picture. That’s part of why the Bill Drills — just shoot and observe, let the brain and eyes just see what’s there and accept “this is as much as you need”. I get acceptable hits, so I just have to keep trusting myself. I think dry fire is actually backfiring on me in this regard, because there everything winds up being “perfect” and you don’t get the feedback of where the shot actually went.
  3. Grip the hell out of the gun and keep focused on that front sight. That last Bill Drill was more of a complete mag dump – 17 rounds, and I just clamped down and kept focused on the front sight. When it was where it needed to be, pressed the trigger. That .25 split was pretty constant through the entire run.

Anyways, things to really work on:

  • One shot draws. This will help me move, get on the gun, get it out, get it to the target quickly, and press off a smooth shot. Call the shot, allow the sight alignment to be acceptable enough for the distance. In fact, if there’s any one thing I work on in dry practice, it should probably be this. Work to consistently hit at least a 1.5 second par time, from concealment.
  • One-handed shooting. I haven’t done much on this in a while, and obviously have regressed.
  • Set up multiple dry targets and work on transitions. Again, speed.
  • Working on reloads wouldn’t be bad either. Again, speed.

There are other things I can do, but that will keep me for a while.

KR Training – 2014-05-10 – BP2/DPS1 Quick Hits

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

It’s tough to beat those days when you help people become more able, more confident in themselves, to overcome sticking-points in their lives. It’s really cool to watch it unfold. Student comes to class, starts out rather unsure of themselves, then are rockin’ it and giddy-thrilled after a few hours of hard work.

Had one of those days this past Saturday at KR Training. We had a Basic Pistol 2 (which is being evolved into “Defensive Pistol Essentials”) and a Defensive Pistol Skills 1. People of varying backgrounds and demographics, some came for one class, but many stayed for both. The weather was great, tho certainly we can tell we’re creeping into summertime.

Drink water. Wear sunscreen.

A few points for those in class (and to anyone willing to read this):

  • Marksmanship still matters. Yes, classes like this introduce you to the concept that time matters, speed matters — you don’t have all day to get comfortable and peel off a shot whenever you feel ready and able. But the fastest miss matters not. You must work to get acceptable hits.
    • At this stage if you need to slow down to ensure acceptable hits, then do so. Speed will come.
    • On the same token, some of you are making such tight groups that you can afford to speed up little more. It’s OK to let those groups open up a bit, as long as they remain in the target area (e.g. that 6″ circle). Speed up 10% over what you’re doing now, then work to get the groups back down in size at that increased speed. Repeat until you’re acceptably both fast and accurate.
  • Work on the simultaneous motion: pressing gun out, pressing trigger in. This is how you can “go faster without going faster“.
  • Trigger press (control) is vital. Dry fire practice all the things we did in class. In fact, if any of you were paying attention during DPS1, I went to demo a drill, there wasn’t a round in the chamber, and I watched my front sight dip — yeah, I need more practice too. 🙂

Thank you all for coming out and spending your time with us.

KR Training – 2014-05-03 – BP1 Quick Hits

/ hsoi

The month of May started off with a Basic Pistol 1 class. We’ve seen a slight drop-off in BP1 enrollment given the shift in the market and climate, so originally I was going to teach the class solo to a small group. However, we had last minute sign ups, Tom Hogel joined me, and we had a good class of 8 students, with the majority of the class being women. We had young and old, a range of backgrounds — folks, you just cannot stereotype gun owners and people who are willing to take responsibility for themselves.

Class rolled well. While a key stress of Basic Pistol 1 is about “gun fit”, it was quite prevalent in this particular class. We had numerous people with small hands, and common handguns like a Glock 19 just would not fit. In fact, while we try to get folks to shoot as many guns as possible during the “buffet” section of class, numerous students didn’t need to bother trying a lot of guns because it was evident the gun would not work for them at all. The Smith & Wesson M&P Shield ended up being a fair fit for a lot of folks, but then they saw the trade-off with smaller guns transmitting more felt-recoil. Everything’s a trade-off.

For those in class (or those not, but shopping for a first gun), please give a read to this handgun guide. It talks about the factors that really matter, like proper fit. Because if the gun fits, it becomes easier to shoot, more fun to shoot, which means you’ll shoot more, practice more, get better, and that’s what it’s all about.

All in all, class was good. Thank you all for coming out, and to Mother Nature for the good weather.

As an aside, the class was extra special to me because one of the students was Oldest. He’s always had an interest in guns, but it was casual. He’s recently grown his interest, and while he knew a bunch of the things that we teach in BP1, it was good for him to get the formal class (and certificate). He helped me set up and tear down, and was a great assistant all day. After class was over, he and I went through the buffet together — it was the first time he shot some larger calibers, and shooting a .357 Magnum round out of a small S&W 640 was an eye-opener for him. 🙂  We had a late lunch at the Elm Creek Cafe, then hung out until the sun started to go down. Karl’s been seeing some feral hogs around the ranch, so we hunkered down for a few hours to see if we could do something about that. Alas, no hogs nor coyotes taken, but that’s alright — it was just so nice to spend the day together.