Paul Martin, known to some as “The Suburban Dad Survivalist“, is presenting the Second Annual Suburban Dad Survivalist Preparedness Conference.
The event will be held on Saturday, January 4, 2014 from 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM at the Cabela’s in Buda, Texas.
I will be presenting at the conference, and look forward to seeing you there!
The KR Training November 2013 newsletter is short, sweet, and now available. Classes are firming up through Spring 2014, with plenty of guest instructors coming.
Also, are you in the Central Texas area and doing anything this coming Saturday November 16? If not, Karl needs a few more students for his AT-7 force-on-force class. An excellent training opportunity.
There’s also a special in the newsletter. Between that and the FoF class, well… we know money is tight, we know ammo supplies are low, so anything you can do to gain training within your budget, all the better.
Here I sit in the too-early morning — even too early for me (stupid daylight savings time). Later today (at the time of this writing, which isn’t the same as the date of publication) I will be sitting in a classroom to renew my Texas Concealed Handgun License Instructor certification.
I dug back through some emails I sent to myself, finding an article Kathy Jackson wrote titled Instructor Ethics 101:
When you step up to teach a self-defense class, you are literally asking students to bet their lives on the quality of the information you have and on your ability to teach it to them. This is no exaggeration, but just the simple truth.
[…]
I have even heard some handgun instructors deny that they are teaching self-defense. “It’s just a carry permit class,” they say — as if people carry guns for any other purpose. Or, “I’m just teaching them to use a handgun, that’s all.” But if your students think otherwise, if they come to you to learn skills they think they can use to protect themselves and their loved ones, you’re still on the hook. It’s so tempting to engage in these kinds of denials, and maybe that’s a more comfortable place for us to live as instructors, but it does our students no good.
As I prepare myself to sit in a room full of other CHL Instructors, I hope every single one of them understands it’s not “just a carry permit class”. That they take the gravity to heart, and will go forth and teach accordingly.
Even for myself, it’s a good reminder.
The Texas Department of Public Safety keeps track of conviction rates for Texas Concealed Handgun License holders. You can see all the published reports so far, and here’s the 2011 list (latest as of this writing).
While it’s evident CHL holders are not immune from doing bad things, the data does support the notion that CHL holders are an extremely law-abiding bunch – far and above the citizenry as a whole.
The number of CHL holders that commit murder or manslaughter is remarkably low. From the DPS reports for 1996 through 2011, the number of murder and manslaughter convictions for CHL holders totaled 30 over the 16 years.
DPS also reports on the number of active CHL holders for each year. Those numbers were totaled to obtain the number of CHL holder-years. The total number of CHL holder-years for the 1996-2011 is 4,295,434.
The two numbers give us the ratio of CHL holder convictions for murder and manslaughter per 100,000 CHL holders per year. That number is .70/100,000.
Yes, the decimal point is in the correct place.
The rate of murder and manslaughter for the general population of Texas averaged for the years 1996-2011 is 6.0/100,000.
If such is the case, why do you think we’re the people you need to stop? Why are you afraid of us? We’re demonstrably more law-abiding and statistically less likely to commit a crime. Aren’t we the very sort of people you desire?
Greg Ellifritz writes about the recent Sparks, Nevada school shooting.
4) Time. The entire attack, from the time the first child was shot until the shooter killed himself, lasted less than three minutes. Think about that for a second. You don’t have much time to act. Don’t expect the police to be able to arrive in time to save you. You won’t be able to get to your vehicle glove compartment to get the gun you don’t carry “because it’s too heavy.” You are on your own and will be forced to use whatever gear you have on your person to stop this kind of attack.
Just let the reality of that sink in.
And for those who think there are other strategies you can take:
3) Talking is a poor strategy. The heroic teacher in this case attempted to talk the student down after the student shot his first victim. His heroic attempt was rewarded with a bullet in the chest. Historically, begging, pleading, and talking to the killer has not resulted in positive outcomes. In general, talking should only be considered as a last resort when no other options are available.
So as you go through life, as you make decisions for yourself — and for others — should you make them based upon contending with your dreamy ideal of how the world should be or how you think it is? or contending with the realities of how the world really is?
Watch this video
It’s some amazing hog hunting with a bolt action rifle.
And after you finish watching and rewatching his skill with that rifle, think about what he talks about.
He talks about gun fit. He talks about how important it is for the gun to fit you if you want to shoot fast and shoot well.
Notice, no talk of caliber?
Yes I know it’s about rifles, but rifles, shotguns, handgun, it applies to any of them. Hardware matters. If you have bad hardware, you’re just not going to shoot as well can you could with good hardware. There is a limit of course ; get a Sauer rifle and you won’t shoot as well as this guy, but it’s evident the Sauer rifle allows him to shoot better than a low-quality rifle or a rifle not set up for him. It is primarily about the skill of the person, but skill can be hampered or enhanced with the right tools.
Gun fit matters more than the other things The Internet tells you is important.
If you’re in the market for a handgun, check out this reference for how to choose a handgun.
It’s always healthy to bust misconceptions. Truth is stronger and better.
When it comes to violence, there are lots of misconceptions out there.
“Why couldn’t the police shoot the knife out of that guys hand? Why did they have to kill him?”
“Why did they pile on top of him with five cops? Poor guy got crushed! Police brutality!”
“Why did you hit him first? He was only yelling,he didn’t even touch you!”
“Why did he hit me? All I did was say that he’s an idiot!”
Or my favorite, that he was unarmed, implying that he wasn’t or couldn’t be a threat.
I think it was through a “like” by BobG that I found this article: “Everything you know about violence is wrong“.
Well, that depends on who “you” is, but for the general public, yes in fact everything you know about violence is wrong. It wasn’t until some years ago that I became more educated on the topic.
The article works to bust the four misconceptions presented above. Why? Because education and truth are better than ignorance, especially if you’re going to discuss — and make policy — relative to the issue.
Be honest [with yourself] in admitting that they [people who deal with violence daily, police officers, soldiers, EMTs, security officers, bouncers, etc.] have relevant experience with a subject that is primarily academical for you. So it would behoove you to consider their responses as more accurate than your uninformed opinions.
There is nothing wrong with that, by the way. It’s a good thing that you haven’t been exposed to violence all that much. I am not promoting people go out and be violent to learn what it is really all about. What I am promoting is that the large majority of modern society has a flawed understanding of the topic. Personally, I blame politicians and Hollywood for creating a false image of it, but that’s another discussion.
What I am also not promoting is a “kill or be killed” attitude. On the contrary, the most practical and useful self-defense tips have nothing to do with punching the other guy’s lights out. But before you can form an opinion on violence and how to handle it, you need to understand the problem first. Doing so means confronting your own biases and views on this subject with what it is actually like in real life.
Indeed. You get all upset when people with a demonstrative ignorance of science attempt to explain or deny global warming. So can you understand how we feel when you talk about “how to stop (gun) violence” when you have a demonstrative ignorance about violence?
The KR Training Sep/Oct 2013 newsletter is up.
Big thing is what to look forward to in 2014. A lot of guest instructors coming, including Massad Ayoob.
I like to post AAR’s after classes, be they classes I’m a student in or classes I’m assisting/teaching.
But this time, I’d like to post a student AAR. He came out for the whole day, taking both Basic Pistol 2 and Defensive Pistol 1. He wrote up his experiences and you can read them here.
Thank you for the kind and honest words. You did well in class, and it was evident you learned a lot. Looking forward to seeing you in future classes, with one of them new-fangled plastic guns. 😉
To follow up on my prior article, “Could you look him in the eye and deny him?” here’s a couple more points to consider.
First, Kee Whan Ha was prepared. He had his guns before the riots started. He wasn’t paranoid, he was prepared. And rightfully so. No one expected riots to ever break out in L.A., but they did. And his preparation paid off.
Second, you need to let go of the illusion that we’re some highly civilized society. The veneer of civilization is thin and fragile. It doesn’t take much for our primitive monkey brains to kick in, and for things to go south.
Look at the L.A. riots. Look at Hurricane Katrina. Heck, watch various cities after a sports team wins or loses. Heck, Axl Rose caused numerous riots because of his behavior at concerts.
Society breaks down pretty quickly. We get upset, we get scared, we panic, we feed off the energy of others, and shit gets ugly really fast.
I know you like to comment on how everything around you is so peaceful. And true, right now and in your past it may have been. Congratulations on making good and fortunate choices throughout life. Not everyone is as fortunate as you. And remember that past performance doesn’t guarantee future results: your luck may run out.
What are you going to do when that happens?
Be a victim? or be a survivor?
Stuff From Hsoi 