self defense

Who needs more than 10 rounds?

/ hsoi

Apparently Timothy Gramins:

At long last the would-be cop killer crumpled to the pavement.

The whole shootout had lasted 56 seconds, Gramins said…. Gramins had discharged 33 rounds. Four remained in his magazine.

Full story. (h/t John Robideau)

It doesn’t matter that Timothy Gramins is a police officer and was on duty. What matter is he was a man being brutally attacked, and he chose to fight, he chose to live.

And he needed a lot more than 10 rounds to preserve his life.

Who would need more than 10 rounds, indeed.

Some might say that he’s police, and they always get exemptions from the law. It’s precisely because they know there’s no good reason to restrict capacity, because one may well need it, as Sgt. Gramins did. Is there some reason we plebeians should be treated differently? Of Tom Givens‘ 60 students still alive today because they were carrying their gun, the range of shots fired ranged up to 11 shots. That’s more than 10; that’s more than 7. Was the life of this one person not worth it? because I thought “if it saves just one life, then it’s worth it”.

Who would need more than 10 rounds, indeed.

(Aside: another lesson to learn? you’re not dead until you’re dead. Keep fighting. Both Sgt. Gramins and his attacker were brutally wounded, but both kept fighting, both kept working to survive and live. You’ll be dead when you’re dead; meantime, keep fighting.)

 

Well, at least he admits it

/ hsoi

Austin Police Chief Acevedo admits his department cannot keep you safe. That the FBI can’t keep you safe. That the government cannot keep you safe.

“It really illustrates the importance of vigilance,” Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said. “The police department can’t do it alone. The FBI can’t do it alone, government can’t do it alone. Ultimately, we’re all responsible for safety.”

Full story.

Ultimately WE are responsible for safety.

You are responsible for (your) safety.

And yet, he testifies against campus carry and recently went to Washington DC to testify in favor of gun control proposals that won’t do much to impact crime but will affect your ability to do as he says and be responsible for your own safety.

So Mr. Acevedo, which way is it? I mean, great that you say you support CHL but again, your actions don’t exactly jive.

Nevertheless, it’s nice to see the Austin Chief of Police admit and acknowledge that the only person that can be responsible for your safety is yourself, and that “others” cannot truly keep you safe.

As they say, admitting it is the first step.

 

You don’t have a choice. Well, actually you do.

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

You don’t have a choice.

When you were rear-ended at the stoplight? You didn’t have a choice in the matter — you were the unfortunate recipient of the fender-bender.

When the teenager was more concerned with texting than driving and t-boned you? You didn’t have a choice.

When the drunk-driver veered across the double-yellow line and smashed head-on into your car, you didn’t have a choice.

Actually, you did have some degree of choice, and you likely exercised it. The moment you got in the car, you chose to buckle your seatbelt. In fact, you may have exercised some greater choice prior to driving the car. When you bought the car, you may well have researched things like the crash ratings and other safety features of the car, and chose your purchase at least in part based upon the car’s safety features.

We accept that life has risk. When we get into our car, we accept that risk. We may not consciously think about that risk every day, and we may only buckle up out of habit, but it’s a pretty good habit to be in if the statistics are correct and there’s a 1 in 84 chance of you dying from a car accident.

We buckle up not because we expect to be in an accident, but because we understand it can happen. If we could expect it, if we knew it was going to happen, why would we go there in the first place? Why wouldn’t we avoid it to the fullest extent of our capabilities? But since we can’t know when, since we can’t know where, and since we cannot choose when or where it will happen, since it takes us by surprise, since we have no choice, we take measures so that if it does happen, we can improve our chances of coming out on the other side alive.

No one considers you paranoid for taking steps to preserve your life. No one asks you what you’re afraid of. That’s because they understand that such things happen, and your actions are wise towards the preservation of your life.

When I put on my gun in the morning, it’s not because I’m afraid of anything. It’s not because I’m paranoid. It’s because I understand that violent crime happens. Rough numbers are what? about 1 in 250 of being the victim of a violent crime in the US? It’s not too far fetched that in your lifetime you’ll be the victim of a violent crime.

When that crime occurs, you won’t have a choice. You don’t get to choose when it will happen. You don’t get to choose where. Some people decide they’ll carry their gun when they go here but not there. Why? Is “there” somehow invulnerable? and if “here” is bad enough that you know you need a gun, why are you going there in the first place?

Some just want a gun in the car, in the glove compartment. What good does that do when you’re attacked while in the parking lot (which is where many victimizations occur). Again, you didn’t get any say in when or where you’d get attacked.

It’s important to accept that bad things happen that you have no control over. You get no say, you have no choice. But there are aspects where you can have a say, and where you can choose. When you make these choices, you don’t do them out of fear or paranoia, you do them out of acceptance of life’s risks. You do them because you understand the realities of life, that “shit happens”, and the more you can do to deflect the shit, the better your chances are of continuing your good life. It’s why we always buckle up when we get in the car, and it’s why some of us chose to carry a gun… always.

Overcoming distance

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Watch the video in this news article. I wish I could embed the video, but the link is all I have. (h/t KR Training)

In short, 2 guys trying to rob a store. They failed because the shopkeeper and employee fought back. But in watching the video, one thing really stood out to me.

Fencing.

The shopkeeper was trying to fend off the robbers by using a baseball bat. Not a horrible choice, but it was generally ineffective. It didn’t really deter the robbers until their second attempt, when the guy with the gun jumped over the counter (probably to get a key or some such to unlock the front door) and then the owner could get some better hits in. All this “fencing” did was kinda keep the robber at “arm & bat distance”. The swings didn’t connect, nor was there anything behind the swings (if they did land, they wouldn’t have done anything). The robber kept pressing his attack, trying to grab the bat or at least swat it away, and the “fencing” really wasn’t doing much.

Here’s the thing.

The bat didn’t do much because the gunman was out of (effective) range of the weapon.

Of course, the gunman could have easily overcome this by shooting, but he didn’t. From how he was shooting and behaving, I reckon he can’t shoot worth a damn and figured he had to be up close in order to try to hit anything. So, that works in YOUR favor because yeah, most bad guys with guns can’t shoot (but don’t count on that since some studies and surveys have shown that many criminals actually practice more than cops).

That’s a strong advantage of a gun: the ability to overcome distance.

Many people advocate other weapons: knives, baseball bats, tasers, pepper spray, as some means of effective self defense. But the reality is, do you really want to get up close to the bad guy? I mean, if this guy would only shoot at close distance, since he obviously had no reserved about grabbing people by the throat… do you REALLY want to get up close with this guy? Because up close is the only way for those other tools to be effective.

But a gun? It traverses distance. Distance is your friend in self-defense encounters: creating as much distance as you can works in your favor. I mean, isn’t that what fleeing is about? creating a LOT of distance between you and your attacker? So in a case like this? Yeah, a gun would have been more effective than a baseball bat.

The store owner is quite fortunate, and I’m glad he fared as well as he did. The main reason for that was his choice to not be a victim and to fight back. Next time tho, choose a more effective weapon.

on first response

/ hsoi

Fine. The gun nuts are nuts. The NRA is fucked. Ted Nugent is fucking nuts. Don’t listen to them.

It seems to be accepted that it’s OK for police to have guns. We seem to be alright with the notion of relegating our protection and safety to them. We consider them the experts. Everyone I speak with and hear from that’s anti-gun seems to agree with the above. So let’s go with that premise. (BTW, I started writing this before the PoliceOne survey came out, and frankly in light of that, I think that survey and this article go together to say maybe we should consider what the police have to say, instead of Joe Biden; you know, people that have a clue instead of those that don’t).

How do the police react to mass shootings?

The speed and deadliness of recent high-profile shootings have prompted police departments to recommend fleeing, hiding or fighting in the event of a mass attack, instead of remaining passive and waiting for help.

That’s from the New York Times. I’ll be using bits of the full article throughout. The article continues:

The shift represents a “sea change,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which recently held a meeting in Washington to discuss shootings like those in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo.

The traditional advice to the public has been “don’t get involved, call 911,” Mr. Wexler said, adding, “There’s a recognition in these ‘active shooter’ situations that there may be a need for citizens to act in a way that perhaps they haven’t been trained for or equipped to deal with.”

The change started after Columbine. Traditional response was to have everyone assemble outside, set of a command post, wait for backup, wait for SWAT, then go on. All that waiting? Too much time. It allowed too much time for more people to be killed. It allowed too much time for more damage and death to be done. It was unacceptable to wait. Police procedure changed to the whole “first responder” concept, that whomever gets there first you must engage swiftly and immediately. Yes we’d all like to wait for backup, but who knows when that’s coming. We do know “you” are here now, and if you don’t act immediately then more people will die. And it tends to work out in the modern “active shooter” scenario because in the majority of cases the moment any sort of resistance appears, the shooter offs themselves. However we get them to stop, they stop and that’s the goal. Thus, we must respond and act as quickly as possible.

It’s about time we stopped preaching that the correct response is to be a victim and “just give them what they want” (but then, isn’t that what modern social thought and politics is all about?).

But to Mr. Wexler’s last point… “they haven’t been trained for or equipped to deal with”. There are ways to remedy that, and I’ll discuss them later on.

The article continues:

Research on mass shootings over the last decade has bolstered the idea that people at the scene of an attack have a better chance of survival if they take an active stance rather than waiting to be rescued by the police, who in many cases cannot get there fast enough to prevent the loss of life.

In an analysis of 84 such shooting cases in the United States from 2000 to 2010, for example, researchers at Texas State University found that the average time it took for the police to respond was three minutes.

I’ve discussed this point many times: we cannot yet bend the laws of space and time, so it still takes time for other people to get here. But do you know who is “here” right now? You.

So if a “bad thing” is happening “right here right now”, who do you think is the person able to respond first? YOU! Police arriving are technically the second responders… well, that is if you respond at all. If you curl up in a ball and wait to be murdered, well…. I guess that’s a response. But you can choose to die, or you can choose to not die.

In the absence of a police presence, how victims responded often made the difference between life and death, Dr. Blair said….  “The take-home message is that you’re not helpless and the actions you take matter,” Dr. Blair said. “You can help yourself and certainly buy time for the police to get there.”

Emphasis added. Dr. Blair’s study shows how people’s choices made a difference. Those that chose to be a “fish in a barrel” died. Those that chose to flee or fight, lived. Some even chose sacrifice of their own lives, to buy time for others to flee and live. Your choices matter and affect not only if you live or die or if others live or die. This is what we’ve learned and can see by studying all the mass shootings we’ve had so far.

Your Actions and Choices Matter

As further example of how your choices — and preparation — matter:

Kristina Anderson, 26, who was shot three times during the Virginia Tech attack, said that every situation is different but that she thinks it can help for people to develop a plan for how they might act if a mass shooting occurred.

“Everywhere I go now, I think about exits and doorways and potential places to hide and things to barricade and fight back with,” Ms. Anderson said. “Some person has to take action and lead.”

Instead of using her victim-status as a way to lobby for increased victimhood, Ms. Anderson has learned and grown from her experience. She doesn’t live in a fantasy world. She doesn’t live in “condition white”. When she goes somewhere, she looks for exits, she looks for ways to be able to manage the situation, should it happen again. Paranoid? If you want to define it that way, I guess. I think she’s a person that went through a horrible experience, is wiser for the wear, and realizes that even something with a remote chance still has a chance and it would be horrible to be caught in (again), so she’d rather not. She’d rather be prepared for what life may bring. Think how much better off she and others could have been if they knew before what they know now. So perhaps, be wise yourself and learn from her experience instead of repeating the mistakes of others.

So yes, fighting may be the right solution. Some people cannot fathom that, but I think it’s only because of the societal structure we’ve created. I know it, I was raised in it. We learned early on that “you don’t hit other people”. That hitting is wrong and not the way to solve problems. When I first became a parent, I preached the same mantra. But eventually I realized my hypocrisy in teaching this to my children, when I spent time learning martial arts and firearms and so on (because my wife had been sexually assaulted, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again) — I understood that sometimes you have to hit, that sometimes you have to engage in violence because the cost of not engaging in it could be worse. So I no longer teach or say “it’s not/never OK to hit”. Instead, I teach that it’s important to give the appropriate response. If your sibling took your cookie away, no, hitting them is not the appropriate response. If someone is trying to rape you, hitting them is a very appropriate response. What we need to shift in our culture is to accept that violence is OK, appropriate, and even our duty to utilize under the right circumstances. We need to stop  understand when it’s right to utilize.

Susan Riseling, chief of police at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said the Virginia Tech episode changed her thinking about how to advise students because it was clear that Mr. Cho had “one goal, and that seemed to be to kill as many people as possible before ending his life.”

The department’s video, screened during training sessions around the state but not available online, tells students to escape or conceal themselves if possible, but if those options are not available, to fight. In the video, students are shown throwing a garbage can at an attacker and charging at him as a group.

“If you’re face to face and you know that this person is all about death, you’ve got to take some action to fight,” Chief Riseling said.

So according to Police Chief Riseling, here’s one of those right circumstances. Remember, the premise here is that the police are our protectors, they are the people our society grants such authority to, and we defer to as the experts on such matters. Thus if the experts and the authority are saying we should react this way… maybe we should listen.

Appropriate Response

Consider however that it’s again about appropriate response. The appropriate response may well be to flee. None if this negates the “beer & TV maxim“; in fact, it flat out encourages the maxim! You are certainly going to be able to enjoy more beer and TV if the best response for the situation is to flee! Your goal is to live, and if fleeing is the right thing to do, then do it. In fact, sometimes the right response might be to just give them your wallet. Say you have a dummy wallet with $5 and some fake cards on it; you throw that at the mugger and take off. You live. Is that a wrong response?

The thing is, a lot of folks are going to assume my solution is: get a gun. That we all should have guns, and bring back the OK Corral. Well, I do agree that firearms are useful tools and sometimes it’s the right and only tool appropriate for the task. But I am also aware that you cannot play golf with only one club in the bag (thank you, Tom).

Pepper spray can be a useful tool. It’s not necessarily going to stop an attacker, but if it enables you the window you need to escape, then it’s an appropriate and useful tool.

You know what’s even more useful? Awareness. Instead of having your head down in your iPhone and your ears plugged up with music, keep your eyes open, up, and scanning around; keep your ears listening for things. Do you know what most criminals want? an easy target. Do you know what most people say after an attack? “They just came out of nowhere.” No they didn’t, but it only seemed that way because you were unaware, they knew it, they took advantage of it.

Awareness can be even more mundane. When you enter a new building or room, look for the exits. Rather, look for the OTHER exits. Everyone knows about the exit they came in through; consequently, if something bad happens — like a fire — everyone stampedes for the door they came in. There have been more than enough stories of hundreds of people dying in club fires because everyone tried to go out the door they came in (dead bodies piled at the front door), but the back and side entrances were empty. It costs you nothing but a few seconds to find the exits, it doesn’t impede your life, and if something bad happens well… those few seconds spent are sure going to enable your life.

Do you have any medical training? Can you handle basic first aid like burns, cuts, bee stings, heat exhaustion, shock? Can you handle slightly larger issues like severe bleeding, broken bones? CPR? Heimlich Maneuver? (shout out to my buds at Lone Star Medics). If someone is choking, bleeding, or otherwise on their way to dying, again YOU are “right here right now”, YOU are the first responder. It will take time to dial 911, talk to an operator, talk to a dispatcher, convey all the information, get an ambulance dispatched, for them to fight traffic and drive to your location, to park, to come in, to assess the situation and orient themselves, then to act. It all takes time, time that may not be available to the suffering person. But what can you who is right there right now do to help?

Being Trained and Equipped to Deal With It

So this isn’t about “having a gun”. It’s about having a lot of things. It’s about being prepared. As Mr. Wexler stated at the top:

There’s a recognition… there may be a need for citizens to act in a way that perhaps they haven’t been trained for or equipped to deal with.

No one is asking you to be a hero. No one is asking you to rush in and save the day. What is being asked is to accept that the world can be full of unexpected unpleasant undesirable things. Many of these things are time-critical, where the first response is vital, and since those “right there right now” are the ones that can respond first, wouldn’t the world be a better place if citizens perhaps were trained and equipped to deal with those situations? Be it training in first aid and equipped with that knowledge and a small med kit in their purse, or training in how to run and equipped with a good pair of Nikes so you could flee, or in knowledge of how to operate a handgun and equipped with the right tools and mindset for its use.

There’s this notion of “finding common ground”. There’s this lip-service to “meeting us halfway”. To that, I offer this. We appreciate “first responders” because we know the first people on the scene are the ones that will save lives. That lives are saved because people have the knowledge, skill, and ability to act swiftly in the face of a bad situation. That the sooner the responders can respond, the better the chances are of lives being saved. That when it gets down to it, the person “right here right now” is truly the first person able to respond. Thus, shouldn’t we all work to be able to be a first responder? How you choose to respond, that’s up to you. But at least let’s come to find common ground on the premise that first response is vital to life, and there’s no one that can respond faster than those immediately there. There’s no one that can respond faster than you.

Qualifications

/ hsoi

There is something seriously wrong when the only people who are deemed qualified to educate peoople about violence are those who have either never experienced it or aggrandize themselves for having been a victim.

– Marc MacYoung

 

1 in 1,000,000? Not so much.

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Everyone wants data. So, here’s some data and perspective that derives from that data.

We all go through life dreaming of winning the lottery. We all go through life hoping to never be the victim of a violent crime.

We like to think being the victim of a violent crime is “a one in a million” chance of happening. Now, I don’t think anyone actually believes it is truly 1:1,000,000 chance; rather, it’s being used as an expression to say it’s a very remote possibility it will ever happen to me.

Let’s look at numbers.

The FBI maintains this nifty database called the Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics. As of this writing, the latest data is from 2010. Let’s see what the UCR reports regarding violent crime (murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault) across the US in 2010.

I generated the table and saved it as a screenshot because it was the easiest way to get it here into the post. Let’s extract and look at the summary numbers.

In 2010, there were 308 million people living in the US, and there were 1.25 million violent crimes reported.

So what was the crime rate? There were 403.6 violent crimes per 100,000 people. Or about 1 in 247.

Really though, it’s lower. Consider there’s a number of folks in the population that are extremely unlikely to be either the perpetrator or victim of violence, like infants, the infirm, etc.. So really, chances are what? 1 in 200? Maybe even less? Really hard to say. Plus, this is only reported violent crime. There are crimes that go unreported (especially rape), so you can be sure the actual number of violent crimes committed is much higher. So simple math says if we’re calculating with less population and more crime incidents, the ratio gets smaller. We’ll have to base upon 1:247 since that’s the best number we can calculate, but keep in mind the ratio is likely smaller.

Let’s put this in perspective. I found this article from 2007’s NY Times that contained numerous ways to die and the chances of dying from them. The data apparently comes from the National Safety Council and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  • Heart disease – 1 in 5
  • Cancer – 1 in 7
  • Stroke – 1 in 24
  • Car accident – 1 in 84
  • Accidental Poisoning – 1 in 193
  • Falls – 1 in 218
  • Drowning – 1 in 1,134
  • Air/space accident – 1 in 5,051
  • Sun/Heat exposure – 1 in 13,729
  • Lightning – 1 in 79,746
  • Fireworks – 1 in 340,733
  • and my favorite —- worldwide, 62 people died from shark attacks, but 150 died from falling coconuts.

This infographic from PopSci.com gives some other interesting chances:

  • Chance of getting cancer – 1 in 2 (the above seems to be dying from, vs. this just getting it)
  • Being selected on The Price is Right – 1 in 36 (but you have to be in the studio audience)
  • IRS audit – 1 in 175
  • Getting injured and dying in the next year – 1 in 1820
  • Going blind after laser eye surgery – 1 in 85,714
  • Dying in an airplane accident – 1 in 354,319
  • Being struck by lightning – 1 in 700,00 (again, this is struck, the above is dying from)
  • Winning $1000 in McDonald’s Monopoly game – 1 in 36,950,005
  • Winning Megabucks Slot Machine Jackpot – 1 in 49,836,032
  • Winning Mega Millions – 1 in 135,145,920

Given this data, it seems we should primarily care about our general well-being: eat right, exercise, mind your sun exposure, etc.. We should also keep our taxes in order.

When you put the UCR number in there, it’s really not too remote a possibility to be a victim of a violent crime.

Think about this.

More people on a daily and weekly basis put more effort into playing the lottery than they do keeping themselves healthy and well. Whether it’s eating right and exercising, or it’s having a ready-means of defending themselves against violent crime, people put far more effort into something that has almost no chance of happening than effort into something quite likely to happen.

Does that make sense?

We could also make the case for something like abolishing the TSA, where we put 2-tons of effort and billions of dollars into an unlikely event, but the .gov works hard at keeping the citizenry from being able to address things they are far more likely to die from on a daily basis! But that’s another topic for another time.

Certainly make your own value judgment here about what’s important to you and how you wish to utilize this data. I just think it’s important to look at the general chances of various things happening, and take it as some perspective and reality. You’re far more likely to be a victim of violent crime than you are to win the lottery; it’s far from a “one in a million” chance. I mean, winning the lottery technically would make you the statistical anomaly, and how cool would it be to beat the odds, right? Well, even if being the victim of a violent crime was a “one in a million” chance, you still accepted that it might happen, and you have to admit it would really suck to be the one that beat the odds.

on capacity

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

One thing I love about Tom Givens is his incredible depth of knowledge. His expertise in matters of personal safety and firearms is unparalleled. Because of this, he’s able to get you thinking about things in different ways.

For example, in the recent Instructor Certification course I took with him, Tom discussed “high-capacity” magazines in guns.

When people hear “high-capacity magazines” (or more commonly, “high-capacity assault clips” *sigh*), they think about how it gives you the ability to shoot more. According to Tom, that’s not what they are for. And when you think about it, that really isn’t what they provide. They don’t really enable you to “shoot more” because there are many other ways to accomplish “shoot more”.

But what capacity allows you to do that really nothing else allows?

To reload less.

Practical

Let’s look at the practical side of it. Credit to Tom Givens for presenting this logic.

A “split” is the time between shots. So if someone is shooting 0.20 second splits, that means there was 0.20 seconds of time between the end of the first shot and the beginning of the second. So you can think of it that if someone shoots 0.20 second splits, they are capable of firing 2 shots in 0.20 seconds, if you will.

I’m going to simplify the math here, because it makes discussion easier. But the point still gets across.

If someone then has 5 rounds, which is typical of many revolvers, that means the shooter could empty the revolver in 1 second.

That’s not very long, is it?

10 rounds? 2 seconds.

15 rounds? 3 seconds.

According to data from self-defense gunfights (private citizens, FBI, DEA), the typical gunfight lasts 3 seconds.

So let that sink in.

If the fight is only going to last 3 seconds, after 5 rounds you’re out of the fight — but the fight is still going on. Of course, that’s if your fight is a typical one; would really suck if your fight was atypical and went longer.

If you’ve now lost use of a very important tool, do you think you have gained advantage or lost advantage? What are you going to do to make up that advantage? because I’m sure you don’t want to lose the fight (and possibly your life).

Oh sure, you could reload, but even the fastest reload takes time. And it doesn’t matter the technique, be it a speed reload or drawing a backup, it still eats precious time.

So if you don’t have to reload? All the better. It can keep you in the fight longer, which hopefully will be long enough to end the fight and you to prevail.

Of course, this is then argument against those small guns, those low-capcacity guns. Yes, sometimes we have to carry them. But if you have a choice, take the Glock 17 over the Kahr PM9.

Political

I wish I didn’t have to write about the political nature of this, but some people only view “high-capacity assault clips” as a way to inflict more death and violence upon the innocent children of the world.

If that were the case, why would police want guns that can hold lots of ammo?

Why would police have moved away from 6-shot revolvers to 17-shot Glocks?

Why do you think police would want more ammo?

Of course, because they might be caught in a prolonged gun battle. But also because having to reload less allows them to end attacks quickly.

Why would this be any different for private citizens?

Or for gun-banning politicians and their well-armed bodyguards…..

Here’s the rub. If you look at most mass shooting incidents, they are not 3-second affairs. The killer has many guns, and a lot of time. They are slow, methodical, often speak to their victims before shooting them. They have all the time in the world to reek their mayhem and destruction upon the world. Lowering capacity will not stop or dissuade them in any regard.

So why do it?

We don’t consider it rational in any other arena to undergo activities that have no demonstrable ability to achieve desired goals, so why is it considered acceptable to implement ineffective solutions in this arena? And if you tell me “if it saves just one life, then it’s worth it”, I can present to you now 60 students of Tom Givens’ that had their lives saved because they had their gun. So there’s 60 lives, and so by your logic it’s 60-times worth it to have guns and concealed carry.

The only thing restricting capacity does is harm innocent law-abiding citizens. Are these the people you wish to abridge? Well, some might argue that yes, that’s precisely who “gun control advocates” want to injure.

But I say this… if it’s good for the goose, it’s good for the gander — and all of society. So, police should also be subject to the same restrictions. Our military should be subject to the same restrictions. Your bodyguards should be subject to the same restrictions. If you are unwilling to enact the restrictions for them, why is that? And why should this class of citizens be more privileged? If we don’t like the 1% having all the privilege, why are you giving up the power to them?

Why is it OK for them to be protected, but it’s not OK for me and my children to be protected by the same measure and standard? Why are we considered less, and why are you advocating for us to be treated as lessers?

Please… someone that wishes to enact such restrictions. Please, answer my questions and convince me of your stance. Convince me what you say is right, just, true, and factually and rationally the right choice. Please show me the data and convince me that capacity restrictions will achieve your desired goals of “won’t someone think of the children”. Please. I seek truth and am willing to change my mind if the right and logical facts are presented to me — it’s how I became a gun-owner in the first place, because until about 5 years ago I wasn’t. But that’s why I changed my mind in the first place – because I finally stopped and listened to reason, facts, and logic — not emotion, not misconceptions and ignorance.

And when you’re done trying to convince me… please look my children in the eye and tell them the same.

What can we learn – 3rd party intervention

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

TXGunGeek raises a good point about getting involved:

The general manager of a local car dealership was shot during an incident at a San Antonio gentlemen’s club early Monday morning.

KENS 5 in San Antonio reports the victim of the shooting was Mike Vivaldi, who heads up Team Ford of Navasota.

According to WOAI Radio, the shooting happened around 2:00 a.m. Monday at the Palace Men’s Club on Northeast Loop 410.

Police believe Vivaldi was attempting to break up a fight in the truck in the parking lot between a man and a woman when a gun was pulled by the man. Vivaldi was reportedly shot twice in the mid-section.

The truck drove away from the scene, both the shooter and the woman reportedly inside.

Vivaldi was hospitalized at the San Antonio Military Medical Center, originally in critical condition, though reports out of San Antonio say he has been stabilized.

Original Story

TXGunGeek’s main point? Getting involved in third party issues.

Now certainly, we can understand the situation. You see a fight. You see perhaps some man beating up a woman. You are going to have a hard time standing by and watching it.

But do you know what’s going on?

Is it worth getting in the middle of someone else’s heated issue, because it may cost you. Mr. Vivaldi was fortunate he wasn’t killed, but look at the medical bills, lost work, and who knows what longer-term impacts upon his quality of life he’s going to have. Was it worth it?

Was it worth (potentially) dying over?

This is a personal decision. We all draw our lines at different points. Even if you consider the “beer & TV maxim” of self-defense, we can still draw our lines in different places.

To come to the aid of a third party is a personal decision. It may also depend upon who this third party is: your spouse, your child, your boss, a friend, an ex-significant other, a random person on the street. But you need to figure out where your line is BEFORE you get involved. Where is your line? where is your threshold?

Another point to consider is something John Farnam says all the time about how to avoid trouble:

Donʼt go to stupid places; donʼt associate with stupid people; donʼt do stupid things. We will add to that, be in bed by 10 oʼclock.

Updated 2013-04-04: There’s more to the story.

Updated story

According to the San Antonio Police Department’s preliminary report, a friend of Vivaldi’s told police that three people — Vivaldi, himself and another friend — had attended Sunday night’s San Antonio Spurs game and went to the gentlemen’s club afterwards, all part of a birthday celebration. SAPD noted all three were under the influence of alcohol. The names of Vivaldi’s friends were redacted in the report.

As the trio was getting into a cab, Vivaldi’s friend said an unknown white male came to the driver’s side window and started yelling an obscenity-laced string of words at the group.

The first friend of Vivaldi’s told police the trio exited the cab and started walking towards the yelling man, who waved them on towards him. The friend says he then noticed a white female who was with the male. Vivaldi would reportedly go on to remove his shirt as he and his friends moved towards the man.

Eventually, Vivaldi’s friend told police the man made it to his pickup truck in the parking lot, pulled out a pistol and aimed it at Vivaldi’s other friend. After trying to talk the gunman down, the first friend of Vivaldi’s said the man turned the weapon towards Vivaldi and fired multiple shots.

Whenever I hear, read, or see some guy taking off his shirt in this context, I always think about LowTechCombat’s “Alpha Male” notion.

Anyways, I’ll just refer back to Mr. Farnam’s quote above.

Why don’t you have a backup?

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

In our modern world, we seem to accept that things break.

Things break because anything mechanical sooner or later does (parts wear and age). Maybe it’s because things are more cheaply manufactured and they just don’t make them like they used to. Maybe sometimes the unexpected comes up, like a nail in the tire. Regardless of why, we accept things will break. Sometimes we’ll have a spare on hand, like another tire in the trunk; we change the tire, and get back on the road. Sometimes we don’t, and we have to go get a replacement before we can keep going. Often not having a backup on hand isn’t a big deal because it’s not critical – if my lawn mower breaks, I don’t need a second because it’s just not that critical. I can wait on the repair, or I can borrow from a neighbor. That tends to be how we look at things is by how important recovering from failure is. Recovering from failing to mow my lawn? Not that big a deal. Recovering from a flat tire? Bigger deal (and harder to go get a spare when you’re 50 miles from nowhere and your means of travel has a flat).

Consider computers. How important is it to have a back-up of your vital data? It was really neat when Apple came out with Time Machine because that was “back-up for the rest of us”. Back-ups used to be a very convoluted thing, and while Time Machine isn’t a complete back-up solution, it suffices for most needs and gets most people back up and running when that important file is deleted or their computer fails. And boy, aren’t we happy for it when that paper we’ve worked on all night can be salvaged? Or we don’t wind up looking stupid because we lost the PowerPoint files for tomorrow’s presentation? Back-ups save our butts.

So yeah, we seem to understand the importance of a backup.

With that in mind, Greg Ellifritz asks “Do you carry a backup gun?”  I’d rather ask the question: “Why aren’t you carrying a backup gun?”.

Guns are mechanical. They can and will fail. If you’ve shot guns enough, I’m sure you’ve seen a failure in some regard. Most of the time it was no big deal, because you were doing something non-critical. If you’re just practicing at the range, it wasn’t critical. If you missed that deer, it really sucks but isn’t necessarily critical.

But if your life was on the line when the failure occurred? That’s very critical. And what does Murphy’s Law state?

And it’s not like you can put the attack on hold while you go fetch another gun. If you need it, you need it right here, right now.

Here’s a few points to consider.

First, simple failure. Your primary gun could just fail for whatever reason. It doesn’t matter the reason, and “now” is not the time to care or figure out why. You may have reaction to “tap, rack, resume”, and that’s good, but what if that doesn’t solve it? The clock is ticking, what to do?

If you do want to get into specifics of failures, consider that a failure like a double-feed? Sure you can fix that in the field, but even in the best hands it takes a LONG time to accomplish. It’s a lot faster to drop the gun and draw a backup.

If your primary is a revolver, yes, revolvers can fail. When a revolver does fail, most failures are going to require a gunsmith to correct thus you will not recover from the failure in the field. So what’s the solution? Back up. If nothing else, consider how slow it takes to reload a revolver; it’s faster to draw a second gun.

People get shot in the hand. You see it all the time in Force-on-Force training. Why does this happen? Numerous reasons. First, when shooting, a good shooting platform puts the gun in front of your chest, and where do you think they are aiming? your chest. So if your hands are in the way, your hands will get hit. Second, often times when there’s a threat people focus on the threat. So if the threat is a gun, people focus on the gun, chances are they may shoot at the gun, which is held by hands. So if you get shot in the hand, the bullet is unlikely to be stopped by your hands, thus the gun will also receive the bullet. That may well render the gun inoperable, cause you to drop the gun, etc..  Now what do you do?

What if you’ve got a friend that needs a gun? Now you can give them one.

Consider as well how a second can make up for shortcomings. If you carry on your strong-side hip, it’s probably difficult for you to draw while remaining seated. What if you had a BUG on your ankle? Perhaps easier to draw. It may not be that your primary is inoperable, just inaccessible.

I know some would consider it “more paranoid” or “crazy” to carry a second gun. Are we paranoid for having a spare tire? Are we paranoid for running Time Machine? Label it however you wish, but the reasons are the same: we accept failure can occur, and we have a plan to contend with it.

(aside: for those in the Central Texas area that wish to learn more about and train with the concept of a BUG, KR Training will be offering it’s DPS-BUG class again this summer, July 20, 2013).