self defense

What can we learn here

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

HOUSTON (KTRK) — A local family was terrorized, ambushed outside their own home and held at gunpoint. They had just pulled into their driveway on Glenfield near Durango Falls in northwest Harris County Monday night when the suspects threatened the family, and the husband fought back.

Full story here. (h/t Robert).

 

He and his wife were with their young boys, ages seven and one, headed home from the Apple store at Willowbrook Mall when he noticed a red Mustang had followed him right to his driveway.

[…]

When he got out of the car, Del Rosario says a man had a gun pointed straight at him and was joined by at least two accomplices.

He said, “I ran away … to get away from them, to draw the fire to me if they were going to shoot. Then I started shooting at them.”

Del Rosario is a concealed handgun permit holder, and says having his gun and the training to use it properly saved his family.

He said, “I’m glad I did. You should, too.”

[…]

The neighbors say crime happens everywhere, even in this upscale Cypress neighborhood, and they encourage other people to protect themselves the way they did.

 

 

 

 

So, what can we take from this:

  • It happened in a good part of town. Crime can happen anywhere.
  • It happened in their driveway. You might be prepared for “home defense”, but what if you’re not in your home when crime happens to you? “Excuse me, Mr. Robber… can you hold on a moment while I go inside to fetch my shotgun? Thank you, yes, just wait right here, please.” No sorry, that doesn’t happen. You need to be able to go any where any time. There’s only one way to do that, and that’s to be prepared with the right tools all the time.
  • The right tools include mindset. Del Rosario was willing to fight to protect his family and himself. He moved, he was quick, he was decisive. He also was aware before it happened, because he knew the car was following them. Of course, one problem here is if you know someone is following you, you shouldn’t drive home.
  • One of the suspects was 17 years old; the ages of the other two were not released but it appears they are minors. You cannot envision your attacker to be of a particular demographic, because nothing says they will be. You also cannot be afraid to fight back against a child… because the sad state of affairs these days are 12 year olds are joining gangs and willing to kill you for your Nike’s.
  • He had his gun. He was carrying it when he needed it. He didn’t get to choose when something bad was going to happen to him, but he was prepared to fight when a fight came to him. I don’t understand people who have a CHL but don’t carry. Why have the CHL then?
  • He credits not just having a gun, but having training.

Mr. Del Rosario, good for you.

 

10 Commandments of Concealed Carry

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

The 10 Commandments of Concealed Carry, by Massad Ayoob.

  1. If you carry, always carry.
  2. Don’t carry if you aren’t prepared to use it.
  3. Don’t let the gun make you reckless.
  4. Get the license!
  5. Know what you’re doing.
  6. Concealed means concealed.
  7. Maximize your firearms familiarity.
  8. Understand the fine points.
  9. Carry an adequate firearm.
  10. Use common sense.

There’s more to it than these 10 phrases, so click here to read the full explanation of each.

On defensive shotgun and ammo choice

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Tom Givens is coming back to KR Training in May 2011 to run a one-day shotgun course. I’ll be there.

I’m still a proponent of a rifle for home defense (e.g. AR-15/M4-gery in .223/5.56), but I’ve warmed up a bit to exploring shotguns in this context. Certainly it’s better than nothing and for some it’s the best or only choice. So it shotgun works best for your situation, fine. But what hurts me to hear is a lot of misinformation that continues to be preached as gospel about how to use a shotgun for home defense.

For instance, ammo selection. That birdshot is good. That you want a big spread of pellets. No and no.

Here’s a simple scenario. Someone breaks into your home and takes a hostage (your spouse, your child, etc.). The bad guy 15 yards away holding your loved one close and in front of them, such that you really only see the bad guy’s head over your loved one’s shoulder. You followed conventional wisdom and have birdshot and an open choke. Are you going to take that shot to save your loved one’s life? I wouldn’t.

Now change the scenario slightly. Instead of a shotgun you have an AR-15 with good ammo (e.g. Hornady TAP .223 Rem or 5.56x45mm NATO 75 grain) and a red dot scope. Now are you going to take that shot? I would.

Birdshot is for birds. It’s made to be enough to hit a small flying object, but not blow that little dove to smithereens. So if it’s that “gentle” on a dove, how tough do you think it’s going to be on some bad guy? Buckshot is… for bucks, deer. They’re roughly man-sized and man-tough. Buckshot works better for this context.

Open chokes also good for birds… at least, low flying ones. You want just the right amount of pattern spread so the “pellet cloud” is wide enough to cover the area where the bird is, but still dense enough to have enough patterns in that area where the bird is. If the birds are going to be further away, you need tighter chokes so the pattern doesn’t spread too much before it gets to where the birds are. Same holds in home defense: you need to control where all those pellets go. If they spread too much before they reach their target, first that means less pellets on target, but it also means where are those other pellets going? they are most likely going to become unacceptable hits.

Furthermore, shotguns by nature cause pellets to spread no matter what ammo you choose or choke you select. Will you be able to properly gauge the spread and distance to take the shot you need to when you need to? Will the pattern be tight enough at 15 yards that you could take that shot? And the further the distance, the more the spread, the less chance you can take the shot. Yes home defense isn’t some 200 yard engagement (typically… those of you in rural areas, maybe), but you may have longer distances to account for than you think.

But let us consider… I’m talking about some contrived situation. What are the chances someone will break into my house and hold my Wife or Kiddos hostage? I don’t know what the chances are, but they aren’t zero.

You don’t get to choose what your situation will be. Luck favors the prepared, so wouldn’t it serve best to be prepared for as wide an array of scenarios as possible? Shotgun is good, but limited. Rifle gives you more options to address a wider set of possible scenarios. I won’t poo-poo the shotgun because it’s just another tool. With any tool you have to think realistically about the tool, know what it can do and what it cannot do. If that tool doesn’t work for your needs or perhaps if there’s a tool that can suit your needs better, don’t be reluctant to seek out better.

Home burglary foiled

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Austin man foils a robbery attempt… in his own home.

Andrew King and his wife walked into their northeast Austin home Thursday afternoon to find an intruder standing on their staircase.

Afternoon. Thursday. Most home break-ins happen during the day on weekdays. Why? Because that’s the most likely time when people (and witness neighbors) will not be around.

They walked into their home and discovered the burglary in progress. So, all those “home defense guns” you have? or maybe just a baseball bat, or whatever it is you keep at home? Doesn’t do you much good when you’re walking into your home. But that gun you can keep strapped on your hip? It’s always where you need it when you need it.

They called 911 and it wasn’t picking up. Mrs. King also hit their alarm system call button. Still took the police at least 5 minutes to get there. Lots can happen in 5 minutes. It also demonstrates that the police cannot be there to protect you because they weren’t… they were only coming around to help clean up afterwards. What stopped the burglary was Mr. King getting directly involved.

It’s fortunate Mr. King is a skilled martial artist and was able to utilize those skills to hold the burglar at bay. It’s also fortunate the burglar didn’t have a gun. I applaud Mr. King’s mentality and resolve to fight and defend himself, his wife, and his home. Ultimately it’s that sort of mindset that wins the day.

This is why I want a bigger sidearm for the field

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

Via EDNO, some guys go bear hunting and despite a high degree of lead ingestion, the bear just keeps coming. Full story.

Fifteen-year-old Chris Moen of Glide, who had drawn the tag, hit the animal in the shoulder with a .338-caliber rifle round, but he and his father couldn’t pick up a trail of blood.

They called on Wyckoff and friends to help track it. A few hours later, Wyckoff went up a hill for a view.

He heard a rustling in the bushes behind him, then a grunt. The bear had apparently circled around the group.

“We never even heard him,” said Wyckoff.

Wyckoff said he fired a round into the bear’s forehead, but the animal kept coming and climbed on top of him. From beneath, Wyckoff said, he got off three more rounds.

Then he tucked the gun beneath the bear’s chin. But it quit. Wyckoff, left-handed, said he had accidentally released the ammunition clip.

Odd that a .338 to the shoulder didn’t drop him. I’d be curious to know if there was an entry wound, if the shoulder joint was shattered, what the path through the bear’s body was. Very strange.

Then lots of .45 shots. I’m sure it was a .45 ACP round, and again I’d like to know if there was actually any penetration into the skull. My guess is the bullets glanced off the forehead.

Justin Norton fired a round from his .44-caliber pistol into the black bear’s stomach, to no avail. He approached the bear, put the gun behind its ear and fired again. It finally rolled away.

“I walked right up to his head, and he didn’t even look at me,” said Norton, 26.

With the dying bear still struggling, a final round finished him off.

And so… this demonstrates why I continue to look for a good backwoods sidearm — my 9mm might be fine for social purposes, but is an inadequate tool for the woods. While .460 Rowland certainly has much appeal on paper, the above situation demonstrates a couple good reasons for revolvers: 1. you’re not going to accidentally hit the magazine release on a revolver (unlikely with a good revolver that you’ll hit the cylinder release and drop your cartridges), 2. you can do contact shots with a revolver. There’s also 3, if there’s a malfunction, just keep pulling the trigger… when a bear is gnawing on you, you really don’t have time to do remedial actions.

Things that make you go hrm.

Observations from the morning dog walk

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Dog walk this morning was well before dawn. Point being, it’s very cold, it’s very dark.

  • Loose pants are good. I can put some long johns on before the walk, then easily slip out of the pants and remove the long johns upon return. Layers are good, but only when you’re out in the cold. Tac Pants 1, Jeans 0.
    • I state that because I find myself gravitating back to wearing jeans. Tactical/cargo pants are very useful, but they have zero style. That said, I am looking at “tactical jeans”… not many out there, but they don’t even have to be “5.11”. Just the chief requirement being the front pockets have a more open mouth.
  • Christmas lights are very useful for detecting movement. They put down a blanket of predictable and traceable light patterns, so when a deer trots out it’s very easy to spot their movement.
  • There’s this buck living back here. Oh he’s pretty sweet. If he’s the same guy we’ve been seeing and he lives another year, he’s going to be a monster (for the Texas Hill Country) come next year. Shame we all live in the city.
  • Someday I’ll get more into star-gazing, such that I’ll be able to spot-recognize more constellations than just Orion. 🙂
  • An essential part of good home security is having a well-lit property — cockroaches don’t like light. This morning I noticed an interesting pattern. Houses that were well lit (interior and/or exterior) also were near street lights. Houses that had little to no illumination from street lights were also dark (no interior nor exterior lights). I could make lots of inferences as to the meaning of this, but they’d be only hypotheses. Still I found it interesting that if the house was in the light, it was really in the light, and if the house was in the dark… well, there were lots of places one could hide and do evil things without anyone noticing.
  • It’s good to carry your flashlight in your hands at all times. It doesn’t have to be on throughout the walk, but if nothing else it’s useful for letting that guy backing his truck out of his driveway know you’re there. Besides, if someone did jump out at me, having the flashlight already in hand means it’s the first line of “give ’em a WTF moment”: flash ’em in the eyes to disorient them while you take the precious seconds to side-step and assess the situation (or immediately draw). Of course, having big killer doggie at your side doesn’t hurt either. 🙂
  • Doggie likes cold weather — a lot. Some weeks ago Daughter said she can’t wait for summertime, because doggie will mellow out. 😉

Situation analysis – does Aikido work?

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Poking around the Internet searching for stuff about Aikido, I came across the website for the Big Sky Aikido dojo. The head instructor is Gregory Olson, who has studied Aikido for over 30 years. He’s also a University professor, so he’s written numerous articles on Aikido-related topics. One article is Aikido, Judo, and Hot Peppers: A True Story of Violence Averted. The gist of the story is Olson Sensei goes out to dinner with his family when his wife noticed someone breaking into their car. Olson Sensei confronts the individuals, uses some judo and Aikido to control the situation, eventually the police arrive and cart the thief away. But, the details of the confrontation are important, so please read the article (or at least sections “The Incident”, “The Confrontation”, and “Epilogue”, all of about 2 pages).

Did Aikido Work?

The big question everyone wants to know is, did Aikido work? These days if it’s not muay thai, Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu, judo, wrestling, western boxing or whatever ilk can feed into MMA-style work, then it’s considered crap. I admit, there’s something to that line of thinking, but we have to remember what a person’s individual goal is in evaluating “did it work”.

In the simplest sense yes the Aikido worked. The thief was stopped and turned over to police. The physical action taken by Olson Sensei was able to stop the crime.

But let’s look at a larger context. Aikido is not just a series of movements, but there’s an underlying philosophy of nonviolence and redirecting the opponent’s energy. If we take it in this context, Aikido truly worked because the thief came out not just unharmed, but as an improved citizen. Olson Sensei recounts what happened a few weeks later:

Several weeks after the incident, the young man, a local high school football player, came over to my home with his father to apologize to me for his behavior that night. He said he and his friend had been in my van looking for a new tape to play in his car’s tape player. He told me he had spent a long night in our local jail pondering his predicament and the costs of not acting with integrity. He told me he was sorry that he had “goofed up.”

The boy was able to learn from the incident. Hopefully he truly did learn something and will grow and become a better person for having gone through what he did. As Olson Sensei put it:

I experienced the warrior spirit and philosophical training coming together to protect the young man who was making a small but not insignificant mistake in his life.

So I would say that Aikido truly worked. It worked on its physical level. It worked on its philosophical level.

Now let’s think what could have happened if the only training Gregory Olson had was in MMA-style arts. If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything becomes a nail. Chances are the kid would have gotten a good beating. Maybe not, but when the flag flies we revert to whatever our body is trained to do in monkey-brain mode, which generally means “bash head with rock”.

Now take it a step further. Suppose the only training Gregory Olson had was with a gun and he was able legally carry that gun. I don’t know what Montana law says about defense of property, but here in Texas yes one could legally use a firearm to defend their property. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. And just supposing Mr. Olson had a gun doesn’t mean that boy would have ended up dead. But these are things worth thinking about.

Let’s delve further into the story. After taking control of the thief, Olson Sensei recounts how 5-8 other young men came around — friends of the thief! They immediately surrounded Olson Sensei and started yelling at him to let their friend go. I don’t care how badass you are, a 8 on 1 fight is generally going to leave the 1 at the mercy of the 8. Is any sort of empty-hand martial art going to help you here? Maybe… the interesting thing with Aikido is it practices against multiple opponents, so perhaps it could help him. Still, the odds are generally not in your favor, especially in a snow-covered parking lot. This is a point where I personally would appreciate having something to even the odds, like a baseball bat or a gun. Again, nothing saying you will end up using them, but while you wait those 12 long minutes for the police to arrive, the best you can hope for is to keep them at bay.

Did it?

The reason this story struck me is because of the situation I presently find myself within. I’ve studied martial arts where you are given the range of options, from simple submission to more painful and damaging solutions. I spend a great deal of time studying defensive handgun use. I like having options and not being artificially limited because you don’t know what life may bring you. Sure, just one guy in a parking lot may be easy to handle, but when his 8 friends step out of the darkness, that changes the situation and calls for a different course of action.

At first I did not want to consider Aikido study because of its philosophical limitations: sometimes a violent response is the best and right response, and Aikido frowns upon such a course of action. But I’m now at a point where I think studying in that way would be good for me. It would help bring some balance to my mindset. I don’t know exactly how good or bad it will be for me, just have to start on the journey and see what happens. I don’t believe studying Aikido will be a waste of my time. Oh sure, the MMA-types will say I’m wasting my time, but well… my daily life doesn’t involve combat, it involves living. While the crux of martial arts is fighting, there is more to it. I’d like to see where Aikido can take me.

I appreciate having options. While on the one hand I want to expand my toolset to allow myself more options, on the other I want to throw away options to hone and refine my toolset. Aikido’s physical skillset is limited (compared to more comprehensive arts), so that’s focus and refinement. Aikido’s philosophy is limited, so that too is focus and refinement. What sort of insight will it bring to me? We’ll see.

Don’t leave your children unattended

/ hsoi

A couple leaves their car idling in a gas station parking lot… with their 6 month old child inside. The couple step away from the car to go talk with someone.

A man jumps into the car and starts to drive off.

The parents jump to the car, they manage to break the car window, Dad gets inside and beats the carjacker who then runs the car up onto the curb and flees. Carjacking scumbag unfortunately still at large.

Full story here.

Lots of things about this bug me:

“It happened in broad daylight”. People still believe that evil only lurks in the dark. No. Crime can and does happen any time, any where. You cannot let your guard down just because the sun is shining.

The Dad spoke of how he let his guard down for a second. Folks, that’s all it takes for bad things to happen. Vigilance. I understand being human. I understand being tired after long travels. But we have to train ourselves to remain in code yellow, especially when we’re tired, when we’re at a “stop & rob” (very popular targets for crime), when we’re in unfamiliar territory. It’s not easy, but crime isn’t forgiving.

They are describing this as heroic. Well, I admit the parents put up a good fight — it’s hard to beat a motivated individual. But they are overlooking the fact that none of this would have happened if they didn’t make a terrible mistake in the first place! Leaving their car running (a tempting target), and leaving their baby in the running car!

Lessons to be learned here.

On Scenario Training

/ hsoi

Jay wrote a good piece on the importance of scenario-based training.

I can somewhat understand why people don’t want to do Force-on-Force (FoF) training: the prospect is intimidating. Most of us want to avoid the fight. We want to avoid getting hurt. We really don’t want to deal with it. So why would we go and pretend to do it? I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t want the pain and the stress.

I totally understand.

There was a point in time where I didn’t want to do that stuff.

I got over it.

Let’s look at empty hand martial arts. Any martial art that just has you memorize a bunch of moves and “dance” with a partner? Well, there’s something to that yes, but if your goal is to learn how to defend yourself, you’ll never learn how. Having a partner that cooperates isn’t realistic, because your attacker certainly will not cooperate with you. That dojo isn’t going to have the pressure. It isn’t going to bring the pain. There won’t be the stress of time, the need to prevail, and yes… the lumps that will teach you lessons that no other means of teaching will make. And if you can participate in sport-based variants of the event? All the better.

Does a basketball player learn to play basketball by sitting on the court alone calmly shooting hoops? No, they have to get out there in the pressure of a game, with other people, and play.

So can you really learn self-defense by dancing in the air? Nope. It’s one reason I stopped my Kuk Sool training, because it was just cooperative dance and the organization perpetuated that notion (tho there were some within the org that wanted to do more realistic training). Can you learn how to use a gun in a pressure-filled situation of an attack by just sitting at the range and calmly and slowly shooting your gun at a paper target? Nope.

There’s something to these activities, and of course they are better than nothing. But they are close to nothing. If you want to learn how to do X, you have to do X. Yes you may have to work your way up to X, but so long as you work towards X then you’re good.

I understand that scenario training can be a scary notion at first, but there will be nothing more eye-opening and sobering, and nothing that will change your mindset and improve your chances of survival.

Wounding factors

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

In 1989, the FBI printed a paper on “Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness”. You can find a PDF here, HTML here.

Since all pistol rounds suck, what matters? Most of all, penetration.

CONCLUSIONS

Physiologically, no caliber or bullet is certain to incapacitate any individual unless the brain is hit. Psychologically, some individuals can be incapacitated by minor or small caliber wounds. Those individuals who are stimulated by fear, adrenaline, drugs, alcohol, and/or sheer will and survival determination may not be incapacitated even if mortally wounded.

The will to survive and to fight despite horrific damage to the body is commonplace on the battlefield, and on the street. Barring a hit to the brain, the only way to force incapacitation is to cause sufficient blood loss that the subject can no longer function, and that takes time. Even if the heart is instantly destroyed, there is sufficient oxygen in the brain to support full and complete voluntary action for 10-15 seconds.

Kinetic energy does not wound. Temporary cavity does not wound. The much discussed “shock” of bullet impact is a fable and “knock down” power is a myth. The critical element is penetration. The bullet must pass through the large, blood bearing organs and be of sufficient diameter to promote rapid bleeding. Penetration less than 12 inches is too little, and, in the words of two of the participants in the 1987 Wound Ballistics Workshop, “too little penetration will get you killed.” Given desirable and reliable penetration, the only way to increase bullet effectiveness is to increase the severity of the wound by increasing the size of hole made by the bullet. Any bullet which will not penetrate through vital organs from less than optimal angles is not acceptable. Of those that will penetrate, the edge is always with the bigger bullet.

So there you go. This is why calibers such as .25’s, .32’s, .380’s, and stuff like bird-shot aren’t considered ideal for self-defense, because they just can’t get down where they need to be. All pistol rounds suck, and some suck more than others.

Of course, the real important thing is accurate placement in the right spot because a deep wound in the foot doesn’t do much to stop your attacker. Must be accurate, then must penetrate, then the bigger you can make that hole the better such as with modern hollow-point ammo or just larger calibers (and cue the .45 is king flame fest!). 🙂

Note as well tho, this doesn’t just apply to handgun rounds and self-defense. When I go hunting, I need a toolset that will travel the distance and still have enough energy and ability to penetrate as deeply as necessary. Big game animals are man-sized or larger, with potentially tougher hides and structure. I won’t take a .22 LR deer hunting in the Texas Hill Country, but my 6.8 SPC with Barnes TSX bullets can do the job just fine. So can .308 Winchester, so can a lot of other proper rifle calibers. But on the flip side, you still have to worry about over-penetration or being too much for the job. Oh sure, I could hunt a deer with a .50 BMG but I’d ruin lots of meat and that bullet would keep travelling right through the deer and come to rest who knows where. That too could have lots of problems. Firearms are more specific in their application than people tend to believe, so make sure you choose the right tool.

Bottom line: consider the intent behind the tool and ensure to use the proper tool for the job at hand.