Knowledge to make your life better. If you have some free time, check out some of these links this weekend.
Armed Lifestyle Magazine
Some useful articles in this free online magazine.
An Official Journal Of The NRA | How Fast Can You Run?
“I’ll just run away.” Really? When is the last time you actually sprinted? Why do you think you will somehow be able to use running as an escape strategy when you haven’t run in 30 years?
If you haven’t run in a while and want to start up, read this article for some ideas.
Practical Concealed Carry Tips They Don’t Teach Anymore
I dislike so many YouTube shooting and tactics videos because they are entirely too long. This one made me happy. Zero fluff. Lots of good information. Too many content creators would take an hour to cover these basic ideas. Longer is not better. If you make YouTube videos, be more like Greg Hamilton.
If you value concise delivery of information, you should like this article as well. Read Prepared, Not Panicked: A Concise Guide to Crowd Safety.
What About BB?
“Let’s get something out of the way right off the bat. The only compelling reason to use BB (or any other small shot size) in a shotgun intended for defense is that buckshot is not available.”
We have the same problems with smaller buckshot rounds as well. Read Shotgun Ammo: The Problem with No. 4 Buckshot for Home Defense.
Communicating Down – American Cop
Solid advice for police bosses.
Self-Defense Handgun and Ammo Options for People With Dexterity and Strength Issues
I’m getting more and more students with physical disabilities in my classes. As an instructor, you should have a plan to help them become skilled enough to protect themselves despite their physical challenges. Thanks to Practical Eschatology for digging this article up and sharing it.
Migrants smash into couple’s car and make man watch them rape fiancée
I listened to an excellent lecture from Mike Wood on Monday at Gunsite. In it, he debriefed three historical gunfights. During the class, he urged us to think about what situations would justify resistance, even against all odds.
I don’t think there are two men on the planet who could restrain me and make me watch as they gang raped my fiancee. There are some things worth dying/killing for.
Free State Maps & Travel Guides
Remember when we all had half a dozen state road maps in our cars? I still do. You should too.
Hostage Targets: Dangerous Practice — or Useful Skill?
A point/counterpoint article on the topics of using hostage targets in training written by my friends Ralph Mroz and Claude Werner.
Holiday Safety Tips Every Woman Needs
Tatiana wrote this article for women, but you men should pay attention as well.
Family Tries To Stop Car Thief But It Gets Very Dangerous!
I know lots of you are smart enough to realize the dangers you face when you physically intervene in a property crime. Do your teenage kids have the same level of understanding?
What I’m reading…
Ayoob: Dangerous 1911 Mistakes I’ve Seen
For those of you who carry 1911/2011 pistols.
10 Reasons to Consider the .22 for Personal Defense
With my S&W .22 revolver, I can put all eight shots into a B-8 bullseye (roughly the size of a person’s face) at 20 feet in less than two seconds. Not many people will be able to continue to fight after getting hit with a flurry of tiny bullets.
Project: Outfit A Starlink Mini for Emergency Communications
This seems to be a very solid emergency communications strategy.
New dataset of averted school shootings
This is important information. For optimal performance, we should be modeling success rather than trying to learn from failure. I wrote about this idea way back in 2018. I’m glad someone is actually doing the work to make my suggestions a reality.
Triple Ripple – A Test for Snub Revolver Shooters by Mike Boyle
A great revolver shooting drill. I ran it last weekend while teaching at the Revolver Roundup at Gunsite. Lots of my students really enjoyed shooting it.
The Deadly Score of the Stakeout Squad
A New York Magazine article from 1972 about the astounding success of NYPD’s “stakeout squad.” At the time, NYC was experiencing a rash of corner store robberies where store clerks were killed by the robbers. NYPD responded by pulling all of the firearms instructors off the range and setting them up in these stores to ambush the robbers. They were very successful and killed a lot of bad guys.
If you are unfamiliar with this period of history, you owe it to yourself to read the article. If you want even more information, check out the book Tales of the Stakeout Squad. It describes all the gunfights that legendary supercop Jim Cirillo found himself in while doing this work. Quite a bit of the lineage of certain modern day firearms techniques comes directly from Cirillo and his gang of cops in the stakeout squad.
Want some more history? Read Learn to Quick Draw Handguns. It’s a long form excerpt from JH Fitzgerald’s book Shooting, originally published in 1930.
Daily Readiness
This is a good article overall, but I especially liked Steve’s advice to “do one thing every day to become a better operator.”
You don’t have to be a USPSA grandmaster, but you can do five minutes of dry fire. You may not be able to run a marathon, but most of you can take a walk around the block. Did you go to the gym today? Did you hit the range this week? Did you read a chapter of a book that makes you smarter? We can all do some of those things.
What did you do today to make you harder to kill?
How Loud Is A Gunshot?
The facts behind why many of us shooters are nearly deaf.
Debating is “Whatever”
The best take on internet “debate” I’ve seen in some time. Pay attention.
“People love to talk about “debate” like it still matters, as if online arguments are noble intellectual duels instead of the digital equivalent of screaming into a megaphone while any normal human being is wearing noise-canceling headphones.
Once you realize how pointless it is, you stop pretending.
You see the game for what it is:
A colossal waste of time designed to drain your energy and feed the egos of people who aren’t even listening.”
How To Evade The Military as a Civilian (Becoming Deadly In The Mountains)
This one was a little too dramatic for my tastes, but contained some excellent information.
A Counterfeit “Benchmade Barrage”
A caution for those of you who buy quality knives on Ebay.
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