A couple months ago, Alex Ooley interviewed me on the topic of travel safety for his “Forge of Freedom” podcast. Alex was an excellent host and I really enjoyed talking with him. You can watch/listen to the podcast at the link or embedded video below if you are interested, but doing so isn’t necessary to […]
Since my police retirement, I have been spending a large part of the each winter living in Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Last year, between living out of the country without a gun and my cancer surgery, there was a period of approximately two months where I didn’t fire a single round or do […]
I was just re-reading Tools Of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers and came across the following quote: “Are you doing what you’re uniquely capable of, what you feel placed on Earth to do? Can you be replaced? Life is short. Put another way: a long life is […]
I love to travel and tend to visit some crazy third world countries. For the past two decades I’ve spent at least four to eight weeks a year traveling in places where it isn’t safe to drink the tap water. As a retired cop, I can carry a gun almost everywhere in the […]
Written by: Greg Ellifritz I travel by air quite a bit. Last year I took 67 flights. Fifty-two of those flights were domestic and I traveled with guns on every one of them. I’ve flown with guns on over 50 flights a year for the past three years since my police retirement. Even though […]
Have you ever considered the difference between being in a dangerous situation and being in one where you have limited response options? I think a lot of us in the gun/self-protection world get those feelings confused. I reached this conclusion on New Year’s Eve. I’m spending a good chunk of the winter […]
Seth Godin once made a very powerful statement in a blog post. “My most popular blog posts this year…weren’t my best ones. As usual, the most popular music wasn’t the best recorded this year either. Same for the highest-grossing movies, restaurants and politicians doing fundraising. “Best” is rarely the same as “popular.” Which means […]
About seven years before I retired from my police job, I encountered a chaotic situation involving a criminal, a couple cops, and an armed citizen. The call could have gone very badly for the CCW carrier and I want to describe what happened so that none of my readers ever place themselves […]
I just finished the book Be a Hero. It was a very good book, full of useful information about how to successfully survive an active killer attack. There was one section, however, with which I profoundly disagree. The authors talk about setting off fire alarms, breaking bottles full of slippery liquids in hallways, and […]
Written by Greg Ellifritz The 2022 school shooting in St. Louis has provided an excellent illustration of a fact I have been noting for years. Active killers often have weapon malfunctions during their attack. Read this witness statement: “All I heard was two shots and he came in there with a gun,” […]
This is a guest post from Caleb Causey, owner of Lone Star Medics. Caleb is an experienced Army medic who provides top notch trauma medical training to law enforcement agencies and armed citizens alike. Caleb intended this article to be a list of potential medical training scenarios for police roll-call training sessions. These drills […]
I have a confession to make. I like guns and gear. If you are reading this website, then you probably do as well. Nothing wrong with that. Guns are cool. Having the latest and greatest new gear makes people happy and drives growth in an industry where many of us make our living. […]
When I research active killer attacks all around the world, I nearly always see that victims rationalize the sounds of the gunfire as some more innocuous noise. Read this article about the 2016 San Bernardino active killer attack. The article summarized the attack which eventually led to 14 people being killed an 22 more […]
I recently saw this video and it caused me to think about how common criminal attacks are fundamentally changing. Take a few seconds and watch the clip. Surveillance video shows brutal attack on cashier in gas station robbery Watch the latest video at foxnews.com Traditionally, the most likely criminal attack most folks […]
*This is a guest post from my friend Ron Borsch. Ron is a retired police officer/trainer who is one of the world’s leading experts on the behavior of active killers. In his article below, he shares the most well-researched list of common active killer personality traits and pre-incident behaviors that I have seen. Becoming aware […]
Written by: Greg Ellifritz Way back in 2013, I began noticing a trend. School shootings were starting to happen outside of classrooms and outside the normal operating hours of the school. To avoid lockdowns, killers were attacking large public areas that couldn’t be easily defended during lunch breaks, before school and after dismissal. […]
In a world filled with rioters armed with Molotov cocktails and commercial fireworks, we have to consider fire as a weapon used against us. I’ve given advice to police officers facing flammable liquids. I’ve also written about dealing with thrown Molotov cocktails. Today’s installment will take a look at a more pedestrian use of fire […]
While I recommend that everyone should take a basic first aid and CPR class, that standard Red Cross class won’t be enough when it comes to mass casualties, bomb injuries, and gunshot wounds. With ever increasing rates of active killer events and terrorist attacks, the average citizen needs to start thinking more about battlefield […]
It could evolve as medical systems are stressed after a natural disaster. It could be caused by a terrorist attack. It could even be the result of a societal or economic collapse. Have you ever thought about what might happen if our current health care system (EMS, Doctors, Hospitals, Pharmacies) ceased to function normally? […]
It’s a myth that your revolver will never malfunction. Revolvers commonly have malfunctions, but the malfunctions are quite different from those seen in semi-automatic pistols. As my friend Chuck Haggard says: “Revolvers will tolerate neglect. They won’t tolerate abuse.” If I had to take a gun to a 1000-round a day shooting […]
