Knowledge to make your life better. If you have some free time, check out some of these links this weekend.
The 7 Most Common Concealed Carry Mistakes
I have to admit that I see these fairly frequently. Don’t carry a “craptastic” holster. Use my post on good holsters to make a better selection.
Revolver Strip Loaders
A few options for carrying spare revolver ammo.
The Rationale for Defensive Hollow Points
Massad Ayoob talks hollowpoints.
Shooting With One Eye or Two Eyes Open: Which is Correct?
Good advice here:
“Do what is necessary to achieve the desired hits on target because the objective of shooting is hitting what you are aiming at, whether you have one eye open or two.”
While I think that shooting with both eyes open is the best solution, some people simply can’t do it. I’d rather see you hit with one eye open than miss while trying to keep both eyes open.
Is the 20 Gauge Really the Best Low Recoil Defensive Option?
I have no problems using a 20 gauge for home protection (especially when the new FliteControl load becomes available), but most 20s don’t recoil significantly lighter than a gas operated 12 gauge. If recoil was a real concern, I’d go with the Mossberg 590S loaded with 12 gauge mini-shells. Almost no recoil at all with those loads.
Getting Your Mind Right
Gunsite’s Ken Campbell talks about pre-fight psychology.
Wife Turns Robbers Into Hood Ornaments To Save Husband
People tend to forget that a vehicle has much more “stopping power” than a handgun.
The Simple Phrase that Increases Effort 40%
Daniel Coyle discusses a study about how a single phrase improved teaching outcomes 40-320%. If you are a coach, trainer, or educator you must understand these concepts. Coyle’s book The Talent Code is also highly recommended
60 Best Tactical Blogs and Websites
I don’t know the criteria for judgement, but my website was determined to be in the top 10 tactical blogs. I think the last time I was on this list I was ranked around 20.
With my website page views being only 20% of what they were a decade ago, the ranking isn’t based on web traffic. My rank is probably rising because so many other blogs have stopped publishing.
In a few more years maybe I’ll be number one, winning solely through attrition because I’m the only person writing articles that no one reads.
Fanny Packs for Concealed Carry: A Discussion and Review
A good review of several of the issues involved with carrying guns in fanny packs. I carry in a DeSantis fanny pack while hiking and at the gym. She mentions one pack that has an extended draw tab. My improvised solution to make my own draw tab extension is to clip a photon micro light to the pull tab. That gives me a better grip on the tab and an emergency source of light as well.
5 Ways to Stay Ready So You Don’t Have to Get Ready!
Advice many folks neglect.
Dry Practice Safety Deep Dive
Best practice safety considerations for dry fire. You might also like Claude’s article on Snub Dry Practice Training Aids.
What’s a Glock Switch, and Is It Legal?
We were talking about this in my class last weekend and some folks had never heard of these things.
Lessons From the Battle of Adobe Walls
Uncle Mas gives us a history lesson.
Shooting from the Ground: An Overlooked Skill
While I agree that there are dangers inherent in shooting from the ground with feet flat on the ground and knees raised, I still teach that shooting position. In many ground encounters, my students have been injured or are exhausted. It may be too difficult to hold a gun up with one hand while laying on your side. It may be too difficult to lift your head off the ground to find the sights.
In the event of injury or exhaustion, I advocate shooting from a position similar to the picture above, but with knees bent and feet flat on the ground. It’s easier to elevate the hips to align the sights than it is to lift one’s head when injured or exhausted..
Things To Think About Before Helping Police
in my cop career, I got help from citizens during arrests a few times. I appreciate any citizen’s willingness to help, but such help needs to be offered carefully. Read the article and then check out my posts Part One and Part Two on the issue.
Good Guy CCW, Memphis Style
My friend Memphis Beech has a great playlist of free YouTube videos for concealed carriers.
Verbal Skills During An Armed Encounter
I find that most of my students can shoot well enough to defend themselves. Where I often see students fail is in the verbal component of any training scenario. Read Richard Nance’s tips about better verbalization in a threatening situation.
Murder rates are determined by your level of zoom
“Baltimore is the second-most murderous city in the US — but a fifth of its neighborhoods are safer than Switzerland. Others are unfathomably violent, with quadruple the murder rate of the most violent countries in the world. All in the same city. And if you’re in either set of neighborhoods, you’d never know the other even exists.
Violence does not show up evenly distributed throughout a society at the average rate. It’s lumpy, and your personal risk rate is determined almost entirely by whether you’re in a spot in society (geographically, behaviorally, demographically, etc.) where violence shows up — the spots that pull the average up.”
All About ARs: An AR-15 Breakdown of Parts
How to break down your AR-15 rifle.
Shooting Practice for a Criminal Encounter
The Tactical Professor lays out a realistic practice session for training armed citizens. He goes into even more details with downloadable targets in an article on his page.
Learning to Fight Made Me Confront the Dark Side of Self-Improvement
“This is one reason why soldiers and tightrope walkers and fighters train as much as they do. It’s not just to learn techniques, but to habituate themselves to the conditions of high-stress, high-fear situations so that their primal instincts to panic are overridden by new motor routines. If the brain and the body are exposed enough times to a specific fear without harm, Drew says, the prefrontal cortex can learn to override the amygdala and its primordial panic when real danger finally comes.
So my desire for a new life was being realized, one synapse at a time. And all it took was snuffing out all my instincts toward self-preservation through repeated acts of self-destruction. All was right in the world.”
Read Steve Tarani’s thoughts on the topic in Weathering The Storm.
The Unit: My Life Fighting Terrorists as One of America’s Most Secret Military Operatives
What I’m reading…
Pluralistic: How I got scammed
Think you can’t be scammed? Read this one.
Some of the above links (from Amazon.com) are affiliate links. If you purchase these items, I get a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you.
