Knowledge to make your life better. If you have some free time, check out some of these links this weekend.
Our History – Are There Lessons?
Institutional knowledge that likely isn’t being passed down to newer police officers.
Interstate Travel: Understanding Article 926A of FOPA
Understanding reciprocity and your legal rights when traveling with a firearm.
Explaining the Tough Questions About School Safety
Ed Monk gives you some tough questions to ask your child’s school.
Developing A Smooth Concealed Carry Draw
Most of us can benefit from more practice or hiring a coach to improve our drawstrokes.
Best 38 Special Ammo for Snubbies
Caleb’s ammunition choices might be surprising to you. The ammo tests he references are on my site HERE. Don’t like Caleb’s take on things? Maybe Wadcutters For Self-Defense? Ammunition For Small Guns might change your mind.
Terminal Ballistics: How Bullets Wound and Kill
A solid review of the history of wound ballistic research.
Scars and Stripes: An Unapologetically American Story of Fighting the Taliban, UFC Warriors, and Myself
What I’m reading…
To Close or Not to Close a Wound
This is a very informative article. Everyone comes to my medical class excited to learn suturing and stapling skills. They often forget that there are quite a few wounds that should NOT be closed by an amateur or in less-than-sterile field conditions. The author’s book belongs on your bookshelf.
Practical Solutions for Stopping Active Shooters: Places of Worship
Case studies of some high profile church shootings.
Two Professors Found What Creates a Mass Shooter. Will Politicians Pay Attention?
“There’s this really consistent pathway. Early childhood trauma seems to be the foundation, whether violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicides, extreme bullying. Then you see the build toward hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, oftentimes rejection from peers. That turns into a really identifiable crisis point where they’re acting differently. Sometimes they have previous suicide attempts.
What’s different from traditional suicide is that the self-hate turns against a group. They start asking themselves, “Whose fault is this?” Is it a racial group or women or a religious group, or is it my classmates? The hate turns outward. There’s also this quest for fame and notoriety.”
I’ll be reading the authors’ book.
How Gangs Operate Post-Collapse
When Venezuela collapsed, gangs took over many urban areas. Something similar may happen in the future USA. Read the playbook ahead of time.
Pro-Gun Millennial Standards: CCW Standard
Most of the shooting drills share here are fairly spicy. If you aren’t up to that kind of skill level, here is an easier one for you. You might also work on training the Transition Drill: What Do You Do If Your Rifle Goes Down?
Let’s Look at Some Science
Take a look at the results of the three studies I link below.
The Impact of Mass Shootings on Gun Policy
“A single mass shooting leads to a 15% increase in the number of firearm bills introduced within a state in the year after a mass shooting. This effect increases with the extent of media coverage. Second, mass shootings account for a small portion of all gun deaths but have an outsized influence relative to other homicides. Third, when looking at bills that were actually enacted into law, the impact of mass shootings depends on the party in power. “
Should cities disband their police departments?
“This paper finds that disbanding police departments leads to fewer police-related deaths, fewer reported crimes, and lower law enforcement expenditures. However, the number of crimes reported by the sheriff for the entire county increases by an amount commensurate to the decrease in the number of crimes reported by cities that disbanded their police department. Furthermore, disbanding police departments is associated with an increase in county sheriffs spending which offsets the city savings. Thus, disbanding police departments does not appear to impact overall crime, shifts responsibility for law enforcement onto other governments, and reduces the available information about cities’ crimes.”
Does (All) Police Violence Cause De-policing? Evidence from George Floyd and Police Shootings in Minneapolis†
“We find that following George Floyd’s death, arrests and police-initiated calls decreased by 62 and 69 percent, respectively. By comparison, arrests and police-initiated calls decreased by 3 and 1.5 percent following police-involved shootings. We conclude that incidents of police violence generate “de-policing,” and the effect is much larger following highly publicized incidents.”
Irregular Lines of Movement
This is good advice. When I was teaching lots of women’s self defense classes for the department, I had a hard time getting women to act on their intuition that a situation was going bad. They were afraid to be considered rude or bitchy in the event that their gut feelings were incorrect. My solution was to provide them with tangible facts about what I called “predatory movement patterns.” One such movement pattern is the “irregular lines of movement” discussed by the author.
It was easier to get my students to act when they could pair up their gut feelings with something tangible like a predatory movement pattern. Bad feeling + tangible threat cue = action.
De-escalate A Situation Before It Turns Violent: A Boys’ Night Out
“Humble Pie Tastes Better Than Jail Food”
The Rimfire Report: The Ultra Hot CCI Stinger In Ballistic Gelatin
Ballistic gelatin testing of the CCI Stinger .22 round from several different weapons.
Affirmative Coaching
The language you use with your students is important to their effective learning.
Everything You Need to Know about Tannerite
A lot of really good information about binary explosive targets. Please be aware that these are illegal under Ohio law. Ohio law defines the explosive (once mixed) as “sensitized ammonium nitrate.” That’s a “dangerous ordnance” under the Ohio Revised Code.
The White Report STREET FIGHTER – PART SEVEN
Vehicle survival advice from legendary retired DEA agent Frank White.
The Revolver Renaissance
Some of the photos the author used in this article were taken in my one-handed shooting class at last year’s Gunsite Revolver Roundup.
Get a Grip
Working toward an optimal gripping strategy.
10 Things for a Would-Be Firearms Instructor to Remember
If you want to be a world class firearms instructor, you’d best pay attention to this advice. For more advice about being a good instructor, read Even More Instructorship Lessons.
15 Tips for Staying Safe During Times of Civil Unrest
Solid advice. You may also enjoy The Dynamics of a Riot.
The Nightstick SFL — A New Shotgun Forend Light
Here’s another option for a shotgun forend light if you don’t like the Streamlight TL Racker. I haven’t seen one in my classes yet. I’ll report back when I do.
Episode 81- Ammo Selection W Mark Fricke
An excellent review of the history of ammunition testing and how current best practices were determined. If you don’t know much about wound ballistics, this would be a great introduction. I published the ammo tests they spoke about HERE.
Get A Leg Up
Jeff Gonzales shares some information about ankle carry. For more of Jeff’s ideas, pick up a copy of his Concealed Carry Manual.
Some of the above links (from Amazon.com and others) are affiliate links. As an Amazon associate I earn a small percentage of the sale price from qualifying purchases.
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