Knowledge to make your life better. If you have some free time, check out some of these links this weekend.
Lumens Matter, But they Don’t
Some incredibly sensible information about flashlight selection from Dave Merrill.
Take Instructor Gun Recommendations with a Tactical Grain of Salt
Mark makes some excellent points in this article. I generally carry a Glock 19 as my concealed carry gun. But I don’t work in a place that would fire me if they found out I was carrying (yet). If that was the situation I was facing on a daily basis, I would make a significantly different carry choice.
Can a Dryer Save Your Life?
I don’t normally watch many YouTube gun videos, but this one is short and has some good information. Is your clothes dryer good cover? Only for birdshot.
Traffic Stop Etiquette
Tim shares excellent information about successfully navigating a traffic stop for a concealed carry permit holder. Having actually seen the stop that he describes, I can attest to Tim’s truthfulness!
How to Get Out of Handcuffs and Other Restraints
This is a good primer (with some quick videos) about escaping from various types of restraints. I’ll be teaching a class at the upcoming Rangemaster Tactical Conference (sold out) covering these skills and more with lots of live practice.
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.
Prepping 101: Collecting & Storing Rainwater for Survival – Solutions, Calculations
A few of the more innovative solutions I’ve seen for collecting rainwater.
John Farnam discusses the methods he uses to travel with both handguns and long guns.
What do the data really say about essential oils?
What happens when a scientist starts experimenting with essential oils?
HOLD ON A MINUTE!! That’s just wrong…
“Train hard and train real! Get off the Web as a primary information source and get hands on training from an instructor who knows what they are teaching and can tell you WHY it is important to you. I know, its expensive but what it your life worth? Be wary of instructors who refuse to tell you why what they are teaching is worth your time, money and energy to learn, master and anchor. “Because I said so” or “because this is how I teach this” is not enough.”
I post a lot of stuff about fighting, stabbing, and shooting people. It’s time to balance things out a bit. Read this article and figure out where you are screwing up in your relationship(s). Some excellent advice here and I guarantee that you will find yourself guilty of one of the three problems the author identifies. After you read it, read this article that goes into even more detail about the problems with ‘should.”
ZERO to SHTF in Seconds: Dash Cam Video Of Attempted Carjacking Of Concealed Carrier In Houston
I know some of you carry guns in handbags and in the glove compartment of your car instead of on your person. Stop that! Consider this scenario. What would happen if you had to quickly flee your vehicle?
Note the fact that the victim here now carries on body. Intelligence is learning from your mistakes. Wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others before they happen to you.
You’ll also want to read Tim’s take on the situation.
Buckshot for the Home Defense Shotgun
Lucky Gunner provides some good advice about what type of loads to feed your defensive shotgun. The Federal #1 Buck with the flight control wad the author describes is probably the best load available for defensive use in the 12 gauge. If you can’t find that one, the Hornady “versalite” wad offers similar performance.
Everyone seems to want a shotgun pattern that is as tight as possible. That is a good goal if you are anticipating long ranges or need to make extremely precise shots. But there is a downside. One of the advantages of a shotgun is the pattern spread. It allows you to hit moving targets much faster. I’m not completely sold on the necessity of having extremely tight shot patterns for a standard home defense shotgun. If you are anticipating an indoor threat no farther than 50 feet away, almost any 00 buckshot load will work just fine for you.
Choose the load that offers the performance you need to accomplish your individual mission, not what some “expert” says is the best.
Howling Raven 10 round Mosin magazine
I’m not a huge fan of the Mosin Nagant rifle, but I know it is cheap and a popular gun in the “prepper” community. This looks like a good way to upgrade your current Mosin so that you can have a more sustained volume of fire. Or, you could have just bought an Enfield that already has a 10-round magazine!
OK, You Survived…but What If You Have Been Captured?
Some thoughts on surviving captivity. This article is primarily written in the context of becoming an enemy prisoner or POW. The tactics described, however, are also useful in shorter term criminal abductions or hostage situations.
3 Things Travel Has Taught Me
My friend Rand has taken a sabbatical from his job as a university professor and is traveling around the world for a year with his wife and daughters. He is chronicling the experience on his blog. He and his wife Michelle are great writers and have some extremely interesting perspectives on the people they meet and situations they encounter. If you are at all interested in travel, check out their blogs.
The Paris terrorist attacks, the connection to Belgium and what comes next
Speaking of international travel, read this article from a Belgian combatives instructor. It explains in great detail the problems that his country is having with international terrorism and how most of Europe is set up to have even more problems in the future.
Analysis of the StreetCred® Police Killings In Context Data
A very informative study of police shootings involving unarmed citizens. From the executive summary:
“The most interesting place the data led us is that just less than75% of incidents in the StreetCred PKIC data were responses by police to Calls For Service from members of the community. These incidents were reported to police by citizens, who described the suspects and their actions and requested police assistance. The officers found that, 65% of the time, the suspects named by the 911 callers were in the process of engaging in violent crime or property destruction.
Of 125 incidents in which police killed an unarmed civilian in the first eight months of 2015, 31 (25%) began on traffic stops, but 81 (65%) began as a response to a 911 call about a violent crime (robbery, carjacking, domestic violence or assault) or property crime (burglary, car theft or vandalism) in progress. There were nine people (7%) whom911 callers described as being “crazy,” or “on drugs,” “covered with blood,” and “yelling,” or threatening people. Three people (2%) were wanted fugitives in the act of escape —and one was unarmed when he died but was acting as part of a gang of three who were wanted in a recent homicide. They were, at the time of the incident, in the progress of a kidnapping a woman. There were 26 incidents that involved an assault against another civilian before police arrived, and in two cases, the murder of other civilians, by the decedent.
The PKIC data support no conclusion of systemic targeting by police of any group other than, “people committing crimes.”
For even more information on the topic, take a look at Over 700 people killed by police this year. But who’s counting?
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.
Thanks to Claude Werner for finding the article.
If you would like to read more articles like this one, please sign up for my email updates.
* Some of the above links (from Amazon.com) are affiliate links. If you purchase these items, I get a small percentage of the selling price. Y
