Knowledge to make your life better. If you have some free time, check out some of these links this weekend.
Seriously, You—OK, We—Need To Stop Watching The News This Year
One of the best resolutions you can make…stop watching television news. I got rid of my television more than six years ago and have not watched a single news program since. My life is immeasurably improved for having done so.
“All this noise. All this news. We are afraid of the silence. We are afraid of looking stupid. We’re willing to drive ourselves insane—miserable—to avoid that.
And what would happen if we stopped?
We could live. We could get real clarity. And with it, maybe we could be the little bit of change that we want to see in the world.”
After you get rid of your TV you should then Stop Reading what Facebook Tells You to Read.
Dave Spaulding on Being Willing
Dave drops some knowledge.
Drive The Gun: How To Use The Support Hand With AR-Type Rifles
An analysis of the optimal placement of the support hand when shooting an AR-15 rifle.
Survival and Austere Medicine
The absolute best survival medicine book for the lay person has just been updated. The digital copies are available at this link for a free download.
This is a free 600 page book that covers austere medical treatment for a relatively untrained person. It starts with some statistics and advice on medical kits, goes into a Q&A chapter about common medical conditions, and then has individual chapters on medical management of everything from childbirth to NBC warfare.
Download this one. Read it. It will be worth your time.
Two more medical articles for you this week:
The first one is an article on identifying and treating boxers fractures. This is a very common injury and you should know how to fix it. The second article describes how mixing ibuprofen and Tylenol provides pain relief similar to morphine. For those of you stockpiling pain meds and don’t want to risk acquiring controlled drugs, this is a good strategy.
The Riddle of the Gun
This may be the most intelligent and well-presented discussion of America’s school violence problem that I’ve seen to date.
19 of the World’s Worst Travel Scams (and How to Avoid Them)
A good article on travel scams you are likely to see when traveling internationally.
Elevator Murder Experiment
A very interesting social experiment (the perpetrators are lucky they didn’t get shot). What would you do if an elevator opened and you saw one man strangling another?
I can’t tell you what to do, but I would be very cautious intervening in something like this. Remember John Mosby’s advice “Not your people, not your problem.”
Thanks to Hock Hochheim for sharing this one.
7 Tips for Classroom Setup to Guard Against a School Shooter
Classroom setup suggestions for teachers looking to defend against school violence.
Ayoob: Myths & Missteps That Lose Justifiable Homicide Cases
Massad Ayoob discusses some of the differences between defending a justifiable homicide case and a murder at trial. You really need to read Massad’s book “Deadly Force.”
Jerry Miculek’s AR-15 V-Drill: A Close Range Rifle Hose Fest
If you want to have fun with your AR-15 and shoot a whole bunch of bullets, this is the drill for you.
For a good shotgun practice session try: A 25-round Shotgun Practice Routine.
News & Views from the Front of the Classroom
Ken’s thoughts on the state of the training industry and what skills students actually need to train.
The US Didn’t Have A Spike in Violent Crime in 2016
“A handful of neighborhoods in the US did. A mere five neighborhoods in Chicago supplied one third of the increase in violent crime in 2016.”
“Weisburg found that in large cities, 50% of crime occurs on just 4% to 6% of a city’s streets, while 0.8% to 1.6% of streets produce one-quarter of all crime.”
Inside the Lives of the Heroin Addicts Who Steal from Supermarkets to Fund Their Use
This is an article from England, but we have exactly the same issue with heroin addicts stealing from grocery stores here. These folks make up a lot of my police department’s arrests. Here in the USA we see them steal meat (mostly steaks), alcohol, cigarettes, and Tide Pods. You can’t avoid the criminals unless you understand how they work.
Semi-Automatic Pistols of the 19th Century
I bet you’ll find a few guns in this article that you’ve never seen before.
Understanding the Social Life of Guns
An academic paper putting American gun ownership in perspective.
Why I Run With a Gun
Do you carry a gun when you go running? In this article, five female runners discuss their rationale for carrying while doing their workouts.
Selco: How to Stay Warm During a Long-Term SHTF Situation
Selco lived through the collapse of his country during the Balkan Wars of the early 1990’s. The town where he lived had no public utilities of any type for more than a year during the war. In this piece, he discusses how people stayed warm in the winter when the electricity and natural gas were not functioning.
Learning How to Learn: The Steps
This is a brilliant analysis of the process necessary to become a true expert in any topic. If you are an instructor take a look at this “Path to Mastery.” Did you take all those steps? I often see firearms instructors who are completely missing the “Apprentice Phase.” They do no deep observation. They do no true practice. They don’t experiment. They take a weekend instructor training class and then hang out a shingle.
Those instructors really don’t know what they don’t know.
After you finish this article, study Kathy Jackson’s thoughts about Beginner-Intermediate-Advanced.
Sub-Zero Survival Tips
My friends at Cap City Outfitters have some good advice about cold weather operations.
Training Versus Practice: Why You Need Both
I occasionally see a student who is a “training addict.” He goes to as many training classes as he can schedule, but never practices any of the skills he learns in those classes. Those students are universal failures. The author is correct. You need both training AND practice.
Where is “Safety?”
John Farnam provides a realistic perspective about “the law” and the aftermath of a defensive shooting.
Woman Ignores a Lot of Pre-Attack Cues
Would you have noticed the suspects if you were in this victim’s position? If you were the victim, what could you have done to prevent the attack. If prevention failed, what would you do?
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.
