Written by: Greg Ellifritz Ohio has some of the most vague and confusing knife laws in the country. When I teach a knife class, I generally have to take more than 30 minutes to explain the intricacies of the legal requirements in the state. Despite all that explanation, I still can’t guarantee to keep […]
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Assessing Neighborhood Safety- Gang Graffiti

Written by: Greg Ellifritz In my book Choose Adventure- Safe Travel in Dangerous Places I have a section of advice discussing how to assess whether an area is “safe” or not in a foreign country. I wrote: “Given the massive differences in culture, customs, and income, how can you tell if the neighborhood […]
A House Fire, a Garden Hose, and a set of Handcuffs

Written by: Greg Ellifritz The news headline was inflammatory: “Homeowner tasered by police as he fought fire spreading from house next door”. I came across it as I was scanning my Facebook news feed. The story described a man who was using a garden hose to prevent a neighbor’s house fire from spreading. […]
Armed Citizen Response to the Terrorist Bomber

Written by Greg Ellifritz Terrorists worldwide use bombs as their weapons of choice. Occasionally, these bombs will be supplemented by sniper fire, grenades, or active shooters but it’s the bombs that get media attention. Many of my readers have been to numerous shooting schools and have trained in martial arts for years. How many […]
My Best Writing- 2020

Written by: Greg Ellifritz Last week, I posted an article linking to my most popular posts in 2020. In that article, I discussed how my “most popular” articles were not the same as my “best” articles. I liked many of the most popular articles (ranked by page view), but I think other […]
Top 10 Most Popular Articles of 2020

Written by: Greg Ellifritz Seth Godin made a very powerful statement in a recent 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 […]
Trainers You Should Know- John Murphy

Written by: Greg Ellifritz There are more competent firearms instructors teaching quality classes than ever before in human history. None of us has a corner on the market. Just like I’ve trained with dozens of top instructors over the years, my students will also train with other teachers. That’s a good thing. In […]
Dealing with Disruptive Airline Passengers

Written by: Greg Ellifritz Air travel is starting to increase from the nadir of the Covid-19 pandemic. As more and more people feel comfortably flying, I’ve seen a huge number of incidents where violent or erratic passengers have disrupted airline flights in the past few weeks. Before reading further, check out the articles below […]
Post Election Riots?

Written by Greg Ellifritz The US presidential elections are happening right now. My American readers should be prepared for violent protests and street attacks when the results get counted. There is constant low-level internet chatter about rioting, looting, and mayhem being planned by different groups depending on which political party wins most […]
Standing Up

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you are undoubtedly familiar with the writings of Justin White from Mad Science Defense. Justin recently contacted me about running a few of his most successful articles as guest pieces on my blog. He is closing down the Mad Science Defense site and is focusing […]
Principles of the Ground

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you are undoubtedly familiar with the writings of Justin White from Mad Science Defense. Justin recently contacted me about running a few of his most successful articles as guest pieces on my blog. He is closing down the Mad Science Defense site and is focusing […]
Why Did My Gun Blow Up?

Written by: Greg Ellifritz I had an unusual experience at the range today. The gun I was shooting blew up in my hand. In a 20+ year career as a full time firearms instructor, I’ve seen a few guns blow up. I blew up a Kahr PM-9 once (stupidly) shooting reloads from an unknown […]
Five Deadly Fallacies of Hand to Hand

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you are undoubtedly familiar with the writings of Justin White from Mad Science Defense. Justin recently contacted me about running a few of his most successful articles as guest pieces on my blog. He is closing down the Mad Science Defense site and is focusing […]
Hip-Pocket Medical Drills

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 […]
Understanding Decisions to Burglarize from the Offender’s Perspective

Written by: Greg Ellifritz I found a very interesting piece of research linked up on the Practical Eschatology website. The report “Understanding Decisions to Burglarize from the Offender’s Perspective” provided the conclusions researchers amassed after interviewing more than 400 incarcerated burglars. The study proposed to answer the following questions: 1. What motivates […]
The Future of American Policing

Written by: Greg Ellifritz I had two different friends send me messages last weekend requesting my thoughts on what policing is going to look like in the future. I thought about it quite a bit and here are my predictions. We have to recognize that police are a part of our […]
The Chapstick Trick

Written by Greg Ellifritz Do any of you shoot with a tactical light mounted on the rails of your self defense or police duty pistol? If so, you have likely experienced immense frustration trying to remove the burnt carbon residue from the light’s lens after a long shooting session. The lenses get […]
“I’d just run away”- Are you fit enough to escape?

Written by: Greg Ellifritz I find it endlessly fascinating to listen to my students’ thoughts about the “best” course of action to take in a crisis situation. Especially when teaching female students, I hear a one very common response. Whenever I ask the students how they would respond to a challenging and dangerous situation, […]
Shot in the Back! How does it happen?

Written by Greg Ellifritz With predictable regularity, the media and various civil rights groups become indignantly incensed when the cops or an armed citizen shoot a criminal in the back. It somehow violates society’s ideal that all confrontations should be settled “face to face” and be a “fair fight.” That doesn’t happen very often […]
The Firearms Manifesto Part One: Your First Gun

Written by Greg Ellifritz It’s like clockwork. At least once a week, I open my email and see some version of the following question: “I’m worried about (your choice: crime, the declining economy, right wing politicians, mutant zombies, societal collapse, left wing politicians, etc) and want to buy a gun. I don’t have […]