Written by Greg Ellifritz I got the following question from a reader. As I think this answer has a universal appeal, I chose to answer it here so that all of you can benefit as well. Here’s the question: “I want to assemble/integrate your suggestions for practice sessions, but I’m overwhelmed by the […]
Written by Greg Ellifritz My obsession started early. As a teenager in the 1980’s I would annoy my school teachers by using class time to catch up on my fictional reading. The late Jerry Ahern’s “Survivalist” series was always a favorite. Ahern wrote entertaining stories about living in the USA following a nuclear bombing […]
Written by: Greg Ellifritz I’ve written a lot recently about the history of firearms instruction. That topic has only existed for about the last 100 years. Formal weapons training most certainly existed earlier, but it was pre-Civil War and reserved for the luxury class. Between the end of the US Civil War and […]
Written by Greg Ellifritz I’m going to start by saying that this is a massive book containing nearly 700 pages of text followed by almost 100 pages of reference notes. I’m also going to state that book is an intellectual masterpiece that contained ideas that were slightly more advanced than my limited mental capacity […]
Written by: Greg Ellifritz Compared to the average American, I read a massive number of books. I try to read around 10 books a month. I accomplish this because I don’t have TV in my house and I carry a book wherever I go. Whenever I have a few spare moments, I spend them […]
Written by: Greg Ellifritz Delf “Jelly” Bryce was an old time gunfighter who started his career as a lawman in the 1920’s. He served as a Oklahoma State Game Agent, Oklahoma City Police Officer, and later an FBI agent in the agency’s heyday fighting gangsters and alcohol smugglers. He received the nickname “Jelly” […]
Written by: Greg Ellifritz Compared to the average American, I read a massive number of books. I try to read between around 10 books a month. I accomplish this because I don’t have TV in my house and I carry a book wherever I go. Whenever I have a few spare moments, I spend […]
Written by: Greg Ellifritz Dan Ariely’s book The Upside of Irrationality is a book about making rational and irrational decisions. Books like these are a goldmine of information for firearms and combatives trainers. We regularly see people making irrational decisions in the context of self defense. It’s nice to figure out why they are doing […]
My new travel safety book is out in all formats! You can buy the Kindle edition HERE. You can get a paperback copy HERE. If you have a NOOK reader or are looking for the book in Apple Books, Kobo, and for library editions, you can get a copy on Smashwords. […]
My new travel safety book Choose Adventure- Safe Travel in Dangerous Places has been on the market for 10 days now. It’s doing pretty well. The book has been the #1 New Release in both the “Adventure Travel” and “Travel Reference” categories. Other authors have told me that it’s fairly difficult to hold that spot […]
Lots of folks are asking me questions about the best way to hunker down and survive the pandemic lock down. There are lots of survival books on the market, but most of them focus on “bug out” scenarios and surviving in the wilderness with nothing but a knife and some paracord. That isn’t the […]
Written by: Greg Ellifritz Compared to the average American, I read a massive number of books. I try to read between around 10-15 books a month. I accomplish this because I don’t have TV in my house and I carry a book wherever I go. Whenever I have a few spare moments, I spend […]
Written by Greg Ellifritz Here are two quick reads written by some friends of mine. I finished both of them this week and found each to be a valuable resource. The first is Annette Evans’ book The Dry Fire Primer. Annette introduces the book as: “Dry fire – practicing without live ammunition – […]
Written by: Greg Ellifritz I will admit right up front that I am not the most mechanically inclined guy. I don’t really enjoy fixing things or working on “projects.” With that said, I have accumulated some knowledge about fixing guns after attending a whole bunch of armorer certification courses. That doesn’t make me a […]
Written by: Greg Ellifritz A couple days ago I finished Karl Rehn and John Daub’s new book Strategies and Standards for Defensive Handgun Training. I really enjoyed it and found it to contain a whole bunch of valuable information. The authors’ book description follows: “What percentage of carry permit holders attend training […]
Anyone who has studied the science of self protection for a long time will recognize the name Marc “The Animal” MacYoung. I first started reading MacYoung’s books when I was in high school. Back in the late 1980s, he was one of the few authors who wrote about real life street combat and the psychology […]
Written by: Greg Ellifritz Compared to the average American, I read a massive number of books. I try to read between ten and 15 books a month. I accomplish this because I don’t have TV in my house and I carry a book everywhere I go in case I have a few spare moments […]
This is a guest post from my friend and long time Federal Law Enforcement officer, John Hearne. John is a gifted instructor and skilled tactician. In this post, he reviews a book written by a guy who quit the FBI after a couple years of service. Things seem to keep getting progressively worse. These are […]
Written by: Greg Ellifritz The ability to make fast decisions under stressful and time-pressed conditions is a critical component of winning a lethal force confrontation. Unfortunately, it is also very hard to teach. Research on decision making has traditionally been conducted in laboratories under calm conditions. The implications derived from such studies don’t […]
About 15 years ago, I attended a seminar taught by Dr. Kevin Gilmartin. It was one of the single most useful training seminars I’ve ever attended and I’ve used the information I learned in that class every single day since. Gilmartin distilled his lecture concepts into a short book called “Emotional Survival for Law […]
