New Defensive Pistolcraft Post

 Jon Low has published a new Defensive Pistolcraft post rounding up defensive and firearms oriented articles and videos. For those of you interested in church security, he has collected several articles and offers some nuggets of wisdom on this topic with several focusing on protecting against theft of donations from collection plates. 

    Since the LDS church has never used a donation plate within my memory (they probably did in the 19th Century), it was an interesting look into how other churches collect funds from members. Jon discusses the security arrangements with one church that essentially used strong boxes as collection boxes and arranged for an armored car to collect and deliver donations to a bank. Conversely, there is very little security against theft on a ward level within the LDS church (most people donate electronically now, but even before there was very little in the way of cash donations with most people writing checks). When I've served as a financial clerk I would always make sure to be armed when assisting with the counting and depositing of donations, but I was probably in a very small minority in that regard.

    Jon has linked to numerous articles from Tom Givens in the Rangemaster Newsletter. Be sure to check them out. 

    Jon relates:

     I am right-handed.  I wore my pistol left-handed (at 9 o'clock) and dry practiced left-handed for two months before shooting the USPSA match left-handed this past July.  Try it.  All you need is a left-handed holster.  Everything else should be ambidextrous.  If you can't operate your pistol with your left-hand, time to get an ambidextrous pistol.  A small injury will make you left-handed.  Just because you are right-handed does not mean you will be right-handed in combat.  Strange unpredictable things happen in combat.  Shooting around the left side of a barrier is much safer when done left-handed.  

     It's an experience you ought not to miss.  

It reminds me of a discussion that I had recently with a couple friends, one of whom is considering getting another small revolver for concealed carry. I was mostly staying out of the conversation but then one friend said something to the other about a semi-auto, to which the second (the friend wanting a revolver) mentioned that he hated to carry a semi-auto with a round chambered because he just thought it too big of a risk (because I had only been half listening up to that point, I wasn't sure if he was concerned of an accidental discharge or someone grabbing it and using against him or what was the concern). My thought, which I expressed, is that I didn't want to be in the position of having an injured hand or having someone grab one of my hands, and not be able to rack the slide. My point being that we may not have the use of both hands if we have to defend ourselves. Which brings me back to Jon's comment: even if you don't shoot an IDPA match with your non-dominant hand, you should practice both shooting and weapon manipulations with your non-dominant hand. And you should practice shooting and weapon manipulation with just one hand. Because you may not always be in a position to use both hands. 

    And some interesting statistics on criminals and their capabilities with firearms scattered throughout Jon's post:

• Citing Greg Ellifritz: "Nearly 40% of the criminal attackers in this study had received FORMAL firearms training (mostly in the military).  More than 80% of the criminal attackers regularly practiced with their firearms, with an average number of 23 Practice Sessions Per Year.  They conducted these practice sessions in trash dumps, wooded areas, back yards and 'street corners in known drug trafficking areas'.  What that means is that the practice sessions were taking place in realistic environments, under conditions similar to those the attackers were likely to face in combat."
• Quoting from another article: "'16 of 43 offenders had received weapons training'" Hit rate offender on officer: 68%; Hit rate officer on offender: 39%; Most common offender shooting method: point shooting.
• And from a study on the firearms capability of Dallas police officers, after noting that about half of officers could hit what they were aiming at in a gun fight: "However, on a 'bullet level' basis, they found that out of 354 shots fired, there was only a 35% hit rate. One half of all officers missed with every shot they fired, including one officer who fired 23 misses and no hits. This means that six out of every ten shots fires was a miss."