Jon Low has a new Defensive Pistolcraft post up at his blog. Lots of good linkage and advice, so be sure to check it out. As always, I try and pick a few things to whet your interest. First, some advice:
Don't irritate strangers. For all you know, he just buried his wife and children, decided to commit suicide, and you look amazingly like the drunk driver who killed his family. His last thought will be that he did the world a favor by killing you. Park your car correctly, not in someone else's space, not in a handicap space. Don't litter. Don't throw your cigarette butt on his lawn. Don't howl like a wolf at the pretty girl, don't whistle either. Don't give anyone the middle finger. He may get convicted. Your family may get a lot of money. But, you'll still be dead.
Don't argue with strangers.
In Aq's Combative Pistol class, he showed us a video of a couple arguing with their neighbor. The lady of the couple is heard saying, "You're on camera." She thought the neighbor would be inhibited by long term consequences. But he had previously decided to commit suicide. So for the neighbor, there were no consequences. She and her husband didn't understand this. So they are both still screaming in disbelief when the neighbor shoots both of them to death. (The neighbor had shot the couple to the ground with a pistol. Went back into his house to get a rifle. Came back out onto the road. And then shot both of them to death with his rifle. While the couple's child watched from their car.) It is a terrible mistake to believe other people think the way you think. They don't.
If you are a member of your church's security program or detail, Jon has even more advice for you. And he has sprinkled his post with comments and links concerning support hand drawing and shooting, plus the following:
Shooting support-hand only is good, but should be preceded by drawing with support-hand only. Shooting from the ready position assumes that the shooter was able to get the pistol out of the holster with his support hand only.
There are many techniques. These are the ones that I teach:
I. Reaching around the back of the body - (this is the preferred method)
A. Thumb forward, palm outboard, establish a proper grip. *
B. Won't work when wearing a backpack, seated against a back rest, lying on the back, etc.
II. Reaching around the front of the body --
A. Supinated - thumb forward, palm outboard, establish the grip before pulling the pistol out of the holster. *
B. Pronated - thumb forward, palm outboard, establish the grip before pulling the pistol out of the holster. (Oh yes, there are people who can do this. It's just a matter of stretching.) *
C. Rotate in the holster - pull the pistol partially out of the holster, rotate (roll as opposed to pitch or yaw) the pistol by 180°, establish a proper grip. [This is why FLETC forbids the SERPA holsters. The pistol, in particular the Glocks, will get jammed in the SERPA holster, requiring disassembly of the holster.]
D. Rotate in the belt - draw the pistol with an upside down grip, insert the pistol into the belt in front of your navel, rotate the pistol by 180°, establish a proper grip.
E. Hold with knees - draw the pistol with an upside down grip, place the pistol between your knees, establish a proper grip.
F. These techniques won't work when pregnant, when carrying a baby in a frontpack, if your belly is obstructing, etc.
III. If you drop the pistol, let it hit the ground and then establish a proper grip. This may be faster than any of the techniques above, but you lose control of the pistol. The pistol will not fire. The pistol will not bounce. The pistol will not roll away.
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The starred, "*", techniques allow the shooter to establish a correct grip while the pistol is still in the holster. Being able to draw from the front or back of your body with support side hand is yet another reason for carrying with your inside the waistband holster on a sturdy belt at the side of your body. It's really useful to be able to reach behind your back to draw your pistol. Do a little stretching. Take a yoga class. You can do it.
And a couple of the articles to which he linked that caught my eye:
The first, "Aurora Victim’s Family Says Gun-Control Group Misled Them on Risks of ‘Meritless’ Lawsuit That Drove Them into Bankruptcy," is about a couple that, with the encouragement of the Brady United Against Gun Violence group, filed a suit against firearms manufacturers after their daughter was killed in the Aurora movie theater shooting. Because there are laws in Colorado (in addition to federal laws) protecting firearms manufacturers from baseless suits, the lawsuit was dismissed as frivolous and the parents were ordered to pay the manufactures' legal fees (of course, the Brady organization did not step in to help the couple). While you might think that this is an example of karma, the better lesson is that certain people--and groups--lie or mislead. Although the Brady groups has denied doing anything wrong, we know that they mislead people about firearms and firearm violence, so being misleading is, so to speak, baked into their organization's DNA. Thus, it would not surprise me if they didn't sufficiently discuss or explain the risks of litigation to the parents.
The other article that caught my attention in particular was "Impact Weapons - Their Use Today" by Gabe Suarez. One of the points he makes is that "the era of impact weapons has come to a close." Not because impact weapons cannot be great tools, but because of the restrictions on their use, including that the manner in which you would need to use them to be most effective against a young, strong male is now considered lethal force. If you are going to use lethal force, he suggests, then use something truly lethal like a firearm. It's exactly this issue that made me give up using or carrying an impact weapon for self-defense even though I had, at one time, purchased a collapsible baton because I'd wanted something intermediate between a harsh word and a firearm.
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