New Defensive Pistolcraft Post

For your labor day enjoyment, I suggest checking out Jon Low's new Defensive Pistolcraft newsletter. He begins by observing: "Gun-free-zones are a fiction.  Does anyone in their right mind believe that posting or declaring a gun-free-zone will prevent bad guys from bringing guns into the area?  Did it work at Covenant School in Nashville, TN or anywhere else? ever?"

    Jon divides his newsletter into discrete sections and you can use CTRL-F to quickly move through to a particular section. This particular newsletter is divided into the following sections and subsections:

• Prevention
• Mindset
• Safety
• Training
• Practice
• Intervention
• Strategy
• Tactics
• Techniques
• Postvention
• Aftermath
• Survival, Medical, etc.
• Education, History, etc.
• Legal
• Instruction
• Gear
• Cryptology
• Electronic Warfare
• Intelligence

And a few points or articles that jumped out at me in my first past through. Some are just quotes or topics that caught my fancy, others are on topics that I might know a little about. I find if I go back through, other points are articles will catch my attention. A few topics (like the cryptology) are mostly over my head now. It was not always so: back in my undergraduate days I wrote a paper for one of my classes on the subject of cryptology for business and accounting systems for which I won an award. But that was many years ago and I haven't done anything with that topic since. A perfect example of how skills and knowledge can degrade over time without continued use, practice and/or continued education.

    Anyway, a few points or items that jumped out:

• Jon writes:

     When I was a child I lived in custom built houses because my mother would sit down with the architect to design the house and then mom would oversee ever detail of the construction.  So it never occurred to me how well designed the houses were.  

     When I got married (the first time), my wife fancied herself an architect and designed our house.  She got a structural engineer to sign off on the blueprints.  It was suboptimal.  But it was her baby, so it was fine.   

 

     Over the years I have been modifying pistols for clients and students.  Well, I do the work on the plastic parts with a Dremel tool and files, Aidan Hoffman does the precision machine work on the metal parts.  Recently a former student sent me an email in which she described a class she took in which the students shot each other's pistols to get a feel for what others use.  (I had a similar experience when I took a long range rifle class at Strategic Edge Gun Range, Tony Shankle was the instructor.)  My former student mentioned how the other pistols (factory standard, no custom work) did not feel comfortable in her hand.  She mentioned how the other students asked her about work that she had had done on her pistol.  She didn't know what work had been done on her pistol.  She just accepted it from me, and assumed that I had done whatever was needed to make it comfortable and reliable.   

     Most people don't care how their car works, just that it works.  So they don't notice a suboptimal car until they have to drive a loaner when their car is in the shop for repair.  Most people would never think to ask their mechanic to adjust the gas and brake pedals to get them even, so that they can pivot on their heel to quickly move from one pedal to the other.  

     But it is important.  Send me an email if you would like the list of modifications that I recommend for reliability and comfort.  

  Jon's email is: Jon_Low@yahoo.com

• Excerpting from "Aiming Center Mass vs. Quick Stop–Which is Better?" by Mike Ox:

     In a recent Force Science training I was at with Mike Musengo, he told us about a fellow officer who put multiple center-mass hits on a threat . . . including one that took out the aorta, and the attacker STILL stayed in the fight for 13.5 seconds with a non-functioning circulatory system.   

 

     The fact is, “clean kills” and “lethal hits” have a time component.  It’s OK if you shoot a grass eater that’s 100 yards away and it runs away from you for 10-15 seconds before expiring.   

 

     It’s NOT OK for a mortally wounded meat eater (2 legged or 4 legged) who’s charging you to have 10-15 seconds to put the hurt on you before expiring.  

---

     ". . . because of the time component, this means that a threat that’s close to you may take MORE solid hits [ed: to stop before it harms you] than one that’s further away."  

• Jon links to an article entitled "Public Bathroom Breaks While Armed" by Matt Jacques. I think Greg Ellifritz recently linked to this article as well. It caught my attention because this is a topic I've written about a few times because it isn't a topic that wasn't really discussed in the past in gun magazines with the result that people new to concealed carry (including myself) had to figure it out themselves. Fortunately, much more has been written about the topic including by Massad Ayoob. There are three main problems that can come about when going to the restroom while carrying concealed. 
• First, and foremost, is there is always the potential that if you have removed the firearm from your holster that you could have an accidental discharge (I will use the term "accident" because "accident" is not just an act of God but also includes negligence). Sometimes it can be the result of a firearm falling (and the person trying to grab it and accidently pulling the trigger) or some people just get bored and fiddle with things. About 10 to 15 years ago, there was a flurry of articles I saw about firearm discharges in public restrooms, so it is something that does happen. I don't see as many articles about it today, but I suspect that it isn't because less people discharge firearms in public restrooms but because those articles were published to scare voters into not supporting laws allowing concealed carry, but that issue is largely moot in most states. Nevertheless, just like your odds of a car accident go up as soon as you back your car out of your garage and start driving, so your odds of discharging a handgun go up once you remove it from the holster. 
• Second, there is a risk of losing the firearm either to forgetting it or having it stolen. A common one (even for police officers) is to remove a firearm from a holster and set it on the back of toilet (ew!) or a shelf or something, and then forget it when leaving a restroom stall. For those using a duty belt or dual belt system of some sort, there is the temptation to remove the belt and hang the whole thing on the convenient coat hook in most restroom stalls. Back before it became all "woke" and "antiracist" there was a great episode of The Rookie where a rookie police officer does just that and her training officer, to teach her a lesson, reaches over the door and snatches her duty belt running off with the weapon. Yes, that is Hollywood, but it did demonstrate how easy it could be done.
• Third, there is a risk of someone seeing the firearm through the cracks between the door and walls in the restroom stall or underneath the door or walls, etc., and alerting police or security (if the facility has its own security officers). 

Jacques recommends a technique that mitigates against the second risk, but heightens the first risk: he suggests removing the firearms from the holster and placing it in the groin of your lowered trousers and pants which will act like a basket to hold the firearm. Jon writes: "NO!  Removing your pistol from your holster or removing your holster from your belt is a terrible idea.  Don't do it!  Keep your pistol holstered.  Keep your holster on your belt.  Never take it off.  NEVER!" What I found works is to undo my belt and trousers and only lower my trousers and underwear about half to 2/3 down the thighs while holding on to the belt with one hand so the belt doesn't come loose from the belt loops. That way, the firearm stays in its holster and the holster stays on the belt, and the belt stays in pretty much the same position around the trousers. But because there is a bit of a drag, the holster (especially when worn at a 3 to 5 o'clock position) will hide against or slightly underneath the thigh. If you have to use a toilet many times a day where you will be sitting and lowering your trousers, Mass Ayoob has suggested switching to something like a shoulder holster. A flashbang holster for the ladies will work much the same way.

• Jon cites to an article that indicates that the "The Assisted Suicide Rate in Canada is 4.45 times the Firearms Suicide Rate in the United States". He comments:

     Suicide assisted by quacks (not something a real doctor would ever do) and drugs is just as bad as suicide by pistol, and way more expensive.   

 

     Remember, Marines solve their problems by killing their enemies, not by killing themselves.  Killing yourself means you have failed to correctly solve your problem and have given up trying.  All problems can be solved by thinking.  You need not do the thinking.  Ask for help.  There are many others who will do the thinking for you.  You just have

to ask for help.  

• After citing to "Man fatally shot by Aurora [Colorado] Police was trying to stop another man from taking his backpack, police say" by Matt Moret, Jon relates:

      Dealing with responding police officers should be part of your strategy.  If you've still have a gun in your hand when the cops arrive, best to drop it immediately.   

 

     The smart move is to have your pistol holstered before the police arrive. [Ed Monk says, you'll be on your third cigarette by the time the cops arrive.]   

 

     Never draw the pistol unless you intend to use it immediately.  [A pistol is not a tool for intimidation or threat.  The pistol is to immediately stop the attack by immediately incapacitating the enemy.  The only thing that would cause you not to shoot is the enemy's behavior.]  If you intend to use it immediately, shoot immediately; and continue to shoot until there is no threat.  Once the threat is ended because you stopped the threat or you escaped the threat, holster the pistol, so the cops don't shoot you.  Yes, as a matter of fact, there are lots of documented cases in which the cops shoot the good guy.  The cops don't know you.  How could they?  They generally have very bad intelligence.  Their intelligence gathering, analysis, and dissemination are all very poor, staffed with low paid, untrained, civilians.  What would you expect?   

 

     When I was working in Arizona, a bad guy broke into the home of a couple.  The home owner, husband, is holding the home invader at gun point when the cops arrive.  The home owner, wife, is outside and tells the responding officers that her husband is holding the home invader at gun point in the house.  The police officers enter the house and shoot the home owner to death.  So, even with perfect intelligence, the police (untrained, inexperienced, panicked, etc.) still killed the good guy.  You cannot be holding a firearm and pointing at someone lying on the ground when the police arrive.  Police simply are not that competent.  For their pay and training, we cannot expect them to be.  

Well, I do expect that they should be held to the same safety standards as your standard civilian including the same reasonableness standards for shooting in self-defense.