New Defensive Pistolcraft Post

Jon Low has a new newsletter up at Defensive Pistolcraft. First up, I want to express my thanks for the links to this humble blog. So, getting into some things that caught my attention....

• Jon offers up a cautionary tale:

     Neighbor called to ask for help.  Young black males, known to be violent and aggressive, were in the parking lot blasting their music from their cars and doing their drugs.  The noise was waking her kids and rattling her windows.  This was after dark, about 20:00 hours on a week night.  So, I get dressed and go out to politely ask them to turn down the music and to leave.  No, really, I was sincerely polite.  One of them tells me it's a free country and he can do whatever he likes.  I point out that he is on private property and he is waking the children.  He wants to fight.  So, I move in to attack.  He jumps back obviously scared, taken by surprise that the old chink was going to fight.  And not just fight, the chink was going to attack.  (I never displayed a weapon.)  They left.  

     Learn from my mistake.  Don't be eager to get into fights, just because you haven't in a long time.  Even if you're sure you're going to win, you might not.  I knew to do my breathing exercises to lower my pulse rate, but hesitated to do so, because I was enjoying the elevated pulse rate and adrenaline dump.  I guess I am still addicted to combat.  Don't be like me.  You end up alone.  

     The next morning, the drug dealer (female) who lives in the apartment two doors away from mine, calls the apartment manager to complain that I confronted her guests in the parking lot.  The apartment manager warns me that one more complaint and they will not renew my lease.  

     No good deed ever goes unpunished.  

I wonder if the manager warned the female drug dealer. Might be a Fair Housing Act violation if the manager was discriminating against Jon due to his race/ethnicity. Some of you might object to making use of a liberal/progressive law, but those are the weapons we have been given--might as well use them.

• He makes mention of an article from Greg Ellifritz entitled "Are Those Really Gunshots?" noting victims of mass shootings reported thinking that the gunfire they were hearing was something other than gun shots: fireworks, a door being kicked repeatedly, popping balloons, or some other sound. Greg warned that when you hear something that could be shots, it is better react as if they were shots and be embarrassed if you were wrong than injured or dead because you ignored or dismissed actual gunshots. I can empathize with people because, even if you are familiar with the sounds of gunshots, other sounds may sound like gunshots and actual gunshots can be muffled or distorted. An experience of mine: I'd been boiling an egg on one occasion when younger but hadn't been paying attention and the water had completely boiled off. As I was walking past the kitchen, there was a sudden "bang" and I dove to the floor thinking it was a gunshot. It was the egg exploding. 
• Jon links to a few articles from John Farnam written in the aftermath of the Hamas attack with some lessons for civilian defenders. First and foremost: "well-intentioned police officers’ or soldiers’ guns, that are over an hour away, are of little help when armed, extremist jihadis, who are determined to murder you and your family, are in the process of breaking down the doors of your home!" Thus, we must be our own first responders. In a subsequent post, Farnam follows up by noting "those few armed Israeli settlements successfully repelled terrorists. Unarmed ones witnessed their residents slaughtered wholesale!"
• And this from Stephen P. Wenger:

     I have repeatedly made the point that security must be layered.

    Serious burglars know that there is a lag time for police to respond to an electronic alarm.  However, safes and similar precautions, in most areas, may delay them long enough not to risk sticking around long enough for police to arrive.  

    Although a dog may be neutralized, it may be one more layer that can be added to deterrence, which is key.  Before the corporate consolidation of the alarm industry,  many professionals in that field would concede that the most important part of an alarm system is the signage warning that the premises are alarmed (preferably with signage from a different company than the alarm service, should a burglar think that he knows how to disable a particular brand).  

    One of my last pair of students queried me as to why I had an alarm sign posted prominently in front of my home.  Despite my explanation, he refused to accept the premise that deterrence is preferable to the damage from a forced entry and the gamble that police will respond in time to catch the burglars in the act, which he regarded as the function of an alarm system.  

    When I first moved here, I was amazed at the relatively low rate of residential burglaries in an area where many homes are not occupied year-round.  It finally struck me that the area tweakers figured that if they are detected by a homeowner or a neighbor, they are more likely, here in elk country, to get shot with a rifle of .270 or higher power than with a handgun.  

    Perhaps the worst-case scenario - as happened a several years ago in Utah, I believe before you subscribed to the Digest - is for a known owner of guns to answer the door unprepared and end up forced at gunpoint to open up his own safe for the robbers.  As I try to recall the details of that incident, I believe that he was murdered after he opened his safe.  

    I don't know if it has deterred a burglary or not, but I have always made sure that our alarm company's sign is displayed prominently for that very reason. And when a visitor backed over it by accident, destroying it, the security company was more than happy to send us a new sign for no cost. 

    The downside to the sign is that we have had a few occasions when someone has come to our door trying to sell us on a new security system. On one occasion, they were representing that their company was taking over contracts for our company: we reported that to our company so they could deal with it. The other two occasions I was pretty sure that they were just trying to have an excuse to come into our house. I politely declined their offer of a "free inspection," but asked for the business cards. No surprise, but they had forgotten or run out of business cards. 

• Jon has information and links for several different companies offering self-defense insurance. Check it out. And, as he reminds you, check the fine print. 
• Jon also offers up an After Action Report on Narcan training by Jeremy Reese, TN Department of Health, including tips and information he learned. As he notes, the reason to take such training is not necessarily to save the life of a drug addict but the life of an innocent, like the baby in whose crib the drug addict stashed his or her narcotics. Idaho requires a prescription to obtain Narcan, so it won't be anything I'll be carrying anytime soon, but it may be different in your state.
• Some quotes and thoughts from Louis Awerbuck, including this one: ". . . Jeff Cooper's ʽcenter of mass’ – like so many other things in recent years – has been bastardized and plagiarized to the extent that it has now been misconstrued as meaning center of mass of the upper torso — and this not what he initially intended.  The idea is to shoot center of mass of the part or portion of the target that you wish to strike — and this isn't always center of the upper torso." 
• From that same section, Jon notes how high heart rates (i.e., above 150) starts degrading your performance and gives some advice on how to bring that rate down.

There is so much more there that you really need to go over and check it out. I can guarantee you that you will find at least one nugget (and probably more) of wisdom or a few tips and pointers that will improve your shooting or your life or both. 

    I will finish off with one thing I found interesting. Jon links to an article by Dean Weingarten on why handguns appear to be more effective than rifles or shotguns when it comes to bear defense. The answer, according to Weingarten, is because "[m]uch of the advantage of accuracy at range of rifles and shotguns is eliminated because most defenses against bears occur at very close range. Defensive handguns have been designed with close range defense in mind. They are specifically designed for quick access, and repeated fast shots at close range." Conversely slung rifles are generally slower to get into action than a handgun, and many wildlife agencies and hunters will carry a rifle with an empty chamber which also makes them slower to get into action. Secondly, he suspects that selection bias might play a factor as well: someone dealing with an aggressive bear with a rifle at some distance doesn't count as a "bear attack" and so it isn't counted.