New Newsletter from Defensive Pistolcraft

Jon Low released a new Defensive Pistolcraft newsletter this past week. As always, it is chock full of links, advice, and tips, but here are a few things that jumped out at me:

• First up, Jon  attended the "Active Shooter Response" training at Royal Range in Nashville, TN, and offers up some notes and key points from that training. While it is obviously aimed at people providing security, many of the points are also going to apply to the average armed civilian including the following:

     Are you competent to distinguish the bad guys from the good guys from the innocent bystanders in a chaotic high stress environment?  Is your vision good enough?  Do you need glasses?  Do you actually wear the glasses that you need?  (If your eyes are bad, get a red dot sight.)  Is your hearing good enough?  Do you need hearing aids?  Do you actually wear your hearing aids?  Can you hear the person screaming at you, "Don't shoot him!  He's the good guy!"  Because he is holding the bad guy at gun point.  
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     Can you run 100 yards from where you are to where the kids are being shot, fast enough to save lives?  (Or is everyone going to be dead by the time you get there?) Are you physically fit?  Are you going to arrive on scene, only to have a heart attack and die?  When you arrive on scene gasping for air, with elevated pulse rate, will you be able to distinguish between shoot and no-shoot targets, and apply accurate fire?  [This was part of the live fire exercise.]  This is a crowded school, so every miss is killing a child.  
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     Are you willing to kill bad guys?  How do you know?  Have you ever killed before? Even if you have, will you be willing to kill in the future?  One of the bad guys shooting kids in the building was a young white pregnant female.  Several of the armed guards did not shoot her (so she shot and killed them).  Several armed guards hesitated to shoot her (so she got off a few shots, and probably killed them, before they killed her).  I admit, I shot her immediately upon seeing the gun in her hand.  I guess that says something about me.  [This was part of the Simunitions exercise.]  

 

He has more from the class if this topic interests you.

• Jon links to an article by George Harris on dry fire practice, but adds the following: 

     Try this dry (otherwise you won't notice what we're looking for).  Rapid fire at a target in a quiet place with no distractions.  Hold the sights on the target and rapidly press and release the trigger.  What do you notice?  

     If you haven't practiced this a lot, you're probably moving your thumbs.  You're probably squeezing your grip more tightly with each trigger press.  

     Isolating your trigger finger from the rest of your two hands and 9 fingers is difficult.  It's not instinctive.  It's not natural.  You have to train yourself to isolate the trigger finger.  It takes disciplined practice.  The juice is worth the squeeze.  

     Now you understand why you have been missing those shots.  Recognizing the problem is the first step toward solving the problem.  Start slow.  Isolate the trigger finger motion.  A tight grip before you start the exercise will help.  Push with the firing side hand.  Pull with the support side hand.  Trap the pistol in this vice.  Then touch the trigger.  Take the slack out of the trigger.  Smoothly press through the sear release.  Repeat until perfect.  Speed comes with practice, not by forcing yourself to go faster.  

• Jon notes that "Glock Generation 5 pistols have engraved, not stamped, markings on the slide. 
  That means that if you impress a strong magnetic field through the slide and sprinkle
  iron filings on the slide you probably won't be able to see what was there before it
  was ground off." I think most every manufacturer now uses laser engraving because it is cheaper than stamping the traditional roll marks. Stamping the a number or other information compresses the steel, including the steel underneath the roll mark. This is why traditional methods of recovering serial numbers work--even if the number on the surface is removed, the impression remains in the compressed material immediately beneath the number. But what I believe Jon is referencing here is that because the laser engraving does not compress the steel, the engraved information should not, in theory, be recoverable by standard means. (That doesn't mean that there hasn't been some other change in the properties of the material surrounding or immediately below the engraving--you'll have to ask a metallurgist).
  
• Jon offers up a couple brief analyses of the situations in Pakistan (involving terrorist attacks by Baluchistan separatists) and comments from Sandy Patterson regarding Ukraine.

 There is a lot more there, so be sure to check it out.