Weekend Reading

Greg Ellifritz has a new Weekend Knowledge Dump with lots of links to articles and other links on self-defense and survival topics.  And he has links to some Black Friday deals for prepping and self-defense minded people. Some of the links in his Weekend Knowledge Dump that caught my attention in particular:

• An article from Shooting Illustrated titled "How Fast Can You Run?" that addresses the elephant in the room for those who think that in the event of danger, they can run away. It's more than just a fitness issue as the article notes other factors such as sex (men generally can walk and run faster than women), age, terrain, the type of footwear, and more. The other thing to remember is that running uses different muscles than other exercises--even sprinting is going to be different from jogging or long distance running--and you could end up injuring yourself. 
• One of the issues that come up again and again is the topic of using bird shot or other small shot for self-defense in shotguns. In that vein, Greg links to an article discussing using shells loaded with BB loads and why it is not the best option for self-defense. The BB loads that were tested had decent penetration out to 10 to 20 yards depending on the load used (so probably acceptable inside the confines of most residences). The problem was the spread pattern which opened up pretty quick such that the best range he could get before the pattern opened up too far was only 10 yards, and that was with a load using flight control wads. 
• So I had mentioned earlier this week an incident from Italy where migrants attacked a couple having sex in a car, and gang raped the woman (the male victim's fiancee). Greg also take note of this incident, but rather than focusing on the attackers being migrants, the point he raises is that there are some situations that justify resistance even against all odds--that there are some things worth killing (or dying) for.
• A point/counter-point style (do any of your remember that TV program?) article discussing whether you should train with hostage targets with one author (Ralph Mroz) arguing against it because it fools you into taking a shot you won't be able to take, and Claude Werner pointing out that people can and do make those shots. Mroz raises a good point about the small size of a person's head and that they can move their head faster than you can make the shot. That, however, has more to do with why the head should not be your initial target in a gun fight rather than an argument against taking a shot in a hostage situation. One of the key aspects of a hostage situation as portrayed in hostage targets is that the criminal is standing behind the victim so he does not have to move. I remember seeing a video of a security guard that was present when a man took a woman hostage outside the store where the guard worked. The guard rested his revolver on the roof of a car, took careful aim, and took the shot when it was clear that the man was too agitated to reason with. There was no issue of the man trying to dodge out of the way. I saw another video where the criminal was so intent on holding his hostage and yelling at the police surrounding him that he never even noticed one officer quickly walk up to his side and shoot him in the head at contact distance with a shotgun.