Some longer and more involved reading for the weekend:
- "Handgun Ergonomics" by Karl Rehn. Earlier this week, Greg Ellifritz collected blog posts from firearms trainers that had attended and/or presented at Tac Con 2026 (link here). One of these was from Karl Rehn who essentially published his presentation on handgun ergonomics. He looks at both grip strength and hand size, including length of the trigger finger. And he acknowledges something that almost sounds like heresy: the Glock 19 is not the best gun for everyone. In fact, he states:
In an earlier era, the single stack 1911 pistol, with its skinnier frame and shorter trigger reach, actually fit more shooters better than the “everyone must have a Glock 19” approach that followed the end of the 1911 era in training.
XL – 3.50″ or longer – any gun
L – 3.25-3.50 – Glock 17/19 or similar
M – 3.00-3.25 – Glock 48, Hellcat Pro, Shield X, SIG 365, 1911
S – less than 3.00 – EZ 380, Springfield EMP, S&W Shield, Glock 42, S&W Bodyguard and others
Most of the “Small” guns end up being single stack .380s, because the shorter cartridge length of the .380 results in a shorter trigger reach. I see a LOT of students show up for class with Glock 19 sized guns who really need the medium sized guns due to hand size.
It is a detailed article, so be sure to read all of it. And he has a Part 2 that discusses ergonomics and manipulation.
- Jon Low has a new Defensive Pistolcraft newsletter. Lots of links, excerpts and commentary as always. Something to keep in mind:
Email from Joe Shahoud --
I just watched a guy break into a house in 12 seconds.
He didn't pick the lock. Didn't kick down the door. Didn't even try.
He walked up to the front door, smashed the little glass window next to it, and reached inside to unlock the deadbolt. All that money spent on fancy locks? Useless. See, most people think about securing their doors. They buy expensive deadbolts. They use longer screws. They do all sorts of stuff to make their door harder to break down. But they completely ignore the glass.
And here's the thing . . . thousands of homes have glass right next to their front door. Side lights. Glass inserts. Windows within arm's reach of the lock. It's like putting a steel door on a paper wall.
So what's the solution? Security film. It's a clear film that goes on your windows and makes them nearly impossible to break through quickly. Even if someone hits it with a hammer, it holds together.
I had this stuff installed on my house after doing some research. Found out 3M makes the best stuff. Got it done by a local company called Mr. Tint. Now my glass windows are actually secure.
If you've got glass near your door (and most people do), you might want to look into this. Especially if you have one of those smart locks that unlocks from the inside. Because what's the point of a smart lock if someone can just reach through broken glass to unlock it? Not very smart, right?
All this said, of course it's a no-brainer to have a deadbolt without a thumb turn knob if you can. This way there's nothing to unlock if they break the glass.
One of the common links between Greg's Tac Con 2026 post, above, and Jon's newsletter was on tactical anatomy was a piece by Jacob S. Paulsen discussing the importance of tactical anatomy--where to shoot to stop a threat--because it is not enough to just shoot center of mass. Jon offers his own thoughts:
My recommendations:
To the front of the head - the center of the triangle defined by the eyes and nose (cranial-ocular). Because the eyes are soft and the bone behind the eyes is thin, and the nose is soft cartilage and there is no hard bone behind the nose.
To the side of the head - ear hole (external auditory meatus) or the neck (carotid artery, vagus nerve, spinal column).
To the back of the head - spinal column at the base of the skull.
The skull is the hardest strongest bone in the body. It is unlikely that you will penetrate it with pistol bullets. So you must shoot through an existing hole.
To the front of the torso - the center of the triangle defined by the nipples and notch at the top of the sternum (high thoracic). Or you can think of it as the intersection of the center line of the body and the line connecting the armpits.
To the side of the torso - the armpit (which means your bullet may need to penetrate the upper arm, that's why your self-defense ammo is +P and designed to defeat barriers).
To the back of the torso - the spinal column between the shoulder blades.
If the bad guy is wearing body armor and helmet with ballistic face shield, consider the neck below the helmet / face shield and above the body armor, the inboard side of the arms (brachial arteries), inboard side of the thighs (femoral arteries).
From below, consider inside the jaw and up into the brain, or inside the pelvic girdle and up into the torso.
If you know what to aim for, you will aim carefully for that target. If you don't know, you'll be spraying and praying. Because you won't be able to figure it out during combat, no matter how good your medical training. I recognize and appreciate your medical school, internship, residency, and post grad work. But you still need to think about your targets ahead of time, decide, and practice (visualize, dry practice). Otherwise, you won't be able to execute under stress.
It helps to use anatomical targets for your practice showing the location of the spine and vital organs. I use the ones offered by Sage Dynamics which show the vital information without being so detailed that they are distracting. When printing on standard 8.5 x 11 inch paper, the thoracic vitals target should be touching the bottom of the cranial vault target. Unfortunately, they don't offer targets showing the anatomy from the side. But Kit Badger has some basic black and white ones from the (left) side that are available for download for free.
And speaking of free of charge, Jon notes:
These aren't the web-sites, but electronic versions of the physical magazines. It is not uncommon for articles available on the websites to be shorter or leave out photos or text from the print editions, so this is nice to have.
And be sure to check out the detailed instructions Jon gives on cleaning your handgun (or other firearms) and magazines.
- Greg Ellifritz has a new "Weekend Knowledge Dump" at his Active Response Training blog. You will note that he has reposted the "Handgun Ergonomics" article listed above because he thinks it is so important--so if you skipped it, go back and read it. And some others that caught my attention in particular:
- Massad Ayoob goes over the issue of carrying more ammo noting that the risk has changed: larger groups of criminals working together; more criminals using bullet resistant vests; the doped up criminal; and criminals better trained or experienced on tactics and use of cover. Something I saw FerFal discuss in his book, The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse, was that certain people because of their wealth or jobs are more likely to attacks by organized groups, e.g., a courier who transports valuables (jewelry or cash), or a wealthy person targeted by kidnappers, and that they will need to carry more ammunition than the average person whose biggest threat might be a street mugging.
- An article with tips shooting with your "weak" hand.
- An article on the utility of using a stout walking stick in defending against an aggressive dog. While it lacks the mass of a good wooden walking stick, the lightweight hiking pole can also be used to fend off a dog, although it would make a poor club if more force were required. Pepper spray can be effective although it suffers many of the same problems against dogs as bear spray against bears.
- The article on situational awareness that motivated Greg's article on why keeping your head on a swivel was stupid.
- And now for something completely different: "New Measurement Deepens the Mystery of 'Hubble Tension,' Suggesting Physics We Don’t Understand"--The Debrief. An excerpt:
The findings, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, place the expansion rate at about 45.7 miles (73km) per second for every 3.26 million light-years. The uncertainty is just over 1%, making it one of the tightest constraints ever achieved.
What makes that result striking is not just its precision. It also reinforces a mystery that refuses to go away. Measurements of the nearby Universe continue to show a faster expansion rate than predictions based on the early Universe. The gap has now grown too large to dismiss as a simple calibration error or statistical fluke.
Instead, the consistency of these independent measurements increasingly points to the conclusion that the standard model of cosmology is missing a key piece of the puzzle, whether that involves the behavior of dark energy, unknown particles, or even subtle changes to the laws of gravity themselves.
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