Cruel Hand Luke

The new Federal low recoil stuff is super tight even at 25 yards.The shot sits in the cup until it leaves the barrel so it gets less pellet deformation from barrel contact. Since the pellets end up being more concentric (less deformed) they fly in a tighter pattern. I had a LE guy in class last month that was using it in a cylinder bore 18" 870 and getting FIST sized patterns at 25 yards. Frankly that is a bit too tight for my taste, but if ALL you have is buckshot and you might reasonably use it at 20+ yards then I guess it makes more sense. But still, it is interesting how many people still think that shotguns throw a "wall of lead". I am one of those that come down on the side of bigger patterns to insure hits on moving targets and to get multiple organ perforation with each shot. But then again I view the shotgun as a 15 yards and less weapon and if I need to shoot farther I probably would have been better served with a rifle. But to each his own. I've got an advanced shotgun class here Nov 8 and 9 and I'll try to get some pattern size data with different guns and loads and report back here after.

I actually carried to the interviews of the last 3 jobs I've had. That is going all the way back to 1995. Obviously I was not applying for anywhere that had metal detectors.....

I'm not a FAM but I do know one. For what it is worth,last I talked to him they were carrying Sig 229s .357 sig in traditional DA/SA , not the DAK trigger, and loading it with CCI Gold Dot 125 gr. As far as a good cheap (relatively speaking) pistol for CCW, the Sig P6(German police version of Sig 225) that is being imported by CAI is about as good a deal as there is. It is light, compact, and fits most people's hands well. Yes it is ONLY 9mm:rolleyes:, but then again there are graveyards full of guys killed with 9mm. Bullet placement is FAR more important than bullet size. And with HP ammo available today (like CorBon DPX and CCI Gold Dot), it is a much better stopper than it gets credit for.

I do not know any professional trainer that is training pulling the trigger again as a conditioned response to the gun not going bang. Except for with a revolver... (edited: ooops... apparently Dano and I were posting at same time with same thought on revolvers..) The conditioned response that pretty much everyone (at least everyone I am familiar with ) advocates is the Tap/Rack. Gun goes click, immediately Tap/RAck and try again. Pulling the trigger will only fix a hard primer problem and those are pretty low on the probability scale. You are likely just wasting precious time. If it does not go bang after the Tap/Rack, then you have more serious issues (likely a failure to extract) and runing away is gonna be plan A unless you are within arms reach and then plan A might be use the gun as an impact weapon and beat them into the deck with it. BUt honestly, if you have a quality pistol, keep it well maintained and acquire a proper grip on it when you draw it, the odds of a malfunction occurring are very small unless it goes off in contact with your body (slide hits you while it is reciprocating) or theirs (they grab onto it). And in either of those cases simply pulling the trigger again will do nothing for you (unless it is a revolver). Some argue that the military wants pistols with second strike capabilty when they put out bids for new pistols. Look at the context of that....military primers are harder, and the average soldier shoots a pistol VERY little in basic and then probably never touches one again. So if he ends up with one he is simply not going to have Tap/Rack ingrained as a conditioned response to the gun going click and the military is not terribly interested in investing time into turning them into "pistol fighters" when the odds of them ever even having to use a pistol (unless they are in an SMU) are slim to none.....it is all about context.

Ok Mars, exactly which parts of the article did you have issues with? Which part was "fantasyland"? I'm sure you are intimately aware that there has been a movement for a while in top tier SF units to bring in top ranked competition shooters (like Benny Cooley) and employ their training methodology in gunhandling and marksmanship into the SF training doctrine. Why? Because the best shooters are the best shooters PERIOD and running a gun efficiently and accurately is an obvious benefit in either a match or in the real world. The article was the culmination of discussions between folks in the "training world" the "gun game " world and the SF world (yeah I know some of them too) some of whom have feet in all three pools . There seems to be an undercurrent of thought that makes light of the skill built through competitive shooting even though everyone from Askins and Jordan to Cirillo and even Larry Vickers and Kyle Lamb all agree that competition shooting is not a hinderence to performing well under stress, but actually improves performance under stress and those that argue that it "will get you killed" just do not know the depth of their own ignorance. Of course if the ONLY training someone gets is IDPA, then they are going to be way behind the curve and have trouble discerning contextual differences, but that is an article for anotyer time. And I do not know anyone who seriously suggests that match shooting is all you need..... That is what the article is about. It is not directed at steely eyed gunmen like yourself. It is directed at folks who have no real background in anything and are looking at maybe participating in "gun games" to augment their own personal defense training regimen but have heard from the local gunshop commandos that it will "get them killed". I wrote the article to maybe get them to at least get out and give it a try. And I posted it here simply to give some of the less seasoned guys something to think about.

One other thing though that the "tactical" crowd , with all their tip toeing about and bunkering up behind cover seem to not take into account. The first gunshot goes off and the element of surprise is gone. At that point dynamic movement and accurate shooting will be more help that tip toeing up to the next doorway giving them time to get set and get behind cover. After all, they probably got a bit of a clue that you were there when you shot one of them..... And I know at least one guy in particular who has been in more than one gunfight and use of cover was not an issue in his fights because they were over very quickly and there was no cover to be used! You might know him too. His name is on the deed here! EDITORIAL NOTE( referring to Gabe Suarez as this originally appeared in the Suarez International Newsletter Sept 2008) On the reload, this is a bone of contention with some. Some in the tactical community teach an IPSC type speed load as the default reload method for real world tactical problems. They argue that it is hands down the fastest way to get a gun fully loaded again. They say that the reload with retention or tactical reload are both too slow and too cumbersome. But IDPA mandates that any reload not from slidelock must have the mag retained. Some argue this is silly. I think it really depends on the individual circumstances. There are some who wear more than one spare magazine on them so if they do lose one it is no big deal- they still have another full one. Hard to argue with that logic when the average gunfight is 3 to 5 rounds anyway.. The only issue is when the problem is not average and there is a limited number of mags and no immediate way of replenishing. Think Hurricane Katrina type situations. Or maybe military type clandestine operation in foreign lands.Here if you drop a mag it is likely gone for good. While I doubt many of us reading this fall into the latter category, I know many people went about armed after Hurricane Katrina and if they had been dropping mags in the water their mag supply would soon be depleted. Much more likely though is the "normal " guy who carries just one spare mag. If he jettisons his first and ends up having to shoot all of his second he is going to end up out of ammo fast. Especially if that is a single stack gun he carries.While this may be an unlikely scenario for the average citizen it might be a real concern for police or military guys. So I have no issues with the reload with retention. In fact the default proactive mag change that Suarez Int teaches is a reload with retention. While we do our 360 degree after action assessment we stow the mag that was in the gun and reload with a fresh mag. This gets us back up and loaded in case reinforcements for the bad guy are on their way but also retains the extra rounds in case things go from bad to worse. So if at the match you are forced to reload with retention and do not like it just imagine the scenarios are operating post Katrina and you are doing it in 2 feet of murky water and are without any support system to replenish lost gear. This might make that reload with retention more palatable. Now for the capacity concerns. I carry a hi cap pistol 99% of the time. And when I carry it I never download it to 11 rounds. I came to grips with it by considering it a malfunction and reloading and moving on. No one counts their rounds in real fights. They shoot until it goes click or shoot until there is no one left to shoot at . THEN they do a tac load of some type. But I have heard very few stories of civilian tac loads under fire. So I simply shoot the stage as written and unless there is a mandatory reload required I shoot until it is empty and reload. After it is all over I might tac load before I show "all clear" , but I realize the difference in training and the game so I honestly rarely do that. In fact there is a move in IDPA to get away from tac loads on the clock. I personally think that is a move in the right direction. The truth is that like any other shooting competition, IDPA matches are going to be won by those who shoot quickly and accurately. But then again aren't most gunfights also won by those who shoot quickly and accurately? So maybe we should worry less about doctrinal issues like cover and reloads and worry about whether we can hit what we are aiming at quickly. Remember it is a shooting match. A test of marksmanship and gunhandling under time pressure in a setting roughly replicating real world encounters. And then there are those that simply argue IDPA is not real. You know what? They are right. The bottom line though I think is not so much that the game is bad for the shooter, it is often that some shooters just do not do well at the game. Some of them argue that it was not real and use that as an excuse for poor grasp of basic defensive marksmanship and gunhandling . I am somewhat tired of hearing all the constant "IDPA is not real" and "if you try to win you'll get killed one day when you don't use cover trying to shoot the BGs fast". Of course it is not real, because the targets don't move and shoot back!!! And I darn sure don't down load my G34 to 10 rounds before I leave the house in the mornings! But I also realize IDPA is just a game. It is a game it has to have rules. To them it seems to come down to some kind of choice between being competitive or being "tactical" Look guys, if you work on your gunhandling skills (draw/presentation,trigger control, reloads,shooting from different positions) and on moving your feet rapidly when you need to move, you certainly CAN do well at the sport of IDPA and still be "tactically correct" on the street. The faster you can accurately shoot, the better, whether it is in a game or on the street. I still shoot fast and accurately and I finish high at my local matches most of the time because I don't waste time dithering over what to do, and I shoot and handle the gun QUICKLY. I honestly think a lot of people use "IDPA is not real"as an EXCUSE for not doing well or as an EXCUSE for not working harder to improve their skills! It almost becomes a justification for mediocrity.If you can "stink it up" and just throw out the tired old line "well, I did it RIGHT you guys are gaming it!" then there is no incentive to get better! What makes you think that while you barricaded yourself behind cover and took 15 seconds to shoot 6 shots at 3 targets 5 YARDS away,that in the REAL WORLD those bad guys didn't just flank your sorry butt and shoot you in the back of the head while you took FOREVER to shoot them? On the other hand if you can shoot each of them twice in 3 seconds they probably won't have that opportunity! What I was referring to about context. If the bad guys are close then you need to shoot fast, not give them an opportunity to out maneuver you. So hiding behind cover all day long is not always the correct tactical thing to do. Again, not directing this at any one individual. This is directed at the "tactical community" in general. I hear these excuses so often I begin to think it is just a crutch or excuse to justify moving and shooting like a lame turtle! Yes it is a game, but so is Ultimate Fighting Championship. Do you really think Chuck Liddell will fight on the street EXACTLY like he does in the octagon? I doubt it. If you WORK at your manipulations and gunhandling and shooting to the point it becomes second nature and you can do it "unconsciously" you WILL do well in IDPA. Will you win a National championship? Maybe not. That really depends on your ability. But you will probably do very well at your local matches and as a by product be that far ahead of the curve if it ever happens for real! You see IDPA is not real. It is not training. It is time pressured and peer pressured gunhandling and marksmanship practice on a course not of your design, so there is some thinking under pressure involved. You know, those physical and mental skills that help win real fights. And one other thing for those who do not participate due to fear of not doing well. Growth can only be achieved through risk of failure. Many are too ego invested to try new things that they may fail or have to work hard at to attain a high level of ability. If they DO something and fail,that is not a validation of their long practiced (or NOT practiced) training regimen. So to keep from damaging their ego they avoid putting themselves in a situation with the chance of failure. But at the same time they avoid the chance to polish their skills and become BETTER. No one becomes a master of anything avoiding hard work and challenges. Some of the best learning experiences are from FAILURE. But some people will never understand that. Get out and give it a try. If you don't like it then you hopefully had an educational experience and can use that to grow your practice regimen.Just don't avoid it because someone somewhere said it was not "real". To Train With Randy Harris, see our schedule

IDPA - Will It Get You Killed? Randy Harris - Suarez International Staff Instructor There are many shooters who participate in shooting sports like IPSC or IDPA. In these sports the shooters engage a wide array of targets in little scenarios that often require drawing from a holster, movement, target discrimination, reloading, accurate shooting under time constraint and sometimes malfunction clearance. These are all good skills to work on if we also carry a gun for personal protection. Of course it is not training but it is good practice. But there are those that argue that participating in IDPA or other action shooting sports will build bad habits and can even get you killed. Let's look at that for a minute. The issues that people have are typically with use of cover, IDPA style reloads, only allowing 11 rounds in the gun in the "hi cap" categories, and the proactive nature of IDPA. The arguments ostensibly stem from people not wanting to ingrain habits that are not tactically sound. Ok fine. That is a laudable pursuit. The problem is that I think people sometimes do not look at context of the problem or the big picture or understand that there is a way to play the game and still be competitive and still work on skills that are real world useful in a real confrontation. I also honestly think some naysayers run down IDPA because they don't perform well at it. Lets look at some of the arguments. USE OF COVER: In IDPA, per the rules, you must use cover if available. And by using cover they want at least 50% of your body behind cover. The "gamesman" side of the equation stretch this to the limit exposing far more of themselves than they probably would want to in a real fight when rounds might be flying in both directions. But in IDPA the whole time you are shooting the timer is running and the winner is the one with the lowest time adjusted for score on targets. So the "gamesmen" get just enough of themselves behind cover to not be penalized and then shoot very fast. The "Tactical" side though often hunker down behind cover and engage targets VERY slowly. They argue that they expose much less of themself and thereby are doing it "right". They argue that doing it fast without getting 99% behind cover will get you killed. Maybe they have an argument, but not always a well thought out one....and not one that always applies. RELOADS: The reload argument comes from the "IDPA approved " reloads in the rule book. We have a slidelock reload, that is your gun has been shot to slidelock. We have a tactical reload . This is the classic reload during a so-called "lull in the action" where you save the rounds from the partially depleted mag by first inserting the new mag then stowing the old one. And then finally there is the reload with retention. Here you stow the old mag first and then insert the new. Any time the gun is reloaded and there are still rounds left in the old mag it must be retained. The logic is that you might need those saved rounds later on. The "gamers" and some "tactical" guys actually have some common ground here. They both disagree with the IDPA approved reloads. They argue that the IPSC style speed load is actually faster and should be encouraged instead of having to retain the partially depleted mag in the middle of a gunfight. CAPACITY: One thing I hear a lot of grumbling about is the 10 round limit. The most you can load is 10 in the mag and 1 in the chamber to start. Each subsequent mag can only contain 10. When IDPA was started we were in the midst of the ridiculous Omnibus Crime Act of 1994's ten year prohibition on new manufacture of magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. We all had mags that held more than 10 but we could only load 10 because that was all that new production pistols came with. But when sanity returned and the "Assault Weapon and Magazine Ban" portions of that law expired in 2004 IDPA kept the 10 round limit in place. The logic was that several states still have state laws limiting the capacity to 10 and to be fair to them the limit would stay at 10. The argument is that those of us who carry pistols that hold more than 10 are penalized because we are forced to reload earlier than we would in real life. And I agree. But frankly I just do not think it is as big a deal as some make it. PROACTIVE NATURE: Finally comes the proactive nature of IDPA. During the course of fire you will often move from a known area into an area that may be brimming with bad guys. Generally in real life this would be suicidal by yourself. Military CQB room clearing is rarely done with less than FOUR people for that reason. The "gamers " have no problem with it. It is par for the course in IPSC. But the "tactical " crowd argues that it is not realistic..and I agree...to a point. About the only reason I could see for ever doing that would be to rescue a loved one. If your child or spouse is screaming downstairs and you hear strange angry voices I doubt that many" type A" meat eater personalities would stay put while who knows what happens to our spouse or child. In that case there is a reason for going into that situation. Otherwise we would be wise to stay put and let them come to us. But sometimes there might be overriding concerns that force us to take action we would not normally take. At this point if we decide to go extract our family members from whomever is confronting them then we are essentially in dynamic entry hostage rescue mode. If it is your house you will know the lay out better than the intruder or intruders. Here surprise and violence of action MIGHT help you survive, but any time you are trying to clear a structure , even your own, by yourself you are not on the good side of the odds. But on the positive side the proactive nature of IDPA gives some practice in dynamic movement and target discrimination. There is always a silver lining if you just look for it. So where do I (and Suarez International) come down on these arguments? On use of cover, there are times when it is just not going to be there to use and there will be times when it is there to use. Saying cover is always available is just as silly as saying it is never available. And proper use of cover does not mean setting up housekeeping behind the little plastic barricade and shooting at a snail's pace. Just because you are behind something now does not mean that the bad guys cannot quickly outmaneuver you and flank your position. So cover needs to be used wisely and then quickly move to a better piece of cover.

As soon as I have the address to address it to I'll post it here. Guys, I'm sorry if I came across a little agitated, but this battle never ends and we CAN do something about it if we make noise.....we should stick together on this stuff because it helps US. Why should someone (whether it is me or not)especially our wives, sisters or daughters, be forced to leave their gun in their car to comply with a misguided corporate policy. So we either break the law or follow a misguided policy that enhances the risk of more guns being in the hands of criminals from theft from our vehicles...brilliant. Corporate policies are easier to change than laws. Corporations respect money...if they start losing it or fear they will start losing it...they start to listen. I'll post an address as soon as I can.

Well silly me. I guess I just assumed that some here might actually give a crap about their right to carry enough to maybe get off their ass for a split second and maybe do something as simple as writing a letter that might help make things better for those who choose to take responsibility for their own safety. Pardon the hell out of me... I guess this IS NOT the place to find those type individuals. Fine. If no one cares..then no one cares and I can't make people care. It just gets real old hearing people complain about their "erosion of their rights" and see everyone pile in on the threads about places that you cannot carry saying that it should not be that way, but when I actually mention a specific place and something might be able to be done about it instead of some "pro gun solidarity" I get cute little comments like "keep it concealed" . Well no "F"ing kidding. If I were just concerned with ME I'd say fine. But this is not just about me. While I might just take the advice I've been giving since way before this board even existed and just keep it concealed, there are other folks this involves and sooner or later this policy will lead to someone ...one of us...one of the good guys...getting hurt or worse. But I guess that you guys just don't give a crap unless it directly affects you. Well, that mentality is why we do not have lawful carry in places that serve alcohol because we do not "stick together" and make our voices heard. And this is why in one of my first posts here I got in someone's face about them questioning how much I supported the right to carry because I'm just not a big proponent of openly carrying.But instead of using open carry as a political statement I actually DO SOMETHING like call representatives and send emails to make things better for us not just sit around and fondle my guns and bitch about how much things suck, but not do anything to change it. So maybe YOU should have spent the time you took writing your trite little response and used that to write to the mall management company and actually do something POSITIVE for our side....but I guess that is just too hard. And to be honest, I've been carrying a gun and fighting this fight since you were in elementary school. When you've been fighting for our gun rights HALF as long as I have then maybe you'll understand where I'm coming from.

No they are not on every entrance and I know exactly where you are going with that so you do not need to say any more....yes that IS a good thing, but it probably does not need to be discussed openly. You do know that EVERYTHING you ever post on the internet is fair game in court and more than just "good ole boy" gun owners troll these websites for info.... And on the "don't ask don't tell"...refer to the above paragraph. BUT if we can affect a change in their no gun policy, then that is OBVIOUSLY a better thing than just breaking the law. You know ......from a PRACTICAL standpoint.... you can carry a gun (or a grenade or a pound of cocaine for that matter ) ANYWHERE you can keep from getting caught with it....but that does not mean that it is not still against the law....and TN law only protects you if you actually have to use the gun in self defense in a place it is illegal to carry, it DOES NOT protect you if "officer unfriendly" spots it under your shirt in a place that is posted...... In fact, under that logic why even get a permit at all? Just keep it concealed! Odds are you'll never have to use it to defend yourself, and if you do you can't be prosecuted for the illegal carry...so why even bother with a permit? Oh yeah, it kinda comes in handy in all those other times when you might encounter a police officer and you would be violating the law for carrying without a permit....you know, like when you get pulled over or you are in a wreck and they FIND the gun....THAT i swhy we get permits and why it would be SO MUCH easier just to get the policy changed than to just break the law from a legal standpoint.... So again, if folks want to talk about about how much they support the 2A and CCW and list how many dozens of guns they have and all that, but are too lazy to write a freakin letter to help make it easier to carry and to maybe help eliminate some of the places that they cannot LEGALLY carry in, then that would just be pretty damn sad.

Yeah, I wouldn't care about losing customers like Doctors, Lawyers or other business professionals either......you know, the demographic of about 3/4 of the people that come to the CCW classes..... Blockbuster video DID care in the late 90s when they got inundated with complaints about their CORPORATE policy against CCW. But when it became clear that they would lose business if the "no guns allowed" signs did not come down they changed their policy....... And you are right, if I am the ONLY one to write a letter then no they will not give a crap BUT...if people who post here and ostensibly support the right to carry actually take a couple of minutes out of their day to write a freakin' letter, it MIGHT actually change something and make things better for gun carriers statewide....or we can just do nothing...a lot of that goes on.

Apparently Hamilton Place mall is now posted with the "Pursuant to TN Code Annotated..." signs. All of the Chattanooga area members here need to make their DISPLEASURE with this known to the mall management. Our money is certainly welcome but our ability to defend ourselves going to and from our vehicles is NOT welcome apparently. I intend to write them a letter detailing that the signs will do nothing to deter crime, but instead will only limit the ability of decent CONSUMERS to defend themselves going to and from their vehicles. And it is much safer for all involved for the permit holders to keep their guns ON THEM than to leave them in the car and possibly have it stolen if their car gets broken into...The point is not so much that I fear I will have to shoot someone in the mall (though that is not out of the realm of possibility), as much as leaving the gun unattended in the car is just negligent. Being a TN Handgun permit instructor I also intend to tell EVERYONE who comes through my class that Hamilton Place does not welcome those who take their personal protection seriously and that the students would be better served to spend their money with businesses that do not discriminate based on whether you chose to remain helpless or not. After all, money is what they value, and we can certainly spend ours elsewhere.

Back to the original question... I PERSONALLY have big enough hands that I can actually do a tac load with flashlight in hand- that is manipulating 2 hi cap mags AND a surefire 6P all at the same time. A straight up speed reload with flashlight in hand is no problem, I just maintain the flashlight , drop the empty mag from the pistol and grab the spare mag and slam it home. Now as far as what I TEACH...I teach stowing the light under the gun side arm pit when using a pistol. Most people do not have hands big enough to work a reload with a light in hand and even if they do, is it something they ever really practice? Will they be able to do it under stress? Another reason Hi cap pistols offer more options than single stack guns....less reloads needed.... For long guns, I prefer weapon mounted lights. They are much easier to manage than a hand held...especially with a pump shotgun.... But then again most people really have no real point of reference for the context of how their weapon and light would really be used in a gunfight anyways....If you are a civilian and have already emptied a rifle mag (or a shotgun tube for that matter) the odds are you facing multiple adversaries and you are doing more harm than good by turning on the light any more. The overwhelming majority of civilian gunfights where long guns are involved rarely go more than 5 rounds. And if it IS a situation (Katrina/LA riots/whatever) where you are engaging multiple adversaries BY YOURSELF, the light is probably a bigger liability than asset. Light either needs to be used momentarily to ID and confuse if you are alone or used continuously to overwhelm if you are in a team. You can't "overwhelm" as a single individual-you just can't carry enough light by yourself-, especially against multiple assailants......

I'm a little confused by some earlier posts. We ARE talking about the video where Ellis Marshal expounds for 45 minutes on all the ways you can end up in jail for improperly using a gun in self defense and why as a citizen you just about have to let them shoot, choke or stab you half to death before you can respond? That is the same video that I saw back when I got my permit in 1996 and the same video we still use, but some of the things mentioned do not sound familiar....are we talking about the same video?

Big Poppa, If you shoot someone negligently then NO it does not help at all. But we all KNOW whether we like to admit it or not that the responding officers are going to treat you and me differently if you have a badge and I do not. Membership has its privileges. Not saying that is always bad, but it is true. I have been asked to get out of the car at a traffic stop and frisked. But when my passenger produced his badge suddenly it went from "possible felony stop" to sunshine and bunnies and "Ya'll be safe drivin' home ya hear"......what caused this sudden change in attitude? The badge. And Mugster ,as far as issuing permits to military guys Ok whatever.Maybe you think that them having been an 11 bravo absolves them of having to learn anything else about functioning in the CIVILIAN WORLD armed with a concealed pistol. That is your opinion. But if you do not see that military warfighting skill and concealed carry skills are VASTLY different things, then I do not know what to tell you. And while we are at it, what percentage of military guys EVER use a pistol in an operational capacity? ALMOST NONE.Unless they are MPs or Spec Ops they probably haven't even seen a pistol in the military since basic.... So while they may be perfectly well trained to move about and conduct platoon size and larger operations with their fellow soldiers backing them up that does not somehow all of a sudden make them qualified experts on criminal assault or reactively drawing a pistol from concealment while under assault.

Yeah, like I said in my post NO DISRESPECT to the LE guys is intended. BUt I can definitely empathize with Robbiev. It was NOT intended as an attck on you Todd. And in fact as long as the message is tailored to the audience the more skills the better. But there arises a problem when a CCW class is taught from a cop's perspective. The students are not cops, do not move in the same social circles, do not have same institutional support structures in place and are not members of the same culture, and have a very different reason and mission for being armed. My post was more a rambling stream of consciousness thinking out loud monologue about how the average uneducated (not meaning he's dumb, but meaning he does not know just how much he does not know) HCP customer/student is impressed by a big resume that includes a lot of Police or Military specific schools and skills. But often our resumes have little to do with what we are really teaching (or what we should be teaching). Kinda like the physics teacher filling in for the biology teacher...while he may have a hell of a resume his degree is not in biology. And while I can teach you how to absolutely smoke an IDPA , IPSC, Cowboy Action or Subgun match course of fire is that REALLY all that relevant to a gunfight at 4 yards in the mall parking lot?Not at all. Yes the gun operates the same whether a cop is shooting at someone he pulled over in a traffic stop or joe citizen is shooting at a mugger.But the actual mechanics of the gun operation is the last 5% of the solution. Other than that, the situations are really not very often all that similar. When is the last time that anyone heard of a uniformed police officer getting robbed at an ATM? And it is frowned upon when cops run when they see trouble starting but that IS appropriate for the average CCW guy.And a REAL fight does not look much like an IDPA match stage.......so we ALL have things in our resume that may look good but not be all that applicable to the problem at hand. Now, undercover work, where the undercover officer may well be the victim of a robbery or assault attempt(especially while doing drug enforcement work) is exactly in line with civilian self defense. But Uniformed police work and the attendant skills that they use to do their job is not really all that similar to civilian CCW. But most students do not know the difference....... And I know you could not know the back story on this. This is actually something we discussed at NTI in the "Instructor Roundtable"- teaching what is marketable vs teaching what civilians REALLY need. And among my peer group we discuss this from time to time- do we give them flaming helicopters and building clearing exercises or do we give them how to watch body language, how to deescalate, how to access your weapon while under physical assault? The typical guy thinks the building clearing SWAT stuff is cool, sees the body language and deescalation as boring and the weapon accessing as including more contact than they wanted to have-after all he carries a gun so he does not have to learn to fight.... But those things are OVERWHELMINGLY more likely to be used by a civilian than working on clearing an unknown structure looking for bad guys............ So again, no disrespect to the police or military guys among us. I was not attacking anyone. I just find it ...odd...that the average CCW school shopper gives more credence to whether the guy used to be a cop than whether the guy actually has carried CONCEALED every day all over the place for the last 15 years (without a badge to bail him out if he screws up) and has sucessfully resisited armed criminal assault. And I probably should have started a seperate thread for my thoughts on "resumes and what they REALLY tell us". So I apologize if anyone took offense...none was intended. Just pointing out that even though guns are involved in all three, cop skills, soldier skills , match shooting skills and civilian CCW skills have VERY little to do with each other.

My own thinking on this though is this. Is your training really relevant to civilian concealed carry and reacting to the (as Southnarc calls it ) the Criminal Assault Paradigm? If not then it is just not relevant to the students. Nothing wrong with it. It just does not apply to the skill sets the students really NEED. So what if I'm a parachute jump master? Are the CCW students going to be deploying from the air? Probably not....So it is not relevant. Nor would underwater demolition, flying a helicopter or being an expert in the use of the M60 be at all applicable to CCW training. What is? Avoiding situations and eliminating personal habits that likely lead to trouble or to being chosen as a victim. Carrying a weapon concealed on the street in what you REALLY wear on the street. Managing Unknown Contacts (Southnarc's terminology), recognizing the cues of impending criminal assault. Accessing your weapon from concealment both proactively before the fight has started and reactively while you are under assault. Running the weapon system and scoring hits under pressure. Scanning for accomplices. Preparing witnesses. Talking to police. (Which mostly consists of keeping it minimal and exercising your 5th ammendmant rights). Unless your training (as a student) deals with those areas then that training really has little to do with what the CCW student needs to be well prepared for moving about armed (or unarmed) in public. But that is just MY OPINION.

I expect to see a lengthy review of this class when it is over! Tom Sotis is in town this weekend doing a knife seminar that I'm hosting other wise I would have been in Knoxville.

My personal recommendation after much research is either Federal HST 124+p, Corbon DPX 115, CCI Gold Dot 124+p, or Ranger Talon 127+p. The DPX is what I currently carry.

There are people out there that are NOT afraid of your gun. I am not afraid of a gun. I am afraid of someone who gives off the vibe that they are competent and confident about using it. But those people give off that vibe whether they are visibly armed or not.... As far as getting into a fight with an armed person, POLICE , who are OBVIOUSLY visibly armed find them selves in fist fights everyday.Are the criminals dumbasses? Probably, but that does not make them any less dangerous... And the police TRAIN FOR IT. On the other hand very few people on the street that OC would have any chance after they get sucker punched..... The gun is NOT a talisman it is just a tool. But as most people have never experienced how quickly a situation can go from bad to barely survivable they think the presence of the gun will solve all their problems. That is why police wear triple retention holsters because there is plenty of history of cops getting beat down and their guns being taken. Hence the security holsters. It at least makes it harder for the BG to get the gun away to use it on the cop. My own personal feeling is that if you want to carry openly be my guest. You will draw all of the attention and no one will give me a second look. I am content to move about armed with no one being the wiser. I have no political axe to grind, no argument to win vs the police and no one to impress at the flea market. But if you do choose to carry openly at least get some training in weapon retention because you might someday find yourself victimized BECAUSE you have a gun that someone who is not afraid of them wants to take from you. And your first clue that this is happening will probably be when their first punch lands.....

As far as I know John Farnam usually gets the credit for the "3 stupids rule". I do not know if he coined the phrase but it seems like everyone in the circles I move in uses it.I think I actually first heard it from Gabe Suarez, but Tom Givens uses it, and Skip Gochenauer referred to it when I was at NTI. And yeah, there is A LOT I did not include in the post as far as specific techniques and etc goes. Like I said, I'm not giving away the whole farm in one post. Come take the class. But anyone who is a competent professional instructor should be able to teach the original poster a proper draw stroke...hopefully.

Ok I'll jump in and give a few thoughts. Lets look at what you are likely to be dealing with in a defensive situation. The most important thing is to follow the "3 stupids" rule. DO NOT go stupid places. DO NOT hang out with stupid people . DO NOT do stupid things. If you have friends that do drugs or are involved in the drug trade get away from them. If you drink to excess or have friends that drink to excess (on a regular basis) get rid of them. If you go out to bars to pick up women and are not selective of whether they are married or not then stop. These things are the most likely things to land you in a position to meet a violent death. Don't like to hear this? Tough. That does not make it any less true. So now that we have that out of the way......assuming we are not in a fight because of drugs , booze or whores, what are we likely to have to deal with? Probably common street criminals who are looking to get some cash...likely to get drugs , booze or whores. The bad guys do not want to give you much prior warning or to "conduct business" out in the open for all to see. They will want to get close to you so that everyone on the street can't see exactly what is going on. So 1st and foremost, you have to maintain and dominate your own personal space when dealing with people you do not know who approach you. Most bad guys are opportunists. Crime does not have a good dental or medical plan so they are GENERALLY going to look at everything as a risk vs reward exercise. Can I take this guy without getting hurt? Does he have something WORTH me maybe getting hurt? Generally speaking the mugger on the street is looking for some quick cash and to get away . But that is not to say that he will not resort to preemptive violence to secure those ends. Again, it is crucial to be aware of your surroundings and pick up on things that look out of place or people that look like they are nervous or paying an inordinate amount of attention to you. Most people say the same thing after an assault. "I never saw it coming". " All of a sudden I looked up and there they were, they came out of nowhere". Well, here is a clue. They didn't just beam down off the starship Enterprise they walked right up to you while you were fiddling with your cell phone or playing with your keys or staring off into space. PAY ATTENTION! Now, if you ARE approached in a threatening manner what do we do. If at all possible keep your feet moving. It is hard to grab , push,punch, stab or shoot you if you don't stand still waiting for it. It also makes you harder to box in to an area you cannot get out of. Your feet will save you more than your gun will. As we are moving we need to be looking for other people who might be with the unknown individual who is approaching us. You may not know it or see them, but more times than not there is a lookout or an accomplice close by. Now I'm gonna skip ahead, because I'm not going to give away the whole farm in one post. Lets say we do decide that we are in fact in reasonable fear of grave bodily injury or death. What are some skill sets that we are going to wish we were good at here? Well for starters being able to draw our gun from concealment. If you cannot get it out, it is really irrelevant whether you have it or not. So in our spare time we might devote some time to drawing from concealment. The next thing might be getting hits on the target. What kind of target and how far. GENERALLY the typical civillian involved shooting will be INSIDE 5 yards. No one hauls out a bullhorn and hails you from across the parking lot. "Excuse me Sir, yes you over there. Stop I'm coming over there to rob you". Does not happen. Again, they get as close as they can . After all, unless they are just there to assassinate you they want something like your wallet or keys. They have to get close enough to you to take them so it is gonna be close. So being able to draw and make hits at 2 to 5 yards. I would spend 70 percent of this time working on shooting 1 handed. It is great to be able to get both hands on the gun, but in a reactive initiative deficient situation like this you will likely shoot one handed. Do not worry about which stance is best, you will not be standing still anyways. So now that we have our smoke wagon out and running what else might we need to know how to do? Clear malfunctions. If the pistol is a polymer framed gun and you get a less than robust grip on it it may malfunction. Nothing against plastic guns, that is what I carry, but I am honest about it and realize the possible problems. I also realize that things might be so close I have to fire from a retention position and if I screw that up my pistol may not be able to fully cycle because the slide hits me while it is recoiling and this can cause the gun to malfunction. So we need to know how to do a "tap rack" malfunction clearance since that fixes 75% of the malfunctions we are likely to experience. Last , if we shoot any at all what is the gun now? not full. So we will probably want to get the gun back to full capacity ...ESPECIALLY if we carry a single stack gun. Forget all the CRAP you hear about 1 shot stops. A. They are rare with a pistol , ANY pistol. and B. When you are in fear of your life you will likely shoot more than once anyways. So if you fire 4 or 5 shots (which is REASONABLE) your 7 shot pistol now has very few bullets left on board. Remember the accomplice? If you now have to engage him you are gonna be close to empty. So how long does the typical fight last? Three to five seconds. Not a lot of time to screw around once the fight is on. So we need to QUICKLY get our gun out from concealment, get hits on the target, scan to make sure that he was the only one, and get our pistol loaded again. And obviously clear any malfunctions that the pistol might have. FORTUNATELY for us the pistols being built today (by and large) are the most reliable ever built. So it is not COMMON to have a malfunction, but you still need to know how to clear 'em just in case. So what are some drills to work the skills? Here is one care of my friend and mentor Tom Givens. Target is an IDPA target at 5 yards. Pistol loaded with 6 live rounds and a dummy round. The dummy cannot be the first or last round in the mag. A spare mag on you with 3 more rounds. Use a shot timer to get the time. At the buzzer, sidestep as you draw your pistol and fire at the target until the gun goes "click". Immediately perform a "Tap / Rack" to clear the malfunction and fire what is left in the mag. Immediately sidestep and reload and fire 3 more shots. Par time is 15 seconds. The sidestep is to get you off the spot where the bad guy will be shooting punching or stabbing at. Some people will argue that it is better stand there and get hit and hit him too than to get out of the way. Those people are idiots. Some people here have argued that this drill is too intense for all but master level shooters. Those people need to get a grip. The bad guy is not going to give you any advantage. The better your skills are the better your chances. Life ain't fair. In fact this drill has been modified from its original more difficult version by dropping the target distance down to 5 yards. The "real" drill is at 7 yards and only hits in the 8" circle in the chest count. Pass or fail. And if you think about it, 15 seconds is a LONG time to get this done in. I normally do it in 6-7 seconds. The point is you have a par time (15) to work toward. It does not mean if you can't do it in 15 you are gonna die. It is not a replica of a gunfight. It is a DRILL that works the basic skills that are the most likely skills needed in a close range gunfight.If you can do it in 15 work toward 12. If you can do it in 12 work for 10. The idea is to get better. Now, some other thoughts. Pick a reliable gun, load it with high quality ammo and FORGET ABOUT WHAT AMMO WORKS 1% BETTER THAN WHAT OTHER AMMO. Half the Brazillian rain forest has been destroyed by fools arguing which bullet or caliber or gun is best in gun magazines. Do some research, shoot as many different ones as you can, make an educated decision and then FORGET ABOUT IT. The gun is JUST A TOOL. YOU ARE THE WEAPON. It is an accessory. More important than any gun ammo combo is the combo of awareness and avoidance. If you pay attention to what is going on and are able to make good decisions then you will likely never have to use a gun anyway. Oh yeah, and seek competent professional training. There are several folks here who offer it.

Wow Mars, tell us how you really feel about people who teach civillians to use weapons to defend themselves.... I've met Pincus. Seemed to be a nice guy. Pincus teaches what he calls "Combat Focus Shooting". Essentially it is looking over the gun up close (like I use) shooting as fast as you can keep 'em in a 4-8 " circle. He tries to incorporate the body's natural flinch response into what he does, kinda like Tony Blauer's SPEAR system of hand to hand skills. You shoot fast up close and as you get farther from the target you have same accuracy standard as you had up close. Obviously farther away you will have to slow down and use the sights to make the hits. Most people shoot too slow up close and too fast far out or don't use the sights appropriately at different distances. He works to correct that. Is he a "combat guru" ? A "Hypemeister"? You be the judge, but he has written a book and a bunch of articles in magazines. He gets invited to present at training events (but then again so have I so what does that tell you? ) There is also a FINE line between marketing and hype. If no one knows you exist then you can be the best instructor ever but no one will come. On the other hand some instructors' advertising is the best thing about their classes. As with anything in life, buyer beware. Do I agree with everything he teaches? No. But no one agrees with everything ANYONE teaches. Take a little from different sources to find what works for you and do not worship one instructor and you'll be fine. I might have even considered going-just to say I had, but I'm going to be hosting Tom Sotis for some knife work here that weekend. Does Pincus teach anything really groundbreaking? You'll have to be the judge, but there are a lot of people teaching a lot less useful stuff than Pincus in my opinion. I look forward to seeing a review.

Green Gas or Propane.

I guess I've just had vastly different experiences with 'em than some here.But I'm not talking about the $25 guns you get at Walmart, I use the $110 KWA guns sold at Airsoft Atlanta. I have NO problem hitting coke cans at 15 yards with my KWA G17. But even more important, I have no problem keeping all rounds inside the -0 zone of an IDPA target or the head box inside 7 yards shooting at the speed I would in a real confrontation. I use 'em at home to work on drawing from concealment and shooting quickly as I get off the X . They work wonderfully for that. Also without BBs they work great for multi shot dry fire practice since you can pull the spring down in the mag so it will cycle repetitively without BBs where my real glock has to be hand cycled to cock it each time.So I can work double triple and quadruple taps with the KWA, where I can't with my real Glock. Do they work well shooting long distance in a windstorm? No. Do they work well indoors at REALISTIC conflict distance? ABSOLUTELY. For real "marksmanship " practice at close distance inside the house or garage, just use SMALL targets like 1" pasters or practice shooting them into a 2 liter coke bottle THROUGH the open bottel top. If you can do that at 3 yards you'll have no trouble hitting an IDPA target at 50 with a real gun.