Greetings Sheepdogs,
This newsletter is continuing education for my students. So you may see things
repeated, as I get new students occasionally.
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
- Barry M. Goldwater, July 16, 1964
"Don't have a gun? Buy one.
Don't know How to use it? Learn.
Don't believe in guns? Get ready to hide behind someone who does."
-- Charlie Daniels
Table of Contents:
Software --
Prevention
Mindset
Situational Awareness
Safety
Training
Psychology
Practice
Intervention
Strategy
Tactics
Techniques
Postvention
Aftermath
Medical
Survival
Education
Legal
Instruction
Hardware --
Gear
Intelligence --
Signals Intelligence
Cryptology
Religion and Politics --
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson
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***** ***** ***** Prevention ***** ***** *****
Things you can do to avoid the lethal force incident.
“To those who have fought for it,
freedom has a flavor that the protected will never know.”
― P. McCree Thornton
Table of sections:
Mindset
Safety
Training
Psychology
Practice
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Mindset and Attitude --------------------------------
Figuring out the correct way to think.
"The line between everyday life and sudden violence is thinner than most realize."
-- Tim Larkin
If you're smart . . .
“The Man in the Arena”
by Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909), 26th President of the United States
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how
the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have
done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in
the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who
strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who
does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at
the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and
who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so
that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
neither know victory nor defeat.”
Rise up and take responsibility.
"Survival is a mindset, not a skill set."
-- Greg Shaffer
"Signal to noise ratio" by Kevin O'Leary
"Your gunfights will always be anomalies.
So are those of all the instructors you venerate.
It’s useful to keep those facts in mind."
-- Greg Ellifritz
"Living Legends | Interview with Dave Spaulding" by Daniel Reedy
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpts:
"BAD GUYS DON’T THINK LIKE YOU DO!"
"Most people are reasonable and don’t want trouble.
Thinking the person who is attacking you feels the same
way has probably gotten more folks killed than anything
else. They probably did not grow up the same way you did,
their life experience is probably quite different.
Why would they think like you?
They don’t."
". . . concern over what will happen AFTER the fight cannot
interfere with how to respond DURING the fight."
"Your parents were wrong, you’re not special."
"Today, people gain notoriety by being on the internet.
The old standards of background, training and experience
have disappeared. It’s been replaced by social media “presence”
and I think that is too bad. Folks will call me a “Fudd” but I
would not replace that “journey of discovery” for anything."
“You need to have the capacity for danger. You need to be ‘dangerous’.
Yet, you need to learn how to not use it except when necessary.
And, that is not the same thing as being harmless.
There's nothing virtuous about harmlessness.
Harmless just means you’re ineffectual and useless.”
-- Jordan Peterson
"Living Legends | Interview with Tom Givens" by Daniel Reedy
Excerpt:
"Success is rented, and the rent is due every day. Don’t stop working on
your skills, and don’t stop training. I took a class from someone outside
my organization in June although I’ve been teaching for 50 years.
Learning should never stop."
[In case you haven't noticed, Tom Givens likes to disarm people by exuding a persona
of simple country bumpkin. But in truth, he is sophisticated and constantly adjusting
his long term and short term plans. That's why his classes run so smoothly. He's thought
about every ahead of time. -- Jon Low]
‷If you look at someone bigger, faster, and stronger and immediately think,
‶I'm at a disadvantage″,
I have news for you: you are.
But that's only because you just put yourself there for no reason.
The truth is that anyone can do debilitating violence to anyone else.
Your size, your speed, your strength, your gender --
all the factors that untrained people think make the difference when it comes to violence --
all matter far less than your mindset and your intent.‴
-- Tim Larkin
"Living Legends | Interview with Claude Werner" by Daniel Reedy
Excerpts:
“Try to get along with everyone, Son, but don’t let anyone hurt you.”
-- Claude Werner's father
‘a small gun in your pocket is more useful than the big gun in your safe.’
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil and
evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." -- Jeff Cooper
"Daniel Perry, Daniel Penny, and Other Excuses For Fearful Inaction In The Face of Evil"
by Gabe Suarez
I don't think Daniel Penny did anything wrong and neither did the jury.
Penny held the choke hold for as long as the bad guy attempted to hurt other people.
The 6 minutes was caused by the bad guy. The bad guy was alive when the police
took custody of the bad guy. The bad guy died later in the hospital. Don't expect the
liberal media to tell you the truth. There is no news. There is only propaganda.
But I think Gabe is thought provoking.
Daniel Perry is a cautionary tale. Don't post stupid racist stuff on social media.
Everything on social media will be used against you.
"Your life is as good as your mindset." -- Nicola Cavanis
Email from Mike Seeklander --
Hey There,
If you carry for self-defense, there’s one shot that matters more than any other.
Not your fastest split. Not your best group. Not the run you did after warming up
for 30 minutes. It’s the first shot — cold. No warm-up. No do-overs. No settling in.
Just you, the draw, and reality.
Most shooters never test this. They live inside comfort drills that 'feel'.
Here’s the hard reality:
If you can’t deliver a clean, accountable hit from concealment — cold — you are
guessing about your ability.
Until Then - Train Hard!
— Mike Seeklander
"Safe gun handling and knowing how to operate the gun competently is one thing.
How to fight with the gun is a whole other plane of knowledge."
-- Tiger McKee
"Facing An Active Shooter: The First 30 Seconds" by Alex Ooley
If the government teaches it, it is to protect the government, not your kids.
Keeping your kids safe means NOT putting them in gun-free-zones (government
schools).
The 'purpose' of gun-free-zones is to create unarmed victims for armed criminals
to prey upon. That is also the 'effect' of gun-free-zones. So, anyone who tells you
otherwise is lying to you.
Am I paranoid to carry a gun?
"The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come.
When in a state of security, he does not forget the possibility of ruin.
When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come.
Thus, his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved."
-- Confucius (551 B.C. – 479 B.C.)
"Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions,
than ruined by too confident security."
-- Edmund Burke (1729 – 1797 A.D.)
"Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist.
Children already know that dragons exist.
Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."
-- G.K. Chesterton
Do not be overly concerned with your pistol. The surgeon is not known by
his scalpel. He has no favorite scalpel. He has a skill; any scalpel will do.
(I have seen a tracheotomy performed with a steak knife grabbed off a dinner
table.) Similarly, you should concentrate on honing your skill, any pistol will do.
A person will become comfortable with anything he practices. Sentimental or
personal preferences have no place in combat.
You may not have a pistol; any knife will do. What is the best way to hold a
knife? The way you are holding it in the fight. Don’t change grips. Don’t throw
your knife. Lead with the knife, as a fencer, with your other hand covering your
carotid arteries in your neck (thanks to Sensei Cat Fitzgerald).
You may not have a knife; a pen will do.
You may not have any weapon; your hands will do. Concentrate the strength
of two of your hands against one of his hands or one of his fingers and continue to
twist; don’t stop when something breaks. Stomp on his foot over the arch, the
small bones in the foot are easily broken (and he may be wearing steel toed shoes).
Gouge his eyes, if the enemy is wearing glasses or goggles, gouge up and under the
glasses. A blood choke will incapacitate a person in 8 seconds (often much less
than 8 seconds). (An air choke is ineffective because a person can hold his breath
for a minute or more.) Bite! Bite hard, break the bone, and get to the marrow.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, ASK! Keep fighting. If you maintain a
combat mindset, you can win.
If you think you are better off submitting, you are statistically wrong. May I
invite your attention to “More Guns, Less Crime” by John R. Lott Jr.,
ISBN: 978-0226493640? and you would be doing the criminal’s next victim a
grave disservice. In the May 2011 issue of the American Rifleman on page 83,
Criminology Professor Gary Kleck of Florida State University concluded from
a study of National Crime Victimization Survey data that “Robbery and assault
victims who used a gun to resist were less likely to be attacked or to suffer an
injury than those who used any other method of self-protection or those who
did not resist at all.” You have an absolute duty to resist, because as Jeff Cooper
says,
‟If violent crime is to be curbed, it is only the intended victim who can do it.
The felon does not fear the police, and he fears neither judge nor jury.
Therefore what he must fear is his victim.
It is high time for society to stop worrying about the criminal,
and to let the criminal start worrying about society.
And by "society" I mean you.”
-- Col. Jeff Cooper, "Principles of Personal Defense"
"Be so focused on watering your grass that
you don't have time to check if someone else's is greener."
-- Nicola Cavanis
You have a 1 in 30 chance of being a victim of violent crime per year.
You have a 1 in 4 chance of being a victim of violent crime in your lifetime.
Citation: Instructor Development course by Tom Givens.
If you believe you will be attacked, you will carry your pistol.
If you don't believe you will be attacked, you won't. Beliefs control our behavior.
"Before all else, be armed." -- Nicolo Machiavelli
Gen. George Patton told his officers,
"Don't worry about your flanks. Let the enemy worry about his flanks."
‟Fear is an instinct. Courage is a choice.”
-- Rear Admiral Joseph Kernan, U.S. Navy
"I do not carry a pistol so that I may impose my will on others.
I carry a pistol so that others may not impose their will on me."
-- Tom Givens
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
--Benjamin Franklin
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*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Situational Awareness --------------------------------
How to avoid being taken by surprise.
"Many people don't realize that your awareness skills
are more important than your marksmanship skills.
Well, you can't shoot something you don't know is there,
or don't know it needs to be shot!" -- Tom Givens
"Threat Identification Infographic: Handgun Concealment “Tells” "
by Patrick McCarthy
Excerpt:
"One of the most important aspects of any self-defense system is situational awareness.
By paying close attention to your surroundings, and knowing which warning signs to look
for, you can see a potential attacker coming and prepare yourself for quick action. Without
situational awareness (SA) you might end up oblivious to threats right in front of your nose,
and be blindsided by a sudden attack."
Pumping gas by yourself at night.
"Jeff Cooper's Color Code exists to help you get your head
around the need to kill someone in the immediate future."
-- John Hearne
---
Jeff Cooper's Color Code of Mental Awareness
UNAWARE - of what's going on around you. (White)
AWARE - of who is around you and what they are doing. (Yellow)
ALERT - to a POTENTIAL threat and taking action to avoid the threat. (Orange)
ALARM - by a REAL threat and taking action to escape the threat,
which might include shooting to PREVENT the attack. (Red)
COMBAT - front sight, press. Shooting to STOP the attack. (Black)
---
The colors are meaningless, requiring a level of indirection.
So you should use meaningful words instead. So the student doesn't
have to decode the meaning of the color. Using insider jargon is WRONG!
The descriptive words are by the NRA.
As a civilian defender, your goal is to escape and to facilitate the escape of your loved ones.
You're not a cop. You have no duty to secure the bad guy's gun. If you are moving to
secure the bad guy's gun, you are moving in the WRONG direction.
If you are holding anyone's gun when the cops show up, the cops will shoot you.
Your pistol should be holstered and concealed several minutes before the cops arrive.
As Ed Monk says, you'll be on your 3rd cigarette before the cops show up. I paraphrase.
When I was living in Arizona, a home owner caught a burglar in his home and held him at
gun point while his wife called 911. The wife stood outside to direct the police into the house
and told the police that her husband was holding the burglar at gun point. When the cops
entered the home and saw the home owner pointing his pistol at the burglar, the cops shot
the home owner. Such is the level of training of the Phoenix Police. To expect anything
more from underpaid, overworked, civil servants is foolish. Don't be holding a gun when
the cops show up!
"An officer may be forgiven for losing a battle,
but never for being taken by surprise."
-- Jeff Cooper
Zugzwang is a thing. But with situational awareness, you can avoid it.
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Safety --------------------------------
How to prevent the bad thing from happening in the first place.
How to avoid shooting yourself, friendlies, and innocent bystanders.
How to prevent unauthorized persons from using your guns.
"Gut feelings are guardian angels."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"Wilderness Predator Defense" by Justin
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpt:
"Don't turn and don't run! Generally it is recommended that you
stand your ground and face the animal, whether bear or mountain lion.
Mountain lions specifically attack from the rear, so turning your back
provides their ideal opportunity. It is also recommended you avoid
looking the animal in the eye. Running can cause the "prey drive"
to kick in. The animal will very likely give chase. If it gives chase
it will certainly catch you."
"Stand your ground if the bear charges. This is the hardest one,
but do your absolute best to stand there if the bear charges. Bears are
known to bluff to see if you'll turn and run. If you do you're probably
going to have a bad day, so stand there until the bear breaks off.
While standing there I would be hurriedly readying whatever defenses
I had."
[I think this advice applies to human predators. -- Jon Low]
Jeff Cooper′s Rules of Gun Safety
RULE I: ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED.
RULE II: NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING
THAT YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY.
RULE III: KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER
UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET.
RULE IV: BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET.
---
RULE V: Maintain control of your gun. -- Stephen P. Wenger
---
"You brought a gun to the fight. That doesn’t mean it’s YOUR gun.
The gun belongs to whomever can keep it. Think about that before
intervening in other folks’ problems. When is the last time you practiced
your in-hand weapon retention skills?"
-- Greg Ellifritz
---
When was the last time you practiced your in-holster weapon retention skills?
Have you taken a class to learn such techniques?
-- Jon Low
---
". . . if the assailant has a gun, it may actually be the easiest
gun for you to access, if you know how to take it from him."
-- Stephen P. Wenger
Email from Tim Larkin -- "Targeting"
The guy who got stabbed twice survived. The guy who got stabbed SEVEN times . . .
also survived. But the guy who got stabbed ONCE? Dead.
After analyzing hundreds of CCTV attacks, one factor determines survival more
than fighting back. More than size. More than having a weapon yourself.
It's targeting precision. And here's what nobody tells you . . .
Most people think about knife encounters completely wrong.
They assume one stab = instant drop. Hollywood taught us that. The footage proves
otherwise. I've been getting sent real attack videos from CCTV cameras worldwide.
Brisbane. Student unions. Street confrontations. And the pattern is unmistakable . . .
Non-specific targeting? People survive and fight back.
Precise targeting of highly vascular areas? Completely different outcome.
Carotid. Femoral. Aorta. The difference between arterial and venous bleeds
changes everything.
One guy got stabbed in the torso. He not only survived, he knocked out his attacker.
Another got stabbed in the neck. His whole persona changed instantly.
That's hypovolemic shock. And understanding THIS principle matters more than
any technique you've been taught.
>>> Watch the CCTV analysis that reveals what actually stops threats
Remember . . . Just about every attack I analyzed was avoidable.
Your goal is to minimize violence in your life. But IF you need to understand
knife dynamics for defense, you need to see what actually happens.
Not what the movies show you.
Stay safe,
Tim Larkin
[The easiest arteries to target are carotid (front of the neck on either side of the windpipe),
brachial (inside of upper arm, arm pit), and femoral (inside of thighs, groin) -- Jon Low]
John Farnam's rules to keep you out of trouble:
Don’t go to stupid places.
Don’t associate with stupid people.
Don’t do stupid things.
Have a “normal” appearance.
Be in bed by 10:00 PM (your own bed).
Don’t fail the attitude test.
Do not fire warning shots. You won’t be on a multi-million-dollar range with
soft dirt berms to catch your bullets. Any bullet you shoot up into the air will come
down with near equal speed on an innocent’s head (probably killing him).
Any bullet you shoot down into the ground will ricochet off the concrete sidewalk,
asphalt road, or rock in the ground and hit an innocent bystander, or you.
Warning shots are illegal everywhere in the U.S. Doesn’t matter that
President Joe Biden recommends warning shots. Remember, he’s an idiot.
Do not shoot to wound. Always shoot to the center of mass, because this
gives you the highest probability of a hit. Aiming for an arm or leg reduces your
probability of a hit to near zero. Which means you will hit something that you
don’t want to, destroying property and injuring bystanders, maybe killing them.
They bad guy is your only safe backstop.
"Safety is something that happens between your ears,
not something you hold in your hands."
-- Jeff Cooper
When on the range --
Always watch the shooter’s trigger finger and muzzle (especially when they
are not shooting) and yell out “FINGER” anytime the finger is on the trigger when
the sights are not lined up on the target, or “MUZZLE” anytime the pistol is
pointed in any direction other than down or down range.
Watch for a shooter forgetting to put on his earmuffs or earplugs and yell EARS!
Similarly for eye protection, yell EYES!
Don’t let the shooter put their support side thumb behind the pistol. The slide
will eventually cut their thumb or break their thumb. If they can place their thumb
behind the pistol, it means that they do not have their support side hand wrapped
around the front of the pistol to pull. The shooter can’t pull with their fingertips.
They should be pulling with their proximal phalanges. Pull with the support-side
hand, push with the firing-side hand. That is correct and necessary for accurate
shooting.
"It's easier to stay out of trouble than to get out of trouble."
-- Claude Werner
Oink oink
Shelby Green
"Iowa officer shot in training accident gets settlement from state"
by William Morris
Hat tip to Erick Gelhaus.
Behind a pay wall.
---
"State to pay $600K to Iowa Law Enforcement Academy student who shot herself
The Peosta woman suffered permanent and painful injuries"
by Vanessa Miller
Hat tip to Monty Grubbs.
---
KATHERINE AVENARIUS PAUL AVENARIUS v. STATE OF IOWA (2024)
Court of Appeals of Iowa.
KATHERINE AVENARIUS and PAUL AVENARIUS, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. STATE OF IOWA, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 22-1419
Decided: February 07, 2024
Hat tip to Steve Miller.
---
Katherine Avenarius and Paul Avenarius
v.
State of Iowa
https://www.iowacourts.gov/iowa-courts/court-of-appeals/court-of-appeals-court-opinions/case/22-1419
Hat tip to Frank Groth.
---
Frank Groth's comment --
And in Court of Appeals opinion I find the alleged negligence . . .
"On the first day of firearms instructor school, Avenarius injured herself while
participating in a drill. Before attending the course, Avenarius was trained to
put her finger on the trigger only after locking onto a target. But while she was
at the school, an ILEA firearm instructor told Avenarius to put her finger on
the trigger after unholstering and drawing her firearm. Avenarius followed the
instructor’s direction during the drill and shot herself in the leg."
The court felt the waiver didn't foresee, or preclude litigation, of that.
https://www.iowacourts.gov/iowa-courts/court-of-appeals/court-of-appeals-court-opinions/case/22-1419
---
Jon Low's comment --
As Jeff Cooper says,
KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER
UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET.
Yes, as a matter of fact, there is a reason for each safety rule. It's so you don't
shoot yourself.
Don't obey the instructions of idiots. I understand that you can't walk out of
the class, because you might get fired from your job. But you won't get fired for
disobeying stupid instructions. Maybe you won't get a high grade in the class, but
so what?
Shooting yourself is like committing suicide. When I was in the Marine Corps,
the commanders would say, "The enemy is spending huge amounts of money, time,
and effort to kill you. Don't help the enemy by killing yourself. Marines don't
solve their problems by killing themselves. We solve our problems by killing our
enemies." Don't help the enemy.
"You are not responsible for negative reactions to your boundaries."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"Scary Home Invasion Attempt Caught on Camera Stopped By Astute Kid!"
by Active Self Protection
Greg Ellifritz comment --
Would your young child know what to do if she saw
what appeared to be a home invasion in progress?
“The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns,
we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise,
they will win and decent people will loose.”
-- James Earl Jones
"Good Health!" by John Farnam
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always
possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Richard Henry Lee
"Keep Your Wheels: 11 Tips to Avoid a Carjacking" by Wyatt Knox
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Ice Rescue: Deadly Winter "Real World Trauma"
by Jonathan Willis
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Training --------------------------------
Figuring out the correct tasks to practice.
"Start 2026 Off with a Bang: Sign Up for a Firearms Training Course"
Excerpt:
"Training isn’t just something to consider, it’s an investment
in your safety, skill, and enjoyment of firearms."
An important philosophical statement about training students --
"DTI courses are not “shooting courses”, they're about speed bumps.
We help develop the students' ability to adapt and overcome.
And in the end, regardless of the circumstance, they must FIND A WAY TO WIN!"
-- Vicki Farnam
Being able to reliably execute an action on the range is different from
being able to reliably execute the action under the debilitating stress of combat,
as when someone is punching or stabbing you.
Being able to do an action in immediate response to a surprise stimulus is
different from doing the action after planning, walk through, rehearsal, and
anticipated stimulus.
Waiting for the BEEP from the timer is different from getting sucker punched
while having dinner with your girlfriend at the fancy restaurant. But this, of course,
is where it really counts.
It's important that we don't get confused and end up in a state of self deception.
Training in general is good. The question is "Will the type of training that I am
doing get me to my intended goal?"
---
"Most deadly force encounters occur spontaneously, without warning and
at extremely close ranges. Realistically, you may not have the time or the
space to effectively draw, no matter how fast your draw stroke."
-- Jeff L. Gonzales
"Lynn Givens’ Visual Trigger Break and Reset Drill
A simple yet very effective dry practice drill that helps
a shooter get familiar with a trigger and helps one to
level up trigger control proficiency."
by Uncle Zo [I met Uncle Zo at Tac Con. A very knowledgeable fellow. -- Jon Low]
Hat tip to Stephen P. Wenger.
"Proper training ingrains the proper responses.
Repetition is the mother of all skill. With skill comes confidence.
With confidence comes the ability to think under pressure and make
sound tactical decisions."
-- Tom Givens
Ansatz is a thing. And the better your training, the better your guesses / estimates.
In training, you can verify. In combat, you usually can't. So use your training time
wisely to verify as much as you can.
Ignatius Piazza would say, "Live fire is just to verify what you learned in dry
practice. Dry practice is where you learn, because there is no distraction from report
and recoil."
"The Failure That Could Save Your Life" by Steve Tarani
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Self discipline. (The decision to do it and the commitment to do it.)
Challenge. (Shoot that IDPA match every month.)
Adversity. (Take that training that is beyond your capabilities without fear of failing.
Do that drill that you have failed in the past.)
---
I attended a yoga class recently (they love turning up the heat in the room till it's
difficult to breathe). The lady that I was with kept taking naps during the class.
So, I used the girl in the row in front of us as motivation (and I thanked her after
the class). She never took a break during the class. She executed all of the poses
correctly, so I could watch her when I couldn't see the instructor (who was often
walking around helping other persons). What keeps me going to classes is my
discipline, not the scenery (though it's always excellent), not the friends (because
they are not reliable). I have attended classes where it was just me and the instructor,
because no one else showed up, because it was cold, raining, snowing, etc.
I don't like yoga. That's discipline.
"Those motivated by a desire to improve their
gunfighting skills as opposed to a quest for trophies,
must be willing to bleed ego on the match results
to avoid shedding blood in combat."
-- Andy Stanford
"Training Tip: Shoot Both With and Without Your Rx Glasses" by Paul Markel
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpt:
"So, where does this leave us? It leaves us with personal responsibility
and mental maturity."
---
Squinting helps by reducing the effective aperture. Making a small hole to look
through with your fist may work for you. Punching pin holes through your shooting
glasses is cheating (and weakening your glasses). As is using screen glasses or a
wire mesh fencing mask.
Being able to shoot without my prescription glasses (or contact lenses) is one
of the reasons, I machine out the rear sight notch by 2 hundredths of an inch
(1 hundredth on each side). I need to be able to center the front sight post in the
rear notch, even when my vision is blurry.
If your glasses get splattered with junk (e.g. blood), the smart / expedient move
may be to remove your glasses and shoot without them. Or, you may not have a
choice. That first slap or punch may have knocked your glasses off.
When I was working security in the hospital emergency room, a psych patient
charged me and knocked my glasses off at first contact.
-- Jon Low
You need training because:
You don't know what you don't know.
Much of what you know is false.
It's good to the have the answers before the criminal tests you.
-- Claude Werner (paraphrased)
Task Overload Confusion
When using a weapon mounted light, always use your support side thumb to
manipulate the light. Never use your trigger finger. Lots of documented cases
where the police officer meant to turn the light on or off, but instead fired the
pistol.
Never use a Taser. Lots of documented cases where the police officer thought
he was holding his Taser, shot the suspect with his pistol, and then realized that
he was holding his pistol. [Some officers in the Mount Juliet Police Department
carry their Tasers on their support side and use their support-side hand to operate
the Taser. NOT cross draw with their firing-side hand. This somewhat alleviates
the problem. The problem is that they are forced to carry Tasers by the mindless
politicians who don't understand Task Overload Confusion. Tasers only exist to
reduce the civil liability of the government. Anyone who has used Tasers in the
real world (not silly training exercises) will tell you that Tasers don't work in the
real world.]
Never use a Blackhawk SERPA holster nor any holster that requires use of the
trigger finger to defeat the retention device. Many documented cases in which the
shooter shot himself when drawing the pistol from such a holster. (I know that the
U.S. Army issued such holsters. The explanation is that Army procurement officers
are idiots, with no real world experience using such equipment.)
"The Serpa Compendium" by Greg Ellifritz
Two more reasons for not using such holsters:
Sand, dirt, snow, etc. can get into the mechanism and jam it.
When attempting to draw with support-side hand only, inserting the pistol into the
holster backwards will cause the pistol to become jammed in the holster. Hey,
this is the technique taught at FLETC (Federal Law Enforcement Training Center).
Never overload your trigger finger by training it to do anything other than
pressing the trigger. Never use another tool that has the same manual of arms as
your pistol. In a high stress situation, you will get confused.
Thanks to Chuck Haggard. Take Chuck's class to get a better understanding of
Task Overload Confusion.
"Without discrimination,
you're going to shoot the wrong person really fast."
-- Paul Howe
"The Things I Wish I Knew Before My First Training Course" by Matt Robertson
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpt:
Remember what John Simpson said,
“The man who trains with a stick will defeat the man who plays with a sword.”
"Exercise. Strengthen your hands and forearms particularly. The usual warnings
about checking with your doctor before beginning any exercise regimen apply.
I know this may seem odd in a low intensity basic class, but grip strength is one of
the most important, and overlooked, factors in the ability to shoot a major caliber
handgun well. 'Well', as in quickly and accurately."
-- Steve Cooper
Ira Asllani
"If you’re not measuring your training,
what you’re doing is called playing."
-- Chris Sajnog
"In order to measure, we must be able to quantify."
-- Aaron Cowan
By Larry Lindenman
IN EXTREMIS COMMUNICATION, PART 1
IN EXTREMIS COMMUNICATION PART 2
IN EXTREMIS COMMUNICATION, PART 3
IN EXTREMIS COMMUNICATION, PART 4
I took this class from Larry at a Tac Con. If you read these articles and then take
the class from him, you will get a lot more out of the class.
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Nicola Cavanis
Taking classes is important, even if you already know everything. Ninety percent
of the material may be stuff you already know or have decided that you don’t want to
implement. But, if you have a good attitude, you will always find that 10% in
nuggets that you had never heard of, or thought of, before. It may be technical,
philosophical, or perceptual. And that makes the class worth taking.
-- Mike Maples
"By prioritizing how we feel over what we do, we ensure our performance never rises
above the landscape of mediocrity. Exceptionalism requires the "Relentlessness Pursuit"
— the repetitive, often boring refinement of a motor skill until it becomes subconscious,
available at will with a sureness of ability that is unshakable, no matter the hardship or
obstacle."
-- Chris Bean
Rangemaster FEBRUARY 2026 NEWSLETTER
"When you're training to protect yourself and others, speed always comes last.
In the more than twenty-five years I've been training people in self-protection,
I've never heard from someone who used self-protection tools in the field and
felt like they suffered from a lack of speed at the moment of truth. In fact, I
usually hear the opposite: it's much more common to suffer from a lack of
accuracy or force."
-- Tim Larkin
I am aware that some instructors disparage Hick. I disagree.
Hick’s Law: Reaction time increases with the number of choices.
Hick, W. E. (1952), “On the Rate of Gain of Information”,
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol. 4, pages 11-26.
The paper says, the more decisions you must make, the slower you go.
And the more options you must choose from in each decision, the slower you go.
The conclusion is that to execute faster, minimize the number of necessary
decisions and minimize the number of options that must be chosen from in each
decision.
So, for instance: always clear your concealment garment the same way (no matter
what garment you are wearing), always wear your equipment in the same place,
always execute immediate action when the gun fails to fire (It will be obvious when
something else needs to be done.), and always shoot to the center of mass of
whatever the available target is. So that you can execute these things without
conscious thought. The more you can do subconsciously, the more bandwidth is
available in conscious thought for tactical decision making. Such as:
If someone else is threatened, should I get involved? Do I understand what's
going on? (Not my circus. Not my monkeys.) Where are the exits? Should I
move to leave? Where are my loved ones? Can I get my loved ones out? or do
I need to neutralize the threat first? Is that person a threat? If he is a threat,
do I need to shoot him right now? or do I need to shoot the other guy first (maybe
he's closer, maybe he has a long range weapon, maybe he appears more dedicated
to the mission, maybe he appears to be the leader)? Can I shoot that guy without
hitting innocent bystanders in the background with my misses and pass throughs?
The good guy's mission is orders of magnitude more difficult than the bad
guy's mission, because the bad guy doesn't care.
"In reality, we are training for an unknown event, against unknown threats,
by developing as many known skills as possible."
-- Jeff Gonzales
Training horror story --
A friend and I were working a security gig and he was telling me about observing a
Tennessee Armed Guard training class at Royal Range in Nashville, TN.
He told me that they flunked out half the class of 50 or so students. (If you're
reading this newsletter, I am sure the written test and shooting test would be very
easy for you.) Those 25 or so did not have their own equipment. They had rented
equipment from Royal Range to take the class. They had no experience and no
interest in guns. They were there because they had already been hired as school
security officers (also known as SRO's [School Resource Officers]), and had been
sent to training to get certified for the job.
In Tennessee, you not only have to have an Armed Guard License, you also must
take and pass the Active Shooter training to be certified to work protecting kids in
schools. The Active Shooter class is much more difficult than the Armed Guard
licensing class. So I think these schools will have to find other candidates.
When hiring persons to protect the kids in your school, you should not be
looking for persons who will play nice with the kids. Rather, you should be
looking for guards who will play rough with the bad guys attacking the kids.
And if you can't tell the difference, you've got no business hiring such persons.
Such are the government school administrators.
"Having a gun is important.
But knowing WHEN to use it is even more important."
-- Greg Ellifritz
"Are You Part of the EDC 1%?" by Kevin Creighton
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpts:
"I believe one of the reasons why [people don't get training] is that the larger
elements of our society (where the 99% is) view marksmanship as something
which comes naturally or instinctually to a person, versus being a skill which
can be developed and learned."
". . . firearms instructors need to do a better job of presenting training
as a journey, not an event."
---
Greg Ellifritz comment --
Only about 1% of gun owners seek advanced firearms training.
The author contrasts this number with the number of new golfers
who take lessons. I think an even better analogy is snow skiing.
Almost all new skiers take lessons. Why don’t all new gun owners
seek lessons in the same way?
---
Shooting is not instinctive. Shooting is not natural. You must get training.
You must master the surprise trigger break to defeat your autonomic nervous
system responses to the recoil and report. Otherwise, you will not be able to
reliably place your bullets where you want to, on demand under the
debilitating stress of combat.
"There are three different areas, or disciplines,
in which the armed person must train.
These are mindset, gun handling, and marksmanship.
Each is equally important, and you must be at least
competent in all three areas."
-- Tom Givens
A colleague that I was working with told me that he was taught in a class to render aid to
the person that he just shot in a self-defense situation. He said that his instructor told him
that it would look good in court and that he had to think about the trial. WRONG! You
should be thinking about the here and now, not some possible future.
I told my colleague that he should NEVER render aid to the person that he had just shot.
The bad guy demonstrated his intention to kill you, that's why you shot him. If you get close
enough to render aid, he will finish his attempt to kill you. He is playing opossum.
As Greg Ellifritz says, "What happens when you shoot someone? Their blood pressure
drops. So they collapse. But what happens when they are lying on the ground? The blood
pressure to their brain goes up and they regain consciousness and get animated; and attempt
to attack you again." I paraphrase.
NEVER attempt to restrain the bad guy. Handcuffing is an extremely dangerous task.
Violent criminal predators practice counter-attacking in handcuffing scenarios. Prison is
college for criminals.
When I was in military police training, when playing the bad guy, I was able to roll out of
a handcuffing situation and "kill" the MP's every time. The bad guy has a huge tactical
advantage, because he knows what's going to happen. He's been there many times before.
"A mistake that makes you humble is better
than an achievement that makes you arrogant."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"Look for Disconfirming Evidence: How to Measure Real Pistol Shooting Performance"
by Helene Cavalli
Excerpt:
"Unfortunately, someone with low skill or a newer shooter probably doesn’t have
enough knowledge or experience to accurately judge or assess his or her own performance.
Making it that much more important to look for evidence that disconfirms beliefs or to
train with a vetted instructor who can observe and provide valuable feedback that will
inform your practice."
"Shoot sooner, not faster."
-- Matt Little
"Wheelchair Concealed Carry Considerations for People with Disabilities"
by Paul Gardner
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpt:
"You’ve already got to work around your disability, so don’t compromise on your equipment."
“The secret of success is this.
Train like it means everything when it means nothing –
so you can fight like it means nothing when it means everything.”
-- Lofty Wiseman
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Psychology --------------------------------
“Training deals not with an object,
but with the human spirit and human emotions.”
--Bruce Lee
Please view this, as I think it is very important to understand.
"You are a killer: dominate your mind" by Orion Taraban
The Warrior's Prayer
Dear God,
Please give us discernment to distinguish friend from foe from innocent bystanders.
Give us clear vision so our aim is true. Give us calm so we execute correctly.
Give us spiritual maturity so that we stop the enemy's attack without excessive force,
without revenge.
In Jesus name, Amen.
"Why the world is falling apart: turning down the genie" by Orion Taraban
Any sufficiently advanced technology will appear to be magic to the ignorant.
"Train and practice so that you can stay in your rational mind,
and force your enemy into his emotional mind. The emotional
mind makes bad judgments which will allow you to win."
-- John Hearne
"Be stronger than your strongest excuse."
-- Nicola Cavanis
I would quote Nicola more, but she speaks German and I am hesitant to translate her.
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Conferences --------------------------------
Attending classes and conferences is required for growth.
"The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword;
because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force
superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense,
raised in the United States."
-- Noah Webster
Rangemaster Tactical Conference, $639
TacCon26 is scheduled for
March 27-29, 2026
at the Dallas Pistol Club in Carrollton, Texas
Security Operations Summit 2026, $150.00
July 23-25, 2026 A.D.
With hands-on pre-event options on Wednesday, July 22nd!
Wednesday to Saturday, so as not to interfere with church on Sunday.
Southeast Christian Church
920 Blankenbaker Parkway
Louisville, KY 40243
Bullets & Bibles 2026 (The registration fee is a tax deductible charitable donation).
Friday, August 21, 2026 – Sunday, August 23, 2026
Hosted at Living Water Ranch, north of Manhattan, KS.
Food and lodging included in registration price.
The Guardian Conference, $800
September 18th - 20th, 2026 in Oklahoma City, OK.
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Classes --------------------------------
Attending classes and conferences is required to avoid teaching
obsolete material, and to ensure you are teaching best practices.
John Farnam is teaching --
6 June 26 (Sat) One-day DTI Urban Rifle, White House, TN
7 June 26 (Sun) One-day DTI Defensive Shotgun, White House, TN
I'll be there gophering. Close to Nashville, if you're in the area.
Dave Spaulding recommends:
Andrew Brattain. He has a Facebook page called Combative Pistolcraft.
and
David Jenkins of Rochester Personal Defense
Tatiana Whitlock - Training in Context
Newsletter -
2026 SCHEDULE OF CLASSES & EVENTS
Learning Library – VIDEOS
Learning Library – DRILLS
Gunsite Academy
Classes,
Lee Weems
Massad Ayoob Group
Blog
West Coast Armory North
Active Response Training, Greg Ellifritz
Rangemaster Certified Instructors
Map of Rangemaster Certified Instructors
Dustin Salomon
KR Training
Kari Grayson
Citizens Safety Academy
Carry Trainer, Mickey Schuch
Paladin Training, Inc.
Citizen-Defender, John Murphy
Virginia Private Firearms Training (for private lessons), John Murphy
Defensive Training International, John Farnam
Rangemaster, Tom Givens
Trident Concepts, Jeff Gonzales
Apache Solutions, Tim Kelly
Course Schedule
Harris Combative Strategies, Randy Harris
Mead Hall Range & Tactics, Bill Armstrong
Two Pillars Training, John Hearne
Classes,
YouTube.com channel
Mike Seeklander
Claude Werner, The Tactical Professor
NRA Instructors and their classes.
‟Training is NOT an event, but a process.
Training is the preparation FOR practice.”
-- Claude Werner
Kirstin Kruka
------------------------------ Practice --------------------------------
How to get proficient at that task.
"People rust faster than equipment."
-- John Hearne
"Improve Your Defensive Skills
Learn from defensive handgun drills"
by Massad Ayoob
"Remember, the day you plant the seed is not the day you earn the fruit."
-- Nicola Cavanis
Practice increases your sensitivity, your kinesthetic awareness. This allows
you to know that you are doing something wrong. Once you become aware of
errors, you can correct them (often automatically). Before you are sensitive
enough to detect errors, you don’t notice them. So, you don’t believe that you
are committing the error.
Strive to bring everything under conscious control. Know exactly where
every part of your body is, and where every piece of equipment is. This is
referred to as kinesthetic awareness. Because if you are not under control,
you are doing something different every time (without noticing that it is different).
(That's why your bullets are scattering all over the place.)
Consistency is accuracy. We strive for accuracy because every missed shot is
destroying property and injuring or killing innocent bystanders.
With training and practice, eventually everything will be under unconscious
control. You will become unconsciously competent.
"Your speed [in mastering the art and science of your discipline] doesn't matter.
Forward is forward."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"The “Play Like You Practice” Thing . . .
Realistic practice conditions are critical"
by Massad Ayoob
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpt:
"For concealed carry, it makes sense to practice drawing from what you’re likely to
be wearing in an actual defensive situation. Quick draw from open carry can actually
be counterproductive to the concealed carrier because it usually won’t incorporate the
movement pattern you need to clear the cover garment."
“Willingness is a state of mind. Readiness is a statement of fact!”
-- Lt. Gen. David M Shoup, USMC Commandant 1960-1963
Lexi Ashton
"Remember, growing may feel like breaking at first."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"You have to be lucky to win. And the more you practice, the luckier you get."
-- Col. Lones Wigger
Why practice?
“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment
when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and
offered the chance to do a very special thing,
unique to them and fitted to their talents.
What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or
unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.”
-- Winston Churchill
"Good habits and skill beat luck every time."
-- Sheriff Jim Wilson
‶Practice is the small deposits you make over time,
so that in an emergency, you can make that big withdrawal.″
-- Chesley Burnett Sullenberger, III
Be careful what you practice.
Because you will do in combat whatever you have practiced,
no matter how ridiculous.
-- "Shooting in Self-Defense" by Sara Ahrens
"Why are the little things called little things?
They are everything."
-- Nicola Cavanis
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** Intervention ***** ***** *****
Suggestions on how to deal with the incident that you failed to avoid.
Table of sections:
Strategy
Tactics
Techniques
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Strategy --------------------------------
Deciding on the end state and how to achieve it.
“How do you win a gunfight?
Don't be there.”
-- John Farnam
"You win gunfights by not getting shot."
-- John Holschen
"Never let fear decide your fate."
-- Nicola Cavanis
Shelby Green
I love spaghetti.
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Tactics --------------------------------
Maneuver and fire in support of your strategy.
Sometimes fire and close combat.
"When You Need to Defend Your Corner" by George T. Williams
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
“Fortuitous outcomes reinforce poor tactics.”
-- Chuck Haggard
"Grassi: At Gunpoint Is Wrong" by Docent
Docent invites our attention to the differing opinions of Massad Ayoob and
Rich Grassi. Much food for thought.
It's worth your time to follow all the links in the articles.
The presentation spectrum (from low to high level threat) –
[Times given are for someone who practices a lot, when nothing goes wrong.
In combat, things go wrong to foul the presentation. Be prepared for this
eventuality.]
Open hands up in front of your head to protect your face and head. Verbal
commands to “STOP!”, “GET BACK!”, as appropriate. You are 2.0 seconds
from firing.
Clear concealment garment and establish a correct grip on your pistol. Keep
the pistol in holster and issue verbal commands if appropriate. You are 1.5
seconds from firing.
Establish a correct grip on the pistol before removing it from the holster.
Remove the pistol from the holster. Hold the pistol inside a jacket pocket,
inside your jacket, behind your thigh, under the table, or some place out of sight
(because you don't want the bad guy to see your pistol). You are 1.0 seconds
from firing.
Present your pistol to a ready position. If the bad guy is close enough to grab
your pistol (about 7 yards, 1.5 seconds), use a compressed ready position. If the
bad guy is far enough away to require sighted fire, use a low ready position (because
you want the bad guys to see your pistol). In any event, keep your field of view
clear and don't point your pistol at anything you are not willing to destroy. Keep
your pistol low enough to see his hands. You are 0.7 seconds from firing.
Present to the target (sights aligned, slack out of the trigger). You are 0.3 seconds
from firing, depending on how accurate you need to be to make the shot. (We are
assuming you stop at this point to assess and make the decision “not to fire” or
“to fire”. If you've made the decision to fire previously, then the time is much less.
Because you're just pausing to get the surprise break.)
Thanks to Gabe White.
“When you’re in the dark, stay in the dark;
when you’re in the light, light up the dark.”
-- Stephen P. Wenger
If you open carry, you will be mistaken for a police officer or a courier of
high value items. You will be the first one shot in any criminal scenario.
Target selection –
Aim at a point on the target, not at the area of the target. The center of mass
is a point. If you can't see the point, visualize the point, imagine the point.
Believe the point exists and aim at it. A button for instance.
The target that gives you the highest probability of an instant stop, is the brain.
The only reliable way to get a pistol bullet into the brain is through a preexisting
hole in the skull. That would be the cranio-ocular cavity (eye sockets and nose)
or the external auditory meatus (ear holes). Since there is no hole in the back of
the head, the target would be the spinal column at the base of the skull. The neck
is also a viable target, because it contains the vagus nerves and carotid arteries.
The target that gives the second highest probability of stopping the attack is
the high thoracic cavity, defined by the triangle formed by the notch at the top of
the sternum and the nipples (as viewed from the front). Because the heart and lungs
are behind this area. From the side, the target would be the arm pit; so, you may
have to shoot through an arm, a reason to use copper jacketed round nose bullets
as they give you the deepest penetration. From the back, the target would be
between the shoulder blades, as the scapula are difficult to penetrate with pistol
ammunition.
“The point of aim for maximum damage to the cardiovascular system:
the intersection of the line between the armpits and the vertical centerline
(i.e., the upper chest).”
-- Andy Stanford, "Surgical Speed Shooting"
The target that gives the highest probability of a hit is the navel, because it is
the center of mass of the body. And therefore, moves the least and moves the
slowest [that's just physics (mechanics)]. So, John Farnam recommends first shot
to the navel, and then work your way up the torso to the head.
“You are no more armed because you are wearing a pistol
than you are a musician because you own a guitar.”
from "Principles of Personal Defense" by Col. Jeff Cooper, USMC,
(1920 – 2006 A.D.)
"Real fights are short." -- Bruce Lee
"You often don't know where the bad guy is who is shooting at you."
-- Phillip Groff
“People shoot you because they see you.
They see you because you let them.
Don’t let them see you.”
-- Clint Smith
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Techniques --------------------------------
Ways to execute a given task in support of your tactics,
especially when disabled or under stress.
Email from Tim Larkin --
Everyone's obsessed with knockouts. Head shots. Chin strikes. Lights out.
But there's a target on the lower ribcage that ends fights FASTER than most
head strikes. And almost nobody teaches it . . .
Here's why it's so effective:
Carries a full unit of blood at any given time
Sits behind easily-broken cartilage ribs (not bone)
Creates instant "glassy-eyed" paralysis when struck
Drops attackers to their knees while still conscious
They freeze. They collapse. Fight over. No concussion needed.
I just analyzed Muay Thai footage showing this in action.
One knee strike and the guy drops like his legs stopped working.
Here's the reality . . . In a real attack you won't get multiple chances.
You need ONE strike that actually ends it. While everyone else is
aiming for the head and missing . . .
You'll know about the "off switch" they don't.
>>> Watch me break down the exact location and why this works
Stay Safe,
Tim Larkin
P.S. Most people have never even heard of this target.
That 2 minutes of knowledge could be the make a huge
difference in your self protection.
[The spleen is on the left, so it's in perfect position for your right knee strike
or a kick from your right foot. As Tim says, our purpose is to immediately
incapacitate the enemy. This is not killing the enemy (that's not our purpose).
This is not causing pain to the enemy (pain is ineffective for stopping the attack).
This is incapacitation. The instant "off switch". There are many others;
vagus nerve on the side of neck for instance. Learn them. Practice them.
At least visualize them.
-- Jon Low]
"It's not daily increase but daily decrease - hack away at the inessentials!"
-- Bruce Lee
"I can always do nothing more consistently than I can do something."
-- Ben Stoeger
So strive to eliminate as much as possible from your dance. -- Jon Low
"Lynn Givens’ Visual Trigger Break and Reset Drill
A simple yet very effective dry practice drill that helps
a shooter get familiar with a trigger and helps one to
level up trigger control proficiency."
by Uncle Zo
Hat tip to Stephen P. Wenger.
". . . only shoot as fast as you can assess, and . . . assess after each shot,
both of which we should be training to do all the time anyway."
-- Ralph Mroz, "Street Focused Handgun Training"
To motivate you to practice one hand only.
“What’s the number one reason for reloading?
Missing the target!”
-- Claude Werner
After action drills – Scan and Assess in NRA lingo
Quick check - Break tunnel vision and auditory exclusion, and reestablish
situational awareness by looking around to your right all the way behind you
and looking around to your left all the way behind you. You must pick up the
bad guys running up behind you before they get to you. Keep the pistol pointed
down, so you don't muzzle all the innocent bystanders around you. Do this
slowly enough to see what’s going on. (We don’t want to develop a California
twitch.)
Tilt your head down about 10 degrees to increase your peripheral vision
by about 10 degrees. (Thanks to Gabe Suarez.)
Final check - Look to determine the condition of the enemy. Do not approach
the enemy. Do not render first aid. Do not attempt to handcuff or restrain the
enemy. Keep your distance. The enemy is playing opossum and will attack you
if you get close enough. (Handcuffing is a specialized skill that takes a lot of
practice and is very dangerous. In prisons, criminals practice counter attacks in
handcuffing scenarios. When I was a Military Policeman, there was an incident
that took 5 MPs to restrain one Marine before they could handcuff him. And the
MPs were fortunate that none of the Marine's buddies jumped in to help him.
It could easily have escalated into close quarter combat.)
Scan - Pull your pistol into a compressed ready position. Then, pivoting from
the elbows, point the pistol down at the ground a foot or two in front of you.
Bend from the elbows, not the wrists. You must keep your wrists straight to
maintain a strong grip on your pistol. Scan in vertical strips from your toes to
the horizon and then to your zenith. Yaw, as opposed to roll or pitch, to cover
360 azimuthal degrees around you.
Humans naturally concentrate their attention in a horizontal band, from about
4 feet off the ground to about 6 feet off the ground, where they expect to see other
human heads and communicate with them. Similarly for deer. That’s why deer
hunters use tree stands. We break this tendency by scanning in vertical strips.
[These are real world techniques. They violate NRA and IDPA safety rules.]
Execute autogenic breathing (also taught in Yoga) by taking deep breaths,
completely filling your lungs on a slow count from 1 to 4, hold the air in for a
count of 4, and completely empty your lungs during a count to 4. Repeat, several
times. This will help you calm down. The stress of the lethal force encounter
has caused an adrenaline dump in your blood stream. Your pulse rate and blood
pressure are way above normal. You may be hyperventilating. You must calm
down to regain your good judgment.
"Grip first, then press."
-- Mike Seeklander
Otherwise, you're going to be squeezing the grip while you press the trigger,
which results in misses (unintended hits). -- Jon Low
“Grip the pistol first, then press the trigger.” – Mike Seeklander
This is much more difficult than you might expect. It takes a lot of practice
to separate and isolate these two fine motor skills.
Tennis ball exercise – grip tennis ball with middle, ring, and little finger.
Relax the thumb and index finger. While maintaining a strong grip with the three
fingers on the tennis ball, extend, relax, and contract the index finger. Keep the
thumb relaxed, not extended, not contracted, relaxed.
When the situation dictates, you may reluctantly holster your pistol to free your
hands to take care of other business. [It's a good idea to holster your pistol before
the cops show up. This reduces the chance that the cops will shoot you.]
Holstering –
1. Safety. Pull back into close contact with two hands. Look around to make sure
everything is copacetic. The trigger finger is in the register position. If you have
a thumb safety, thumb the safety on and then immediately place the thumb on top
of the safety in preparation to thumb the safety off. If you have a decocker, decock
your pistol.
2. Chest. Support-side hand clears the concealment garment. If you don’t
intentionally do something with your support-side hand, you risk muzzling your
support-side hand. If you muzzle your support-side hand, you risk shooting your
support-side hand. I know that sounds crazy, but it happens all the time.
3. Holster. Watch what you are doing. Carefully and gently, while keeping your
thumb in contact with your body, rotate the muzzle down and insert the pistol
into your holster, while maintaining your high tight grip with your trigger finger
in the register position away from the frame of the pistol. So, that the trigger finger
ends up in the register position outside of the holster. (As long as you keep your
thumb in contact with your body, you won’t be pointing the pistol into your body.)
You don't have to look around while you are holstering. You wouldn't be holstering
in the first place if it were not safe to do so.
Dave Spaulding teaches bring the pistol down to the holster while still pointing
it forward, dragging the dust cover over the top of the holster, and rotate the muzzle
into the holster. This allows you to holster without looking at the holster. Try it.
See if it works for you.
If something doesn't feel right, STOP! Bring the pistol back to the close contact
position, clear the obstruction (with your support side hand), and try again.
Only when the pistol is completely in the holster will you release your high
tight grip. If you release your grip before the pistol is completely in your holster,
you will eventually drop the pistol. (I know some people teach that you should
holster while continuing to look around. You would not be holstering in the first
place if there were still a threat. Holstering is statistically the most dangerous
operation in your manual of arms. This is where people most often shoot
themselves. So, you must watch what you're doing. And do it carefully and
gently.)
4. Sweep - Sweep your hand between the pistol grip and your body to ensure
that your blouse or draw string from your jacket is not caught in your holster.
(Thanks to Steve Cooper of Paladin Training, Florence, SC.)
5. Dial - Dial 911 to report the incident. Tuck the arm of your phone hand
against your chest, brace the forearm of your dialing hand against your chest,
then dial. (Thanks to Marc Mac Young, "In The Name Of Self-Defense".)
Because you might be shaking uncontrollably and otherwise may not be able to dial.
"Use only that which works,
and take it from any place you can find it."
-- Bruce Lee
*************************************************************************
Shelby Green
Legally Blonde (her words not mine, it's a law degree)
La Trobe University
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
[Look at those fingers. Glock 21.]
*************************************************************************
The rear sight is a window. You look through the rear sight to see the front sight.
The front sight is the object of interest. Yes, I know that's counter intuitive.
You're thinking the bad guy should be the object of interest. But, if you focus on
the bad guy, the front sight will wander off and you'll never notice it. Then you'll
wonder why you're not hitting where you are aiming. It's because you are not
aiming. Focusing on the front sight is aiming. Focusing on the threat is what
scared bunnies do. Don't be a scared bunny. Be a competent operator. Focus on
the front sight.
If you have white dots or other such things on your sights, scratch the paint
out with a dental pick, take a black permanent marker, and blacken them out.
Use the silhouette of the front and rear sight to aim. Using the dots or other marks
will give you a different point of impact. You shouldn’t have two aiming systems
on your pistol. In low light conditions, you won’t be able to see those white dots.
So, you will be using the silhouette of the sights. Keep it simple.
"Denn jedes Mal, wenn was geht, ist Platz für Neues.
Und wenn es gestern nicht sein soll, dann klappt es heut 🦋"
-- Nicola Cavanis
There are many techniques for doing any given task.
Search and experiment until you find the ones that you can perform reliably.
Sight movie –
“Sight picture” is a misnomer. You will never get a static picture. You will
always have a moving picture, that is a movie.
Place the top of the front sight on the center of mass of your target (not
necessarily the center of mass of the torso, the center of mass of what you intend
to hit). Hard focus on the front sight (see the serrations and scratches on your
front sight). If you are focused on the front sight, you know where the pistol is
pointed. If you are focused on the target, you are not concentrating on the front
sight, and it will wander off on you. You won’t notice it because you are
concentrating on what you’re focused on. And you won’t hit what you think
you are aiming at.
Aiming with both eyes open causes the shooter to see a "double image".
You can prove this to yourself by sticking your thumb up at arm's length, place it
over a distant target, focus on the target and you will see two thumbs, focus on
your thumb and you will see two targets.
So, if you are focused on the target and using the wrong front sight image,
you will miss the target. If you are focused on the front sight and use the wrong
target image, you will miss. This is a real problem in high stress situations.
Instructors who have never been in high stress situations don't have the
experience to understand this. There is no substitute for experience.
The shooter won't automatically use the image from the dominant eye,
because eye dominance is psychological, not physiological. So, it can and does
change with stress and attention. Eye dominance is not necessarily left or right.
It can be 50% - 50%. It can be 70% right - 30% left. Etc. Everyone is different.
Any time a person aims with both eyes open, he will get a double image.
Assuming a hard focus on the front sight (because target focused shooting is
stupid. See next paragraph.), a person using his right eye to aim, who uses the
wrong image will be shooting way off to the left (damaging property, injuring
innocent bystanders, maybe killing them). A person using his left eye to aim,
who uses the wrong image will be shooting way off to the right. Therefore,
it is essential to eliminate the double image by closing the non-aiming eye.
Murphy's Law says that anything that can go wrong will go wrong at the worst
possible time. So, the person shooting with both eyes open will be shooting
at the wrong image and hitting unintended objects. No such thing as a miss,
only unintended hits. "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." So, we must
eliminate anything that can go wrong from our weapon system. So, the non-aiming
eye must be closed.
Visual focus is equivalent to mental concentration. You are concentrating on
whatever you are visually focused on. If you focus on the target, you won't notice
the front sight. The front sight will wander off the target and you'll never notice it.
Such is "inattentional blindness". So, you will miss the target.
There is nothing natural or instinctive about shooting. Shooting is a specialized
skill peculiar to a specific tool. Comparing shooting to any other day-to-day
operation in normal life is incongruous.
"The foundations of your grip are established
before you even draw the pistol from the holster."
-- Tanner Denton
Just because you are right eye dominant in the pristine conditions of the
pistol range doesn't mean you will be right eye dominant under stress, as when
someone is threatening the lives of your children. (No, IDPA or IPSC matches
do not induce stress, unless you have urinated or defecated in your pants,
vomited, shaken uncontrollably, or something like that. I have never seen that
at a match. Have you? It happens commonly in combat.) So you must close
the non-aiming eye to aim. Otherwise, you won't be able to achieve sight
alignment under the debilitating stress of combat. Which means you must
practice closing your non-aiming eye when aiming. 2000 repetitions might
get you to the point of being able to do it reliably at the range. Probably need
10,000 reps to be able to do it unconsciously under stress. But, everyone is
different.
"Ineffective and potentially dangerous, point shooting should be avoided
at all costs and aimed fire employed in any lethal-force scenario."
-- Massad Ayoob
You have three trigger presses: (Thanks to Chuck Haggard.)
1. Precisely - Slack out first. Then press to release the sear. Race to reset. (Your
perceived need to make the hostage rescue shot may cause you to execute this.)
2. Carefully - Roll the trigger from touch to bang at the same speed all the way through.
(Having multiple assailants, but not wanting to injure bystanders, may cause you to
execute this.)
3. Quckly - Crash through the trigger. (The threat and your fear may cause you to
execute this. But, you really want to be in control and not execute this from a state
of panic. [So you must practice.])
DA/SA have two different trigger pulls. Do you really want to practice enough to
know and master 6 different trigger presses?
(The Precisely, Carefully, Quickly terminology is from Tom Givens.)
With regards to your grip --
"The secret is applying extreme force with the pinkies and
working your way up the rest of the digits."
-- Jeff L. Gonzales
“. . . an instructor told me to pretend that the front sight was attached to a rail
leading to the center of the rear sight. My trigger finger was attached to the front
sight with a string. Then, when I had the aligned sights on target, my trigger finger
would smoothly pull the front sight back toward the center of the rear sight. The
lesson kept me from yanking on the trigger, kept me staring at the front sight, and
the round going off surprised me every time.”
– "Again With the Front Sight!" by Col. Kenneth Haynes (Ret.)
"Superior judgment trumps superior skills." -- Dan Millican
"Retention Shooting: What Most Classes Teach Wrong" by Craig Douglas
When discussing Greenland, only properly oriented maps should be used.
Any media that shows a traditional map implying that Russia and China are
on the opposite side of the planet are purposefully misguiding the American
public. Every sailor and aviator understands Great Circle Navigation -
showing anything else is a lie.
-- Armor Upfitters
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** Postvention ***** ***** *****
Suggestions on how to treat your wounds or the wounds of your loved ones.
Suggestions on how to avoid prosecution, conviction, and prison time.
Suggestions on how to avoid the civil law suit and judgment.
Table of Sections:
Aftermath
Medical
Survival
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Aftermath --------------------------------
You must be alive to have these problems: criminal and civil liability.
A few days ago, one of the "911-Nashville" production crew in the locations
department was setting out traffic cones, when two guys approached him and
demanded money, took all the money he had, and walked off. He found the whole
matter embarrassing and so did not report the incident, because he thought that he
had been a wimp. When upper management found out, they ordered him to file
a police report. The police were not kind or understanding. In truth the police
were incompetent and inexperienced. (It doesn't matter that the Nashville police
are 400 officers under staffed. They should still be trained on how to conduct
an interview.)
I told him that he had not been a wimp. Quite the contrary, he had played it smart.
In such situations, your primary goal is not to get hurt. He was able to talk and act his
way out of the situation. That's a WIN!
I explained to him that the police had no business making him feel incompetent
and unobservant for not being able to recite the time, date, location, description of
the perpetrators, etc. If the police had conducted the interview properly, they would
have gotten all of that information.
“Your understanding and consent are not required
for someone to take your life, kill your loved ones,
and destroy all you hold dear.”
-- William Aprill
"Inside the Investigations That Close the Case"
If your insurance policy doesn't cover your private investigators, your policy is
deficient. The police are not investigating for you. They work for the prosecutor.
No, as a matter of fact, they will not give exculpatory evidence to your defense
attorney. If you think they will, you're a damn fool.
In the right hand column of this web page, click on "Never Talk To The Police"
or use the address,
The high stress of a lethal force encounter will induce auditory exclusion
(can’t hear anything), tunnel vision (loss of peripheral vision), skewed perception
of time (things appear in slow motion), temporary memory loss (this is one of the
reasons you should not make a statement to police before consulting an attorney),
and false memories (these will be used to prove to a jury that you lied to the police
and hence had a guilty state of mind). All police departments have a policy of not
interviewing police officers involved in shootings until after the officer has had
two good night’s sleep. Some departments won't interview officers for 72 hours.
So, why in the world would you talk to police immediately after a high stress
incident? Don't do it. Save yourself a lot of pain and suffering; KEEP YOUR
MOUTH SHUT!
In the right hand column, click on the link labeled "Self Defense Insurance".
Or, the link is,
Read this before you buy insurance. You need to make an informed decision.
The various policies are drastically different.
"You need to read the fine print." -- Massad Ayoob
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him,
but because he loves what is behind him.”
― G.K. Chesterton
*************************************************************************
Milena Vaisik
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Medical --------------------------------
"If you prepare for the emergency,
the emergency ceases to exist!"
-- Sherman House
"Chest Seals, Tension Pneumothorax, and What Really Matters"
by Jonathan Willis
Don't try this without training. I know exactly where and between which ribs to
insert the needle. Do you? If you don't, you could cause big problems. Ya, training
costs money. You're not entitled to anything.
---
Train With Willis (Rangemaster certified instructor)
"The shorter the fight, the less hurt you get."
-- John Holschen
"Medical Multi-Tool: The Triangular Bandage" by Justin
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Hey, I remember this from Boy Scouts.
Greg Ellifritz recommends,
"The Self-Aid Imperative: Why Misunderstanding IFAKs Undermines Responder Survival"
by Rory Hill
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpt:
"Self-aid is not selfish. It is operationally necessary. A responder who survives can
continue the mission, assist others, and contribute to resolution. A responder who
becomes a casualty without self-aid capability becomes an additional burden on
already strained systems."
Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC)
Guidelines for Active Bystanders
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC)
Guidelines for First Responders with a Duty to Act
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC)
Guidelines for BLS/ALS Medical Providers
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Tactical Emergency Casualty Care Course - NAEMT Certified, $495.00
Tracey Mendenhall | VP of Operations
(Life Saving Ninja)
DEFEND SYSTEMS
(615) 480-7758
North American CAT tourniquet.
“Your character is what you do when no one is looking.”
-- Thomas Jefferson
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Survival --------------------------------
"Survival is not based solely on technique.
Survivability may hinge on the use of the correct technique
appropriate to the environment you are fighting in.
Oh, and yes, marksmanship is always valuable."
-- Clint Smith
"Best Prepping & Survival Websites: Stay Alive" by Megan Kriss
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
"If you stay fit, you do not have to get fit.
If you stay trained, you do not have to get trained.
If you stay prepared, you do not have to get prepared."
-- Robert Margulies
"Survival is a mindset, not a skill set."
-- Greg Shaffer
‟We don’t decide what is necessary to survive a
lethal force encounter initiated by someone else.
That person decides what’s necessary for us to survive.”
– William Aprill
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** Education ***** ***** *****
Table of contents:
Legal
Instruction
Gear
*************************************************************************
"You will never get smarter or broaden your horizons
if you're unwilling to learn from others and read."
-- Becca Martin
"Shooting 101: A Guide To Firearms Terminology"
2nd Amendment News & Articles
Citizen-Defender, John Murphy
Blog posts,
Rangemaster Newsletter, Tom Givens
Active Self Protection, John Correia
"My Gun Culture" by Tom McHale
Quips, John Farnam
Active Response Training, Greg Ellifritz
The Tactical Professor, Claude Werner
American Handgunner Magazine
Tactical Science
International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors
Alien Gear blog
Shooting Classes Blog
"Cogito, ergo armatum sum." (I think, therefore armed am I.)
-- John Farnam
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Legal --------------------------------
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
It is wholly inadequate for the governance of any other."
-- John Adams, October 11, 1798
Gun Law Database
"Samuel Alito Asks Attorney Directly:
'What Do You Think Is The Purpose Of The Second Amendment?' "
by Forbes Breaking News
While hearing oral arguments for Wolford v. Lopez on Tuesday,
Associate Justice Samuel Alito asked Principal Deputy Solicitor General
arguing on behalf of the Petitioner Sarah M. Harris about the Second Amendment.
---
" 'I've Never Seen That Right':
Sonia Sotomayor Lays Into Lawyer Over Second Amendment Rights "
by Forbes Breaking News
Many states allow concealed carry in places that serve alcohol. You might think
to have a beer or a glass of wine with dinner. But, Simon says,
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaming lion,
walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”
-- 1st Peter (Simon) 5:8, King James Version
Even if your self-defense shooting is completely justified and righteous, if you
have alcohol in your blood stream at the time, you might lose the criminal trial or
civil lawsuit, because the prosecution / plaintiff will claim your judgment is bad,
which is demonstrated by your decision to drink while armed. And that your
judgment was impaired, because you had alcohol in your blood stream during the
event.
"Tennessee Attorney General Skrmetti Addresses Hughes v. Lee
with Conservative Voters in Brentwood"
---
"Legislative Oaths, Constitutional Duties,
and the Duty to Repeal Unconstitutional Firearms Statutes"
---
"TFA: 2026 Is About Accountability — Not More Lies and Excuses"
“Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore,
be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not
to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean
everything or nothing at pleasure.”
— Thomas Jefferson (1823)
Zach Clark highlights stupidity of the National Firearms Act.
"Man [Zach Clark] Successfully Registers Potato as Silencer"
by Stephen Gutowski
Excerpts:
“It’s a good way to highlight to normal people that like,
‘Yeah, this is dumb,’ ” Clark told The Reload.
“This whole law is kind of dumb.”
“As of this moment, I have the serialized washer, and I have the potato,
but I haven’t put it together,” he told The Reload. “There’s a manufacturing
buffer on that from approval; you have to wait. Plus, that’s a whole thing of like,
what is your manufacturing intent? Does it count when you’ll buy the potato?
Is it having any potato in your house? Any potato products?”
“Is there no virtue among us? If there is not, we are without hope!
No form of government, existing nor theoretical, will keep us from harm.
To think that any government, in any form, will insure liberty and happiness
for a dishonorable population represents the height of self-deception.”
-- James Madison, 1788
The only equality consistent with liberty is equality before the law.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
-- Second Amendment, Constitution of the United States of America
"Ayoob: Will Carrying a 10mm Hang You in Court?" by Massad Ayoob
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Except:
". . . $700,000, including the appeal."
[That's why you MUST have an insurance policy or attorneys on retainer. -- Jon Low]
---
Never approach the guy you just shot to render medical aid. You will be getting
close enough for him to attack you again. You will need an expert witness or your
firearms instructor to explain this to a jury.
Keep your mouth shut! Never talk to responding officers.
"I would be happy to cooperate with you as soon as my attorney arrives."
Or less politely,
"I invoke my right to remain silent. I invoke my right to counsel."
Let your attorney talk to the police. Let your attorney write up your statement and
give it to the police.
Review of Tennessee laws --
Can't use lethal force to defend property. So your attorney must articulate why
you were in fact defending yourself or others. You, of course, are keeping your
mouth shut.
The police were not there. The prosecutor was not there. The judge was not
there. No one on the jury was there.
So it's all about how well your attorney articulates the correct narrative of
what happened.
Your expert witnesses can explain to the jury how unreliable eye witnesses
are. They probably were not eye witnesses. They might have been ear witnesses,
who filled in what they thought must have happened. Such is imagination,
especially under high stress.
Your attorney can explain to the jury that the alleged victim is lying to get
a pay out in a civil law suit. The bad guy thinks he won the lottery. Or, the
bad guy's family think they hit the jackpot.
The bad guy attacked you, forcing you to defend yourself, and now the bad
guy will sue you into oblivion. That's how our legal system works (it's not a
justice system).
That's why you must have an insurance policy. In America, you get as much
justice as you can afford.
"[Tennessee] Highway Patrol Stands By EVERY Single Sober DUI Arrest"
by Steve Lehto
False arrests. This is why people call for defunding the police. Honest mistake?
No, this is corruption. These arrests destroy the lives of law abiding citizens.
If it were one or two, it could be an honest mistake. But not thousands of false arrests.
Let's follow the money. The officers get raises and promotions by making DUI
arrests. The attorneys make huge amounts of money in legal fees. The insurance
companies have an excuse for jacking up your premiums. And of course, the politicians
get to keep their hands clean, while taking out their political opponents. Oh yes, a DUI
arrest (without conviction) can determine an election. And has.
It is lawfare.
This is why people call for defunding the police.
"$45M Jury Award for Bad Conviction Must be Paid" by Steve Lehto
How could a jury be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that an innocent man was
guilty of a crime? Well, that tells you something about juries pulled from the election rolls.
Several of the prospective jurors should have been struck from the jury because there were
not citizens and so were ineligible to vote. Don't expect any critical thinking from your
jury. You get as much justice as you can afford in America. That's why you MUST have
a self-defense insurance policy or an attorney on retainer.
"Firearms are second only to the constitution in importance,
they are the people's liberty's teeth." -- George Washington
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Instruction --------------------------------
"Remember,
the students who require the extra effort
are the ones who need us the most!"
-- John Farnam
*************************************************************************
----- Instructors -----
“Qui docet, discet.” (Who teaches, learns.)
-- American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers
"Instructor Enrichment Program by Apache Solutions"
by Jonathan Willis
Next one on 9 to 11 October 2026 A.D.
“He who dares to teach must never cease to learn.”
-- Richard Henry Dana
"Every time I teach a class,
I discover I don't know something."
-- Clint Smith
Auditory -- Verbally explain the technique to the students and the reasons for
using the technique, as opposed to any other technique.
Visual -- Demonstrate the technique dry (without ammo) the first time, and
then do a live fire demonstration if possible.
Kinesthetic -- Let the students practice the technique with either the finger
gun, dummy gun, or the unloaded pistol. Some of the students will need this
level of comfort before progressing to a live fire exercise. Let the students
live fire the technique slowly and carefully. Then, let the students live fire quickly.
Finally, let the students practice the technique under stress (time pressure).
Reading / Writing -- Schedule enough time between classes to allow the
students to read the lesson plan, look at the pictures on the web site, and
practice at home.
Be careful what you teach.
Because your students will do in combat
whatever you have trained them to do,
no matter how ridiculous.
-- "Shooting in Self-Defense" by Sara Ahrens
Please practice both right and left-handed. So, that you can stand facing the
student and mirror the student’s actions to demonstrate the technique. This is
especially useful when teaching administrative operations.
Never violate our safety rules. Never point pistols at each other. The student
can do that at home in their bathroom mirror if they wish. But we never do that
in training.
Make sure the student understands all the dry practice safety rules before
pointing his pistol at his reflection in the mirror.
Letting the student aim the blue gun (dummy gun) at your eye to see his
sight alignment is okay.
"You must teach skill sustainment as part of training."
-- John Hearne
When the student asks you a question, repeat the question loud enough for
everyone to hear. This ensures that you are answering the correct question and
everyone knows what the question is. You may have misheard the question.
Give your student the opportunity to correct the question.
Once you have established the question, answer the question.
"I don't know." is a perfectly good answer. Better would be, "I don't know.
I will find out and get back to you." Of course, you MUST follow through
by sending out an email to everyone in class with the answer to the question.
Depending on your class, you might have students competent to answer
the question. So you could ask the class for an answer to the question.
But don't let nonsense prevail. Be tactful, but never let a
wrong / false / misleading answer stand.
"You don't have to memorize formulae.
Because you can always derive them from first principles."
-- Sven Hartman
Teach first principles. Let the student derive tactics based on the principles
and the situation. Don't teach situation specific tactics. Because your student
will default to them, rather than relying on first principles to decide what to do.
"But pre-programmed responses are faster. We don't have time to analyze
during the fight."
That's only true if you're the bad guy. The good guy has a duty to think.
Which includes, but is not limited to, the safety rules. Yes, combat is a very
difficult, complex, and intellectual endeavor, for the good guy.
"Thinking is the hardest thing a person can do.
That's why so few people do it."
-- Henry Ford
Pre-programmed techniques such as presenting the pistol are fine and should
be done unconsciously. Pre-programmed tactics are a problem, because as
Greg Ellifritz says, every incident is an anomaly. So it is highly unlikely that
you have a tactical decision in your repertoire for this particular incident.
Better to analyze the situation and decide.
"Your curriculum needs to be recent, relevant, and realistic."
-- Austin Killmer
Don’t rush to cover all the material. It is better to ensure the student understands
what has been taught and leave the rest for next time. If the student doesn’t want to
come back next time, that’s their choice.
(Thanks to Nathan Goode, NGInvestigations.com)
"The limited time you spend with students may be the only training they ever receive!"
-- John Farnam
You must be able to demonstrate everything right-handed and left-handed. Which
means you must practice both. It also means you must have both holsters.
A lot of handguns are right-handed, all revolvers for instance (unless you spend
the money to buy a left-handed revolver, I've seen them, but they are rare). So you
must know left-handed techniques for revolvers and right-handed pistols.
“The most valuable resource that all teachers have is each other.
Without collaboration, our growth is limited to our own perspectives.”
-- Robert John Meehan
“The student’s purpose is to expand their body of knowledge and social network.
The instructor’s purpose is to help the student achieve the student’s goals.”
-- Amy Schwartz
"A false path will always be tensely, angrily, violently defended
by those it has deceived, because those who are so easily deceived
are ever too arrogant to repent.”
-- Instructional axiom
Colonel Robert Lindsey to his fellow trainers:
"We are not God's gift to our students.
Our students are God's gift to us."
************************************************************************
----- Students -----
"Try.
Try again.
Try once more.
Try differently.
Try again tomorrow.
Try and ask for help.
Try find someone who's done it.
Try to fix the problem.
Keep trying until you succeed."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"The Fix: How to Deal With a Bad Instructor" by George Harris
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
---
If you take a class from a reputable instructor (Tac Con, Guardian Conference,
Bullets and Bibles, etc.; they have their instructor lists and bios on their web sites)
you'll avoid this problem. If you ask your reputable instructor for referrals to other
instructors, you will avoid this problem. You can look at my list of instructors on
this web site for my recommendations.
---
Dave Spaulding recommends:
Andrew Brattain. He has a Facebook page called Combative Pistolcraft.
and
David Jenkins of Rochester Personal Defense
“It may seem difficult at first but everything is difficult at first.”
-- Miyamota Mushashi
"It's better to be wrong than to be vague."
-- Freeman Dyson
If you're wrong, the instructor can correct you.
If you are vague, no one can help you.
“Train, Practice, Compete
are the key elements in the development of humans.”
-- John M. Buol, Jr.
"Keep in mind that this is some seriously next level material.
It is totally normal that the first time you see this stuff, you find
it confusing. You find it difficult to understand. So, confusion
should not discourage you. It does not represent any intellectual
failing on your part. Rather, keep in mind that it represents an
opportunity to get even smarter."
– Tim Roughgarden, Professor of Computer Science and other
stuff at Stanford University
*************************************************************************
----- Andragogy (as opposed to pedagogy) -----
‟An instructor should not expect any learning to
take place the first time new information is presented.”
-- ‶Building Shooters″ by Dustin Salomon
So you must prime your students by giving them a book or handouts to read before
the class so that when you give the lecture in class it will not be the first time they
have heard the material.
"Growth is uncomfortable because you've never been there before."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"Thinking is the hardest thing a person can do.
That's why so few people do it."
-- Henry Ford
*************************************************************************
Angelina Aisman
Master's degree in Psychology
HSE University
Moscow, Russia
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Gear --------------------------------
And the safe storage thereof.
"17 Forbidden TRICKS To BOOST Your HANDGUN!"
by Guns You Can't Live Without and All About Survival
"How Much Ammo Should You Carry?" by Ed Head
You may also need the extra magazine to reduce a stoppage.
Email from John Farnam --
"You can equip yourself with a perfectly satisfactory defensive pistol
(revolver or Glock-pattern autoloader) for $400.00 - $800.00. You can surely
spend more, much more, but when I’m asked by students for advice with
regard to “what pistol should I buy?” my first response is always:
What is it for? Do you want it in order to impress your friends,
or impress your enemies?
When the reply is the later, then my suggestion to my student is that
he spend $400.00 - $800.00 on a good, plain-vanilla service pistol
(and there are many excellent choices, some of which I’m mentioned
in this and the last two Quips
), and then spend all the money saved as a result of not buying a
“premium” pistol on ammunition and competent training, maybe optics!"
-- John Farnam
“Mission drives the gear train.”
-- Pat Rogers
"2026 SHOT Show, Range Day" by John Farnam
"2026 SHOT Show, First Day" by John Farnam
Excerpt:
"Hi-Viz displayed their Fastdot pistol sights. The front sight is red,
until you view it while looking through the rear sight. Then, when you’ve
achieved correct sight alignment, the front sight turns green!"
---
"2026 SHOT Show, Third Day" by John Farnam
---
PSA Dagger Full Size - S 9mm Pistol with SW1 RMR with Threaded Barrel &
10 17rd Mags & Bag, FDE (Rear Sight Rear), $469.99
Palmetto State Armory
The pistol by itself is $360. Can't go wrong at that price.
Hat tip to John Farnam.
---
"2026 SHOT Show, Last Day" by John Farnam
IWI Masada,
https://iwi.us/firearms/masada/9mm-parabellum/
Wear gloves when it’s cold. Cold fingers will get numb and fumble ammunition
and pistol. Practice with gloves on. When it’s cold, you will be wearing gloves and
you won’t have time to take them off.
In cold weather wear a hat.
“HEADGEAR: You should have a soft, jungle-style hat for warm weather because
it creates an irregular, difficult-to-detect outline. For cooler temps and night, wear
a wool navy-style watch cap. Remember that your body loses about 15 percent of
its heat through your head.”
– “The Ultimate Sniper” by Maj. John Plaster, U.S. Army retired,
Paladin Press, Revised edition January 2006, page 27.
ISBN-10: 1581604947
ISBN-13: 978-1581604948
"LESS LETHAL" by Steve Tarani
[Legally, there are only two buckets: lethal force and non-lethal force.
There is no in between. The term "less lethal" is legal nonsense. -- Jon Low]
"Can't legally carry? Move. Yes, it is that simple." -- Massad Ayoob
[You don't have time to get your gun, but you do have time to get your
"less lethal" tool? Nonsense! -- Jon Low]
"Decide not to revert to your firearm . . ." ?
[Nonsense! Draw your gun! You can always decide not to shoot.
If you don't draw your gun, you can't decide to shoot.
The NRA personal protection class teaches that an aggressive competent
presentation to the ready will cause the enemy to flee 90% of the time.
If you presented your pistol and the bad guy ran away, you MUST call 911
and report the incident. Because I guarantee you, the bad guy is calling 911
reporting you as the assailant. Because you just embarrassed him in front
of his buddies, and he has no honor. To think that the criminal thinks the
way you think is a fatal mistake.
There are that 10% that will not be impressed by your pistol. They will
take your pistol and kill you with it. Then, they will kill others with your
pistol. You cannot allow that to happen. Suicide by cop is a thing. Suicide
by armed citizen is a thing. Be mentally prepared for this eventuality.
-- Jon Low]
"Unlike CS and CN gases, OC sprays effectively affect persons
under the influence of other substances."
[I know the author has this reversed. I learned in Marine Corps military police
training that OC does not work on 10% of the population. And from experience,
I learned that a dedicated person in good health (as any Marine) can fight through
the OC, and that persons on certain drugs are completely unaffected by OC.
Anyone who has been through a real gas chamber exercise, knows that CS
will incapacitate when inhaled in sufficient doses.
-- Jon Low]
"Pepper-spray projectiles . . . "
[Keith Graves of Christian Warrior Training has done extensive research and testing
on these "tools" and found them to be ineffective in the real world, as have I.
-- Jon Low]
[Anyone who thinks that an elderly, disabled, or weak person can effectively
defend themselves without tools is not operating in the real world. We are humans.
Humans use tools. A pistol is an emergency escape tool. Acquire one. Learn
how to use it. Otherwise, the death of you, and those around you, is completely
your fault.
-- Jon Low]
The purpose of a high capacity magazine is NOT to let you shoot more;
it is to let you reload less.
-- Tom Givens
***** Modern Propellants *****
When I was the battalion armorer for 1st Radio Battalion,
1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade, Fleet Marine Force Pacific,
we were trained by 1st BSSG (Brigade Service Support Group).
There, we learned that modern firearms use smokeless powder
(Smokeless powder is not smokeless. It does create smoke,
the product of the chemical reaction. “Smokeless powder” is
just the American generic name for modern firearm propellants.),
which is a nitrocellulose-nitroglycerin compound, which is a propellant,
not an explosive. When ignited, it burns fast, creating a large volume
of hot gas that pushes the bullet through the barrel. There is no supersonic
detonation shock wave as with explosives. This is good because the
detonation shock wave damages the firearm, eventually making the firearm
unserviceable. Older firearms used black power, which is an explosive.
This means that upon ignition there is a supersonic detonation shock wave.
It is still the large volume of hot expanding gas that pushes the bullet
through the barrel, not the shock wave.
The primer is an explosive. It is a pressure sensitive stable explosive.
The primer is so small that it does not create a significant detonation shock
wave in the cartridge. It just creates a flame that ignites the smokeless powder.
“Your car is not a holster.”
-- Pat Rogers
Coach Hoffman and I worked on a pistol for a lady with large weak hands
(not weak as in disabled, it's just that she has never done any manual labor,
or as an ex-boyfriend said, "She's never done a day's work in her life.")
and enlarged knuckles, not arthritis. She is a model / actress / professional
widow. After trying several pistols, we decided on a Glock 21 in 45 ACP.
I got a used one in fine condition from OfficerStore.com for $320.
We then:
Cut serrations on the sides of the slide to allow a chamber check by reaching
under the pistol and gripping the sides of the slide with the pads of the thumb
and fingers of the support side hand. I asked Aidan to use his imagination,
so instead of the serrations matching the serrations on the rear of the slide as
it came from the factory, the forward serrations look like wavy letter S's.
Very artistic.
The pistol came with Glock steel sights with tritium glow in the dark inserts.
Widened the rear notch by 2/100th of an inch (1/100th of an inch on each side).
Deepened the rear sight notch by 2/100th of an inch to increase the length of the
light segments on either side of the front sights post.
Polished all bearing surfaces of the trigger group.
Maritime modification of the striker group. Which means slots were cut to allow
water to drain out of the striker mechanism to prevent trapped water from slowing
the striker in the event that the pistol was submerged.
Cut the tabs off the sides of the Glock magazines to allow the base plates to slide
on and off (makes it easier to clean). The pistol came with 3 Glock magazines.
Replaced the magazine springs with Wolff springs.
Under-cut and side-cut and smoothed the trigger guard where it joins the grip
to prevent "Glock Knuckle".
Cut and smoothed the sides of the tang to prevent irritation of the sesamoid bones
at the joint where the thumb meets the palm. Had to cut the steel pin that holds the
trigger group to the frame at that point to prevent it from protruding beyond the frame.
Cut and smoothed the front bottom of the grip to allow access to the magazine base
plate to allow pulling the magazine out of the magazine well.
Cut off and smoothed the finger ridges on the front of the grip, as they didn't fit
the client correctly. Filed checkering in the front of the grip for friction.
Detailed cleaning, test firing (to ensure the pistol works, the pistols works with
the holster, the magazines work with the pistol, the magazine pouch works with the
magazines, the belt works with the holster and mag pouch, zeroed the sights, etc.),
and then did a detailed cleaning / inspection.
Some would say that the pistol is used. I prefer to say that the pistol has been
modified to the user and tested.
"The Pros and Cons of Red Dot Sights on Pistols" by Jacob Paulsen
The car - bicycle analogy is worth considering.
"How Red Dot Sights Work (What is a Collimator?)" by Forgotten Weapons
"The First Red Dot Sights:
Aimpoint Electronic, MkIII, and Aimpoint 1000" by Forgotten Weapons
"Ayoob: What’s the Best Semi-Auto Design?"
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Shotgun quad load.
"There are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous men."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
If you have long slender fingers,
(Ya, I took Tatiana Whitlock's course on how to fit a pistol to a person's hand,
so I once knew all the terms for types of hands and fingers, but I can't recall them
off the top of my head. Ya, I should have dug out the handouts and studied the
documents and used the proper terms. But, I can't find them.)
try leather gloves by Blauer, made in South Korea.
I found some at Greene's Police and Military in Donellson, TN. Tom makes a point
of catering to his female clientele.
If you have long sharp fingernails, cut them. They will destroy your gloves.
They will cause you to cut yourself when handling and gripping your pistol correctly.
They will break your real fingernails or tear your real fingernails out in combat
situations. Yes, fingernails will grow back. That's why they are used in torture.
If you hold the prisoner long enough there will be no physical evidence of ripping
his fingernails out. Yes, it is that painful. So be smart. Cut your fingernails.
Never wear long fingernails, real or glue on.
---
"But they make a good weapon."
No, actually, they don't. Not in the real world.
"But beauty is pain. (High heel shoes, long fingernails, corsets, breast
surgery, face lifts, etc.) You don't understand."
I admit that I don't understand. None of the women in my family, nor any
of the women that I have married wore make up, had cosmetic surgery, or such.
There is a significant difference between city girls and country girls. Of course,
I'm talking about real country girls, not the country singers and movie stars.
"Knife Serrations Aren't What You Think" by OUTDOORS55
"Hand Grenades at 5 MILLION FPS!" by Ballistic High-Speed
How handcuffs work.
APracticalGuideToPistolCalibers
Ammo sources:
Unlimited Ammo
Target Sports USA
GunMag Warehouse
SGAmmo
True Shot Ammo
True Shot Academy
The Mag Shack
If you know of any others, let me know.
*************************************************************************
Ida Zeile
I was playing chess with a young man at the Nashville Chess Center.
I estimate his age at 10. He told me that he was rated 1221 in over the
board play with standard time controls (at this point I'm getting scared).
He looked at me and thought, "Older guy, probably lots of experience, so
I better take him out of book as soon as possible." And he did. I didn't
recognize the line that he had chosen to play. But then again, I hadn't
played in several decades. So any modern opening line would have
taken me out of my book.
Rendfield had said to, "Form a plan and stick to it. Don't get distracted.
Don't get enticed into capturing material." I paraphrase.
From his play, I suspected that his coaches had taught him that to
capture pieces was a good thing and accumulating a material advantage
especially in the opening would lead to a win. So, I sacrificed a bishop
(a queen sacrifice would have been too obvious) to gain positional
advantage, and I was able to force a win.
I wasn't sure if he understood what happened, so I explained to him
that the goal of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king. So one
should feel free to sacrifice material for positional advantage, tempi,
and future pins, forks, discovered attacks, and such. This obviously
made him very uncomfortable, because his coaches had taught him to
maneuver to capture material, because a material advantage would lead
to a win.
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** Intelligence ***** ***** *****
Always cite open source. There is always some conspiracy theorists who has said
what you want to say. Quote him. Everyone will understand.
Trump playing 3-d chess while others play checkers.
From Soldier Systems --
What is Weaponized Narrative?
It's an attack that seeks to undermine an opponent's civilization,
identity, and will. By generating confusion, complexity, and political
and social schisms, it confounds response on the part of the defender.
A weaponized narrative is an attack on the orientation of the target's
decision making process.
---
"Narrative conflict is conflict / an attack on identity; an attack on
the way information is processed, that means the meaning the
information is given.
Often times military practitioners focus on means of messages rather
than on stories that trigger and refer to narratives . . . That’s problematic
in itself, but it's particularly problematic when the audience is not familiar
with the narrative being referenced by the themes and messages.
If there is no common understood narrative basis that a message refers
to, then all the audience hears is the message itself and the message itself
is just information; information itself is not adequate for influence."
-- Dr. Ajit Maan, Ph.D., Professor of Practice at ASU School of Politics
and Global Studies and Founder of Narrative Strategies
---
How do advancements in the brain sciences and technology affect
how we recognize and respond to weaponized narratives or Cognitive
Warfare?
Find NATO's Chief Scientist Report on Cognitive Warfare here: https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/01/04/cognitive-warfare-nato-chief-scientist-research-report/
Visit Narrative Strategies to learn more about
-- Soldier Systems
---
"China's Feedback Loop Just Got Cut Off" by Ryan McBeth
From Soldier Systems --
This hidden gem
came to my attention last week as I was doing research
in the wake of Operation Absolute Resolve. Some of you may recognize
the name of the author, a remarkable man who began his career commissioning
as a Medical Service Corps Officer and through hard work attained what is
likely the most coveted Brigade-level command in the world. As far these
types of documents go, this one is hot off the press.
There has been a lot of hand wringing over what role SOF might take in
a Large Scale Combat Operation. This War College paper and recent combat
actions give us a glimpse of the possible. The author is quite honest in
mentioning the challenges of integration with Conventional Forces and
suggests ways to close those gaps. However, I remain convinced that the
current crop of SOF leaders will prove themselves to be the most dynamic
since the original crew in World War II and its wake. It required vision to
establish these elements and it requires vision to maintain relevance in a
rapidly changing world. It’s not just enough to be a great leader.
SOF commanders must be prepared to make that vision a reality.
Read it here,
-- Soldier Systems
"Why Ukraine’s Deadly Drone Operation Runs Like a ‘McDonald’s’ "
by The Wall Street Journal
Hat tip to Sidney Ontai.
---
"Ukrainians just rewrote the rules of war with this tactic"
by RFU News — Strategic Geopolitics
Hat tip to Sidney Ontai.
Robots only. No humans on the battle field.
---
Colt mounts Mk47 on drone
---
Army secretary says the Dronebuster is ‘f*cking terrible’ as soldiers continue to use the tech
"The Most Dangerous Female Spy in History" by Newsthink
"VIDEO: More High Level Purges In China" by Docent
"James O'Keefe Discusses The Leftist Insurrection" by Docent
"How U.S Special Forces are Hitting inside Russia" by Cappy Army
"The Best OSINT Tools in 2026" by Civil Defense Engineer
"How Does Composition C-4 Actually Work? | The Truth Behind the “Plastic Explosive” "
by History of Simple Things
Handgrenades use RDX. Where have you heard of PETN or Lead Azide? That's
right, primers. Claymores use C-4. I've never seen any flame from such an explosion.
We detonated a claymore to clear a valley at night; not even a flash. You can use C-4
to make a fire; it will burn.
The Dispatch
Strategy Page
"The Merge"
Breaking Defense
Intrigue
1440
29155
Global Recaps
Timber Sycamore
Ground News
Soldier Systems
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** Signals Intelligence,
Ground Electronic Warfare,
Cyber Security,
(sometimes Air Electronic Warfare too) ***** ***** *****
Always cite open source.
From Soldier Systems --
“The objective of warfare waged against agriculturally-based societies was
to gain control over their principal source of wealth: land.
. . . The objective of war waged against industrially-based societies was to
gain control over their principal source of all wealth: the means of production. . . .
The objective of warfare to be waged against information-based societies
is to gain control over the principal means for the sustenance of all wealth:
the capacity for coordination of socio-economic interdependencies. Military
campaigns will be organized to cripple the capacity of an information-based
society to carry out its information-dependent enterprises.”
Extracts from the 1996 Defense Science Board Task Force Report on
Information Warfare-Defense
-- Soldier Systems
---
"The Byte" Vol. 14, Issue 1 "Cyber as Maneuver"
Chief Warrant Officer 4 Chad Mastbergen, the brigade’s command
chief warrant officer, established the theme for this issue “Cyber as Maneuver.”
The theme and articles inside this edition of The BYTE are directly in
line with the Army priority to “train as we fight” and all four Army focus areas:
warfighting; delivering ready combat formations; strengthening the profession;
and continuous transformation.
The 780th Military Intelligence (MI) Brigade (Cyber), and its battalions –
the 11th Cyber Battalion, 781 MI Battalion (Cyber), 782d MI Battalion (Cyber),
and Operations Support Element – directly support U.S. Cyber Command’s
core missions: defending the Nation and conducting cyber operations to achieve
Combatant Command objectives.
The unit operates as a key component of the Army’s Cyber Mission Force
(CMF), specifically providing National Mission Teams (NMT),
National Support Teams (NST), Combat Mission Teams (CMT),
and Combat Support Teams (CST), and Capability Solutions Developers.
As the Army’s only offensive cyber force, the 780th provides unique
capabilities to sense, understand, and deliver effects in the information
environment globally across tactical, operational, and strategic levels
of warfare.
“Ubique Et Semper In Pugna”
-- Soldier Systems
"A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined,
but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain
a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them,
which would include their own government."
--George Washington
FromSoldier Systems --
Drone operators, coders, hackers and the like are in high demand.
It’s no surprise that battlefield technicians, those adept at the emerging
elements of warfighting, would offer their services for sale to forces
which lack them. Meet the modern mercenary.
This is an interesting take on how the Army should embrace drones
into the force. I say the more points of view the better as the Army
figures out what is going to work best.
substack.com/home/post/p-182971084
This look at the evolution of Russian doctrine regarding drone usage is worth a read.
Way to go Army! Spend $350,000 each on educating the service’s
best and brightest Captains and then overlook them for promotion to
Major. The author of this article is worried that it will become difficult
to recruit talent to fulfill the Army’s need for AI expertise. I’m sure
word has already gotten around that if you value a career, don’t take this
route no matter how many Generals say, “we need AI.” What will happen
is that the Army will be taken for a ride. Officers uninterested in staying
with the Army will apply for this program, get a world class education and
then beat feet as soon as possible, likely using being passed over to arrange
for an early release.
This is part II in Small Wars Journal’s series on
US Army Special Operations Command’s effort to establish an IWAR branch.
In a recent issue of Soldier Systems Digest I mentioned that ARSOF
LTG Joshua Rudd was the nominee for the dual hat role of
Director National Security Agency and Commander US Cyber Command.
A question that keeps coming up is whether the two roles should be separated.
This invariably comes from someone outside of Fort Meade, or “The Fort”
as it is known in intelligence circles. Cyber is an outgrowth of Signal Intelligence
which is NSA’s raison-d’être. Cyber would be an empty suit without the
intelligence provided by NSA. Everyone who specializes in these two
roles knows this.
I’m relieved to read in this article that LTG Rudd supports the status quo
but is politically savvy enough to say that he’s open to change. I’m hoping
his tenure leads to a greater focus on warfighting for both of those
organizations as the location of the battlefield and what it looks like,
continues to change.
Cyber: Defending the status quo . . .
I remember reading as a young man that doing the same thing over and over
again but expecting different results was the very definition of insanity.
Welcome to the cyber community. Its creation was the very definition
of innovation and since its escape from the womb of the
Signal and Signal Intelligence communities, it has done everything wrong
to optimize itself.
Just as in the case of the creation of USSOCOM, Congress is going to
have to step in and force the issue.
Until then, please read the latest batch of reasons the cyber community
believes they can keep doing the same thing and attain different results.
Breaking Defense has a weekly newsletter, "Networks & Digital Warfare" at
Crypto-Gram by Bruce Schneier
2600
Soldier Systems
"Hey, Staff, I couldn't help but notice that the girls in the pictures are not your preference.
At least they aren't similar to either of your ex-wives or girlfriends."
As a matter of fact, the steganographers choose the photos.
But I don't think they care much about the pictures. I'm not sure they are hiding anything in
the picture or the altered pictures to be compared to the originals. I suspect they are using the
file name of the picture when downloaded from whichever site the picture matches.
"They're controlling the file name?" [Here the word 'control' is being used as in the magic
industry. As when you ask the audience member to pick a card from a fanned deck and are
controlling which card the audience member picks. -- Jon Low]
Well, they don't have to control the file name. When you XOR your plain text with your
random bit sequence to get your cipher text, is there any difference between your random
bit sequence and your cipher text? Some of those file names are long and alpha-numeric,
so they contain a lot of information. As Jeff Cooper says,
***** ***** ***** Cryptology ***** ***** *****
Always cite open source. It's all in the old or ancient texts. It's a literature search,
not a research project. There is nothing new under the sun. But there are those
too arrogant or stupid to search the literature and insist on conducting their own
research to re-invent the wheel. Don't be such a person, because eventually,
they lose.
"Encrypting Your PC Diskdrive Without Giving The Keys To Microsoft"
by Docent
Cryptosystems are considered "arms" by federal law, ITAR,
International Traffic in Arms Regulations. That means cryptosystems are
protected by the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Never let the
government infringe on your right to keep and bear cryptosystems, to
include home made cryptosystems, to include sharing cryptosystems with
others.
From "Handbook of Applied Cryptography", by A. Menezes, P. van Oorschot,
and S. Vanstone, CRC Press, 1996.
Chapter 7 Block Ciphers, 7.1 Introduction and overview, page 223 --
"No block cipher is ideally suited for all applications, even one offering a
high level of security. This is a result of inevitable tradeoffs required in
practical applications, including those arising from, for example, speed
requirements and memory limitations (e.g., code size, data size, cache
memory), constraints imposed by implementation platforms (e.g., hardware,
software, chipcards), and differing tolerances of applications to properties
of various modes of operation. In addition, efficiency must typically be
traded off against security.
---
Under what conditions do bowling balls diffract through doorways? ( I know
I've written about this before, but some of our friends didn't get it. As Einstein
said, the semester is an arbitrary unit of time. Some need more time to master
the material. Some need less time. Einstein knew. He flunked a math class
or two. When I flunked a test, my father would say, lots of guys take the Bar Exam
5 or 6 times before passing. Doesn't matter. All that matters is that you pass.
No one is going to ask you how many times you took the test. All that matters
is that you passed.)
"It would seem that the basic idea of quantum theory is the impossibility of
imagining an isolated quantity of energy without associating with it a certain
frequency."
-- Louis de Broglie, French physicists awarded the Nobel prize in 1929
". . . material particles of momentum p should also have wave properties
and a corresponding wavelength."
-- Louis de Broglie
Let:
J mean Joules, unit of energy.
s mean seconds, unit of time.
λ be the wavelength of the particle in units of length.
h be Plank's constant, 6.626176 × 10⁻³⁴ J × s
[energy × time = force × length × time = mass × acceleration × length × time
= mass × (length / time²) × length × time = (mass × length²) / time;
mass-area per time, stop and think about that for a moment.].
p be the momentum of the particle, in units of mass × velocity = mass × (length / time).
m be the mass of the particle, in whatever units of mass are appropriate for your calculations.
v be the velocity of the particle in units of length / time.
Then,
λ = h / p = h / mv, the de Broglie wavelength.
A bowling ball is a few kilograms, m. A doorway is a meter or two, λ.
So, the velocity,
v = h / mλ [ ((mass × length²) / time) / (mass × length) = length / time ]
Well, at least the units analysis works.
If you plug in numbers, you get an amazing result. [It doesn't matter how
slow the bowling ball is moving. Just adjust the time scale and you will see
the diffraction.]
Why is this significant? Information is carried by particles, bowling balls,
RAID arrays, storage facilities, etc. Diffraction is an effect of the Heisenberg
Uncertainty Principle (HUP). So our cryptology is affected by physics (HUP)
because Information Theory is affected by physics (HUP). Diffraction is
information spreading out in space. But Einstein says there is no space by itself.
Rather, there is space-time. [And in fact, if you study and understand the
diffraction experiment, you will see how information is spreading in time.]
In physics labs, we like to have small slits and large momentums, so
we can easily see the diffraction. But diffraction occurs whether we see it
or not.
( The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle does not disappear at a certain scale.
It always exists. One could argue that if a thing is not observable, it is not in
the realm of science. But I would argue that you haven't observed it yet,
because you haven't designed the correct experiment, yet. The signal still
exists, even when buried in noise. Remember the high school physics
thought experiment --
You jump. If momentum is conserved, the Earth must react. Can you measure
the Earth's change in momentum due to your jump? The real question is,
"Can you measure the Earth's change in momentum with the equipment we
presently have?" Or, can you identify your signal in the noise with the equipment
we presently have?
)
If we have large (macroscopic) slits, doorways, and small momentums (can the
momentum be so small that it is not macroscopic?), we have diffraction,
information spreading in space-time.
When we transmit information through space at the speed of light
(whatever the speed of light is in that medium), we bump up against a
velocity limit. When we transmit information through time (memory,
storage, etc.) we bump up against the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Because our information is moving very slowly, very low momentum.
Oh yes, information has momentum. [In theoretical physics, momentum
is the same as energy, which is the same as information, which is the
same as . . .]
Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean the enemy doesn't
understand it. Just because you're not using it, doesn't mean the enemy
isn't using it.
In all the schools and training, the cadre teach you that you are the best,
the smartest; that you are the crème de la crème, elite, better than the enemy.
But, you know what? That's not always true. Sorry, that's just reality.
That's why sometimes we lose. Remember Vietnam? Brushing your losses
under the rug is a stupid thing to do. It is the arrogance of saying, "I have
nothing to learn from that. It was the politicians who caused us to lose.
It wasn't our fault."
There are many people in this world who are smarter than you.
Your goal should be to learn from them. To think that they are third world
idiots is a mistake.
"Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe,
and preserve order in the world as well as property.
Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of their use."
-- Thomas Paine
"Kahan (William Kahan) on the 8087 and designing Intel's floating point"
by Turing Awardee Clips
NAN means Not A Number.
"Kahan on creating IEEE Standard Floating Point" by Turing Awardee Clips
"Turing Awardee Clips"
"You don't have to memorize theorems.
Because you can always derive them from first principles."
-- Sven Hartman
"THE CONFUSING DERIVATIVES" by blackpenredpen
Yes, always be aware of your domain and range. Otherwise, you can get some pretty
silly results. Which is fine and funny, until you attempt to present your findings.
"Computer science has nothing to do with computers or science."
-- Donald Knuth
"Differential equations" by 3Blue1Brown
The first three cover ODE's and PDE's --
"Differential equations, a tourist's guide | DE1" by 3Blue1Brown
"But what is a partial differential equation? | DE2" by 3Blue1Brown
"Solving the heat equation | DE3" by 3Blue1Brown
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil."
-- Donald Knuth
"Growing Up Feynman - Michelle Feynman - 5/11/2018" by caltech
---
"Freeman Dyson - Richard Feynman and his work (58/157)"
by Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People
"Freeman Dyson"
by Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People
When you've got the brains and are doing the work, having a degree doesn't matter.
E.g. Dyson's credentials. Similarly, when you are gathering and analyzing, having
a clearance doesn't matter. Only consumers need clearances, not producers.
"Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood.
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that?
We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.
We must believe that we are gifted for something,
and that this thing must be attained."
-- Marie Curie
Algorithm design to solve a problem. Figuring out what the problem is,
as opposed to what you initially thought it was, is problem analysis.
"The Fastest Maze-Solving Competition On Earth" by Veritasium
So problem analysis should always be done first. Then algorithm design.
There is nothing so silly as solving the wrong problem.
Coefficient of rolling friction, not static friction. There is a difference.
Competition drives innovation. Not necessity. Unless you consider war a necessity.
But war is actually a competition; the arms race, for instance. We haven't used nuclear
weapons on each other since World War 2, but the money and effort put into improving
them is fantastic. Because a lot of the tech is classified (Q not TS), it's hard to see the
spin offs in our daily life. But they are there.
Robotics.
Onshape description at end of video. Free.
"All that we don't know is astonishing.
Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing."
-- Philip Roth
If there is a key involved, it is cryptology. If there is no key, it is data processing.
Especially true with hash functions. May I invite your attention to
"Handbook of Applied Cryptography",
by A. Menezes, P. van Oorschot, and S. Vanstone,
CRC Press, 1996.
Chapter 9, Hash Functions and Data Integrity, 9.1 Introduction
I trust that answers your question. Or, at least puts you on the right track.
"Never memorize anything. Rather, study it until it becomes obvious."
-- Norman Christ
"The Liquid Hammer Toy You Can't Buy" by Steve Mould
Not a plasma (that would take way more heat), just thermal ions. When you heat
anything up, the most weakly bound electron comes off the atom. Mass spectrometers
for instance use thermal ions. These ions have a positive charge of one. Because
one electron is lost.
Be careful of watermarks.
"I Found Something Weird in North Korea's OS" by Cyb3rMaddy
"This Weird Property of Light Might Explain Life Itself" by The Action Lab
Wow! This is so wrong, I can't believe he published this.
I can't understand why he mentions "evolution". There is no correlation.
No, quantum mechanical spin (as opposed to mechanical spin) is not polarization.
No, quantum mechanical spin is not gyroscopic.
Rotational invariance is angular momentum? This is very confusing thought.
Circularly polarized light is a well defined thing. Circular polarization means
the source is emitting polarized light and the polarization is rotating with time.
How would he have circularly polarized light in his bathroom? What source is
he using?
"All left handed amino acids" No, all biologic life and building blocks on
Earth are right handed, not left handed.
"Handbook of Applied Cryptography"
by Alfred J. Menezes, Paul C. van Oorschot and Scott A. Vanstone
"Computer Security and the Internet:
Tools and Jewels from Malware to Bitcoin", Second Edition
by Paul C. van Oorschot
ISBN: 978-3-030-83410-4 (hardcopy), 978-3-030-83411-1 (eBook)
"An Introduction to Error Correcting Codes with Applications"
by Scott A. Vanstone , Paul C. Oorschot
Research and Publications (P. Van Oorschot)
Alfred J. Menezes
Scott A. Vanstone
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** Religion and Politics ***** ***** *****
"Foolish and Historically Ignorant!" by John Farnam
Excerpt:
“Marxist (Democrat) politicians and bureaucrats, like wolves,
are perpetually on the prowl for weak, ignorant, vain losers,
inciting fear and a desperate call for ‘protection,’ which of
course only comes with the imposition of a ‘super-predator,’
the Marxist Police State.”
-- Morgan
"We should not forget that the spark which ignited the American Revolution
was caused by the British attempt to confiscate the firearms of the colonists."
-- Patrick Henry
"SHOCK MOMENT:
Russell Fry Asks Jack Smith Who Swore Him In As Special Prosecutor
And Smith Can't Answer [Probably because he was never sworn in. When
you think you are above the law, you don't worry about such trivialities. -- Jon Low]"
by Forbes Breaking News
Pathocracy
Broken culture.
"Not allowing law-abiding citizens to carry guns on the pretext of public health
or safety makes as much sense not allowing sober people to drive cars in order to
protect them from drunk drivers."
-- Stephen P. Wenger
"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."
-- Mary Flannery O'Connor
"World’s Gone Mad:
Iranian woman shows the 'cowardly feminists' in the West how it's done"
by Sky News Australia
The purpose of war is not to die for your country.
The purpose of war is to ensure that the other guy dies for his country.
—George S. Patton
“You can’t truly call yourself ‘peaceful’ unless you are capable of great violence.
If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful, you’re harmless.
Important distinction.”
-- Stef Starkgaryen
***************************** Begin Psychology ***********************
If you're addicted, you can't just stop. (If you could, you wouldn't be addicted.)
Rather, you must replace the drug / alcohol / porn / etc. with something better,
a spirit that is more nourishing; a much more profound source of gratification.
-- Jordan Peterson
Southern mommas.
This is how tyrants control society.
What women want,
clean, healthy, productive, generous, honest, . . .
Email from Orion Taraban, Psy.D. --
"Marriage for men."
Wednesday, January 21st, 2026
You've probably heard that China has a bit of a population problem.
A few decades removed from their “one child” policy, the country now
finds itself cresting the peak of population collapse. It is not the first –
Japan and South Korea are further ahead – and it is unlikely to be the last.
In response, the Chinese Community Party is removing as many
impediments to marriage as possible – for men. And this makes sense,
given men are expected to initiate that commitment. Among other things,
the CCP has dispensed with anything remotely approximating 50-50 divorce.
In the event the marriage dissolves, both parties effectively leave with what
they brought. This should significantly reduce both divorce rates and
commitment hesitancy.
China has also recently banned certain television programs, namely:
relationship dramas that invariably revolve around a fairly average woman
suddenly becoming the intense, romantic interest of a loyal, rich, handsome,
and powerful man (or men). The Party has determined that programs like
these are inappropriately distorting women's expectations in the sexual
marketplace. Food for thought.
This week's behavioral experiment:
Examine the content you consume. How does it make you feel afterwards?
Warmly,
Orion
"The female idol: the corruption of dating" by Orion Taraban
"Feelings are irrelevant." by Orion Taraban, Psy.D.
Wednesday, January 28th, 2026
Most self-help literature directed toward women focuses on the concept
of “empowerment.” Their lack of confidence isn't due to their objective
lack of success – or the personal deficits that almost certainly contribute to
this situation – but to their failure to love and value themselves properly.
The idea is that women are already amazing and wonderful – and that they
just need a little help in seeing it for themselves.
When this process is accomplished, a woman is “empowered.” That is,
she arrives at the feeling that she is powerful. However, the feeling of
power and power itself are two very different things. A woman could feel
able to carry someone out of a burning building or get married whenever
she wants or start a successful business – but this hardly constitutes proof
that she can.
Real power, on the other hand, has little to do with a emotional state.
It is the ability to move the world in the direction of your goals. And it is
measured – not in enthusiasm and self-worth – but in results. Confusing
the one for the other is dangerous – not only to the individual involved,
but to all who have the misfortune of depending on her.
---
This week's behavioral experiment:
What untried action do you feel you can accomplish? Put it to the test.
Warmly,
Orion
"Why you were lied to: and why it hurts so much" by Orion Taraban
***************************** End Psychology ************************
"I hate it when I'm trying to eat a salad and
it falls in the trash and I have to eat a taco instead."
-- Nicola Cavanis
How Southern people tell you that you're being dramatic.
More Southernisms.
Jimmy Carr explains why Trump wants to cover up the Epstien Island affair.
Being kind on the correct time scale
Gratitude
Never surrender your right to keep and bear arms.
Nor your right to keep and arm bears.
Nor your right to keep bees and arm bears.
Nor your right to secure your keep (castle doctrine) and arm others (militia).
Because your right to keep and bear won't matter much if you're the only one doing it.
I saw a female comedian, Saaniya Abbas, from Pakistan who said that she could
not wear sleeveless blouses in Pakistan. She is happy to now live and work in
America where we have the right to bear arms.
“And that about wraps it up. God is strong, and he wants you strong. So, take
everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials.
And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws
your way. This is no afternoon athletic contest that we'll walk away from and forget
about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish
against the Devil and all his angels.”
– Saul of Tarsus (The Apostle Paul)
Ephesians 6:10-12, The Message (a modern translation of the Bible)
Semper Fidelis,
Jonathan D. Low
Email: Jon_Low@yahoo.com
Radio: KI4SDN
Nicola Cavanis
