Islamova Kseniia
The human, not the giraffe.
Greetings Sheepdogs,
Please read Tim Larkin's email in the Techniques section. Because a lot of
people have a completely wrong concept concerning self-defense. Self-defense
is not trying to win a fight. We are trying to incapacitate the enemy immediately
and escape.
As Colin Powell said, "I am not looking for a fair fight. I am destroying the
enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible."
As Bruce Lee said, "Real fights are short."
[Because we strike to incapacitate the enemy and leave. -- Jon Low]
Free useful modern textbooks.
Rice University
"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
This and That --
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Anastasiia Volkova
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** 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
Femka Abinet
(I have no idea what the purpose of this photo is. Just doing a friend a favor.)
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Mindset and Attitude --------------------------------
Figuring out the correct way to think.
“Your character is what you do when no one is looking.”
-- Thomas Jefferson
"We don’t back down. If a dog barks and you run, what happens?
The dog will chase. It has to. That’s basic predator-prey psychology.
When communities stop acting like prey — the dynamic changes.
It’s not about confrontation. It’s about confidence. So we don’t run."
-- Rabbi Yossi Eilfort
[In the context of synagogue members asking if it was safe to continue
displaying signs in their yards for Jewish schools or institutions.]
Hat tip to Stephen P. Wenger.
---
Volunteer security are protecting something they love. They will come early,
stay late, some will even come when nothing is scheduled (just in case). Just
like a militia, they provide all of their own equipment and pay for their own training.
Mercenaries (paid private security, including off duty cops) will only show
up when paid and scheduled. If they show up on their own time, they will be
fired. That's how messed up private security is. (Liability don't you know.)
“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
Why people think the way they do about guns.
“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.”
Email from Jeff L. Gonzales --
Hi Team,
After sharing my thoughts on some of the recent terrorist attacks,
I saw responses that didn’t sit right with me. The bottom line is simple:
you are responsible for your own safety and the safety of your family.
No one else. Conversations that steer away from this principle are just
distractions. There is no way to know exactly how the aftermath will
develop, but if you or your family are not around to endure it, does it
really matter?
Active shooter or terrorist attacks are rare. When they hit, though,
everything narrows to seconds. I’ve trained thousands of civilians and
operators on exactly this. The decisions are ugly and immediate. Here
are four situations where you might have to put rounds on the threat.
These aren’t hypotheticals pulled from a manual. They come from real
incidents and the lessons that stuck.
Immediate defense of life—yours or your family’s—because you
are actively being targeted. The shooter turns straight toward you or
your wife and kids. No barrier, no time. You draw and fire to stop him
before he fires again. That’s the calculation. Everything you’ve drilled
on the range either shows up right then or it doesn’t.
No place to run or hide. Exits are blocked and there’s no cover.
The shooter is walking your way and closing the distance. You might
be the only thing between him and everyone else in that room. You
engage to create space or buy time. Simple as that.
Witnessing the violent killing of innocents. You watch him drop
unarmed people right in front of you. He’s not stopping. You can put
fire on him and break his rhythm. Or you can watch the next one fall.
The choice is yours in that moment.
Injured individuals needing immediate medical help that can only
come once the threat is neutralized. People are down and bleeding out.
Help can’t reach them while he’s still shooting. You stop the threat first.
Then you move to the wounded. The two steps don’t swap order.
These four situations aren’t a checklist for trouble. They’re what
experience says can actually happen when the world collapses in on you.
Train now so the decision doesn’t get made for you in the moment.
Put in the range time. Get the legal understanding. Build the mindset
that keeps you steady. That way, if it ever comes, you act instead of freeze.
-- Jeff L. Gonzales
"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
"Survival is a mindset, not a skill set."
-- Greg Shaffer
"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
‷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
Gigi North
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil and
evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." -- Jeff Cooper
"Your life is as good as your mindset." -- Nicola Cavanis
"What carrying a gun did to my confidence" by She Equips Herself (Stav)
"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
"HONOR - III
Honor and Moral Injury: Coherence or Collapse"
by Matt Larsen
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
"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
‟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
‟Fear is an instinct. Courage is a choice.”
-- Rear Admiral Joseph Kernan, U.S. Navy
"The line between everyday life and sudden violence is thinner than most realize."
-- Tim Larkin
"Superior judgment trumps superior skills." -- Dan Millican
"Never believe anything you read or hear.
To figure out what’s best for you, experiment until you have no doubt."
-- Brian Enos
"In reality, we are training for an unknown event, against unknown threats,
by developing as many known skills as possible."
-- Jeff Gonzales
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ 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
"Defender Drops Carjacker With Quick Thinking and Shooting"
by Active Self Protection
This is truth. You will see this in video simulator training all the time.
The bad guy falls for whatever reason and the good guy shoots over
the bad guy, where the bad guy was.
"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!
---
"Jargon Does not Equal Expertise"
-- Rick Billington
"Situational Awareness for Everyday Life" by Robyn Sandoval
"An officer may be forgiven for losing a battle,
but never for being taken by surprise."
-- Jeff Cooper
"Tells!" by John Farnam
Zugzwang is a thing. But with situational awareness, you can avoid it.
"Street Smarts 101 To Avoid A Mugging, Assault or Worse" by Caleb
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
*************************************************************************
Lexi Ashton
There's a happy smile.
------------------------------ 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.
"Quad Productions - Armed Defense - Cooper's Way, Firearm Safety: Gunhandling"
by Jeff Cooper Legacy Foundation
---
Jeff Cooper Legacy Foundation
"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 Joe Shahoud --
Someone broke into my neighbor's house last Tuesday. The cops showed up.
Took some notes. Asked if anyone had security cameras. My neighbor pointed
to his fancy outdoor cameras. "Got the whole thing recorded."
The footage? Useless. Dark. Grainy. Guy in a hoodie. Could've been anyone.
Here's what my neighbor learned the hard way . . .
Outdoor cameras don't stop break-ins. They just film them happening. Indoor
cameras? That's where the magic happens. I've got cameras inside my house
running 24/7. They're double password protected. Motion activated. Crystal
clear footage.
Why inside instead of outside? Simple. If someone breaks in, I want to see
their face. I want to see what they take. I want evidence that actually helps
catch them. I also want to be able to see them while I'm locked down in my
safe room. Security camera apps are the bomb.
Most people think outdoor cameras are enough. They're not. Break-ins
happen 6% more during the day than at night. When you're not home. When
those outdoor cameras are watching an empty driveway.
My indoor cameras catch everything. The break-in. The theft. Their face
when they realize they're being recorded.
One student asked me: "Joe, doesn't it feel weird having cameras in your house?"
Not as weird as getting robbed and having zero evidence. Look, cameras aren't
everything. They're one piece of a bigger security plan. But if you're gonna start
somewhere, start inside. Outside cameras are good for their motion sensing
capabilities more than anything else.
Check out the extensive camera selection at Amazon.
They've got options for every budget. (I'm obligated to tell you Amazon
gives us a small stipend if you buy from them.)
Stay safe,
Joe "indoor cameras save the day" Shahoud
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.
"Watchful Eyes" by Rich Grassi
Hat tip to Stephen P. Wenger.
"It's easier to stay out of trouble than to get out of trouble."
-- Claude Werner
"5 Ways to Improve your Church Security in 2026" by Simon Osamoh
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
"Safety is something that happens between your ears,
not something you hold in your hands."
-- Jeff Cooper
Gun control laws disarm the law abiding (because they are the only ones who
obey the law) and allow armed criminals to prey upon unarmed victims.
"Canada’s Gun Ban Just Met Reality — And It Was Caught on Video"
by Colion Noir
Anyone who tells you that gun control laws are for your safety is lying to you.
Such laws only improve the safety of the criminal. Creating unarmed victims for
armed criminals to prey upon.
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
It's really important to obey the instructions of Law Enforcement Officers.
It's really important to never reach for a gun while being questioned by LEOs.
It really important to never point a gun at LEOs.
"You are not responsible for negative reactions to your boundaries."
-- Nicola Cavanis
“Ignorance might be bliss, but it also has teeth.”
-- Craig Lounsbrough
"Ignorance is Bliss!" by John Farnam
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
Hat tip to Tom Givens.
"Gut feelings are guardian angels."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"Jewish security organization working to keep its community safe amid elevated
terror threat
Nonprofit security organization Magen Am was founded following the 2018
Pittsburgh synagogue shooting"
by Amalia Roy
Hat tip to Stephen P. Wenger.
Excerpt:
"American Jewry got the memo that they need to do some form of proactive
security," Turner said . . .
[I hope you got the memo. Because if you think that you are not at risk,
you are WRONG! Iranian cells are active in the U.S. and they are hopping mad.
-- Jon Low]
This is why we are not safe. Parole boards release vicious violent criminals,
instead of leaving them in prison.
"California Just Released One of the WORST Serial Child Molesters Ever"
by Facts Matter with Roman Balmakov
Elections matter. The Parole Board is appointed by the politicians you elect.
"Fear-Based Gun Ownership Is Growing In America"
by Active Self Protection Extra
Primary source article,
---
Enlightenment comes to all eventually. (Some, after death in heaven.)
George Washington said, "Government is force."
All government laws end with "I will kill you." Obey, or the government will
write you a ticket. Pay the fine for the ticket, or the government will issue a
warrant for your arrest. Submit to arrest, or the government will kill you.
There might actually be some people who would rather die fighting,
than surrender for imprisonment (which includes forced sodomy, beatings, etc.).
Can't provide for your family if you're in prison. Life insurance won't pay for suicide,
but it will pay if the cops kill you.
---
"Firearm Cultural Competency for Health Care Providers -
5 Essential Observations on Guns (LoH #151)"
by Light Over Heat with Professor David Yamane
Church security.
"The Vitality of Multidimensional Safety Training in Churches" by Simon Osamoh
"The Importance of Mass Notification Systems in Churches:
A Lifeline When Every Second Counts"
by Simon Osamoh
"7 Steps to Secure your Church without Overwhelm and Stress"
by Simon Osamoh
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
"Home Security Layer 2: Home Improvement Tips" by Chad McBroom
*************************************************************************
Lilly Moreau
"I'm a model."
------------------------------ Training --------------------------------
Figuring out the correct tasks to practice.
"Without discrimination,
you're going to shoot the wrong person really fast."
-- Paul Howe
"The Anxiety Bias
Why officers shoot more under pressure"
by Pete Blair
Excerpts:
"The problem was false positives:
surrendering suspects being shot at dramatically higher rates."
"The breakdown is interpretational:
under anxiety, they were responding on the basis of threat-related
inferences and expectations rather than the actual visual information
in front of them."
Primary source,
Tactical Science,
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)
"Why Your Training Is Making You SLOWER (And How to Fix It)"
by Kaery Dudenhofer
Trust your process.
Focus on the process, not the outcome.
Trying harder will not create a higher chance of success.
Ansatz is a thing. And the better your training, the better your guesses / estimates.
"Home Defense Training: Act Like You’ve Been There"
by Richard A. Mann
"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
"Terrorist Interdiction courses" by Gabe Suarez
Excerpt:
"Never allow the low standards of others to dictate who you are or what you
are capable of."
[Not a course to defend against muggers up close. This is a course to take out
terrorists at distance.]
"Ineffective and potentially dangerous, point shooting should be avoided
at all costs and aimed fire employed in any lethal-force scenario."
-- Massad Ayoob
Lauren Jumps
A great exercise. Cheap, doesn't require gym membership or expensive
equipment. Low impact. Lauren recommends you start slow, 5 minutes per day
and increase gradually to avoid injury.
I have found over the decades that I stick with a hobby or sport because
of the people, not the hobby or sport. Lauren has built a fine community
around her hobby. As she says, she could make a lot more money if she
jumped in a bikini, but that's not her thing. And no, she won't do Only Fans.
"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
"Carrying Isn’t Enough:
What Our Data Reveals About the Gap Between Carry and Capability"
by Robyn Sandoval
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
---
MUST practice the presentation from concealment. Practice from awkward
positions would also be good. Practice with firing-side hand only would be good.
Practice with support-side hand only would be good.
Expecting the pristine conditions of the air conditioned carpeted indoor range
is delusional. You must be able to present from concealment after being knocked
down and while being kicked.
"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
Lindsay Marie Brewer
I know that gutra. I sometimes wore the thobe and gutra when I worked in Saudi.
Of course, if she were in Saudi, she would be wearing the abya.
"In reality, we are training for an unknown event, against unknown threats,
by developing as many known skills as possible."
-- Jeff Gonzales
"Having a gun is important.
But knowing WHEN to use it is even more important."
-- Greg Ellifritz
"The body remembers" by Scott D. Clary
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
---
Ya, sports training is good. I would suggest that military boot camp is better.
Military boot camp, when you know that you will be sent into war upon
graduation, would be best.
"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
"Tangling With The Trigger" by Roy Huntington
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
"A mistake that makes you humble is better
than an achievement that makes you arrogant."
-- Nicola Cavanis
“The question is not: Does my perception of reality ‘work?’
The question is: Is my perception of reality the truth?”
-- Richard Phillips Feynman
"2026 TacCon" by John Farnam
"This is the place where fantasy is removed from practice,
where myth is swept aside, where the leading edge of our Art
genuinely advances!"
"Operators should attend!"
"Shoot sooner, not faster."
-- Matt Little
*************************************************************************
Sterre Meijer
If you ain't physically fit, you can't expect to win in combat.
"Your Officers Need to Be Anaerobically Fit
Heart rate variability data from a real SWAT unit
shows why short-duration, high-intensity fitness
predicts autonomic reserve during tactical task"
by Pete Blair
Primary source,
"Heart Rate Variability Monitoring in
Special Emergency Response Team
Anaerobic-Based Tasks and Training"
by Colin Tomes, Ben Schram, Elisa F. D. Canetti, and Robin Orr
“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
"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
“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
"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
“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.)
Simple is faster. Simple is more reliable. So, simple is better.
Care enough to continue your training.
"Never believe anything you read or hear.
To figure out what’s best for you,
experiment until you have no doubt."
-- Brian Enos
******************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Psychology --------------------------------
"Be stronger than your strongest excuse."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"We are (still) making the Chaplain Corps Great Again." by Department of War
Email from Orion Taraban, Psy.D. --
"Would you do it again?"
One of my favorite philosophical concepts is Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence.
It is essentially a question: if you were fated to relive your life exactly as you've lived
it – forever – would you be okay with that?
If not, then you have some work to do, and the work you have to do is revealed
in the delta between your eternally recurring current life and your eternally recurring
ideal life. This is how you begin to get clarity into the preferred structure of your life.
The idea here is to create a life that you could tolerate recurring endlessly. Doing
this generally requires that you accept yourself at a fundamental level. You will need
to know who you are – not who you think you are, or who you want to be, or who
you feel you should be, but who you really are – in order to make decisions that won't
lead to torment when viewed through the lens of eternal recurrence. This isn't easy to
do, but it's worth it.
This week's behavioral experiment:
What can you no longer tolerate doing? Stop doing it.
Warmly,
Orion
[Do you understand why this is in the Training Section? -- Jon Low]
“Training deals not with an object,
but with the human spirit and human emotions.”
--Bruce Lee
This is extremely important!
"You do not need entertainment: how to get more done" by Orion Taraban
"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
"Performative masculinity: it's not what you think"
by Orion Taraban
"The time to live: your second birthday"
by Orion Taraban
*************************************************************************
Toni Marie Graham
On point.
------------------------------ Conferences --------------------------------
Attending classes and conferences is required for growth.
There is nothing worse than teaching obsolete shit.
"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
2026 NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits
April 17, 2026 - April 19, 2026
George R Brown Convention Center
1001 Avenida De Las Americas
Houston, TX 77010, US
To make hotel reservations,
First Annual GEAR Rally, Gun Owners of America
April 24-26, 2026
Merus Adventure Park, Amarillo, TX
Register at
Security Operations Summit 2026, $150.00
July 23-25, 2026 A.D.
With hands-on pre-event options on Wednesday, July 22nd!
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.
To register,
If you have already pre-registered,
Bill Hayes and I have paid and are carpooling from Nashville, TN.
Bill will be coming from Summerville SC, if you want to catch a ride with him.
The Guardian Conference, $800
September 18th - 20th, 2026 in Oklahoma City, OK.
Gun Rights Policy Conference, Second Amendment Foundation, $25
September 25–27, 2026
in Dallas at the Westin Dallas Fort Worth Airport hotel.
Click on the link to book a hotel room for $159.00 per night.
*************************************************************************
Nala Knight
Some people can pull their upper lip up to expose their gums, to snarl.
I could never do that.
------------------------------ Classes --------------------------------
Attending classes and conferences is required to avoid teaching
obsolete material, and to ensure you are teaching best practices.
Save yourself the expense of round trip air fare to Arizona, hotel, rental car, and
eating at restaurants.
Gunsite – 250 Defensive Pistol, $2,135
Royal Range, Nashville, Tennessee
Monday, May 25, 2026 - Friday, May 29, 2026
or
Monday, August 24, 2026 - Friday, August 28, 2026
Duration: 5 Days
Prerequisite: None
Ammunition: 1000 rounds ball (ball means copper jacketed round nose bullets)
available for purchase on-site.
The student will also have to purchase approximately 1 box of Simunitions
from Royal Range for the indoor simulators.
Protective Pistolcraft Instructor, 5 Days, $ 1350
Mon, Nov 2, 2026 – Fri, Nov 6, 2026, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM CST
Last Resort Firearms Training, 4220 Gravel Pit Road, White Hall, AR, USA
This is the 3-day Firearms Instructor Development Course and
the 2-day Advanced Firearms Instructor Course given in 5 days.
Taught by Tom Givens, Tiffany Johnson, Aqil Qadir, and John Hearne.
No prerequisites. Includes a night shoot and much more.
Tom is retiring at the end of 2026.
AAR: Dialed-In Training’s “Intermediate Pistol” by Justin Carroll
(AAR = After Action Report)
Instructor of the “Intermediate Pistol” class: Justin Dyal
Excerpts:
The Criminal Drill --
Here’s the concept: criminals often carry crap guns, and criminals don’t
have high levels of shooting skill. So, Justin equipped one shooter with a
P.O.S. (a chrome, pot-metal, Lorcin 9mm) to simulate the criminal’s gun.
To simulate the criminal’s level of skill, he made the “bad guy” in each
scenario shoot weak-hand only. The reasoning is that, “shooters of your skill
level can probably shoot as well with your weak hand as most criminals can
with both hands.”
The drill began when the bad guy fired the first shot. Both the bad guy
and the good guy had to shoot an identical set of targets: a reduced size
silhouette and a stop plate, but as in life, the bad guy decides when the fight
begins . . . and the good guy reacts. On the bad guy’s first shot, whether
hit or miss, the good guy draws, hits the silhouette twice, transitions, and hits
the stop plate. Whoever hits the stop plate first wins. Sometimes it was the
good guy, and sometimes it was the bad guy.
---
The day began with Justin’s patented basketball warm up. We tossed a
basketball around the circle, just to awaken our vestibular systems and
restore some hand/eye coordination after having slept.
Excellent training and education at
Project Appleseed
Agile Training and Consulting
Tactical Mash-up/Tactical Pistol skills with Tactical Anatomy
Sat, May 23, 2026, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM CDT
2220 Wilson Hill Road, Lewisburg, TN, USA
Gunsite Academy
Lee Weems
Massad Ayoob Group
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
Defensive Training International, John Farnam
Rangemaster, Tom Givens
Trident Concepts, Jeff Gonzales
Apache Solutions, Tim Kelly
Harris Combative Strategies, Randy Harris
Mead Hall Range & Tactics, Bill Armstrong
Two Pillars Training, John Hearne
Mike Seeklander
Claude Werner, The Tactical Professor
Tatiana Whitlock - Training in Context
NRA Instructors and their classes.
‟Training is NOT an event, but a process.
Training is the preparation FOR practice.”
-- Claude Werner
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Practice --------------------------------
How to get proficient at that task.
"Remember, growing may feel like breaking at first."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"Dry Practice on the Road" by tacticalprofessor (Claude Werner)
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
---
Best to have a backstop behind your target (just in case). Your body armor,
perhaps? Or a concrete wall.
"You have to be lucky to win. And the more you practice, the luckier you get."
-- Col. Lones Wigger
"Why Racking a Handgun Slide Gets Harder After 45 (And What Actually Helps)"
by Tatiana Whitlock
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
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
If you're not shooting tight groups, it may be that your target is moving. I was at
Shooter's indoor range earlier today and the guy next to me was disappointed in the
size of his groups. So, I mentioned to him that his shooting was actually very good.
The cause of the large group size on his target was that his target was moving around.
He looked at me quizzically. So I explained that the target was hanging from a steel
cable that was bouncing around. The target hanger was swinging his target side to side.
And worst of all, the ventilation wasn't too good, so the smoke from the gun shots
was clouding his view of his target.
If your target stand isn't in concrete in the ground, your Ransom Rest isn't going
to give you accurate data about your group size. Because the wind is blowing your
target stand around. Every bullet impact is moving your light wooden stand.
"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
"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
"Why are the little things called little things?
They are everything."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"People rust faster than equipment."
-- John Hearne
"Remember, the day you plant the seed is not the day you earn the fruit."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"Your speed [in mastering the art and science of your discipline] doesn't matter.
Forward is forward."
-- Nicola Cavanis
“Willingness is a state of mind. Readiness is a statement of fact!”
-- Lt. Gen. David M Shoup, USMC Commandant 1960-1963
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** 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.
"LIFE SKILLS | If You Go to Guns You Failed" by Steve Tarani
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
"Never let fear decide your fate."
-- Nicola Cavanis
“Here I am Lord; send me,” (Isaiah 6:8)
"Is your congregation prepared for an active killer?" by Ron Borsch
Excerpts:
"It is the height of naivete to believe that we will be protected by laws,
rules, sanctuaries, or off-site police, as it denies reality. Generally, only the
law-abiding obey laws or rules. However, there is no such compulsion for
the unpredictable evildoers or wicked to misuse their own free will."
"Active shooter" is a propaganda term. "In plain language active shooters
are those who practice by shooting frequently, such as our military, police,
and anyone who shoots recreationally or competitively — all honorable
activities." "The term active killer is more correct and descriptive."
"I recommend that your church post signs or notices at all entrances,
welcoming worshippers and informing them of armed staff. Some sort
of sign advertising this fact is of key importance because the tracking
history of active killers is that they both research and reconnoiter potential
targets to avoid facilities that are armed."
“How do you win a gunfight?
Don't be there.”
-- John Farnam
"OODA Schmooda: The Loop in Normal and Useful Terms"
by Tom McHale
---
As the Marine Corps teaches us, immediately counter-attack. This works in
the civilian world, because this is what the criminal least expects his victim to do.
And because as Tom says, action beats reaction. If you initiate the action, the
enemy is forced to react to your action, which takes more time than your action.
The sooner your counter-attack, the higher your probability of success.
"You win gunfights by not getting shot."
-- John Holschen
"Defensive Gun Uses By People Legally Carrying Guns: 39 Cases During May 2025"
Please subscribe to Crime Prevention Research Center
(it really helps to get the message out)
Please donate to Crime Prevention Research Center
(They do a lot of good research)
Research by Crime Prevention Research Center
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Tactics --------------------------------
Maneuver and fire in support of your strategy.
Sometimes you must close with the enemy and destroy him with fire and close combat.
“No possible rapidity of fire can atone for
habitual carelessness of aim with the first shot.”
-- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States,
"The Wilderness Hunter", 1893
Your training should include, not firing on friendlies in chaotic high stress
situations. In any real world situation, there will be lots of no-shoot targets and
one (maybe more than one) shoot target. So it will be very easy to shoot good
guys and innocent bystanders. (Think of your church, a crowded theater,
a crowded shopping mall, etc.)
"Officer Puts a Round in His Partner While Stopping a Threat"
by Active Self Protection
Not shooting innocents is more important than shooting bad guys.
You're not going to get prosecuted or sued for not shooting the bad guy.
Guaranteed, if you shoot an innocent. [Even if he's your buddy in the
police department, he's going to be pissed at your incompetence.]
"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
“Fortuitous outcomes reinforce poor tactics.”
-- Chuck Haggard
“When you’re in the dark, stay in the dark;
when you’re in the light, light up the dark.”
-- Stephen P. Wenger
"Real fights are short." -- Bruce Lee
*************************************************************************
Marie Jedličková
------------------------------ Techniques --------------------------------
Ways to execute a given task in support of your tactics,
especially when disabled or under stress.
"One Shot Return Drill with Hwansik Kim" by BenStoegerProShop.com
Hwansik Kim
Christian missionary and physicists, my kind of guy.
Practical Shooting Training Group
Slow is smooth, because moving slowly allows you to control
what you're doing.
Smooth is efficient, because moving smoothly allows you to
remove inefficiencies.
Efficient is fast, because there is no extraneous motion.
Fast is good, because whoever hits first usually wins.
Which is not the same as who shoots first.
[We do not go faster by rushing. If we rush out of our house because we
are late for an appointment, we will forget the car keys or something like that.
Strive for deliberate intentional action.]
"Whatever you leave alone is perfect." -- Brian Enos
"How to Clear and Fix Common Handgun Malfunctions" by Matthew Maruster
Excerpt:
"Tap-Rack-Bang" [is wrong! The shooting should never be part of a rote
automatic operation. The shooting should always be a separate intellectual decision.
Combat is not the same as shooting games. In games, you can shoot without thinking.
In combat, you must think. -- Jon Low]
‷Thinking is the hardest thing a person can do. That's why so few people do it.‴
-- Henry Ford
"Double Feed" [is wrong terminology! Modern semi-auto pistols cannot
double feed. They cannot strip two cartridges at once out of the magazine.
They cannot feed two cartridges at once into the chamber. The correct terminology
would be "Failure to extract", as in failure to extract the case from the chamber.
-- Jon Low]
". . . malfunction recognition . . ." [is wrong. Recognition takes time and
attention (precious resources). There is no need to recognize what type of
malfunction you have. Any time the pistol does not fire, apply immediate action
(Tap, Rack, Assess). If this does not work, it will be obvious what to do next
(if you have taken training and practiced what you were taught).
-- Jon Low]
"Grip first, then press."
-- Mike Seeklander
"HANDS VS GUNS - PHILLIP TURNER"
"Use only that which works,
and take it from any place you can find it."
-- Bruce Lee
Farnam teaches to turn around in a circle when scanning. After some study
and experimentation, I have concluded that this technique is in fact better than
the quick check that we learned at Front Sight, which was to turn to the right
until you can see behind yourself and then turn to the left until you can see
behind yourself without moving your feet. Because if you have limited range
of motion, you can miss several azimuthal degrees behind you. You may have
limited range of motion and not know it, especially in high stress situations.
Rotating in a circle ensures you can see all the way around yourself. Though
it does require you to move your feet.
"The foundations of your grip are established
before you even draw the pistol from the holster."
-- Tanner Denton
"Pepper Spray- How to Choose it and How to Use it" by Greg Ellifritz
Excerpt:
"If you are able to get to your spray in an attack situation, do not announce
to the attacker that you are going to spray him. He should not know you have
the spray until his eyes slam shut and he can no longer breathe. There is no
legal requirement to warn a person before spraying and any warning you might
give only allows your attacker the time he needs to come up with a plan to
avoid your spray or take it away from you."
---
[If the assailant is wearing glasses, spray across his forehead above his glasses.
Hopefully, the spray will drip down into his eyes. I can't remember whose class
I learned that in. -- Jon Low]
[I think Greg's advice applies to guns as well. In the Marine Corps military
police, we were taught to give a warning, "Halt, military police." That's 7 syllables.
More than enough time for the enemy to shoot, stab, or punch you. You are not
police. You have no duty to warn. So don't. The way human brains are hard
wired, it's almost impossible to talk and shoot at the same time. (The next time
you're at the range, try it.)
Talking is a high order intellectual activity. Answering a question is a complex
high order intellectual activity. So if you think you can shoot in the middle of
your sentence, you're WRONG!
But it's easy to get shot while talking. That's why the hostage rescue protocol
is to ask the bad guy a question and then shoot him in the head when he starts to
answer. If you're not good at this, and you're right-handed, try doing it left-handed.
For right-handers (generally speaking), the right side of the body is controlled by
the left hemisphere of the brain, and the left side of the body is controlled by the
right hemisphere of the brain. Your other hemisphere may be far less squeamish
about shooting the bad guy in the head than your dominant hemisphere. It's worth
some experimentation. I have seen it with many students. Left-handers (generally
speaking) do not demonstrate the hemisphere dichotomy that right-handers do.
(Theoretically because there is more inter-hemisphere communication in the brain.)
Though I have not kept up with the psychology literature in the last few decades.
-- Jon Low]
"In my strategy the footwork does not change.
I always walk as I usually do in the street."
(Use natural movements.)
-- Miyamoto Musashi
"Ineffective and potentially dangerous, point shooting should be avoided
at all costs and aimed fire employed in any lethal-force scenario."
-- Massad Ayoob
Toni Marie Graham
Hang out in South Korea too long and it rubs off on you.
"LVNR (Lateral Vascular Neck Restraint)" by John Farnam
---
Get behind the opponent. Get either arm around his neck, under his chin.
Place the elbow of that arm over his sternum, center of his chest. Your hands
grab each other and attempt to pull your hands to your shoulder to compress
the sides of the opponent's neck. Press your head against the opponent's
head. Squeeze hard to compress the carotid arteries. Close your eyes, so he
can't scratch your eyes and squeeze tight. Just hang on, no matter how much
he struggles. He will pass out, absolutely guaranteed.
In the Marine Corps we were taught that holding the blood choke for 8
seconds would be enough to cause the opponent to pass out. In my experience,
as little as 3 seconds is sometimes sufficient to cause unconsciousness.
If you are Military Police, release when the suspect goes limp and handcuff.
---
If you are Infantry, hold for a minute to ensure brain damage, making the
enemy combat ineffective. If you're not sure, gouge both of his eyes. You don't
want him regaining consciousness and chasing you down.
Hold for 2 minutes to cause death. If you don't have time, slice the carotid
arteries and move on. If you don't have a knife, find a sharp object (your John
Wayne on your key ring) or use your teeth. If you don't want to get his blood
in your mouth, twist his head to the limit of his range of motion and stomp hard
with all of your body weight on his neck. Make sure you break it. If you have
to jump and stomp as you're coming down, do it. If you can't get it done,
gouge both of his eyes and move on.
"The secret is applying extreme force with the pinkies and
working your way up the rest of the digits."
-- Jeff L. Gonzales
"What’s Wrong With My Grip?" by Melody Lauer
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpts:
“When you don’t have average grip strength,
when you think you’re gripping really hard,
maybe [you’re] not.” -- Annette Evans
“I start my grip up in my shoulders now and in my core,” she explains.
“I’m trying to make the back tips of my shoulder blades touch each other
so I’m really bringing my shoulders back and I’m squeezing my armpits
together. If you do that and stick your hands in front of you you can see
how the bottoms of your hands start touching and it becomes a vice.
That’s where a lot of my grip strength comes from right now.”
-- Annette Evans
[Karl Rehn] filters his students by strength and teaches them the technique
that works for them, “I’m not going to waste your time teaching you this other
technique because it requires a threshold of physical capability that you don’t
have, and it’s not going to work for you.”
Annette Evans cautioned shooters not to get so caught up in copying that
they fail to find what works for them. “Do people fail to figure out their own
grip because they are spending too much time emulating what they think is
the right thing?” she asks. “I think that’s true for all things shooting . . . and
the rest of life. I think that when we copy without understanding why,
we don’t have the tools to evaluate whether or not it actually works for us
because we’re just kind of doing what our idol says.”
Ernest Langdon encouraged shooters never to give up,
“We have this tendency to always try to compare ourselves to the people
that are the best in the world. Everybody can’t be the best in the world . . .
At the end of the day you have to say, ‘Here’s what I can do. I’m going to
go to the range. I’m going to practice. I’m going to be as good as I can be
and strive to get better. And nothing else . . .’ You’ve got what you’ve got.
Try to improve it. Try to get better, and, I would argue that, over time
that will happen.”
---
I agree with Paul Sharp. The Weaver stance (or the Chapman modification
of the Weaver stance, which has the firing-side arm locked out straight and the
support-side elbow bent and down, not sticking out like a chicken wing) allows
the shooter to push with their firing-side hand and to pull with their support-side
hand, trapping the pistol in a vise and minimizing muzzle flip. [The arms are
not in a position to allow this push-pull tension in an isosceles position. The
support-side arm must be bent at the elbow to allow the support-side bicep to
pull the pistol backward.]
---
Lots of instructors are always saying, "Lock your wrists." without defining
or explaining what they mean (because they can't explain or define what they
mean). The wrist is a universal joint. It does not lock, unless you bend it to
the limit of the range of motion, which is ridiculous. Because the wrists must
be straight to have a strong grip. Any bending of the wrists weakens the grip.
[So a thumbs forward grip is a weaker grip. Bad for weapon retention. If the
wrists are straight, the thumbs will be pointed up.]
In a fight, every part of your body must be relaxed and flexible. So using
muscle tension to lock anything is wrong. As my fencing coaches taught me,
tense muscles are slow muscles, relaxed muscles are fast muscles.
"Never believe anything you read or hear.
To figure out what’s best for you,
experiment until you have no doubt."
-- Brian Enos
"predictive reactive corrective" by Ben Stoeger
"One eye closed is not the way" by Ben Stoeger
---
"I can always do nothing more consistently than I can do something."
-- Ben Stoeger
"It's not daily increase but daily decrease - hack away at the inessentials!"
-- Bruce Lee
"The First Three Steps: Why Sprinting Matters More Than You Think"
by Richard Hough & Hannah Burkhart (from East Tennessee State University)
Excerpts:
"Most people think of running as simple. It isn’t—at least not at speed."
"Sprinting is a highly technical movement, and what happens in the first
seconds matters most."
Sidebar: 5 Sprint Mistakes Officers Make
1. Standing Upright Too Soon
Acceleration requires forward lean. Upright posture too early reduces
force production.
2. Overstriding
Reaching with the foot creates braking forces and slows movement.
3. Slow First Step
The first movement must be explosive. Hesitation compounds quickly.
4. Training Only Long Runs
Distance running does not prepare you for short, explosive pursuits.
5. Never Training in Gear
Movement changes under load. If you don’t train it, you don’t own it.
Sidebar: 3 Drills You Can Do Tomorrow
1. First-Step Explosions (5–10 yards)
Start from standing, seated, or turning positions. Focus on immediate acceleration.
2. Partner Reaction Sprints
Have a partner signal direction or start unpredictably. Train response, not anticipation.
3. Gear Progression Runs
Sprint without gear → partial gear → full gear. Adapt mechanics gradually.
Train the First Three Steps
1. Short bursts. High intensity. Full recovery. Focus on explosive movement.
2. Train Real Starts
From awkward positions:
Standing still
Turning
Exiting a vehicle
Because that’s how pursuits actually begin.
3. Train With Gear
Movement changes under load. Officers must learn how to move efficiently
with the equipment they wear every day.
4. Add Decision-Making
Incorporate reaction:
Visual cues
Verbal signals
Partner movement
Because no real pursuit is pre-planned.
Ida Zeile
There's a happy smile.
". . . 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"
"LAPD Officer Practically Hands His Shotgun To Perp"
by Active Self Protection
---
Consider John's explanation as to why he does not teach the Tap,
as in "Tap, Rack, Assess". I will have to think about this, because I have
witnessed unseated magazines that did not fall out of the pistol. So
the lack of tapping did not clear the malfunction. Which means the
combatant had to tap-rack again to get back into the fight. But of course,
we are playing with probabilities and time.
If you're going to use a long gun in combat, you MUST use your
sling. Otherwise, you're effectively handing the bad guy your gun.
In the video, the sling appears to only be attached to the shotgun at the
front. Or, the sling is way too long. You must make sure everything
is in good working order and correctly configured before you step
out of your front door.
It's not enough to be able to run. You must be able to sprint.
You must be able to sprint easily, so that after the sprint you are not
winded, you can exercise good judgment, and apply accurate fire.
“What’s the number one reason for reloading?
Missing the target!”
-- Claude Werner
"How to Stop Your Hands from Shaking when Shooting a Pistol"
by Chris Sajnog
1. Reduce your grip pressure.
2. Breathe.
3. Relax.
"I can always do nothing more consistently than I can do something."
-- Ben Stoeger
Nicola Cavanis
Please read the following. It's really important.
Email from Tim Larkin -- (The excerpt below is edited and paraphrased,
because Tim is a little verbose.)
San Jose. A Thursday afternoon. He's walking home from the grocery store.
A teenager steps out from between two parked cars. Knife in his hand. The kid
was fast. Young. Armed. The Marine was 84 years old. Most people would
call that a mismatch. I call it a tutorial. Because that Marine didn't grab for the
knife. He didn't wrestle. He didn't beg. He didn't try to run. He looked at that
kid's body . . . Found the one precise failure point . . . And drove his full
bodyweight straight through it. One move. The kid folded sideways like a hinge
pushed past its load limit. He hit the pavement hard. The Marine picked up his
groceries. And walked home.
That's not luck. That's not brute strength. That's not years of martial arts
training. That's physics. . . . I call it the "Off-Switch Blueprint." It maps the 70+
anatomical failure points on the human body . . . Specific points that trigger
immediate, involuntary mechanical shutdown, the moment you hit them with
the right force, in the right direction . . . No matter how big your attacker is.
No matter how fast. No matter how hopped up on adrenaline, drugs, or rage.
No matter what weapon he's carrying.
Here's why this works when everything else fails:
A broken knee does not hold weight. It doesn't matter how much the man
bench presses. A crushed throat does not breathe. It doesn't matter how many
fights he's survived. An overloaded carotid shuts the brain off like a light switch.
It doesn't care how "tough" he thinks he is. Because this isn't about toughness.
This is about exceeding the rated load limit of a biological machine. And once
you know exactly where those limits are . . . You become the most dangerous
person in the room. Not because you're big. Not because you're young. Not
because you train five days a week. But because you understand something
that 99% of people including most trained fighters never figured out:
The human body isn't a fighter. It's a machine.
See, here's what I eventually figured out. Every self-defense system ever
built . . . Krav Maga. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Boxing. MMA. Muay Thai.
Even most military hand-to-hand programs . . . They are ALL built on the exact
same hidden assumption. That violence is a competition -
Speed vs. speed. Strength vs. strength. Youth vs. youth. Skill vs. skill.
The best competitor wins. And if that's your model . . . Then the bigger, faster,
younger, more skilled person wins. Every time. Which means the 84-year-old
Marine had no business walking away from a knife-armed teenager. A 140-pound
woman has no business surviving an attack from a 240-pound man. A 62-year-old
with a bad knee has no business protecting his family.
The competition model says those people are simply outmatched. And if you
believe that model? They are. But here's the thing. That model is wrong.
Not a little wrong. Completely. Structurally. Broken wrong. And it's been quietly
failing good people for decades.
Think about the last time you felt that cold feeling in your gut. Walking to your
car in a dark parking lot. Noticing someone following too close on the way home
at night. Hearing a sound downstairs at 2 in the morning.
What does your brain do in that moment? It starts running calculations. How big
does he look? Is he alone? Am I fast enough? Am I strong enough? Has it been too
long since I've trained? That's the competition model running inside your head. And
the moment it kicks in . . . You freeze. Because those calculations have no good
answers. You don't know how big he is. You don't know if he's on something that
shuts pain completely off. You don't know if he's alone or has backup around the
corner. And while your brain is spinning its wheels trying to size up an unknown
opponent . . . He's already moving.
That freeze isn't a flaw in your character. It isn't cowardice. It isn't something
you can "train away" by doing more pushups or taking another seminar. It's the
completely predictable result of running the wrong program. The competition model
LITERALLY paralyzes decent people at the exact moment they can't afford it.
Every. Single. Time.
Don't believe me?
Go ask any woman who has taken a self-defense class if she truly feels certain.
Not "more aware." Not "a little more confident." But genuine, bone-deep
CERTAIN that if something happened tonight . . . she knows exactly what to do.
Nine out of ten will say no.
And that's not because those women weren't paying attention. It's not because the
instructor was bad. It's because the class trained her to out-compete someone who
chose her specifically because he thinks he already won.
That is the competition model at work. And it sets good people up to fail at
the one moment in their lives when failure is not an option.
But the freeze is only part of the problem. Because even if you somehow
push past the freeze . . . Even if you stay calm and think clearly . . . Your own
body is working against you.
Here's why.
The moment real danger hits — not the idea of danger, but actual, right-now
danger . . . Your body floods with adrenaline. Heart rate spikes. Muscles contract.
Tunnel vision sets in.
And researchers at the University of Utah found something that should make
every traditional self-defense instructor lose sleep at night. When your heart rate
climbs past 145 beats per minute under real threat . . . Fine motor skills collapse
by up to 60%. Which means the precise, technical moves you practiced in class . . .
The ones that require coordinated footwork . . . Two-handed grips . . . A specific
five-step sequence performed in a specific order . . . Gone. Right when you need
them.
And here's where it gets worse.
Think about every self-defense technique you've ever been taught. Every one of
them requires the very fine motor skills that real violence destroys in the first three
seconds.
The wrist release that needs two precise grips. The joint lock that requires
exact angles. The disarm that depends on split-second timing and clean hand
movement. All of it. Built for one set of conditions. Practiced in one set of
conditions. And those conditions look NOTHING like what happens when a
stranger grabs you by the throat in a dark parking lot. The gym is controlled.
The lighting is good. Your heart rate is normal. Your training partner isn't
actually trying to kill you. You know the drill before you start. Real violence
is none of those things. Real violence is dark. Real violence is sudden. Real
violence is your heart hammering so hard you can feel it in your teeth. Real
violence is your hands shaking. Real violence is your mind going completely
blank right at the moment it needs to work. And every traditional system out
there was built for competition conditions. Not real conditions.
You've probably been told that size and age matter in a real fight.
And you've probably believed it. Because when you're standing in a gym
running the competition model in your head . . . Of course size matters.
Of course age matters. Of course youth and speed and raw strength matter.
In a competition? Absolutely they do. But here's what the competition model
has been hiding from you. Size doesn't change physics. A 280-pound man
has the same load limits on his joints as a 140-pound man. His knee bends
in the same direction. His throat closes under the same amount of pressure.
His carotid artery responds to compression the same way. His eyes are just
as vulnerable. His ears are just as vulnerable. His spine is subject to the
exact same mechanical laws.
A knee is a hinge. Every knee is a hinge. And every hinge in existence has
a direction it was never designed to bend. Force it in that direction with enough
pressure? It fails. Every time. No exceptions. For any body. On any planet.
That's not a self-defense concept. That's a law of physics. And laws of physics
don't have weight classes.
So Why Has Nobody Told You This Before?
That's a fair question. If this is real, and it is, why is the entire self-defense
industry still built around the competition model? Two reasons:
First - money. The competition model is an endless business. You earn belts.
You advance through levels. You take new seminars. Because there's ALWAYS
someone bigger, faster, and younger you might someday face. Which means you
can never stop training. Never stop paying. Never feel truly done. The U.S.
self-defense training market generates over $4 billion a year. And almost every
dollar of it runs on one idea: You are not good enough yet. Keep training.
Keep paying. Keep leveling up. The machine model doesn't work like that.
You learn where the failure points are. You understand the physics behind each
one. And you're done. There's no black belt in gravity. Either you exceed the
load limit, or you don't. That's not a great recurring revenue model. So the
industry ignores it. Keeps it quietly off the curriculum. Keeps selling the idea
that more mat time is the answer.
Second reason - Hollywood. Every action movie you've ever seen reinforces
the competition model. The hero wins because he's tougher. More determined.
Deeper in his will to survive. He "digs deep" in the third act and somehow beats
the bigger, badder guy through pure grit. Crowd goes wild. Everyone walks out
believing that toughness is the deciding factor. It isn't. The deciding factor is
whether you exceed the rated load limit of the machine. An 84-year-old man
can do that just as well as a 25-year-old operator. The Marine proved it.
If you've spent any time training in a competition-based system . . . Every
single hour of that training may have been quietly making things worse.
Not because the instructors lied to you. Not because the techniques were useless.
But because every class was reinforcing this one devastating belief deep in your
mind: Your safety depends on how you measure up against your attacker.
And that belief? That's the one that freezes you. Because you will never know
how you measure up until it's already happening. You don't know what he looks
like until he's in front of you. You don't know if he's 21 or 48. You don't know
if he's alone. You don't know if he's sober. You don't know if he has a weapon
until it's already in his hand.
The competition model NEEDS all of that information. It needs the comparison.
And without it? The whole model collapses. And you collapse with it. Right there
in the dark. Right at the moment that matters most.
Here's the honest truth that the self-defense industry will never put on a flyer.
The freeze you feel in a real moment of danger isn't a mental weakness. It isn't a
training deficiency you can fix with more repetitions. It's a structural failure.
When your brain gets handed a competition it can't calculate . . . Because the
variables are unknown, the stakes are fatal, and you have less than three seconds
to act . . . It doesn't know what to do. So it stalls. It's like asking a calculator
to divide by zero. The system locks up. And at exactly that moment heart
hammering at 150 beats per minute, fine motor skills cut in half, mind blank,
hands shaking.
The only things that actually WORK are the things that don't require calculation
at all. The things that work because of physics. Not because of how you compare
to him. Not because of skill or speed or strength. But because the machine in
front of you has specific load limits. Fixed limits. Limits that have nothing to do
with who he is, how big he is, or how angry he is. Limits that can be exceeded
by anyone . . . Of any age. Any size. Any fitness level. As long as they know
exactly where those limits are.
That's the real problem. Not your age. Not your size. Not how long it's been
since you last trained. The problem is that 99% of people going through life right
now including people who've spent years training have been handed a model for
surviving violence that works perfectly in a gym . . . And falls completely apart
in the dark.
So what's the answer?
It's not more mat time. It's not a new technique. It's not a better version of the
same broken model. The answer is a completely different model. One built on
physics instead of competition. One that doesn't ask you to out-muscle, out-speed,
or out-skill the person in front of you. One that simply asks one question:
Where Are The Failure Points?
-- Tim Larkin
[The answer to the question, "Where Are The Failure Points?", are listed in his
book, "When Violence Is the Answer".
ISBN-10: 0316354651
ISBN-13: 978-0316354653
]
"Stop Blaming The Gun: The Truth About Trigger Control
Episode #323"
by Brent Wheat
Excerpts:
"• Shooting “low and left” is the classic sign of a right-handed shooter jerking the trigger."
[This is FALSE! Scattering low left for a right-handed shooter (low right for a
left-handed shooter) is an autonomic nervous system response to the recoil of the pistol.
The human knows that the pistol is going to kick backward, so the human pushes
against the anticipated recoil, thus pushing the points of impact low left. These
"gun writers" perpetuate this myth about jerking the trigger, because they have
never taken a class from a competent instructor, as Jeff Cooper, who would have
explained the "surprise trigger break" to them and the purpose of the surprise break.
Which is to defeat all of the autonomic nervous system responses to the recoil and
report of the pistol. -- Jon Low]
---
"• Grip the gun like you are holding a small bird: tight enough so it doesn’t fly away,
but not so tight you crush it."
[This is WRONG on so many levels. It takes about 100 to 150 pounds of grip strength
to correctly hold a center fire pistol (9mm, 40 S&W, 45 ACP). The vast majority of
pistol shooters have nowhere near this strength. So this advice to them is WRONG!
(If your full time job is manual labor, you probably have this grip strength. If you type
on a computer all day, you probably don't. Go to a physical therapy clinic and ask to
test your grip strength on their measuring tools. My left hand has a grip strength of
70 pounds. My right hand has a grip strength of 80 pounds. Don't be too concerned
one way or the other. A lot of it is genetic. There is only so much exercise will do.)
As Massad Ayoob says, you must crush grip the pistol. That will fatigue your hands.
The vast majority of pistol shooters cannot sustain the crush grip for more than a
few seconds. So they must push with the firing side hand and pull with the support
side hand. This means, they must use the Chapman modification of the Weaver
position, because you can't get this push pull effect with the isosceles position.
So, teaching the isosceles position to persons who lack sufficient grip strength is
WRONG! (A lot of instructors teach the isosceles to all of their students, because
it works for the instructor, so they figure it will work for all of their students. Or,
they see it working for the top competitive shooters, so it must be the best.
Incompetence on full display.)
-- Jon Low]
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** 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.
“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
"The Post-Shot Logistics" by Travis Pike
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpts:
"Cooperate with the officers and their commands,
but you do have the right to remain silent."
---
[Your right to remain silent and your right to counsel do not automatically attach.
The U.S. Supreme Court says so. You must invoke your rights.
"I invoke my right to remain silent."
"I invoke my right to counsel."
Legally, the police must stop questioning you. But if you start running your
mouth, you have waived your rights. So by all means, KEEP YOUR
MOUTH SHUT! The police will try all kinds of tricks to get you to start talking.
Anything you say will be considered "Excited utterances" by the prosecutor.
Excited utterances are exceptions to the hearsay rule. So third parties may be
allowed to testify as to what you said. And their memories will be very bad or
biased. Of course, the body cameras will be recording you running your mouth
and that will definitely get entered into evidence (especially if you are sitting in
the emergency room of a hospital, we would face the suspect and let the body
cameras run, we didn't say anything, it was amazing), if the prosecutor wants to.
Of course, if it helps your case, the video and audio will be lost. You think
I'm joking? It happens all the time.
I was involved in a case in Dekalb County, TN in which the TN Highway
Patrolman insisted that he had all of his car camera footage on his lap top
computer. But when the judge asked to see the video of the incident, the
Highway Patrolman could not find the video. So the case was dismissed.
It would have been extremely embarrassing to the Highway Patrolman if the
video and audio was actually presented to the court.
-- Jon Low]
In the right hand column of this web page, click on "Never Talk To The Police"
or use the address,
Not calling 911 and moving on?
"Responding To DUMB Comments" by Active Self Protection Extra
---
The trial judge can prohibit you from arguing self-defense at trial. That's
why you need a expert attorney who specializes in pre-trial motions. This is
not your criminal trial attorney. You'll be paying over $500 per hour for his
services. Maybe much more if you live in an urban area. Can you afford that?
That's why you MUST have a self-defense insurance policy that has a reputation
of actually paying. The insurance policy is worthless if they don't actually pay
in full up front. Because any competent attorney will demand payment in full
up front.
Of course, the judge cannot prevent you from testifying that it was self-defense.
But your attorney may prevent you from testifying, because testifying is usually
a very stupid thing to do (no matter what the famous instructors say). Follow
the advice of your attorney, not the famous instructor. You're not that sophisticated.
You're not that educated. You're not that articulate. You haven't taken a speech
class since high school, if that. You haven't given your speeches at Toastmasters.
You've never spoken under stress (a criminal trial is extremely high stress).
The prosecutor can easily get you to talk yourself into a conviction. That's his
full time job. How much have you practiced? How much criminal trial court
experience or education do you have? Probably none.
You always want to be perceived as the good guy. So behave like
a good guy. Good guys call 911 immediately to establish their victimhood.
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
Email from Joe Shahoud --
I learned something scary last week.
A buddy of mine had to use his concealed carry weapon. Bad guy was trying
to break into his house. My friend did everything right.
Guess what happened next?
He got arrested. Spent two days in jail. Legal bills are already over $60,000.
Here's the kicker. He's been carrying for 15 years. Takes classes. Practices
regularly. He knows his stuff. But he never kept track of any of it.
The prosecutor is painting him as some reckless gun owner. They're saying
he wasn't properly trained. That he acted without thinking.
My buddy knows that's BS. You and I know that's BS. But he can't prove it
in court. Know why? No records. No training log. No proof of his dedication
to being a responsible carrier. This is why I'm obsessed with journaling everything.
Every class I take. Every book I read. Every range session. Not because I'm a nerd.
Because I might need to prove I'm not an idiot someday.
Here's what I track:
- Training classes and dates
- Books I've read (with notes)
- Range practice sessions
- Dry fire practice
- Legal updates I've studied
I use a simple notebook. Sometimes the Concealed Carry Gun Tools App
on my phone. Takes me 2 minutes after each training session. Could save me
20 years in prison. My buddy wishes he'd started journaling 15 years ago.
Don't make his mistake.
And if you don't have legal protection yet, get it now. Before you need it.
Because $60,000 in legal bills is just the beginning.
Stay safe (and document everything),
Joe "always learning" Shahoud
“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
"After The Shoot: 7 Real-Life Cases Imperative to Gun Owners"
by Massad Ayoob
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Medical --------------------------------
"The shorter the fight, the less hurt you get."
-- John Holschen
"If you prepare for the emergency,
the emergency ceases to exist!"
-- Sherman House
Tactical Emergency Casualty Care Course - NAEMT Certified, $495.00
Tracey Mendenhall | VP of Operations
(Life Saving Ninja)
DEFEND SYSTEMS
(615) 480-7758
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Survival --------------------------------
"Survival is a mindset, not a skill set."
-- Greg Shaffer
"You do not need entertainment: how to get more done" by Orion Taraban
‟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
"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
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
--Benjamin Franklin
"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
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** 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
"Jeff Cooper's Defensive Pistolcraft Tape Series - Disk 1"
by Jeff Cooper Legacy Foundation
Not what we teach today. Things change. Hopefully improving.
"Jeff Cooper's Defensive Pistolcraft Tape Series - Disk 2"
by Jeff Cooper Legacy Foundation
"Liberty's Teeth - Jeff Cooper" by Jeff Cooper Legacy Foundation
"Quad Productions - Armed Defense, Pistol Techniques"
by Jeff Cooper Legacy Foundation
Note his description of the surprise trigger break, starting at 24:20 / 49:11.
Open end surprise break.
Compressed surprise break.
The nudge.
"ILEETA 2026" by John Farnam
Excerpt:
"In lecture classes I’ve attended so far, many instructors have expressed concern
that left-leaning political entities (American Civil Liberties Union,
Police Executive Research Forum, International Association of Chiefs of Police)
are actively lobbying politicians and prosecutors to immediately revamp
Police Department Use Of Force policies (which some prosecutors try to
enforce as “law”) that require not just “reasonable” actions on the part of
Law Enforcement Officers, but incontrovertibly perfect actions, plus unfailing
clairvoyance. Absolute perfect solutions to every tactical situation, and of course
perfect outcomes. “Bad outcomes” are thus always assumed to be the result
of criminal conduct on the part of individual Law Enforcement Officers.
Officers who fail these humanly impossible “standards” have been, and are,
casually thrown in prison by Soros-backed District Attorneys, with the fawning
approval of Democrat governors and mayors, particularly in IL, MN, CA, NY, NJ, et al.
As a result, Police Department staffing (particularly in blue states) is way
down and going lower. Recruitment is all but impossible, and officers are
leaving their departments, and the profession, in record numbers!"
---
What happens when the police departments can't attract competent recruits?
They lower their standards to expand the population that they can recruit from.
So persons that were previously unacceptable now become acceptable.
Competency falls.
Smaller weaker persons are recruited. They can't fight and they know it,
so they go to guns, sooner, more easily.
Mentally fragile persons are recruited. They can't handle the stress,
so they go to guns, sooner, more easily.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
---
When I worked security at the Jewish Community Center, a fellow security
officer applied to be a Nashville Police Officer. His application was rejected.
(for various reasons, nothing very serious, they were just enforcing their standards)
Then I get a phone call from him asking to use me as a reference to verify that
he worked at the JCC. I said sure. Within a month, he's hired. I hear he's doing
fine. He was an accomplished martial artist with several professional fights
under his belt. God works in mysterious ways.
---
Nashville Police Officer Andrew Delke was chasing an armed criminal.
The criminal turned and pointed his gun at Officer Delke. Delke shot the
criminal once. The criminal died. The District Attorney, Glenn Funk, charged
Delke with first degree murder (premeditated murder) on the bizarre theory
that a person can premeditate in an instant. Every mock jury pulled from
Davidson County, TN convicted Delke. (Yes, people in Davidson County
are that bat shit crazy.) So Delke accepted a plea agreement to avoid possible
prison time. (Former police do not thrive in prison.)
Why? Because Black Lives Matter funded Funk's campaign for District
Attorney, so he owed them big time. Delke was white. The criminal was
black. Unfortunately, it was that simple. The facts of the case didn't matter.
"The Father [Jeff Cooper] of Modern Combat Shooting w/ Ken Hackathorn"
by American Outlaw
"Firearm Cultural Competency for Health Care Providers -
5 Essential Observations on Guns (LoH #151)"
by Light Over Heat with Professor David Yamane
"Shooting Competitions Suck" by Tom McHale
Excerpt:
"In tennis, your “compete” time is 100%. Both players (or all four) are
“on the line” through the whole match. In golf, your worst-case scenario is
waiting for three other people to do something before it’s your turn. Similar
with bowling. Fishing? Everyone is engaged at the same time. Biking,
running, and other individual sports all maintain a ratio of active time to
waiting time of nearly one."
"The Unicorn Speaks with Keith Tyler" by Lee Weems and John Hearne
A discussion of how some things in competitive shooting may not be
optimal for combat shooting.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Defensive Use of Firearms" by Stephen P. Wenger
Get on his emailing list for his newsletter,
Greg Ellifritz's reading list,
American Rifleman and American Hunter are now online free of charge.
Practical Eschatology
2nd Amendment News & Articles
Citizen-Defender, John Murphy
YouTube.com channel
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
*************************************************************************
Tatiana Bjork Franco
Notice the length of her trigger finger relative to her ring finger.
This is typical for females. Males will have index fingers shorter than ring fingers.
Critically important when fitting a pistol to a student.
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Legal --------------------------------
*** Extremely Important! ***
"Prosecutor Caught Using FAKE Law in Murder Trial"
by Megan Grout, Criminal Defense Lawyer
Stupid humans relying on Artificial Intelligence.
“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)
Gun Law Database
"Types of Gun Free Zones: Why Gun Owners Must Understand the Difference"
by Jacob Paulsen
"Firearms are second only to the constitution in importance,
they are the people's liberty's teeth." -- George Washington
"Snobbery!" by John Farnam
Excerpt:
“The provision of this section shall not apply to any member of the
General Assembly who leaves a handgun in an unattended motor vehicle.”
“Hypocrisy is the essence of snobbery” -- Alexander Theroux
“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
"How Eyewitness Misidentification Can Send Innocent People to Prison"
Innocence Project staff attorney Alexis Agathocleous breaks down why
eyewitness identification endangers innocent people and is the leading
cause of wrongful convictions.
by Innocence Staff
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Greg's comment --
"I lost a lot of faith in eye witness testimony after being the first officer on
scene of a homicide a couple years before I retired. I developed a suspect and
isolated the witnesses. Detectives constructed a random photo array including
the suspect’s picture. All four eye witnesses identified the suspect from the
random photo array.
We arrested the suspect. One of the witnesses saw a tv news clip showing
the suspect’s initial court appearance. He called the police and said
“that isn’t the right guy.” Our detectives confronted the woman who originally
gave me the suspect’s name. She admitted she had lied to protect her boyfriend.
She had given me a completely made up name. Four eye witnesses identified
the same fake suspect.
Other than being black males approximately the same age (all photos were
of black males within a five-year age span), the actual suspect and the suspect
they identified looked nothing like each other.
The detectives generated a new photo array with the new suspect. All four
eye witnesses identified the new suspect with 100% certainty. They were
right the second time. We did a search warrant on the second suspect’s
residence and found the clothes he wore during the stabbing with the victim’s
blood on them. We released the first suspect from jail and arrested the second
guy. I would have never thought such a situation could possibly happen in
that manner."
-- Greg Ellifritz
---
I wouldn't trust fingerprints either.
"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
This is why people call for defunding the police.
"State Rep Arrested Over VALID Concealed Carry License" by Liberty Doll
Huge financial incentive for cops to seize firearms from law abiding citizens.
No repercussion against the cops, so why not?
Corruption in the Chicago Police Department.
Taylor Lowery
"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
This is why people call for defunding the police.
"Alabama town's traffic ticketing scandal leads to police chief's resignation
Brookside is the "the wild, Wild West," one state lawmaker said after its income
from traffic fines and forfeitures reportedly rose 640 percent in 2 years."
by Erik Ortiz
"Coverage of Alabama Town's Predatory Fines and Seizures Earns
Journalists a Pulitzer
The Brookside Police Department’s shakedown of travelers became a
national news story and prompted federal lawsuits."
by Scott Shackford
The police in Belle Meade, TN, Alexandria, TN and Watertown, TN do the same thing.
Be careful.
“When you will not fight when you can easily win, without bloodshed,
and when you still will not fight when victory is sure and not too costly,
you may well come to the moment when you will have no choice but to
fight with the odds against you, and you have only a small chance of survival.
There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no
hope of victory, simply because it is better to perish as warriors than to
live as slaves.”
-- Winston Churchill
Yep, sometimes the good guys win.
"Afroman's Trial Is the Best Thing on the Internet" by Brett Cooper
"Afroman DESTROYS The Dumbest Cops In America" by Actual Justice Warrior
The Sheriff's department in Adams County, Ohio is truly corrupt. Fish rot from
the head.
Big win for gun industry. Big win for Second Amendment.
"MASSIVE BREAKING NEWS! UNANIMOUS 9-0 SUPREME COURT
WIN JUST RELEASED!" by The Four Boxes Diner
"SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
COX COMMUNICATIONS, INC., ET AL. v. SONY MUSIC
ENTERTAINMENT ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 24–171. Argued December 1, 2025—Decided March 25, 2026"
Excerpt:
"Accordingly, we reverse."
"LICENSES DELAYED, RIGHTS DENIED:
HOW CONTEMPORARY FIREARM CARRY LICENSING REGIMES
CONTINUE TO VIOLATE THE SECOND AMENDMENT"
by MARK W. SMITH
The Problem with “Anchor Shots”
by Massad Ayoob - Facts and Firearms
---
"Anchor Shots? No! - Securing Shots, YES!!"
by Suarez Tactics
*************************************************************************
I love spaghetti.
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Instruction --------------------------------
"Remember,
the students who require the extra effort
are the ones who need us the most!"
-- John Farnam
*************************************************************************
----- Instructors -----
"You must teach skill sustainment as part of training."
-- John Hearne
Lauren's take on teaching incorrectly,
---
It's really important to teach techniques so that the student does it correctly.
In order to do that, you have to understand what's really happening. NOT what
you think is happening. NOT what your instructor told you is happening.
NOT what the internet says is happening. WHAT is ACTUALLY happening.
This may require you to watch carefully and to ask questions of the student.
And then you must communicate (verbally, visually, with tactile cueing)
so that your student understands how to execute the technique correctly.
If the student doesn't understand, it's YOUR fault. Accept responsibility and
change to accommodate your student. Saying the same thing over and over
is WRONG! If you can't think of a different way to say it, you have not done
your homework, you have not prepared to teach. You should be able to
attack the problem from different perspectives. You should be able to adjust
your language and vocabulary to meet your student at his level of
reading / speaking / comprehension. Your student may be illiterate.
Many people are. So he was not able to read the books and emails that you
sent. He's not going to tell you that he can't read. That would be way too
embarrassing. So don't expect it. Be prepared to teach as if the student did
not do any of the reading. That's why John Murphy has videos on YouTube.com
for his students to watch before coming to class.
Some people are slow / autistic / mentally disabled. I keep my classes small
and I tell everyone up front, "We will go as slow as the slowest person in the
class. Be patient, because that person may be you." I know some of you can't
do that because your classes are too big, you have to accommodate the other
students in the class, etc.
Letting a person fall behind in class is DANGEROUS! So you must remove
the slow person from the class. This is commonly done at the Guardian Conference
and the Bullets & Bibles conference. You should have a protocol established for
this. Perhaps you ask the person to drop out of this class and come back at a later
time for a smaller class, a class more appropriate to the student's skill level, private
instruction, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.
"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
"The 2 Types of Instructors (Only One Is Worth Your Money)" by Tenicor
Craig Douglas.
"Just cause you can do it, doesn't mean you can teach it. Just cause you
can teach it, doesn't mean you can do it."
"You don't have to memorize formulae.
Because you can always derive them from first principles."
-- Sven Hartman
"Class Review, [Rangemaster] Advanced Instructor Course" by Jeff Sourbeer
"Your curriculum needs to be recent, relevant, and realistic."
-- Austin Killmer
"Tangling With The Trigger" by Roy Huntington
"The limited time you spend with students may be the only training they ever receive!"
-- John Farnam
I presently have 6 pistols in my locked closet. I don't like any of them. But they
are not for me. They are for my students. So they are completely ambidextrous.
They have grips that can be adjusted for small hands or large hands. There are spare
parts to adjust pull length (distance from face of the trigger, when the slack has been
taken out, to deepest indentation of the tang, this is easily done with 1911's by
replacing the trigger). They have weakened recoil springs for students with low
upper body, hand, and arm strength to make their slides easier to rack. Which requires
lightening (machining) the slide to make them reliable with the weaker recoil springs.
I keep devices on hand to help my students charge their magazines, because
reducing the magazine spring tension would make the system unreliable. (I learned
in Kindergarten that helping the person is NOT the same as doing something for
the person. NEVER do anything for the student, because that prevents the student
from learning how to do the operation. Persons learn by doing. We all learn by
struggling until we can do it. Never deny that learning experience to your student.)
“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."
“Qui docet, discet.” (Who teaches, learns.)
-- American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers
“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
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
************************************************************************
Willow Day
----- Students -----
"It's better to be wrong than to be vague."
-- Freeman Dyson
"Beware the Helpful Fool" by Keith Finch
Excerpts:
"In “20+ years as a police officer”, I am sure he is fairly competent as
a police officer in his given jurisdiction type, but that is not a firearms expert.
That is public interaction, traffic, domestic interactions, criminal arrests, and
whatever else his actual job entailed. This does not a ballistics and firearm
expert make."
"Instructors: It is incumbent upon instructors to complete continuing
education, and it is something they must do on their own time with almost
no governing guidance from a professional body. That is the great variance
among instructors, who else they have trained with. Instructors with basic
certifications, maintained by fee, who do not seek continuing education are
common and have comparatively little to offer beyond whatever PowerPoint
they are ‘certified’ to teach."
"Thinking is the hardest thing a person can do.
That's why so few people do it."
-- Henry Ford
“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
"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
“It may seem difficult at first but everything is difficult at first.”
-- Miyamota Mushashi
*************************************************************************
Zlata Vishnevskaia
----- Andragogy (as opposed to pedagogy) -----
"Growth is uncomfortable because you've never been there before."
-- Nicola Cavanis
From an email from Active Self Protection, March 2026 Newsletter
"Tunnel Vision" by Jamie Green
In a recent ASP Skills Summit class, when attendees were asked what ‘aha’ moment
they had experienced during the weekend, one student responded,
“…becoming aware of tunnel vision”. Since a big emphasis during the Skills Summit
is ‘seeing’ in order to process and act, this is a path that could use some exploration.
As self-defenders, we relate tunnel vision to what happens to our vision during a
potentially life-threatening scenario. What we fail to understand is that cognitive and
emotional tunnel vision can affect us then and also during life in general.
When tunnel vision is mentioned in a firearms class or discussion, the reference
is to the narrowed field of view we may experience when chaos hits. This type of
tunnel vision is perceptual making it hard to see objects that aren't in our direct line
of sight. Perceptual tunnel vision generally manifests from the release of adrenaline
and cortisol during a fight-or-flight or anxiety causing situation. However, it also
may occur from simple visual fixation on a particular object or area, no chemicals
required.
On the plus side, perceptual tunnel vision can enhance focus and concentration
on immediate tasks, allowing individuals to perform effectively under pressure.
Heightened focus can be beneficial in high-stakes situations, such as emergency
response or self-defense, where quick decision-making is crucial. The ability to
focus on a threat more so than environmental distractions is important.
On the flip side, perceptual tunnel vision can have the potential to lead to
challenges or danger. While driving, it may prevent us from seeing traffic or
pedestrians until they are directly in front of us. Ever had a near miss? Visual
fixation on a weapon in hand may lend itself to making a less than perfect decision.
Is that person with the gun an attacker, an undercover officer, or another
self-defender responding to the same stimulus you are? In a high emotion
environment such as a violent encounter, a witness could possibly misidentify
the alleged perpetrator simply from seeing with a narrowed focus.
Cognitive tunnel vision (the mental equivalent to perceptual tunnel vision) may
prevent us from seeing multiple solutions to a particular problem. Our thoughts
become so focused on ‘the way’ to do something that we fail to see there are other
solutions that may work equally well or better. While in this ‘tunnel’ it can be
difficult to ask important questions. If I need to leave a dangerous place, is there
another exit I should use for escape? If I am struggling with improvement, is there
a better way to perfect the skill?
Emotional tunnel vision (being consumed by a single emotion) may prevent us
from seeing the other side in an argument or a debate. This type of tunnel vision
is certainly not helpful in a situation where negotiation or de-escalation is needed,
especially when the person needing to de-escalate is us. Road rage quickly comes
to mind.
Can anything be done to overcome tunnel vision? The answer is yes. Awareness
you are entering the tunnel is the first step. For perceptual tunnel vision relaxing the
eyes to help open the field of view, blinking more frequently to help prevent fixation,
or shifting eye focus by scanning your environment are a few ways to help move
away from the perceptual tunnel.
Mindfulness, asking for advice, or taking a step back to evaluate additional
options are all tools that can help break away from cognitive tunnel vision.
Reducing or eliminating stress, deep breathing, getting good sleep, knowing
oneself, and becoming better educated about the issue at hand are good practices
to help break through emotional tunnel vision.
Overcoming or managing tunnel vision provides an opportunity for us to live
in a better world – the ability to see danger coming and possibly avoid injury,
the ability to discover more effective answers to solve problems and challenges,
and learning to understand or at the very least accept the perspective of others
to help build, heal and strengthen our relationships.
Eyes, mind and heart wide open!
‟An instructor should not expect any learning to
take place the first time new information is presented.”
-- ‶Building Shooters″ by Dustin Salomon
*************************************************************************
Analise Erickson
can hunt,
fish,
ride a horse,
and shoot straight.
Definition of a high value woman.
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Gear --------------------------------
And the safe storage thereof.
"REDUCED CAPACITY MAGAZINE ISSUES (NEUTERED MAGAZINES)
and WAYS to Navigate Them
by Sherman House
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
---
Ya, got to carry extra magazines.
---
Precision of language is precision of thought. -- Jon Low (1977 A.D.)
If you've never used your EDC (Every Day Carry) in a class or a match,
you don't know if it works. You don't know what you don't know. Examples:
A person could not present their pistol because the snap on the strap that
holds the pistol in the holster had rusted and was jammed.
A person could not shoot the match because his magazines were empty.
Because he had not replaced his magazines after a dry practice session.
After a few shots, a person's pistol stopped working because a spring in
the trigger mechanism had broken. If the person had cleaned the pistol,
the person would have known that the spring was rusted. Rusted springs
should be replaced immediately, because they crack.
A person cut his hand on a sharp edge of his holster (Kydex). All sharp
edges of all equipment should be rounded and smoothed.
A person cut his palm on a sharp edge of his rear sight when racking
the slide. Such edges must be found and filed and polished before use.
A person had many malfunctions, because the ammunition that he was
using was not strong enough to cycle his slide. If you're going to modify
your equipment, you must test all of your equipment working together.
A person put a weapon mounted light on his pistol, and so had to get a
holster that it would fit in. The holster did not protect the trigger. So while
helping to set up a stage for the match, a wooden slat (part of the target
frame) broke and a sharp spike fell into his holster. When the stick rotated
and fell to the ground, the sharp point that was in his holster pressed his
trigger and fired his pistol while it was in his holster. Safariland Kydex
holster holding a Glock 21 with a Streamlight WML (weapon mounted light).
Craig Douglas has a video about these unacceptable holsters.
"STOP Wearing your duty rig until you do this test!" by ShivWorks
I could go on, but you get the idea. You must use your equipment under stress
to see if it actually works.
"Ammunition!" by John Farnam
"The Biggest Problem with 2011's with Ben Stoeger & Joel Park"
by BenStoegerProShop.com
“Your car is not a holster.”
-- Pat Rogers
"Hi-Point® Firearms 995 Carbine Review" by Claude Werner
---
~$400 new, ~$300 used with 2 or 3 mags on the gun web sites.
Ya, it stops a lot. You get what you pay for in this world.
Not for serious work. It's for fun with the kids. If they drop it
overboard, you're not going to be too upset. You would have tossed
it overboard when the Mexican Navy approached anyway.
"Handgun Test and Tune Up" by Claude Werner
Excerpt:
As The Assassin put it:
Have a gun.
Be able to access the gun.
Be able to fire the gun.
Be willing to use the gun.
You’ll probably be all right.
"TOP 6 Appendix Carry MISTAKES In 2026" by PHLster
"There are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous men."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
"US Army Adopts New M111 Offensive Hand Grenade" by Matthew Moss
The Armourer's Bench,
The Armourer's Bench YouTube.com channel,
“Mission drives the gear train.”
-- Pat Rogers
Smith & Wesson is marketing the Equalizer Carry Comp. Any compensator
on a self-defense pistol is a bad idea. Because when firing from close contact,
the hot gas and burning powder will be forced into your eyes at high speed.
The purpose of a high capacity magazine is NOT to let you shoot more;
it is to let you reload less.
-- Tom Givens
"The Soviet PSS Pistol and the Rise of Captive-Piston Ammunition Guns"
by Lynndon Schooler
"An uncommanded discharge from a CZ and not a Sig" by Ben Stoeger
---
Video of the incident.
"New Knives + Award WINNERS at Blade Texas 2026" by Melissa Backwoods
(Melissa Miller)
In holster weapon retention. Modification to avoid.
"Your Next Pistol?" by Tom Givens
"Goop, Gunk & Good Sense: Cleaning and Testing for Reliability"
by Tom McHale
"Gun Owner 101: Holster Selection" by Justin
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
---
Don't use metal clips. They will cut you. Maybe not in pristine conditions.
But in combat, they will slice your hand open.
"What Makes a “Great” Gun?
Part 1
A Reality Check Beyond Brand Loyalty"
by Tom McHale
Where did your red dot sight come from?
"Reflex Gunsights Part I: Principles & Origins"
by Our Own Devices
Ammo sources:
Unlimited Ammo
Target Sports USA
GunMag Warehouse
SGAmmo
True Shot Ammo
The Mag Shack
If you know of any others, let me know.
"How Deep is too Deep? For a Rope" by Hard Is Easy and MAMMUT
*************************************************************************
Marie Czerniak
Me in my prime:
- no stress
- cool outfits
- spent other people's money
- had a personal chef and driver
- no gut problems
- youngest in the family
- no overthinking (yet)
*************************************************************************
"In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida [In the Garden of Eden]" by Iron Butterfly
***** ***** ***** Intelligence ***** ***** *****
Always cite open source. There is always some conspiracy theorists who has said
what you want to say. Quote him. Everyone will understand.
"U.S. Intelligence Community Formally Names Churches and Synagogues as
IS [Islamic State] Priority Targets"
The 2026 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community,
released this week by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, formally
identifies churches, synagogues, and community religious events as priority
targets for Islamic State-inspired actors. The assessment concludes that IS
propaganda exploiting the ongoing conflict in the Middle East has produced a
documented increase in calls for attacks against religious and political symbols,
with radicalized individuals framing this violence as a righteous response to
perceived grievances against Muslims. This is the U.S. government’s
highest-level annual threat document, and it names your congregation’s
building as a category of target. The threat does not require a direct operational
order from IS leadership — it requires only a radicalized individual with a
grievance and an open door.
Hat tip to Christian Warrior (Keith Graves).
---
"Iran Threatens Attacks on Parks, Public Gatherings, and Tourist Destinations
Worldwide — Including U.S. Soft Targets"
Iran’s top military spokesperson Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi explicitly warned this
week that “parks, recreational areas, and tourist destinations” worldwide would
not be safe for Iran’s enemies, and U.S. intelligence has separately warned of
active Iranian sleeper cells and lone offenders operating inside the United States.
A new Iran-linked terror organization, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, claimed
responsibility this month for a series of bombings and arson attacks against Jewish
institutions in Belgium, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam, confirming that the threat is
already moving off the drawing board in Europe. Analysts assessing Iran’s
degrading conventional military capability note that as centralized command
fractures, proxy and lone-actor operations against soft civilian targets become
more likely, not less, precisely because they require no direction from Tehran.
Churches gathering on predictable schedules, with open doors and public-facing
event calendars, fit the definition of a soft target.
Hat tip to Keith Graves.
---
"I’ve bought so much drugs in church parking lots. People feel safe there,
they don’t expect a confrontation and they can monitor entrances and exits.
Churches are a natural draw point for criminal activity. You need cameras
that are 4k monitoring entrances and exits. Good enough and well placed
that it can capture license plates and faces of people coming and going."
-- Keith Graves (He's talking about when he was a police officer doing stings.)
In case you don't understand propaganda.
"Marine Expeditionary Unit Being Deployed To Middle-East" by Docent
Excerpt:
"The Japan-based USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship, and its attached
Marines are now headed for the Middle East."
From Soldier Systems --
I’m going to close this week’s newsletter out with some controversy.
I’m told a certain General [Gen. Adrian L. Spain? Lt.Gen. Michael E. Conley?
Some other general? -- Jon Low] who I served with as a Captain made a
decision to override the Pararescue functional regarding the enlistment of
a social media influencer named David Goggins into USAF Pararescue.
It seems Goggins, 51, had attempted the PJ pipeline as a young man and
failed to attain standards at indoc. He was eventually trained as a TACP
(that’s him on the left side in this recent the photo of USAF TACPs) and
then moved to the Navy where he became a SEAL.
I have some PJ friends from my time as a Special Tactics Intelligence
Officer (duty position, not career field). Word is that the Goggins enlistment
is not well received. I’m also told that if he actually makes it through the PJ
pipeline he won’t go to a Rescue Squadron but will become an instructor
in an upgrade program. Essentially, what he is doing is taking a promotion
from a deserving TSgt. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but considering how
slow the USAF promotes its enlisted, this is unacceptable.
Below was posted to social media over the weekend:
Inbox: "Post Anon,
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth can we talk about why we have a 51 year old
David Goggins current in AFSW selection for PJ at JBSA Lackland?
Dude is on an ASVAB [He doesn't have the required intelligence. The
requirement is 49 General (G). -- Jon Low] and Age [He's too old.
The age limit is 42. Won't be able to serve long enough to make it worth
the time and money to train him. -- Jon Low] waiver, not to mention he
was given the rank of MSgt. He has zero business being a MSGT,
done zero work to earn that, zero SA on actual responsibilities of a MSgt
when it comes to force sustainment, developing/mentoring Airmen and
young officers etc.
This is nothing more then another dog and pony show for his next book.
You really think he’s going to be a 3 level and go through the wickets to
get all his quals over the next 2-3 years? Get him the fuck out of our force
and give his seat to someone actually willing to serve and do their job."
"Iran's new Supreme Leader is gay - isn't that against Iranian law?"
by Legally Armed America
"How the U.S. Military Chooses What to Bomb" by Ryan McBeth
Wow, this is way more complex than when I was in. But, then again,
McBeth is talking at a much higher level than anything I was involved with.
"John Kiriakou: How Does NOBODY REALIZE THIS?!…"
by The Full Story History
"Laura Ingraham: This is a joke" by Fox News Clips
Allies and those who aren't.
"Special Forces X76 ‘Jet Helicopter’ Needs to Chill Out" by Cappy Army
*************************************************************************
Books I sent to the grand kids.
What are you sending yours?
*************************************************************************
"Saudi Did Something to END Iran’s TERROR… Even the U.S. Didn’t Expect This"
by Business Basics
"Saudi Prince MBS: Exposing The TRUTH" by WolvesAndFinance (Zach DeGregorio)
Excerpt:
"I do not trust the Washington Post. I do not trust the CIA.
I do not trust Lindsey Graham."
---
If the Washington Post labels someone a bad guy, I would be skeptical.
I know Lindsey Graham. I lived and worked in South Carolina. I wouldn't
believe anything he said either.
I lived and worked in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I think DeGregorio is correct.
Lived means not a tourist, actually communicating with the people.
Worked means the intelligence analysis job. Not reading reports in an air
conditioned office in the D.C. area. I got to Riyadh 5 months before the start of
Operation Iraqi Freedom to help with the intel prep work. The Royal Saudi Air Force
flew a lot of missions for us. Ya, there were terrorists who tried to kill us, but the
government, the al Saud royal family, were always loyal allies. At least that was
my experience. I've never worked at high levels. I had a low pay grade.
"Iran Challenged Saudi Jets... Now Tehran Has ORDERED A Retreat"
by Business Basics
"Both sides have incentives to lie." [Oil prices.]
"Why the USS Ford Fire Changed Everything at the Strait of Hormuz"
by Navy Decoded
Tanks? The Marine Corps doesn't have any tanks, 2:36 / 18:10.
Key excerpt:
"Iran also fired a missile at Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean
that hosts a British air base used by American forces on some bombing missions.
Diego Garcia is around 4,000km from Iran. The attack, which was intercepted,
is probably the furthest a ballistic missile has ever been fired in anger. The
remarkable range, far in excess of Iran’s declared inventory, suggests that Iran
either used a missile with little or no payload, allowing it to travel further, or
used a space launch vehicle (SLV), given the technology is similar and Iran has
used its space programme as a cover for missile development. If Israeli reports
are right that this projectile was fired using a two-stage system, then this might
have been the Simorgh SLV."
from
"The Economist" March 23rd 2026
'The War Room' by Shashank Joshi, Defence editor
Hat tip to Sidney Ontai.
"Watters: A blow could be incoming . . . " by Fox News
"Why China’s Vietnam Move May Be About More Than Diplomacy"
by Lei's Real Talk
When people flee / defect from North Korea, they try to get to Vietnam.
If they get caught in China, they get sent back to North Korea.
Remember Vietnam and China went to war previously and China lost big time.
Vietnamese troops went way into this area in South China and occupied a huge
area. Remember China will be at war with Taiwan soon.
"Ukraine Just WIPED OUT Russia’s Entire BALTIC Port"
by The Military Show
"NEW VIDEO shows US SUPER HORNET dodging IRANIAN MISSILE"
by Sandboxx
"Iran War Explodes into Pakistan" by Cappy Army
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Institute for the Study of war
The Dispatch
Strategy Page
"The Merge"
Breaking Defense
Intrigue
1440
29155
Global Recaps
Timber Sycamore
Ground News
Soldier Systems
*************************************************************************
Toni Marie Graham
This is significant. A lot of people can't squat.
***** ***** ***** Signals Intelligence,
Ground Electronic Warfare,
Cyber Warfare,
(sometimes Air Electronic Warfare too) ***** ***** *****
Always cite open source.
*** Extremely Important! ***
"LaGuardia Crash NTSB Update" by Captain Steeeve
Fiefdoms that don't communicate. Don't let it happen to you and yours.
"Crypto-Gram March 15, 2026" by Bruce Schneier
Unlike the horse, I know you will drink deeply.
"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
If you want to know what IP address the local system has assigned to you.
From Soldier Systems Digest --
US Army Lieutenant General Rudd has been confirmed by the Senate to
take the reins of both the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command.
From everything I understand, he is an extremely capable officer and a
great leader. However, his background is Special Operations and not intelligence,
signal intelligence, or cyber operations. Apparently, I’m not the only person
concerned by his lack of applicable credentials. At least one Senator had initially
blocked his nomination.
This isn’t the first time an ops guy has become DIRNSA (Director of the
National Security Agency).
Director NSA or colloquially referred to as Daddy DIRNSA,
[I was in from 1981 to 2014. I never heard "Daddy DIRNSA". -- Jon Low]
but you’d have to go back to the early 70s which was hardly the heyday of the
electronic intelligence business. That would be Lieutenant General Lew Allen, Jr.,
USAF. Unfortunately, he oversaw the dismantling of many of the Agency’s
capabilities post-Vietnam.
I’m not opposed to the guy as a leader, I’m just not sure that this is the right guy
for the right job. I’ve batted this back and forth with folks who praise his leadership
and that his background doesn’t matter at that level. My retort to this nonsense
is simple. If this is such a great idea, how about placing an Intelligence General
in command of USSOCOM? The answer is invariably, “Well, that’s different.”
Not really. Commander USSOCOM doesn’t actually command any operational
forces. Instead, the role oversees an enterprise, just like the DIRNSA. It might
be a good idea to understand what that enterprise does. Additionally, I’m watching
this with a cocked eyebrow after Army SOF’s recent move to amalgamate Cyber
into its formation via creation of an Information Warfare (IWAR) branch along
with PSYOP (Psychological Operations), Civil Affairs, and Information Operations
officers.
On the flip side, NSA (National Security Agency) has been running for over
a year with an interim director. LTG Hartmann has an extensive background in
both intelligence and special operations, but as we have seen in multiple cases,
organizations like this still make the mission happen, whether there is a director or not.
Hopefully, LTG Rudd will be a man of vision and perhaps the guy to put the
genie back in the bottle and turn NSA and CYBERCOM into a unified
Multi-Domain capability.
The late 90s was an opportunity for the intelligence business to embrace
computer network operations and electronic warfare. Instead, leaders harkened
back to the early 20th century and the nonsensical mindset that such emerging
capabilities were morally beneath them. Their result are the current stovepipes
which hobble the ability to holistically support combat operations.
There’s no way you can separate CYBERCOM from NSA, at least without
replicating what happens at NSA. Everyone who conducts Cyber operations
knows this. Cyber is simply Signal Intelligence by other means with some
offensive capabilities tossed in. This is akin to the old relationship between
SI (Signals Intelligence) and offensive EW (Electronic Warfare). The leaders
in the early 90s wanted out of that business too.
---
[Secretary of War Pete Hegseth did not send Director of the NSA
Lieutenant General Rudd to oversee Signals Intelligence and Cyber Operations.
The DIRNSA's mission is to clean house, i.e. weed out the spies and the
dead wood. In order to get Counter Intelligence working again and to make
the NSA competent again, he must fire all of the woke executives and managers
and Diversity Equity Inclusion hires. This means replacing everyone in the
Human Resources Department. For years they have been denying applications
from competent, even genius applicants, and instead hiring persons that check
off various DEI boxes. The result has been devastating. The NSA used to be
the primary employer of recent math grads. Then under Obama and Biden,
it became the primary employer of freaks. When I first started visiting the
NSA in 1987, would see a lot of my Marine Corps buddies from previous
commands. The last few times in the early 2020's, I didn't see any Marines at all.
The hardcore military types had all been replaced by woke effeminate freaks
wearing their rainbow colored masks to show how virtuous they were.
-- Jon Low]
Tatiana Bjork Franco
Squatting is faster to get into and out of than kneeling.
From Soldier Systems --
. . . all six of the Service Cryptologic Components, which are comprised of the
United States Fleet Cyber Command, the
United States Marine Corps Director of Intelligence, the
United States Army's Intelligence and Security Command, the
16th Air Force representing both United States Air Force and
United States Space Force services, and the
US Coast Guard Deputy Assistant Commandant for Intelligence.
. . . NSA/CSS, who provides the funding, direction, and guidance to all of
America's SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) activities.
Soldier Systems Digest --
** IWar - It’s A Thing
------------------------------------------------------------
I’ve mentioned this whole scenario in past newsletters but we’ve reached
the point where Information Warfare, or IWar, is not just a thing; it’s now on
its way to becoming a branch of service within the Army.
Why isn’t the acronym “IW” like in the joint community and other branches,
you ask? Because it would be confusing. The Special Operations Center of
Excellence (run by JFKSWCS) is already the proponent for Irregular Warfare
which is abbreviated IW. You can’t have two IWs running around in the same
hallways (even though they have been for decades).
According to SOCE, the forthcoming Information Warfare Branch is a
maneuver branch that operates across the information, human, and physical
dimensions to disrupt, degrade, deny, deceive, destroy, and manipulate enemy
troops, systems, and decision makers. Its purpose is to create, seize, retain,
and exploit advantages that enable freedom of action for friendly forces
while denying the same to the enemy.
There’s a whole page dedicated to it now at the JFK Special Warfare Center
and School website.
The branch will execute three core activities:
1. Psychological Operations to shape and influence decision-making;
2. Defense Deception Activities to generate human, informational,
and physical advantages exploitable by commanders;
3. Operational Security to preserve combat power by protecting friendly
signatures, intentions, and operations. The branch is purpose-built to
design, integrate, and deliver effects in all military activities during
operations and campaigning.
This is happening.
The Army Transformation Initiative (ATI) EXORD directs the
consolidation of Psychological Operations (CMF 37) and the Information
Operations Functional Area (FA30) into a single Center of Excellence
and Force Modernization Proponent. The Chief of Staff of the Army
approved this consolidation.
However, the earliest IWar branch will reach initial operational capability
would be approximately 9 months after the Department of the Army General
Order (DAGO) is signed by the SECARMY. That DAGO is under review
and expects to be staffed by HQDA Q2FY26. The work to establish IWar
was primarily executed between the institutional force (Special Operations
Center of Excellence, Mission Command Center of Excellence, CAC and
T2COM with support from HQDA staff to include DAMO-SOI, along
with ARNG and OCAR/USARC partners).
I’m not sure they thought this through.
SOCE states that the new branch will be a conventional force branch
and eventually an initial accessions (basic) branch that supports Total Army
requirements, balancing force structure across all three components of the
Army. Currently, the Special Operations Center of Excellence has responsibility
for force modernization and will offer an assessment and selection for those
who volunteer to qualify to hold SOF specific IWAR billets (like infantry
soldiers (Basic branch) qualifying for the 75th Ranger Regiment). Current SOF
Psychological Operations Soldiers will maintain the qualification to serve in
SOF billets. Once again, the IWar branch will support joint, conventional,
and ARSOF requirements.
I don’t see how ARSOF plans to continue to control this branch. They will
become a customer of it to be sure as they assess Soldiers for their PSYOP and
other IWar assignments within the enterprise, but somebody (likely Cyber/EW,
unless the SI guys ever gain a backbone and put the band back together) will
see this and take it over. It will be their front door into SOF. Talk about turning
the tables; SOF had their eye on Cyber from the beginning.
On the other hand, is Big Army going to want to control the PSYOP
community or will they see all of those manpower billets and do something
else with them?
I’m sure someone in ARSOF has wargamed the outcome that they lose
the branch they are creating. Likely, there are those who don’t care and may
even believe they are doing themselves a favor if they no longer have the
burden of the entire PSYOP community.
It’s somewhat ironic that ARSOF could lose control of the very community
which gave it life after World War Two, PSYOP. In case you don’t know,
SWCS started out as the Psychological Warfare Center in 1952.
SOCE makes the case
The establishment of a new IWAR branch helps the Army effectively
shape the information environment by modernizing and transforming our
Army Information Forces into a cohesive, agile entity capable of countering
and dominating sophisticated information threats and achieve information
dominance in multi-domain operations. All critical capabilities that
Psychological Operations and Information Operations provided will continue
but transformed in modernized techniques, depth of understanding and
integration across all Information capabilities.
---
Zoia Vilisova
Squatting allows you to keep both of your feet on the ground, essential for movement.
Yes, you can move in the squatting position. Samurai did it. Practitioners of Aikido do it.
US Marine Corps pursues thermal cloaks to hide troops from heat sensors
"New Marine unit puts intelligence and cyberwarfare
capabilities to the test in Arctic" by John Van Diver
"After Ukraine, FPV drones could take on Arctic warfare"
by Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo
"A Primer on Ukrainian Special Forces | Joint Force Quarterly"
They are fundamentally different from our Special Forces.
"Numbers Station Related To Iranian War?" by Docent
Милена модель
Squatting allows for a supported shooting position.
You can get your elbows in front of your knees.
"The Biggest Lies in Cybersecurity" by Grant Collins
---
Sir,
Does Grant speak the truth?
"The Biggest Lies in Cybersecurity" by Grant Collins
Semper Fidelis,
Spaceman
---
SSgt.,
He does! Everyone wants to be a sexy penetration tester. Only a few guys
in my company do this. Most of the team does compliance or blue team defense.
There is no massive shortage of cyber professionals at this point. What there
is, is a lack of experienced cyber professionals. The best way to get into cyber is
to start in IT and work your way up from the help desk. You must know how to
operate before you can defend. 90 day cyber wonders who go to puppy mill
certification schools for cyber, are useless. Just as 90 day wonder lieutenants
were in war time.
The great tech bust is upon us. All the big companies like Google, Amazon,
Meta, etc. are laying off IT people like crazy. IT / cyber jobs no longer pay
what they used to. I’ve had many candidates apply and say,
“I want $200k salary. I want to be fully remote. I want zero travel.”
Yeah, ok, good luck with that. Come find me after 6 months when you can’t
find a job . . .
So, yes, salary expectations are out of whack.
Semper Fidelis,
Col. Jeffrey Lipson,
https://layer8security.com/team/jeffrey-lipson/
CEO of Layer 8 Security,
https://layer8security.com/
[The then-Major got up in the middle of the night, got an attorney friend of his, and
bailed me out of jail when the Cherry Hill, NJ police raided my home for firearms.
Big money for another attorney to get the charges dismissed. Big money for yet
another attorney to get my guns back. Big money to yet another attorney to get the
arrest record expunged. Back in the days before all these self-defense insurance
policies. I imagine being poor in America really sucks.]
Kirstin Kruka
If you're wearing high heels, it's not optimal, but definitely doable.
"Signals Before Strikes: Electronic Warfare in the Iran War"
by Soumya Awasthi
Excerpt:
"When the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury
on 28 February 2026, the opening moves were not the B-2 bombers or
the Tomahawk missiles. Rather, it was an invisible strike that defined
the next phase of the conflict. Before the first strike aircraft crossed
into Iranian airspace, the electromagnetic environment over Iran had
already been systematically dismantled, with radars blinded,
command-and-control links severed, and communications networks
taken down. The kinetic campaign that followed was, in a very real sense,
merely the visible layer of a battle that had already been decided
in the spectrum."
"According to open-source intelligence tracking, within 24 hours of
the first US-Israeli strikes, more than 1,100 commercial ships in UAE,
Qatari, Omani, and Iranian waters reported navigation failures. Onboard
GPS systems placed vessels at airports, nuclear plants, and landlocked
locations, a classic signature of active spoofing. By the end of the first
week, Lloyd's List Intelligence [Associated with Lloyds of London,
but I can't figure out exactly how. They claim they us artificial intelligence
which makes me very suspicious. -- Jon Low] had logged 1,735 interference
events affecting 655 vessels, with daily incidents nearly doubling."
[Links embedded in the article. Be careful. -- Jon Low]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Breaking Defense has a weekly newsletter, "Networks & Digital Warfare" at
Crypto-Gram by Bruce Schneier
2600
Soldier Systems
*************************************************************************
Celine Bethmann
Good posture always helps. But the heels need to be on the ground.
"Stairway To Heaven" by Led Zeppelin
***** ***** ***** Cryptology ***** ***** *****
Always cite open source.
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.
You all learned that a polynomial of degree n has n roots in the Complex numbers.
What about equations with fractional n?
---
"Why does (-2)ˣ look so strange?" by Stand-up Maths (Matt Parker)
A graph in 3 dimensions:
The independent variable x (a Real number) is one dimension.
The other 2 dimensions form the Complex plane on which the
roots of (-2)ˣ are plotted.
Visualization helps, no?
---
"Nested square roots of i." by Michael Penn
---
Yes, one must be careful of, and aware of, principle and non-principle branches.
"Well, we only care about the principle branch."
Now that's the kind of wrong thinking that will get others killed in the field.
You don't worry because you know that you'll never be held accountable
for such wrong thinking. But God knows.
"I can't be held accountable for things I don't know."
Legally, you can be held accountable for things that you should have known,
or should have foreseen, under the reasonable man standard. You can always
hide behind the complexity of your work or Top Secret classifications or that
you were not intelligent enough to have known or to have foreseen.
But you can't hide from God.
In the real world, wrong thinking will cause the system to fail. Because
Murphy's Law says that anything that can go wrong will go wrong at the
worst possible time. Combat is that time.
"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
May I offer you some random number? In octal, 1 to 8.
6 7 8 4 3 1 4 8 2 4 2 7 1 8 5 4 2 7 2 5 7 5 7 3 6 3 3 6 4 8 7 7 4 6 4 8 8 2 7 4
2 2 5 1 5 5 2 6 5 8 6 2 8 5 7 2 4 8 1 4 8 4 3 2 8 2 8 2 7 3 2 3 6 2 3 4 8 1 7 5
If the numbers are random, the sequence in which you use the numbers
shouldn't matter. Should it? Remember how you can get a series to converge
or diverge depending on the sequence in which you take the addens?
If you put these numbers on a circle and then randomly jump around the
circle, will you get a random sequence? No. Why not?
"You don't have to memorize theorems.
Because you can always derive them from first principles."
-- Sven Hartman
If the two files look the same, but the meta data doesn't match, they pop.
But if the two files don't match because the filters used in the photos are different,
the dimensions of the photos are different, the file sizes are different, etc.,
will they pop?
---
Type: JPG File, Dimensions: 1638 X 2048 pixels, File Size: 1.16 MB
---
Type: JPG File, Dimensions: 1639 X 2047 pixels, File Size: 1.02 MB
---
Could you use two or more unrelated photos? A picture of an elephant?
A picture of a gorilla?
Plaintext XOR elephant XOR gorilla → ciphertext (which looks like random bits).
Ciphertext XOR gorilla XOR elephant → plaintext.
Does the order matter? Nope, completely commutative, completely associative.
Does the number of pictures matter? Nope.
Could I use the elephant as the ciphertext? Yup. Publicly post the ciphertext.
Elephant XOR ciphertext XOR gorilla → plaintext.
"Hey Staff, but now everything is public. So a person could XOR the files
to get the plaintext."
Yup, that's true. And what's the probability of that? Is it acceptable to you?
Remember, they could be any publicly accessible files. How many such files
exist? The enemy would have to know to use this particular elephant photo, this
particular gorilla photo, and this particular abstract art photo (ciphertext).
Do the files have to be the same size? Nope, you can pad the files. Or you
can chop up the message into several files.
Do the files have to be the same type? Nope, bits are bits. In UNIX,
everything is a file.
---
Have you looked at the white space used in my blog postings?
Always 5 spaces (ASCII character 32) at the start of a paragraph.
Always 2 spaces at the end of a sentence. Always 2 spaces after a colon.
Etc. Etc. Etc. [With apologies to "The King and I". Yul Brynner was great.
At the end, he made anti-smoking commercials and died of smoking.]
Do you recognize which manual of style I'm using?
Have you ever seen a " " (ASCII character 255, it's between the quotes,
honest) in this blog? Ya, I know the ASCII character set only goes from 0 to 127.
Have you ever seen a " " (ASCII character 9, tab) in this blog?
No, of course not. If I used such characters (and there are lots of them,
this blog platform supports Unicode), these blog postings would pop. So, . . .
There are all kinds of strange persons using this platform to pass message
traffic. In the old days, it would be a message in a bottle tossed into the sea.
A joke, picture, funny story, etc. that would be passed from email to email.
Much more reliable than one would think. Why? Do you see the math?
Do you remember the protocols? Now days, things are wonderful.
Can you believe there are still people reading off lists of numbers on the
radio? Our friend at ONI didn't think much of it. He poo poos everything
now that he is retired and goofing off at his beach house. That's a generic
term we used in Hawaii. No one invites me to their beach houses. I've
become a persona non grata. Jesus had a saying about that. Or, I guess it
became a saying in later millennia.
Never be afraid to go your own way.
---
"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
Perhaps your points are on a folium.
x³ + y³ = 3bxy
where b is a constant.
Not all points are on elliptic curves.
"Hey Staff, if b is a constant, what is the constant 3 in the equation for?"
I don't know. What do you think it's there for? What was René Descartes
saying?
"Computer science has nothing to do with computers or science."
-- Donald Knuth
Your solution is in
"Mathematische Unterhaltungen und Spiele" by W. Ahrens.
Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, Volume I, 1910 A.D.; Volume II, 1918 A.D.
Enjoy!
"All that we don't know is astonishing.
Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing."
-- Philip Roth
"Can the Continuum Problem be Solved? - Menachem Magidor"
by Institute for Advanced Study
Can any two infinite sets be compared? Only if you assume the Axiom of Choice.
Does the power set of X give the next cardinality? Or is there a cardinality
in between?
Forcing is a real problem on many levels.
25:00 / 1:28:09. Well, not really. For example, the integers are a unique
factorization domain, but you can extend it to create a non-unique factorization
domain. The algebraic closure of a field doesn't really address the conceptual
problem.
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil."
-- Donald Knuth
"How Fermat Proved His Last Theorem for n=4" by Mathilda Academy
Mathilda Academy
Cameron Cartwright
Well, I guess she does have her heels on the ground.
"Never memorize anything. Rather, study it until it becomes obvious."
-- Norman Christ
Casimir Effect
How does this apply to our cryptology?
The "pressure" is your fitness function preferring low entropy.
Incorrect attempts at decrypting will give high entropy results,
pushing the boundary of your search space (the mirrors) toward
your correct decryption.
There is no absolute entropy. Entropy is relative, between states.
"The Cost of Concurrency Coordination with Jon Gjengset" by Jane Street
Thought for the day, consider a circle with one point removed.
"Your calculus teacher lied to you about limits (here's the proof)" by Michael Penn
You all did ε-δ proofs in calculus classes, right?
33:11 / 41:15. Not a metric space, because you don't have a distance
function defined for any two points, because you're missing all of the irrational
points. Or, you don't have a metric space because you can have a distance
between two points (a, b) and (c, d) that is not rational, even though
a, b, c, and d ∈ Q, the rational numbers. Because Euclidean distance uses
the Pythagorean Theorem, which uses square roots, which can produce
irrational values.
"Donald Knuth: Algorithms, Complexity, and The Art of Computer Programming"
Podcast #62
by Lex Fridman
"Donald Knuth: Programming, Algorithms, Hard Problems & the Game of Life"
Podcast #219
by Lex Fridman
"Lex Fridman"
The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS)
"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
Oink oink.
"Bjarne Stroustrup: C++"
Podcast #48
by Lex Fridman
Sometimes you pray to God and He solves your problems. Sometimes you pray
to God and He gives you the insight to solve your problems. Sometimes your
problems don't get solved, because it's not the right time for them to be solved.
God has His reasons and works on His own time table.
Mr. Lawrence, my high school computer science teacher, told us to study the
problem and ask questions until you understood the problem, then go to sleep.
When you awake, you will have the solution. I have found this technique to work
quite well.
My father told me that any problem that can be solved with money is not a real
problem. Just buy your way out. The real problems are those that you cannot solve
with money. They require time and effort and thought. And as Henry Ford said,
"Thinking is the hardest thing a person can do. That's why so few people do it."
So, if you have paid off the ex-wife to get rid of her, to prevent any future
problems, understand that what you did NOT do, was to spend the time, effort,
and thought to avoid the divorce. Of course, if you killed her, I'm not really
talking to you.
When I meet strangers and need to prove to them that I am an honorable
decent person, I invite their attention to the fact that my ex-wife is still alive and
well. We laugh. But we understand, because we all have ex-wives. Then we
do business. This technique worked amazingly well in the Middle East.
"Debunking Veritasium:
The “All Possible Paths” Myth & What Feynman Really Showed"
by Curt Jaimungal
Physics is a religion. There are many denominations. There are many conflicting
views of what is true. Being dogmatic is a mistake. Because the discovery of new
facts, based on experiments in the real world, change what is true.
Oh, so you have a Number Theory problem. I'll assume that you need to
learn Number Theory. May I direct your attention to
"An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers" by Ivan Niven and H.S. Zuckerman.
QA241.N56
ISBN 0-471-02851-7
Once you digest that, may I direct your attention to
"Solved and Unsolved Problems in Number Theory" by Daniel Shanks.
QA241.S44
ISBN 0-8284-0297-3
and
"A Course in Number Theory and Cryptography" by Neal Koblitz.
QA241.K672
ISBN 0-387-96576-9
ISBN 3-540-96576-9
None of these books mention the Frobenius Problem (Your problem, in case
you didn't recognize it. Though from your problem to the Frobenius Problem
is not an obvious nor direct literature search.). But they give you the tools to solve it.
The Frobenius Problem is described in "The Joy of Mathematics" by
Alfred S. Posamentier, Robert Geretschläger, Charles Li, and Christian Spreitzer.
QA93.P6674
ISBN 9781633882973
They give a very nice, easily understood description. They give it in the form of
a word problem with simple examples. Good writers, making math accessible
to the lay public.
I will paraphrase for you.
In the realm of non-negative integers, [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, . . . ], let
bx + cy = n;
where b, c, and n are given constants; b and c are relatively prime;
and x and y are variables to be determined to solve the equation, if possible.
For all n larger than a particular N, the equation can always be solved.
Do you see why? bx ≡ 0 (mod b), cy ≡ 0 (mod c),
bx + cy ≡ all possible values (mod b) for large enough n
because b and c are relatively prime.
But what is the largest n for which the equation cannot be solved? That
would be the Frobenius Number, g(b, c) = N. For example,
g(5, 7) = 23. Because there is no product of 5 added to a product of 7 that
will equal 23. But there is such a sum of products for all values of n greater
than 23. E.g.
(5 × 0) + (7 × 0) = 0. Smaller than 23.
(5 × x) + (7 × y) ≠ 1, for any non-negative integer values of x and y.
(5 × x) + (7 × y) ≠ 2, for any non-negative integer values of x and y.
(5 × x) + (7 × y) ≠ 3, for any non-negative integer values of x and y.
(5 × x) + (7 × y) ≠ 4, for any non-negative integer values of x and y.
(5 × 1) + (7 × 0) = 5. Smaller than 23.
(5 × x) + (7 × y) ≠ 6, for any non-negative integer values of x and y.
(5 × 0) + (7 × 1) = 7. Smaller than 23.
(5 × x) + (7 × y) ≠ 8, for any non-negative integer values of x and y.
(5 × x) + (7 × y) ≠ 9, for any non-negative integer values of x and y.
(5 × 2) + (7 × 0) = 10. Smaller than 23.
(5 × x) + (7 × y) ≠ 11, for any non-negative integer values of x and y.
(5 × 1) + (7 × 1) = 12. Smaller than 23.
(5 × x) + (7 × y) ≠ 13, for any non-negative integer values of x and y.
(5 × 0) + (7 × 2) = 14. Smaller than 23.
(5 × 3) + (7 × 0) = 15. Smaller than 23.
(5 × x) + (7 × y) ≠ 16, for any non-negative integer values of x and y.
(5 × 2) + (7 × 1) = 17. Smaller than 23.
(5 × x) + (7 × y) ≠ 18, for any non-negative integer values of x and y.
(5 × 1) + (7 × 2) = 19. Smaller than 23.
(5 × 4) + (7 × 0) = 20. Smaller than 23.
(5 × 0) + (7 × 3) = 21. Smaller than 23.
(5 × 3) + (7 × 1) = 22. Smaller than 23.
(5 × x) + (7 × y) ≠ 23, for any non-negative integer values of x and y.
(5 × 2) + (7 × 2) = 24. Larger than 23.
(5 × 5) + (7 × 0) = 25. Larger than 23.
(5 × 1) + (7 × 3) = 26. Larger than 23.
(5 × 4) + (7 × 1) = 27. Larger than 23.
(5 × 0) + (7 × 4) = 28. Larger than 23.
(5 × 3) + (7 × 2) = 29. Larger than 23.
(5 × 6) + (7 × 0) = 30. Larger than 23.
(5 × 2) + (7 × 3) = 31. Larger than 23.
(5 × 5) + (7 × 1) = 32. Larger than 23.
(5 × 1) + (7 × 4) = 33. Larger than 23. First occurrence of n ≡ 3 (mod 10).
Etc. (You see the pattern.)
What is the formula for g(b, c) ?
g(b, c) = bc - b - c.
[Posamentier et al say that James Joseph Sylvester (1814 - 1897)
knew of this solution for this special case in the late 19th century.]
For example, g(5, 7) = (5 × 7) - 5 - 7 = 35 - 5 - 7 = 30 - 7 = 23.
Let us generalize to higher arity, m.
g(b₁ , b₂ , b₃ , b₄, b₅ , . . . , bₘ) = the largest number n for which the equation,
b₁ x₁ + b₂ x₂ + b₃ x₃ + b₄ x₄ + b₅ x₅ + . . . + bₘ xₘ = n
has no solutions.
Where the b₁ , b₂ , b₃ , b₄, b₅ , . . . , bₘ are all relatively prime.
Again, for all n larger than a particular N, the equation can always be solved.
(Similar reasoning as above.)
What is the formula for g(b₁ , b₂ , b₃ , b₄, b₅ , . . . , bₘ) ?
That is the Frobenius Problem. Given by Prof. Ferdinand Georg Frobenius
(1849 - 1917) to his students and thus became known as the Frobenius Problem.
This was in the days when professors created problems for their students, as
opposed to assigning homework out of some textbook. They might have been
doing the class without a printed textbook. I have had many classes like that.
Of course, it is much more work for the professor, but some are willing.
I don't think anyone ever published one of the many solutions to the problem
in a peer reviewed journal, because it was just a homework problem.
---
Succinctly stated -
For a given arity, m, what is the formula for the Frobenius Number,
g(b₁ , b₂ , b₃ , b₄, b₅ , . . . , bₘ) = n ?
Where the formula gives the largest n, such that there is no solution to the equation,
b₁ x₁ + b₂ x₂ + b₃ x₃ + b₄ x₄ + b₅ x₅ + . . . + bₘ xₘ = n
where the b₁ , b₂ , b₃ , b₄, b₅ , . . . , bₘ are all relatively prime,
and all variables and coefficients are non-negative integers?
---
It is sufficient to solve for all the bᵢ being different prime numbers.
The N is small for small prime numbers. It gets interesting for large prime numbers.
It is straight forward to find N, the boundary after which solutions exist for all n
larger than N. The Frobenius Problem is to find the closed form formula for
g(b₁ , b₂ , b₃ , b₄, b₅ , . . . , bₘ) as a function of the parameters of g() that gives
N for any relatively prime set of parameters of g().
Yes, this is a trick question.
---
Why can't I just give you the answer?
You might not understand what I say. But let's assume you do.
You might not be able to implement the algorithm on your computer.
But let's assume that you can. I can give you the answer in a few seconds.
You will be mildly irritated that you had paid me so much for so little of my time.
(Because you would have paid in full up front. I'm not stupid.) But of course,
you would not be paying for my time. You would be paying for my experience
and expertise. But would your superiors (bureaucrats / politicians) understand
that? Probably not. So they might not give you the money in the first place.
In case you weren't aware, that is how criminals avoid getting trapped by
law enforcement. The criminal asks for an amount of money that he knows
a law enforcement agency can't front. The LEO will attempt to make a smaller
buy, but that gives away the game. Because if he could only make that smaller
buy, he could have done it with one of the other lower level distributors.
We're all at this meeting to make the big money deal to catch the big fish.
You ever hear the song, "The Hardest Part" by Blondie? I loved
Deborah Ann Harry (born Angela Trimble on July 1, 1945 in Miami, Florida).
If I were to give you the answer, I would prevent you from learning.
Only by struggling to solve the problem will you learn. (Prof. Lee Lady
taught me that. Because, I had never struggled. The answers were always
obvious to me. Prof. Mader thought that quite disconcerting.) By doing
for others, you prevent them from learning. People learn by doing. Not by
watching others do it. Not by listening to lectures. Only by doing.
So I am actually doing you a great favor. If you are angry at this favor,
you don't understand what's going on. Be careful.
If I gave you a solution to the Frobenius Problem, that would not be the
solution to your problem. You would still have work to do.
". . . if you discover a relationship for a certain geometric figure, or, more
generally, the solution to a certain mathematical problem, then it is always worth
playing around with it and trying to put it in another context. Thereby, it might
acquire a whole new meaning or you might be able to exploit it in circumstances
that are seemingly completely different from the original problem."
-- Excerpt from "The Joy of Mathematics" by Alfred S. Posamentier, et al.
*************************************************************************
*************************** This and That **********************************
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
In case you don't understand Trump.
" 🚨 EXPOSED: The Markwayne Mullin DHS Hearing Tape
Media REFUSES to Play" by Trish Regan
"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
Ah, if only life were so easy.
"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
"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
"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
*************************************************************************
Vasilina Kireenko
Great book.
************* Psychology **************************************
WGM Dina Belenkaya vs. NM Alexander Jasinski
WGM = Womens Grand Master, FIDE classification
NM = National Master, US Chess Federation classification
Benny Johnson's short video,
The full game,
Dina Belenkaya,
Dina claims this is the game that made her famous. Get it?
Deep truth.
"Let men solve problems: he's not your girlfriend" by Orion Taraban
---
The communists use this same argument, "Well, it didn't work because
they didn't do it properly or enough or . . . " But, of course, communism
has never worked anywhere on Earth, ever. Unless your metric of success
is the number of persons killed. There are a lot of different names for
communism. But you can recognize it when the government takes control
of the means of production and distribution. A lot of euphemisms.
That's why almost all psychiatrists and the vast majority of psychologists
are liberals (communists). Taraban is one of the rare exceptions. Oh, and
me, of course.
Marriage is not about love. It's a business contract.
"The ring test: love and business" by Orion Taraban
Truth and reality are extremely difficult to accept after generations of brainwashing.
"Protecting against gold diggers: show them the money" by Orion Taraban
************* End of Psychology section*********************************
Toni Marie Graham
Modern ballerina, no sense destroying your feet for your art.
*************************************************************************
"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."
-- Mary Flannery O'Connor
RIP Chuck Norris.
The female friend called me to tell me that when she had taken her dog for a
walk by the Agricultural Center in Nashville, TN, she had found a baby stroller,
an adult water bottle, and 2 baby water bottles. The water bottles were not at
ambient temperature. Looking around for the owner of the stroller, she saw a
man of Middle Eastern appearance walking out of the bushes. (But she didn't
want to appear racist.)
She told me that she reported the incident to a private security officer.
But the officer did not take her seriously and attempted to flirt with her and
get her phone number. (The pretty girl curse.)
When she called me, I told her to call 911. She feared that she would get
in trouble if it turned out that nothing bad had happened. I assured her that
she would not get into trouble.
She told me that the 911 operator did not consider it an emergency and told
her to call the non-emergency number. Which she did and explained to them
what had happened.
---
I think the 911 operator was incompetent and should be fired. Just as with
the Nashville Police Department, the mayor and city counsel have not allotted
sufficient funds to hire competent persons to staff these vital positions. You
get what you pay for in this world.
The terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 were observed doing suspicious things
by many many persons. But nobody reported them, because they didn't want to
appear racist. Lesson NOT learned.
Having been a life member and having dealt with the NRA since 1975,
having worked many Friends of the NRA banquets from Hawaii to California
to New Jersey to South Carolina to Tennessee and having chaired a few,
having volunteered at Women On Target and other events,
I can assure you that the NRA is corrupt to its core. You can't blame everything
on Wayne Robert LaPierre Jr. I've shaken his hand. I've dealt with him. He
didn't work alone. The board and the bureaucrats were all in on the corruption.
Yes, some tried to fight it and were immediately fired or denounced by the
board.
It's the membership's fault for repeatedly electing corrupt board members.
"A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
I support Tennessee Firearms Association because working at the local level
is crucial. I support Gun Owners of America, Second Amendment Foundation,
and several YouTube.com commentators because of their advocacy and news,
such as Jared Yanis, Liberty Doll, and others.
Every time you spend a dollar, you are effectively voting with your dollar.
Vote wisely.
Do you remember when the NRA rolled out their own self-defense
insurance program, NRA Carry Guard? It included training. The NRA has
about 100,000 certified instructors at various levels. None of them were invited
to participate in the Carry Guard training programs. Rather, the persons running
the Carry Guard program hired a bunch of weirdos to conduct the training.
So, I applied to take the training (because I was curious). My application was
denied. They refused to let me attend their Carry Guard training classes.
Stop and think about that.
"NRA Foundation Changed Bylaws to Cut NRA BOD (Board of Directors)
Out of Governance"
by John Petrolino
Hat tip to Stephen P. Wenger.
It appears the NRA Foundation is also corrupt to the core.
Suicidal empathy.
"The only woke liberals that will stop voting for Steve Descano
are those that die from his policies."
The corruption runs deep in the U.S. Secret Service.
Primary source, X.com article by Susan Crabtree
"Female Secret Service Agent Who Didn’t Secure Roof of AGR
Building at Butler Rally on Day of Trump Assassination Attempt
Suspended AGAIN – Hid Marriage to [female] Foreign National"
by Cristina Laila
"Putting The "Didn't Earn It" Into DEI" by Docent
---
This is why President Trump maintains his own private security. He doesn't
dismiss the U.S. Secret Service, because he doesn't want to highlight their
incompetence.
“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
I always thought putting pictures of pretty girls on every other page of dry military
technical manuals would make them much easier to read and much more inviting to
be read. The dopamine is a great positive incentive and positive feedback for cracking
the book.
When I was in the Marine Corps, I noticed the magazines that the guys read:
"Easy Rider" et al, porno mags, car mags, etc. Lots of bright high-contrast colorful
high-resolution pictures.
The military manuals were text. No pictures. Few diagrams. I was one of the
few who actually read through all of the manuals for the crypto gear. The book logs
indicated that some had not been read, or even checked out, since before the
Vietnam War. I entered the Marine Corps in 1981.
Pictures of pretty girls work. The advertising agencies have been using them
forever.
And it is not exploitive. Many persons, predominantly young women,
advertise themselves on social media (which makes their pictures open source
in the public domain). These girls want to maximize their exposure. We are
helping to promote them by sharing their pictures on our platforms. What is
their purpose? To attract the attention of high value men and modeling agencies.
["Where is my husband?" -- Willow Hand]
I happen to have a large number of high value men in the audience of this newsletter.
Sounds like a win-win to me.
"Badge" by George Harrison and Eric Clapton
"The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
Having read the book.
Just saying,
She doesn't move her ass from one side of the seat to the other to adjust
balance to get the motorcycle to lean further over. I had to. And she takes
the course very fast. We were never allowed to go that fast. Maneuvering
at low speed is much more difficult and requires leaning the bike over much
more. And she is doing the course on a Honda. We had to do it on a Harley.
Semper Fidelis,
Jonathan D. Low
Email: Jon_Low@yahoo.com
Radio: KI4SDN
MilenaVaisik
