CWP, 23 April 2014 A.D.
Greetings Concealed Weapons Permittees,

***** Training *****

     Practice is not necessarily live fire.
Dry practice works.  Visualization works.
(Ask any world class athlete.)
As Dr. Ignatius Piazza says, live fire is only
needed to verify what you have learned in
dry practice.
     The one thing all world class atheletes have
in common is that they keep a highly detailed
journal.  This recording of empirical data transforms
the recreational sport into a scientific experiment.
Thus allowing you to apply the scientific method to
force improvement in performance.  The scientific
method is
hypothesis -> experiment -> theory -> hypothesis -> experiment -> theory
ad infinitum.
     When you go to a coaches class at an Olympic
Training Center, you pick up nugets of wisdom.
     How do you maintain balance?  What prevents you from
falling over?  Predominantly, it's visual cuing.  You see
horizon lines, vertical lines where walls meet, etc.
     In a high stress situation, we lose peripheral vision.
When we close our non-aiming eye to eliminate double images
(to ensure we are aiming at what we think we're aim at)
we lose stereoscopic vision.  So, we've lost most of
our visual cues.
     That means that in such situations we rely on our
inner ear for balance.  What can I do to improve my inner
ear balance?
     Stand up, feet together, arms out stretched to your sides,
up on the balls of your feet and your toes, twisting your
body, rotate all the way to your right, back to center,
rotate all the way to your left, back to center.  Fell over
a few times?  With practice you won't.  When you can do it
without falling, do it with your eyes closed.  That's the
exercise.
     Stand on one leg, holding the other out off the ground,
deep knee bend all the way down, then all the way back up.
Fell over?  With practice you won't.  When you can do it
without falling, do it with your eyes closed.  That's the
exercise.
     Closing your eyes eliminates visual cuing, forcing
you to exercise your inner ear balance.

***** Gear *****

Costa Ludus on night sights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rmVOkKJ0brI
Excerpt:  (paraphrase)
"Use a different color front sight.  So, you don't line
up the three dots with the front sight to the left or
right, as opposed to the center."
[end of excerpt]
     Having the sights that far out of alignment would
feel awkward.  I could tell.
     Maybe on a square range in calm conditions.  But,
he's talking about when the adrenaline is pumping in
high stress conditions.

Check out the inside the Waistband (IWB) holsters.
https://www.dragonleatherworks.com/

***** Ammo *****

Ammo prices.
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/04/18/ammo-prices-4182014/
The spread sheet on this web page is apparently
updated continuously as prices and supply changes.
I bought 1000 rounds of Wolf .45 ACP ammo for 36 cents
per round from Target Sports USA.  This was factory new
Russian ammunition, steel caes, Berdan primed, so not
reloadable, but cheap.  I received it 6 days after
ordering it, including a weekend.
The ammo was manufactured in February 2014.

***** News (as opposed to propaganda) *****

When Seconds Count
http://blog.robballen.com/Post/17499/when-seconds-count
Excerpt:
     This isn’t a “If she only had a gun!” moment because
apparently there WAS a gun in the household and for whatever
reason, she didn’t have control of it.  It’s simply to point
out that cops do not have teleporters and cannot necessarily
come to your rescue as fast as you need them to.
     You need to be your own first responder.
[end of excerpt]
     I whole heartedly agree.  That's why you need to have
recently taken a first aid class.  That why you need to
have recently taken a water safety / life saving class.
That's why you need to have recently taken a firearms class.
I know you have recently cleaned your gun.
Guns don't save people. People save people.

***** Humor *****

Tree being shot at, fights back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rR4qDg0QGik

Cheers,
Jon