Greetings Sheepdogs,
Beware of scams.
---
Hi Ed [Monk],
Who is Melissa Brown? Is her book,
"First 30 Seconds Workbook: Fix in Ed Monk's Teachings Into Your Mind"
authorized by you?
Cheers,
Jon
---
No, and from what I've read, it's not even about the Active Shooter.
It seems some people search Amazon for new releases that are selling well,
then quickly use AI to make a book with a cover/title very close to the real
book in order to syphon off sales. There is another one called "The First 30 Seconds."
Both books were published within a week of mine going on sale.
-- Ed Monk
“To those who have fought for it,
freedom has a flavor that the protected will never know.”
― P. McCree Thornton
"NRA Whittington Center's Youth Adventure Camp 2026 & 2027: Apply NOW"
https://www.nrafamily.org/content/nra-whittington-center-s-youth-adventure-camp-2026-2027-apply-now/
13 to 17 years of age.
Table of Contents:
Prevention
Mindset
Situational Awareness
Safety
Training
Psychology
Practice
Intervention
Strategy
Tactics
Techniques
Postvention
Aftermath
Medical
Survival
Education
Legal
Instruction
Gear
Cryptology
Signals Intelligence
Intelligence
Religion and Politics
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** Prevention ***** ***** *****
Things you can do to avoid the lethal force incident.
ON THIS DAY [July 22nd] in 1893, Katharine Lee Bates, a young English professor
from Massachusetts, penned a poem after visiting the breathtaking vistas of Pikes Peak
in Colorado Springs. The poem — "America the Beautiful."
Table of sections:
Mindset
Safety
Training
Psychology
Practice
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Mindset and Attitude --------------------------------
Figuring out the correct way to think.
"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
You must be more willing to use force than the bad guy. You must be willing to use
force before the bad guy uses force. Pre-emptive strikes are within the realm of self-defense.
Ya, you may be arrested, prosecuted, even convicted. That's the real world.
No way to avoid it. Accept it an carry on.
The other option is to lose, which means debilitating permanent injury or death to you;
and kidnap, rape, torture, and murder of loved ones.
The choice is always yours.
Pinal County Sheriff
"Your life is as good as your mindset." -- Nicola Cavanis
Your marksmanship is probabilistic, not deterministic. Because you are operating
in the real world. Your training to learn what to do, and your practice to be able to do
it under the stress of competition or combat, only affect the variance of your shot group,
not the point of impact of any particular shot.
Any correctly executed, well aimed, shot you make will be normally distributed on
your target in two dimensions. This would be true, even from a machine rest. The
machine rest would give a smaller variance (or maybe not), but it would still be a
normal distribution.
So your miss (however you choose to determine it) may not be caused by a
mistake on your part. It may be caused by the laws of probability and the physics
of the real world, causing your shots to obey a normal distribution.
All independent events obey the normal distribution. It's like the law of gravity.
It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not.
If you're a beginner, the miss is caused by you. If you're an intermediately skilled
shooter using reliable equipment, you would probably consider your group to be
within 2 standard deviations of your point of aim, but remember the normal distribution
extends to infinity. There is a low, but non-zero, probability of getting a shot off
the target stand, even when you do everything correctly. If you are an advanced
shooter, your round count for training, practice, and competition is very high;
so the probability of your seeing low probability events in the tails of the distribution
is much higher.
We learn all this stuff in artillery school, but then think that because our pistols
are so small, and close to us, and completely under our control that the laws of
physics and probability don't apply anymore. But they do.
"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
America is the only country that allows drug companies to advertise directly to you,
the consumer. (Well, one could argue that New Zealand does too. But they are very
restrictive compared to America.) Why?
So that people will be aware of drugs and ask their doctors to prescribe the
drugs to them? No.
So that the doctors will be aware of the drugs and prescribe the drugs to their
patients? No.
The real reason is to prevent the broadcast media from ever publishing news
reports that are critical of the drug companies. No company would bite the hand
that feeds it. Advertising revenue is the blood of media companies.
In that same vein, America is the only country that has the right to keep and
bear arms written into its Constitution. (Well, one could argue . . . ) Why?
So that the people will keep and bear arms? No. Very few Americans keep
and bear arms. (Even in states with permitless carry.)
So that the politicians will fear the people? No. About half the politicians
don't believe in the right to keep and bear arms. They constantly propose and
pass legislation to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. All of the mayors
of the large cities in our country have called for total gun bans. They swear to
uphold and defend the Constitution and break their oath.
So what is the real reason for the Second Amendment? This is not a rhetorical
question. You should be able to answer it, definitively.
“My grandfather, a cop and blooded gunfighter, was present one night when
I was a small child and had a nightmare. My parents, of course, were dedicated
to calming me down and included the old canard of "there's no such thing as monsters"
in their assurances. My grandfather later sat me down and told me there were indeed
monsters in the world. "What makes 'em scary," he told me, "is they look like
everyone else. But if you keep your eye on 'em and be on your guard . . . sooner
or later, you'll see the mask slip." ”
-- Jay Winton
"Self-Preservation: Confronting The Unthinkable"
by Alex Ooley
Excerpt:
"Put simply, the goal isn’t to win a fight—it’s to avoid being selected for the fight
in the first place. “Criminals don’t want to fight,” he [William Aprill] said.
“They want to win.” If they sense that you’re paying attention, carry yourself confidently,
or might present too much of a problem, they’ll likely move on.
But this isn’t something you can fake at the last second. You can’t slap on a
“tough guy” mask when you’re walking to your car in a dark parking lot and
expect it to work. As Aprill emphasized, deselection must be a lifestyle.
Your posture, your awareness, your decisions all must consistently broadcast
the message: “I’m not worth the trouble.” "
"If you’re serious about self-defense, do yourself this favor:
Take a course that challenges not your shooting ability but your thinking ability."
‟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
"Are You Being Set Up to Fail? The Dark Side of Self-Defense Training"
by Tim Larkin
Context is essential.
"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
“Positive Suspicion” by John Farnam
https://defense-training.com/positive-suspicion/
"Before all else, be armed." -- Nicolo Machiavelli
"The line between everyday life and sudden violence is thinner than most realize."
-- Tim Larkin
"Firearms are second only to the constitution in importance,
they are the people's liberty's teeth." -- George Washington
"Be so focused on watering your grass that
you don't have time to check if someone else's is greener."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"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
“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
‷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
"Have your affairs in order."
-- John Hearne
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil and
evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." -- Jeff Cooper
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ 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
"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)
"An officer may be forgiven for losing a battle,
but never for being taken by surprise."
-- Jeff Cooper
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ 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.
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
Lon Etchison's post
"First 30 Seconds: The Active Shooter Problem" by Ed Monk
ISBN-13 : 979-8286317271
---
I have taken Ed's classes. I highly recommend.
It is true that much of what is taught in government schools is WRONG.
(Maybe everything.)
For instance, the only way to have zero casualties is to PREVENT the attack,
not to react to the attack. Prevention does not take clairvoyance. It takes
intelligence gathering, analysis, and dissemination. And, of course, the will
to interdict. Cowards lack this will. [We were doing this before the Global War
On Terrorism, because most officers are cowards. And no modern officer can be
promoted to flag rank without demonstrating their cowardice (which is confused
with their loyalty to the presiding administration and their willingness to go along
with the program, be it "diversity", DEI, or whatever). So the second
President Bush had to declare the GWOT by executive order to get the officers
to act. Military officers are more risk averse than corporate executives.]
The first response to an attack should be immediate counter-attack.
As Col. Jeff Cooper says, fleeing does not stop the attack. Stopping the attack
always saves more lives than fleeing from the attack. Such is taught in every
infantry school. "Immediate counter attack."
"Gut feelings are guardian angels."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"CCW in Israel" by John Farnam
Excerpt:
"Terrorists always scan bystanders before they attack.
They predictably shoot first anyone visibly armed!
I therefore sternly advise all my students to keep their
carry-pistols discretely out of sight. I know discrete
concealment is the norm over there in The States,
but we’re still learning here."
---
"Progress!" by John Farnam
Excerpt:
“Who profess to favor freedom, yet depreciate agitation,
are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
They want rain without thunder and lightning.
They want the ocean, yet without the roar of its many waters.”
-- Fred Douglas
"Safety is something that happens between your ears,
not something you hold in your hands."
-- Jeff Cooper
"Avoid The Issue
Preventive Defense—avoiding incidents rather than reacting to them—is the best defense."
by Steve Tarani
"It's easier to stay out of trouble than to get out of trouble."
-- Claude Werner
Hundreds of Americans are injured or killed every year by "unloaded" guns while
cleaning their gun or showing their gun to others or handling their gun. These
persons honestly believed that their gun was unloaded. There is a huge difference
between belief and truth.
In epistemology, knowledge is Justified True Belief.
You are only Justified in believing that the gun is unloaded if you check the gun
yourself. Taking someone else's word for it is WRONG. Relying on your memory
is WRONG.
It is True that the gun is unloaded only if there is no magazine in the magazine
well and there is no cartridge in the chamber. Which requires an inspection.
Magazine check and chamber check. If you don't know how to do these, ask your
instructor.
Believing a thing without Justification and Truth is WRONG.
---
John Farnam says the primary reason for negligent discharges is unnecessary
gun handling.
So, keep your pistol holstered when not shooting. Need to use the bathroom,
KEEP your pistol holstered. Need to change clothes, KEEP your pistol holstered.
Need to transfer your pistol to another pair of pants, KEEP the pistol holstered and
transfer the holstered pistol to the new pair of pants.
There is no reason to remove the pistol from the holster except to shoot the
pistol or to clean the pistol.
"I have to store the pistol in my safe."
Okay, removed the holstered pistol from your belt and place the holstered pistol
in your safe. Don't take it out of the holster.
The less you handle your pistol, the less chance of a negligent discharge.
Dry practice is necessary intentional gun handling. We are trying to eliminate
unnecessary gun handling.
"You are not responsible for negative reactions to your boundaries."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"Protecting Criminals!" by John Farnam
"Everyday Threats!" by John Farnam
“Remote” Areas!
by John Farnam
---
Don't be a good victim. Always shoot first.
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.
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Training --------------------------------
Figuring out the correct tasks to practice.
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)
"Deadly Force:
Training with John Murphy
Thinking While Fighting"
by Massad Ayoob
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
"Having a gun is important.
But knowing WHEN to use it is even more important."
-- Greg Ellifritz
"Avoiding The Ambush" by Jeff Chudwin
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpt:
MAJOR ROBERT ROGERS, 1759
1. Don’t forget nothing.
2. Have your musket clean as a whistle, hatchet scoured, sixty rounds powder and ball,
and be ready to march at a minute’s warning.
3. When you’re on the march, act the way you would if you was sneaking up on a deer.
See the enemy first.
4. Tell the truth about what you see and what you do. There is an army depending on
us for correct information. You can lie all you please when you tell other folks about
the Rangers, but don’t never lie to a Ranger or officer.
5. Don’t never take a chance you don’t have to.
6. When we’re on the march we march single file, far enough apart so one shot can’t
go through two men.
7. If we strike swamps, or soft ground, we spread out abreast, so it’s hard to track us.
8. When we march, we keep moving till dark, so as to give the enemy the least
possible chance at us.
9. When we camp, half the party stays awake while the other half sleeps.
10. If we take prisoners, we keep’ em separate till we have had time to examine them,
so they can’t cook up a story between’ em.
11. Don’t ever march home the same way. Take a different route so you won’t
be ambushed.
12. No matter whether we travel in big parties or little ones, each party has to keep
a scout 20 yards ahead, 20 yards on each flank, and 20 yards in the rear so the main
body can’t be surprised and wiped out.
13. Every night you’ll be told where to meet if surrounded by a superior force.
14. Don’t sit down to eat without posting sentries.
15. Don’t sleep beyond dawn. Dawn’s when the French and Indians attack.
16. Don’t cross a river by a regular ford.
17. If somebody’s trailing you, make a circle, come back onto your own tracks,
and ambush the folks that aim to ambush you.
18. Don’t stand up when the enemy’s coming against you. Kneel down, lie down,
hide behind a tree.
19. Let the enemy come till he’s almost close enough to touch, then let him have
it and jump out and finish him up with your hatchet. ✪
---
Small amounts of daily training, instead of the 3-day annual conference
is much more effective for learning.
"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 drawstroke."
-- Jeff L. Gonzales
"NEW STUDY:
Time to Stop—Why Even the Most Disciplined Officers
Can’t Stop Faster than Humanly Possible"
by Lon Bartel, M.S., PES, TSAC-F
Excerpt:
"Even with no stress, no confusion, and no decision-making demands
beyond color recognition, stopping wasn’t immediate." [This is reality. -- Jon Low]
"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
"Mechanical Advantage
There are two things which cause you to miss.
Here's how to correct both of them."
by Steve Tarani
Excerpt:
"Cleaning up such micro-timing errors buys you tenths of seconds.
Two or even three of these remedied errors can lower your overall time
as much as a half-second or more which is an eternity in both combat
and competition."
“Train, Practice, Compete
are the key elements in the development of humans.”
-- John M. Buol, Jr.
Email from Tim Larkin --
Everyone thinks they know what to do when someone pulls a knife.
"Get distance. Back away. Run if you can."
That's what every self-defense "expert" teaches.
It's also exactly how you end up bleeding out on the ground.
Because here's what actually happens when you back away from a knife . . .
You trigger the attacker's predator response.
You become prey . . .
And suddenly you're being chased by someone faster, stronger, and more
desperate than you are. With a weapon in their hand.
But there's something even worse about backing away . . .
It puts you in the ONE position where the knife becomes most deadly.
See most people think the blade is what makes a knife dangerous.
Wrong . . .
It's the DISTANCE at which the blade operates.
When you back away, you put yourself at the perfect striking distance for a knife attack.
Close enough for them to lunge at you . . .
Far enough that you can't do anything about it . . .
It's like standing in the exact spot where a baseball pitcher can nail you with a fastball.
Except the "baseball" is razor sharp. And the "pitcher" wants to kill you.
This is just ONE of the fatal mistakes that traditional weapons training teaches.
The same mistakes that get people killed every single day.
Because here's the truth nobody wants to admit . . .
Most weapon "defense" systems were created by people who've never faced real violence.
They're based on theory, not reality. Academic exercises, not life-or-death encounters.
. . .
The weapon isn't the problem. The person holding it is.
And when you focus on shutting down the PERSON instead of the weapon . . .
Everything changes.
You don't need complicated disarm techniques . . .
You don't need to be faster than a knife . . .
You don't need years of training . . .
You just need to understand how human biology works.
Because every attacker - no matter how big, strong, or well-armed -
shuts down the exact same way.
It's not about the weapon . . . it's about the person.
And once you shut down the person . . .
Taking their weapon becomes easy. Stop focusing on the weapon.
Start focusing on the person. Don't let some predator with a knife
catch you backing away.
Stay Safe,
Tim Larkin
“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
"Emptying My Notebooks: Learning from the Failure of GUN CURIOUS"
by David Yamane
John Farnam says in his classes that we are hear to "fail magnificently".
For it is only by failure that we learn. It takes a certain level of maturity and
sophistication to understand this. If you don't understand this, you will never
push the boundaries of your envelope. (Envelope of comfort. Don't want to
be uncomfortable. Envelope of competence. Don't want to let others see us
fail. . . . )
"There are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous men." -- Robert A. Heinlein
After Action Report by John Holschen on
"Cougar Mountain Solutions LE Pistol Mounted Optics Instructor Course"
by Erik Gelhaus
“If you are reading this and can’t put your hand on your defensive firearm,
all of your training is wasted.” -- Col. Jeff Cooper
"The Self-Defense Audit: Are You Really Ready?"
Excerpt:
"It’s one thing to own a gun for self-defense.
It’s another thing entirely to be prepared to use it —
safely, legally and with confidence."
"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
Email from Tim Larkin --
Drug-fueled attackers don't play by the same rules.
They don't feel pain the way sober people do. They don't respond to psychological
pressure. They don't shut down from techniques that work on everyone else.
Most violent attacks involve drugs or alcohol. Yet almost all self-defense training
completely ignores this reality. Most instructors won't even mention the possibility
that your attacker might be intoxicated. They teach techniques as if everyone feels
pain normally. As if everyone thinks rationally. As if everyone stops when they should.
But that's not the real world . . .
And it gets worse when that drug-fueled attacker has a weapon. Now you're not just
dealing with someone who can't feel pain. You're dealing with someone who can't
feel pain AND has a knife. Or a gun. Or a broken bottle.
Here's what actually happens when your attacker is high . . .
Those pressure points everyone loves? Chemically blocked.
Joint manipulation? They'll tear their own ligaments to keep fighting.
Pain compliance? What pain?
Intimidation tactics? They're already beyond rational fear.
You're essentially fighting someone with a built-in anesthesia system.
A human who doesn't know when to quit. And they're armed.
This is why cops carry multiple tools - tasers, pepper spray, batons.
Because what drops one person might not even slow down another.
But here's what rarely anyone talks about . . .
While chemicals can block pain . . . they can't override basic human biology.
Every person - sober or high - needs the same thing to function. When that
gets disrupted, they drop. Doesn't matter what's in their system. Doesn't matter
how tough they think they are. Doesn't matter what weapon they're holding.
Biology wins every time . . .
This is one of the core principles I teach in Weapons Mastery.
Because when someone's high AND armed . . . standard techniques become useless.
You need what actually works. Not what hurts them. Not what should work.
What DOES work. Every single time.
Don't let traditional training leave you unprepared for reality.
Stay Safe,
Tim Larkin
"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
Email from Jeff L. Gonzales
Hello Jonathan,
One of the most critical factors in any training program is consistency.
Skills, whether physical or mental, are perishable and require regular practice
to maintain peak performance. Sporadic training can leave gaps in ability,
while steady, deliberate effort creates a strong foundation you can build on
over time. Remember, it’s not about occasional bursts of hard work, but rather a disciplined routine that keeps you sharp and ready.
Current Observations
Recently I completed a test study on carry guns performance. It was a hard look at performance improvements from gear modifications. To have the best chance of gaining meaningful information I had to put a lot of time in developing a baseline to measure against that would become the benchmark. What I didn't realize at the time was how consistent my performance has become. In the process of capturing data over time using a couple of different drills I discovered how consistent I was when I reviewed the data. My mean hit factor was ~6.27 and my median hit factor was ~6.35 giving me a standard deviation of ~0.71.
Understanding Standard Deviation
Standard deviation is a measure of how spread out data points are from the average (mean). A low standard deviation means results are clustered closely around the mean, showing high consistency, while a high standard deviation indicates more variability and less predictability. In training, monitoring standard deviation helps ensure performance is reliable and not just the result of occasional outliers.
Why Practice Matters
Each training session builds on the last, reinforcing muscle memory and decision-making under stress. The more consistent you are, the more second-nature your skills become—allowing you to perform confidently even in high-pressure situations. Consistency doesn’t just improve technical proficiency; it also builds resilience, confidence, and trust in your abilities and equipment.
Tips to Improve Training Consistency
If you want to strengthen your training routine, focus on making small but impactful adjustments:
Set a realistic schedule: Commit to specific training days and times based around your time and resources.
Track your progress: Keep a journal or app log to measure improvements and spot weaknesses.
Incorporate variety: Mix in different drills or scenarios to keep training engaging and challenging.
Good luck out there,
JLG
P.S. Feel free to share this with any like-minded folks who might benefit.
"A mistake that makes you humble is better
than an achievement that makes you arrogant."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"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
Signer of the Declaration of Independence
"Police Shootings, Tactical Vision, and De-Escalation with the NURO System"
by Dustin Salomon, Building Shooters
"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
"In reality, we are training for an unknown event, against unknown threats,
by developing as many known skills as possible."
-- Jeff Gonzales
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Psychology --------------------------------
"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
"NEW STUDY:
Time to Stop—Why Even the Most Disciplined Officers
Can’t Stop Faster than Humanly Possible"
by Lon Bartel, M.S., PES, TSAC-F
Excerpt:
"Even with no stress, no confusion, and no decision-making demands
beyond color recognition, stopping wasn’t immediate." [This is reality. -- Jon Low]
Email from Orion Taraban, Psy.D. --
"The value of your labor."
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025
According to an apocryphal story, a woman once recognized Pablo Picasso
drinking in a café. Screwing up her courage, she approached the master and
begged him for a sketch as a memento of the encounter. Picasso obliged her
request and dashed off a likeness on a napkin in less than a minute.
When he had finished, he asked the woman for a million francs in exchange
for the drawing. The woman was outraged. How could he possibly charge so
much for something that had taken so little time to create? Picasso calmly
replied, “my dear, it took me a lifetime to be able to draw this sketch.”
Your earning is decided – not by the time you spend, or the effort you
make – but by the value you produce. This is because your time and effort are
ultimately irrelevant to others. It is only the extent to which your time and effort
impact others' goals that matters. Indeed, a fast cure will always be more valuable
than a slow one. Just be sure to get the money up front.
This week's behavioral experiment:
How could you possibly provide value to others independent of your time?
Begin to move in that direction.
Warmly,
Orion
[Do you see how this applies to training? -- Jon Low]
“Training deals not with an object,
but with the human spirit and human emotions.”
--Bruce Lee
*************************************************************************
Mike
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Conferences --------------------------------
Attending classes and conferences is required for growth.
Stagnation is complacency. Complacency kills.
"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
The Bulletproof House of Worship Safety Conference
Poster,
WINCHESTER, KENTUCKY, AUGUST 16, 2025
ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO, SEPTEMBER 18 - 20, 2025
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK, OCTOBER 17, 2025
Gun Owners of America annual meeting, free of charge
Knoxville Convention Center, Knoxville, TN
9 - 10 August 2025 A.D.
---
GOA Defend Her High Caliber Brunch, $15
Sunday, August 10th at 11:00 AM
The Marriott Ballroom in Knoxville, TN.
TFALAC’s 2025 Annual Event
Saturday, September 6, 2025
Farm Bureau Expo Center at the
James E. Ward Agricultural Center on the
Wilson County Fairgrounds.
945 East Baddour Parkway
Lebanon, Tennessee 37087
Bullets & Bibles Conference, $750
Friday, September 12, 2025 – Sunday, September 14, 2025
Living Water Ranch, north of Manhattan, KS.
For more information about lodging (free lodging in the dorms) on site or
meals (3 meals a day included in registration fee) or
if you have any questions regarding the event,
contact our Bullets & Bibles Conference Coordinator,
Vonda Copeland
director@fhftc.org
or call 785-293-2449.
Guardian Conference, $800
September 19th - 21st, 2025
in Oklahoma City, OK.
40th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference! Free.
Sept. 26 - 28 in Salt Lake City, Utah, at the
Salt Lake Marriott Downtown at City Creek.
Combatives Association Summit, $899.00
October 24 - 26, 2025
D'Iberville, Mississippi
Register at
Rangemaster Tactical Conference, $639
TacCon26 is scheduled for
March 27-29, 2026
at the Dallas Pistol Club in Carrollton, Texas
https://taccon.info/register/
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Classes --------------------------------
Attending classes and conferences is required to avoid teaching
obsolete material, and to ensure you are teaching best practices.
Free Law of Self Defense seminar
August 16 at 1PM Eastern.
Firearms Instructor Development, $795
Fri, Aug 22, 2025, 9:00 AM CDT – Sun, Aug 24, 2025, 6:00 PM CDT
Royal Range, 7741 Highway 70 South, Nashville, TN, USA
Applied Defensive Handgun Skills - Ogden UT, John Holschen
Date: August 30-31, 2025
Facility: Weber Country Shooting Sports Complex
Location: 2446 Rulon White Blvd, Ogden UT 84404
Combative Pistol, $495
Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 9:00 AM EDT – Sun, Oct 26, 2025, 6:00 PM EDT // 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM CDT
Cohutta Pines Gun Range, 367 Old Highway 2, Cisco, GA, USA
(East of Chattanooga, TN.)
Intensive Pistol Skills, $495
Sat, Nov 8, 2025, 9:00 AM CST – Sun, Nov 9, 2025, 6:00 PM CST
2220 Wilson Hill Rd, Lewisburg, Tennessee, United States
(About an hour south of Nashville, just off I-65.)
"Advanced Defensive Handgun" by John Farnam
08 - 09 November 2025 A.D.
Nashville, TN (well, actually a bit north in Cross Plains, TN)
Venue: Deer Hollow Fire Arms Training
Annual Rangemaster Instructor Conference, $495 (for Rangemaster instructors)
Sat, Dec 6, 2025, 9:00 AM CST – Sun, Dec 7, 2025, 6:00 PM CST
Royal Range, 7741 Highway 70 South, Nashville, TN, USA
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paladin Tower Tactics (Scott Willey)
Massad Ayoob Group
Blog
West Coast Armory North, John Holschen
Law of Self Defense, live online class upcoming dates
September 27, 2025
TFI Academy (Keith Tyler)
Training in Context (Tatiana Whitlock)
Active Response Training (Greg Ellifritz)
Modern Warriors
Rangemaster Certified Instructors
Map of Rangemaster Certified Instructors
Dustin Salomon
KR Training
Kari Grayson
Citizens Safety Academy
Carry Trainer, Mickey Schuch
Paladin Training, Inc.
Citizen-Defender, John Murphy
Virginia Private Firearms Training (for private lessons), John Murphy
Defensive Training International, John Farnam
Rangemaster, Tom Givens
Trident Concepts, Jeff Gonzales
Apache Solutions, Tim Kelly
Harris Combative Strategies, Randy Harris
Mead Hall Range & Tactics
Two Pillars Training, John Hearne
Mike Seeklander
‟Training is NOT an event, but a process.
Training is the preparation FOR practice.”
-- Claude Werner
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Practice --------------------------------
How to get proficient at that task.
‟Be careful what you practice.
Because you will do in combat whatever you have practiced,
no matter how ridiculous.”
-- Sara Ahrens, ‶Shooting in Self-Defense″
"Daily Dry Fire: Improve Your Shooting in 15 Minutes a Day"
by Travis Pike
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpts:
"Practice what you know when you dry fire."
"Make it a routine."
"Practice daily, or every other day at least. Make it routine."
"Do It Right, Even When It’s Slow."
"Go as fast as you can while doing it absolutely perfectly."
---
Dry fire doesn't need to be boring. Dream up scenarios and practice them in your home.
Yes, working on basics is important, so you should. But there are lots of awkward position,
corner and doorway, etc. problems to solve in your home. Even if your home is a studio
apartment, you have the home invasion, unexpected visitor, suspicious visitor, etc.
"Your speed doesn't matter. Forward is forward."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"Five Guaranteed Ways To Become a Better Shooter" by Travis Pike
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
---
The one thing all world class athletes have in common is that they keep a highly
detailed journal. This gives them the data to apply the scientific method to force
improvement in their performance. The journal allows them to see the road ahead
and the road behind. You need to see the road behind so you don't keep making
the same mistakes over and over. (That's not something stupid people do. It's
something ignorant people do. Ignorant because they don't know that they had
that problem before and solved it already. Because they don't remember or they
don't recognize the similarity between their present problem and the previous
problem. Ya, there are other subtle psychological things going on, but you get
the idea.)
The Olympic Training Centers have open enrollment courses for coaching.
You might want to avail yourself of such. I highly recommend it. Ya, they're
expensive, but if you apply early and request, you can probably get free lodging
in the dorms with the resident athletes, and free food in the cafeteria.
"Practice your shooting by doing exactly the same thing,
exactly the same way, every time, until it is completely automatic."
-- Duaine Zeitz
Post by Gabriel Suarez --
"SMOOTHNESS OVER SPEED!"
I don't worry about timers, but there is a sense of urgency and I don't take my
time either. The head shots at 3 yards are very snappy, whereas the head shots at
25 take longer.
You can't miss fast enough to make a difference. I allow my sense of killing
my adversary to guide my tempo. I want to shoot the terrorist in the face, but I
don't want to miss. If I miss he gets a shot at me. If I hit, its over.
A different sense than one of an external clock. Easy to game if one is a gamer,
but challenging if one trains like a warrior.
-- Gabe Suarez
“Willingness is a state of mind. Readiness is a statement of fact!”
-- Lt. Gen. David M Shoup, USMC Commandant 1960-1963
Everyone wants to win. Few are willing to put in the practice to ensure their win.
"Remember, growing may feel like breaking at first."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"You have to be lucky to win. And the more you practice, the luckier you get."
-- Col. Lones Wigger
Why practice?
“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are
figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very
special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy
if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could
have been their finest hour.”
-- Winston Churchill
‶Practice is the small deposits you make over time,
so that in an emergency, you can make that big withdrawal.″
-- Chesley Burnett Sullenberger, III
"People rust faster than equipment."
-- John Hearne
"Remember, the day you plant the seed is not the day you earn the fruit."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"There is no glory in practice, but without practice there is no glory."
-- Jeff Gonzales
*************************************************************************
Mike
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** 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.
"Never let fear decide your fate." -- Nicola Cavanis
“How do you win a gunfight?
Don't be there.”
-- John Farnam
The jurisdiction you live in matters. Choose wisely.
"You win gunfights by not getting shot."
-- John Holschen
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Tactics --------------------------------
Maneuver and fire in support of your strategy.
"Superior judgment trumps superior skills." -- Dan Millican
"Closing with the enemy" by Claude Werner
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpt:
"Closing with an enemy needs to always be a conscious decision,
never an unconscious one."
---
Chuck Haggard's comment, June 24, 2015 at 1:18 pm --
I’ve lost count of how many times I have seen this sort of thing in training,
even when we specifically tell people about it ahead of time.
Some of the most glaring cases are when we do OC exposure training,
the officer who has been sprayed is obviously at a great disadvantage as
far as ability to see, yet they will break from cover while giving commands
to the “suspect” in order to get closer, even though pistols are clearly able
to shoot across the distances in which we work drills.
---
One would only close with the enemy to increase probability of hitting.
As civilian defenders, our goal is to escape, not to kill the enemy. You must
know this before the fight, because you will not figure it out during the fight.
"Real fights are short." -- Bruce Lee
"Ineffective and potentially dangerous, point shooting should be avoided at all costs
and aimed fire employed in any lethal-force scenario."
-- Massad Ayoob
"You often don't know where the bad guy is who is shooting at you."
-- Phillip Groff
"The shorter the fight, the less hurt you get."
-- John Holschen
“People shoot you because they see you.
They see you because you let them.
Don’t let them see you.”
-- Clint Smith
"Without discrimination,
you're going to shoot the wrong person really fast."
-- Paul Howe
“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
"Be stronger than your strongest excuse."
-- Nicola Cavanis
‟Fear is an instinct. Courage is a choice.”
-- Rear Admiral Joseph Kernan, U.S. Navy
"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
---
". . . 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
---
When was last time you practiced your in-holster weapon retention skills?
Have you taken a class to learn such techniques?
“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.)
". . . 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"
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Techniques --------------------------------
Ways to execute a given task in support of your tactics,
especially when disabled or under stress.
"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
"Self-Defense: Establishing A Good Grip From Draw"
by Richard A. Mann
Excerpt:
"The possibility even exists that, without the proper grip,
you might actually drop your pistol."
"It's not daily increase but daily decrease - hack away at the inessentials!"
-- Bruce Lee
Wow!
“What’s the number one reason for reloading?
Missing the target!”
-- Claude Werner
"3 Handgun Carry Mistakes That Could RUIN Your Life!" by The Gun Warehouse
Always use a holster. [The pros and cons are listed.]
Always carry with a round in the chamber.
[You won't have the time or opportunity to rack the slide.]
Ensure your pistol is easily and quickly accessible.
The meat doesn't start until 1:08 / 17:52. Index in description.
At 13:38, the narrator gives a road map for training.
"Grip first, then press."
-- Mike Seeklander
"Use only that which works,
and take it from any place you can find it."
-- Bruce Lee
"Denn jedes Mal, wenn was geht, ist Platz für Neues.
Und wenn es gestern nicht sein soll, dann klappt es heut 🦋"
-- Nicola Cavanis
There are many techniques for doing any given task.
Search and experiment until you find one that works for you.
"The foundations of your grip are established
before you even draw the pistol from the holster."
-- Tanner Denton
"Why are the little things called little things?
They are everything."
-- Nicola Cavanis
*************************************************************************
Faith
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** 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 contents:
Aftermath
Medical
Survival
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Aftermath --------------------------------
You must be alive to have these problems: criminal and civil liability.
“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
CCW Safe has acquired Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network.
In the right hand column of this web page, click on "Never Talk To The Police"
or use the address,
"NEW STUDY:
Time to Stop—Why Even the Most Disciplined Officers
Can’t Stop Faster than Humanly Possible"
by Lon Bartel, M.S., PES, TSAC-F
Excerpt:
"Even with no stress, no confusion, and no decision-making demands
beyond color recognition, stopping wasn’t immediate." [This is reality. -- Jon Low]
---
You must know this stuff, because when some bad guy forces you to shot him,
the police won't know this, the prosecutor won't know this, your attorney won't know
this, the jury won't know this. You better have the insurance policy to have the money
to hire an expert witness to explain this to everyone. If you do this early enough in
the process, you can prevent the trial by getting all the charges dismissed.
That would be a big win for you.
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
Another mass attempted murder stopped by legally armed citizens! Yeah!
"Armed Citizen Stops Mass Knife Attack" by Liberty Doll
Three minute response time means 3 minutes after the calls to 911 started coming in.
The bad guy was stabbing people for several minutes before the calls started coming in.
The media loves to mention that the good guys were Marines. Even when they served
20 years ago. Once a Marine, always a Marine, so why reenlist?
"Clerk Sentenced to 20 to 50 Years For Shooting Shoplifter" by John Correia
---
Active Self Protection
“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
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Medical --------------------------------
"If you prepare for the emergency,
the emergency ceases to exist!"
-- Sherman House
From an email from Tim Larkin --
Your health care is supposed to keep you healthy, right?
Prevent disease. Treat injuries. Fix what's broken.
But there's ONE vulnerability that no health care system will ever address.
The 3-second window when someone decides you're an easy target.
Here's the problem with health care . . .
It's designed to fix you AFTER something bad happens.
Heart attack? We'll treat it.
Broken bones? We'll set them.
Trauma injuries? We'll stitch you up.
But what about PREVENTING the violence that causes those injuries in the first place?
That's not their job.
Because the medical system assumes you're helpless.
They assume when violence happens TO you, you have no control.
But what if that's completely wrong?
What if your body already has a built-in protection system more powerful
than any security team?
It's the same system that lets any person - regardless of size or strength - shut
down any threat in under 5 seconds.
It's systematic. It's repeatable. And it's based on pure biology.
The kind of biology your doctor knows . . . but never thinks to teach you for protection.
Because health care might treat the injuries . . .
But avoiding them altogether? That's on you.
Stay Safe,
Tim Larkin
Tactical Emergency Casualty Care Course - NAEMT Certified, $495.00
https://www.dontbleedout.com/products/tactical-emergency-casualty-care-course
Tracey Mendenhall | VP of Operations
(Life Saving Ninja)
DEFEND SYSTEMS
(615) 480-7758
“Your character is what you do when no one is looking.”
-- Thomas Jefferson
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Survival --------------------------------
"Survival is not based solely on technique. Survivability may hinge on the use
of the correct technique appropriate to the environment you are fighting in.
Oh, and yes, marksmanship is always valuable."
-- Clint Smith
"If you stay fit, you do not have to get fit.
If you stay trained, you do not have to get trained.
If you stay prepared, you do not have to get prepared."
-- Robert Margulies
"Survival is a mindset, not a skill set."
-- Greg Shaffer
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** 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
Rangemaster AUGUST 2025 NEWSLETTER
Read the article "They ain't us."
"50 Best Tactical Blogs and Websites in 2025
The best Tactical blogs from thousands of blogs on the web and ranked by
relevancy, authority, social media followers & freshness."
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Citizen-Defender, John Murphy
Active Self Protection, John Correia
"My Gun Culture" by Tom McHale
Quips, John Farnam
Active Response Training, Greg Ellifritz
The Tactical Professor, Claude Werner
Rangemaster Newsletter, Tom Givens
American Handgunner Magazine
Tactical Science
International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors
Alien Gear blog
Shooting Classes Blog
"Cogito, ergo armatum sum." (I think, therefore armed am I.)
-- John Farnam
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Legal --------------------------------
“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
"7th Circuit Court Drops the Hammer: Illegal Aliens Have No 2nd Amendment Rights"
Excerpt:
"Put simply: if you haven’t pledged allegiance to America,
you don’t get to claim its constitutional protections — especially
when it comes to firearms."
Gun Laws in the U.S.
Be careful when looking at the maps, because if you put your cursor over a state
you will change the color of the state. And the color corresponds to captions in the
legend.
"What You Need to Know About Concealed Carry Laws"
by Larry Norfleet
Free Law of Self Defense seminar
August 16, 2025 A.D. at 1:00 PM Eastern.
"LAWYER: How Sig 320 Can Create HUGE Legal Liability for YOU!"
by The Attorney Andrew Branca Show
---
The Sig 365 has a quality control issue. Lots of parts are breaking in classes.
[I too have heard this from instructors at conferences. -- Jon Low]
---
Kimber brought a group of persons into the company to increase profit. They
succeeded by lowering cost of production by lowering quality of parts. The stock
holders were satisfied. That group of persons left Kimber and went to Sig Sauer
in America. Same strategy, same result. The stockholders love it.
If you're not a hard core shooter, if you don't shoot your pistol much, you'll
never notice the quality difference.
But then this group of persons went too far in their quest for increased profit
margins. Discharges upon dropping. Discharges without the trigger being pressed.
The problem is that if Sig recalls the pistols and fixes them, they effectively
admit that there is a problem. And they can't do that, because then all of the plaintiff
attorneys would have evidence to use in their lawsuits.
"My FIRST Court Martial CASE | Active Self Protection Extra"
by John Corriea
The 8 members of the panel (that's what they call a jury) are all officers of superior
rank to the defendant (who was an officer, Lt.). In a court martial of an enlisted person,
the defendant has the right to request ⅓ enlisted representation on the panel. All enlisted
personnel must be of rank superior the defendant.
This was Marine Corps, but the Uniform Code of Military Justice applies to all
members of the U.S. Armed Forces.
"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
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Instruction --------------------------------
"Remember,
the students who require the extra effort
are the ones who need us the most!"
-- John Farnam
*************************************************************************
----- Instructors -----
"The limited time you spend with students may be the only training they ever receive!"
-- John Farnam
“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
"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
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
"You must teach skill sustainment as part of training."
-- John Hearne
"You don't have to memorize formulae.
Because you can always derive them from first principles."
-- Sven Hartman
[So teach principles, not formulae.]
"Thinking is the hardest thing a person can do.
That's why so few people do it."
-- Henry Ford
"Your curriculum needs to be recent, relevant, and realistic."
-- Austin Killmer
*************************************************************************
----- Students -----
"It's better to be wrong than to be vague."
-- Freeman Dyson
[If you are wrong, the instructor can correct you. If you are vague, no one can help you.]
"Growth is uncomfortable because you've never been there before."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"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
*************************************************************************
----- Andragogy -----
‟An instructor should not expect any learning to
take place the first time new information is presented.”
-- ‶Building Shooters″ by Dustin Salomon
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Gear --------------------------------
And the safe storage thereof.
“Mission drives the gear train.”
-- Pat Rogers
If your belt has gotten soft, replace it. Gear wears out.
If your recoil spring has gotten soft, replace it. I could go on, but you get the idea.
"I couldn't find the perfect CC bag...so I made one for you 😊" by Stav
Sling Pack by Cameleon Bags
Changing her mind for good cause demonstrates intelligence.
Discount code: EQUIPS
for 10% discount
"What Concealed-Carry Upgrades Do You Really Need?
Aftermarket options for carry guns abound . . . but how do you get the most
bang for your buck (pun intended)?"
by Dennis Bradley
"The Golden Age of Small Arms Ammunition? ~
The Part of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill No One Is Talking About"
by F. Riehl
Expect ammo prices to fall.
"Should You Reload Your Own Ammunition?" by Tom McHale
While I can spend hours fantasizing about all the cool gadgets like case
concentricity gauges in the Sinclair Reloading catalog, others may have more
traditional interests, like gardening, golfing, or scrapbooking.
To decide whether reloading ammunition is something you should do,
consider the following:
You'll save money.
If you reload for fun and don't place a dollar value on your reloading time,
your cost per cartridge will almost certainly be lower than the price of factory
ammunition. That's because you are only paying for the parts and not the labor.
And the most expensive part, the cartridge case, is reusable. Of course, you
have to reload often enough to cover the start-up equipment costs.
So, not counting labor and the initial equipment investment, you might plan
on producing your own ammunition at about half the cost of factory ammunition.
Of course, the cost varies depending on caliber and which components you use.
When you get really hooked, you can buy components by the truckload and
reduce your costs dramatically. Of course, you'll be storing mountains of primers,
powder, and projectiles.
You won't save money; you'll spend more money.
Once you start reloading, you'll want to get all the gear. Like digital scales,
electronic powder dispensers, power case trimmers, progressive reloading presses,
and custom reloading benches. You'll also shoot a lot more, so even though your
cost per round might be lower, you can easily end up spending more money overall.
Many reloaders like to say that they don't save any money, per se, but they get
to shoot more for the same amount of money. Make sense?
Are you, or can you be, detail-oriented?
As with any shooting-related activity, safety comes first. Like shooting,
reloading is perfectly safe, as long as you pay attention and follow the rules—every
time, without fail. With reloading, you have to pay close attention to all aspects
of the task, very, very carefully.
You'll need to be cognizant of the exact type and amount of powder placed in
each cartridge. Undercharging (not using enough powder) and overcharging
(using too much powder) are equally dangerous. Both can result in a damaged
gun and physical injury.
You'll need to pay close attention to be sure that each projectile is seated
exactly the same way, and at the exact right depth. Pushing projectiles too far
into the cartridge case can increase pressure to dangerous levels. A little error
can mean a lot of trouble!
While reloading may sound scary, as long as you are careful and attentive,
you can manufacture safe and reliable ammunition.
It's a gateway drug.
You know, like crystal meth. Once you start on that stuff, you'll quickly move
to something really serious! Likewise, if you start reloading something simple,
like pistol cartridges, you'll soon move to rifle cartridges. Before you know it,
you'll be melting lead in your kitchen and casting your own bullets. And we all
know how much other family members enjoy lead fumes in the kitchen.
What's your time worth?
As an example, for .223 Remington, you might save about $0.25 per round,
not counting the value of your time. So, on a per-round basis, your time needs
to be worth less than $0.25 for the amount of time it takes to assemble one round,
or else you're unprofitable — like the Federal Government.
As you develop basic reloading skills, you can figure out how long it takes you
to assemble one round of ammo. But, time value calculations are tricky because
they depend on the equipment you have and the pace at which you work safely.
Progressive reloading press manufacturers claim ammunition output numbers in
the neighborhood of 500 rounds per hour, but that doesn't count other chores like
case preparation.
So, applying some hardcore financial analysis to the value of your time . . .
If you have a paying job, chances are you're not beating the ammunition
manufacturers in the hourly wage efficiency game. You might be better off working
more to cover your ammo bills. But then you would miss out on the joy and
relaxation of ammunition reloading, wouldn't you?
Do you shoot often, or do you want to shoot more often?
Reloading only makes sense economically if you'll do it frequently and with
enough volume to recover your investment in reloading equipment. Like most
other new endeavors, there's also a learning curve that will cost you some time.
If you shoot a lot or want to shoot a lot more, then these investments in time
and equipment won't be such a big deal.
Do you like to tinker?
As you're probably starting to see, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to take
up reloading if you absolutely hate the activity. If you value your time accurately,
you're not really saving money, so you'd better enjoy doing it. Those big,
expensive ammunition manufacturing plants do a pretty good job of producing
quality ammunition at the lowest possible price. But if you consider time spent
as an enjoyable hobby, you can have fun, and shoot more frequently at the lowest
possible component cost.
If you truly enjoy the tinkering process, learning to reload will enable you to
create 37 different varieties of ammunition for your .30-06 rifle. Or pistol rounds
for your Glock 17 that meet five different power factors. Or perhaps you'd like to
create "no recoil loads" for that old military rifle that's been passed down. If you're
a born tinkerer, all these things, and more, are possible.
Do you shoot rifles? Do you have one or more unusual guns?
Pistol rounds have a small per-cartridge component cost benefit, but rifle
reloading can have a huge cost per round benefit. My eye-opening experience
came when my son bought a 1938 Arisaka. At the time, factory loads were over
$2.00 each. By reloading my own, I was able to bring the cost per round down
to about $0.35.
There are plenty of rifles and pistols like the Arisaka that use rare and expensive
ammunition. Assuming your guns are modern and built for standard smokeless
ammunition, they might be great candidates for reloading.
Do you live for accuracy bragging rights?
Factory-produced ammunition is excellent, and we have no intention of
portraying it as anything less. But, by necessity, factory ammunition must be
made within acceptable ranges of dimension specifications, so it will function
in a broad array of rifles or pistols made by many different manufacturers.
As a result, there's a limit to the accuracy performance you can achieve with
your specific rifle. If you're loading for one specific rifle, you can push the
dimension envelope a bit and find the best possible performance for your gun.
[Fire formed brass. Cases that you have fired in your rifle, so they fit your chamber
perfectly. You don't full length resize the brass. You just do the neck to hold
your bullet. -- Jon Low]
Do you hunt?
It's satisfying to make your own custom crafted ammunition and use it in the field.
With hundreds of projectile designs on the market, you can create a load with the
exact performance you want for your intended game.
Do you have kids?
As I have found out, my kids are capable of maintaining a constant cyclic rate
of fire of just over 42,358 rounds per minute with my son's DPMS A3 Lite AR-15 rifle.
Doing some quick math, I might spend three times the national debt to buy their ammo.
Does your family like you?
Or would they prefer that you hibernate more often? When you get the reloading
bug, you'll find all sorts of excuses to hide away in your reloading space for hours on
end. As you can tell, I'm a reloading fanatic, so I've already made a decision in favor
of reloading. Why? Because time won't waste itself.
What do you think? Is reloading for you?
-- Tom McHale
Grinding your grip.
You should take your Dremel tool and undercut and thin the trigger guard where it
meets the grip to avoid Glock knuckle.
You should thin the tang so it doesn't irritate the sesamoid bone of the thumb.
[Do these modifications on both the right and left side of the pistol.]
You should grind and polish all sharp edges. The pistol should feel like a used
bar of soap in your hand. If any part of the pistol is biting your hand during recoil,
grind it off and polish it.
If you're preparing a pistol for the wife or girlfriend, do this before presenting it
to her. You will be avoiding complaints, pain, and your suffering.
You will never have these problem if you don't shoot much. But if you shoot 500
rounds a day in a 4 or 5 day class, you'll be avoiding nasty callouses and permanent
bumps in your hands and fingers, which can be very painful (especially if you have
arthritis).
I was zeroing my Ruger 10/22 at Shooters pistol range on Murfreesboro Pike across
the street from the new police station in Nashville, TN. A guy asked me about calibers.
He said he was using a 40 caliber S&W. I suggested that he switch to a 45 Auto because
it has less recoil and projects a larger bullet (which theoretically will cause more damage,
because it punches a bigger hole). I explained that he should want to shoot the bad guy
as little as possible, because lots of shots can be considered excessive force. Statistically
speaking, the larger the caliber, the less shots are necessary to stop the attack.
He thanked me and told me that he didn't know that, had never heard of that.
I suggested that he not spend anymore money on guns and ammo. Rather he
should buy training. He seemed very offended by this advice. Having used guns
his whole life, including in the military, he knew everything about guns; and didn't
need to pay someone to teach him anything. He didn't seem to understand the
conflict with his statement that he did not know about the liability associated with
shooting the bad guy lots of times, as opposed to once or twice, to stop the attack.
And how a prosecutor might view it as excessive force.
Email from Tom McHale --
There are few absolutes with concealed carry strategies and tactics, but here’s one.
Never, ever, ever carry a handgun without using a proper holster.
That applies to any method of carrying. Don’t stuff a handgun into your belt.
Don’t carry a handgun in a pocket without using a pocket holster. Don’t toss
your gun into a purse, backpack, or briefcase without using an appropriate holster.
Don’t store a handgun loosely in your car’s glove compartment or console.
You get the idea. Always use a holster that’s purpose-designed for your chosen
type of carry.
If you don’t use a holster, you risk a plethora of potentially harmful and possibly
deadly consequences. Just ask former NFL star Plaxico Burress.
While visiting a New York nightclub, Burress (illegally) carried a pistol jammed
into the waist of his pants. And no, he wasn’t using a holster. While walking up a
flight of steps, he felt his handgun moving and instinctively reached to secure it.
The resulting “don’t let my pistol fall out of my pants” grab resulted in one of his
fingers depressing the trigger, and he shot himself in the leg.
Burress spent 20 months in jail for violating New York firearms law, but he
should be thankful that was the least of his problems. While the leg wound wasn’t
fatal, it easily could have been. A hit in the femoral artery can lead to incapacity
and death in less than a minute or two. Additionally, he was lucky that firing his
out-of-control gun didn’t hit any bystanders.
There are far too many stories like this one. Do you know what they all have
in common? They’re completely unnecessary and easily avoidable. Use a proper
holster. Always.
Why the Right Holster is So Important
A proper concealed carry holster performs three vital functions.
Protects the trigger. A good holster will not only cover but protect the trigger from
inadvertent movement during daily carry and even vigorous activity. The holster
material should be rigid and durable enough to prevent foreign objects from applying
enough pressure to operate the trigger.
Presents your handgun consistently. A holster secures your gun in a consistent
position and orientation so it’s ready for use regardless of physical activity. When
you reach for your handgun, the holster should have it positioned in the expected
location and oriented correctly so the grip is precisely where you expect it to be.
Secures your handgun. A proper holster keeps your firearm secured to your body
and under your absolute control, regardless of what you’re doing at the time. It won’t
allow your handgun to come loose under any reasonable circumstance. A great holster
keeps your gun secure even when doing vigorous physical activity like running or
fighting. I like to check holsters using an unloaded gun. Turn the rig upside down
and see if the gun falls out easily. If it does, keep shopping.
There are other benefits to the use of a quality holster. The primary one is peace
of mind. I can’t speak for you, but I was sure it would show or even fall out at some
inopportune moment when I started to carry a concealed handgun. I was constantly
touching and verifying my gun to ensure it was secure and hadn’t moved. That’s bad
because it’s a visible clue you’re carrying a concealed weapon.
A sound holster system, appropriately used, will provide you with plenty of
confidence in short order. After a couple of weeks of use, getting in and out of
chairs and cars, you’ll find that the right holster is doing its job and keeping your
handgun secure and concealed.
-- Tom McHale
"Air Force Global Strike Command Halts Use of M18 [Sig P320] Modular Handgun
Following Death of 21 Year Old Airman"
by Susan Katz Keating
Hat tip to Stephen P. Wenger.
Excerpt:
"The U.S. Air Force’s Global Strike Command has ordered all units under its
command to immediately cease use of the M18 Modular Handgun System,
citing an ongoing safety investigation. The directive from Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere,
who heads up the command, was issued in a memo dated July 21 [, 2025 A.D.]."
---
"Sig M18 Pistols Pulled From Use By Air Force Global Strike Command (Updated)
A fatal incident prompted the order to pause M18 use,
which also comes after the disclosure of a concerning
FBI report that Sig has pushed back on."
by Joseph Trevithick and Howard Altman
Hat tip to Stephen P. Wenger.
---
Comment by Stephen P. Wenger --
As has also been noted elsewhere, another list member forwarded to me a copy
of Gunsite Newsletter announcing that Gunsite Academy has prohibited the use of
the SIG P320, at least until this issue is resolved. Curiously, in light of the USAF
tragedy, it includes the following exception,
“If the SIG 320 is a government-issued duty pistol for Military or Law Enforcement
students, we will allow - but discourage the use of - the SIG P320 for that student.”
Perhaps Gunsite doesn't expect those students to have the P320 variants as duty
pistols much longer.
-- Stephen P. Wenger
---
Tom Givens' Facebook.com post --
I have been following the SIG P320 saga closely. The safety of our students
and staff require that we take the following action, effective 07/24/2025:
The SIG P320 in all its variants are now prohibited from any Rangemaster course.
Exception - Personnel who belong to an agency/unit that requires the use of a
P320 or derivative may use their issue weapon, but only in an outside waistband
holster worn at 3:00 - 4:30 on the belt. NO appendix or IWB carry with this
weapon. Students seeking this exception must provide written documentation
that the P320 is their issued / required sidearm.
-- Tom Givens
---
"Quick Update on the SIG P320…This is interesting. 🤨"
by Wyoming Gun Project
---
"Two Popular Carry Guns Had The Same Critical Failure As The P320"
by TriggerSmart
---
"SIG Sues Police Academy Over P320 Ban" by Guns & Gadgets 2nd Amendment News
"This Glock Failed A Drop Test – Here’s Why" by JOHNNY GLOCKS
Hat tip to Shannon Carr Pable.
Reference to "Lenny" is Lenny McGill, owner of the Glock Store here in Nashville, TN.
They have a huge machine shop with lots of CNC machines making all kinds of parts.
Notice the number of rounds that the Glock springs are rated for, 15,000 rounds.
I don't remember seeing that in any Glock manual. Do they teach that in the armorer's
course?
After market springs rated at 20,000 rounds.
Channel liners.
If you can tap the back of your pistol with a rubber mallet and it fires,
you need to replace parts. Even it is looks like you have sear engagement.
Tolerance stacking across several parts.
If you installed it yourself, you're responsible. Better to have a gunsmith do it.
---
JOHNNY GLOCKS
I don't recommend Appendix Inside the Waistband carry because I think it is very
difficult to draw and holster in a seated position without muzzling your femoral artery.
Which would violate our Safety Rule 2.
But I think entertaining opposing opinions is good. So I include the following article.
"Taking It In The Crotch, Is Appendix Carry For You?"
by Patrick Roberts
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
"FN 545"
These are really nice, but way too expensive. I can't justify buying a pistol for more
than the cost of a 2-day class.
Government law enforcement use the 9mm because it is cheaper than the larger
calibers. As government agencies, they have budget constraints. Our financial constraints
are less rigid, so we will discard these data points.
When in a fight, it is best to project a projectile:
1) with the largest cross section in terminal ballistics, which means the largest cross
section out of the barrel, to cause the most damage to the target [Bullets that attempt
to use the fluid nature of the tissue to cause damage are wrong. The fluid physics is
wrong. The Reynolds number of the fluid flow is too low. Sorry, but their advertising
is just marketing nonsense.], and
2) with the most mass to get the deepest penetration to reach vital organs.
Penetration of likely targets: humans (with clothes), bears, and dogs; is a function
of mass, not speed, not energy. Momentum is the correct metric that directly
correlates to penetration, and mass is the dominant factor in maintaining momentum
after the projectile impacts bone or is slowed by viscous tissue. (Computer simulations
with models with inviscid tissue are wrong, and should be disregarded.)
Too much recoil makes the pistol uncontrollable, which make subsequent shots
difficult and require more time to get the sights back on target. So the lowest recoil is
desired.
These are conflicting engineering constraints. In my opinion, the optimal solution
as of 31 July 2025 A.D. is the 45 Auto cartridge with a 230 grain bullet at 850 feet per
second out of a service sized pistol (not a compact, not a micro compact). The +P
cartridges are okay, if you are willing to practice with them, because they will have a
different point of impact, because they will have a different recoil.
The 9mm is too small. The 40 S&W has too much recoil. The 10mm has too
much recoil.
"The TRUTH About 10mm Auto – Why It Became the FBI's WORST Nightmare!"
by Firearms Zone
The FBI recruits had to fire 5000 round in training. Can you imagine weak little
girls attempting to do that? Female recruits, who were dropped from training because
they couldn't dry fire the pistols enough times in a given time, sued the FBI and won.
“Your car is not a holster.”
-- Pat Rogers
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** Cryptology ***** ***** *****
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.
May I share some random numbers with you? They are unique, never before generated,
not copied from somewhere else. The problem with random numbers is that they don't
look random to humans. Which, of course, is actually a problem with humans. Humans
love to see patterns. And will see patterns. Humans don't like to see random and so
don't recognize things as being random. Do you see how you can use this to your advantage?
One hundred digits in octal.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 3 3 2 1 3 0 2 3 6 1 6 3 7 6 0 2 5 3 2 1 3 3 6 7 0 4 1 3 3 0 1 3 3 0 7 2 1 3 3 3 3 2 2 5 2 6 1 2 6
5 2 0 4 0 7 4 4 6 5 2 3 1 7 3 6 7 1 5 1 6 5 5 6 7 1 6 4 6 7 6 0 3 7 5 4 0 6 5 5 2 6 4 0 5 5 6 6 0 2
"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
Alexander the Great need not have cut the Gordian knot with his sword.
Consider a knot in Knot Theory, a branch of Topology. There are only knots in
3-dimensional space. If you lift the knot into a 4-dimensional space (or higher),
you can untangle it.
If the knot is the hard problem, you must have things in place to prevent the
enemy from lifting your knot into a 4-dimensional space (or higher dimensional
space, all knots fall apart in higher dimensional spaces).
Sometimes it is easier to lift into 4, 8, or 16 dimensional spaces. Quaternions,
Octonions, etc.
Be careful. You would not want to underestimate the dragon, bear, or double
headed eagle. They are willing to dedicate a lot of resources.
Have you noticed that in the real world some knots bind and some don't?
The bowline for instance. No matter how much tension is applied to the free and
working ends, you can always easily pull it apart. Whereas the fisherman's knot,
would need a marlinespike or worse. Of course, knots don't bind in Knot Theory.
They don't kink either. (Kinks are generally not allowed in topology.) But, they
do other non-obvious / counter intuitive things. Things you can use to prevent the
lifting. It's not novel research. It's just a literature search.
"Never memorize anything. Rather, study it until it becomes obvious."
-- Norman Christ
Heron's Theorem
Consider a triangle with edge lengths a, b, and c.
Let s = ½ (a + b + c), half the perimeter.
Then the area of the triangle is
Area = √ ( s (s-a) (s-b) (s-c) )
Input (a, b, c), output (area). A one-way function? Easily invertible? Uniquely
invertible? Edge cases? Degenerate cases?
Why are these simple geometric functions so "useful"? There are a lot of ways
to describe the given triangle. Will similar triangles give similar areas? What is
meant by "similar area"?
Have I piqued your curiosity?
"Computer science has nothing to do with computers or science."
-- Donald Knuth
You've heard of Magic Squares? Here is a Magic Cube by Theoni Pappas.
{ 10, 26, 6
23, 3, 16
9, 13, 20 }
{ 24, 1, 17
7, 14, 21
11, 27, 4 }
{ 8, 15, 19
12, 25, 5
22, 2, 18 }
Numbers 1 through 27. Each row or column in 3 dimensions sums to 42.
Do you see how you can use such in your cryptology? They are not that hard to generate.
"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
There are 5 Platonic solids, regular polyhedra:
Tetrahedron, Hexahedron, Octahedron, Dodecahedron, and Icosahedron.
Mathworld.com has a nice page on them.
The Platonic solids have duals, in the sense that if you truncate at the vertices, you will:
turn a tetrahedron into another tetrahedron,
turn a hexahedron into an octahedron,
turn a octahedron into a hexahedron,
turn a dodecahedron into an icosahedron, and
turn an icosahedron into a dodecahedron.
But what if you don't truncate all the way to the dual? What if you stop half way?
or a third of the way? or two-thirds of the way?
These create some of the Archimedean polyhedra.
Mathworld has a nice page on them.
Between the dodecahedron and the icosahedron you will have the Adidas soccer ball,
with 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons for a total of 32 faces. There are many soccer ball
designs. Adidas was the first to come out with this one.
Between the hexahedron and the octahedron you will have one of the Archimedean
polyhedra with 6 tetragons and 8 hexagons for a total of 14 faces. You can tessellate
3-dimensional space with such a polyhedron. What are the other polyhedra that will
tessellate 3-dimensional space? No, sorry, regular tetrahedrons won't. Do you see why?
Grab a bunch of regular tetrahedrons, place them against each other, and see for yourself.
Can you do it in your head? [No, it's not the same as playing blind folded chess.
The psychological metric is different.]
The Mathworld.com pages give all the associated groups. Remember, all finite
groups are subgroups of the of the symmetry groups, which geometrically are the
rotations of minimal n-dimensional polytopes in n+1 dimensional spaces that leave
the object unchanged. Minimal polytopes would be:
a 0-dimensional point in 1-dimensional space,
a 1-dimensional line segment in 2-dimensional space,
a 2-dimensional equilateral trigon in 3-dimensional space,
a 3-dimensional regular tetrahedron in 4-dimensional space,
etc.
You need the extra dimension so you can do mirror reflections by rotating through
the extra dimension.
All of the finite groups have been categorized. But not all finite sets with well
defined binary operations (functions with crypto keys) are known to be groups or
known not to be groups. DES for instance. (Or maybe DES is known. I've been
out for a long time.)
Mathematicians argue about whether or not a given infinite set with a given binary
operation is a group. Does your crypto function need to be a group?
A lot of cryptologist like to work in finite fields. They like being able to apply
Galois Theory. Some like to play in Lie groups and Lie algebras.
Be careful. The more structure your objects have,
the more structure your objects have.
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil."
-- Donald Knuth
"i^i is a REAL number!" by DFulks Math
---
Desmos Studio (this is a great tool)
Go to graph. Go to the wrench icon in the upper right corner,
go to the bottom of the drop down menu of options, and select
Complex to graph on the complex plane.
"You don't need to memorize theorems,
because you can always derive them from first principles."
-- Sven Hartman
"10 Math Facts That Will Blow Your Mind"
by Sabine Hossenfelder
Once you understand what's going on, it's not that mind blowing.
"All that we don't know is astonishing.
Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing."
-- Philip Roth
"The Clever Folds That Kept Letters Secret
Hundreds of years ago, people developed ingenious methods to
secure their letters from prying eyes – and they did it with only paper,
adhesive and folds."
by Richard Fisher
Hat tip to Docent.
"End Result Will Shock You 🤯 | Google Interview Question" by Brain Station
Get it? There are a lot of problems like this in real life. The pictures are
wrong. The given information is wrong. The question is ill formed. Be careful.
Some answers to your questions follow.
"The ultimate criterion of the truth of the result is thus practical experience only.
In the final analysis, there is just one criterion, namely practical experience, although
experience can only be properly understood in the light of a profound and well-
developed theory."
-- S. L. Sobolev and O. A. Ladyzenskaja
An application of Cauchy's Theorem. In the complex plane,
"Every function of a complex variable that has a first derivative in a domain D
has derivatives of all orders."
"If f(z) is everywhere differentiable on a circle K with center at the point A,
then f(z) can be expanded in a Taylor series which converges inside K."
-- M. V. Keldyš
"If in the domain D two analytic functions are given that agree on some curve
C lying inside the domain, then they agree on the entire domain."
-- M. V. Keldyš
Faber's Theorem
However we may divide the interval [-1, 1] into parts, with the number of points
of interpolation approaching infinity, we can always find a function f(x), continuous
in the interval, such that the successive polynomials with these points of interpolation
will not converge to the function.
Let us mention some simple examples of slowly converging computational
processes. It is known that
⅟₁ - ½ + ⅓ - ¼ + ⅕ - ⅙ + ⅐ - ⅛ + ⅑ - ⅒ + . . .
converges to the natural logarithm of the number 2. We can find ln(2) approximately
by means of this series, by computing the partial sums
Sₙ = ⅟₁ - ½ + ⅓ - ¼ + ⅕ - ⅙ + ⅐ - ⅛ + ⅑ - ⅒ + . . . ± ⅟ₙ
of the first n terms for sufficiently large n. But it may be shown that to compute
ln(2) with an error less than half of the fifth significant figure, we must take more
than 100,000 terms of the series. To find the sum of such a number of terms, if
we are using, for example, only a desk computer, would be very laborious.
Another familiar example is the series (↑ means exponentiation)
2↑(- ½) =
1
- ( 1 / (2 × 1!) )
+ ( (1 × 3) / (2² × 2!) )
- ( (1 × 3 × 5) / (2⁴ × 3!) )
+ ( (1 × 3 × 5 × 7) / (2⁴ × 4!) )
- . . .
Its convergence is so slow that to compute (1 ÷ √2) with accuracy of 10⁻⁵,
we would need to take about 10¹⁰ terms, which is difficult even with high-speed
machines.
-- V. I. Krylov
[So you must find a series that converges fast to be useful. It's not hard,
you just have to do it. The series in the textbooks are nice, easily derived,
but slow. If people were not constantly searching for faster converging series,
we would never have the huge number of digits of π. -- Jon Low]
"The Untold Story of C++" by CodeSource
I have understood C++ and used it since 1999. I have taught it.
By VM he means virtual machine.
Never use a proprietary (owned by a company) language. The language
must have a generally accepted standard (published by an international
standards organization).
"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
"Sir Roger Penrose: Forget Quantizing Gravity"
by Infinite Potential
"The sphere packing problem in dimension 8" by Maryna Viazovska
I don't cite any of the YouTube.com videos,
because I could not find one with information density.
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** Signals Intelligence,
Ground Electronic Warfare,
Cyber Security,
(sometimes Air Electronic Warfare too) ***** ***** *****
"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
From Layer 8 Security --
ALERT
Critical Security Advisory |
SharePoint Under Attack: Microsoft Emergency Patch and Mitigation Steps
Overview
Our security team is actively monitoring a critical security vulnerability impacting
Microsoft SharePoint Server—specifically on-premises deployments. Microsoft
has revealed that attackers are exploiting newly discovered vulnerabilities
(CVE-2025-53770 and CVE-2025-53771) that could allow unauthorized access
if not promptly addressed.
Impact
These vulnerabilities affect only on-premises SharePoint Servers
(Subscription Edition, 2016, and 2019). SharePoint Online and instances hosted
through Microsoft 365 are unaffected.
Status and Updates
Microsoft has released urgent security updates for the following products:
SharePoint Server Subscription Edition
SharePoint Server 2019
A fix for SharePoint Server 2016 is under development and not yet available.
If you operate SharePoint Server 2016, please apply additional caution as outlined
below.
Recommendation
To protect your organization, we recommend the following immediate actions:
Apply Security Updates: If you run SharePoint Subscription Edition or 2019,
urgently apply the July 2025 Security Update.
Verify AMSI Protection: Ensure that the Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI)
is enabled and properly configured with a compatible antivirus solution like
Microsoft Defender Antivirus.
Deploy Endpoint Protection: Activate Microsoft Defender for Endpoint or an
equivalent threat protection service to detect post-exploit activity.
Rotate Machine Keys: After updating or enabling AMSI, rotate the SharePoint
Server ASP.NET machine keys and restart IIS across all SharePoint servers.
Heightened Monitoring: If you use SharePoint 2016, be particularly vigilant
until a patch is available—closely monitor activity and consider network
segmentation or disconnecting vulnerable servers from the Internet if you cannot
enable AMSI.
If you have questions about this advisory or need help deploying updates and
security controls, please contact our team at security@layer8security.com.
Sincerely,
The Layer 8 Security Team
References/Additional Links
Microsoft Security Advisory—CVE-2025-53770
Layer 8 Security "SharePoint Under Attack:
Microsoft Emergency Patch and Mitigation Steps" Updates
ROHDE & SCHWARZ newletter
There are actually idiots in our intelligence community using Artificial Intelligence
to write Intel Reports. They think that if they mark the documents as "Created by AI" or
"AI was used in the development of the report" they are covering their asses. Such
persons need to be shot on sight for criminal stupidity. (You see why I could never
be an officer.)
---
Email from John Lott --
Dear Jonathan:
. . .
People are using AI chatbots like Chat GPT and Grok to answer questions such as
whether gun control makes people safer. Students, researchers, reporters, and voters
rely on the answers to these questions. Unfortunately, Chatbots are strongly biased
towards the left on questions involving crime and gun ownership. This past weekend,
I debated X’s Grok over the issue of whether increased gun ownership reduces crime.
Grok cited selective evidence, misrepresented or didn’t understand complex findings,
and ignored reputable peer-reviewed research challenging a politically convenient
narrative. AI chatbots also hallucinate, meaning they sometimes completely make up
facts. While I finally “won” the debate and got Grok to concede that it was inaccurately
describing the papers he was pointing to, calling my arguments “fair points” and then
echoing the very arguments that I had just made, the victory was short-lived as others
then asked the same questions again. I discussed the debate in an op-ed published at
Real Clear Politics.
I also discussed my experience on Vicki McKenna’s Show covering Wisconsin.
I will post more interviews soon.
. . .
Crime Prevention Research Center
358 S 700 E, Ste B, B409, Salt Lake City, UT 84102
johnrlott@crimeresearch.org
(484) 802-5373
"How Covert Drone Bases and Denied-Area Launch Sites Are Reshaping Modern Warfare"
by Tim McMillan
Hat tip to Docent.
Breaking Defense has a weekly newsletter, "Networks & Digital Warfare" at
Crypto-Gram by Bruce Schneier
2600
‟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.”
-- Col. Jeff Cooper, "Principles of Personal Defense"
If you run a piece of text through a spell checker, and you get red squiggly underlines
under words that appear to be spelled correctly, check the unicode of the character. There
are a lot of characters that look like English letters that aren't.
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***** ***** ***** Intelligence ***** ***** *****
[Always cite open source. If you can't get it past the censors, say it in a different language.
That's how Joss Whedon did it in "Firefly".
-- Spaceman]
"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, U.S. Constitution
"How did Pakistan shootdown India’s fighter jets?" by Akalia Kalan
July 16th, 2025 in the Economist.
Buying anything without the source code for the software
that controls the thing is wrong on many levels. If the
politicians are willing to buy aircraft without the source code,
they are fools.
"The Houthis shatter European pretensions to naval power
Recent attacks in the Red Sea show how feeble Europe is"
by The Economist
Following America’s ceasefire in May [2025 A.D.] with the Houthis,
an Iran-backed militia based in Yemen, the European Union had a chance
to step out of America’s military shadow in the Red Sea. The bloc’s naval
authority was running Operation Aspides, a “purely defensive” mission in
the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and the Gulf, to restore maritime shipping
through the region. The number of transits had plummeted since attacks
by the Houthis started in October 2023, with the total volume falling by
60%.
Yet Aspides provided little protection when Magic Seas and Eternity C,
two merchant ships, were attacked by the Houthis in early July [2025 A.D.].
Both were encircled, fired at, and sunk. Their rescues had to be coordinated
by private vessels or security firms. An officer at Eternity C’s operator,
Cosmoship Management, told the Wall Street Journal that he had requested
assistance from Aspides; the operation simply had no ships in the area.
A lack of resources is part of the problem. When Aspides was launched in
February 2024, Rear-Admiral Vasileios Gryparis, its Greek commander,
estimated that at least ten ships were needed, along with air support. During
the recent Houthi attacks, Aspides had only two frigates and one helicopter.
The operation is also short of cash, with the European Council laying out only
€17m ($19.8m) for a year’s expenses. Compare this to America, which spent
ten times that amount just to restock one type of missile during Operation
Prosperity Guardian, which it led in December 2023 to fight Houthi attacks in
the Red Sea.
Frugal spending on Operation Aspides is part of a much bigger problem of
insufficient resources. EU member states’ decades-long distaste for defence
spending has left them without the vessels to deal with maritime threats.
Take aircraft-carriers, whose squadrons of aircraft allow them to rapidly carry
out strike and air-defence missions with far greater flexibility than frigates armed
with guns and missiles. The EU’s NATO members have three aircraft-carriers
between them. America has 11. With limited assets, European navies are
floundering while maritime threats multiply. In the past year, France and Italy
have sent their flagship aircraft-carriers to the Indian and Pacific Oceans to
demonstrate resolve in the face of China’s growing naval power. Their attention
can also be diverted to other regions. In May [2025 A.D.] the EU announced an
early-warning maritime-security hub in the Black Sea, where Russia has been
targeting Ukrainian shipping lanes and illicitly transporting oil.
Institutional constraints also make it tricky for the EU to respond fast to military
threats. Operations like Aspides fall under the bloc’s Common Security and
Defence Policy, meaning that continuing it requires unanimous agreement from its
27 members. European countries’ growing defence budgets will eventually produce
more naval assets. France is planning a new aircraft-carrier, with construction
expected to begin in 2031. But this is not scheduled to replace its current carrier,
the Charles de Gaulle, until 2038.
Even if other countries start building up their navies, says Basil Germond,
a defence expert at Lancaster University, it will take years or decades before the
ships can be deployed. As long as cargo is still moving, the Red Sea is not the
EU’s top priority. Some ships are taking the far longer route around Africa,
which adds 20 days’ travel and a 33% increase in fuel costs to a Rotterdam-Singapore
round trip. Others simply risk the Red Sea shortcut to the Suez Canal, even though
the cost of war-risk insurance has risen to 1% of the ship’s value, from 0.2 - 0.3% in
the months prior to the two attacks. Either way, they are still sailing. More resources
alone will not the solve the problem. Aircraft-carriers would require escort vessels
to protect them from missile attacks, and they provide no guarantee of success.
It is unclear whether America’s air-strikes on the Houthis accomplished much.
Ending their attacks on ships may require a general diplomatic solution. In any case,
the steepest costs could be yet to come. “The Houthis have given everybody a
playbook,” explains Salvatore Mercogliano, a maritime historian at Campbell
University in North Carolina. “You can get disproportionate results with very
little resources.”
"Armed Vigilantes Take Over Russian Streets"
Russia’s police forces are vanishing as officers leave to fight in Ukraine.
Now, armed nationalist vigilantes are filling the power vacuum — and the
Kremlin appears to be looking the other way.
by Mike Baker
"Good habits and skill beat luck every time."
-- Sheriff Jim Wilson
The Dispatch
"StrategyPage"
"The Merge"
Breaking Defense
Intrigue
1440
29155
Global Recaps
Timber Sycamore
Ground News
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** Religion and Politics ***** ***** *****
"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
All men want the same thing.
"This Jeffrey Epstein Story Will Send Chills Down Your Spine - Eric Weinstein"
by Chris Williamson
The complete 3 hour episode.
"They Decide What You’re Allowed To Think" - Eric Weinstein (4K)
by Chris Williamson
---
"Physicists are afraid of Eric Weinstein -- and they should be"
by Sabine Hossenfelder
"FBI Corrupt To Its Core?" by Docent
"Gavin Newsom prevented from accepting gun gift"
Submitted by the office of Assemblyman Carl DeMaio.
Excerpt:
"The controversy over the gun gift started when Newsom appeared on
The Shawn Ryan Show podcast – and the host gifted the Governor a
SIG Sauer P365 X-Macro. On the show, Newsom appeared to accept the
firearm and even claimed he was “not anti-gun.” "
"But DeMaio’s office has now learned that off camera Newsom rejected the
gift because of compliance rules and left the firearm behind in Tennessee.
Newsom’s team has since admitted that the California anti-gun laws are so
complicated that they have had to hire legal counsel to conduct a legal review."
"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."
-- Mary Flannery O'Connor
*************************************************************************
"History teaches us that history teaches us nothing." -- James Bachmann
"The Jewish Woman Who Infiltrated the Iranian Regime and Tricked the Ayatollah"
"The Status of the Navy: Part I" by Brent Ramsey
The Idiot Index.
“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
"Holy Cow! Betelgeuse's Partner Has Finally Been Found"
by Anton Petrov
Primary sources in description below video.
When I was a grad student at the University of Hawaii, I spent some time at the
observatory on top of Mauna Kea. Freezing cold, but good times.
---
Anton Petrov
---
"The Probable Direct-Imaging Detection of the Stellar Companion to Betelgeuse"
by Steve B. Howell, David R. Ciardi, Catherine A. Clark, Douglas A. Hope,
Colin Littlefield, and Elise Furlan
***************************** Begin Psychology ***********************
CIA Spy: "This Is A Woman's Sexual Fantasy" - And Nice Guys Don't Get It...
by Andrew Bustamante
Concordant process?
***************************** End Psychology ************************
My graduate advisor, Neil Frazer, would wear ear muffs to concentrate.
May I suggest listening to love songs in a foreign language that you don't understand.
Which works great until you know and recognize the song. I was listening to French
love songs, and upon hearing "Winds of Change" by Fleetwood Mac, I automatically
started translating.
Semper Fidelis,
Jonathan D. Low
Email: Jon_Low@yahoo.com
Radio: KI4SDN
I loved In-N-Out Burger when I lived in California.
Now they are following me to Tennessee.
The Warrior's Prayer
Dear God,
Please give us discernment to distinguish
friend from foe from innocent bystanders.
Give us clear vision so our aim is true.
Give us calm so we execute correctly.
Give us spiritual maturity so that we stop the attack
without excessive force, without revenge.
Amen
Matt Devitt WINK Weather
Something very rare occurred in the Pacific Ocean . . . a tsunami from the
earthquake interacted with a hurricane south of Hawaii.
Can’t recall ever seeing that before.
It is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a battle.
-- Scott Johnson
