Greetings Sheepdogs,
"The Second Amendment: Understanding The Militia Clause"
by Alex Ooley
Excerpt:
". . . the militia was not a privileged class of government-trained personnel.
It was the citizenry itself, armed and responsible for its own liberty. To that end,
citizens were expected to bring their own arms. In this sense, the right to bear
arms was not merely an individual liberty — it was a civic duty."
“To those who have fought for it,
freedom has a flavor that the protected will never know.”
― P. McCree Thornton
Writing a letter will cost you a few minutes. It doesn't have to be a work of literary
art. The result of your letter will astound. Fewer beatings of the prisoner.
Authorities knowing that persons from around the world are aware of the detainment.
From the comfort of your living room, you can reduce the torture.
"I don't want my name on any lists."
Your name is already on the lists that you fear. The question is, "What are you going
to do about it? Let the fear control your actions?"
"Never let fear decide your fate." -- Nicola Cavanis
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
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🔷 F-35 Fuel Tanks
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***** ***** ***** Prevention ***** ***** *****
Things you can do to avoid the lethal force incident.
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
Bad debt is borrowing to buy things that depreciate. Good debt is borrowing
from your local bank to buy things that appreciate. If you're borrowing from
a nationwide company, you're not helping your local economy.
An "emergency" is an excuse for buying something that you can't afford.
That high speed graphics card for your computer doesn't house, clothe, or
feed your children. (It doesn't make you a better gamer either. You can't buy
skill.)
Never use credit cards. They are more addictive than heroin. The credit
card companies take 4 to 5% of each transaction (sometimes a lot more).
So you're losing 4 to 5% on each transaction. If you don't think that the
business passes the 4 to 5% on to you, you're delusional.
"Your life is as good as your mindset." -- Nicola Cavanis
Oh, we all need to read this and study this and understand this.
"You Don’t Get to Fight Anymore: Lessons for the Armed Citizen"
by Mitch Goerdt
Excerpts:
“If you think a fist fight is non-lethal by default,
you haven’t been on this earth long enough.”
[Movies and TV are cartoons. Where they get up and carry on. In real life,
they are permanently injured, critically, and die. -- Jon Low]
"The Mindset Shift
Carrying doesn’t make you a badass. It makes you accountable.
If you carry a gun, your job is not to win fights. It’s to walk away from them.
The man who walks away from an insult is stronger than the one who wins
a fight and goes to jail. The protector mindset is not reactive; it’s proactive.
You avoid conflict. You observe. You de-escalate. You remove yourself
from dangerous environments.
You’re a protector now. That means acting like it. It means letting go of
pride. It means keeping your composure when others don’t. It means having
less-lethal tools and knowing the law. It means doing everything you can to
avoid violence, and only drawing your firearm when there is no other option
and the threat is immediate.
And when all else fails? You survive. That’s what carrying is really about.
"There are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous men." -- Robert A. Heinlein
A friend was explaining "privilege" (the modern woke idea of privilege) to me.
She accused me of being obstinate because I was having difficulty following her
argument. (Usually, the argument in political contexts is "rights" versus "privileges",
but in modern woke ideology "privilege" as in "white privilege" is something entirely
different. As is common, the woke redefine words. Communists do that too. Maybe
they are the same.)
She was very upset because women in Afghanistan don't get to speak out or
own property (or do any financial transactions). So they are denied privilege.
I mansplained to her that if she bothered to talk to a woman who was born and
raised in Afghanistan in anyone of the many Islamic cultures, the woman would
tell her that the way they do things in Afghanistan is right and proper and good.
I mansplained to her that she only has problems with Afghanistan because she
is applying Western liberal norms to an ancient Islamic culture, because she thinks
that her Western liberal norms are superior to the Islamic culture. Oops.
Having the wrong mindset can get you killed, especially when operating in
Afghanistan. I seem to remember a U.S. Army Colonel getting into trouble with
his U.S. superiors, because he beat up a Afghani allied commander for sodomizing
one of the tea boys (they make and serve hot sweet tea to everyone). I think the
incident actually made the news back in the states.
Ya, imposing your modern enlightened views on the barbarians is rarely helpful.
Because it's the wrong mindset.
“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
I used to follow Indy Car and Al Unser Jr. in particular. . . .
In 1992 Al defeated Scott Goodyear by 0.043 seconds, the closest finish in
Indianapolis 500 history. That year the race was closer to five hours than
the more usual three. When I am coaching, I point out it is not 0.043 at the
end but it is all through a month of entertaining sponsors and the press and
engineering the solution and practicing and qualifying and then that 0.043
margin could have been established at the start of five hours and not in the
last two laps. Victory is on a very tight margin and requires attention to detail.
-- Gary Martin English
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil and
evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." -- Jeff Cooper
In order to win today, you must have the skill today. That means you had to have
taken the class to learn that skill a year ago. And you must have dry practiced daily
to perfect the form. And you must have live fired at least monthly to determine what
does or doesn't work in the real world. (That means you practiced the skill during
live fire 12 time before today. Is that enough?)
If training is too expensive, your priorities are wrong. Because you will spend your
money on things you want. So you must make the choice to want the training. Just as
you wake up each morning and make the choice to love your spouse. Neglecting to
make the choice is a decision. But, that's okay, the vast majority of persons lack the
intelligence to make the connection between their decisions and the decision's
consequences. So they never feel any responsibility for their bad decisions.
But you're not like that.
‟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
Email from Tom McHale --
"A Concealed Carry Case Study: Anger Management"
A 65-year-old man, Larry Thomlison, was outside of a Target store in
St. Charles, Missouri, one day when an Amazon delivery driver, Jaylen Walker,
pulled his vehicle into an accessible parking spot, reportedly to talk to another
delivery driver.
Thomlison became upset by the move and documented the parked vehicle
with his cellphone, posting the incident to Facebook. At some point during
the incident, Walker went into the store. When he came out and encountered
Thomlison, Walker allegedly pushed Thomlison aside, at which point Thomlison
punched Walker in the face. The two ended up on the ground during the ensuing
struggle.
While getting up, Walker noticed Thomlison was carrying a handgun. Walker
began to move away and run, at which point Thomlison shot him in the back.
Thomlison was arrested and charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal
action, for which he faces 10 to 30 years in prison. Walker sustained spinal cord
injuries and may be paralyzed for life.
Lessons
This is an example of a violent encounter that should never have happened.
While details are still sketchy, it certainly appears that Thomlison had every
opportunity to avoid a physical confrontation. Arguments can far too easily
escalate to pushes and shoves, which can quickly spin out of control.
Early reports indicate Walker was shot in the back while trying to escape the
situation. If that turns out to be accurate, Thomlison is unlikely to be able to
claim he acted in self-defense. The opposite may turn out to be the case.
He may be found guilty of instigating the entire situation when the case comes
to trial.
If you choose to carry a concealed weapon for self-protection, remember that’s
what it’s for — self-defense. An armed citizen does not assume enforcer
duties — that’s a law enforcement job.
If the parking upset Thomlison that much (he did have a handicapped parking
permit himself), all he had to do was report the incident to the proper authorities.
As a result of losing his temper, he may spend the rest of his life in prison, and
the victim may be confined to a wheelchair with a permanent disability.
All over a parking spot dispute. A. Parking. Spot.
Here’s the bottom line. If you decide to carry a gun for self-protection, your
responsibility is to become the most polite and forgiving person in any environment.
As a responsibly armed citizen, you won’t take the slightest risk of escalating a
verbal or minor physical disagreement into something bigger.
When you’re unarmed, the worst consequence of a minor disagreement is that
it escalates into a punch in the nose one way or the other. [I believe that to be
completely false. A person can easily die from a single punch. Lot's of documented
cases. -- Jon Low] When carrying a lethal weapon, the consequences can be much,
much worse.
Is “winning” a bar fight or road rage incident worth a human life? Is it worth
your dying over? Is it worth bankrupting your family and spending the remainder
of your life in jail? Remember, if you’re sitting in a jail cell, you’re no longer
serving or protecting your family, so it’s not just about you.
Your job isn’t to “win” a confrontation; it’s to survive one. The best way to do
that is to ensure that a conflict doesn’t start in the first place. The second-best
way is to toss a cold blanket on those temper flames when they begin to smolder.
The third best way is to . . . leave.
Exercising pride muscles rarely improves one’s health and well-being.
-- Tom McHale
"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
FaceBook.com post from Kevin Sona --
Just received this text and it proves what we already knew and that is
(You Are Your Own First Responder)
Marion County & Ocala 911 is Experiencing an Issue Impacting Voice Calls to 911
Central Florida including, Marion County & Ocala 911, is currently experiencing an
issue impacting voice calls to 911. If you need emergency assistance and cannot get
through by calling, please remember that Text to 911 is still fully operational.
If you have an emergency, send a text message to 911 with your location and the
nature of your emergency. Our dispatchers are ready to assist you. We will provide
updates as this situation is resolved. Please stay safe and share this information
with others.
Reply with YES to confirm receipt.
[Comments to this FaceBook.com post said the surrounding counties were also
down with no phone service. -- Jon Low]
"Before all else, be armed." -- Nicolo Machiavelli
“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.”
-- Abraham Lincoln
"Turning the Page!" by John Farnam
“We’re on our own”
"The line between everyday life and sudden violence is thinner than most realize."
-- Tim Larkin
"Respond to the Unexpected
Situational awareness, a diverse set of tools and a wide range of skills trumps
a pre-planned response."
by Shelley Hill
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpt:
". . . you can program your brain to respond and not react.
No, they are not the same thing."
"Firearms are second only to the constitution in importance,
they are the people's liberty's teeth." -- George Washington
"Concealed Carry Is A Lifestyle
Confidence breeds serenity."
by Sheriff Jim Wilson
Excerpt:
"So enjoy life, but be alert and be prepared. That’s the personal defense lifestyle."
"Be so focused on watering your grass that
you don't have time to check if someone else's is greener."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"4-Star U.S Army General On Handing Obama His Resignation | Stanley McChrystal"
Note what he did after his resignation.
"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
"THE TERRORIST DOESN'T WANT YOUR WALLET!
He wants your life and the lives of your family. Be careful what you train for."
-- Gabriel Suarez
“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
"Protecting our interests." by Orion Taraban, Psy.D.
Wednesday, July 16th, 2025
On August 2nd, 1964, the USS Maddox was attacked by torpedo boats off the
coast of Vietnam. When another assault arrived two days later, the United States
congress passed a resolution “to take all necessary measures” to protect its military
interests in Vietnam. This was tantamount to a declaration of war, which the US
has not done officially since World War II. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident – as it
came to be known – was instrumental in the escalation of the Vietnam War in which
over three million people lost their lives.
The only problem is that it never happened. According to NSA documents that
were only released twenty years ago, not only was the attack completely fabricated,
but then-President Lyndon Johnson knowingly perpetuated the fraud, as well.
Under a highly classified black flag operation, the US engineered the necessary
pretext to begin a war it had already decided to start. After all, only the lowest
coward could refuse to raise a hand in his own self-defense.
Fake news has been around for millennia – but it has never been both easier and
harder to get away with today. Artificial intelligence, algorithmic bias, and bot
influence are making it more and more difficult to trust our own senses – let alone
our independent research. However, the democratization of media also means that
certain entities can't quite dictate the narrative like they used to. More than ever,
it will be necessary to use our reason and our common sense. Things are rarely what
they appear to be.
This week's behavioral experiment:
Spend ten minutes in the sun at the start of each day. Notice how you feel.
Warmly,
Orion
‷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
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
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ 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
"Dead Giveaways You’re About To Be Attacked" by Steve Tarani
Body Posture
Eye Contact
Intercept Course
"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)
“New Normal?” by John Farnam
If law enforcement officers are ambushed, you will be ambushed soon.
Historically, that's how it goes. These were not mindless mob actions.
These were organized military actions. Thomas Douglas Homan said so.
"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
Appendix carry violates safety rule 2. Lots of documented cases. You can search
YouTube.com for videos.
What's the advantage of appendix carry? If you have limited range of motion,
you may need to carry in the appendix position to be able to reach your pistol.
Human legs bend forward in front of your body. Human legs do not bend backward
behind your body. So you should position your holster so that your pistol never covers
your legs. Which means anywhere from 3 o'clock to 9 o'clock. [Similarly for
SCUBA tanks.]
Safety Rule 2 is ALWAYS, not just when the pistol is in your hand. Especially if
you use a holster that does not completely cover the trigger guard.
"Gut feelings are guardian angels."
-- Nicola Cavanis
“The Proverb warns, 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.'
But maybe you should, when it prevents you from feeding yourself.”
-- Thomas S. Szasz
"Armed Citizens to the Rescue!" by John Farnam
Calling the government and waiting for them to rescue you is not a plan.
"Safety is something that happens between your ears,
not something you hold in your hands."
-- Jeff Cooper
"911?" by John Farnam
Excerpt:
“Waiting around for help to arrive,” while doing nothing to abrogate the threat,
is tantamount to a death sentence!
“The reason for ‘delay’ is usually not laziness, nor unwillingness.
The reason is more often that necessary knowledge has never been
translated into a simple, usable, and systematic form.”
-- Atul Gawande
"It's easier to stay out of trouble than to get out of trouble."
-- Claude Werner
"You are not responsible for negative reactions to your boundaries."
-- Nicola Cavanis
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.
by Man Talk (a Romanian soldier)
Note second vignette. "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes."
Note 7th vignette. Charlize Theron. Thinking just like a man.
Got to protect your assets. (Especially from husbands like Sean Penn.
She made Sean Penn dispose of his entire gun collection.)
She should know. She saw her mother shoot (and kill) her father in
self-defense. If you marry and have kids with an abuser, you must have
a pistol available to prevent the abuser from killing you and your daughter.
Now that's common sense.
"I'm so available!" Ya, that's because no man in his right mind would
stay with her. Smoking hot movie star just ain't enough, especially at
50 years of age.
"Atomic Blonde"
They're free, with commercials.
"Aeon Flux"
*************************************************************************
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Training --------------------------------
Figuring out the correct tasks to practice.
"In reality, we are training for an unknown event, against unknown threats,
by developing as many known skills as possible."
-- Jeff Gonzales
I had dinner with a friend. He told me of all the pistols that he had, and spoke of
buying pistols, asking my advice on what to buy. I told him to sell a few pistols and
buy some training. He told me that he didn't have the money for training. He cited
one of John Farnam's classes at $800 for a two day pistol class. Which he considered
too expensive. He asked if he couldn't get comparable training at the local range / gun
store.
I explained to him that when he leaves the class at the local gun range he will
be happy, having passed all the test and getting a nice certificate.
When leaving Farnam's class he will not be happy, learning all of the things that
he didn't know that he didn't know, learning all of the things that he thought were
true that are false, learning all of the things he needs to work on because he found
out that he was not competent in those things (because he failed the tests).
I reminded him that when we took the Tennessee state mandated "Active Shooter"
training in order to be able to guard schools in Tennessee, that many of those persons
dropped their pistols when running from the parking lot to the pistol range, many of
them missed the target completely when shooting on the pistol range, many shot the
innocent bystanders when going through the building clearing scenario. And yet they
all passed. So it wasn't training. It wasn't a test. It was just a financial transaction.
Pay your money to get your credential to do a job.
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)
"Run Rabbit Run" by Clint Smith
"Having a gun is important.
But knowing WHEN to use it is even more important."
-- Greg Ellifritz
"Can You Really Access Your Gun Weak handed?" by Massad Ayoob
"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
[So, you better learn and practice some hand-to-hand combat techniques
to give you the time and space to access your pistol. -- Jon Low]
"Why You Should Use Visual Range Control" by Dustin Salomon
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
"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
"Guest Shot: The Three S Test" by Dave Spaulding
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpt:
"After serving seven years (at different times) in the county jail,
I got to know how criminals think and the biggest mistake anyone
can make is to apply their thoughts, morals or feelings to a street criminal.
Never base a decision on how to deal with an armed opponent by
applying your logic, feelings or background."
1. Is the technique being taught simple to execute or perform?
2. Does it make sense?
3. Is it street proven?
“Train, Practice, Compete
are the key elements in the development of humans.”
-- John M. Buol, Jr.
When I read someone else's math, I always hope that the author will have
included a reason and not just a proof. When this does happen, the benefits
are very great. Unfortunately, a lot of math is taught without any attempt at
illumination. Even worse, it is sometimes taught without any explanation
at all. But even if it is explained, not every explanation is illuminating.
-- Euginia Cheng
[Instructors, your job is to explain correctly so as to illuminate. -- Jon Low]
You take training to find out what doesn't work. Until you take the training,
you are in a state of self deception.
---
"It Works For Me"
Amateurs try until they get it right.
Professionals try until they can't get it wrong.
by Kevin Creighton
Excerpts:
Lose Your Illusions
Reality Doesn't Care About Your Favorite Gear
Your gun might indeed “work for you” when you’re
punching holes in a paper target at your local range,
but will it work under the stress of a life-or-death situation?
Once they attend a class that requires you to draw from a holster,
weaknesses in those gear choices are exposed.
“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
"Trigger Talk Podcast" by Clint and Todd
"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
“If you are reading this and can’t put your hand on your defensive firearm,
all of your training is wasted.” -- Col. Jeff Cooper
"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
"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
"A mistake that makes you humble is better
than an achievement that makes you arrogant."
-- Nicola Cavanis
“Training deals not with an object,
but with the human spirit and human emotions.”
--Bruce Lee
"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
"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
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ 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
Email from Orion Taraban, Psy.D. --
"The wisdom of silence."
Wednesday, July 9th, 2025
Some people think to talk. Others talk to think. Either can work – but relationships
with a mismatch rarely do. One will find the other frustratingly sphinx-like; the other
will wonder if the first will ever shut up. The difference between the two seems to be
the capacity to maintain an inner monologue. One has it; the other, not so much.
I'm decidedly in the former category. I enjoy silence, despise small talk, and
consider long-winded people one of my personal crosses to bear. If it can be said in
fewer words: great. If it can't: perhaps it shouldn't yet be verbalized. After all, if you
don't quite know what it is you're trying to say, then how will speaking it into
existence not generate confusion?
We would not long abide a doctor whose treatments were more harmful than
doing nothing. So why encourage those who fill the air with their vacuous inanities?
If silence is the language of God, then we should have something very important to
say before we shout Him down. Cato wrote:
“I begin to speak only when I'm certain what I'll say isn't better left unsaid.”
In my opinion, there is a great deal of respect in this perspective.
This week's behavioral experiment:
What is something in your mind that you can no longer leave unsaid? Say it.
Warmly,
Orion
---
As John Farnam says, "Make your point and then shut up."
“Happiness is the by-product of achievement” -- Jeff Cooper
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ 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
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
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Classes --------------------------------
Attending classes and conferences is required to avoid teaching
obsolete material, and to ensure you are teaching best practices.
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
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
Quips,
Rangemaster, Tom Givens
Newsletter,
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.
"There is no glory in practice, but without practice there is no glory."
-- Jeff Gonzales
"livefire pressure testing one's shooting skills "
by Claude Werner, The Tactical Professor
My favorite drill is simple to set up but complex to administer. It requires comfort
with an execution matrix to do correctly.
Conceptually, it's best done with a group of about 2 dozen people. I've done it with
3 dozen, but it's a lot of work.
It's called 'Everyone shoots against everyone.' Using an execution matrix, I have
every student shoot a short bout against every other student. Not consecutively,
though. It's not a mystery, I just run down the matrix and pair up names.
Logistically, all that's required is two pepper poppers and two shoot boxes.
The shooting is static. Two shooter , two poppers, one signal. First to drive his/her
popper down is the winner.
Where it gets difficult for the shooters is ramping their focus up and down over
the course of an hour or so. Shooters do a lot of standing around and then get
quickly called to shoot while the poppers are being reset. I do that timing deliberately.
When I did this for a large police department's firearms instructors several years ago,
their lead firearms instructor was the hands down favorite to win because he was easily
the best shot in the department. However, that turned out not to be the case.
He became complacent after awhile. The guys that had to shoot against him were
jacked up every time. There ended up being no clear cut winner. The guys at the
top of the winning curve were all reasonably proficient but not equal to him.
Not surprisingly to me, the dedicated point shooters ended up at the bottom
of the curve. One even told me he had decided to re-evaluate his philosophy
because he got beaten so consistently.
At the end I commented that the amount of time they had to prepare for each
bout after being called was similar to the amount of time they had from when
they turned on their lights for a 'routine traffic stop' until they exited their patrol
cars. Some of them do dozens of stops each day because they work traffic on the
Interstate.
The psychology of approaching combat is as important as skill. Complacency,
among other things, kills. After two years at Rogers, how students dealt with the
problem mentally became far more interesting to me than the technique. One of
the difficulties of the Rogers Testing Program is that it requires students to take
turns loading magazines, watching/evaluating someone else, and then standing
and delivering. It goes on for over an hour, which is psychologically nerve racking.
This evening, I was watching some footage of a huge firefight in Afghanistan and
was struck at how similar the pacing was to the Testing Program at the School.
-- Claude Werner
"Complacency, among other things, kills." -- Claude Werner
". . . the dedicated point shooters ended up at the bottom of the curve." -- Claude Werner
‟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″
"Essential Practice: Malfunction Drills
Because if something can go wrong, it will, and usually at the worst possible time."
by Chris Cypert
https://www.shootingillustrated.com/content/essential-practice-malfunction-drills/
"Your speed doesn't matter. Forward is forward."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"Practice your shooting by doing exactly the same thing,
exactly the same way, every time, until it is completely automatic."
-- Duaine Zeitz
“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
*************************************************************************
Jammers
🔷 Jamming by The Merge
https://themerge.co/p/rtx-jamming
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** 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
"Fraternity Picnic Shooting" by Claude Werner
https://thetacticalprofessor.net/
“How do you win a gunfight?
Don't be there.”
-- John Farnam
"You win gunfights by not getting shot."
-- John Holschen
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Tactics --------------------------------
Maneuver and fire in support of your strategy.
". . . 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"
"El Paso Officers Exchange Gunfire With Armed Suspect" by PoliceActivity
Hat tip to Aqil Qadir.
The bad guy pretends to surrender and then shoots at the officers.
"Superior judgment trumps superior skills." -- Dan Millican
“There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.” -- Lao Tzu
“Just call 911 . . .” by John Farnam
Excerpt:
"So much for naively assuming that rescue is “just a phone-call away!”
Such assumptions are, in reality, naïve delusions that dissolve in the face
of hard reality."
---
I have been in combat where the enemy used jammers. Forward observers can't
call air strikes, artillery, or naval gun fire (those were the three categories when I
attended FO school). If the fire is pre-arranged, the FO can't walk it into the target.
"The drones can do it."
Only the wire guided drones. Do we have any of those? I know the Ukrainians
were using such.
Commanders cannot direct troops (fortunately, American troops are capable
of initiative and independent action all the way down to the individual; that's why
it's so important to know the commander's intent).
But, we are overly reliant on radiomen. Hey, hand signals still work,
if you know them, if you've practiced them. If the others on your side know
them. Don't laugh, it's not funny. [If you've got a competent S-2, they have
briefed you on the enemy's hand signals. As well as their tactics and techniques.
Knowing their customs, traditions, and religion really ain't that important when
you're shooting each other.]
All the cryptology, error correcting coding, and such doesn't help you a twit,
when the enemy is jamming.
"What about frequency hopping, spread spectrum, . . . ?"
Did any of those guys survive to give us an after action report? [No, I owe
you a serious answer. With spread spectrum, the signal is below the noise level.
With serious (Russian) jamming, the signal is now orders of magnitude below
the noise level. You're going to have a hard time reconstructing it. Not some
thing most radios can do in real time. Ya, some of the more sophisticated soft-
ware defined radios can. But, do you have such? Are they fielded yet?]
"Well, the circularly polarized satellite comms should still work, because
we're directing the signal straight up."
Oh, do you think the jamming noise can't go straight up? Or that it cares
about polarization, modulation, or anything like that? It's just upping the noise
level, the background noise, the environmental noise, . . .
I have to stop, as I don't wish to belabor the point. Was there a point?
Maybe I just went of on a tangent. Or, was it a hyperbolic tangent?
"Real fights are short." -- Bruce Lee
"How to safely walk your dog while armed" by Lee Williams
Hat tip and comment by Stephen P. Wenger --
Williams states earlier that he walks a Boston Terrier – a small breed but,
in my years of observation, one that may be prone to challenging larger dogs.
One factor that he overlooks is whether your dog may be yanking the leash as
you attempt to shoot one-handed – with a large dog, your shot could easily be
jerked off target. Give some thought to how long you're going to hold onto
that leash. And, if you actually get into a fight that requires a reload are you
still going to be holding that leash? It's only recently that I started carrying
OC spray outside of a vehicle but I still carry a collapsible baton – primarily
in case I have to pry my own digs open – an option that may keep her from
getting shot by another dog owner who's not kept control of his own dog.
[It's my understanding that OC spray is more challenging to use on dogs than
on humans as it's harder to get it on a dog's mucous membranes.] Oh yeah . . .
I was taught decades ago to distinguish between dominant and non-dominant
hands, not strong and weak ones. Years later, a list member corrected me for
referring to my two guns carried as primary and secondary as circumstances
will determine which is drawn first. In my own case, if I am standing, I will
likely have a faster draw – with my non-dominant but actually stronger left
hand – from the pocket because my belt gun is holstered for optimal access
while seated. As they say in the forums, “YMMV” (your mileage may vary)
and my thoughts are intended primarily to spur your own.
-- Stephen P. Wenger
"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.)
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Techniques --------------------------------
Ways to execute a given task in support of your tactics,
especially when disabled or under stress.
"Why are the little things called little things?
They are everything."
-- Nicola Cavanis
"Surreptitious Draw 101: Master the Invisible Handgun Pull" by Massad Ayoob
Massad Ayoob - Facts and Firearms
---
If you're not going to use the sights (for whatever reason), you should have
your elbow pulled as far back as possible and the bottom of your grip pressed
tight against your rib cage. The top of your pistol should be tilted away from
your body so your slide doesn't get fouled in your clothing or breast.
Having your pistol sticking out in front of you as in the video is wrong.
Because it's easier for the bad guy to grab your pistol.
---
"FlexCCarry℠ Solutions: A Positive Guide to Off-Body Carry"
by Vicki Farnam
ISBN-13 : 979-8991672405
"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
"Evaluating Shooting Stances" by Richard A. Mann
Excerpts:
"Your head is held erect and when you draw your handgun,
you bring [your handgun] up to eye level. You do not drop your head."
"Though some believe the Weaver stance is a bladed stance, it’s not.
You stand with your body squared to the target." [I disagree. -- Jon Low]
"The main distinction of the isosceles stance is that both of your arms are
extended, with the elbows locked or only very slightly bent. And, just like
the Weaver stance, you push the pistol forward with your shooting arm and
apply pressure to the rear with your support arm." [Really? How you going
to pull with your support side arm if it is locked out straight or only slightly
bent? You won't be able to get the bicep muscle to pull in this position.
-- Jon Low]
"Often, you’ll see those shooting the Weaver stance cock their head to
the side and rest it on their shooting arm. Similarly, you’ll see those shooting
the isosceles stance duck their head like a turtle between their shooting arms.
Neither approach is correct."
". . . the only thing that really matters about your stance is that it’s balanced
enough to control the handgun . . . and balanced enough to keep you on your
feet during a fight."
"It's not daily increase but daily decrease - hack away at the inessentials!"
-- Bruce Lee
"Gun & Prepping News #37" by Docent
Note,
"An Israeli Soldier Shows Why ‘Israeli Carry’ Can Get You Killed" by John Boch
https://www.shootingnewsweekly.com/self-defense/video-lesson-israeli-carry-carry-can-get-you-killed/
Excerpt:
"Criminal attacks almost always happen suddenly,
without warning and on the attacker’s timeline. Not yours."
---
Carry with a round in the chamber. You won't have time to chamber a round.
You certainly won't have time to get your pistol if it is not on your body.
---
Note,
“Impalo-Car-Fu” by Rich Grassi
"Comply with the law. To do that, understanding it is handy."
“What’s the number one reason for reloading?
Missing the target!”
-- Claude Werner
"Church Safety Team Takes Down Would-Be Mass Murderer With Bullets and a Ford F-150"
by John Boch
Notice how initial reports were wrong. It takes time to figure out what happened.
"Grip first, then press."
-- Mike Seeklander
This is in the Technique section instead of the Gear section because I believe
this is a matter of training in a technique, as opposed to a problem best solve by
choosing the correct gear.
"Striker Fired Guns Should Probably Not Be Carried AIWB."
by SLG
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpt:
"Any gun can be shot at a high level. Not all guns can make up for your
mistakes. Choose wisely."
"Use only that which works,
and take it from any place you can find it."
-- Bruce Lee
"Does the Crossdraw Have a Place in Concealed Carry Methods?"
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Using a different holster for special occasions doesn't make sense to me.
Not carrying in the same position all the time doesn't make sense to me.
"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
"Purse Carry Safety" by Robyn Sandoval
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
This is a matter of technique, not gear. One has to practice. (Dry practice first.)
*************************************************************************
Lauren Freebird
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** 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.
“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
"Breaking: LA Supreme Court Overturns Kayla Giles Conviction"
by Paul T. Martin
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpt:
"Court issued mutual protective orders that, among other things,
prohibited them from possessing firearms pursuant to 18 USC § 922(g)(8)."
[Ya, but the defendant claimed that she was never served with that order.
And she was never charged with violating that law.
-- Jon Low]
---
STATE OF LOUISIANA VS. KAYLA JEAN GILES COUTEE
"Kayla Giles Case Gets a MASSIVE UPDATE!" by Attorneys On Retainer
"Why I Left USCCA: The Truth Behind Their Failures in Self-Defense Cases!"
by The Attorney Andrew Branca Show
In the right hand column of this web page, click on "Never Talk To The Police"
or use the address,
In the right hand column, click on the link labeled "Self Defense Insurance".
Or, the link is,
Read this before you buy insurance. You need to make an informed decision.
The various policies are drastically different.
"You need to read the fine print." -- Massad Ayoob
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him,
but because he loves what is behind him.”
― G.K. Chesterton
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Medical --------------------------------
"If you prepare for the emergency,
the emergency ceases to exist!"
-- Sherman House
Tactical Emergency Casualty Care Course - NAEMT Certified, $495.00
Tracey Mendenhall | VP of Operations
(Life Saving Ninja)
DEFEND SYSTEMS
(615) 480-7758
“Your character is what you do when no one is looking.”
-- Thomas Jefferson
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Survival --------------------------------
"Survival is a mindset, not a skill set."
-- Greg Shaffer
"Inflammatory Prudence" by Paul T. Martin
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpt:
"Rest assured, Austin [Texas, U.S.A.] is keeping it weird. And remains unprepared."
"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
*************************************************************************
U.K. Ministry of Defense
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** 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
"The FBI and Media Don’t Tell You How Many Lives Guns SAVE"
by John Stossel
Hat tip to Freddie Blish.
Rangemaster Firearms Training Services, Tom Givens
www.rangemaster.com
JULY 2025 NEWSLETTER
"Weekend Knowledge Dump- July 11, 2025" by Greg Ellifritz.
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
"Anna Paulina Luna Talks Firearms" by GundayMorningQB
"One punch that ended a life and changed another" by John Murphy
Excerpt:
"We don't have a justice system. We have a legal system."
"Is Defensive Firearms Training Defensible?" by Massad Ayoob
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
You want to be part of that 1% who took your responsibility so seriously that
you took more training than the minimum required to get your state issued permit.
---
"A Few Reasons to get your Concealed Carry Permit" by Daniel Reedy
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
On Friday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) quietly allowed a deadline to file
an appeal with the Supreme Court in the case Reese v. ATF to pass. As a result,
a unanimous January decision from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals–which
covers Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana–will stand. The panel held that a
combination of federal statutes banning licensed firearm dealers from selling
pistols to young adults violates the Second Amendment.
-- Adam Kraut, executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF),
a party to the lawsuit
"States Draw the Line: 15+ States Ban Law‐Enforcement Cooperation
with ATF Gun Enforcement" by Ammoland Editors & Staff
Hat tip to Stephen P. Wenger.
---
[Notice how the URL in your browser looks like,
but is actually,
ah, the games we play.
-- Jon Low]
"Kayla Giles Case Gets a MASSIVE UPDATE!" by Attorneys On Retainer
"BREAKING NEWS:
CRAZY 2ND AMENDMENT GUN OWNERSHIP CASE DECIDED!"
by The Four Boxes Diner (Mark Smith)
Dumb people don't learn from their mistakes. Smart people learn from their mistakes.
Wise people learn from the mistakes of others.
---
U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals
GERALD NOVAK; ADAM WENZEL, Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
WILLIAM L. FEDERSPIEL, in his official and personal capacities, Defendant-Appellee.
---
The right to keep arms means to keep the gun you own, not the ability to get
more arms.
"9th Circuit Decision on Use of Force Has Implications for Church Security
A Ninth Circuit court ruling on a deadly force case involving a deputy
sets a critical precedent for armed church security teams."
by Keith Graves
Excerpts:
"The court emphasized that deadly force is unconstitutional when the subject
poses no immediate threat, even if they’re holding a weapon."
"This case involved a sworn peace officer with formal training,
department policies, and the legal shield of qualified immunity.
Church security volunteers have none of those protections (although
some states are starting to pass legislation to give you immunity in such cases).
If you use deadly force in your role at church, you can be sued or criminally
charged just like this deputy — only with fewer legal defenses."
"Biden’s DEI Hire at SCOTUS Hits a New Low"
Ketanji Brown Jackson’s latest inane opinion managed to annoy fellow DEI
hire Sonia Sotomayor, who questioned whether Jackson understood what
the case was even about."
by Emmy Griffin
Do you understand? This is going to turn into a big problem.
The Deputy Director of the Tennessee Public Defenders (the best attorneys that you
cannot pay for) spoke to the Tennessee Firearms Association last night at the Golden
Corral restaurant in Hermitage, TN. She said you cannot claim self-defense if you
shoot a cop, if the cop identifies himself, if you should have reasonably known that
he was a cop.
Now STOP and think about that. Anyone can buy a cop uniform over the internet,
shave their face, get a hair cut, and yell "POLICE!". Even I have done that in the past.
Remember the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre? The bad guys dressed up as cops,
lined the victims up against a wall, and shot them to death. So you can't say it doesn't
happen. You can even say it's a rare occurrence. Crimes where the bad guys impersonate
cops happens hundreds of time every year in America.
"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 -----
When I read someone else's math, I always hope that the author will have included
a reason and not just a proof. When this does happen, the benefits are very great.
Unfortunately, a lot of math is taught without any attempt at illumination. Even worse,
it is sometimes taught without any explanation at all. But even if it is explained,
not every explanation is illuminating.
-- Euginia Cheng
[Instructors, your job is to explain correctly so as to illuminate. -- Jon Low]
"Your curriculum needs to be recent, relevant, and realistic."
-- Austin Killmer
Black women, the fastest growing demographic in the gun community.
According to NSSF.
Outreach. You don't have to be Black. You don't have to be a woman.
Just care enough to outreach and make yourself available. This is God opening
a door for you.
"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
*************************************************************************
----- Students -----
“It may seem difficult at first but everything is difficult at first.”
-- Miyamota Mushashi
"It's better to be wrong than to be vague."
-- Freeman Dyson
[If you are wrong, the instructor can correct you. If you are vague, no one can help you.]
"Failure is an indication that someone tried to do something."
-- Ingersoll
"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
*************************************************************************
----- Andragogy -----
‟An instructor should not expect any learning to
take place the first time new information is presented.”
-- ‶Building Shooters″ by Dustin Salomon
"The one true philosophical theory of names" by Jeffrey Kaplan
You're using a lot of names / labels / terminology in your teaching.
The names should be correct in the philosophical sense. Otherwise,
you will confuse your students.
For instance, we load and unload our guns. We charge and void our magazines.
Overloading the words "load" and "unload" to refer to both guns and magazines
will cause confusion. Confusion on a live fire range is DANGEROUS.
*************************************************************************
Now there's a happy smile.
*************************************************************************
------------------------------ Gear --------------------------------
And the safe storage thereof.
“Mission drives the gear train.”
-- Pat Rogers
"SBRs Could Soon Cost Less Than Your Standard Rifle — Here’s Why"
by Scott Witner
Hat tip to Stephen P. Wenger
Text of article:
"Thanks to the recently passed Big Beautiful Bill (BBB), short-barreled rifles
(SBRs) might soon be cheaper than your typical rifle — a twist no one saw coming
just a few years ago. The BBB zeroes out the Making (Form 1) and Transfer
(Form 4) taxes for silencers, SBRs, short-barreled shotguns, and AOWs
(any other weapon). The old $200 stamp for these NFA items? Gone, starting
January 1, 2026. Only machine guns and destructive devices keep the old tax
burden. But here’s where it gets even more interesting for SBR buyers:
under Section 4181 of the Internal Revenue Code,
the Firearms and Ammunition Excise Tax (FAET) adds a 10% tax on pistols
and revolvers and an 11% tax on other firearms and ammo. However,
any short-barreled firearm that paid the NFA transfer tax was exempt
from this extra tax. With the new bill setting the NFA tax to zero,
SBRs (and SBSs) slip right through the FAET net, too. No $200 stamp.
No 11% excise tax. So while manufacturers factor in all sorts of costs when
pricing a firearm, this tax loophole means an SBR might soon hit your wallet
less than a standard rifle off the rack. One big bill, one big unexpected discount."
"Carry Optics" by Dave Spaulding
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Don't hang stuff on your pistol that you don't know how to use competently
(have taken training and have practiced with it).
"Is Hollowpoint the Best Defensive Ammo for Concealed Carry?"
by Massad Ayoob
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
This shows how incompetent a "medical examiner" can be. You must be able to
afford expert witnesses to counter the prosecutions fallacious experts. Can you afford
$7000 per day plus round trip air fare, hotel, rental car, and per diem? No? Better
have a good insurance policy (one that actually pays for such expenses, up front,
in full).
"Should You Use a Weapon Light on a Concealed Carry Pistol?" by Scott Witner
Hat tip to Stephen P. Wenger.
Excerpt and comment by Stephen P. Wenger --
Revisiting Handgun-Mounted Lights: There’s a weird hill some people choose
to die on—and it’s this: arguing that putting a light on your carry gun is somehow
“overrated.” Look, we’re not living in 1975. Flashlights aren’t 30-lumen toys
anymore. Today’s compact weapon lights (WMLs) put out 1,000+ lumens and
high candela that can literally turn a dark alley into a surgical room. And no, this
isn’t just about being a “cool guy.” This is about positive threat ID and stacking
the odds in your favor when the world goes dark. So let’s cut through the
old-school dogma and break down the pros, the cons, and the nonsense in between
when it comes to carrying a pistol with a weapon light attached.
⬢ A weapon light helps you ID threats faster.
⬢ Use it smart — don’t scan with your muzzle.
⬢ Train like you carry.
⬢ If you can carry it comfortably and conceal it reliably,
there’s no reason not to run one.
⬢ The idea that only cops or soldiers “need” lights on their pistols is outdated.
The truth? If you carry a firearm to protect yourself and others, then being able
to see what you’re potentially going to shoot isn’t just smart — it’s responsible.
⬢ Most violent encounters happen in low light.
⬢ A weapon light lets you confirm whether that silhouette is a threat — or your
drunk neighbor looking for his dog.
⬢ You can disorient a threat using sheer lumens alone. Think: retina destroyer mode.
⬢ As Colion Noir put it, “Why would I not put the sun on the end of my gun?”
It’s a valid question. Yes, using your weapon light to search an area is a bad idea —
because it means you’re potentially muzzling non-threats. That’s a real concern,
and critics like Ken Hackathorn are right to bring it up. But here’s the thing:
That’s not a weapon light problem. That’s a training problem. Use a handheld light
to search. Use your light only when your gun is already on a confirmed threat.
Simple as that. And for those who say they’ve “never needed it” in a self-defense
encounter? You could say the same thing about a fire extinguisher . . . right up until
your kitchen goes up in flames . . .
---
Comment by Stephen P. Wenger --
While Witner covers most of the caveats, if you click the link to read the rest
of this article, you'll note the “Live Inventory Price Checker” which I assume
generates a commission for the website if the reader purchases one of the lights
by clicking a link. Yes, it's a training problem! How many gun owners train that
seriously? How many will carry both a handheld light and a weapon-mounted light
and practice transitioning between the two - particularly switching on the
weapon-mounted light without pressing the trigger? And how many now carry
pistols with short-stroke triggers and no thumb safeties? A few years back, after
close friend had found that she shoots revolver better than pistols, we had an RSO
[who had all of two years of gun ownership under his belt] at the local outdoor
range interrupt her shooting to ask why she was shooting a revolver. He then
proceeded to show her his own S&W Shield, fitted with grip tape, a red-dot
optic and a light. In passing, he let it slip that he'd almost shot his own dog
when he used that pistol to search his home for whatever had gone bump in
the night. About that last set of bullet point above: A large percentage of violent
encounters occur in hours of darkness but, particularly when they occur outdoors,
such as in parking lots of stores, there may well be ambient sources of artificial
light. In many jurisdictions, using a weapon-mounted light outside the home to
distinguish a threat from your drunk neighbor looking for his dog may be construed
as aggravated assault if it turns out to be someone who just wandered onto your
property. And “retina destroyer mode” is more safely employed with a handheld
light. If you can't place a shot in the upper torso one-handed at five yards, you are
practicing the wrong skills. I've commented before that, if I had my teaching career
to do over, I'd include flashlight drills even in daylight – not so much for shooting
in the dark but to avoid mistaken-identity shootings inside the home. Personally,
that's where my guns with weapon-mounted lights remain.
-- Stephen P. Wenger
"Best .45 ACP Pistols (That Aren’t 1911s)"
by Kat Ainsworth Stevens and Wyatt Sloan
Because they have less recoil than a 40 S&W and are easier to handle than a 9mm,
because they are bigger. Yes, it matters, especially to people with limited manual
dexterity. Remember, younger children play with bigger blocks (Legos or whatever).
As they get older, their manual dexterity improves and they can play with the smaller
blocks.
"6 Reasons Why You Should Carry Defensive Tools in Front of the Hips"
by Salvatore
Hat tip to Greg Ellifritz.
Excerpts:
"An appendix carried tool is unlikely to cause bodily injury during a fall."
"More Accessible to Either Hand" [Under the assumption that you are
reaching around the front of your body. Effectively out of reach when reaching
around your back. But the 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock position is accessible when
reaching around the front or back (for most humans, with practice). -- Jon Low]
"CCW Minute: How to Choose the Right Gun Belt" by Kevin Creighton
"The FBI P320 Files (World Exclusive)" by Protraband
Hi Everyone.
Well, let's not bury the lead - the Ballistics Research Facility of the F.B.I.
has discovered, quote, ". . . with movements representing those common to a law
enforcement officer[,] it is possible to render the Striker Safety Lock inoperable
and ineffective at preventing the striker from impacting a chambered round . . ."
---
It's redacted, but it's the Michigan State Police.
---
Not only did the P320 fire while in the holster,
it cycled the action enough while in the holster to reset the trigger.
Now stop and think about that. That means that with the holster hood closed,
there was enough space for the slide to move back far enough to reset the
trigger. The slide did not move back far enough to eject the spent case or
load a cartridge from the magazine, but enough to reset the trigger.
"Its a bad day for sig shills" by Ben Stoeger
"Hey, Sig, That Thing You Said Doesn't Happen With P320s Just Happened Again"
by Tom Knighton
"Sig dumped again" by Ben Stoeger
ICE deadlines Sig P320, no longer authorized to carry any model of this pistol.
Going with Glock 19, because it's already approved.
"Federal judge issues key ruling against gun maker Sig Sauer in widow's lawsuit
Lawsuit claims company's P320 pistol discharged while holstered due to faulty components"
by Pilar Arias
Excerpts:
"Roman Neshin, 41, died Oct. 1, 2024, when his holstered Sig Sauer P320
discharged and shot him in the groin, a wrongful death lawsuit alleges."
Gomelskaya filed the case after her husband, 41-year-old Roman Neshin,
was "found dead ‘with a single gunshot wound to (the) right groin’ and
‘plastic shrapnel from the holster . . . inside his pants’" Oct. 1, 2024, court
documents said. She claims the gun fired unintentionally as a result of
"defective components and/or the lack of necessary safety features."
Stephen P. Wenger, http://spw-duf.info, sent me a copy of the
"Michigan State Police
Sig Sauer M18 Evaluation"
Conducted by the Ballistic Research Facility (BRF) which is the FBI’s sole research,
development, testing and evaluation (RDT&E) facility for weapons, ammunition,
armor, and other law enforcement items. [I would be happy to email you a copy
if you send me an email at Jon_Low@yahoo.com]
Excerpt from the Conclusion section of the report:
". . . testing did indicate with movements representing those common to a law
enforcement officer it is possible to render the Striker Safety Lock inoperable and
ineffective at preventing the striker from impacting a chambered round if complete
sear engagement is lost. It is important to note that the Striker Safety Lock, by design,
is the last safety in line to prevent an unintended discharge as it is in place to protect
against a secondary sear notch override."
"FBI, DHS: Sig in Trouble Again" by Liberty Doll
Liberty Doll reads pertinent sections of the report.
With all the fine pistols on the market, buying a SIG P320 just doesn't make sense.
Statistically speaking, considering risk and benefit (no need to consider price as it
costs about the same as other comparable pistols).
I'm am so jealous / envious of these guys who get free guns from the companies,
for written reviews, and test and evaluation reports.
"Is Kimber good now?" Ben Stoeger
Yes, the people in the company make all the difference in the world. As Ben
says, it is certain persons who destroyed the quality at Kimber and are now destroying
the quality at Sig. Same persons. Kimber had the sense to fire them. Will Sig?
"Defeating Recoil" by Ben Stoeger and Joel
Can you distinguish between different ammunition loads?
Or are you just repeating what you've heard or read?
---
What you feel as recoil is the Impulse. Impulse is Force X Time.
So if the pistol (slide mass and spring tension) spreads the Impulse
out over a longer period of time, the Force will be less per unit Time.
Hence, less "felt" recoil.
The momentum is still conserved. Impulse is the change in
momentum with respect to Time. Longer Time, less change in
momentum per unit Time. Hence, less felt recoil.
What makes the pistol reciprocate faster? Reduce mass in the slide
and increase recoil spring tension. Anytime you change things from
the factory standard, you're playing games with reliability and liability.
“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.
"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
Pick's Theorem
Published by Austrian mathematician Georg Pick in 1899 in the field of rectangular
geometry. Given a cartesian lattice of points whose coordinates are integers,
where the number, B, is the number of points on the boundary,
and the number, C, is the number of points on the interior of the polygon,
then the area of a closed, non-crossing, polygon is,
Area = B/2 + C - 1
Are there any ambiguous cases? No.
Do you see the trap door function? Do you see the one-way function?
Do you see the zero-knowledge-proof protocol?
Yes, the good ones are simple. Because simple is easy to see what's going on.
Simple is not easy to reverse. Simple is not easy to invert.
"Never memorize anything. Rather, study it until it becomes obvious."
-- Norman Christ
"Deniable Encryption: They Can't Prosecute What They Can't Prove"
by Sam Bent
Always cite open source.
"Computer science has nothing to do with computers or science."
-- Donald Knuth
"Manipulating trapped air bubbles in ice for message storage in cold regions"
by Keke Shao1, Xuan Zhang, Mengjie Song, Jun Shen, Lizhen Huang,
Tianzhuo Zhan, Haidong Wang, Bo You, Libor Pekař, Dong Rip Kim,
Christopher Yu Hang Chao, Long Zhang
Hat tip to Bruce Schneider.
"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
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil."
-- Donald Knuth
"You don't need to memorize theorems,
because you can always derive them from first principles."
-- Sven Hartman
"All that we don't know is astonishing.
Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing."
-- Philip Roth
"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
"Lanie Gardner - Takin' The Slow Ride"
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** 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
"America is coming after Chinese it accuses of hacking" by The Economist
Note the company names. Always cite open source.
"Trump Reaches Deal to Send Weapons to Ukraine"
by Alexander Ward, Lara Seligman, and Brian Schwartz
The Wall Street Journal
Sending new weapons to NATO countries so that they can send old weapons to Ukraine.
Such is the proxy war. Note what is not said, but must be so.
Sweet memories.
"Emails Reveal the Casual Surveillance Alliance Between ICE and Local Police"
by Jason Koebler
https://www.404media.co/emails-reveal-the-casual-surveillance-alliance-between-ice-and-local-police/
Hat tip to Bruce Schneider.
Excerpt:
"In the email thread, crime analysts from several local police departments
and the FBI introduced themselves to each other and made lists of surveillance
tools and tactics they have access to and felt comfortable using, and in some
cases offered to perform surveillance for their colleagues in other departments.
The thread also includes a member of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations
(HSI) and members of Oregon’s State Police. In the thread, called the
“Southern Oregon Analyst Group,” some members talked about making fake
social media profiles to surveil people, and others discussed being excited to
learn and try new surveillance techniques. The emails show both the wide array
of surveillance tools that are available to even small police departments in the
United States and also shows informal collaboration between local police
departments and federal agencies, when ordinarily agencies like ICE are
expected to follow their own legal processes for carrying out the surveillance."
"Sinaloa cartel hacked security cameras to track and kill FBI informants, US says
Hacker working for cartel run by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was also able to
access phone records of an FBI legal attaché at the US embassy in Mexico City"
by Betsy Reed
---
"Audit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's
Efforts to Mitigate the Effects of Ubiquitous
Technical Surveillance"
by AUDIT DIVISION
Difficult to read because huge sections are redacted.
"We Tracked Every Visitor to Epstein Island
Even in death, the secrets of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and his infamous
private island remain tightly guarded. But in 2024, WIRED conducted an
investigation uncovering the data of mobile devices belonging to almost 200
of his visitors."
by Dhruv Mehrotra
Note the source. Mehrotra is a journalist, not an analyst. I'm sure he will
name names eventually, once they sift the victims from the perpetrators.
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"
From the Economist --
"How drones and video-game techniques are coming together in Ukraine’s war"
The idea of the body count evolves.
Ukraine’s war has been a forcing house of military innovation. Among the more
interesting is the use of “video-game incentives” to increase the armed forces’
efficiency in fighting theRussian invasion. The system ensures that successful
drone operators get new drones before their less effective colleagues do. Now
the process is being upgraded with what Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s
digital-transformation minister, has called “Amazon for the military” — a scheme
that allows units to buy battlefield kit with points won by destroying Russian
vehicles and other targets. “Gamification”, a term coined in the early2000s, has
been used in many fields, from health care and customer-loyalty programmes to
education and workplace productivity. Participants score points; leader boards,
progress bars, levels and badges tend to feature. In some cases points can be
translated into rewards beyond the satisfaction of game-defined “winning”.
Gamification came to the drone war in August 2024, when the Army of Drones,
a government-backed initiative to acquire drones for the armed forces, launched
a “bonus” system. The drone war is well suited for gamification because all
kills are recorded by the same drone cameras that are used for flying the aircraft
and a system already exists for logging them. (In other forms of combat claims
may be exaggerated—combatants may not know the results of a lobbed mortar
round.) Once a drone kill is logged, identified and confirmed, it wins a number
of points depending on the military value of the item destroyed. A drone operator
who destroys a T-90M tank – Russia’s most advanced combat vehicle – with a
disposable First Person View (fpv) drone gets enough points to make his unit
eligible to receive 15 more (which would cost the armed forces around $10,000
in total). The system gives operators an incentive to find high-value targets and
means that the units scoring kills are rewarded with prompt resupply. Even
though Ukraine produced 1.5m drones last year, there are never enough.
The elite 414th Marine Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle Strike, Unmanned Systems Battalion,
better known as “Birds of Magyar” after their charismatic commander, Robert Brovdi
(call sign Magyar), have implemented this system to good effect. Established in 2022
as a platoon – a relatively small formation – Birds of Magyar became a full regiment
at the end of 2024. It now accounts for 8% of the Russian armour that Ukraine
destroys, according to official figures. In April the unit rose to the top of the leader
board with 16,298 points, up from second place, and it has stayed there since. In June,
Mr. Brovdi was appointed overall head of Ukraine’s unmanned forces. In April,
Mr. Fedorov announced that the points system would be integrated with
"Brave 1 Market", a system that allows combat units to acquire equipment directly,
bypassing the standard procurement process, which can be slow and cumbersome.
The system also motivates troops to log every drone strike, which they must do
manually. This gives commanders a more complete view of the fighting. As well
as channelling resources to where they are best used, gamification shapes the
character of combat, according to Mr. Fedorov. He notes that the Army of Drones
recently increased the number of points for killing a foot soldier from two to six.
Units like Birds of Magyar immediately began killing more infantrymen.
Mr. Fedorov says that this led to a doubling of the number of Russian infantry
casualties. A later change doubled the number of points for taking out Russian
drone operators, making them higher-value targets than tanks. Such changes show
how the system can shift with commanders’ priorities. They have also led to a fall
in the number of tanks destroyed. Critics have decried dehumanising
“video-game wars” since the first Gulf war in 1991. They are dismayed that
gamification rewards killing with scores that can be used to win virtual cash for
buying more weapons. Traditionalists may worry that gamification undermines
the military hierarchy by decentralising control of supplies. But the use of
quantitative targets in war is not new. Body counts were the “primary measure
of progress” for American forces in the Vietnam war, notes one historian. They
determined who got medals, promotions and even rewards, such as time away
from the front. Today’s warriors, who grew up playing video games, will no
doubt see gamification as an unsurprising evolution of that idea.
In past decades the leaders of Fujitsu would have committed suicide.
"Post Office Cover-Up" by Global Recap
Excerpt:
"Internal documents revealed during the public inquiry showed that
Fujitsu and Post Office management knew of these issues but did not disclose
them to sub-postmasters or courts during prosecutions."
---
Do you think the software engineers responsible for the errors will ever be
punished for their incompetence? That's rhetorical of course. It was the managers'
fault. It was the executives' fault. Etc.
Software errors cause death and destruction. But, leadership doesn't care.
They will all be retired before the shit hits the fan.
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** Intelligence ***** ***** *****
"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
"Nearly 1 in 10 ‘Tier 1’ subcontractors to US defense prime contractors are
Chinese firms, according to a new study."
-- The Merge
A Lot of "Suicides"
by Global Recap
Excerpt:
Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi recently issued a fatwa, calling for the
assassination of US President Donald Trump and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu,
branding them “Enemies of God” after US strikes hit Iran’s nuclear sites in June.
---
$27 million bounty for killing President Trump. Which is quite different from
payment in full up front. (If it's a suicide mission, you'd want to give the money to
your family before you ship out.) We on the other hand do not get paid. Not even
tax payer money. We are the militia. We bring our own weapons, our own food,
etc. That's why we will win. (Remember the scene from the Godfather part 2
where Michael explains why the communist rebels will win in Cuba?)
I remember a briefing before a mission at Marine Forces Pacific G-2 at
Camp Smith. The officer said, "Bring credit cards. You might have to find your
own way home." A Master Sgt. pulled us off to the side after the briefing and
told us to bring gold coins, as the credit cards might not work. (It caused me to
remember the story a classmate at the University of Hawaii told me. Her father
had used gold coins to get her family out of South Vietnam when it fell to the
communists.) No issued weapons, because that would be an act of war. Even
then, the U.S. government worried about things like that.
As Michael Mann says, "Prevention, not reaction."
A copy of the fatwa is printed in the article. What do you notice?
(Iranians use Farsi, not Arabic.) Brandon allowed millions into the U.S.
Many were Iranian operatives. The fatwa is their go command.
"Trends!" by John Farnam
From friends in Norway.
"The Real Story of Benghazi Told By The Man Hired To Defend It | War Stories"
by Kris Paronto
"I was fired and never contracted again."
[That is reality. -- Jon Low]
"30,000 North Korean Soldiers CRUSHED by Ukrainian Force"
by Business Basics
Attack on Ben Gurion Airport, 4 May 2025
"US Fires Back After $3B Israeli Airport Hit —
Yemen Turned Into Fire and Dust | US Navy"
by Navy Signal
"Russians Are Now Fighting ‘NAKED’... They Ran OUT of ALL Armored Vehicles"
by The Military Show
Notice the numbers.
---
Russia has other enemies. When they feel that Russia cannot protect itself,
they will take territory and resources; including women. Look at the countries
that border Russia. Conversion by the sword.
"Even NATO Was Amazed! Ukraine Destroys Russian Base with a Genius Strategy"
by Military Reality
26 May 2025 Ukrainian attack on Russian Federal Security Service base in
Belgorod, Russia. Google maps shows the area all bulldozed and cleaned up
(as of 10 July 2025). Search for FSB.
Good Morning Sir,
Be careful, Sir, the enemy is killing intel colonels now.
"Ukrainian spy colonel gunned down in Kyiv, assailant flees"
by Tom Balmforth
"Chilling moment Ukrainian intelligence officer assassinated in cold blood"
by New York Post
[If you're going outside to take out the trash, you must be armed. -- Jon Low]
As the CIA Field Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh told me,
"The enemy is aware of your presence, take precautions."
Semper Fidelis,
Spaceman
"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
*************************************************************************
Svelte
*************************************************************************
***** ***** ***** 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
"Trump’s BOMBSHELL Navy Pick: Inside Hung Cao’s Mission to Fix the Fleet!"
by Veteran Spot
"The DNC Is Dependent On Jewish Contributors" by Docent
Excerpt:
The Jerusalem Post reports that "US Jews contribute half of all donations to the
Democratic Party," and 25% of those to the Republican National Convention.
I knew the Democrats relied heavily on Jewish voters for money, but I didn't realize
it was this much. But this confirms my suspicions of why the DNC is running out
of cash--they've alienated their Jewish supporters. The rest of the article discusses
why American Jews are so liberal. Per the article, and of note for Republicans,
is that American Jews are so liberal that the majority believe it is more important
to kill babies than to support Israel; so no matter how much the Republican's
support Israel, it is not likely to sway Jewish voters to switch parties.
"Professor Attacks Student's 2A, Religious Beliefs" by Liberty Doll
Never let anyone tell you the FBI wasn't censoring on Twitter.
"BREAKING NOW:
SCOTUS Clears Admin To SMOKE IRS By 40% |
ATF & DEA Merger DOA | Lefties Heartbroken"
by Langley Outdoors Academy
"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
An appeal to authority is not logically sound.
If you study the geologic record, as I have, you will see spontaneous creation and
mass extinction. You will not see evidence for an evolution of species.
Reagan joke.
An explanation of Democrat policy.
Democrats really don't have dads.
“You can’t truly call yourself ‘peaceful’ unless you are capable of great violence.
If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful, you’re harmless.
Important distinction.”
-- Stef Starkgaryen
I'm driving home from Strategic Edge Gun Range in Chapel Hill, TN,
heading north on Nolensville Pike (or whatever it's called in this Lenox
Village area, south of Nashville). I stop at the Sweet Waters cafe for a
coffee and a snack, and to check my email. I go into the bathroom and close
the door to hang my concealment garment on the hook on the back of the
door. And what do I see? A shoulder holster rig with pistol on one side
and an extra magazine and handcuffs on the other side. I turn it into the
owner of the cafe, who is a middle aged lady. (The cafe is often staffed
with only 16 year old little girls, who could not legally possess in
Tennessee.) I look around the cafe and there is no one else in the cafe.
So the dip shit had not only forgotten his pistol in the bathroom, he left
the area without his pistol. The owner called the cops to pick it up.
Be careful. These people exist and are roaming around in the wild.
[There was no reason to take the shoulder holster off in the first place.
ALWAYS leave the pistol in the holster and leave the holster on your
body, when using the bathroom.]
---
"Gulf Shores Police concerned over tourists leaving guns behind"
by Hal Scheurich
"Larry Fleet - Swing Low Sweet Chariot"
Semper Fidelis,
Jonathan D. Low
Email: Jon_Low@yahoo.com
Radio: KI4SDN
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