Knowledge to make your life better. If you have some free time, check out some of these links this weekend.

Watch this very short video. Once again, officers like this may be the ones sent to save you when you call 911. She got her ass kicked. She got her gun taken. She either didn’t have a backup gun or was too scared to draw it. She was left to run away in a screaming panic as other officers arrived and took care of business.

There are always going to be superior opponents. Anyone can get his or her ass kicked no matter how well trained that individual is. That being said, giving up and running away is completely dishonorable in this scenario.

You mistakenly think that drawing while the attacker has a superior position will save you? Nope. In a fight the gun belongs to whoever can keep it, not just the one who brought it to the party. You made a serious error. You’ve just armed a criminal who will soon start shooting at your friends.

I’d rather stay in the fight. I’d be doing everything humanly possible to drive in and get my gun back. I’ll take a bullet or three while doing so to ensure that none of my co-workers get shot because of my screw up.

There are a lot of cops doing the job who would look just like this in any serious encounter. You absolutely cannot rely on the police to protect you. Some of them can’t even take care of themselves. When you call 911, you may get a completely tactically squared away warrior who responds. You may also get someone like this. It’s a crap shoot.

And it has nothing to do with an officer’s sex. There are plenty of inept male cops as well. Check out this video. His performance wasn’t quite as cringe worthy, but if those three bystanders didn’t help, this officer might have been in serious trouble.

One other point to consider…after watching these two videos, do any of you open carry advocates still think that an openly carried gun will dissuade an attacker from victimizing you? I would submit that these officers’ openly carried weapons did not deter their attackers in the least bit. Why do you think you have better skills and awareness than these officers after only having taken a four-hour CCW class?

I added these two incidents to my database of open carry disarm attempts in my article Friends Don’t Let Friends Open Carry. You should also read Cecil Burch’s take on the first video to understand what went wrong.

Some options for discreetly carrying your rifles. I have used several of these over the years. They are very useful when I’m traveling out of state. I can move the guns from the car into the hotel room very easily without attracting any attention.

There aren’t many instructors in this industry who will publish their entire class lesson plan online. Claude Werner did just that. Here is the complete content for his introductory snub revolver class. If you carry a snub (and you know many of you do), you could follow his drills as sort of a self-study progression until you get the chance to train with the Tactical professor in person.

Good home defense advice.

Defensive shooting drills for single-action revolvers. Here is another article about shooting drills for big bore handguns.

“We show that, according to numerous measures, those with tattoos, especially visible ones, are more short-sighted and impulsive than the non-tattooed. Almost nothing mitigates these results, neither the motive for the tattoo, the time contemplated before getting tattooed nor the time elapsed since the last tattoo. Even the expressed intention to get a(nother) tattoo predicts increased short-sightedness and helps establish the direction of causality between tattoos and short-sightedness.”

I got a massive amount of hate mail when I mentioned face, neck, and hand tattoos as potential warning signs in my article How to Spot a Bad Guy. This study shows that people who get tattoos are more short-sighted and impulsive than people who are not inked. Do you know who else is short-sighted and impulsive? That’s right. A criminal.

As I stated in my original article, not everyone with a tat is a criminal. But almost all of the criminals I arrest have tattoos.

Speaking of spotting bad guys, Michael Bane talks about my article in this podcast (around 31 minutes in). He also provides some unique additional commentary on situational awareness.

I listen to a lot of podcasts driving around in the police car all day. I follow most of the thought leaders in the industry, but I don’t listen to every episode of every podcast, even if I’m friends with the host or the person being interviewed. With that said, I NEVER miss any Down Range Radio episodes.

Michael is creating the best general purpose firearms/self defense podcast out there. It’s one you really don’t want to miss. If you like what you hear, pick up Michael’s book Trail Safe.

One more situational awareness article for you today. It’s almost as if I think this topic is worthy of a lot of your consideration.

I like Robert’s advice to look for the victims and then look for who is paying attention to the victims as a way of enhancing your awareness. I think I’ve done that for a long time, but I never verbalized it as a strategy I use. Highly recommended.

Even though I work as a cop, 95% of my business is teaching armed citizens, not other police officers. My armed citizen friends see me as a “good cop” partially for doing so. My police supervisors may not agree with that assessment. The armed citizens I speak with often ask me what reforms could be implemented to create better relations between the police and community. It’s a tough question, primarily due to the rigid culture of law enforcement.

This article explains the culture that exists and why it may be hard to change. I find that numbers four and six will be the most difficult to change…number six especially. Cops can make lots of overtime money if they want to. They want the money and do the work. They overspend and then they NEED the money. You have a bunch of burnt out zombies working 80-100 hours a week on the street. How do you expect them to make the best decisions?

Oh, and #5, I agree completely. I NEVER wear dark sunglasses on patrol!

The Howard Leight Impact Sport series of electronic hearing protection is both inexpensive and very popular. Here are some suggestions for making them even better. I can attest that replacing the ear cups with the aftermarket Noisefighters gel cups makes an incredible improvement. I hadn’t thought about stuffing the open areas inside with foam for better protection.

I’m relatively certain that most of my readers are not recreational cocaine users. With that said, I’d imagine some of you might do a bump or two if the conditions were right.

I’ve responded to at least three calls in the last year or so where recreational cocaine users have died after snorting or smoking cocaine laced with fentanyl or one of its many opioid chemical derivatives.

If you use this junk, please test it first. The test strips mentioned in the video are cheap and reliable. I’d really prefer to end the last few months of my police career without having to deal with yet another overdose fatality.

Tamara Keel provides quality concealed carry advice intended for my female readers.

“While the endurance athlete has a need to maintain a high sub-maximal intensity for long periods to be successful, the vast majority of athletes, and certainly humans in general, have no need for this type of activity.”

A challenging carbine shooting drill.

A trusted spiritual adviser once told me “Dying is easy after you’ve done it a few times. It’s living that’s hard.”

Get to work.

Good safety tips for any of you who shoot on public land in national forests and the like.

What I’m reading…

After reading Die Wise a few months ago, I became a huge fan of Stephen Jenkinson. This book is a bit different than his previous work, but it’s still absolutely amazing. Come of Age is about how we have lots of “old people” in our societies, but very few “elders.” The book concentrates on the distinction between the two terms. It isn’t an easy book to read. It takes time to digest. It’s worth the effort. There aren’t many books that actually move me to tears. This is one of them.

This happened up in Canada. From what I understand, Canadian cops are generally forbidden by law from carrying their guns while off duty.

American cops have no such prohibitions, but many still refuse to carry on their own time.

I feel like a broken record saying this, but my cop friends need to realize that a lot of people in the world don’t like you. It may be a person you’ve arrested. It may be a random person who just hates cops. Any one of you could end up in a similar situation to this one.

A long time ago, I was accosted by three very large college football players when I was off duty and working out at a gym. I had arrested one of the men on two separate occasions and he recognized me. All three were significantly larger and stronger than I was. They yelled some verbal threats and then moved in for the attack. They backed off only because I displayed my firearm.

My cop friends should be cognizant of maintaining a low profile while off duty. No cop T-shirts or hats. No thin blue line stickers on your car. No FOP placards or license plates.

And carry your damn gun.

Good information about red dot rifle optics. I agree with the author. Most people have their dot brightness set too brightly. If you see a bloom like the photo above, precision shooting is going to be much more difficult.

AR-15 mechanical offset is an issue than continually frustrates my students. It takes lots of close range practice to reflexively remember that you need to hold higher at closer ranges.

Speaking of sights and point of impact, this article explains how it can be an issue with revolvers as well.

I occasionally get questions about stun guns for self protection. They aren’t a good idea. While their shock certainly hurts, a larger, stronger attacker will usually be able to keep you from successfully deploying it. Watch the video to see how most of your confrontations will turn out. Thanks to Practical Eschatology for originally sharing the link.

The final installment of Cecil’s excellent series about making your martial arts more street relevant.

Why I don’t include unstable surface training in my workout program.

A very comprehensive evaluation of the primary revolver speedloaders on the market.

I mentioned one of the podcasts I listen to regularly in another link above. I also really like Civilian Carry Radio’s podcast as well. If you aren’t familiar with it, this would be a great place to start.

In this particular episode, the hosts interview my friend John Murphy. They talk about the types of classes people should start taking after their CCW permit or basic NRA safety class. I know a lot of my readers have their carry permit, but have never attended any additional tactical training since their CCW class. John drops some knowledge about the topic here and provides some excellent information about where your priorities should lie.

John’s Advanced Skills and Tactics class and his 10-video Youtube series about concealed carry are incredibly unique. Not many people in the training business are actively marketing classes that combine all elements involved in a use of force incident. John’s class excels in this arena. If you can find one of John’s classes near you, I assure you that you will not be disappointed if you attend.

Having traveled to many of the “most dangerous” places on the planet and survived, I agree with the author’s assessment. Your travel fears are likely unwarranted. With that said, being prepared for travel emergencies helps to minimize the consequences of any type of foreign calamity or victimization.

A review of some of the studies of bear spray effectiveness. Bear spray is just a highly concentrated version of the regular OC spray you carry on your key chain. Some of the models intended for humans have the exact same strength as those designed for bear. Bear spray = Pepper spray. One can likely extrapolate effectiveness models against humans as being very similar to those deployed against aggressive bears.

This is incredibly important information for my female readers to understand. This article ties in very well with the summary of the first video I posted on today’s knowledge dump.

“… as a woman, fighting head-on against a man is generally a losing proposition. The odds are against you as there are factors beyond your control that put you at a distinct disadvantage. Once the girls finished expressing their “that’s not fair!” outrage, I explained that this is why the prevention and avoidance techniques I spent most of the course teaching and roleplaying with them are so important: If you can avoid a fight in which you have terrible odds, then that’s a win. You only fight when you have no other choice. But when you do, you do so with all you’ve got because you know just how much trouble you’re in.”



To even further highlight the advice in the previous linked article, I present this example. Do you think this woman really has a chance going hand to hand with her violent attacker? Lots of lessons to learn in this one. “I’ll just run away” isn’t a good defensive strategy when you can’t outrun the average teenage male who will be attacking you.

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