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

Click “download this paper” in the upper left corner of the linked article to get a free full text copy of the study.

A frightening, but true, assessment of way too many “gun people.”

Despite these warnings, I’m convinced that traveling to most of the common tourist destinations in Mexico is completely safe. The one exception may be Mexico City. It seems to be getting worse there every day. I’ve visited Mexico almost 20 times now and I’m still alive. If you follow the flow chart below, you will know if your Mexican vacation is safe or not.

What does worry me about cartel violence in Mexico is the fact that the cartels are diversifying their income sources. In addition to selling drugs, they now all run protection rackets as well. If businesses don’t pay their protection money, they get shot up. That’s an easy way for a tourist to get caught up in the cartel violence without having any contact with drugs.

I’ve always enjoyed eating at various street vendors in foreign countries. The food is cooked right in front of you and you know there are fewer chances of any rats or cockroach exposure in an open air street cart. The street carts probably aren’t as likely to get extorted either. Street meat for the win.

I have several “budget” AK rifles and all of them perform very well. Look at these characteristics when buying your gun and you’ll be fine.



I regularly get requests for classes on church security. I don’t do those classes and, quite honestly, know very little about the topic. This video series may be of utility for those who want to beef up the security in their churches.

A simple acronym to help you remember which direction to move your sights.

I met the author of this new blog at Rangemaster’s tactical Conference a couple months ago. He’s trying to fill an underrepresented niche in the tactical world. Keep an eye on his site. Begin with his “Dressed to Kill” series.

I actually did research on this exact topic for the capstone requirement for getting my graduate degree. I actually surveyed six different police agencies and asked all of their officers why they choose not to pursue outside defensive tactics training.

The most common responses the officers gave for avoiding outside training were the issues of time and money. Interestingly enough, when I asked a followup question about how likely would they be to pursue outside training if the department paid for it and allowed you to do it on duty hours, most still said “no.” They say it’s time and money, but it really isn’t.

My personal opinion? I think a cop has to feel confident in his empty hand fighting abilities in order to effectively work the streets and arrest bad guys. If officers didn’t think they could win most physical confrontations then they wouldn’t have the courage to do their job every day.

I think taking martial arts training is likely to show them the reality of just how deficient their combatives skill set is. Officers don’t want to suffer the ego hit requiring them to admit that they can’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag.

Rather than taking the time to learn some skills, it’s easier to just pretend your skill set isn’t deficient in the first place.

What I’m reading…

I’ve read lots of Rory’s other works, but somehow I missed this one. It probably has more value to an instructor teaching classes than to a student.

“The ability to read the situation and respond appropriately should dictate the speed at which counter-violence is applied. I think instructors would be well-served by making this abundantly clear to their students.”

Accurate hits with half-second splits is what you are looking for.

Good advice about proper procedures for clearing double feeds. You won’t have to lock the slide to the rear as a first step on all guns. Some magazines provide enough purchase that they can be physically ripped out of the gun without locking back the slide. In general practice, however, I think this is the better way to do things.

A very deep dive into a lot of shotgun information that many folks haven’t ever considered. For more shotgun content, read Shotgun Chokes, Barrel Modifications, and Ammo Selection. See the same site’s The Effects of Choke and the Vang Comp System as well. Please keep in mind that using the full choke in combination with shotgun slugs may damage your barrel or choke tube.

Our plans to provide medical care in an active killer event may be a bit optimistic. Some stats to consider:

– Only 7% of victims in civilian mass shootings had a potentially survivable wound. No fatalities likely occurred secondary to exsanguination from extremity hemorrhage

– The majority of wounds in civilian mass shootings occur primarily in the head, chest/upper back compared to combat environments where the majority of wounds occur in the extremities.

– The case fatality rate for civilian mass shootings compared to military data was much higher, and associated with lower number of potentially survivable injuries

H/T to Practical Eschatology for posting the links above.

My cop friends need to take note of the increasing number of cases like this. Your police department will not provide adequate training. When you screw up because you are not well trained, you will go to jail.

This is a failure all around:

– A journalistic fail when the author describes the cop’s gun as a “service revolver.” Someone is stuck in the ’80s.

– A hiring/defensive tactics fail. Why are we hiring cops who can’t wrestle a 33-year old female suspect into cuffs?

– A TASER training fail. It’s not best practice to use a Taser on a non-violent fleeing misdemeanor crime suspect.

– A firearms training fail when she mistakes her gun for her Taser.

All of these failures are the responsibility of the department who hired and trained her. Yet she is the one who is criminally charged.

That’s how it works, folks. You have two choices as a modern day cop. You can supplement your training on your own time with your own dime and become proficient. Or you can roll the dice for your 25-year career and hope that a situation like this doesn’t lead to your arrest.

Hope isn’t a good strategy. Choose wisely.

Some very interesting reading about the history of gun control efforts in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

This is a pretty cool product for those of you who have a need for escape and evasion tactics. I see its primary role as an escape tool in public transportation kidnapping attempts. These are common in a lot of third world countries.

For me, the books would be David Deida’s “Way of the Superior Man” and Thoreau’s “Walden.”

Great information about the difference between flash hiders, comps, and muzzle brakes.

This tourniquet carrier is a convenient way to carry your medical supplies. I have a couple of these. I attach a tourniquet and a chest seal onto the flatpack and carry it in the small of my back.

Some very useful travel safety tips. If you liked this article take an even deeper dive into 10 Safety Tips for Solo Female Travelers.

If you leave a gun in your car for any purpose, it should be locked up. I can’t even list the number of cases I’ve seen when a lawful gun owner left an unsecured handgun in an unlocked car. That’s how criminals get guns. Lock your stuff up!

This safe is less than $19 on Amazon. There is absolutely no reason not to own one.

John and Chuck Haggard analyze this shitshow of a police shooting. Let’s just say this performance was sub-optimal.

Some of the above links (from Amazon.com) are affiliate links. If you purchase these items, I get a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. I spend a lot of time writing articles on this site. All my information is given free of charge. When you use my affiliate links, you support the writing you enjoy without subscription fees, annoying pop-up ads, or donation requests. Thank you for helping support my work.