Don’t go outside and don’t chase criminals
Since it’s a recent theme in the training community, let me reinforce the principle that going outside your home to confront thieves and other criminals is a bad idea. Stay inside and let them come to you. Conduct a Defense not a Movement to Contact. A military axiom is that the defense has at least a 3 to 1 advantage over the Offense.
http://modernserviceweapons.com/?p=18502
Not only does it make justification iffy but you could become a casualty in the process.
Another bad idea is chasing criminals you encounter while driving around when you suspect them of having stolen your property.
Shooting at them makes it even worse.
“At about 4:45 p.m., a man spotted his stolen Chevrolet truck in the Mt. Baker neighborhood while he was out driving in his Toyota Camry. He followed his stolen truck until it stopped, and then confronted the driver. When the driver sped away, the man fired two shots, striking two nearby residences.
…
Officers booked the 27-year-old man into King County Jail for drive-by shooting and submitted his firearm as evidence.”
Drive by shooting in Washington State is a Class B felony. https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=9A.36.045 It is punishable by up to 10 years in jail and a $20,000 fine. Odds are that since no one was injured, he won’t do hard time but, as a felon, his Second Amendment rights will be gone.
Thanks to one of my correspondents for bringing the incident to my attention.
Terms
MOVEMENT TO CONTACT
2-8. Movement to contact is an offensive task designed to develop the situation and establish or regain contact. (Refer to ADRP 3-90 for more information.) It creates favorable conditions for subsequent tactical actions. The leader conducts a movement to contact when the enemy situation is vague or not specific enough to conduct an attack. Forces executing this task seek to make contact with the smallest friendly force possible. A movement to contact may result in a meeting engagement, which is a combat action occurring when a moving force engages an enemy at an unexpected time and place.
THE DEFENSE
4-1. A defensive task is a task conducted to defeat an enemy attack, gain time, economize forces, and develop conditions favorable for offensive or stability tasks. (Refer to ADRP 3-90 https://www.benning.army.mil/Infantry/DoctrineSupplement/ATP3-21.8/PDFs/adrp3_90.pdf for more information.) Normally, the defense alone cannot achieve a decision. However, it can set conditions for a counteroffensive or counterattack that enables Army forces to regain the initiative.
In other news, don’t defraud school systems of $1.5 million dollars’ worth of chicken wings. Even in Ill-Annoy, it will get you in trouble.
“District funds were used to pay for the food, according to prosecutors, who did not reveal what became of the chicken wings.”
Boyfriend Wants a Gun
A few days ago, a customer said to me:
“My boyfriend wants to get a gun but I don’t like the idea. He says he was a Marine and knows how to use it.”
Since I have heard something similar somewhere between 100 and 1000 times, I gave her the Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network http://armedcitizensnetwork.org/ pamphlet What Every Gun Owner Needs to Know about Self Defense Law. The latest 2023 version can be downloaded at https://armedcitizensnetwork.org/images/stories/Hayes_SDLaw.pdf or you can request a free printed copy.
What does “knows how to use it” mean? For most veterans, it means that they, at one time, were reasonably capable of acceptable marksmanship on a firing range with the service rifle at the time they served. Unless they were Military POlice or members of a Special Operations unit, it is unlikely they had more than a Familiarization Fire with the service pistol of the time and perhaps not even that. Familiarization in the military means firing one magazine or less on an unscored basis.
FamFire hardly even fulfills the CAN requirement of the CAN/MAY/MUST/SHOULD http://modernserviceweapons.com/?p=19028 paradigm. The MAY part gets people in trouble much more often than the CAN. The ACLDN pamphlet focuses on the MAY. It’s free and consists of 5676 words of content. At the average adult reading rate of 238 words per minute, that’s 24 minutes to read. While the pamphlet is certainly not the be-all and end-all of knowing self-defense law, it’s an excellent start and provides food for thought.
I know my readers get tired of me harping about knowing more than just how to shoot yourself but I wouldn’t be much of an educator if I didn’t.
I’m reasonably certain she will read the pamphlet. Whether he will or not remains to be seen.
Fair disclaimer: I am a member of the Network, however I receive no commission nor other remuneration based on anything you do as a result of reading this post.
Don’t Shoot Through Windows
Another sad and unnecessary incident for the Negative Outcomes database.
Texas maintenance worker checking pipes killed after he was mistaken for intruder
https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-maintenance-worker-checking-pipes-killed-after-mistaken-intruder
The resident, mistakenly believing his apartment was being burglarized, grabbed a gun and shot Montelongo through the window.
The only element of the Can May Must Should paradigm http://modernserviceweapons.com/?p=19028 that was fulfilled was CAN. There’s a good chance now that the shooter will end up doing time in prison.
Serious Mistake and Negative Outcome
To paraphrase ‘the great Morpheus’:
Failure Drill?
A friend of mine sent me a link to the Maine [POlice] “Plain Clothes Course of Fire” Pistol Qualification.
https://www.maine.gov/dps/mcja/forms/documents/PlainClothesPistolQualificationCourse2019.doc
As with many current POlice Qualifications, it includes a “Failure Drill = (2 to the chest and 1 to the head),” in this Course three times. The terminology evolved from what was originally called the “Mozambique Drill.” https://www.shootingillustrated.com/articles/2017/5/18/the-mozambique-drill-a-history-and-how-to/
Consider the “Failure Drill” as it’s currently taught and evaluated. It has been bastardized the same way the “OODA Loop” has been. The drill isn’t actually structured to deal with a Failure. The concept of Failure requires an assessment of the efficacy of the original effort. Assessing the target’s reaction or lack thereof to the first two shots was an explicit part of the drill as originally taught by LAPD Officers Larry Mudgett and John Helms.
When the structure of the drill is such that the transition from the two chest shots to the head is immediate and pre-programmed, no assessment is involved. Rather such a drill is structured to ensure the recipient is killed from the get go. It should be called the “Anchor Drill” or “Kill Drill.” That’s not to say there might not be a justifiable reason to anchor the adversary. However, let’s not have any illusions about what the object of the exercise is and call it something it’s not.
Improvised Weapons Found
This video shows various improvised weapons I have found over the past year on my daily walk. Don’t assume vagrants are unarmed or harmless. As my colleague Chuck Haggard commented:
Every single “homeless” person I’ve ever arrested or had to pat down was carrying a knife, or knives. At minimum.
Someone who completely missed the point, no pun intended, was this YouTube common tater.
Or or [sic] just maybe Cary a knife / a gun if you are that worried you need a weapon and not use some random rusty screwdriver that probably won’t do shit
The slender 4″ shaft can easily penetrate a ribcage. While a pneumothorax https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pneumothorax/symptoms-causes/syc-20350367 is not an instantly fatal wound, it can definitely become one if not treated promptly.
Just because someone is a disgraceful vagabond doesn’t mean they can’t do something to you. You never know what will set them off.
They are not you.
–the late William T. Aprill
And what they do might involve more than just a cream pie.
How Do I Choose Which Carry Gun?
One of my Patrons https://www.patreon.com/TacticalProfessor?fan_landing=true&view_as=public sent me the following message. With his permission, I’m going to answer it for a broad audience.
My question for you is how do you decide which gun you carry most often. … I know from following you over the years that you carry various pistols and revolvers from time to time. I’m just curious how you decide which gun you carry most often.
That’s a pertinent and insightful question.
The short answer is that I don’t change guns very often. My EDC handguns all are sufficient to deal with what I consider my most likely threat profile. Because that’s so, I don’t feel the need to scale my armament up and down.
I will change my gun to fit different mission profiles. As a professional trainer, my mission profile is based on what I’m teaching not a varying threat profile. For instance, when I was working on my LCP Project, I carried an LCP for almost a year. When I began the Snub Nose Revolvers – Hands-on Shooting program on Patreon, I switched back to carrying a J frame. During the program, I would occasionally alternate between a S&W 317 and Taurus 856 to evaluate their differences, but that was about all.
When I end the Snub Nose Revolvers program at the end of this year, I will start the Subcompact Pistols – Hands-on Shooting program. For that program, I’ll switch from a J Frame to a Glock 42 that Glock sent me for evaluation in the program. The LCP will also go back into service as another example of subcompacts.
Handguns have different triggers, index onto the target at different points, and even draw differently. The difference between where the Glock 42 indexes onto the face of a target vis-à-vis the 317 is quite noticeable. Obviously, the triggers are different, even with the NY1 trigger spring I installed in the 42.
For simplicity sake, I prefer to stay with the same system day to day. When I do change, I do an hour’s worth of dry practice before venturing out with a new carry piece. How I can make the gun perform is much more important to me than aspects of caliber and ‘firepower.’ It’s just a handgun, folks. As John Farnam says, in the end they’re all just pathetic popguns. I’m a firm believer that “It’s the ‘finest light cavalryman in the world,’ not the arrow,” even when one arrow isn’t quite as pointy as the other.
Chasing Criminals -Serious Mistake
This past Sunday a man decided to commit an armed robbery of clerk working in a California convenience store. When the robber fled with the stolen goods, the clerk retrieved his own gun and pursued, firing at the fleeing robber. The robber then used his own gun to shoot and kill the clerk.
Branca – Law of Self Defense
Both tactically and legally, this is a problem. Although it usually doesn’t result in getting killed, I have numerous incidents in my database where the victim was then charged with a crime for various aspects of the pursuit. Like it or not, it is what it is.
Many were surprised when Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton then decided that she would not press a murder charge against the armed robber, on the grounds that the robber was acting in lawful self-defense when he killed the clerk.
Branca – LOSD
I’ll let Andrew comment on the idiosyncrasies of the decision but this would be the ultimate indignity to me personally. My sympathies to the victim’s family.
9mm in Revolvers
#wheelgunwednesday
Reposted from the Snub Noir https://snubnoir.com/ Facebook page.
One of the issues with 9mm in a revolver is that the very characteristic that makes it reliable in autoloaders, its taper, works against it in revolvers. The 9mm cartridge tapers 10/1000ths of an inch over a case length of .500. Its taper gives it a high probability of extracting cleanly from the chamber of an autoloader immediately after firing. However, we don’t want revolver cartridges to extract immediately from the chamber. In fact, we want the exact opposite to happen. If the cases self-extract (move backward) far enough, they bind against the recoil shield. When binding occurs, the friction interferes with cylinder rotation. This is a problem.
The .38 Special, like most 19th Century revolver cartridges is cylindrical (.379) down its entire case length. The taper of the 9mm cartridge allows it to move backward in the chambers much more easily than a cylindrical case will.
Using moon clips mitigates this to a certain extent because the friction of all the chambers is exerted on the one cartridge that fires. It’s not a guarantee though, it’s ammunition dependent.
Moon clip .45s work pretty well because the .45 ACP has very little taper to it. Its taper is only .003 over the .650 case length, so it’s almost cylindrical like the .38 Special.
Dolled Up Defenders Match
#wheelgunwednesday
A few weeks ago, The Complete Combatant http://www.thecompletecombatant.com/ held the Dolled Up Defenders event. Part of it was a match for real deal carry guns. Here’s my Patreon post about the match. This post is available for everyone not just Patrons.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/74194384
AAR – Reactionary Zones
#mindsetmonday
I recently had the opportunity to attend REACTIONARY ZONES, a 3 Hour Online Session with Shelley Hill. This is an online class conducted via Zoom. This is my After Action Review of the class.
http://www.thecompletecombatant.com/online-reactionary-zones.html
One of the glaring holes in Personal Protection training is accessible training that goes beyond the gun itself. While there are various Force on Force exercises available, some good and some not so much, they still require travel to a training site, involve a significant time commitment, cost more than most people want to pay, and are intimidating to those new to the concept of training. Reactionary Zones is designed to address these issues.
As the saying goes, this class can be taken “in the comfort of your own home.” The cost is nominal ($39.95) for a highly interactive experience. Images are heavily used in the class as training props to introduce the clients to the idea that situations will require some degree of reaction for a successful outcome. Images are a part of the class but the emphasis is more on understanding timing aspects of Personal Protection.
A major benefit of the class is that it introduces the concept of spatial relationships and time requirements into Personal Protection thinking. This can be a difficult aspect of self-defense for many people, not just beginners, to grasp in a concrete manner.
Shelley has a very interactive style in the class despite it being Zoom based. It is definitely NOT a boring Zoom lecture. She engages the clients, poses a progression of situations, and requires the clients to learn problem solving. It was obvious a lot of learning was going on by those who attended. This is a thinking and reacting class not just note taking.
For those who are just beginning the journey into understanding Personal Protection concepts, whether armed or not, this is a great starting point. Even for experienced practitioners, there’s a good deal to be learned in the class.
FTC disclaimer: I had significant input into the content of this course. Shelley is a good friend of mine and invited me to take the course gratis. However, I receive no compensation for this review nor commission for anyone who signs up because of my review.
tacticalprofessor 
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