WKD Resonations – November 13, 2026
#fridayfundamentals
This is a different kind of Fundamentals; no marksmanship or skills with arms is involved. Synchronicity happened several times when I read this week’s Weekend Knowledge Dump. https://www.activeresponsetraining.net/weekend-knowledge-dump-november-13-2026
Earlier in the week, I become aware of the incident in which Amanda Colley and her friend, Lindy Dobbins. https://www.news4jax.com/news/2018/07/13/medical-examiner-testimony-james-colleys-wife-shot-9-times/ I’ve tried to find a link where their loathsome killer isn’t mentioned first with no luck.
Two links in WKD resonated with me about this incident. The first link was about getting shot.
What it’s like to get shot
https://www.survivalsullivan.com/how-it-feels-to-be-shot/
Three women were present during the murders. One was wounded and not killed.
“Hendricks said a shot fired through the closet door grazed her arm and felt ‘like a rug burn.’”
I found that to be an interesting analogy.
The second link concerned skills not taught.
Never Get Taken To A Second Location | Active Self Protection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho-VyzyiouE
Although the Colley incident didn’t involve being taken to a second crime scene, Greg’s comment “Over the years I’ve seen fewer and fewer instructors teaching the skill sets to avoid being taken to the second crime scene” made me think of something related.
When the Colley killer incident began his rampage, there were four innocent people in the house, one man and three women. When the killer started shooting from outside, the man immediately said “Run” and he ran. According to court testimony:
“He ran into the garage, rolled under the garage door and ran from the home. He wasn’t hurt and found someone a few streets away to call 911.”
In contrast, all three women hid in the house. Amanda hid in a bathroom. Lindy, the other fatality, and Rachel Hendricks, who survived, hid in a walk in closet.
“Colley put the handgun he was carrying up to [Lindy] Dobbins’ head, and that’s when Hendricks ran out of the closet and through the front door, looking for help.”
Both of the survivors RAN. One at the outset and the other when she had the opportunity to. Since most of our training is structured as ‘firing squad practice,’ running is not a survival skill we include. Years ago, when I taught my Advanced Concealed Carry Skills Course, one of the exercises was to run away to a specified safe point when the clients ran out of ammo during an extended decisional shooting exercise. They would run out of ammo at different times in the exercise and had to make a personal judgement call about when to run. Running away as an individual judgement call isn’t a skill often seen in firearms or self defense training.
The third resonant to me was Significant Advantages to the Revolver in Deep Concealment https://reflexhandgun.com/2021/11/02/a-significant-advantage-to-the-revolver-in-deep-concealment/
This article had a personal implication. As fond as I am of my Walther PPS, I have largely gone back to my 640-3 as my EDC. My reasons mostly align with the themes of the article.
I admit I have a probably excessive interest in deep concealment because of the amount of time I’ve spent in NPEs. Another aspect I’m influenced by is my desire to avoid a ‘Hindi Incident.’ Las Vegas Police officer Bob Hindi had occasion to quickly run out to the store late in the evening. Because it was so time sensitive, he didn’t take any of his personal protection equipment. Naturally, a robbery occurred while he was there. As he was struggling with the robber, he thought “I wish I’d brought my gun.” Fortunately, Bob fought the guy enough to force a Break In Contact https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2021/04/10/breaking-contact-part-i/, https://ccwsafe.com/resources/breaking-contact-pt-1/ and he wasn’t injured. Bob is a very squared away officer and ordinarily will never leave home without his gear but it took a few minutes to put on. He simply didn’t have time in this case.
The concept of having a tool I can quickly slip in my pants is very appealing to me as a result. I wouldn’t do a Clip Draw with a striker fired gun but I’m very comfortable using one with a double action revolver. Although I used a Barami Hip-Grip for decades, I became uncomfortable with it when I had my revolver slip out after a fall on ice. The Clip Draw seems a little more secure. How much so, I haven’t measured.
Another aspect of the 640-3 that I like is that it’s stainless and very visible when drawn. A Chicargo cop told me something a long time ago about stainless steel revolvers that I had never considered.
“Most of these nitwits are in a fog or can’t see very well. I want them to know I’m pointing a gun at them.”
I doubt optometry is high on the list of health care services considered essential by low-lifes and other undesirables.
A friend and I were discussing a few days ago what the most useful survival skill was. A point of agreement is that one of the most valuable skills is ‘emotional control.’ Within that broad category, I place ‘fear control’ as key. It’s another skill we don’t train on very well.
Fear Illusions: How Your Brain Gets Hacked Every Day
https://www.neilstrauss.com/neil/fear-illusions-and-the-brain/
Note that some of best literature about controlling fear comes from the swimming community. Fear of drowning is pretty high on everyone’s list.
In the past I’ve referenced many Army and other Service Field Manuals in my writing. Unfortunately, most of the official digital copies have now been removed from public access. No CAC card, no access. The Field Manual Vault is a good substitute resource.
Military Field Manuals
https://www.trex-arms.com/field-manual-vault
Colonel Max Radl spoke about Carl Jung and synchronicity.
“A very great thinker. A rational man And yet he speaks of something called synchronicity, events having a coincidence in time, creating the feeling that a deeper motivation is involved.”
If you would like to read more in-depth articles about self-defense and personal protection, please consider subscribing to my Patreon page.
Another thought about Dot Sights ‘and more’
#fridayfundmentals
Several articles in Greg Ellifritz’s Weekend Knowledge Dump https://www.activeresponsetraining.net/weekend-knowledge-dump-september-18-2026 are very relevant to Friday Fundamentals today.
Fretting About Pistol Red-Dot Zeroes Is Silly
https://gatdaily.com/articles/fretting-about-pistol-red-dot-zeroes-is-silly
“It’s crazy to think about the fact that we’re discussing differences in points of impact between 1 and 1 ½ inches. These are tiny measurements in considering everything else pertaining to handgun shooting. In fact, think about how even proficient shooters would likely struggle to consistently shoot a “100” on a standard NRA B-8 target with a typical red-dot equipped pistol. And the 10-ring on a B-8 is 3.36 inches in diameter!”
This mirrors my thoughts about the worries folks have expressed about the non-adjustability of the Ruger ReadyDot sight. When I mounted it on a SCCY Gen 3, the Point of Impact had diverged from the X Ring Point of Aim into the 9 ring of a B-27 target at 10 yards. Would this make the slightest difference when shooting a concealed carry qualification test or in an actual Personal Protection incident? I doubt it.
You Can Improve Your Shooting Almost Anywhere…Even At An Indoor Range
Years ago, the Tactical Professor did his annoying little numbery thing and determined that in the Atlanta metro area, 999 out of 1,000 gunowners only have access to an indoor range to practice. And Atlanta has a lot of outdoor gun clubs compared to most metro areas. The hitch is that you have to be a member or know a member to shoot at one. My club has a several year waiting list.
Gunowners who want to develop even a modicum of proficiency have to learn how to do that on their own at an indoor range. That’s the underlying concept for my book Indoor Range Practice Sessions. https://store.payloadz.com/details/2501143-ebooks-education-indoor-range-practice-sessions.html
It’s also why most of the articles in my 2024 Shooting Illustrated series are most of the articles in my 2024 Shooting Illustrated series are oriented toward an indoor range (i.e., resource constrained) environment. https://www.shootingillustrated.com/content/near-to-far-marksmanship-practice/ There are almost a dozen articles, one per month. After a year of one practice session per month, a gunowner will have some degree of proficiency.
As President Theodore Roosevelt said:
“Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.”
https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/quote/do-what-you-can-with-what-youve-got-where-you-are
Related to this is my rebuttal of “Everyone needs to get training.” Looking at the number of available facilities and instructors, it would take nearly 100 years to put every US gunowner through an equivalent of the NRA Basics Of Pistol Shooting course. The time it would take to put everyone through the equivalent of the NRA Personal Protection In The Home course isn’t even worth calculating.
This analysis was done over 10 years ago before the big boom in gun purchases during the past decade, so the situation is probably much more difficult now. Gunownership is way up and facilities are being put out of business on a weekly basis.
People are strange
When you’re a stranger
https://onherownlife.substack.com/p/people-are-strange
The title is a play on the song by The Doors
As the late WT Aprill often said, “They are not like you.” Don’t assume that people are going to be grateful for your help. Some will, some won’t. Understand there’s risk in helping others.
My Patreon is Graduate level study of Personal Protection. It’s not for everyone but some people really like it.
https://www.patreon.com/TacticalProfessor
Silhouette Torture
#22Tuesday
Decades ago, David Blinder created a 50 round drill for focused practice loosely based on Dot Drill 101 from the Brian Enos Forum. The late Todd Louis Green, who founded pistol-training.com, expanded on it, and codified it into a practice session containing most relevant defensive pistol marksmanship skills. He called it Dot Torture and put it up on the pistol-training forum.
ETA comment from Simon Golub of Pistol-Training
Dot Torture came to us as is. We simply photocopied the target and Todd liked it a lot, giving Blinder the correct credit on the target. –Simon
ETA 2 from the source, David Blinder, himself
I got shooting dots from John Shaw at Mid-South which I believe he got from IPSC. I am also the one who named it dot torture. Todd did some modifications and definitely popularized it.
I’ve made my own version of it using the target employed for the Swiss Concealed Carry License live fire test. Today was an opportunity to shoot it with my LCP II .22. It was fun. A .22 understudy for your carry pistol is a concept that can be very useful. Shooting .22s is inexpensive and has some benefits that centerfires don’t have, minimal recoil and Over Pressure Event being the principal ones.
The demanding nature of the target requires the shooter to know the zero of their pistol very well at whatever distance is being used. In the case of the LCP .22, at three yards the hold was about halfway up on the white circle in the chest of the silhouette.
I recently mounted a Ruger ReadyDot on my Taurus TX22 Compact. https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2026/08/03/readydot-on-tx22-compact/ It zeroes quite well at both 10 and 20 yards.
Although I started to shoot Silhouette Torture with it today, rain set in and I wasn’t able to finish. I was able to shoot it enough to learn that the hold at five yards was on the head. The 15 MOA dot completely covers the head at that distance but it’s not hard to hold. Knowing your pistol’s zero at different ranges, whether using iron or Dot sights is useful.
The Silhouette Torture target is attached. Its instructions are on the 2nd page of the 2 page PDF.
My Red Dot Adventure series is available on my Patreon page for those who are interested in exploring what Dot Sights can and cannot do.
Open Carry v. Doofus Carry
A video is circulating on the Interwebz now about an unfortunate situation in which a man’s gun was snatched from him in a gas station. He chased the thief and was subsequently shot with his own gun.
Although I am not a fan of Open Carry, let’s analyze the situation in a little more depth. The proximate cause of the snatch was that he simply stuck his gun in his back pocket unconcealed and then walked into a crowded environment where a bunch of lowlifes were coming and going.
As a result, a ne’er-do-well nonchalantly walked up behind him and simply grabbed the gun out of his pocket.
The carry technique the man was using is more correctly described as “Doofus Carry,” having two parts. There’s no back story to the incident but it wouldn’t be surprising to find that his usual carry technique is in the side door pocket of his car. If so, then when he pulled into the gas station and saw a bunch of lowlifes going in and out, he decided to stick his gun in his pocket when he went in. He probably didn’t stick it in the front of his waistband because he had a striker fired gun and was concerned about ‘shooting his junk off.’
Sticking a gun in a back pocket is not the same thing as having it in a proper holster attached to the belt.
If my hypothesis is correct, it leads more credence to something the late Pat Rogers often said:
“Your car is not a holster.”
To reiterate, I’m not advocating Open Carry. But, if you’re going to carry a gun, at do it right. Have a decent holster and belt. Use it all the time when you leave home. If it’s uncomfortable and you don’t like wearing it, get a better holster or consider getting a more comfortable gun. “Your gun should be comforting not comfortable” is possibly the most ridiculous statement that’s ever been made about firearms.
The one good piece of advice in these retellings is that if your gun does get taken from you, Let it go. https://www.patreon.com/posts/let-it-go-107811846 The thief is now armed and you’re not. Chasing the felon means you’re going unarmed to a potential shooting. That’s a Serious Mistake. Don’t be foolish and assume the thief isn’t familiar and experienced with guns. As this incident shows, that’s the formula for a Negative Outcome.
If you like my work, join me on Patreon where I post more in-depth articles about shooting, marksmanship, and incident analysis.
Pushing The Limits of Smaller Guns
#LCPproject
Pushing The Limits of Smaller Guns is my October 2024 article in Shooting Illustrated.
https://www.shootingillustrated.com/content/pushing-the-limits-of-smaller-guns/
I shot the entire program with my Ruger LCP Max, which I bought with my own money. The gun is stock out of the box.
The results contradict the myth that smaller guns as being suitable for only “arm’s length” encounters. Pictures tell the story of the results of the three courses that were shot.
Kansas Concealed Carry License Qualification
Twenty-five hits out of 25 shots. Pass.
Shootist’s Challenge
All hits inside the square, two hits on the stamp. ‘Good’ by Wild Bill and fellow Shootists’ standard.
Bakersfield Police Qualification
Bakersfield Stage Times
- 2.01
- 2.27
- 6.96
- 2.78
Bakersfield Scores
- 10 point (A) zone – 7 70 points
- 9 point (C) zone – 2 18 points
- 6 point (D) zone – 1 6 points
94 points total – Pass
It’s only an “arm’s length gun” if you’re don’t know how to shoot it.
If you like my work, join me on Patreon where I post more in-depth articles about shooting, marksmanship, and incident analysis.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – August 2024
The August edition showcases mindset and tactics. This month, I’m including some supplemental incidents that came to light after the initial post.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/good-bad-and-111172309
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – August 2024
The Good
Robbery suspect pepper-sprayed Norwalk store owner, who shot him
Just because you start out behind the Power Curve, that doesn’t mean you can’t regain the initiative. Keep your wits about you and fight through it.
The Bad
DC man who said he shot 13-year-old boy in self-defense convicted of manslaughter
In military terminology, if you go outside, you have turned a Defense, in which you have a 3 to 1 advantage, into a Movement to Contact, in which the odds are, at best, even and possibly against you. In legal concept, the odds definitely turn against you. Maintain your advantage, don’t squander it.
The Ugly
Suspect shot by Bystander during Attempted Carjacking
The original incident is a candidate for the Good. But the comments on the Yahoo article are Ugly.
Enjoy!
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https://www.patreon.com/TacticalProfessor
The GBU isn’t drawn from The Armed Citizen column of the official NRA Journals but the August edition of The Armed Citizen is attached. Rather than an obsessive interest in ‘the worst case scenario,’ it shows what the vast majority of Defensive Gun Uses really look like.
Some relevant incidents from August surfaced later.
Good
SELF-DEFENSE: Boy who killed Cape Coral mother’s boyfriend will not be charged
“Police say when the brother got to the home, Mess Jr. was standing outside with a solid wooden rod and brass knuckles.
Detectives say Mess Jr. started beating up the brother in front of the young boy.
According to police, the boy got a gun and pointed it at Mess Jr. as a warning. However, police say the man kept beating the boy’s uncle.
‘At that point, the son was in fear for his uncle’s life,’ police said.
The young boy fired multiple shots, killing Mess Jr.”
Sad that the boy had to kill the man but Good that the facts of the case vindicated him.
Bad
Cincinnati area smoke shop manager sentenced for role in fatal shooting during break-in
“CINCINNATI (WKRC) – The manager of a Delhi Township smoke shop was sentenced to eight to nine years in prison for firing on a group of burglars during a break-in.
Thacker opened fire immediately and kept firing while the burglars were running and driving away.”
https://local12.com/news/local/cincinnati-area-smoke-shop-manager-sentenced-role-fatal-shooting-during-break-in-delhi-township-tony-thacker-vip-travis-johnson-amontae-carter-crime-accomplice-prison
Chasing criminals and shooting at them after they have broken contact places a righteous defender in a very precarious legal situation. Once they remember they’re late for their root canal, let them go, lock the door if you can, call the POlice, and get your gun out of sight. Preplan and mentally rehearse your post-confrontation actions just as much as your actions during the confrontation.
A 2-year-old accidentally shot and wounded his mother’s boyfriend, police say
“According to a preliminary investigation, the man was getting ready to leave the house Monday morning and had put the gun on a nearby chair when the toddler accidentally fired the gun”
Firearms are relentlessly unforgiving of even the smallest lapse of attention, such as putting a gun down on a nearby chair.
‘Smart and loving’: Colerain family mourns teen killed by friend in apparent accident
“My friend has a .2 long rifle. [sic] There was a bullet in, right, and you need to shoot it to prime it, and I didn’t know it was primed, and I had it, and I accidentally pulled the trigger.”
Rule #1 – All guns are always loaded
Ugly
Detective: Liberty Township grandmother said ‘sorry not sorry’ after shooting 6-month-old granddaughter
“I asked her, ‘Why her grandbaby?’ And she said, ‘That was not my grandbaby.’ And at one point she said, ‘Sorry, not sorry,'” [the detective] said.
She pleaded guilty to felonious assault last month.
https://www.fox19.com/2024/09/17/grandma-pleads-guilty-after-shooting-5-month-old-grandchild-2023/
I have no words.
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