Some helpful tips for young families. YMMV. Certainly, offhand shooting is critical. Having a plan, first aid, and controlling your children in a gunfight are very lightly considered. If you carry with children in public, train for it. Story at the link.

Good girl. Train and practice, practice and train, and then practice and train some more.

An Indiana woman shot and killed a man as he held a gun to her husband’s head, police said. Police said the incident happened at a home in Salem on Monday evening around 6:40 pm. Michael Chastain, 45, drove through the front yard of the couple’s home before grabbing the husband, forcing him to the ground, and pointing a gun at his head, according to investigators. His wife saw the situation from inside the home and shot Chastain with her handgun, the investigators said.

The criminal assailant has a record of being a scumbag; not a shock. The woman has not been charged. Deuteronomy 19 covers the Law of Innocent Blood; she did the right thing and should face no repercussions. More at the first link. Is there a specific drill for this?

We posted about this two months ago when the President of Ecuador authorized citizens to carry and use arms for defense against crime. I argued that the media will need to report these uses to be an effective deterrent to further crime there. And here in America, if there were robust reporting on all defensive gun uses, including when the gun is not fired, the amount of armed robbery and other violent crimes would be drastically lowered.

Slow Facts argues that mass shootings would also be reduced.

Real life isn’t like the movies. Bad guys don’t walk around with a soundtrack thumping with every step. Movie makers want to thrill us, but saving lives in real life is a lot more ordinary than that. Because it doesn’t sell tickets or sell soap, the news media isn’t interested in how our neighbors stopped mass-murderers about once a month for the last eight years. Ordinary people like us would do it even more often if politicians got out of our way.

Recognizing a new problem- Times have changed. Today we live in a media driven culture. Mass-murderers feel like failures and they want to take revenge on society. These narcissists know that the mainstream media will give them a multi-million dollar publicity campaign if they kill enough innocent people. The murderers revel in the thought of being famous even if they are not alive to enjoy that infamy. That feeling of anticipation is one reason the mass-murderers spend years in the planning stage. Those feelings of resentment and anticipation explain why these murderers write such lengthy manifestos and diaries.

Recognizing new solutions- Mass-murderers already feel like a failure. They don’t want to experience more failure when they come to kill. That explains why they seldom attack a group of armed policemen or attack an NRA convention where about half the adults are armed. The media won’t give mass-murderers the recognition they want when they are stopped and killed so quickly.

At first, we weren’t sure if armed citizens were a workable solution. Because the news media doesn’t cover it, it was hard to find cases where the attempted mass-murderers were stopped by ordinary citizens who happened to be nearby. Oddly enough, the mass-murderers did our research for us.

More at the link.

I’ve given initial training to a few folks, women and children mostly. I’m not a professional trainer, but the study of situational awareness is important. Sadly, it seems that police support sites are the only good sources of writing about firearms mindset

I’ve not read the book Spotting Danger Before It Spots You, by Gary Quesenberry from which the linked article makes mention. Also offered are opinions from the President of the United States Conceal Carry Association, Tim Schmidt.

When researchers videotaped people walking through a busy intersection in New York City, they later showed the tape to inmates who were incarcerated for violent crimes. They asked the inmates to rate the pedestrians on a scale of one to 10. One is an easy target, and 10 is a hard target.

The inmates rated the following body language characteristics as being a soft target:

• Short, shuffling strides
• Not swinging their arms in proportion with their stride
• Exaggerated side-to-side movement when walking
• Head facing at a downward angle

Conversely, the inmates rated the following body language characteristics as being a hard target:

•  Medium to long stride
• Arms swinging in proportion to their stride
• Body movement in vertical alignment; appeared as a strong and determined walking pattern
• Head level and eyes visible when walking

[…]

“Don’t go anywhere with your gun you wouldn’t go without it,” says [Tim] Schmidt.

This is a great point. It’s folly to assume you’re better off someplace you shouldn’t be just because you have a gun. If you shouldn’t be there or don’t belong there, don’t go. Similarly, becoming accustomed to always carrying is essential; never be without your gun, regardless of where you go. The first rule of a gunfight is to have a gun. Nor should carrying a firearm cause a more relaxed posture in any circumstance, be it home, work, or out.

It’s easy to make the error that peace of mind comes from having a gun. Peace of mind comes foremost from the Lord, having trained and prepared to defend yourself and your family. Peace of mind comes from being sure of yourself. That’s the basis of what the survey with the prisoners above shows, confidence in yourself, your surroundings, knowledge of where you’re going, and having purposeful intent in your demeanor.

I used to travel for word. Before I stopped flying completely, I very often got pulled from the gate or boarding line for “extra screening.” Now, I’m not particularly unusual. In fact, you could say my most unusual physical feature is my very usual size, build, and appearance. But, I’d get pulled because I was the only one not drooling into a cell phone; I was paying attention, examining the passengers, security measures, and conducting general safety observations. Well, it wasn’t hard for me to spot security; they were the only ones that were also paying attention. It’s better in that situation not to pretend you aren’t checking things. Trying not to be observed while being aware is sometimes a bad choice, as with the street crossers that had their heads up and eyes open. The point is you may be the only one paying attention, but it can save your life and the lives of others.

There are a few interesting points in the article.

This article covers a few different lighting options for handgun self-defense.

It should come as no surprise that most violent crime occurs in sub-optimal light conditions. For centuries, criminals have been using the veil of darkness to conceal their illicit activities, and this trend can be supported by any number of definitive sources. Burglaries, home invasions, armed robberies, muggings and sexual assaults all seem to spike in the evening hours.

The hands-apart technique shown here allows the user to direct the light in a different place than the muzzle of the gun.

To be truly prepared, our training should address the most likely scenarios we will face. While it is valid that danger can visit anytime or any place, violent assaults often fall into a pattern. The danger unfolds very fast, the distance between you and your assailant is short, and light conditions are likely to be poor. Clearly, darkness handicaps our ability to spot potential threats sooner and make a sound assessment of the level of danger.

One way of tipping the odds back in your favor is to carry a small flashlight on your person and train to how to use it. It’s essential to get familiar with some techniques for working it in concert with your handgun. I feel that if you carry a gun, you also need to have a light with you regardless of the time of day. Real-world data suggests you may never have a need to use that light as a shooting aid, but it can fill any number of other critical roles.

A helpful tip or two within the few techniques discussed is at the link.

There are consequences to both winning and losing a gunfight and consequences still for never taking up the duty to defend your family. Weighing in the balance that winning is the preferred option, how can we prepare? Much of this article, past the introduction, is interesting, and it has many links to excellent primary source material for the conscientious Concealed Carrier. The links and book mentions are one main reason to post it here.

Please do your own research to become conscientious about carrying a weapon; it’s no small thing. Having a weapon lends power, making a man no longer a victim; with it comes great responsibility.

For those who’ve been carrying for a while, we can become complacent. Perhaps mindset refresher training is even more critical than maintaining shooting ability, or at least it’s due an equal time and importance. Most firearms negligent discharges have their root not in any action, but long before that, in a complacent or casual mindset, leading to carelessness.

Mindset is at the core of self defense. From what I recall from the martial arts I studied in my youth, the concept of “mind, body, and spirit” was frequently mentioned and I think that mind being the first element identified by the concept was intentional. Some prominent firearms training organizations include this concept in their slogans and marketing. For example, the first thing one sees on the homepage for Tactical Response is a slideshow with mindset as the first item, that’s followed by tactics, skill and gear. Again, the order is intentional. Another example is Active Self Protection, who uses “Attitude, Skills, Plan” as a slogan in their logo and throughout their content. I suspect attitude in this slogan is synonymous to mindset. Other synonyms might include terms like “mental preparedness” or “emotional fortitude”. Regardless of the term used for mindset, it seems like every philosophy that surrounds every martial art fundamentally identifies mindset as the foundation that is required and necessary in order to win a fight universally. Even various depictions of the Combat Triad introduced by the late Jeff Cooper, which was used to explain the philosophy of violence places mindset as either the foundation of a pyramid or the base side of an equilateral triangle.

For us Christians, the spirit must be the first consideration and the body last. If you have to shoot somebody, you’ll learn the hard way why you should have set your heart right before the God of creation because your mind, sooner or later, for one reason or another, will surely fail to keep you grounded in your prior reality; that’s a promise.

You must have something larger than yourself; that must be God through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Nobody really knows their own spirit until they meet God because He alone is holy, and we, at our core, are full of sin and corruption. May you meet Him before you die; God have mercy on them.

Consider carefully what will become of your mind if you kill a man, even if justified before God and the laws of men; this is why I prefer the translation of “Thou shalt not kill.” It’s easy to tell a man who has never had to take a life if he prefers the word murder instead of kill. If you kill for any reason, you will soon be met with the knowledge of the depths of the curse of sin upon man and earth. Blood in taking a life made in the image of our God upon your hands, for any reason, is no small thing, and you will never fully recover your innocence nor be the same again. Rarely do some men take to war. But it’s also easy to tell somebody who has never been shot at because they ignorantly promote war.

In my opinion, which I’m still refining, mindset is part confidence and part commitment. Both of those components are developed over time as one works on becoming better prepared to deal with a violent encounter including its prevention (avoiding it), intervention (fighting to break contact), and postvention (dealing with the aftermath). Neither confidence nor commitment are things that can be taught. They are things that are built through education, developing abilities, and introspection. Let’s break these components down a little bit more individually.

Confidence comes from having well placed and earned trust in our abilities and tools. Abilities, in my opinion once again, aren’t limited to marksmanship and tactics. It also includes our abilities to make good decisions. Meaning we know in our heart of hearts that we are unlikely to make a serious mistake that could result in a negative outcome that Claude Werner’s work has warned us about. Confidence minimizes doubt which in turn minimizes hesitation.

Confidence also comes from being adequately prepared to solve the self defense problem that is in front of us. This means being competently skilled and familiar enough with our tools while knowing enough about violent encounters so that there is little to no novelty about what is happening. Based on my limited understanding of the research and work from Dr. Paul Whitesell, Jeff Cooper, John Hearne, and Dr. William Aprill, novelty is something that our brain doesn’t deal well with and can trigger the flight, fight, or freeze response that occurs when the limbic system, or “animal brain”, takes over preventing the use of our cognitive abilities during the encounter which can lead to serious mistakes and negative outcomes.

Commitment comes from knowing and understanding what is at stake coupled with having a deliberate game plan. The stakes at a minimum are serious injury or death for yourself and loved ones present. Those are pretty high stakes, but like I said, those are the bare minimum.

The real danger in mindset, the article goes on to explain, is in finding yourself not knowing what to do. You can read the rest at the link. It’s nice to find worthwhile firearms knowledge that doesn’t gratuitously and needless cuss and denigrate. America needs more family-friendly gun knowledge.

These Fundamentals apply to everyone.

First: Top Five Travel Safety Tips For Women

Top 5 Travel Safety Tips from Greg Ellifritz

Next: Mrs. Warrior Poet on Women’s Self Defense

Source:

The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, announced an authorization this weekend that allows civilians to carry and use guns amid surging crime in the country.

Reuters noted that crime has reached a point where it is hard to curtail, and Lasso hopes to find some degree of respite in allowing citizens to be armed for self-defense.

Lasso—a political conservative—announced the new policy, saying, “We have a common enemy: petty crime, drug trafficking, and organized crime.”

“We’ve modified the decree that allows the possession and carrying of guns,” he continued. “In other words, in general terms … the possession and carrying of guns for civilian use in personal defense is authorized, in accordance with the requirements of law and regulations.”

We’re obviously not against this. And you might say that America needs or even has something similar to this. But that’s not the direction I wanted to take. I was thinking about this the other day, and others have mentioned it. What if the government news outlets in America, let’s not even say breathlessly but matter-of-factly, reported the thousands of self-defense gun uses in America every month?

Yes, thousands of times every month, somebody uses a firearm for self-defense in the United States. This includes everything from showing a firearm to a would-be assailant to brandishing or muzzling and, least often but sadly, actually having to shoot an assailant.

We applaud the move by Mr. Lasso in Ecuador, but the president there should also direct the daily and weekly stats to be aggressively released to the public and broadcast along with any footage of justified self-defense. Once criminals see the effective use of guns in self-defense, crime will plummet.

America’s problem isn’t so much of a crime problem in most states. The U.S. problem is the government narrative that denies guns’ utility and constantly promotes restrictions and confiscations despite the majority of states requiring nothing but the attainment of age to carry and use a handgun in self-defense. If the U.S. government wanted to actually lower crime, they would broadcast every self-defense use and encourage people to report self-defense uses to be included in official releases and broadcasts.

This is why you should always carry a big boar handgun. Seriously though, this is a failure at every level, even of the innate sense of danger posed by wild animals. It’s a good thing no children were present.

Opinion on South Carolina Stand Your Ground, Source:

As a martial artist, I am passionate about the right of people to defend themselves. And in my years of teaching the martial arts, I have had a number of students tell me about how they have had to use force to protect themselves and loved ones from harm. But they always tried to avoid using force, because martial artists know how precious life is — even the life of an aggressor.

Martial artists believe that one should always walk away from conflict, if possible. This is why we only use force reluctantly and only as a last resort.

Also, if force must be used, we know we should use only the amount of force necessary to end the threat and allow us to get to safety.

These principles are dear to me, which is why I oppose stand-your-ground laws.

These laws allow those who use deadly force to be exempt from criminal prosecution, even if they could have easily and safely retreated from what they perceived to be a threat.

Before Florida passed the first stand-your-ground law in 2005, the United States legal tradition already protected the right to self-defense, but only after a person had done all that he or she could to avoid conflict, including backing away from the aggressor and attempting to retreat to safety.

Using deadly force to defend oneself in a public space was only allowed after one first tried to retreat or if retreat was simply not possible.

Stand-your-ground laws differ from what is known as the castle doctrine, which applies to people dealing with an intruder in their home. I do not believe anyone has an obligation to retreat from a home intruder.

The author uses a lot of the word but after claiming to believe in armed self-defense. His argument is, in one way, correct. Avoidance is always the best choice; avoiding crowds is solid advice. But he goes on to wrongly claim a difference between Castle Doctrine and self-defense anywhere. If you have the right to defend yourself in your home, you carry that right anywhere. It’s your right and does not belong to a location. Locations don’t have rights people do. We acknowledge here that the home has a degree of expected sanctuary in the Bible, but men also have to defend their life right anywhere they may be, thus the right.

The object of self-defense is to get the assailant(s) to disengage. If not being where you shouldn’t solves a threat problem, don’t go. If leaving solves that, then leave. Nothing in the Stand Your Ground Doctrine allows the offensive use of weapons or tactics, which is the argument against Stand Your Ground that always shows the ignorance of the man making the case. His opinion, as stated in this piece, is no different.

And he makes the proportional use of force argument. There’s no way to know what would have happened if X or Y, or Z. Proportional use of force is an impossible standard that will get people killed. But the evidence of either murder or self-defense can be determined. Proof is required, not a would have-should have. Arguments against Stand Your Ground also wrongly assume that turning your back is wise. It’s not; never turn your back on a threat.

Again, getting the assailant to disengage is the proper self-defense training standard to teach.