Daily Briefing for Sunday, October 21, 2012

Killing Time By Shooting Things

This past weekend, Kendel and I spent a few days in Memphis for her college reunion.  I've lived in Memphis a couple of times in my adult life.  I really enjoy the city.

Whenever I am there, I try to take a class out at Rangemaster, one of the best gun schools in the country.  This weekend, they were offering their Level 2 class.  It's for students who have passed their CHL test and are looking to learn more about concealment and drawing from a holster.  While the material was a little basic for me, I enjoy taking classes like this from Rangemaster as it gives me ideas on ways to improve my own CHL instruction.

I'm going to share some random notes and thoughts I compiled during the class this weekend:

• One goal the CHL holder should strive to meet is to get one good hit 1.5 seconds on a target at three yards, starting with the gun being concealed.  Rangemaster staff estimates it takes a normal person who trains regularly about one year to acquire this skill.
   
• Speaking of timing, one fun fact - the FBI reports (again, according to Rangemaster staff) that for citizens using a gun in self defense, 92% of those gun fights occur between six to ten feet.  The fights usually involve the citizen firing just over three shots, and the entire fight is over in 3.5 seconds.  As Tom Givens, the boss man at Rangemaster often says, "you will run out of time before you run out of ammo."
• Something I stress to all of my CHL students, although Tom said is much more succinctly than I do: "You must be able to articulate why you used deadly force."  I would only add the words "a legitimate reason"  right after the word "articulate."  It's not enough to think someone deserves shooting - you have to have a reasonable belief of an imminent threat of serious bodily injury in order to justify using deadly force.  (Note as a general rule, I do not advocate using deadly force to protect property, although Texas law does allow for it in certain circumstances.)
• Two ideas on how to desensitize yourself from the noise of the gun.  First, you need to shoot a lot.  That will help.  Second, Tom recommends doing what he calls a mental "misdirection" by playing a loop of audio in your head while shooting which says "front sight, press the trigger" over and over.  I didn't try that on the range this weekend.  I may plug my iPhone into my hearing protectors on my next trip to the range just to see how Godsmack or Pearl Jam played at high volume affects my shooting accuracy.

Finally, and this should go without saying - all of you out there with crappy guns - get rid of them.  Go get a Glock, an M&P, or an XD.  Your daddy's Browning or Uncle Joe Bob's 1911 from the Vietnam War aren't guns you want to take to a gun fight.  We had two students in the class who had less than modern guns.  If you're going to bet your life on a tool, make sure that tool is well made and reliable.

Check Out This Here Chart


Here's a chart of the Dow over the last six months.  Notice how the bar graph at the bottom measures volume of shares traded?  See Friday's stock action - the market closed down 205 on substantially higher than average trade volume.  That's twice in about a month where we've had a down day on sizeable volume.  I keep waiting for someone to explain to me how this market is healthy.

Does The Idea Of A Preparedness Conference Appeal To You?

Let's say Paul were to find us a nice conference room in the Austin area and have a preparedness conference with speakers on a Saturday, from 10am to 2pm.  And since Paul doesn't feel the need to underwrite this, he charges a small fee to attendees (I'm thinking about $10)  to cover the expenses with the room rental and other items that would come up.  Ideally, this would be sometime between the election and Thanksgiving.

Would you attend?  If so, what subjects would you want covered?  Holla at me at suburbandadsurvivalist@gmail.com with your thoughts.