As civilians we are not offered the opportunity to belong to an established group for support and guidance. So when we take upon ourselves to be responsible for our own self-defense, we do it in solitary. We are castaways left to our own devices and with little guidance but a few lines of the law with almost no interpretation and no idea what we might face.The following is a Code of Conduct that I came up during a boring shift at work. I will never claim to be an expert and please understand so. These are just my observations from what I have experienced personally and from what others have learned. I am just going to post the list and I will expand on each one at a time in following posts.

I have chosen to be the First Responder of my Own Safety so:

– It is my responsibility to respect Innocent Life. And the first Life to be respected is my own.
– It is my responsibility not be controlled by extreme emotions.
– It is my responsibility to train & learn any techniques that will allow me a chance to survive.
– It is my responsibility to keep and hone the skills I acquired.
– It is my responsibility to keep my equipment in good condition.
– It is my responsibility to stand against those who seek to eliminate the right right to defend myself.

This is a work in progress. I am guessing I will be adding or subtracting stuff as I get better at my writing or a kind soul happens to give a hand and improve on it.

“It’s kind of strange, isn’t it? How the mountains pay us no attention at all. You laugh or you cry… The wind just keeps on blowing.”
Patrick Swayze as Jed Eckert in Red Dawn.

Yes, I enjoyed the heck out of Red Dawn and in the eyes of some makes me a Militia Type Right Wing Wacko.  Fine, let them have it that way.  They are the same ones that they swore that Islamofacist were not a threat to the USA on 9/10/2001.

Patrick did alright. He made good movies, was a faithful husband to his childhood sweetheart, was not involved in cosmic celebrity scandals or sought the limelight through P.R. Stunts. As his good-bye, he left us with The Beast which was as raw acting as anybody can hope to achieve. And he did it while fighting the cancer that eventually took him away.

Rest in Peace Wolverine. We’ll miss ya.

I am a 100%, dyed-in-the-wool, no-holds-barred IDPA shooter. I have to check with HQ but I think I almost have a decade participating in the sport and I am know in a couple of forums of coming down hard on anybody who dismisses IDPA with the old “IDPA will get you killed” crap. I believe that IDPA is the best elementary school in Defensive Shooting anybody can get for the price you get to pay and that it has also introduced more people to advanced Defensive Shooting classes than anything else out there.

Wit that being said, I have this feeling we are seeing a trend in the sport that will render it useless as a starting point for more serious stuff.  Some call it IPSCfication (yes, there is still the Hatfields v. McCoys thing going on) but to me is just Dumbing Down what it was supposed to be a challenging discipline.  I have attended and worked several sanctioned matches and I have seen a distinct trend that shows lots of flash but short of bang.  Lots of cute and elaborate stages with amazing moving props, but short in shooting smarts and techniques. We are turning Hollywood as we become addicted to the special effects and set the script as barely secondary. We are losing what made us in the first place.

Nothing drove this point deeper than hearing a Match Director during a State Match I worked as Safety Officer, say that we were in the entrainment business and to make the match fun.  Silly me I thought that the first duty of a Safety Officer wast to look after the shooters and make sure they were safe. There were tons of props and amazingly designed stages that were for the most part, amazingly vanilla to shoot. Needless to say the match turned out to be an enjoyable carnival but lacked lots on challenging shooters. I am for a challenge and I would agree most of IDPA shooters are also in this category. You can make a match fun if you challenge shooters to push their abilities instead of just throwing lead downrange.

How do we turn this silly tide? Mainly by designing Courses of Fire that follow the true spirit of IDPA as it appears in the rule book:

The International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) is the governing body of a shooting sport that simulates self-defense scenarios and real life encounters

So let’s look for true incident out there and design our CoFs around them. Talk to Law Enforcement officers about cases that happened during their shifts, cruise the internet for surveillance video of actual crimes and even incidents that might have happened to fellow shooters or relatives.  If you are home right now, you have a fantastic opportunity to design killer CoFs: Run several What Ifs using your house as stage and imagine what would happen if a Bad Guy entered through a window or busted a door or you hear screams coming from your kids’ bedroom. Or you are at a red light and imagine you are about to be carjacked with no way to escape. Or even your local supermarket while you are with the significant other shopping can provide you with Courses of Fire. And let’s face it, if you are a conscientious armed citizen, you are living in Alert Color Orange and running “What if I am attacked right now?” scenarios every time you are out there.

Write the ideas down so you don’t forget them. You don’t need to sit right there and design a whole scenario right there and then. You can do that later and adapt them to IDPA rules. When you finally commit them to paper,  don’t soften them up just because it is easier to do or give you a nice round count or you don’t have the all the props you want.

About props. Yes, we would like to have a full tactical Blackwater or Thunder Ranch set up in our clubs, but the reality is our clubs may not have that kind of cash around or the space to do it. Think Smart and be minimalistic. Here is an example: We all like to have a car just dedicated to shoot vehicle related scenarios. Our range is public so we can’t just leave a car sitting at the range and our storage space is a small sea container. So, the solution to recreate carjacking scenarios was simple: A chair, a driver side door and a steering wheel.

If you want to work outside the car scenarion, well darn it, you didn’t get to the range walking or by using public transportation, right?

We did learn something, place some sort of protective cover like carpeting or even a towel on the corner. It will save the time and aggravation later of removing the burnt propellant. We use the props trailer with now instead of a vehicle and does the same job. Even a cut out of half a car propped on target stands will do the job.

Use your imagination, make it challenging, make your shooters think and not just shoot and that will be fun enough.

There is no doubt among those of us that legally carry a gun that one of our fears is the consequences that come with having to  go through a Deadly Force encounter. The first one without a doubt is to be accidentally shot by arriving LEOs because we have a gun in our hands and somebody bleeding on the pavement.

This fear comes mostly from the blabbing verbosity of anti-gun Chiefs of Police in States fighting for their right to carry a weapon, who were quick to warn citizens that their officers would shoot first and ask questions later if they saw anybody with a gun. This was a great disservice to the rank and file officer who is professional enough to assess a situation before going active with a gun. Still, the damage was done and even though I cannot recall a single incident where a police officer shot a law abiding citizen confusing him with a criminal, the story is out there and people are coming up with the perfect solution for a non-problem.

The first “solution” was the now infamous Concealed Carry Badge. This tin was first touted as a way to avoid being shot by rushing cops and give them some sort of pause because a badge is displayed and thus, he must be a good guy. The CC Badges have been excoriated enough across diverse forums as a sure fire way to get yourself in a heap of trouble if somebody decides to press charges on your butt for impersonating a police officer. The badges are still out there for those recently initiated in the fraternity of CCW and can be seen in some internet stores and many gun magazines.

The latest and newest is an article that when I first saw it I thought: OK, somebody has a great sense of humor. Nice joke.” The joke was on me. Welcome to the Don’t Shoot Me Banner already known in certain circles as the Miss or Mr. Universe CCW Tactical Sash.

Touted as “a caveman simple solution to the problem of misidentification of good guys in a fight.” this has to be one of the dumbest non-solutions ever created.  I am sorry if the creator of the Tactical CCW Sash reads this and feels insulted, you started it by calling us cavemen. Cavemen would never be as dumb as to wear this contraption and no civilian should even begin to consider this as part of their bat-belt.

I am not opposed to  being properly identified by the police as one of the good guys, but where this item fails miserably is in the extra movements and gun manipulations required to drape the sash across the body. Using the pictures as example, let’s walk through the scenario: You are just done using your gun in a deadly force encounter. Your body dumped a ton of adrenalin in your circulatory system, you are shaking, tense and time seems to be moving at a snail’s pace, your senses have narrowed down and they are concentrated on the target. Right then might not be the perfect time to fiddle around your belt-attached pouch to pull out a sash which will force you to change hands on the gun and or orient it anywhere else but the target or a safe direction.  Under stress, our fine motor skills disappear and any extra movements we force ourselves to perform will be increased in difficulty due to the adrenalin high we are having. I am sorry but I see this sash as a negligent discharge in the making. If you discharge the weapon, land a bullet on the downed bad guy and kill him, congratulations!: you just graduated to manslaughter in the best of cases and will be receiving, courtesy of the D.A. an internship on forced alternative lifestyles interactions at the local house of detention.  Same if the bullet happens to make deadly contact with the girl behind the register at the nearby eatery with the added bonus of a civil lawsuit.

So, let’s think about something else or better yet, let’s do what experts have told us to do after a situation like this: Once the police arrives, slowly and safely put the gun down, raise your hands and follow the directions given by the officers. They are professionals and will soon figure out who is who and you can sashay your way to a more relaxing environment… yes, bad pun. Sue me.

How many times we see in movies and TV that a good or bad guy engages in a shootout from behind a car and the incoming bullets bounce harmlessly off the body with a cute spark indicating a strike?  The image of a Police officer stopping his car, getting off and taking cover behind the door is deeply embedded in the minds of anyone who has seen 2 episodes of any Cop show from the 1950’s till today. Unfortunately physics are a bit more unforgiving and quite more deadly.

This particular vehicle is parked at a range in South Florida where Local Law Enforcement train. I assume (yes i know) that it is being used as training aid and I might say it is a quite sobering demonstration of the property of bullets flying at high speed. The vehicle was the target of different calibers shot by handguns, shotgun and rifle and the result is evident as shown in the following pictures.

The “puny” 9 mm and the .40 S&W had no troubles making their way through the door of this cruiser which pretty much kills that old Hollywood visual staple. But the real butt kicker lays on the nex couple of pictures. Do click on picture for better detail.

As you can see, almost all the most common rounds used in the US were used to ventilate a tad the trunk of the vehicle. But the kicker lays on the next picture.

Yep, those are exit holes on the other side of the car. Even the allegedly less-than-lethal 9mm managed to go through on both sides.

If we ever have the misfortune of having to use a vehicle during an armed confrontation, about the only safe area you could use is behind the engine which possesses enough mass to block incoming rounds.  That is if the person shooting at you decides not to look under the vehicle and aim for your feet.

So, unless you own an armored vehicle, do not make the mistake of believe you are driving an item that will produce cute sparks while deflecting projectiles. Remember: Your average vehicle is about as bulletproof as a Radio Flyer and you will be the bullet stopper in the end.

I read these words in an article by Pat Rogers about 2-3 years ago in a magazine. The first thing it did to me was to put a dent in the desire to obtaining a crapload of ancillary tactical “cool stuff” that I really did not need. The second thing was that made me sit down and figure out what do I really need according to the way I live.  Even though I might drool over the latest tactical fashion statement out of Blackhawk or have the urge to get me a very cool tactical vest with trauma plate and enough webbing to molle a lawnmower, Does my lifestyle and threats actually require it? The answers was enlightening and also made my wife happy because it would not deplete our meager bank account.

I live in South Florida. Heat and humidity are more than plain annoyances: wearing the wrong clothing will send you to the ER with a severe case of heat exhaustion and might even kill you (ask me how I know).  Does it make sense to wear an EOTac denim jacket? Heck no, no matter how many cool and hidden pockets to carry stuff it has. I am a sucker for vests, I’ve been wearing one type or another for 30+ years but considering the weather plus the unstoppable force of the calendar against my body,  I am forced to wear the lightest one I can buy. It does not have all the bells and whistles but I won’t have to pull over every 5 blocks for prompt hydration. I am even about to try a EOTac’s Tropical Sport Shirt and IWB holster because all those times I overdid it under the sun add up and I do not want to end up being berated by the wife while I lay in front of an AC vent and chugging Gatorade or in the hospital being hydrated with a bag full of liquid via needle sticking up my arm. I know I look cool in a bitchin’ tactical vest, but I do not have the desire to look that cool in ICU.

At home I am the typical SoFla (South Florida) guy wearing shorts and flip-flops so that sexy thigh holster in coyote brown not only look weird but it will chaff the hell off my delicate skin.  Solution? If I am not carrying a J-frame in the shorts pocket, there will be a weapon placed within three to five steps of wherever I am located.  Before you cry safety!, I must inform that I have no kids so gun access to minors is not an issue, specially since both cats have no opposable thumbs and have been trained in the Four Rules of Gun Safety. Very few friends ever come over and with one exception, the guns go into the safe while they are around. One gun will be holstered on me for the duration of the visit because Bad Guys will not hesitate to be impolite enough to ply their trade with people in the house.

An honest evaluation of your needs and conditions is fundamental to determine what gear you really need. You might be a young buck with tons of health to spare and a strong back which can withstand carrying an M4 all day, but if you live in any city or suburban area there is a great chance that somebody will see you when you go outside to mow the lawn and call the local authorities.  A sudden picnic with a dynamic entry courtesy of  your local SWAT team is not a enjoyable prospect in anybody’s schedule. If you are an old fart like myself, you are going to get tired soon and start ditching crap or losing your sharpness and attention to your surroundings which are more important than any gear you may carry.

Now let’s be real, if you hear somebody breaking in in the middle of the nigh,  Are you really going to waste time putting on the above mentioned very cool tactical vest with trauma plate with 6 spare mag for your Ugly Black Rifle, 2 sets of trauma kits, hydration bag and pouch for IPod? No, you will grab a secured yet readily accessible long or handgun, perhaps a spare mag, cell phone dialing 911 and you will make a stand in the safe room or your bedroom. No, you are not going to get the chance to use all the 6 pounds of cool gadgets (light, lasers in red and green, ACOG, range finder and bottle opener all in picatinny rails) because it would be the dumbest crap you can do since you bough the Barret .50 caliber rifle to kill the possums in your small city backyard.

So let’s be smart about our gear and adapt it to the reality we live in. Study your most realistic threats and plan accordingly.  We all like cool gear but it must be used in a way it helps our chances of surviving a confrontation.

So I am bored to the gills and looking in Netflix for something to watch under their recommendations when I notice this:

I am not sure what to make of this. Is it a case of search engine software gone stupid or does somebody at Neflix is afraid of hurting the feelings of sociopathic serial killers who, by definition have none? Then again we are talking about an industry that will award an Oscar for best documentary to any “film” from Michael Moore.

Next we will see Cesar Millan trying to fix the bad attitude of Fluffy the Werewolf who goes into a murdering rampage every full moon. I admit I’d unload some cash to watch the PPV and see all 45 seconds of Millan getting his ass ripped to pieces as he tries to leash a lycanthrope and taking him for a walk.

Oy!