Well, I took the classes, passed the tests and waiting for the NRA to send me the card/certificate.  Working on my presentations and making a list of all the ancillary  I will need. And truth be told apprenhensive about the responsibility of teaching people about firearms.

One thing I know is that I am not one of the Great Ones. My last name is not Tarani, Awerbuck, Cain, Rogers Cooper or Smith. Even though Mr. Ego wants to go there, I have to plant myself into the reality of what can I teach and make it the best possible. I want to concentrate into bringing new people on the Gun Culture by the way of Safety, Responsibility and the development of Mindset.

We’ll see.

I just finished with my NRA Instructor’s classes and one of the things covered was the need to have talk with counselor/chaplain/shrink after a self-defensive shooting. I have to admit that the one thing I never thought about but makes to have an understanding person so you can open up and share the events with confidence.

I understand that we civilian shooters tend to be independent and that we firmly believe on depending on the fewest amount of people possible (and zero from the government) but the aftermath of a defensive shooting is something not to take lightly or be unnecessary proud to ask for help. Let’s imagine (God forbid) that you have just shot a Bad Guy that attacked you or your loved ones, there are plenty of witnesses that will corroborate the righteousness  of your actions and even plenty of video cameras that recorded the whole thing. The police arrives and if they are any good, they will initially treat you and anybody still standing as suspect. It makes sense, they were not there where it happened and they must perform an investigation. You are still draining adrenalin and this guy in blue will listen with detachment, keep you at arms’ length and you will feel bothered at best, insulted at most. You know you did the right thing. All the training paid off, you saved a life and yet it is not recognized by the responding officer and later by the investigators. That will shake anybody at anytime and you are not the exception.

Later, and depending where you live, you may have to go through the hands of the local district attorney and even a grand jury. You will be put under the microscope, examined up and down, questioned, challenged and doubted. Even though if the D.A. decides to call the shooting self-defense and announce it to the world, even if the Grand Jury returns with a No Bill, the experience will affect you. And let us not forget our dear Media people, desperate for news and your comment more likely to portray you as a rabid vigilante while showing the crying mother of the critter saying that her little angle was not a criminal and spewing venom against you. This will enrage you.

And last, your friends and neighbors. You will have those that will see you with new eyes and not the best. You have broken the ultimate societal taboo: You killed a human being: The Mark of Cain.  Whispers will be exchanged as you walk by. Some parents will tell their kids no to walk by your house or play with your kids. Some will openly question your actions and offer alternative solutions on how you should have faced the situation. Each and every comment, gesture, look will lay heavily on your mind and may change you for the worst. At the end, you will find yourself wallowing in self doubt, self recrimination and an assorted menu of feelings that will make you miserable.

Police and Military are smart. They have established support systems to deal with this kind of stuff. First the individual belongs to a fraternity that will immediately support his fellow officer or serviceman. Then they have counselors standing by and even make it mandatory for the individual to attend. Even if the person involved in the shooting gets unloaded upon by civilians and the press, he has a group of supporters backing him up. We civilians do not have that. It is up to us to prepare for it.

At the class I mentioned earlier, I was lucky to meet a counselor for a local police department. He is a Rabbi and a shooter plus his experience with officer involved shootings give him a special outlook on what happens to an individual after a self defense situation. I spoke some with him and he struck me as a very well prepared and empathic person who knows when to listen, when to comfort and when to counsel. He even offered one other advantage about talking to a counselor/chaplain/shrink: Confidentiality. What you say to a counselor/chaplain/shrink, stays private and privileged under the eyes of the law.

Right now his card is in my wallet, a part of my urban survival kit. I hope I never have to call him other than saying hello and invite him over to shoot with our club.

PS: I forgot to mention something. I am catholic (way lapsed) and have a rabbi on standby. You don’t have to be choosy about what type of counselor you need, just find somebody who will help.

So I will soon be joining the millions out there without a job. Amazingly enough, rather than bad times almost everybody at my hotel is being sacked because the hotel is going into renovations. The sheer stupidity of shutting down right before the tourist season with at least three major conventions coming to the area during the same season and leaving over a hundred people without jobs has not ran well with the working bees. Hell, people are pissed off and they are vocal about it leaving me wondering if somebody may actually work out his/her anger into a full revenge mode.

Of course the same management that made the decision of sacrificing the goose of the golden eggs has prepared itself in the event of a really pissed-off worker deciding to use them as target practice with the poster pictured above which details how to respond to an active shooter. Also some cute card-sized instructions have been passed along so you can pull you bifocals and read them as soon as you hear the detonations. That and 911 is pretty much all the permitted defense we are entitled to in a Gun Free Zone because as sure a Christ made little apples, Security (Me and my fellow officers) is not going to risk becoming a receptacle of bullets for anybody at work. Callous? you betcha but I kinda value my life first and foremost and unarmed heroics make for a nice obituary and a widow but not much else.

Thankfully in Florida we are allowed to have our weapons secured in our vehicles at work. Not that it will make a whole lot difference if I happen to be one of the first unlucky ones that face an active shooter but if I am spared of the initial volley, I can always make a bee line for the parking lot, retrieve my sidearm and take a defensive posture (And you thought I was going for the heroic shit and save the day? Nope!) It was my custom to leave my vehicle keys in the locker so I would not lose them during the active shift, but after the announcement that we were out, I carry them with me all times. I also try to park as accessible as possible to the work area and my awareness of everything and everybody has grown  a hundered-fold. Still it is a incomplete solution to a serious compounded problem created by silly job and legal politics. Then again it will be over in 2 weeks. Till then, prayer is in the procedures instead of a gun.

The Mexican Drug War Weapons lie still goes strong in the media. In today’s Washington Post’s editorial we see it once more:

Mexican President Felipe Calderón and President Obama said during a news conference in Mexico City last month that roughly 90 percent of the weapons seized in operations against organized crime in Mexico came from the United States.

But MSNBC’s “hard hitting” article on the same subject accidentally provides the truth.David Berryhil at the 10-8 forums posted the math behind the media bullshit:

Doing the math gives a much lower number of firearms traced to the U.S. than the media would like you to believe:

“In all, the military has 305,424 confiscated weapons locked in vaults….”

“The Mexican government has handed over information to U.S. authorities to trace 12,073 weapons seized in 2008 crimes…”

“About a third of the guns submitted for tracing in 2007 were sold by licensed U.S. dealers….”

One third of 12,000 = 4,000 firearms traced to U.S. firearms dealers in 2007. That number is quite a bit smaller than what the media has reported. They report the large number of illegal weapons in Mexico and imply (or lie) that all of them come from the U.S.

Or in much simple numbers, only 1.3% of firearms confiscated by the Mexican Army from Drug Dealers can be tied to licensed firearms dealers. Sorry but fucking up the data by 300,000 firearms is not a mistake, it is a boldfaced lie in anybody’s book. Then again, “journalists” do not care as long as their legs tingle anticipating acknowledgement in the form of a waving of the pinkie from the White House Supreme Being.

Enough with the ammo hoarding people! Yes I understand that the Obama administration wants our rights deceased and that many state legislatures have put forward microstamping, ammo registration and other assorted loads of legal crap, but enough is enough. This madness is starting to affect shooting sports and and we are begining to lose new shooters because they can’t find ammo for the new gun they just bought. We are poisoning our own well and killing the joy of shooting. Even reloading supplies have disappeared from stores.

The last batch of 1,000 rounds of Wolf 7.62×39 I bought cost me $120.00. This is just absurd!

And this is just insane! Not two months ago or so you could buy 4,000 primers for that price including shipping and Hazmat fees. Now people are being auto-shafted  because they are buying in full panic mode. It has to stop. And no, there is no conspiracy by the manufacturers, just our own idiocy.

Be very afraid. At the end of this month and coinciding with my hotel firing everybody including yours truly, I’ll be taking the NRA Instructor’s class.  Hopefully I’ll be an instructor in Basic Pistol, Home Firearms Safety Instructor and Personal Protection in the Home. Amazingly, I already have 4 people interested in classes so there is certainly a demand. I gotta figure how to set up the whole thing and get to it. We need more shooters!

So I get to work the other day and I find myself staring at the above poster. I had to smile sadly and think of those that will actually read this and think that nobody will get hurt or die by simply following the instructions. But I must remain quiet and share with nobody the reality of what could be done because it is not politically correct.

Although published in many places, the obvious went unnoticed by the “expert” Talking heads of the Media. If you please, read the following extract from the L.A. Times regarding the massacre at Binghamton, N.Y

The first 911 calls started coming in at 10:30 a.m. from inside the building, said Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski. The calls were in broken English, he said,and dispatchers could not at first determine where the calls were coming from or what they were about.

Police arrived at the scene at 10:33 a.m. Unsure whether the gunman was still inside the building or holding hostages, police did not enter for 45 minutes, after a SWAT team had arrived.

Three minutes was it took for the police to arrive. But by then, the murderous bastard was finished killing 12 innocent people. And nobody is going to say that three minutes is a bad response time for police, just the opposite, it was an exceptional police response that beats by a mile most major cities’ police departments. But unfortunately it was not fast enough. And please do not start with why they did not go ahead and entered the building. I have no internal info, but I bet you dollars to donuts that Police Management has not even began to think about changing training and response procedures for Active Shooters and no sane rank and file LEO is going to commit suicide as much as he or she would want to save lives. And trust me, after hearing some of the stupid things Police Chief Joseph Zikuski said on a press conference, I am sure this is the case.

So, what are you going to do if you must gather or visit a Gun Free Zone and an Active Shooter decides to do his thing? Plan ahead, Pray a lot and hope it happens on your day off. At least that is what I do, everybody else must fend for him/herself and we must be sure to thank our local representatives for those beautiful shooting reservoirs when only the criminal or the deranged are allowed to carry a gun.

If you have spent more than 10 minutes in any handgun related forum, you are bound to bump into a thread regarding the need (or lack) for spare magazines/speedloaders. The Armchair SWAT Members will beat their chest and proclaim how good shooters they are and that will only need whatever their gun carries to win the battle. The Legal Worrywarts fear that if they are faced into a confrontation and survive, a slick District Attorney with a political agenda may use the spare loading devices as proof you were itching for a murder.  Both points are hogwash and I am saying this in the nicest way I can muster. You carry spares because you may need them.

Am I saying you will be facing a horde of Zombies and carrying 21, 31 or 50 rounds may be necessary? No, but what may happen is that you will have a malfunction that will leave you hanging for dear life if you cannot solve it in a fast and resolute manner. I have seen shooters of all calibers experience magazine related malfunctions at IDPA matches and if a malfunction cannot be resolved with the standard Tap-Rack-Bang, they go for the spare mag and solve the problem. This applies also to real life where you must immediately drop the troublesome magazine and replace it immediately with a fresh one because you won’t be able to call time-out and figure out what’s wrong. Criminals are impolite that way.  About the only acceptable variation is if you carry a back up gun and go for it after a malfunction happens (also known as a New York Reload) which provides you with a functioning firearm to save your life.

According to the FBI Director Robert Mueller, the possibility of a Mumbai-style attack in the US could be replicated seems to have the Government in somewhat nervousness. I work in the Hospitality Business and I am here to tell you that I am more than a little worried, I am scared shitless about the issue. By definition, hotel corporations are reactive in nature. They don’t want to change unless change falls on them like a mastodon in heat and then they will cry and complaint all the way to court. In a Hotel Security trade magazine a less than stellar article was written about the Mumbai attack and the genius writer came to the conclussion that the reason the attack was successful was because the terrorists gained access through a kitchen entrance thus laying the blame to an unlocked door. Are you frigging kidding me? A terrorist sporting an AK 47 and a backpack full of grenades has pretty much all the tools required to do an entrance anywhere in the hotel and using pretty much any door including the main entrance of the hotel.

Some less stupid and more insightful articles in different military and police website reveal that the first targets of the attack were anybody that looked like security. 99.99% of security officer that work at a hotel are unarmed and they may only have a radio for “defense” but still they were mowed down so the terrorist could have a wonderful time spreading the will of Allah via 7.62×39.

More and more people are now carrying a concealed weapon and although a sidearm is a poor match against a rifle, it beats being unarmed. If you spend any time in a hotel, you must now add to your list of security concerns the probability that a horny jihadist will decide that your trip to the latest amusement park off state or a business opportunity is a good time to crate mayhem.  Create a plan, be ready and be deadly if necessary. Again, do not depend on the hotel for your protection since we are trained only to be “good witnesses” and nothing else.

As for me, I’ll just bow my head and mumble quietly the Secret Service prayer: “Dear Lord. Not on my watch.”