Tamara writes a great explanation on the necessity of constantly being safe by Ritual. No, it ain’t witchcraft.

Ritual de lo Habitual.

And yes, the title in Spanish caught my attention. Good use of complimentary words.

I was approached last night at work by a young man in his mid 20s expressing his interest in getting his concealed weapons permit. He heard I was an instructor and wanted to know if I would teach the class. In principle I said yes and spoke with him about the responsibilities behind carrying a weapon for self-defense, but I got the distinct impression that after I said yes, I was boring him with details.

We have talked about guns before and I know he knows squat about them, about using them for self defense or even shooting them for fun. His whole schooling comes from Movies, TV and Rap Music which could be summarized with his statement “I want a Desert Eagle!” Even though he is a single father which should make him a bit more mature, I really do not see it there. Then again him having a kid and not owing the means to defend the kid makes me uneasy about not giving him instruction.

I am a firm believer in personal responsibility. I also believe that you should carry a firearm if you want to since it is your right and I shouldn’t do anything to curtail it. The again it is my responsibility as instructor that I should not give help or to fail somebody that might do more harm than good with a firearm. I know I can teach him the class with special emphasis on Home Firearms Safety since he has a kid but, what if it does not take? To tell you the truth if he were to shoot himself I wouldn’t be worried: you pay your monies, you take your chances and I will actually make fun of you for not following the Firearms Safety Rules and getting an extreme ballistic remedial class. But I am afraid that his lack of maturity may lead to a child being injured or dead or an innocent bystander on his way to Jackson Memorial Hospital.

I am going to give this one some seriously deep consideration.

UPDATE: Thanks to James and the Pastor for guidance. The young feller will have to do without my instruction for now. I hope he matures enough to take on the responsibility.

Not quite as good as the real thing but damn close. Where can you get weekly instruction and advice from a top instructor like Tiger McKee delivered to you In box? Welcome to The Tactical Wire.

I can spend a long many sentences exalting the coolness and value of the articles, but I will not waste bandwith. Go there, subscribe to their weekly email and check the archives. It beats getting those annoying Viagra/Cialis/Uganda emails every day.

You are welcome.

Here in South Florida we have the chance of shooting IDPA at least three times a month with Florida Keys Shooting Club in Key Largo (cutest little range you’ll ever seen and they hate me when I say that) and with Tropical Sport Shooting Association which is the club I belong. I am tasked with the score keeping duties for the club and that gives me an unique perspective on how the shooters are doing.

We have shooters of all levels. From the ones that just picked up a gun for the first time to some really amazing practitioners that will leave you scratching your head in amazement.  Even though the local ranges run the physical gamut from crappy to downright useless for action shooting, Roger the mentally twisted Course Of Fire Designer manages to come up with challenging set ups that will include shooting from every conceivable position and none of them comfortable. About the only time we shoot behind a Bianchi Barricade is while we shoot the Classifier, other than that we get to shoot from non-standard cover that include leaning walls, sidewalks, vehicles, etc. plus lots of shooting on the move.

What I have been noticing while scoring is the low amount of points down our shootings are getting. For those not in the sport, IDPA is scored not only on the basis of speed but also accuracy. Making cute little holes in the wrong areas penalizes you by adding seconds to your total time. Also shooting the wrong target or a designated No-Shoot will increase the penalties.  I am pleased to see that our shooters of all levels are doing a great job keeping the rounds on the appropriate areas of the target while moving, kneeling, walking and laying prone.

I wanted to make a point because I had Tivoe’d a new series with a famous Hollywood action actor that is also a deputy sheriff in the South. One of the episodes has him training a fellow deputy for his upcoming firearm qualification. The deputy qualifies on a static range by the skin of his teeth and the target looked like it was used to catch shotgun pellets shot by somebody with a caffeine overdose 40 yards away.  Unfortunately most police officers do not shoot their firearm but in two events: the day of their quals or the unfortunate day they are forced to use it in the line of fire.  The former is not practice enough and the latter is too late to do something about it.

If you are in Law Enforcement, you know that your sidearm is a life-saving device. You have the personal responsibility to be trained and “practiced” to a level that will give you a fighting chance in case you need to use it and also in the safest most accurate way so bystander lives are not threatened by your actions. It is imperative that you do good practice with it and as much as possible. About 10 years ago when I got somewhat serious about firearms and started with IDPA, there was an institutional mindset among LEOs that they did not need to practice or to engage in silly competitive games because, By God! they are trained Cops with Guns and will out-shoot any darn civilian out there. More than one LEO who dared to come shoot a match, left the range humbled and furious when they could not even begin to compare themselves with the lowest scoring of the darn civilians. Many never returned and the lesson was lost on them and us. Fortunately the mindset changed and we see more LEOs coming to shoot and improving greatly on their craft. Many have brought others to practice and as eye opening moment to make them see that quals every six months or every year are not the solution.  They also learned that those civilians with guns are not “the enemy” and “Right Wing Fanatics” or “Domestic Terrorists” that White Shirts or politicians kept mentioning but just regular folks that competed with guns and are Law Abiding and respectful of the Constitution not that different than themselves.

So, if you are a LEO take a chance and join any shooting discipline you think you may like. There is actually no downside to it. Trigger time is always well spent even if it is just shooting the bull with like-minded people.

I know the economy sucks and people have less disposable income to do things like attending a good school to improve their shooting skills. But that slump in economy should be an opportunity on itself for the half-business-smart instructor. Where am I going with this? Instructors, you’ll get more clients if you stop scaring them.

If you go through the many articles and ads in the trade magazines, you will see that almost every school offers itself as the ultimate bang-bang-I-will-get-you-ready-for-the-sandbox training. The boldest them of all promise you intense physically-involved demanding training “because your life depends on it” well, maybe so because after making me run a mile with a shitload of gear in the middle of the summer, you better have air rescue on tow because I will probably fall down with a heart attack.  I am pretty sure that 90% of the people wanting to get some advanced firearms training balk at the idea of being the guy who collapsed in a class of cool-looking-muscle-ripping operators and decide it will be best to stay home and stain the deck. And yes, I am one of them. Plus, I would consider a waste of time and money to train on Tactical Responses to Caravan Ambushes in Somalia when my biggest threat would be a band of marauding critters coming to plunder my neighborhood after a hurricane. And I really have no desire to know about the 10 clues to detect VBIEDs on the road to Basra or Kabul when what I need is the 5 points on how to detect and avoid being carjacked on my way to WalMart. To summarize: Average Joe does not need to be trained as a contractor going overseas, he needs training on the specific threats he or she will find on everyday America.

So why not do the smart thing and train people on what they need instead of what is fashionable?  Speaking of fashion, Can we put hold on the Tactical Gucciflage apparel and accessories? If you are a Contractor, SWAT member or Operator, OK go crazy and train with as many gadgets and accesories you think you may beed. But if you are Joe Schmoe, I doubt pretty much you will be at home watching Dancing with the Stars while wearing a full Combat Armored Vest with trauma plate and 23 MOLLE-attached pouches with everything from a GPS to locate the mines of King Solomon to a inflatable Emergency operating room with anesthesia included. We need simple gear oriented to the home owner or the urban dweller (Country folks, sorry but Cabelas’ catalog has you covered and then some) and in other colors than olive dram, marpat, army digital and coyote tan.

So Instructors, to summarize: Make a simple class for your average overweight, back damaged, beer bellied urban guy.  Pistol, Rifle & shotgun. From basic firearm operations to hardening & defending the home and surviving vehicle attacks. If somebody can come up with some basic evacuation preparations and drill, it would be a gift for the ages.

I guess it is now official: I am a firearms instructor. Two friends from my former job took the plunge and were willing to get the Basic Handgun class. They are expecting to go into Law Enforcement and they were smart to realize their handgun skills were somewhere between none and Black Hole vacuum.

I have to admit it was fun. I do need to polish a couple of points but I feel good about the support material I had prepared… hell I even admit Power Point is a good thing to use as guideline.  Time in the classroom just flew. I had to force myself to keep an eye on my watch for the breaks and not to overwhelm the students with a constant barrage of info. And let me tell you, after a decade and a half of studying, you will have a crapload of info to share. The trick is to decide what info do they need and what they can assimilate then.

Not a bad day at all.  Now gotta find me some more victims students. He He He.

I just got off the phone with a fellow IDPA shooter who spent three days at Blackwater shooting till he dropped. My buddy is just a civilian who enjoys sports shooting and has guns for that purpose and self-defense, period. Unfortunately he had to deal with a couple of Civilian Armchair Commandos also attending who tried to indoctrinate him in the black arts of Bullshit Tactical Shooting and have him change is ways that were not “tactical enough” for the commandos.

First, some definitions: A Civilian Armchair Commando is a regular guy (as opposed to Operator or LEO) who spends time and money attending assorted shooting academies in order to become Walker Texas Ranger or Jack Bauer and equips himself with the latest and best operator gear in the market . He also expels amazing amounts of carbon dioxide telling everybody how they will react and kick the ass of any Bad Guy with the skills he acquired during his many pilgrimages through all these centers of shooting instruction. This is what I call Bullshit Tactical Shooting or believing that you as a civilian dictate the what, when, where and the outcome of a deadly force encounter.

In case you haven’t learned yet, let me spell it for you: We as Civilians do not get to choose the what, when, where and the outcome of a deadly force encounter. It is thrown on us by the Criminal who decided that a) You look like a soft target, b) He needs monies or some sort of instant gratification you can provide and c) thinks he can get away with it. A Civilian does not read minds, feel intentions or has supernatural powers or NSA electronic surveillance that will tell them that a Bad Guy is about to attack. And if by chance you get to know you are about to be attacked, the best thing to do is to get out of there! Who in his right mind will want to dance in front of a hail of bullets?  I am not a bulletproof super hero so I will exit stage left if given a quarter of a chance to avoid the situation. We are also bound by law not to be the aggressors because no crime has been committed. A Civilian will and can only react when there is imminent fear of death or grave bodily harm as stipulated in the law. If we don’t heed to this precept, we ourselves become the Bad Guys.

So, when I hear a Civilian Armchair Commando explaining in full detail about the tactics he is going to use, the super-duper equipment he will have and the dozen of magazines loaded with the latest magical man-stopper rounds, I feel the urgent need to laugh in his face. First because I know this idiot has never faced a feces-runnin’-down-your-pants situation and secondly because I can see this guy actually buying (if they were available) a set of pajamas in MARPAT with MOLLE and a whole bunch of attachments and weapons carrier to use in case the Bad Guy attacks while he goes to the fridge for a midnight snack.

We are not in a war zone so we cannot walk the streets armed with a rifle hanging from a sling and a sidearm on a thigh holster. Even at home we don’t (at least the sane majority do not) wear a MOLLE vest loaded with mag pouches, bowie knives and trauma kits or rig the doorbell to a claymore mine because you don’t know if it is the UPS guy delivering a package or an AlQeada terrorist trying to kill you. We do take the precautions, set the equipment according to our mission, capabilities and legalities which are the ones of a civilian encountering your run-of-the mill Bad Guy in the street or trying to break into our homes while we are inside.

The same apply for “Tactics” during a Deadly Force Encounter and that is to say, What frigging Tactics? The only Tactic is to pray to God you don’t get shot and for the other guy to stop being a threat. If you think you have time yo sit down and design a cohesive and invincible strategy when an attack is happening, then you better have you Life Insurance paid up and hope that the beneficiary will enjoy the monies for your hide. Some people still do not get that training is nothing more that the gathering of tools to be used instinctively in case of emergency. These tools (Mindset, Marksmanship and Gun Handling) are to be practiced over and over until they are deeply embedded in our brain and muscle memory so they are used without hesitation, without the need of retrieving them from the file cabinet of our brain; in other words, they become the instantaneous reaction to an aggressive, deadly and unlawful stimulus against you or your loved ones.

Rant Over, carry on.