He said he was determined not to allow himself to be killed, for the sake of his children. He didn’t want to leave them without a father.

He was prepared and even though he was attacked and wounded, he had the mindset to respond and survive. Outstanding for John Lee, may he recover soon and enjoy life at its fullest.

Have I mentioned people in South Florida is a bit wee suspicions? It is somewhat common that criminals try to impersonate LEOs to get to their victims. By now this is old news for everybody but some criminals. Three guys impersonating the FBI found out the hard way:

Once the three men make it to the front door, two of them try to pry open the door with a crowbar while the third acts as a look-out. When they are unable to get thru the front door, they tried a window, but this trio had no idea the homeowner was inside and waiting for them with a pistol.

The homeowner opened fire and the three suspects took off. The two men barely make it back to their newer model, mid-size, silver sport utility vehicle Mercedes Benz before the third takes off

Puppies, kitties and criminals running with brown deposits in their shorts make me smile.

And now back to my self imposed rest.

Headline: 7 Shot, 4 Dead As Gunman Blasts Hialeah Restaurant. A Nutjob goes to a restaurant, has an argument in the parking lot with his girlfriend, shoots her, she dies and then the shooter goes inside the restaurant where he proceeds to shoot six more people. It appears that nobody but the shooter was armed.

The equation keeps coming to the same result: When somebody decides to ignore the law and create havoc with a firearm, it does not matter how many wishful thoughts you may have, how positive your attitude can be or how well you follow those tips for unarmed “self defense”: somebody is bound to get killed.

I will grant you that an armed patron may not have saved the girlfriend or prevented somebody from not getting shot, but being absolutely unarmed did guarantee the shooter a pool of targets for his deranged actions and he took advantage of it.

I want to have the chance to contradict a crazy gunman’s actions. I want to have a chance to make it out alive and that is why I carry.

Three Bad Guys apparently got to dance with a modern Wyatt Earp and lost. According to Miami’s Channel 7, the miscreants entered Okay Auto Tire Service along Northwest 46th Street and Second Avenue in Miami, forced people to the ground with guns and owner Omar Rangel drew his gun, shot and wounded two of the three assailants.

But what I like the best is the comment of Miami PD Officer Jeff Giordano:

“He displayed tombstone courage this afternoon and fired upon the offenders,”

And that shows a departure from the old Police Mentality of “We are happy with the outcome, but people  should let police take care of things.” Times have changed quite a bit down here in South Florida. Police (rank and file) understands that Gun Owners are law abiding citizens with tons of patience and restrain when carrying a concealed weapon.  And they are also painfully aware that they can’t protect everybody no matter how much they wish it.So, To Miami Police: thank you for breaking the mold.

Gun ownership works. Taking responsibility for one’s protection works. Crime did not pay for those three idiots. And to Mr. Rangel, Que  Dios lo Bendiga. (May God Bless.) you kept yourself, your workers and clients safe today.

You are young, ballsy and without morals. You see an elderly woman and think to yourself: “Hmmm! Easy pickings!” You do your thing and you go home sore and humbled. According to Miami’s Channel 7 News, it seems that’s what happened to a young punk in Hialeah who had a wee bit interaction with an tough old broad

The beating happened near West 35th Street and 12th Avenue. Police explained that the man knocked on the victim’s door while her husband was home and asked for directions. He left after she told him where to go.

He returned later and asked her to write down the directions and entered the home. By this time, the husband had left the house.

The subject then knocked the 77-year-old woman to the ground. Antonio Garcia, the victim’s husband, spoke through a translator, as he explained what happened next: “He pointed the gun at my wife and threatened to shoot her. She was able to knock the gun right out of his hand. Then, she swung her arm up, hitting him right in between his legs, and he ran off.”

Mindset is the ultimate weapon.

I tried to write it nice so I don’t come out like a jerk, but I just couldn’t find the words so here it goes: I think there is a lot of bullcrap about the application of oriental philosophy in our western lives. It seems that if something was written by some guy with a sing-songy name a couple or three centuries ago, it must have a great relevance and we must bow to the knowledge imparted there because well, it is one of them oriental wise men, you know?

I was told by doctor that acupuncture was going to make me quit smoking. I suffered through the needles and came out wanting a big cigar and a fifth of JD which is weird because I don’t like cigars and don’t drink. Herbal Medicine? Got me a nice case of gastritis that is still with me 20 years later. Have you actually tried real chinese food? Most of it is boiled and bland or just plain gagging. That is why soy sauce is available: it is the oriental equivalent of ketchup or Tabasco, you gotta hide the original flavor.

But the Lord knows that my Mom must have dropped me on my head a couple of times because I heeded the advice of some and decided to read on some Far East classical authors on warfare and how it may apply to Personal Defense. I know I might upset some much more knowledgeable and famous folks than myself but I am sorry to say the knowledge them suckers in kimonos “share” do not apply to Civilian Self Defense. I dusted  my copy of The Art of War and added it to my newly acquired copy of The Book of Five Rings to see what knowledge I might absorb.

The Book of Five Rings is about swordfighting, samurai/ronin style. Legend has it that Miyamoto Musashi was a serious hombre with the sword who never lost a match against its adversaries or even got a cut anywhere on the pajama. The book was originally a scroll that Musashi wrote attempting to explain his approach to sword fighting so most of it will not apply to gun skills. One good thing about his literary approach is that he is not “educated” so he dispenses with most of the flowery language common to Japanese and most oriental writers. In the same book I got, the editors also latch on a copy of The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War by Yagyu Munenori who is “educated and you feel you need a weed eater and the Sierra Club Guide to Japanese Arbor and Flowers to read through it. Munenori’s teachings also apply to sword fighting but more as a combat & battlefield tactics than a civilian self defense issue.

Some of you are now steaming out of your ears thinking “How dare he mock such great and noble warriors? I will throw down the gauntlet right here and now! Katanas at 10 paces sir!” Well, take it easy and pick up your metal glove, I believe in long range acquisition with a modern firearm if possible. Yes, i will cheat, screw the rest. Why am I so “disrespectful” about Samurai (and also about knights while we are at it)? Because they were a bunch of elitists jackasses for the most part, wielding absolute power with their steel and their techniques. The little people were not humans and just basically target practice or ready-to-abuse subjects for these people. I am from the “Great Equalizer” School of Thought which sees a weapon (firearms) as the reset button of a society. Not every Joe had the money, position or budget to avail himself of a good sword, accouterments and training time to master swordsmanship.  Yet a simple tube propelling a lead ball shot by a peasant can manage to bring down and abusive cast of assholes. I don’t know why but that easiness to inflict deadly force to a mini dictator brings a warm fuzzy to my heart. We have romanticized so much samurais and knights that we ignore or conveniently forget that they were nothing more than petty Stalins who had the power of absolute life and death over their subjects and no sense of justice but their own desires. Somehow learning anything out of them makes me think that it is like learning medicine from the notes of Dr. Mengele’s experiments at Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

Still, I sat down with a pen and a highlighter to collect the alleged pearls of wisdom and did mark some interesting passages, but there was this nagging feeling on the back of my head that kept saying: “You read this before in a much simple and understanding format….You read this before in a much simple and understanding format….you moron. Think!” Then, around 3 am my degrading brain finally kicked open the file drawer and pulled out the card with the recorded info. There is a modern Book of Five Rings written by a modern warrior who applied his knowledge to teach the common folk how to defend themselves. Not an elitist (except when it came to one’s pursue of excellence with a firearm) and with a no BS view of the world without any chrysanthemums or Cherry Blossoms to adorn his writings: The Late Colonel Jeff Cooper and his excellent booklet Principles of Personal Defense. Forget Musashi, Munenori, Sun Tzu, P. F. Chang’s and Lt. Sulu, just get this book and digest its 56 pages. It will do more for your training and mindset foundation that 10 years in a Shaolin Monastery trying to snatch a pebble out of some white bearded guy’s hand. Its simplicity will astound you and its frankness may freak you out some. But it is God’s honest truth when it comes to Self Defense.

As for the Book of Five Rings, it goes next to the Art Of War to the uppermost shelf with the rest of the book I might want to check some day in the next decade if I need to recall a passage. I think I might be ordering some more Cooper books to absorb more of this modern Master & Teacher.

And if you are still insulted by my lack of respect for the Ancient Oriental Know-It-Alls, it is a feeling, you’ll get over it eventually… or not. I really do not care.

Going through the news, photos and videos coming out of Haiti, you cannot help but realize the folly of relying on the Government for immediate help. I am not saying that Big Evil Government will not help, but it is a huge slow animal that will take a long tome to get going and, in the meantime, you are on your own.

And as the bureaucracies slowly churn into action, the regular folk are left to their own devices. Most folk will actually try to recreate some sort of mini-society, a tribe if you please, but some will just become a pack of predators with murder and mischief in their minds.The power of armed roaming criminals is awesome. Not just because they are armed but the level of violence they can inflict is something we are not accustomed to see as civilized people. It feeds its violence on itself and even the most simple and peaceful of men will do things that are unthinkable, the hardened criminal will reach new heights of cruelty. Mobs are nasty and Desperate Mobs are cancerous and unforgiving. The result is that rescue efforts will be delayed or denied because safety cannot be guaranteed just as it is happening in Haiti where medical teams are being pulled out because it has turned too dangerous for them to do their mercy work.

I have lived through a total breakdown of law and order. I’ve seen neighbors turn to neighbors for support and neighbors turning against neighbors in frenzy. I saw people getting killed in very horrific ways and sadly I understood the phrase “Life is cheap” in a very short time. We escaped the mayhem not because the mob suddenly developed a conscience (news flash: Mob Mentality does not include conscience or morals) but because we were ready to inflict serious deadly force and managed to transmit the message in a clear and concise way to the looters. Our property was left alone while the Mob went looking for softer or more rewarding targets and they did. I saw more people getting killed and homes and businesses being painfully stripped of anything remotely of value like a cow under a piranha attack.

And the biggest shock of all was that the mob was not faceless and anonymous. I saw people I knew for short, medium and long time in it. They became animals just going about their wild business no matter what past history they had with the neighbor they were looting. It didn’t matter to them, the “reward,” the immediate satisfaction and the feeling pf power that a mob gives was too intoxicating for them to think coherently about what they were doing.

I don’t think I slept for three days. Things started to “calm down” not because sanity returned but because there was nothing much left to loot and the mobs moved on. It took the local government 5 days to send a semblance of authority to the area and only then people became individuals again. Some were embarrassed for what they did, some didn’t care and I just couldn’t digest all that happened. I have most of it now but there is this sense of “I can’t believe it happened” still in my brain. The old “Be polite, be professional but have a plan to kill everyone you meet” is relevant as sad as it may be.