Brazil To Vote On Firearm Sales Next Sunday: Article portrays widespread
disagreement over the upcoming referendum that seeks to ban sales of
firearms to private citizens.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2005/10/15/tough_clash_ahead_in_brazil_referendum_to_ban_guns/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News
---
Some Troops Get CQB Training: Article contains vague descriptions of
close-quarters rifle training provided to Signal Corps soldiers
preparing to cross into Iraq. Note the the Army uses private contractors
to provide this training.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1016kuwaittrain16.html
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A Word From Our Sponsor: Since John Farnam took on the issue of
competition shooting this week, I felt it might be appropriate to share
this article that I wrote a few years ago, which may be new to some of
the newer members of the list:
The following article was originally written as a series for a shooting
club newsletter. It is not intended to belittle those who enjoy the
action pistol sports. Rather, it is an effort to create tactical
awareness among those who may use a firearm in self-defense by comparing
examples from the different arenas. The article has been published
previously in the SMITH & WESSON ACADEMY NEWSLETTER..
DOUBLE TAPS: A staple of the IPSC crowd, the double tap has two sets of
problems on the street:
When faced with a single assailant the best course is to shoot until the
threat ceases. If the assailant goes into surrender mode after the first
shot, the second shot is no longer justifiable. If the assailant is
still charging you it is foolish to pause after the second shot.
When faced with multiple assailants it makes more sense to put a round
into each aggressor as quickly as possible, then go back and place more
rounds into anyone who is still a threat. About ten years ago there was
actually an incident in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where an
IPSC-shooting cop went up against three assailants. He double-tapped the
first two and was shot and killed by the third. Had he shot each
assailant once initially he might have had a better chance of prevailing.
SCORING BY THE CLOCK: Virtually all of the action pistol sports use a
timer. Speed is certainly a useful attribute in a gunfight, although it
is worth remembering the words of Bill Jordan, "Speed is fine but
accuracy is final."
I'm not trying to discourage people from developing speed in placing
accurate fire on the target. My concern is when rewarding the shortest
time over a course of fire encourages people to do things like leaving
cover and reloading on the move. If the cardboard targets or steel
plates were shooting back, would you want to leave cover with an empty
gun? Even if you have a high-capacity gun and it isn't empty yet,
wouldn't you rather have the gun fully loaded when circumstances dictate
your move to the next piece of cover? What if you get shot in the leg
and can't make it to the next piece of cover?
MOVING TO COVER: Most sport shooters try to shorten the distance to the
target to make the shot easier. Couple this with shooting against the
clock, then set up a stage where the shooter starts in the open and has
to move to cover which is somewhere downrange. Most competitors will run
directly to the point where they intend to shoot, on a straight line.
Years ago the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center disseminated a
concept known as the "FLETC L." If you're really under fire, you want to
get the cover between you and your assailant as quickly as possible.
Move laterally to get behind the cover, then turn, making an "L," if you
need to move closer to the cover.
DISTANCE FROM COVER: Most sport shooters try to shorten the distance to
the target to make the shot easier. Most sport shooters have also
learned to use "barricades" to gain support to steady the gun. One
IPSC-style shooting academy teaches resting the back of the support hand
on the side of the barricade when shooting from the gun-hand side of cover.
First of all, this technique will usually expose greater than 50% of
your body to the target, but that's all right when your target is just a
piece of buff-colored cardboard. Secondly, if the target and the cover
were real, shots fired by the target could "skip" off the side of the
cover, such as a wall surface parallel to the direction of the incoming
fire, and strike you if you were within six feet of the cover. For this
reason people who train for the real world generally try to leave at
least six feet of space between them and cover which is large enough to
permit it.
LATERAL FAULT LINES: To protect the competitor from hostile fire from
cardboard or steel targets, most action shooting sports which use cover
in scenarios place fault lines to the side of the cover. If your foot
strays over the fault line you lose points. If your head and body hang
out there, that's okay.
Cardboard and steel targets generally stay in one place whereas people
intent on harming you move around. If you're in an upright position it's
not likely that your foot will project noticeably wider than another
part of your body. People who train to deal with targets that shoot back
will usually "slice the pie." This means that if they are approaching a
doorway or a corner they will stay back about six feet, keep the gun in
a low ready position of some sort and inch themselves past the edge of
the cover. Every inch yields a new fan or pie-slice of view and if a
threat is found in one of these slices, the gun rises and the shot is
taken. If they were to insist on hiding the feet while incrementally
exposing head and body, they would merely place themselves off balance
at a time when balance might be very valuable.
RIGHT TO LEFT OR LEFT TO RIGHT: Most right-handed sport shooters, when
faced with a bank of targets, will shoot them from left to right.
When faced with real threats, you want to shoot the most immediate
threat first. This is going to be a split-second judgment, but those
come easier if you have dealt with them in training. However, in cases
where two or more threats are of comparable urgency and similar
distance, it makes sense to protect your gun side first. An awful lot of
gunshot wounds are to the gun hand, the arm of the gun hand or the
shoulder of the gun hand. Eliminating or reducing the threat on your gun
side increases the likelihood of being around to finish the fight. For a
right-handed shooter this means that when you've got a bank of targets
it makes more sense to shoot from right to left.
---
From John Farnam:
10 Oct 05
One of our students, a rancher in Colorado, gives this account of a
shooting incident in which he was involved last week:
"Per your recommendation, I've been carrying a S&W M57 revolver in 41mg
caliber while going about my duties on our ranch. Glad I had it!
Last week, a belligerent cow charged me as I was riding a four-wheeler.
She hit me broadside, toppling the vehicle and sending me sprawling on
the ground. As I looked up, she was coming at me.
My training kicked in! I drew, found the front sight, and fired without
hesitation. The single round struck her in the head, several inches
below the eye line. She immediately broke off the attack and stumbled
backward. One shot was all that was necessary. She expired a short
time later.
I don't like to have to shoot livestock, but, in this case, it was
necessary. Glad I was armed, trained, and willing to do what was
necessary to keep from getting hurt. I never anticipated anything like
this would ever happen to me!"
Comment: "Readiness" is a term that embraces many aspects of personal
commitment to victorious living. Being "ready" involves personal
preparedness, training, and a mental commitment to boldly confront any
threat with decisiveness and a willingness to commit to action. Good
show, my friend!
/John
(To alter a line from Candid Camera, trouble usually comes when you
least expect it. While I, personally, would probably not carry a .41
Magnum on the street, a .38 Special would probably not have worked on an
angry bull or cow - choose your equipment on the basis of you best
assessment of possible threats.)
12 Oct 05
Tough times require tough attitudes, from I WAS A SOVIET GUERRILLA, by Leo
Heiman:
"After showing us how to strip the rifle and reassemble it after
cleaning, a Russian, named Lionka, declared that a rifle was a
partisan's best friend and, indeed, his whole family: 'You sleep with
your rifle, 'he said, 'as you sleep with your wife. You treat it with
respect, as you treat your parents, and you care for it, as you care for
your children. In return, you get all the service you need.
Try to put a rifle aside when you sleep, and you'll wake up only to find
it stolen. Try to handle it without respect, and it will shoot you
accidentally! Fail to clean it, and it will jam at a critical moment
when only shooting can save your life.
Remember lads, never eat or sleep without your rifle at your side!'"
Comment: The world is cascading, headlong, toward exciting times, once
more. Tough men, with the correct attitude toward their weapons and
other critical gear, will live through it. Grasseaters will not!
Tough attitudes must be acquired during training. Soft, sterile, "let's
pretend" training will not produce tough people who know how to use, and
live with, deadly weapons. What is "too dangerous" to do routinely
during training, is indeed too dangerous to do at all!
/John
(While I don't believe in restricting the training that I offer to those
who can meet a military standard of toughness, I certainly agree that if
it's not safe to do something in training, it's not safe to do it on the
street. While I cannot currently provide targets at all angles, my
students move safely in directions with loaded firearms in their hands.)
13 Oct 05
On Competition Shooting, from an Instructor:
"John, you're quoted a couple of times in an article by Barrett
Tillman, 'Can IPSC Get You Killed?' in the current edition of American
Handgunner Tactical Annual. Interesting, but it carefully avoids the
essential issue, that of the shallow, self-consumed personality that
lives only for games, scores, points, times, trophies, and assorted
other juvenile twaddle.
Nobody wants to come out and say that IPSC, and most other shooting
competition, attracts lightweight dingleberries, just as nobody wants to
say that most 'qualification' exercises are little more than group
masturbation with guns. Mass pretending is destructive, but we go on
pretending, so politicians can continue to attract votes from grasseaters."
Comment: Problems arise when gear, attitudes, and methods of competitors
get mixed in with what is supposed to be legitimate "training" that is
supposed to be preparing real people for genuine, lethal encounters with
VCAs who are unfamiliar with the "rules!"
All training, worthy of the name, produces tough, hard, heavy-hitters,
both in attitude and method. Who care only about scores and personal
aggrandizement rarely fill then bill.
/John
Comments on competition shooting from friends and colleagues:
Positive:
"Competition shooting does things for a practitioner that 'training'
can't; ie: tests oneself against others. To learn to deal with emotions,
to conquer fear of failure, to develop self-control. I agree that, when
one sees competition as merely entertainment,' he is not fully 'engaged'
and will continue to lack the will to be successful in a real fight. I
personally see competition as one way to keep my martial spirit in tune
and not allow myself to 'cruise' in training. When one trains to defeat
all comers, he doesn't get lazy."
"I only wish more cops would come to matches and work on their weapons
skills."
"IPSC and IDPA would more resemble useful training if, as is the
practice at the NTI, all matches were unscored, or, if scores were not
posted but only conveyed privately to individual participants. Take
away self-glorification, and most dingleberries would quickly find
something else to do. At the NTI, this is exactly what has happened."
"We explain to the Safety Officer that we will end each exercise with a
holstered, loaded pistol, and subsequently redraw and 'show clear,' as
required. Of course, we never mention the always-loaded, back-up guns
that we unfailingly carry concealed, and no one ever asks!"
Negative:
"One reason I'm still alive and free is that I have most often handled
serious events alone. On rare occasions, when I took somebody along,
they had to be determined and competent. I looked especially for the
ability to see things through when plans went in the toilet. With all
due respect, nobody I have met in the world of competition, either
karate or shooting, is anyone I would ever want with me."
My comments: Those who enjoy competing and breathe life into various
competitive shooting disciplines render to history a great service when
they relentlessly call back their heedless colleagues from the brink of
irrelevance, when they remember the reason their discipline was started
in the first place! Shooting disciplines which have already been lost
to irrelevance, like PPC, have allowed themselves to become a little
more than a grotesque, disconnected diversion. That same sad fate
awaits IPSC and IDPA if those immersed in it think only in terms of
short-term, personal glorification and fail to grasp their place in
history.
/John
15 Oct 05
Surefire's and Blackhawk's latest:
Surefire is now producing handheld 'LumaMax' flashlights. They have a
high-output, LED rather than a xenon/gas filament. The LumaMax L2 has a
single, LED that generates fifteen lumens on low output and one hundred
on high output. The L2 is longer than the Z2, but is still thin and light.
With the LED, there is no central, bright area. The light field is
evenly spread over a large field. As a result, you can see a good deal
of lateral space without having to point the light. However, while it
illuminates a large field, it does not project as far as filament lamps.
If you want to see what is going on behind a tree fifty yards away, the
LED light is inferior the xenon lamp.
With regard to 'blinding capacity,' xenon lamps have an advantage, but
only when they are pointed precisely into the suspect's eyes. The LED,
while less 'blinding,' can produce night vision disruption from wider
angles of aim. It is thus easier for a suspect, using lateral movement,
to 'get out of' the intense light of a xenon lamp than is the case with
an LED.
Blackhawk's 'Gladius' flashlight also uses an LED, and it features an
extremely useful 'strobe' option, where the light flashes on and off
rapidly. I've found it to be extremely disorienting, in addition to
blinding, for anyone at whom it is pointed. This is a great feature.
Highly recommended!
/John
--
Stephen P. Wenger
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
