Don't Know Much About Geography: A right wing Oregon gun ownership group
is steaming over proposed legislation that would ban guns from school
grounds. The group's angle in attacking the legislation brought forward
by Ginny Burdick, is an implication that she is trying to make life
"less safe" for female teachers. "Oregon State Sen. Ginny Burdick's plan
to sponsor legislation designed to make female teachers more vulnerable
to abusive ex-spouses by specifically stripping away their right of
self-defense on school campuses is a new low in gun control extremism,"
the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.
(Is Washington now part of Oregon?)
http://salem-news.com/articles/september212007/burdick_guns_92107.php
---
Canada Loses RKBA Activist: On Tuesday, David A. Tomlinson passed away.
For three decades, David had been the President of the National Firearms
Association of Canada and an outstanding advocate of the rights of
law-abiding Canadian firearms owners. I had the privilege of meeting
David several times, and found him to be a true gentleman, and a gentle
man. Canada has always had more gun controls than the United States, but
the Canadian gun debate changed dramatically in the 1990s, when the
Liberal government initiated a Kulturkampf against gun owners, aiming to
eliminate the "masculine" culture which gun owners supposedly embodied.
No one in Canada was more important in leading the resistance than David
Tomlinson.
http://volokh.com/posts/1190412426.shtml
---
From John Farnam:
14 Sept 07
Exigent Gun Maintenance:
There are many commercially-available solvents, lubricants, and devices
made specifically for firearms maintenance, and all work well. However,
in a crisis, none of that stuff is likely to be available. What is
universally available is (1) hot, soapy water, (2) diesel fuel, (3)
transmission fluid, (4) old T-shirts, (5) a toothbrush. Those five
items can be used to adequately clean and lubricate nearly any gun, and
you'll seldom find yourself in a place where they are not readily at hand.
After soaking for a few minutes in hot, soapy water, nearly all hardened
deposits of crud on gun parts will soften and can then be easily removed
with a toothbrush. After a subsequent hot-water rinse, excess moisture
will self-evaporate. A light coat of diesel fuel can then be applied to
prevent steel parts from rusting. Chamber and bore are particularly
susceptible to rust and must be continuously coated with oil.
On any car or truck, both transmission housing and crankcase have
dipsticks. Remove the dipstick from the transmission. On the tip will
be several drops of transmission fluid, one of the best lubricants in
existence! Half-dozen drops of transmission fluid is all that is
necessary to adequately lubricate most guns. All moving parts that rub
against other parts should be lubricated. On large-caliber pistols,
dipsticks can be used to drag an oily T-shirt remnant through the bore.
These is little reason, and even less excuse, to be packing
poorly-maintained guns. In exigent circumstances, we may have to get
creative, but sensible gun maintenance at the user level is always
possible and ever necessary!
/John
16 Sept 07
CQB class to be held 2-4 Nov 07 in Columbia, SC.
Richard Wright and I are offering a new class this fall, Close Quarter
Battle. This class will deal with the realities of close confrontations
with VCAs. We will deal with the realities of shooting and fighting
from contact distance to a maximum of five meters.
This is a cutting-edge class, as we will, for the first time, integrate
force-on-force drills with live fire drills (done separately, of
course), in order to see if what we do on the range holds up to the
realities of real fighting and live, thinking opponents. We will put
aside our real guns and don AIRSOFT weapons.
How will you perform in your next gunfight? Do your square-range
techniques really work, or are you praying at the altar of a false god?
Come and train with us... and find out!
Get hold of Rich Wright at
[email protected]_
(mailto:
[email protected])
/John
(It's nice to see that I am not the only who believes that reality with
a handgun is generally from contact distance to five meters.)
18 Sept 07
Thinking wrongly:
Late last week, Vicki and Diane Nichol presented their famous "Teaching
Women to Shoot" Class to several police departments in GA. As always,
the most politically incorrect of all questions was asked by several
female instructors:
They indicated that a number of female patrol officers, who chronically
perform poorly on the range, don't interact profitably with female
instructors. Sometimes, there is a racial component. "They refuse to
listen. How do we communicated effectively with them?" was the question.
We explain this in many different ways. This is the latest iteration:
Sub-standard results are a result of the student acting poorly, and
acting poorly is a direct result of flawed thinking. So long as
students thinks wrongly, nothing will improve, and little we instructors
do or say will be helpful.
We instructors present students with the best information we have,
information that has been learned and refined, at great price, over many
decades, indeed many centuries. There are any number of ways of using
weapons. Most produce poor results, but a select few produce good
results. Naturally, those are what we teach. We call it The Way, The
True Way. While we have not yet reached perfection, and probably never
will, we are persuaded that what we are teaching represents the State of
the Art.
However, some students come to us, not to learn The True Way, but to
convince us (but mostly themselves) that their way is best. They refuse
to repent nor even listen, but instead stubbornly do everything their
way, and, as a result, consistently perform poorly. When we point out
to them that their repeated poor performance is prima-facie evidence
that their way is inferior and that they need to abandon it, they become
defensive, change the subject, and start accusing us personally of
harassment and all manner of other misdeeds. In addition, they will
predictably blame the gun, the target, the holster, the ammunition, the
range, the weather, the department, their parents, their religion, ...
ad nauseam.
As with all unrepentant sinners, the first thing they need is the last
thing they want! Outwardly, they claim to want to improve, but the only
thing they really want is coddlers and enables, just as they've had at
their disposal their entire lives (until now). They are comfortably
being known as losers, because there is no pressure to meliorate. For
their sake and ours, we can't accede to this self-destructive pattern of
thinking. We have to continue to hold a mirror to their faces and
compel them to gradually abandon their fantasy world, as comfortable as
it is, and confront the stark reality that is the stock-and-trade of all
Operators. Only then will they forsake their vanity and narcissistic
arrogance and begin to believe their beliefs. And, when they believe
their beliefs, they will start doubting their doubts. Put another way,
they will start thinking rightly. As it is, they doubt their beliefs
and believe their doubts, and that is why they fail!
It is a tenant of Western Civilization that elitism applies only to ideas.
Egalitarianism applies only to individuals. We are a society of Free
Men, created equal. We have no kingly line nor elite group that has the
privilege of lording it over the rest of us. As Free Men, we come
together to discuss ideas, and no voice has more or less authority than
any other.
Some ideas are true and right, and others are false and evil. Not all
ideas, not all information, is of equal value. But, as our Civilization
declines, we find ourselves wallowing in Eastern Mysticism, the kind of
wrong thinking that our marvelous ancestors bravely rejected at
Thermopylae. An example is the patently false notion that we can alter
reality by "believing." Under this fallacy, there is no truth nor
lies, no good nor evil, just "what I feel right now." Call it
"New-Age," "Spiritualism," or whatever, it is all the same hackneyed
wish-wash our righteous forefathers threw out so long ago. Deliver us
from this sewage, almighty God!
This is what wrong-thinking students will try to convince us of on the
range. "Results don't matter. The only important thing is what I
feel." Difficult as it is, they must be guided to confront the fact
that, not only are they losers, but that they have never been anything
but losers, and, if they're not careful, losers/slaves are all they're
ever going to be!
At Thermopylae, when he confronted King Leonidas of Sparta, Xerxes of
Persia said, "You cannot possibly think your three hundred can stop my
vast forces. Your position is untenable. Victory is impossible."
Leonidas replied, "Until now, oh great King, you have fought only slaves
and conscripts. Today, you fight Free Men, and, in our vocabulary, you
will find the word, 'impossible,' conspicuously absent!"
This is the crux of what Western Civilization have given to human
history, and, in the continuing (and currently losing) war for its
preservation, the gun range, in so many ways, is the Forward Edge of the
Battle Area!
/John
(This is an interesting transposition of ideas. Assuming a motivated
student, John's comments leave the consumer of professional training
with the dilemma of selecting which instructor truly offers "the True
Way." Most of us who do this stuff sincerely tend to settle into a core
of technique which we thinks works best for most people. One of the
greatest challenges an instructor faces is maintaining the flexibility
to teach a different technique if the one he favors does not work well
for a particular student.)
19 Sept 07
Fantasyland! This from one of our instructors, a gun retailer in OK:
"I had a curious conversation yesterday with a young couple in our
store. He has purchased several pistols from us and has a state CCW
permit. She 'doesn't believe in guns.' Both were in the shop.
He confessed that he carries his concealed pistol (S&W M&P) with an
empty chamber! He went on to say that he never chambers a round in his
holstered handgun, because he has children, and it's 'just not safe to
carry a loaded pistol near them.' 'Besides,' he continued, 'all I have
to do is rack the slide. Then, I can shoot. Right?'
I asked him bluntly, 'Who promised you that both your hands will be
available when you need your pistol?' He stammered and squirmed. 'You
may be pushing those children of yours behind cover while trying to draw
your pistol at the same time. You might find a home-invader on top of
you doing his best to stick a screwdriver into your eye. As you fend
off the screwdriver with one hand and draw your pistol with the other,
how will you persuade it to fire then?' I concluded, 'Who don't carry
loaded pistols needn't bother carrying at all!'
By now, his wife, having lost all of her color, looked at me and said,
'I'm SO glad we don't live in YOUR world.' I replied unapologetically,
'There is only one world, my dear, and we're all currently immersed in
it, right up to our necks!'"
Lesson: Many still foolishly entertain the fantasy that pistols possess
an inherent, magical ability to repel evil, and that mere proximity
grants one a violence-free existence! Again, they act poorly, because
they think wrongly. "Emotional thinking" is not thinking at all!
In high school, my trigonometry teacher referred to the
"Wishing-Will-Make-It-So" Theorem so often used used by some of my
classmates. It wasn't acceptable even among children, and should be
less so among (at least "professing") adults.
In the novel, "1984," emblazoned in raised letters above the entrance to
the "Ministry of Truth" is:
Slavery is Freedom
War is Peace
Ignorance is Strength
Sound familiar?
/John
(Good points. Implicit among them is the need to be able to handle your
firearm one-handed, with either hand.)
20 Sept 07
Incident in OK, from an LEO friend there:
"Yesterday, two members of our Drug Task Force (in plain-clothes)
confronted several suspects in a vehicle that had just departed a known
drug-pad. The stop took place at night, in the parking lot of a local
convenience store coincidentally frequented by our uniformed, patrol
officers.
A CQB/struggle ensued, and one of the our officers immediately lost his
sidearm (his only one) that he was carrying in a flimsy, ankle holster.
His pistol went unceremoniously skidding across the parking lot. Two of
our uniformed officers who (quite by accident) had just pulled up, saw
the errant gun spinning along the pavement and immediately drew down on
their still-unidentified colleagues.
Unfortunately, our detectives could not 'stop,' as they were in physical
contact with actively-combative suspects.
It was tense for a few moments as our plain-clothed detectives attempted
to identify themselves verbally. Fortunately, one of the uniformed
officers recognized one of the detectives, and the situation instantly
de-escalated.
Three suspects were then taken into custody that night without further
incident. All our officers are okay. No shots fired."
Lessons: (1) In any circumstance, even when you are in uniform, don't
assume you'll be taken for a "good-guy" just because you know yourself
to be one. In the police business, as a normal part of competent and
correct police work, we sometimes point our guns at innocent people.
The practice is regrettable, but often intensely necessary.
(2) Carry your pistol(s) in serious holsters. I am continuously
astonished at the chinchy, insecure pieces of garbage that pass as
"holsters." When you go armed, get serious, or get out of this business!
(3) When you need to carry a gun, you probably need to carry two! A
backup gun, like all forms of insurance, is an annoying nuisance, until
it's needed. Then, it's priceless!
/John
(While Kydex has reduced the cost of some holsters and litigation has
driven up the price of firearms, you should probably expect to spend
between 20 and 40 percent of the cost of your handgun on a good
belt/holster system. One advantage of carrying a backup handgun is that
you can make it accessible to your non-dominant hand, enhancing your
ability to operate one-handed with either hand.)
--
Stephen P. Wenger
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
