ULTIMATE RESOURCE FOR RESPONSIBLY ARMED AMERICANSCONCEALEDCARRY

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GOT A LIGHT?TACTICAL TORCHES

STAY SAFE!

CONCEALEDCARRYBEST OF

MAGAZINE, VOL.4

Give The Gi� OfPreparedness, Training,

Confidence & Safety...

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Give The Gi� OfConcealed Carry Magazine...

See, when it comes to producing an award-winning publication, we always strive to include the best content in the industry: the most compelling stories, the most instructive training drills, the most powerful photographs and the most en-gaging layout and design. In short, we make it our goal to provide you with inter-esting and accurate information that could save your life or the life of someone you love in every single issue. In fact, you’ve likely heard me say time and time again (in a quote stolen directly from Executive Edi-tor Kevin Michalowski) that our goal here at Concealed Carry Magazine is to make each issue just a little bit better than the last.

Bottom line? We set the bar high — and we keep raising it.

The truth is that we have to draw the line somewhere though. And so, when se-lecting the best of the best for this latest compilation, we established some pretty stringent criteria and then got to work re-viewing hundreds of selections for inclu-sion. It was no easy task, but here’s a small sampling of what made the cut:

In “Don’t Slip Up” (Page 8), Ed Combs takes a look at common firearms blunders and provides valuable insight on how new shoot-ers (and new firearms instructors) can avoid such costly — and often dangerous — errors.

In “The Things We Carry” (Page 12), Carla Dickmann shares her experience of becom-ing a first-time mom and how it provided exactly the motivation she needed to em-brace the concealed carry lifestyle.

In “Supreme Injustice” (Page 54), Rick Sapp examines the implications of owning and carrying a firearm — even if you’re nev-er forced to use it — and the importance of having a legal and financial backup plan.

If you’re looking to get a little more tech-nical, be sure to check out “Gun Nomencla-ture” on Page 42, where Kevin Muramatsu presents an easy-to-digest glossary of gun terms. If you’re looking for less-lethal defen-

sive options, check out “Pepper Primer” on Page 46, where Ed Combs reviews the “dos” and “don’ts” of using that innocuous-looking can of OC. Interested in knives? You guessed it … we’ve presented all of that inside too.

Of course, we’ve also featured some of our favorite “Drill of the Month” columns, including “On the Nose” on Page 32, “Run-ning the Gun!” on Page 52 and “Bad Guy Cover” on Page 76. We wanted to ensure you’d have plenty to learn — and plenty to practice.

Finally, we’ve selected the very best of the recurring columns that traditionally appear in CCM and presented them to you

here (I personally enjoyed rereading Ta-mara Keel’s “Don’t Train in Vain” on Page 70).

So, there you have it: The Best of Con-cealed Carry Magazine Volume 4. As usual, the team has taken an unrelenting ap-proach to bring you the quality, lifesaving content you’ve come to expect and that, quite honestly, reflects what Concealed Carry Magazine is all about.

Enjoy.

»WHEN WE SET OUT to bring you The Best of Concealed Carry Magazine, we really have our work cut out for us.

❚ BY TIM SCHMIDTPRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

RAISING THE BAR...

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«12 CHILDREN

The Things We CarryAre We Ever Really Ready? ❚ BY CARLA DICKMANN

«6 EDITOR’S SHOT

Life Is Full of ChoicesThere’s More Where This Came From❚ BY KEVIN MICHALOWSKI

«3 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Raising the Bar...We Have Our Work Cut Out for Us❚ BY TIM SCHMIDT

CONTENTS CONCEALED CARRY MAGAZINE

«16 LAW

Unforced ErrorsDon’t Send the Wrong Message❚ BY STEVE HOUSEAL

«8 TRAINING

Don’t Slip UpStop Common Errors Before They Start❚ BY ED COMBS

«20 IT’S JUST THE LAW

Home from the WarInherited Trouble❚ BY K.L. JAMISON

«23 CLEAR IMPACT

A Mighty Defensive RoundLehigh Defense Maximum Expansion 9mm❚ BY ED COMBS

FAMILY SAFETYSelf-Defense & Personal Protection with Children❚ BY BETH ALCAZAR

«24 FAMILIES

«38 ACTIVE SHOOTER

Predators & PrayWhat Can We Do About Church Shootings?❚ BY DAVID BURNETT

«34 SCHOOL SHOOTINGS

Lesson LearnedAdvanced Firearms Training for Teachers❚ BY CHRIS BIRD

«45 ASK THE USCCA

Crucial CoverageSelf-Defense Peace of Mind❚ BY ED COMBS

«46 ALTERNATIVES

Pepper PrimerSpice Things Up a Little❚ BY ED COMBS

«28 LEGALLY ARMED CITIZEN

Got a Light?The Tactical Torch❚ BY ED COMBS

«32 DRILL OF THE MONTH

On the NoseConsistently Hitting the Same Spot❚ BY KEVIN MICHALOWSKI

«49 IN THE 10-RING

Calling All GunnersGuns & Rosa’s Waterproof Targets

«50 AFTER THE SHOT

Miranda at 50Five Decades of Silence Rights❚ BY ALAN KORWIN

«52 DRILL OF THE MONTH

Running the Gun!Racking the Slide With One Hand❚ BY KEVIN MICHALOWSKI

«42 FIREARMS 101

Gun NomenclatureA Glossary of Gun Terms❚ BY KEVIN MURAMATSU

Best of Concealed Carry Magazine, Vol. 4

MONEY-BACK GUARANTEEWe Aim for Complete Satisfaction❚ BY KEVIN MICHALOWSKI

«78 ASK THE USCCA

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«54 TRUE STORY

Supreme InjusticeOne Man’s 803-Day Battle for Truth❚ BY RICK SAPP

«57 BATTLE BLADES

Nitty GrittyThe American-Made Zero Tolerance 0450

«58 DRILL OF THE MONTH

Challenge Accepted!Use a Dueling Tree to Improve Your Shooting❚ BY KEVIN MICHALOWSKI

«60 LEGALLY ARMED CITIZEN

Let’s Get SmallThe Case for the Pocket Gun❚ BY ED COMBS

«63 IN THE 10-RING

Quick on the DrawTactical AR500 Targets Dueling Tree

«64 IT’S JUST THE LAW Surviving a RampageMass Killers Are Not Expecting Resistance❚ BY K.L. JAMISON

«68 DRILL OF THE MONTH

Revolver ReloadBreak the Steps Down. Then Train.❚ BY ED COMBS

«70 BALLISTIC BASICS

Don’t Train in VainLearn New Skills❚ BY TAMARA KEEL

«72 LEGALLY ARMED CITIZEN

Worth Its WeightHow Much Is Enough?❚ BY ED COMBS

«75 BATTLE BLADESConscious AdvantageBrowning’s Black Label Tactical Stacked Deck

«76 DRILL OF THE MONTH

Bad Guy CoverKeeping Something Between the Threat and You❚ BY KEVIN MICHALOWSKI

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❚ BY KEVIN MICHALOWSKIEDITOR’S SHOT

I’ll give you a little bit of insight: We have room to publish about 12 feature stories in each standard issue of CCM. But we regular-ly get more than four times that number of submissions and have some 70 people on our list of “active” writers. That means we choose only the best submissions. We pub-lish only the best stories. And when it comes time to choose what to include in the Best of Concealed Carry Magazine, the meetings and discussions end up taking a while.

If you have read Concealed Carry Maga-zine for any amount of time, you know that we are not your father’s gun magazine. We go out of our way to seek stories from differ-ent perspectives. We know we have to pro-vide accurate and interesting information to both brand-new shooters and seasoned veterans. The staff here takes that very seri-ously.

So, how do we choose the best stories for these editions? A lot of it is gut instinct. If a story moved the editorial staff to say, “Wow, that was really good,” chances are pretty

high that that particular piece will warrant further discussion when it comes time to select the stories that make it inside these covers. Most of the staff here has been do-ing this for a long time. We read lots of great stories every month and, because we are so selective, the job of choosing the best from among them becomes all the more difficult.

We always seek stories that are out of the ordinary. That’s because the questions sur-rounding effective concealed carry are often complex. Long gone are the days of simply being able to tell readers, “You must carry a caliber that begins with a 4.” That is no longer enough information. People want, need and deserve to know why we suggest the things we do. A defensive shooting is a life-altering event. The action might begin and end in a few seconds, but the training before the shooting and the aftermath following the shooting are ongoing. We are no longer al-lowed to simply scratch the surface.

That is also why we take interactions with our readers so seriously. Whether you reach

out to our Member Services Advisors in West Bend or email us here at the magazine, we make every effort to ensure that you know your questions, comments and concerns are being addressed. You might not always get the answer you like, but we make every effort to provide you a timely and accurate answer, nonetheless.

I love working on these “Best of” editions because it gives me the chance to look back and review the work we have done. This im-mediately leads to thinking about where we can do better and continue to fulfill our goal of answering every question our readers might have.

So, please, speak up. If there is something you would like us to cover, let us know. Now, enjoy this latest edition showing off the best of Concealed Carry Magazine. If you like what you see here, remember there is plen-ty more where this came from.

Stay safe.

»WE ACTUALLY HAVE A TOUGH TIME putting together these “Best of” editions of Concealed Carry Magazine.

LIFE IS FULL OF TOUGH CHOICES

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›› We strive to make every issue of CCM better than the last, and our “Best of” editions helpto reiteratethat goal.

LIFE IS FULL OF TOUGH CHOICES

STOP COMMON ERRORS BEFORE THEY START❚ BY ED COMBS

When individuals make the decision to learn about con-cealed carry, few of them do so fundamentally misunder-standing or underestimating the gravity of what they’re doing. They’re serious about their decision, but there’s also a chance they’ve never even touched a firearm before you hand them one. There’s a chance that they’ve been han-dling firearms for decades but were raised with what, by today’s standards, is extremely poor gun handling proto-col. Either way, they’re going to have to learn how firearms are to be handled if they’re going to be able to safely and properly train.

Unfortunately, more than a few experienced shooters enjoy lording their experience over others, especially rank beginners. They see that wealth of experience and their ability to make others feel small with it as a reward for their many years of hard knocks (usually at the hands of others like what they have become) rather than as a re-source to be shared with anyone interested enough to ask. This is what used to be called “Gun Shop Guy Syndrome:” A knowledgeable individual is intentionally and unapol-ogetically rude and dismissive of anyone who knows less than he or she does, often to the point of humiliating the “noob” and losing what could have been a lifelong cus-tomer. Even worse, jerks like that weren’t just driving away business from their own stores; often, they were souring potential new shooters and 2nd Amendment advocates altogether.

We here at the USCCA demand better than that from all responsibly armed Americans, and in this issue, we’re ex-ploring the new shooter and everything he or she brings to the table. In the interest of helping every new shooter (and novice instructor) advance as quickly and painless-ly as possible, we’ll investigate the most common new shooter errors and the easiest ways to head them off be-fore they even happen.

HANDLE WITH CARE“We were on our honeymoon, and we’d gone out to a

ranch in Montana to ride for two weeks. Toward the end of the trip, we’d all gotten to know the wranglers pretty well and a lot of the couples were asking to pose for pictures with them. One couple from Germany was standing next to one of the wranglers I’d gotten to know a bit and he’d slung his gun belt around the waist of the husband, who immediately drew the revolver, pointed it at the wrangler, then pointed it at his wife and then pointed it at the woman who was going to take their picture. The entire time, his finger was on the trigger. The wrangler just smiled and reached over and grabbed the bar-rel and told him to keep it pointed at the ground. When they were all done and walking away, he looked at me and hu-morlessly said, ‘That’s why I’ve never handed a guest a loaded gun. It seems like that’s always the first thing he or she does’.”

This was easily the most telling of any anecdotes I collected for this report. In a way, it shouldn’t be all that surprising.

When someone hands you a guitar, even (or possibly especially) if you don’t play the guitar, you’re tempted to hold it by the neck in your non-dominant hand with the body of the guitar across your lap or against your waist and with your dominant hand in a position to strum the strings. You’ve been socialized by images to do so; it will come naturally even though you might never have even touched a guitar.

Unfortunately, for a lot of people, the same is true with firearms. As soon as the new shooter’s hand has a hold on the grip, his finger will immediately be on that trigger, and he might even press it. This is why it is imperative that you never hand a loaded gun to anyone other than a shooter on a firing line and why you absolutely must explain to a new shooter that when he accepts a handgun from you, he is to place his trigger finger on the side of the gun’s frame.

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»ONE OF THE MOST COMMON LAMENTS I HEAR IN LIFE IS, “MAN, I WISH SOMEONE HAD TOLD ME THAT WHEN I STARTED.”It’s the closest thing to a universal axiom I’ve ever encountered. Regardless of activity or situation, there’s always something you wish someone had told you before you had to learn it the hard way. Sometimes, that “hard way” results in simple embarrassment or the loss of a few bucks. When handling firearms, mistakes can be a lot costlier.

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This is where a good number of instruc-tors slip up: Don’t simply tell your student to “keep your finger off of the trigger.” That isn’t really telling him anything oth-er than not to do something, which is a difficult and confusing task for some, es-pecially when they’re holding a tool that is purpose-designed to be comfortable to hold with your finger on the trigger. Rather than telling him what he shouldn’t do, tell him what he should do: Place his trigger finger on the side of the frame. Then physically show him exactly what you mean by that. Doing so will yield far better results than the alternative.

A FEW POINTERS“When a hot casing ejected from his

gun and went down the back of his shirt, he passed the gun to his support hand, reached into his collar with his strong hand and turned about 145 degrees, which meant he was pointing his loaded gun di-rectly at me and Sandy where we stood be-hind the firing line. It was one of the scariest moments of my life.”

This is the error that carries the high-est risk of the wrong person getting shot. You’ve managed to keep your new shoot-er from immediately placing his finger on the trigger and he’s advanced enough to be ready for the firing line, but he gets ex-cited and begins to turn his body, result-ing in the muzzle of his firearm crossing or “sweeping” anything other than the backstop. It’s a tense situation and, if han-dled improperly, can be extremely em-barrassing for the student and extremely dangerous for everyone else.

For all of you new instructors out there, as you gain experience, you will get better and better at spotting the stu-dents who will be the most likely to do something like this. After you have them spotted, they’ll be the students who will require the closest supervision, but the fact remains that actual one-on-one in-struction is uncommon. Unless you can remain directly behind any student who is holding a firearm, you’ll need to do ev-erything else in your power to stack the deck against lapses in muzzle discipline.

First, you need to maximize your sur-roundings. If you are shooting at a range that has actual physical shooting lanes that are separated by physical barriers,

set up and keep your students as far for-ward in the shooting lane as is safe. Use the shooting lane partitions the same way that clay shooting instructors use the “shooting windows” on their ranges: The muzzle of the shotgun never leaves the wooden rectangle in front of the shooter, and therefore the student never sweeps anyone.

Similar to telling the students exact-ly where to put their trigger fingers, you

need to tell the students exactly where to point their guns. Don’t just tell them to “keep them downrange” or to “not point them at anyone.” You need to explicitly and specifically tell new shooters that they need to keep their guns pointed at the backstop at all times. If they fail to do so, do what you need to do to make sure no one gets hurt, but remember that you aren’t Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket. It is extremely unlikely that cursing out, insulting and berating the students will produce a positive outcome.

OUT FOR A SPIN“It never failed; it happened every time.

It got to the point that whenever someone in the shop would ask to see a revolver, I’d specifically and politely ask him or her not to spin the cylinder or, even worse and very likely if he or she spun the cylinder, snap it back into the frame. The nasty looks I’d get from people who’d basically say, ‘I know how to handle a revolver, thank you very much’ were a lot easier to take than the damage people didn’t even realize they were doing to my guns.”

It’s hard to say why this is such a com-mon error. It seems impossible that mo-tion pictures had nothing to do with it, but even people who aren’t big into mov-ies with lots of gunplay seem to fall for this one before it’s explained to them that it’s something that should never be done.

Spinning the cylinder of a revolver comes from back in the 1800s when a po-tential buyer did so to ensure that the cyl-inder would spin freely from the frame (or at least that was the theory). With modern

double actions, it is unnecessary and puts undue stress on the guns. Worse, if some-one spins the cylinder and then snaps it back into the frame (while it is still spin-ning), doing so ages the revolver prema-turely by basically inflicting a few dozen firing cycles on the hand and cylinder. It is extremely annoying to revolver owners and even more so to revolver salespeo-ple, as spinning and snapping a gun in this fashion pretty much instantly turns a

new gun into a used gun.Similar to the past two circumstances, it

is very important that you communicate with the person to whom you’re handing a gun. If someone spins the cylinder in your revolver after you specifically ask her not to, then you have some grounds to be upset. If you just handed her an unloaded gun with no instruction and she did what she thought she was supposed to do with it, I’d say the jury’s out on where the fault lies.

AMBASSADORS NEEDEDWhen helping new shooters, the most

important thing you can instruct them to do is ask you questions. They don’t know what to do, and there’s no shame in that. No one can expect them to know prop-er gun handling and range protocol if no one has ever taught them.

Before you hand a new shooter a gun, loaded or unloaded, you need to have al-ready told her exactly what you want her to do while demonstrating exactly how she is to go about doing it. Remember, unless you learn otherwise, you’ll need to operate under the assumption that she doesn’t know a single thing about how to safely handle a firearm. After you’ve established where the shooter actually stands on the knowledge continuum, it’s really the safest way to proceed for all in-volved. 11

YOU NEED TO EXPLICITLY AND SPECIFICALLY TELL NEW SHOOTERS THAT THEY NEED TO KEEP THEIR GUNS POINTED AT THE BACKSTOP AT ALL TIMES.

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THE THINGS WE CARRY

ARE WE EVER REALLY ‘READY’ TO CHANGE OUR WHOLE LIVES?

❚ BY CARLA DICKMANN

“We can’t afford to have a baby right now.” “I’m getting too old.” And, of course, the old standby: “I’m just not ready.”All excuses aside, I guess I just didn’t know if becom-

ing a mom was something I really wanted. I mean, I knew some people who were meant to be moms. Some of those people were blessed with success-ful pregnancies and healthy babies, and others were struggling — had been struggling — for a really long time. And so it didn’t seem fair — or right — to “try out” something as important as birthing an actu-al baby when it wasn’t happening for the ones who wanted it so badly. It killed me — it really did — to think of jumping in half-heartedly when there were others out there who were just so sure. (Other moms I knew assured me that my feelings of doubt and guilt were completely normal … and that the acknowledg-ment of those feelings was actually a healthy sign. So, I did have that going for me.)

Even my own sister admitted she couldn’t imagine me as a mom (not, she claimed, because I wouldn’t be any good at it … but because she knew me better than anyone and likely sensed my deep anxiety and apprehension about the whole business).

No, I much preferred to live vicariously, as the say-ing goes, through people who knew what they were doing.

And, yet, fast forward a few months after deciding it was, indeed, something I wanted, that it was “time,” and there I was, laying on the couch — feet swollen, belly full of baby, another chocolate ice cream craving creeping up — facing the inevitability of becoming that thing — a mom — that scared the hell out of me.

I have to be honest with you here. My life, at that point in time, revolved almost entirely around my dog, Cleo. (If you’ve never had a dog, you won’t un-

derstand.) And as I lay there, her precious head resting on what was left of my lap, I wondered how I could possibly love anything (or anyone) as much as I loved her in that moment.

But the first time I saw my daughter — just a tiny speck, a little bean — I loved her in a way that quite literally took my breath away. (Later, when she nestled herself right underneath my ribcage, that trend con-tinued.)

All of the firsts — the steady rhythm of her heart-beat, the tiny flutter of her hiccups, the subtle waves of her movements — became patterned idiosyncra-sies that connected us. They became reassurances; comforting reminders: “I’m still here, Mom.” My body was doing what it was meant to do: Keep her nour-ished. Keep her warm. Keep her safe.

See, during pregnancy, the body just knows what to do. It’s instinctual; a simple equation, really. She need-ed me, and I provided what she needed. And yet the mind … well, that part required constant reinforce-ment: “You got this, Carla. You got this!”

But then she was here — just under 8 pounds of her — in my arms, and everything changed. Suddenly, my brain shouted its intuitive commands — “Soothe! Feed! Love! Protect!” — and my hands tried desperate-ly, clumsily, to keep up.

It was a whole new phase of discovery, perhaps not all that dissimilar to trying out a new gun for the first time: awkward and daunting yet somehow famil-iar. (It took me 10 minutes to put on her first onesie, and don’t even get me started on the adorable little shirt with buttons up the back. At any rate, I soon learned that babies, like guns, are resilient, and best handled with a firm grip and solid stance.) The truth is, the more I practiced, the easier it became. I’m not ashamed to admit that I had to work at it, because the

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»IF YOU HAD ASKED ME a couple of years ago to name all of the things that truly scared me, my list would have been short and decisive: becoming a mom. Back then, I dabbled in thoughts of becoming a mom the same way I dabbled in guns: cautiously, without commitment, skirting the edges of responsibility. Truth be told, I liked my life the way it was: pressing the snooze button on Saturdays, taking impromptu snowmobile trips to the gorgeous Wisconsin Northwoods, indulging in one (or three) too many cocktails after 9 … on a weeknight. And though I liked babies (and guns), I much preferred the way they fit in other people’s hands. Of course, I had recently gotten married, so pressure to start a family — to “get things rolling,” as my husband often teased — had officially hit critical status. But, like the average person with a pretty average and legitimate fear, I had excuses … and they were plentiful:

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›› Having a littlelife to protect is a powerful

motivator for any new mom just “thinking

about” carrying a firearm.

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reward outweighed the work: I can now change a diaper one-handed, in the dark, while simultaneously juggling four dog treats and answering demanding emails from Concealed Carry Magazine Executive Editor Kevin Michalowski.

All lies aside, I really do “got this.” And looking back now, I can hardly believe I was ever scared about becoming a mom. I’ve never felt more confident — more sure — about what I want and what I be-lieve.

What I want is to make sure she is al-ways warm and loved and happy and safe. I’m her mom. I owe her that. And what I believe is that there is no limit to what I’d do to keep it that way.

Plain and simple, I would die for her. And yet, I don’t want to die for her. I

want to be there for her. I want every mo-ment with her. It’s both selfish and unself-ish — and I have to imagine that every parent understands what I mean. But not every parent is willing to acknowledge that there is a solution, a way we’re able to protect our children without sacrific-ing ourselves.

This reminds me of a story Associate Editor Ed Combs shared with me a few weeks back. It is — as are most things that come out of his mouth — an abso-lute gem.

He told me: “I think the angriest I’ve ever made anyone was when a vehe-mently anti-gun parent with whom I was discussing concealed carry shouted, ‘I’d die for my kids!’ to which I responded, ‘Yeah … you probably would.’”

Wow.His words are harsh, but God are they

true.See, I don’t want to be one of those

people who says I’d do anything for my daughter but then doesn’t actually do anything for my daughter.

Luckily, I’m vehemently pro-gun and a strong believer that some things (guns) are more practical than others when it comes to actually doing something to make good on the promise I’ve made to always keep her safe.

But deciding to carry a gun — just like admitting that maybe you really do want to be a mom — requires extensive thought and consideration. It’s a respon-sibility and commitment that changes

everything. And who wouldn’t be just a little bit scared of that?

Listen, by now you might have realized that, yes, I work at the USCCA. Yes, I know a lot more about guns and concealed carry than I ever thought possible. And, yes, I even bought my first firearm. But, no, none of these things translated to me feeling “ready” to change my whole life.

But I’m a mom now. A mom. And that mother’s instinct business is no joke. See, having my daughter is what pushed me over that fence of uncertainty; what final-ly made me realize, even with my already pro-gun stance, that learning how to use and carry a gun really is the best way to protect her. And so I’m learning. Asking questions. I applied for and received my concealed carry permit. I’m testing out holsters. I’m still cautious, but I hope, in time, a gun will feel as comfortable on my hip as my baby girl does.

Before the USCCA’s Concealed Car-

ry Expo last year, when I was still heav-ily pregnant, my boss and mentor Tim Schmidt wrote something that really moved me. He said, “One characteristic that stands out more than any other is that almost all moms are fiercely loving. And this fierceness — this incredible and instinctual love — is what drives them to protect their children and families above all else.” He said that was the reason he believed that moms who carry firearms for personal defense are perhaps the most powerful force for good we have.

Funny how he understood that before I did. (Then again, I know his wife, Tonnie, and I can’t think of a more perfect way to describe her than “fiercely loving.”)

But the thing is, I understand now. A gun is indeed a powerful tool, one I hope I never have to use. But if I have no other choice — if a gun I’m carrying can mean the difference between a world with or without my daughter — I won’t hesitate.

OK, before I end things here, I have a small confession to make. I always swore I’d never be “that” mom. You know, the one who only talks about her baby and who posts pictures of everything (“Oh my gosh. Did you SEE that?”), and yet here I am — six months in — writing about Corrigan and sharing her smile in a gun magazine, of all places.

And then I realized it was completely OK and that you’d understand. Because I know you’ve got someone — your own reason — for whom you do everything. A spouse. A child. Even yourself. (Yes, you are worthy of protecting too.) My daugh-ter is my reason — my whole heart — and I’ll never apologize for that.

After some thought, though, and a lot of late nights, early mornings and pre-cious baby cuddles, I’ve adjusted my list. There is one thing that scares me more than anything. It’s still short and decisive: not being a mom.

And so I’ll do everything in my power to nurture her. And teach her. And love her. And protect her.

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OVER TIME, I’M HOPING TO BUILD MY COLLECTION

OF FIREARMS. AND BABIES? WELL, I’M FINE WITH THE ABSOLUTELY

PERFECT ONE I HAVE — AT LEAST FOR NOW.

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UNFORCED ERRORS

DON’T SEND THE WRONG MESSAGE❚ BY STEVE HOUSEAL

Harmless, right? Not if you’re an armed citizen. In fact, it can be extremely harmful to you and a threat to your freedom.

Before anyone leaps on me for “trying to quash their 1st Amendment rights,” let me say that it is not a matter of your rights but rather an area in which you need to make carefully reasoned and prudent decisions. While that bumper sticker slogan might reflect a deeply held belief of self-reliance and acceptance of personal re-sponsibility for your own security, it is a poor choice of forum for a complex subject. Rather than pushing a clever sound bite, the wiser course of action is to be like the strong, silent, self-reliant type we all admire.

WHAT, ME WORRY?I’ve had people tell me that their bumper stickers

or signs in their windows are a ridiculous thing to be concerned about. Not so. If you ever have to use deadly force to protect yourself or a loved one, your world will likely get turned upside down. Unless you’re very lucky, every aspect of your life will be examined with a mi-croscope by a prosecutor looking for wrongdoing, an attorney looking for a lawsuit or a reporter looking for a front-page story. Anti-gunners will look for any way to vilify you. Why load that metaphorical gun they’ve already trained on you?

Remember the general standards that justify the use of deadly force: You didn’t start it, you didn’t escalate it, you couldn’t safely retreat from it or you were in your home. You faced a threat of imminent death or great bodily harm. You had no recourse to save your life other than the immediate use of deadly force.

Now, how reasonable, responsible and compliant with those standards do you appear with a welcome mat that reads, “I Don’t Dial 911”? Or the ever-popu-lar, “Be Found Here at Night and Be Found Here in the Morning”? The evening newspaper’s banner headline will declare “Shooter Claimed He Was Ready to Shoot Anyone on Sight,” while the prosecutor quietly prepares your welcome mat as People’s Exhibit 1 to establish your bloodthirsty character and the premeditation of your act. The tongue-in-cheek humor will be lost on them, believe me.

Let’s say you hear noises in your detached garage and investigate. You think it is the neighbor’s dog again, but instead, you are attacked by a stranger and use deadly force to save your life, firing multiple rounds and critically wounding the individual. Most states’ rules of deadly force are similar to Michigan’s: “You must have a reasonable and honest belief that you face a threat of imminent death or grievous bodily harm.”

Now, explain to investigators the large sign on your wall that reads, “Trespassers Will Be Shot. Survivors Will Be Shot Again.” No matter how legitimate your act of self-defense was, you, my friend, have a serious prob-lem and a serious threat to your freedom, and it’s a problem that you created. To the outside observer, the powerful first impression is one of a delusional gun freak who just committed first-degree murder. You just couldn’t wait to gun someone down, could you? And you proclaimed your intent and premeditation to the world.

HE HAD CAR TROUBLEAs responsible people, we try to avoid trouble and

dangerous situations. But who knows what kind of dangerous kook you will encounter on the road? After you use your legally carried handgun to stop a charging lunatic on the side of the road, explain your “Keep Honking, I’m Reloading” bumper sticker to responding officers. They won’t be amused, and your story will be automatically suspect.

Never doubt that people read and pay attention to what your bumper stickers say. A few years ago, pre-siding in court as county magistrate, I had a driver who challenged his ticket, claiming that he was targeted by police and just being picked on. He said his car was to blame, that it attracted attention. I adjourned the case to the parking lot. His car — a glistening, candy-apple red, high-performance sports car — was not his prob-lem, but I suspected he was correct that police, while writing legitimate tickets, were not cutting him any slack. Police didn’t dislike his car, but his bumper stick-er that read, “Bad Cop, No Donut” was clearly attracting their attention. A traffic ticket costs a couple hundred bucks. An “Armed and Dangerous” or “Forget the Dog,

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»WE’VE ALL SEEN THEM: bumper stickers, welcome mats, signs and placards, each proclaiming some political or social value or point of view. Sometimes, they mean little or nothing to us. Sometimes, we get a little miffed. Sometimes, we nod in agreement. And, sometimes, we think — or blurt out — “You’ve got to be kidding!”

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Beware of Owner” bumper sticker can re-sult in a felony charge that could cost you your freedom.

You will be held responsible for what’s on your car even if you did not put it there. In one case, the prosecutor argued that the bumper sticker on the defendant’s car demonstrated his violent character and calculated decision to use any excuse to pull a gun on someone. When it was pointed out that the car was purchased used and the prior owner, not the defen-dant, put the bumper sticker on the car, the prosecution was not phased one bit. “No one but someone who agreed with that idea would leave that bumper stick-er on a used car they bought,” was the re-sponse.

IF YOU CAN’T SAY SOMETHING NICE...

Most of us understand that, as responsi-bly armed Americans, we study, know and take seriously the obligations and limita-tions to the use of deadly force and the rare instances in which it can justifiably be used. As such, we accept a level of so-cial responsibility and behavior that those who are not armed do not have. What we do and what we say projects an image and sends a message, though that image and message will likely be mostly ignored until we find ourselves in a deadly force encounter. Then they will be examined in excruciating detail. It’s better to leave the comedy to the late-night crowd and those with far less to lose.

Situational awareness is a critical part of a personal and family protection plan. It lets you identify and avoid problems before they arise. The best way to survive a deadly encounter — or its aftermath — is to never experience it in the first place. Rather than a clever phrase that attracts attention and negative reactions, it is a wiser choice to project an image of qui-et confidence and alert awareness. It’s better to take a look at the messages you are sending and, if need be, clean them up now than to desperately attempt to explain them later to an unsympathetic officer, prosecutor, judge or jury.

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›› Consider what messages you’re sending with the signs on your property or the bumper stickers on your vehicles. If they’re messages you might have to explain in court if you’re ever involved in a self-defense incident, it’s probably better to get rid of them now.

The Truth Is

Subtle...

Filling Your Prescription for Freedom!Armed American Radio is the fastest growing pro-gun rights radio broadcast in the country. Host Mark Walters brings a unique blend of conservative talk, humor and hard-hitting truth about your fundamental right to bear arms that the mainstream media wouldn’t dare discuss.

Visit www.ArmedAmericanRadio.org today to listen live orfind a station near you.

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HOME FROMTHE WAR

INHERITED TROUBLE❚ BY K.L. JAMISON

Such guns turn up in the estates of veterans who either brought them back from the war or acquired them before the 1934 National Firearms Act. In some cases, they were badly manufactured by slave labor in the waning days of the losing side.1 Many have been badly maintained or sub-jected to kitchen table gunsmiths. Parts might be missing or crudely repaired. A manual should be acquired. Some machine guns, especially the old ones, do not have a fixed headspace and, if not properly adjusted before firing, will explode at both ends. The first step with any used gun is examination by a gunsmith. The first step with a National Firearms Act (NFA) weapon is more complex. NFA weapons must be registered with the federal government and some-times with the state. They consist of machine guns,2 sawed-off shotguns,3 sawed-off rifles,4 stocked pistols, suppressors5 and firearms with a bore of more than ½ inch, except for shot-guns.6 There are other incarnations, but these are the ones commonly encountered. Many of these weapons have been placed on the curios and relics list by the ATF; the list can be found on the ATF website. Weapons placed on this list can be owned. The list largely consists of stocked pistols made more than 50 years ago and rifles and shotguns manufactured with short barrels prior to 1934. A pistol with a reproduction stock might or might not be illegal. The curios and relics list must be read carefully.

Machine guns cannot be owned unless they were regis-tered by 1986.7 The registration must be kept with the gun. It should be with the gun. It is worth looking in all the logi-cal places. If the machine gun is not registered, it is a felony waiting to happen. If it is registered, it is worth a great deal of money.

Guns not registered by 1986 cannot be registered. There have been proposals for veterans’ amnesty so that they can register guns brought back from war. These proposals have failed, and with every World War II veteran who dies, the chance of an amnesty becomes more remote. A client “heard” that he could keep the sub-machine gun his father brought back from WWII if it was disassembled. He was mis-informed. Machine guns can be turned in to the authorities or destroyed in a specific manner determined by ATF reg-ulation.

Many people are reluctant to admit having an NFA weap-on, even to turn it in. Authorities are generally happy as a politician with a new tax to take a machine gun “off the streets.” It is possible that they will investigate further if the gun is traced to a theft from the government or a murder.

This is where the attorney-client privilege comes in handy. A gun turned over to a lawyer for the purpose of turning it in to authorities is still an illegal transaction. It is very unlike-ly to be investigated. The investigation would collide with a basic principle of the justice system. It would not be worth the effort. The gun would go into the agency statistics as a successful confiscation. It makes them look effective. They like that.

The machine gun, technically, is the receiver, sometimes the trigger mechanism. Before turning the gun in, it should be stripped of every pin, screw, spring, part and what-chamacallit. These parts are worth a great deal to people who own registered machine guns. The remaining receiver can then be turned in to gleeful authorities.

Many machine guns were turned into Deactivated War Trophies (DEWATs). This was done by welding the barrel to the receiver and welding the chamber shut. The law has changed and the ATF policy is that once a machine gun, always a machine gun. They are considered the same as functioning machine guns. A great many DEWATs were owned before they suddenly became illegal. A 1975 inter-nal ATF memo states that DEWATs previously registered re-main registered. If they have been transferred or inherited without a change in registration, the new owner has a legal problem. The owner might not know that he possesses an illegal weapon. When encountered, they must be treated like functioning machine guns.

Sawed-off shotguns and rifles can be easier to legalize. The gun is the receiver. It is only illegal due to the sawed-off barrel. The barrel can be removed and discarded (far, far away). The gun then has no barrel at all and it can be re-placed with one of legal length.

Explosives can be owned under certain circumstances. Explosive devices are another matter entirely. A device is a booby-trap, a grenade, a shell, a pipe bomb; something made for serious political discussions. These devices cannot be registered.

Old explosives might have been badly stored and might have become more sensitive. Explosives might look like a great many things. If something looks like a paper tube with an oily residue or perhaps crystals, walk away, far away, and call the bomb squad. It is better to call them for old railroad flares than to have them out to pick up pieces of people.

Blasting caps are thin metal tubes, thinner and shorter than a cigarette. They will have an opening on one end for a fuse or two wires in the case of electrical caps. They will

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»GRANDFATHER DIED. When cleaning out his home, the family found a World War I German Spandau machine gun. They asked what they should do. My first thought was to find a belt of ammunition and an understanding range. In law school, I was taught to think things through from several angles and arrive at an unemotional conclusion. This is not as much fun but results in less trouble.

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blow off a hand if not handled correctly.Explosive devices have been brought back

from many wars by otherwise intelligent people. An MP sergeant recounts a nurse in Vietnam bringing in a VC 82mm mortar shell. It had gone through the roof of her hospital, failed to explode and she wanted to take it home as a war trophy. The sergeant told her to take the shell out back and dump it in a pit built for this purpose. If she lived, he would tell her that “dud” shells were a trifle away from exploding. A bump, a vibration, a shad-ow, the rotation of the earth could set them off. The nurse’s education did not include practical chemistry.8 A Civil War collector was cleaning the shell he had personally pulled out of a battlefield a century and a half after it had been fired. It blew up in his hands.

The authorities are happy to secure old ex-plosive devices and usually do not ask ques-tions. However, when Mario Koole found a WWII bomb in his fishing net, he brought it to the authorities in Freeport, Texas. He was cited for transporting explosives. The charge is a misdemeanor, among other things.9

Many old shells have been deactivated and turned into novelty paperweights or door stops. They can usually be identified by a hole drilled in the body of the device. Such a hole might also be a missing safety pin designed to fall out just before the device explodes.

Explosive devices are not to be trifled with. Experts become experienced experts by not taking chances. After WWII, the embryonic Israeli state sent clandestine agents to the U.S. to acquire pieces of our old war machine. Coming from a culture in which it was a major and expensive project to acquire a pistol, the agents were astonished to receive a stream of veterans with machine guns and mortars they had brought home from the war. They badly wanted bazooka rockets and were de-lighted to be offered a crate in a supporter’s basement.10 Their munitions expert stared aghast at the jumble of rusted anti-tank rock-ets. He cleared the building and a path of retreat, defused the explosives and dumped them in the river. He was desperate for muni-tions but not suicidal.11

Finding something Grandpa brought home from the war can be a great treasure. However, Grandpa would have brought his souvenir home as a young man, and young men are sometimes foolish. There can be some legal considerations, and some practi-cal considerations. The first consideration is to not be killed.

Please send questions to Kevin L. Jamison, 2614 NE 56th Ter, Gladstone, MO 64119-2311 or KLJamisonLaw@earthlink.net. Individual answers are not usually possible but might be

addressed in future columns.This information is for legal information

purposes and does not constitute legal advice. For specific questions, you should consult a qualified attorney.

ENDNOTES(1) Some slave laborers took great pride in

sabotaging weapons and munitions. (2) Fir-ing two or more cartridges with a single pull of the trigger. (3) Barrel of less than 18 inches measured from the face of the bolt or standing breech and/or overall length of less than 26 inches measured parallel to the barrel. (4) Bar-rel of less than 16 inches and/or overall length of less than 26 inches measured in the same way as shotguns. (5) Commonly called silenc-ers. (6) There is a “sporting use” qualifier. This could arguably be directed at the “punt guns,” small cannons used by bird poachers. (7) 18 U.S. Code section 922(o). (8) Author’s con-versation with the sergeant. (9) “Unwelcome bomb,” Kansas City Star, Feb. 22, 1998, at A-13, clm 1. (10) Slater, Leonard, The Pledge, Simon & Schuster, N.T., 1970, at 197. (11) Slater, The Pledge, at 195.

❚ BY ED COMBS

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CLEAR IMPACT

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WATCH CLEAR IMPACT ON https://youtu.be/2imDuXRvvnE

❚ BY ED COMBS

LEHIGH DEFENSE MAXIMUM EXPANSION 9MM»SOLID COPPER PROJECTILES are nothing new — they were the bread and butter of dangerous game hunting in Africa for decades. They are, however, relative newcomers to the defensive pistol market, and these 105-grain Maximum Expansion 9mm cartridges from Lehigh Defense performed admirably from a Glock 19. The machined copper bullets are exceptionally accurate and expand very rapidly when they strike a liquid-based material, making for a mighty defensive round. Learn more about this and Lehigh’s other offerings at lehighdefense.com.

MSRP: $33/20MUZZLE VELOCITY: 1,150 FEET PER SECONDBULLET WEIGHT: 105 GRAINS B

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FAMILYSAFETY

SELF-DEFENSE & PERSONAL PROTECTION WITH CHILDREN

❚ BY BETH ALCAZAR

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Scared for their lives, the couple cooperated with their attackers, begging for them not to harm their child. Then one of the men grabbed the diaper bag from the stroll-er, knocking it — and their newborn son — to the pave-ment. The two men bolted. Thankfully, the baby and his parents were uninjured, but the couple, along with their neighbors and their community, were quite shaken by the alarming encounter. Did these parents do the right thing?

A few years earlier, on Nov. 10, 2010, in Kansas City, Mis-souri, another young couple encountered a frightening experience at a gas station parking lot three days before Thanksgiving. As the couple stopped at a Phillips 66 for a stretch break and a quick chat with relatives who were traveling with them in separate vehicles, a man jumped into the driver’s seat of their running car — with their 6-month-old daughter in the backseat. There was no way this mom and dad were going to let a carjacker drive off with their child. They knew that if they couldn’t stop the vehicle immediately, they might never see their baby girl again. Using all of her strength and a push from her hus-band, the mother broke the passenger-side window. As she was being dragged away by the moving car, her hus-band jumped through the shattered window and started kicking the carjacker as hard as he could. The criminal final-ly gave in, exited the vehicle and ran off. Except for some bumps and bruises, the parents were not seriously injured, and their daughter, though scared and crying, was safe and unharmed. Did these parents do the right thing?

No matter what your answers are regarding the ac-tions of these two couples, for both sets of parents, these incidents were terrifying wake-up calls. Even in our own communities or with our own families, we can still become victims of crimes. And these families’ negative experienc-es, though positive in outcome, can serve as powerful testaments to the enormous strength of parents’ love for their children. These offenses can also serve as cautionary tales for those of us who carry concealed firearms for the protection of our loved ones.

Everyone continues to hear the horror stories of vio-lence — armed robberies, carjackings, stabbings, gang attacks, kidnappings and other violent crime. Clearly, there is no way to predict when, where or how these crimes might occur, and there is no way to calculate the best course of action for every situation. But the goal for parents in any of these circumstances is always

the same: Protect our children. So outside of a quick course in Brazilian jiu-jitsu or the use of full-body ar-mor, how do we keep ourselves and our families safe in violent encounters? It’s important to take extra precau-tions and put in extra thought.

PREPARE MENTALLYNeither of the couples from these stories had fire-

arms with them at the times of the incidents. And a good guy or gal with a gun could have complete-ly changed the game. Even so, the No. 1 priority if a child or children are involved in an attack is to make sure that they are safe. In some cases, depending on the ages of the children and on the situation itself, that might mean not unholstering or using a weapon. There are so many variables involved that there is no way to present a “right” answer.

Even so, for any parent with a gun, it’s important to think through what you would do to protect your fam-ily right here and now before anything ever happens. And this mental preparation might involve making choices to avoid potentially dangerous situations al-together. It could mean checking and double-check-ing your surroundings before leaving a building or even your home. It could mean making extra phone calls, taking a different route or leaving a situation that makes you uncomfortable.

Just always keep your guard up. Don’t let life’s dis-tractions prevent you from possibly spotting or avoid-ing a problem before it even occurs. You must make a conscious commitment to ensure your family is safe at all times and make a firm decision to do whatever is necessary to stop the threat.

ACT QUICKLY & EFFICIENTLYEven though we can’t map out a safety plan for your

family from start to finish, no matter what happens, you should always be prepared to act immediately and re-sourcefully. For this, we can take some cues from nature. George Harris, president and CEO of International Fire-arms Consultants, mentions that parents can depend on their natural instincts for the purist form of preservation.

“Look at it from this simple perspective: Preserve your little ones and yourself using whatever methods you can,” he says.

»ON JULY 21, 2015, around 10:30 p.m., just a short distance away from my own home near Birmingham, Alabama, a young couple was walking back to their house with their 1-month-old son after visiting a neighborhood friend. As they pushed the stroller along, nearing their street, a dark sedan drove past and suddenly stopped about 10 yards ahead of them. Two men jumped out and pointed guns at the man and his wife, demanding that they get on the ground.

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Some of these quick-thinking, fast-acting methods can be observed in wildlife. If you’ve ever witnessed ani-mals in danger, you might have seen the youngsters scatter. Or you might have watched them quickly move to find cov-er and hide. Meanwhile, the mom or dad leads the predator away and/or fights off the attacker. Those are some of the basic methods and instincts.

Luckily, we can also add in all the hu-man advantages.

“Consider all the mechanical devices and tools we have available to us that animals don’t,” Harris says, “and then fac-tor in all the other things we can use for self-defense.”

Whether you find yourself the target of an attempted carjacking, robbery, kidnapping or any kind of violent attack, be sure to act immediately with whatev-er tools you have — be it a purse, stick, hand, leg or firearm.

Use whatever means you have to fight back, and don’t ever trust the aggressor. If you have kids with you in a vehicle, it might very well be the time to push the gas pedal and run into or over some-thing … or someone. You can also use one of nature’s best and most effective deceptions as a distraction: feigned compliance.

“Be like the momma grouse who flops about on the ground as if she has a bro-ken wing and is pleading for her attack-er not to hurt her,” Harris says. “Break the mindset of the attacker, if even briefly, in order to gain the advantage. Then get out of there or do what you must do. Just do it quickly. Timing is everything.”

ACT WISELYI know that, as a mother, my first in-

stinct when my children are in danger is to grab them and pull them in close to me. That would work perfectly to help them with a boo-boo, calm them during a storm or get them away from a scary animal. But it’s a terrible idea if someone is coming at you with a weapon.

While it might feel like you’re doing the wrong thing, you might have to push your baby’s stroller behind a wall or set down that infant carrier by a tree and run in the other direction. In some cases, your precious cargo might be safer left

in a car or hidden in a nearby building. Just don’t pull your children into you or try to hide them behind you while you are attempting to defend yourself unless that’s your only option.

You might think that you are acting like a shield, but it’s best for them to get away from you and get to safety as quickly as possible. This protects them and you on many levels. Your children won’t witness the event and they won’t be in the line of fire. (Remember that an over-penetrating bullet can pass right through you and hit someone else.) In addition, you won’t have to worry about or be distracted by little ones around your feet or behind your back if you need to draw or use your firearm to stop a threat.

PLAN AHEADBesides mentally preparing yourself,

in order to plan ahead, you should do as much talking and training with your kids as possible. Talk to them about situ-ational awareness, being observant and safe, and being an extra set of eyes and ears for you as you go about your every-day lives.

Of course, what you talk about and how you train will depend on a variety of issues, such as how old your children are, what they comprehend and how disciplined they might be. But you can come up with a trigger word or code word that they can recognize as a time to give you their immediate attention or take specific action. Practice your chosen word to get them in the habit of following orders closely. And plan ahead so that when your kids hear this special alert, they know they need to run away from danger (to go to where the bad people aren’t) and to keep going until they find someone to help, such as a po-lice officer, firefighter, person of authori-ty, store worker or trustworthy friend or family member.

You can also teach your family about cover and concealment (which materials stop bullets and which materials simply conceal their position). Should you ever have to draw your gun, you can use your alert word and instruct your family to get away from you and call the police. But if they aren’t able to get away, teach

them to get behind cover — anything that has the potential to stop or slow a bullet — and to continually look for pos-sible exits, better cover or opportunities to escape. With this, you can also teach older kids to carry, guide or help the lit-tle ones.

If your children can’t get away from an aggressor, teach them to yell, scream, punch, kick, hit or do whatever is neces-sary. If the kids are old enough, they can take self-defense classes or participate in martial arts training. But you can also talk to them about looking for weak or sen-sitive spots — things like poking a bad guy in the eyes; punching or kicking him in the nose, throat, solar plexus or stom-ach; or hitting him in the knees, ankles, wrists, etc.

Whatever you do, be sure to explain to your children that you give them special permission to not be polite, quiet or nice in a violent encounter and to do what-ever they need to do to get away. Make sure that they understand that it’s OK to say, “No!” and to run away from dan-gerous or uncomfortable situations and find help.

In many scenarios, when people forcefully, purposefully and immediately fight back, their attackers are taken by surprise as they realize that they have much more to deal with than they’d bar-gained for. That temporary disability or distraction might be the deciding point for them to back off or go away … or it might be the break you need to draw your firearm and protect your loved ones.

Unfortunately, when it comes to vi-olent encounters, there are no right or wrong answers except to do what you need to do to stop the threat and keep your family safe. But taking precautions now can help protect you and your chil-dren in unpredictable circumstances. Use your best judgment and experience, do what’s right for your situation and have a course of action for you and your family to take in the event of an unsafe situation. 27

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GOT A LIGHT?

THE TACTICAL TORCH❚ BY ED COMBS

What even 20 years ago would have only been in the hands of extremely high-level federal employees is now available for less than $50 delivered to your door. It’s been a long road for those who might even remember the days of carbide lamps attached to the front of hats. Now it’s to the point that we almost take modern flash-lights for granted. A flashlight the size of a roll of quarters that’s bright enough to temporarily blind an attacker is common today, but that wasn’t always the case.

OLD SCHOOLThe D-cell Maglite reigned supreme in the law enforce-

ment world for decades, and for good reasons. First and foremost, it’s of very high quality and can withstand the knocking around that is the lot of a duty belt tool. Second, it’s a dynamite impact weapon, especially if your depart-ment bends to political pressure and removes standard batons from your duty gear. I’m not kidding; as I once heard a law enforcement DAAT (defense and arrest tactics) instructor quip, “Flashlights used to be pretty normal, but then the city council took your batons away and what hap-pened? The 4-cell Maglite, that’s what happened.”

This aside, the old reliable 4-cell is actually much bet-ter suited to unarmed (or “unarmed” with air-quotes af-ter you’re holding a Maglite) self-defense. Not only have many, many other options surpassed it in actual lighting utility, it’s … well … it’s a metal tube filled with D-cell bat-teries. It’s heavy, it’s bulky and, as I was reminded every winter while directing traffic, it gets downright frigid on a cold day. If you are absolutely barred from possessing a firearm, a 3- or 4-D-cell Maglite is a good impact weapon option. If you’ll be carrying a concealed sidearm, you can do much better.

POCKET VERSUS PATROLWhile many folks are quick to simply ask which flash-

light law enforcement officers in their area use and then go buy one, there can be some difficulties in doing so. Though I too usually adhere to the attitude of “find someone who uses it for a living and ask which he pre-fers,” you have to be certain you’re asking for info on the right flashlight.

You see, most law enforcement officers carry at least two flashlights at all times: a belt-worn duty flashlight and a backup or backups. The light worn on the belt —

the duty light — will be extremely powerful and any-where from 10 to 16 inches long. Though that might seem odd in this day and age of tiny super-powered units, there’s an explanation.

When issuing a citation, that officer needs all of the hands that he can get, and one of them has to be kept free in order to draw a weapon if necessary. Hence, his duty flashlight has to be long enough for him to hold under his non-dominant arm, pinned between his el-bow and torso so he can then hold the citation in the hand that’s in front of the beam and keep his dexter-ous hand free in case of emergency. This is the type of flashlight that you can consider a “nightstand light” — a light that you won’t have to worry about trying to carry around all day in your EDC but that would be an excel-lent flashlight to keep around the home (or in the vehi-cle) in case of a potential lethal-force encounter.

TAIL SWITCHI consider a tail-cap activation switch basically essen-

tial for a primary defensive EDC flashlight. Even more importantly, the tail button should not only turn the light on and off but should allow for momentary acti-vation, thus allowing the user to send extremely short flashes of light with very slight amounts of pressure and without having to worry about turning the light all the way on and off over and over again. The benefit of this is, of course, one-handed operation. If you need to use both hands to operate the light, it will only be of so much use to you when you have it in one hand and a pistol in the other.

LUMEN REQUIREMENTSI’m not a huge believer in there being a strict lumen

limit on EDC flashlights, but I will go on record that I believe brighter is better. The only time that dimmer is better is if you will be spending a decent amount of time reading off of white sheets of paper — ask any military vet or LEO what happens when you shine a 100-plus lumen light onto a packing manifest or ticket book and he’ll laugh, squint his eyes and then feel around like he’s blind. For such lighter-duty lighting duty, even the glow of a cell phone is preferable to a tactical light. Your night vision will be spared and you won’t immediately broad-cast your personal position like a lightning strike.

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»WITH THE POSSIBLE exception of the jacketed hollow-point projectile, I don’t believe there’s a single defensive technology that has progressed as far in the last 30 years as the modern flashlight.

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STROBEI’d like to go on record as the man who

brought the term “Crime Disco” to the tac-tical world. It came to me one night while patrolling a campground in search of an individual who was even more dangerous than he was intoxicated, and when I lit him up next to a tent that he was trying to start with his truck keys … well … it was one of those moments of inspiration in the field.

This is a feature on the lamp itself that allows for a strobe, or extremely fast-flash-ing phase of the light. This becomes ex-ceptionally useful when confronting a threat in the dark, as the strobe light is extremely disorienting and can even lead to loss of balance or seizure.

Similarly, some models feature “Beacon” modes, which facilitate long-term distress signaling by turning the head or tail cap. Doing so causes the flashlight to blink ei-ther a steady pulse or actual S.O.S. Morse code signal for hours on end without re-quiring the user to sit there getting a fin-ger cramp.

MAKE AN IMPACTSince the flashlight is operated in the

non-weapon-hand, manufacturers began to get field reports about what actually happened when users of their products were involved in violent encounters. One experience was almost universal: The flashlights were being pressed into ser-vice as impromptu impact weapons. Pic-ture yourself standing facing a potential threat with a tactical flashlight in your off-hand and nothing in your dexterous one. If the individual before you begins to charge, what are you going to do? Well, you’ll likely start to move in some direc-tion (preferably laterally), either go for your primary weapon or at least get your dexterous hand up to defend yourself and strike your attacker with the chunk of steel or aircraft aluminum that you’re already holding in your off-hand.

After this reality became common knowledge, lightmakers began engineer-ing pointed scalloping into the faces of their products — sarcastically called “DNA Collectors” in some circles — that are specifically designed to open a cut over an attacker’s eye during a self-defense incident. Similarly, other manufacturers began outfitting their units with carbide

glass-breaking points as an added safety measure, especially for those who operate in environments with canals or other large bodies of water into which automobiles often find their way.

BATTERY OF QUESTIONSIt’s impossible to discuss tactical flash-

lights without discussing batteries, and it’s a sore subject with some. On one side, there are those who believe nothing but 123As will do in a tactical light — you know, those odd little camera batteries that look like you took AAs, squished them into squatter shapes and sold them for $4. Others are a little more forgiving.

Within the last five years, more and more lights stoked on AA batteries have entered the market at very reasonable prices that are more than bright enough for EDC use. The difference is usually in in-tensity of beam. For an ultra-bright yellow beam that is so bright the unit itself gets hot enough to set your pants on fire, it’s hard to beat the 123As. However, for econ-omy — if you can put up with a slightly bluer light at an intensity that isn’t guaran-teed to scald the hair off a hog carcass — the AA units are often more than enough. Like with your sidearm, it’s going to be a matter of personal preference.

SEE THE LIGHTSelecting an EDC light can be a daunt-

ing, confusing proposition. The main guideline I’d strongly recommend you fol-low is to neither spend $10 nor $1,000 on an EDC light; those ends of the spectrum will just not be worth the money you’re spending. Depending on your tastes and desire to spend money, something be-tween $40 and $400 will almost certainly accomplish what you need done (and, as always, if you ever have any questions, please feel free to contact us here at edi-tor@usconcealedcarry.com).

The modern tactical flashlight is the sin-gle most important piece of emergency lifesaving equipment that literally anyone can walk into a store and buy. Predators prefer darkness; deny them of it.

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›› The modern tactical flashlight is a must-have piece of Every Day Carry gear. Depending on what features you’re looking for, you should be able to find a suitable light for between $40 and $400.

Answering Every Question You’ve Ever Had…Including Ones You’ve Never Thought To AskYou’ve armed yourself with the necessary tools and preparationrequired to defend yourself and your loved ones against a violent attack. But are you 100% confident you could pull the trigger in that moment and be certain that you’ve acted judiciously in the eyes of the law?

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Are You Certain You’re 100% Prepared To Be Your Family’s First Line Of Defense?

32

CONSISTENTLY HITTING THE SAME SPOT

❚ BY KEVIN MICHALOWSKI

DRILL OF THE MONTH

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ON THE NOSE

»HERE’S A FUN FACT: George Patton (yes, the famous one) competed in the Modern Pentathlon in the 1912 Olympic games in Stockholm. He likely would have earned a medal were it not for “poor” pistol shooting.

You see, back in 1912, each athlete fired all 20 of his rounds at one individual target. Patton chose to use his Army-issued .38-caliber revolver and, when the judges scored his target, they only found 17 holes where there should have been 20. Pat-ton argued that his three remaining shots passed through the gaping hole at the center of the bull-seye; the judges disagreed and he finished the first day of competition in 21st place. Despite excellent finishes in the fencing, swimming, equestrian and running events, Patton could not overcome that “poor” showing on the range.

Why is this important? Because back in 1912, Lt. Patton was doing exactly what I want you to do now to improve your shooting skills: Aim for the same spot every single time.

THIS IS THE ONE-HOLE DRILLWe are not talking about tactical pistol shoot-

ing, combat accuracy or anything of the sort. This is purely a marksmanship drill. It is the simplest shoot-ing drill you can do (some dry-fire drills are easier), but it can also be the most maddening.

Here’s the deal: Get a clean, blank piece of paper or cardboard and hang it on your target stand. Back up about 5 feet. You won’t need a bullseye or any other sort of markings. Just clean paper. Now aim for what your eye determines to be the center of the target and fire one shot. That is your new aim-ing point.

Now, with diligence, take aim at the bullet hole and try to put your next five rounds directly through that same hole. Ensure you have a perfect grip. Con-trol your breathing. Establish a great sight picture with the front sight centered between the notch of

the rear sight. Remain laser-focused on your front sight. Put that sight on your bullet hole and operate the trigger without adding any movement to the muzzle.

Simple, right?You know, or at least you should know, all the

skills I just described above. Now you need to put them all together and hit the same spot each time. After you fire all six rounds, you should rest. Then try it again. Twice a day should be sufficient to help you improve your shooting quickly.

SOME TIPSDon’t hold on the target too long. After about

five seconds, you will begin to bounce. Trust me. Try for a surprise break of the trigger. When you

start your trigger press it should be nice and smooth and the release of the sear should surprise you.

Follow through. Keep the trigger pressed fully to the rear and let the recoil settle before you try to look at where you hit.

Don’t rush, but don’t hesitate. When the sights are on target, fire the shot.

The One-Hole Drill requires that you combine and employ all of your marksmanship skills. As you improve, you will use those skills without even thinking about them. That is what we mean when we say, “Don’t train until you get it right. Train until you can’t get it wrong.”

Make a habit of good shooting technique. Your life might someday depend on it. 33

›› For too many reasons to explain here, some shooters

have a terrible time shooting at a bullseye or a silhouette. For them

(and many others), the “One-Hole Drill” is especially useful for honing their pistol shooting to a

fine edge — and quickly.

WATCH DRILL OF THE MONTH https://youtu.be/l5XqVvamIe8

❚ BY KEVIN MICHALOWSKI

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ON THE NOSE

LESSONLEARNED

ADVANCED FIREARMS TRAINING FOR TEACHERS

❚ BY CHRIS BIRD

There were cries from the usual quarters for more gun control. But some parents and school employees realized that waiting for law enforcement to arrive to cope with active murderers was not a viable option. They decided that some school staff members should be armed.

One of the states leading this movement was Ohio. Jim Irvine, president of the Buckeye Firearms Foun-dation, and John Benner, owner of Tactical Defense Institute, got together and came up with a plan. The foundation would pay for the instruction and accom-modation while TDI put together a three-day course to teach the teachers how to fight back against school mass murderers. The classes were dubbed “FASTER,” which stands for “Faculty/Administration Safety Train-ing and Emergency Response.”

The FASTER classes were a great success with far more educators applying than could be handled by TDI. By 2016, more than 45 school districts in Ohio had poli-cies allowing teachers and other staff members to carry concealed handguns at school to protect themselves and their students, Irvine said.

After putting on several courses, Benner and Irvine decided to take the training to the next level; thus, FASTER II was born. It consists of the same three-day format at TDI with 24 people from Ohio school districts — teachers, superintendents, administrators, custodi-ans, etc. All of the participants had previously complet-ed the Level I FASTER class and the Level II course was part refresher, part new material. I monitored a FASTER II course in the heat of summer with extra humidity.

IN THE CLASSROOMThe group of six women and 18 men started in the

classroom, where Benner introduced himself and his seven other instructors. Benner is an avuncular man in his 60s who usually has a cigar clamped between his teeth. He is a Vietnam veteran and for 20 years com-manded a multi-jurisdictional SWAT team in the Cincin-nati area. TDI is located on 186 acres in the wooded hills of southern Ohio.

Police use the term “active shooters” to describe the perpetrators of mass killings, but Benner prefers the

term “active killers.” Anyone with a concealed carry li-cense should be an active shooter, but they are not ac-tive killers, he said. He also does not use the names of the killers.

Benner talked about the Sandy Hook shooting using information from the investigation done by Connecti-cut’s attorney general.

“The timeline that came out of that to me was by far the single most interesting thing,” he said.

Some people in law enforcement have accepted the reality that they are unlikely to be able to stop an active killer while he is murdering students and teachers.

“In other words, by the time they get there, this thing is over,” Benner said.

It can take two or three minutes from the 911 call un-til officers are dispatched. At Sandy Hook, the dispatch time from the first 911 call was very quick.

“They had three officers there by three minutes and 13 seconds,” Benner said. “And that’s where things fell apart. Because they waited outside, hearing shots fired inside an elementary school, for five minutes and 47 seconds. The guys with the guns waited outside while the school principal and the school teachers in the school were fighting a guy with a rifle with their bare hands, or trying to. So think about that.”

ON THE RANGEThe FASTER II students migrated to the range. Their

first exercise was to draw and fire one shot at about 50 feet. The targets were head-and-shoulders steel plates. The students would repeat this exercise on the second and third mornings, getting better each time.

The first shot is the most important and must be a hit, Benner said.

The students were timed individually. The average time seemed to be about 2.8 seconds.

The first time they performed this exercise, quite a few students missed — and Benner urged the students to take the slack out of the trigger before they fired the shot. He said if you miss that first shot at 50 feet, you are not practicing enough.

After watching more shooting by the students, Ben-ner was critical of their weapon handling.

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»THE MASSACRE at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was a catalyst. Up to that time, few schools permitted their teachers and other staff members to carry concealed handguns on school property. Sandy Hook changed all that. On Dec. 14, 2012, a mentally disturbed young man shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary and murdered 20 students, aged 6 and 7, as well as six staff members. It was probably the age of the students more than anything else that outraged America.

ADVANCED FIREARMS TRAINING FOR TEACHERS

❚ BY CHRIS BIRD

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“We’re seeing quite a bit of what we would call sloppy weapon handling,” Ben-ner said. “Not necessarily sloppy safety but just sloppy weapon handling.”

The students practiced shooting one-handed and shooting on the move. Starting at 15 yards, they advanced to 7 yards while shooting, then moved side-ways, then finally backed up to 15 yards. They had to change magazines while mov-ing.

After lunch, the clouds cleared and the sun shone down, driving the temperature up into the mid-90s. The humidity made it feel hotter. The instructors urged the students to drink plenty of water and stay hydrated.

The students learned how to dip their guns so as not to muzzle people running away from the gunman. They practiced shooting from behind cover. The cover was two plastic barrels, one on top of the other, and they practiced shooting at three steel targets as they came into view. They then advanced from the cover, shooting at the targets. Benner demonstrated how to draw and fire the gun and how to reholster it.

“These are all skills that you must take home and practice and get good at,” he said. “It’s absolutely critical that you do. I can’t stress that enough, especially with what you guys are doing. You have got to be good, safe weapon handlers and you need to be able to hit the target, and I think most of you can do that.”

SCENARIO TRAININGThe students “roped” their guns, which

meant threading a piece of yellow plas-tic tubing in through the muzzle and out through the magazine well, thus show-ing the gun to be unloaded. This allowed them to point their guns at each other safely.

They were split into two groups before they went to the two live-fire houses. The group was divided into one responder, one or two bad guys or gals, and the rest victims. The responders and bad guys/gals were changed after each scenario so everyone got a turn. As soon as the responder entered the house, he or she could expect to come across active killers as they moved from room to room.

On the second day, the students learned some hand-to-hand moves with Forrest Sonewald, a retired police officer doing most of the teaching. He taught a double-palm heel strike for occasions when you are surprised or are too close to your opponent to have time to draw your handgun.

Benner sent the students to the live-fire houses. This time, they used live ammu-nition on paper targets. I went with the group that was instructed by Sonewald and two other instructors.

I followed a young teacher as she went through the first scenario. The figure tar-gets were all in the last room. The killer was partly behind a female figure and was facing away from her with his gun extend-ed toward the figure of a young man. The teacher shot him, hitting him high in the arm with the bullet likely to penetrate into the lungs and perhaps the heart.

Sonewald congratulated her on a good shot.

“That’s incapacitating,” he said. “He’s down and out — traversing lung, heart, lung, done. So he’s probably done, or if he’s not, he’s incapable of further move-ment.”

Sonewald debriefed students after they finished a scenario. He would not make them feel as if they’d done anything wrong, but he would make suggestions about alternative courses of action.

After the students completed that sce-nario, they moved to the other live-fire house where Benner and Wallace put them through another scenario.

By the end of the afternoon, each stu-dent had faced four different scenarios and most knew what to do after shooting the active killers:

• Search for other gunmen.• Cover the shooters.• Secure their guns.• Instruct someone to call 911.• Instruct others to render first aid.• Instruct one person, with his hands up,

to intercept responding officers and to re-main close enough to the responder to let him or her know when authorities arrive.

• Holster the gun, if possible.

DAY 3The third day began on the range with

more work on the steel targets. Irvine gave the students a refresher on first aid; they’d spent a whole evening on first aid in the FASTER I class.

Wallace taught the students how to

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secure a gun from a downed active killer. People can convulse for several minutes after brain death, and with a finger on the trigger, they could fire another shot. So to recover a gun from a corpse or somebody who is unconscious, do not approach from the muzzle end and do not strip it toward your body.

“You see that space behind the trigger?” Wallace asked. “A good way to do this, and what I have used several times on the street to strip guns off corpses, is you take a pen and stick it behind the trigger. There’s no way that gun will fire.”

Our group went to the Force-on-Force House in the morning. The building is a two-story house finished inside with un-painted chipboard, which makes for a dark stroll. It has stairs at each end and is used for scenarios run with Airsoft guns, which shoot plastic pellets rather than metallic projectiles. Oh, and it has no air condition-ing.

One scenario involved a second-floor classroom with the armed staff member teaching the class. The teacher was to get his students into a safe corner of the room while he tackled the killer. One respond-er asked Wallace how far he should go in tackling the killer.

“The problem is if you are responsible for a classroom, you can’t go hunting for him, because if you go out there and get shot, then he just comes in and kills them all,” Wallace said. “If you are a classroom teacher, you are responsible for that class-room of kids.”

A superintendent or administrator has

more flexibility and can hunt the killer, he said.

Another scenario involved two active killers. When the responding staff member entered the area, he or she saw one killer shooting victims. Several victims who had been shot were lying on the ground with cards on them describing their wounds. The responder shoots the killer and has the option of taking the gun or treating the wounded. The other killer enters and the responder shoots him. Both killers have guns in their hands and the respond-er has to disarm them safely.

The first person to go through the sce-nario shot the first active killer but didn’t take the gun from him, so another student picked it up and “accidentally” shot anoth-er student. The responder also didn’t real-ize there was a second shooter who would have shot her while she was tending to the wounded.

The next responder realized there were two shooters and effectively put them down. Wallace said the student did a good job at putting the killers down, but he pointed out that the student didn’t secure the guns immediately. Students tried to secure the guns and they accidentally dis-charged, wounding other students.

“We did this scenario last year and it’s the only time I’ve ever seen a student com-pletely lock up from stress — just became paralyzed,” Wallace said.

After lunch, our group moved to the upper range, where a school hallway had been constructed out of plywood sheets with three doorways off of it.

In one scenario, the parking lot is the scene of a sports rally, when one of the students pulls a gun and starts killing oth-ers. The responder takes on the killer and shoots him/her down, gets somebody to call 911 and starts coping with the wound-ed. A sheriff’s deputy, played by one of the instructors, arrives at gunpoint and the responder follows orders. Eventually the deputy helps cope with the wounded.

“You guys did pretty good,” Sonewald said. “Previous group, we had three people shot because they tried to draw on an of-ficer.”

TAKE-HOME TESTReaction to the course was very posi-

tive.An art teacher in a rural school district

summed up her reason for taking the course:

“I thought I’d find it interesting and I would like to do that if I could save some-one’s life,” she said. “If I didn’t do it and something did happen and kids were killed and I didn’t do anything to try to pre-vent it or I didn’t know how to prevent it when I could have, that would really make me feel terrible.”

A math teacher at a small private school said, “I just feel that I’m a better shooter than when I got here. I feel I have a better concept of what I need to do in an emer-gency situation.”

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WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT CHURCH SHOOTINGS?❚ BY DAVID BURNETT

PREDATORS & PRAY

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In May 2015, a Connecticut pastor set-ting up Memorial Day flags outside his Nazarene church was wounded in a drive-by shooting. In 2008, a Maryville, Illinois, pastor was gunned down in the middle of his sermon, with witnesses reporting the man unsuccessfully tried to use his Bible as a shield from the gunfire. In 2012, a Wisconsin Sikh temple fell under siege from a lone gunman, who killed six and wounded four. Two Catholic priests were shot in a Phoenix parish in 2014. A 2008 Universalist church shooting left two dead and seven wounded, while a 2007 Missouri church shooting left a pastor

and two deacons dead. In 2006, a Louisi-ana service was halted when five people were shot, four fatally, before the shooter abducted and murdered his wife.

In February, officials announced the ar-rest of Khalil Abu-Rayyan, an Islamic State sympathizer in Dearborn, Michigan, who intended to target an unidentified De-troit megachurch for mass murder.

“It’s easy, and a lot of people go there,” the complaint quotes Abu-Rayyan. “Plus people are not allowed to carry guns in church.”

The circumstances surrounding each were different, but the lessons are the

same: Murderers have no respect for the church, and it takes more than a Bible to stop a bullet.

Mass murders always leave difficult questions in their wake, but we as gun owners shouldn’t try to avoid those questions. Although ensuing discus-sions inevitably assume a political bent, it’s our humanity — not politics — that obligates us to reject further obstruction of lawfully armed resistance. After all, his-tory is indisputable on two points: Rapid mass murders occur almost exclusively in gun-free zones and increasing access

to lawful self-defense can in-crease the odds of surviving

them.On an individu-

al level, houses of worship are still grappling with how

to respond. Large churches often hire security firms or off-duty police officers. Some recruit volunteers, and many have raised awareness — and eyebrows — by hosting concealed carry classes for mem-bers. Certain gun shops have offered dis-counts and classes specifically for clergy, such as one Louisiana firm that, after the Charleston shootings, hosted a class exclusively for area ministers and their wives. Some ministers go on to carry from the pulpit or incorporate self-de-fense into their messages.

“We’re not in Mayberry anymore,” one Catholic priest said in a lengthy state-ment to his Ann Arbor, Michigan, parish regarding organized concealed carry classes. (Unfortunately, the Diocese bish-op superseded the priest and forced the class to cancel.)

Some churches even went as far as a Kentucky church that hosted “Bring Your Gun to Church” day in 2009 or a Dallas area megachurch that invited congre-gants to carry openly. Others host gun “buy-backs” or candlelight vigils to en-courage non-violence.

Bottom line: The church is in on the de-bate, whether they like it or not.

The federal government has recog-nized the problem and has issued a re-port on “Developing High-Quality Emer-gency Operation Plans for Houses of Worship.” Although the report noted that 16 of 41 active shooter incidents studied

40

»ON JUNE 17, 2015, one criminal’s lone-wolf attack on a prayer service in South Carolina became the latest killing spree to attract headlines — and fundraising pleas from gun control advocates. Although disturbed journals of the suspect were found, detailing how alone the man felt in his prejudice, the attacks were still hailed not only as emblematic of systemic racism but a springboard to demand tighter restrictions on the guns in your home. Almost automatically, politicians began musing that new laws could stop future violence. Of course, since South Carolina churches are gun-free zones by law (pending clergy exemption) and since the suspect was not legally permitted to purchase, own or carry a gun, it requires intense imagination to suppose added laws would have deterred him. Every mass shooting sparks discussions of what went wrong and how to further secure target locations — in this case, churches. Spree killings can (and do) happen anywhere, but records indicate church shootings are on the rise.

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were ended by potential victims before police arrived, fighting back is advised only if flight or hiding is not possible. (They suggest using such weapons as “fire extinguishers or chairs.”)

In July 2015, the U.S. Attorney’s Office also hosted a summit in Detroit with of-ficials from the FBI, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to discuss threat reduction, ac-tion plans and protection of congrega-tions. Among recommendations, officials encourage holding drills, analyzing and preventing potential threats and plan-ning evacuation routes. In February, the FBI hosted more than 160 faith leaders in Dallas to address the unique threats faced by church leaders.

Concealed carry isn’t automatically an option. Certain states prohibit wor-shipping while armed, and even some shooting enthusiasts hesitate to carry in church, uncertain of conflicts with doc-trinal orthodoxy. Many civilized congre-gants are incredulous that anyone would ever need a gun in church.

Retired-lieutenant-turned-minister Lawrence Adams knows better. He rou-tinely wears a concealed pistol beneath his robes. In 2009, he responded to an alarm in his Detroit church and was con-fronted and attacked by an intruder. Drawing on his police training, Adams pulled a concealed firearm and opened fire.

Last July, an armed church employee in Boulder, Colorado, intervened when a drunken man attacked his estranged wife in a church parking lot. As the man stabbed the woman and began strangling her, the employee displayed a firearm and sent the man running. Local sheriff Joe Pelle told reporters many church-goers had begun carrying in response to church threats.

Also in July, a would-be robber in Bay-town, Texas, kicked down a church door, not expecting to find the well-armed Pas-tor Benny Holmes inside. Fearing for his life, Holmes shot the intruder. (Less than a year earlier, Pastor Holmes had appre-hended a serial thief at gunpoint at his home.)

Stories such as these provide a cold re-ality check on the fearful whispers of gun control advocates who claim guns “only

make things worse.” Indeed, guns aren’t the solution to every problem, but they are a solution to some problems, and that includes rapid mass murders.

Charleston’s high body count last year dominated headlines, but 200 miles and three years away, another church avoid-ed a similar situation thanks to concealed carry. In March 2012, a convicted felon entered a small Baptist church in South Carolina and pointed a loaded shotgun at the congregation. Parishioner Aaron Guyton drew his concealed handgun and held the intruder at gunpoint, working with the pastor and others to disarm and subdue him. No shots were fired and au-thorities praised Guyton for his actions.

“I hope the bad guys are watching, because we are tired of your nonsense,” Sheriff Chuck Wright told reporters. “Peo-ple are simply protecting their families. Prepare yourselves, ladies and gentle-men.”

Aurora, Colorado, is still famous for its theater murders, but 20 miles and two months away, a convicted felon crashed into an Aurora church parking lot and opened fire on the crowd, killing one. The man was promptly shot dead by the vic-tim’s nephew, an off-duty police officer.

Then there’s the New Life Church in Col-orado. Just 50 miles from the notorious Columbine High School in Littleton, an intruder armed with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and smoke grenades en-tered the megachurch and opened fire. He was confronted and killed by former law enforcement officer Jeanne Assam, who was acting as volunteer security for the day. (Although the media and even Assam herself continue to define her role as law enforcement, her legal capacity that day was as a private citizen.)

Why don’t armed citizens stop mass shootings? Because they stopped them before they became mass shootings. Would guns in Charleston have stopped the killer? Thanks to lawmakers, we’ll nev-er know. But one thing is clear: Status quo isn’t the answer.

Naturally, denizens of non-violence will still argue that turning the other cheek takes precedence over protection of the flock. Each must act according to the dictates of his or her conscience, but there’s no clear-cut argument that any

major world religion demands absolute pacifism. For example, most scholars of Hinduism suggest that the non-violent doctrine of ahimsa does not require ig-noring threats to life or limb. Islam re-soundingly endorses self-defense. Sikhs carry ceremonial weapons called Kirpans to symbolize courage, self-defense and readiness. Hebrew Scriptures include fair-ly detailed outlines for the use of deadly force. The Dalai Lama famously wrote, “If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.” Although personal-ly opposing violence, Mohandas Gandhi condemned laws that disarmed his peo-ple from fighting for independence. And Christian scriptures include an account of Jesus telling his disciples to buy swords, as well as descriptions of a Second Com-ing when enemy combatants will be slain by his sword.

In early American history, churches were vital to communities, and each set-tler was expected to do his part to pro-tect the parishioners from attack. Many colonial settlements levied fines against worshipers for coming to church services with defective or absent firearms. Church lawns were often the scene for Sunday af-ternoon competitions and tournaments to sharpen the skills of colonialists.

For readers interested in beefing up church security, it’s important first to check local laws on church carry. Make sure your church isn’t acting as a daycare or a school. Promote a dialog among the church and clergy. Network with other worshipers to form plans. Periodically volunteer to stand watch outside the service. Greeters and ushers often join services and leave church foyers com-pletely unwatched, allowing open access to would-be perpetrators. Learn to watch for concerning behaviors. Train for worst-case scenarios.

Whatever day and in whatever way, many readers keep the Sabbath. It’s not a question of if but when and where. When preventative measures fail, being caught without the means to defend yourself, even in a house of worship, is a mistake you might only get to make once.

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HANDGUN NOMENCLATURE

A GLOSSARY OF GUN TERMS

❚ BY KEVIN MURAMATSU

HANDGUN NOMENCLATURE

»DECIDING which self-defense

handgun to purchase is a difficult

enough task even when you are familiar

with all of the related terminology.

For a lot of new shooters, it’s difficult to always

ask whenever someone uses an unfamiliar

term. Sometimes it’s out of embarrassment,

sometimes there just isn’t time and sometimes

it would result in so many Internet search

windows being open at the same time that

it would get difficult to keep everything

straight. We reached out to CCM contributor

Kevin Muramatsu to put together a glossary

specifically geared toward new shooters. It is

by no means a complete compendium of all

knowledge of all things hand-held firearm, but

it will help those who are just beginning their

voyage as responsibly armed Americans to

understand and process what they read and

hear a lot more completely.

Ed Combs, Associate Editor

Handgun – A firearm designed to be fired

with one hand.

Pistol – Generally, a handgun that

operates semi-automatically and utilizes a

detachable box magazine to hold cartridges,

usually but not always inside the grip.

Revolver – A handgun that has multiple

chambers bored into a cylinder. When the

trigger is pulled or the hammer is cocked, the

cylinder rotates behind the barrel to present

a new chamber to be fired.

Barrel – The tube through which the bullet

is propelled in a specific direction.

Bullet – The projectile that is propelled

through the barrel.

Case – Usually brass but sometimes made

of aluminum or steel, this is the capsule that

holds the other components of the cartridge

together. The case is the primary gas-

retention mechanism in a firearm, sealing the

chamber and preventing hot gases produced

when firing from exiting the gun anywhere

but from the muzzle.

Cartridge – A single unit of ammunition.

Modern ammunition is a self-contained

capsule incorporating a projectile (the bullet),

propellant (the powder), a primer and a case.

»DECIDING which self-defense

handgun to purchase is a difficult

enough task even when you are familiar

with all of the related terminology.

For a lot of new shooters, it’s difficult to always

ask whenever someone uses an unfamiliar

term. Sometimes it’s out of embarrassment,

sometimes there just isn’t time and sometimes

it would result in so many internet search

windows being open at the same time that

it would get difficult to keep everything

straight. We reached out to CCM contributor

Kevin Muramatsu to put together a glossary

specifically geared toward new shooters. It is

by no means a complete compendium of all

knowledge of all things hand-held firearm, but

it will help those who are just beginning their

voyage as responsibly armed Americans to

understand and process what they read and

hear a lot more completely.

Ed Combs, Associate Editor

Handgun – A firearm designed to be fired

with one hand.

Pistol – Generally, a handgun that

operates semi-automatically and utilizes a

detachable box magazine to hold cartridges,

usually but not always inside the grip.

Revolver – A handgun that has multiple

chambers bored into a cylinder. When the

trigger is pulled or the hammer is cocked, the

cylinder rotates behind the barrel to present

a new chamber to be fired.

Barrel – The tube through which the bullet

is propelled in a specific direction.

Bullet – The projectile that is propelled

through the barrel.

Case – Usually brass but sometimes made

of aluminum or steel, this is the capsule that

holds the other components of the cartridge

together. The case is the primary gas-

retention mechanism in a firearm, sealing the

chamber and preventing hot gases produced

when firing from exiting the gun anywhere

but from the muzzle.

Cartridge – A single unit of ammunition.

Modern ammunition is a self-contained

capsule incorporating a projectile (the bullet),

propellant (the powder), a primer and a case.

Chamber – This is the rear end of the barrel where the cartridge is inserted to be fired. The chamber must contain the cartridge and the resulting pressure when it is fired. In revolvers, the chambers are separate from the barrel and are contained in the cylinder.

Charge – A term meaning to “load” a car-tridge into the chamber of a semi-automatic gun.

Cock – A word used to describe the stor-ing of energy in the firing mechanism. Pull-ing the trigger then causes the gun to fire. In revolvers, this is accomplished by pulling the hammer back until it stops. In striker-fired pis-tols, this is only accomplished by pulling the slide to the rear. Hammer-fired pistols can be cocked in either fashion.

Cylinder – The round rotating assembly in a revolver that has multiple chambers, each holding a single cartridge. The cylinder rotates to bring unfired cartridges in line with the barrel to be fired. In modern revolvers, the cyl-inder will open out to the left side to be emp-tied of empty cases, followed by reloading. In older revolvers, the cylinder might not open or might utilize a loading gate; the cylinder might be removed completely for reloading; or the entire revolver might break open on a hinge at the lower front of the frame.

Ejector – The part of a handgun that causes the cartridge case — fired or unfired — to exit the gun. On a pistol, it is fitted to the slide at the ejection port; on a revolver, it is usually a spring-tensioned rod in the middle of the cyl-inder.

Ejection Port – In semi-automatic pistols, this is typically a window cut into the slide from where the ejected case is propelled out of the pistol. This window must not be covered or obstructed.

Extractor – The part of a handgun that re-moves a cartridge case — fired or unfired — from the chamber. On pistols, the extractor is some sort of hook that engages the rim or extractor groove in the case. On revolvers, it usually is a roughly star-shaped mechanism that pushes all the cartridges out of the open cylinder simultaneously.

Frame – This is the handgun. Everything else attaches or interacts with it. It is the frame that will always have a serial number. The slide slides upon it. The magazine is inserted into it. The trigger operates inside it, etc.

Fully Automatic – The mode of operation of a pistol whereupon the trigger is pulled and multiple shots are fired and will continue

to fire until the trigger is released or until the magazine is empty. This mode of operation is extremely rare, heavily federally regulated and impossible for private citizens to purchase in a regular gun shop or at a gun show like they would other firearms.

Grip – Many handguns have wooden or plastic, even metal, panels that are screwed or inserted into the frame to create a non-slip and cosmetically appealing appearance. Most metal-framed pistols and revolvers have grip panels, while most polymer-framed (plastic) pistols do not. Grip can also refer to the area of the frame around which the hand clasps the frame.

Grip Safety – A particular type of safety found on several pistols, notably the Brown-ing-designed 1911, that requires the user to firmly grasp the pistol in order to actually fire. The grip safety generally prevents the trigger from being pulled when not fully depressed by the shooter’s hand.

Hammer – A striking mechanism that uses rotation in an arc to build momentum to im-pact a firing pin to fire the gun. The hammer might or might not be visible. It literally works just like a construction hammer. In this anal-ogy, the hammer of the gun is the hammer pounding the nail (the firing pin) into a piece of wood (the primer of the cartridge), the mus-cles in your arm being analogous to the ham-mer spring in the handgun.

Magazine – The part of the firearm that stores or holds the ammunition. Most pistols have magazines that detach from the pistol. The cylinder of a revolver can functionally be thought of as a non-detachable magazine. Pistol magazines are typically composed of a tubular body, a spring, a follower and a floor-plate that holds everything in the tube. Think of the magazine tube as an elevator shaft. The follower is the elevator, the spring is the ele-vator cable and the cartridge is the passenger being lifted upward toward its destination.

Magazine Catch – This holds the magazine in the pistol. Typically this also includes a but-ton or lever that, when pressed, will release the magazine from the pistol. Revolvers have an analogous cylinder latch that will allow the cylinder to be opened.

Manual Safety – A button or lever that is designed to immobilize the firing mechanism of the gun, preventing it from firing. Manual safeties must be manually engaged and dis-engaged by the shooter.

Muzzle – The front end of the barrel where

the fired bullet emerges from the gun. Dam-age to this area can negatively affect accuracy.

Semi-Automatic – The mode of operation of a pistol whereupon the trigger is pulled and a single shot is fired. Energy from firing is used to reload the chamber and re-cock the firing mechanism for another trigger pull. Can also be termed “self-loading.”

Single Shot – The mode of operation where only one cartridge is present at any time in a handgun, and the gun must be man-ually reloaded and manually re-cocked every time it is fired. It is most commonly found in large hunting handguns.

Slide – This is the piece of a pistol that lit-erally slides, or reciprocates, every time the pistol is fired. It forms the breech of the pistol and usually holds the barrel, ejector and firing pin mechanisms, as well as mounts the sights.

Slide Catch – Also called the slide stop. A lever in pistols that is raised by the magazine follower when the last round has been fired from the pistol. The slide catch locks the slide in a rearward and open position.

Striker – A striking mechanism that uses linear force by means of a compressed coil spring to fire the gun. The striker is usually the firing pin itself. More recently designed pistols tend to be striker fired and also tend to have smaller slides, not needing to make room for a rotating hammer. Think of a ball-point pen. Pressing the button makes the pen emerge and lock in place, just like when a striker-fired pistol is loaded and cocked. Pressing the but-ton again causes the pen to forcibly return upward, similar to the firing pin slamming for-ward to impact the cartridge primer.

Trigger – The mechanism, usually a lever, used to fire a gun.

Trigger Discipline – A state of mind where the shooter holding a firearm keeps his or her finger off the trigger and only places the trig-ger finger into the trigger guard when ready to fire the gun. This can be a difficult habit to acquire but is absolutely necessary for the safe handling of a firearm.

Trigger Guard – A loop formed into the frame of the handgun, the purpose of which is to form a forward obstacle about the trigger to prevent random objects (including fingers) from making contact with the trigger. This pre-vents negligent discharges.

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45

My concern is a belief that I have de-veloped over the past years of readership, and that is one of, “If I am outside of the four walls of my residence or land bound-ary, even if I am right in the use of deadly force in defense of myself or immediate blood family, I will be found wrong.” I un-derstand the immediate consequences of being handcuffed, interrogated, etc. until the police are satisfied in my justifi-cation; however, I have learned from your many articles (a lot by knowledgeable attorneys) that this is only the beginning. Even if I am found not guilty in a criminal proceeding, there is the very real possi-bility of civil action by the family of the “victim.”

I am a responsible gun owner and permit holder. I train at least twice a month, shoot in the GSSF competitions and recently started competing in IDPA matches. I have no problem in the home defense arena, but, at present, am reluc-tant to carry. I carry OC spray, a knife and a baton, but the thought of being “penni-less but justified” frankly scares the crap out of me.

Thanks for a great magazine and the work you are doing.

Bill, via email

»ANSWER: Bill,I hear your concerns, and I have to say

it’s easy to feel that way. Like any other kind of news, the worst of the bad news jumps to the forefront of our minds, leaving the less-terrifying news to languish as the pro-verbial wallflower. It’s a survival mecha-nism; your brain forces you to concentrate

harder on what might destroy you than what will almost certainly not. It’s the same reason why so many law enforcement offi-cers and private citizens alike end up shoot-ing guns out of attackers’ hands. During the debrief afterward, the would-be murder victim recalls seeing nothing but the muz-zle of their attacker’s gun (which usually looks about as wide as an oil drum). Like the man looking down the barrel of a gun, you concentrate on the possibility of finan-cial ruin because it would be, well, ruinous.

If you flip to the “True Stories” section of this magazine, however, you’ll read of inci-dents during which law-abiding Americans defended themselves, their families and their homes with firearms and did not have charges filed against them. Sometimes, the defender isn’t even arrested or taken into custody, though this is significantly less fre-quent.

The unpleasant reality is that the after-math of a self-defense, lethal-force encoun-ter has a lot to do with where it occurred. I often joke that we don’t have many mem-bers in Idaho or Utah because if an indi-vidual in either of those states is forced to defend himself with a firearm, the chances are rather low that an extremely zealous anti-gun District Attorney will take him on as a “special personal project.” Howev-er, our membership rates in … oh, I don’t know … Illinois, New York and California are much higher. These are states in which a private citizen faces a much higher like-lihood of being dragged through the legal and social gutter after being forced into a clear-cut self-defense shooting.

That said, many of the people who “get

ruined” by the aftermath of a self-defense shooting suffer that fate from a distinct lack of two things: proper concealed carry training and quality legal representation. Some even make the mistake of assuming an “I did it and I’ll stand up for it in court” attitude and representing themselves (against the advice of any honest cop, law-yer or judge). As an honest American, you need to remember that though this might be your first trip through the legal system, it’s what the cop, the lawyer and the judge all do for a living. Without quality represen-tation, you’re cooked. The System will do with you whatever it wants, as you’ll have no lawyer to look out for your best interests. After the unpleasantness on the street is over, the unpleasantness in the courtroom can begin. You probably had to face the former alone; we’d really prefer you didn’t have to face the latter by yourself too.

I never try to talk any individuals into carrying guns. If they decide to, I will do all I can to help them understand what it is they’re really signing on for and how they can best defend themselves under their own personal circumstances. With-out sounding too much like I work here or anything, I’d say that a membership with the USCCA would be the first step toward self-defense peace of mind.

Stay safe,Ed CombsAssociate EditorConcealed Carry Magazine

ASK THE USCCA

»QUESTION: First, thanks for a great magazine. I admire the balance that each issue contains: real life, practical training and just enough equipment coverage to give the readers a reason to look forward to each issue.

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CRUCIAL COVERAGE

PEPPERPRIMERSPICE THINGS UP A LITTLE ❚ BY ED COMBS

Now, it isn’t his choice of defensive gear that gives me the giggles. It’s the fact that it is, more often than not, dusty, expired and literally the only can he’s ever bought. He’s never even practiced getting it out of his pocket, let alone making sure he knows how to spray anything other than his own thumb with any accuracy.

No, I don’t laugh at the man or wom-an who carries pepper spray. There’s a reason these innocuous-looking little cans hang on the belts of cops, troop-ers, deputies, corrections officers and in-the-know private citizens.

CANNED HEATPepper spray was a miracle cure of

sorts after law enforcement agencies experimented with other chemical agents in the 1960s and ’70s. Longtime riot-control standbys for law enforce-ment agencies, 2-chlorobenzalmalo-nonitrile (CS) and phenacyl chloride (CN) gases might be remembered by some from military basic training gas chambers or large-scale public disturbances. Though ubiquitous, they were difficult to employ in anything but a general sense, such as releasing them from a canister or grenade into a large crowd. Mace, the trade name of a chemical spray invented in 1965, concentrated the proper-ties of such tear gases into an aerosol-propelled agent that could be easily sprayed into an attacker’s face and eyes, but CN, CS and the other tear gases still worked better on a riot than on a rapist.

By the 1960s, OC (oleoresin capsicum) spray started finding a home on the belts of letter carriers with the U.S. Postal Service. Much like law enforcement and military folks are usually who you want to talk to when you’re looking for firearms and projectile development, the men and women of the USPS are your local authorities on how to deal with aggressive and vicious dogs. The cans filled with “pepper juice” were viewed with great skep-ticism by the uninitiated until they saw the effect they could have on a charging pit bull. (It should be noted that mail-carrier-strength spray should not be relied upon for self-defense against human attackers. The highly sensitive nose of the canine means that a lower concentration of OC is needed to deter him. You’ll want more punch for a bad man than for a bad dog.)

OC’s effectiveness lies in its ability to irritate and inflame mammalian skin, eyes and mucous membranes, and by the 1990s, most jurisdictions allowed private citizens to carry these new “pepper sprays” as self-defense agents. Millions of cans flew off the shelves of gun, sporting goods and police supply stores and could be found on the belts of lawmen, in the purses of college students and clipped to the shorts of joggers and hikers all over North America.

But, like a firearm, just buying a can doesn’t mean you’re ready to defend your-self. Like that firearm, you’re going to have to understand it, take care of it, respect it and know how to use it in order for it to do you any good.

»I ALWAYS CHUCKLE when someone snidely tells me that a firearm breeds a “false sense of security” and then shows me his can of pepper spray.

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POINT AND SHOOT?As with a sidearm, it is imperative that

women or men who intend to defend them-selves with pepper spray train with what they intend to carry, and this means practice cans. Look at it this way: You wouldn’t buy a sidearm and a single box of ammunition, load up the gun and carry it without even a single trip to the range, would you? Pepper spray is no different, but the good news is that a “range” is easier to find. After you de-cide which model feels best in your hand and will best fit your needs, buy one and start testing it. Find an outdoor area away from children and animals, and make sure to bring a partner in case you wind up re-quiring assistance in getting to a source of fresh running water to flush your eyes. (For first-aid information, consult the can.) After you and your partner are in a safe location for your evaluation, re-read the instructions, shake the can and spray it at a target. Rig it up how you would for carry and practice draws. Put the can through its paces and really figure out if it’s the right can for you. If it is, only then should you buy a second can and carry it as your defensive spray. If it isn’t, I’m afraid you’ll have to start the process over.

DOS AND DON’TSThe most common mistake made by

those who carry pepper spray is to carry it in a way that basically guarantees they will be incapable of accessing it quickly yet also makes a negligent discharge al-most a certainty. Would you carry a small pistol in the bottom of your purse — without a holster — just jumbled in with your phone, wallet, pens, makeup and keys? Better yet, would you attach the trigger guard of that pistol to your key-chain, allowing your self-defense tool to absorb the daily beating keys give each other and everything with which they come into regular contact?

OC spray needs to be carried in a dedicated carry system, preferably belt-mounted. Some cans ship in ready-to-wear clip-on carriers, but if you’re look-ing for a slightly larger can (and I would advise that you do), you should acquire a belt carrier like the one available from JOX Pouches. The key is to ensure that the can is carried at the ready, just like a pistol or revolver, and that the user will be able to access, draw, present and activate the tool when needed. Like with a gun, this means the same kind of can in the same place every time.

SPRAY AND PRAY?Right out of the chute, I have some

bad news for you: If you employ pepper spray in a self-defense situ-ation, you’re going to get a taste of

it too. It’s just the nature of the beast and one of the disadvantages of it

as a force option. As such, if you have any kind of respiratory issues, I would strongly advise you against having any-thing to do with pepper spray. A direct shot to the face makes some healthy

young men almost cough and gag them-selves unconscious, so if you’re on oxygen or COPD maintenance, are asthmatic or experience any other respiratory issues, self-defense sprays are not for you.

As for exactly where you should spray your attacker, understand that, like in any other dynamic and violent situation, hitting a moving target is a serious chal-lenge. This is where can size comes into play: I am of the opinion that, where legal, it is worth buying and carry-ing a patrol-size can of spray in case your first few shots miss the mark.

Like with a firearm, you need to deliver force into your attacker until he no longer presents a threat, and with OC instead of bullets, that might take longer than you’d think. Along those lines, a bullet that hits an attacker in the abdomen rather than between the eyebrows does a lot more to stop the threat than a stream of OC to the gut; this is one of the many reasons we here at CCM still advocate for the use of firearms against deadly threats over all other forms of self-defense technology.

Proper use of OC is to spray one-sec-ond bursts in a side-to-side arc across the forehead and eyebrows of the intended target. The reason is twofold: The fore-head is a large target, and the fluid will run down into the eyes of the attacker, thus still reaching its goal even if the at-tacker closes his eyes as soon as he sees the stream. Remember: Spray that hits low will do little to stop the fight, but spray that hits high will run down into the eyes, especially as the target tries to wipe his face.

If you’re forced to use your spray, vocal-ize as you would with any other level of force. Barking “HELP! STAY BACK! LEAVE ME ALONE! SOMEONE CALL 911!” in as loud a voice as you can muster not only gives your attacker clear instructions but also alerts anyone within earshot to the assault that your attacker is perpetrat-ing on you. Move while spraying and, like in any fight for your life, don’t be the last place your attacker saw you. Avoid holding down the trigger of the can, as there is only so much propellant in there and you don’t want to end up with nothing but an impact weapon after three or four seconds.

After your attacker is no longer a threat — after he is no longer capable of harm-ing you — you need to continue to get away from danger and call 911 as soon as possible. As Executive Editor Kevin Mi-chalowski is fond of saying, “Dirtbags run in packs.” There’s a chance you might not have enough spray to go around if you don’t immediately get to safety.

SOURCESSabre: sabrered.com

JOX Loader Pouches: joxloaderpouches.com

›› Discreet carry of even large cans of OC is both possible and

comfortable, such as with this horizontal carrier available at

joxloaderpouches.com.

CALLING ALL GUNNERS»GUNS & ROSA’S WATERPROOF TARGETS

This is just one of the styles of targets available from Guns & Rosa’s. Like Axl and Izzy, they’re from Indiana; unlike Axl and Izzy, they’re still talking and producing material. These targets are constructed from 100-percent

recycled paper and are waterproof. In fact, if you’re ever lucky enough to meet the owners at a gun show or expo, you’lllikely see their famous display of one of their targets under a perpetual waterfall at their booth.

To see the rest of the line, call 765-730-2548 or email gandrtargets@att.net.

MSRP: $10.95/10

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IN THE 10-RING

MIRANDAAT 50

FIVE DECADES OF SILENCE RIGHTS

❚ BY ALAN KORWIN

MIRANDA AT 50

FIVE DECADES OF SILENCE RIGHTS

❚ BY ALAN KORWIN

And what’s this about no Miranda rights until you’re in custody, when they read them to you? Everything you say can and will get you convicted before you’re placed under arrest. But as soon as the magic phrase, “You’re under arrest,” is pronounced (and it literally is magic), you’re clothed in rights you’ve heard so much about on TV.

But it’s worse than you imagine. You don’t have a right to have a lawyer after they say you do. Did you know that? No, you have to invoke. You have to say, with no ambiguity, “I want a lawyer,” or words to that effect, and invoke your right to counsel. Then those rights turn on. Sorta.

This is odd from a logical perspective, isn’t it? To make sure you have actually been Mirandized, so it holds up later, some jurisdic-tions now seek constant confirmations: “You have the right to have an attorney present. Do you understand what I’ve just told you?” One of my attorneys says to always answer, “No.” Because you don’t understand.

My attorney, your attorney, a team’s worth? Right now? With an investigator? Paid for how? Face it, you haven’t a clue, and that’s an easy question. How many times have I groused in this column that it isn’t even Game On if we’re on the phone with 911? Ain’t no lawyer if it’s just you on the phone after a shooting — unless you’ve taken the advice, secured counsel ahead of time and that’s who you dialed. (We don’t actually dial anymore, do we?)

50TH ANNIVERSARY MIRANDA PANEL CONVENEDIt came as a pleasant surprise to see a 50th anniversary panel of

experts assembled to discuss the Miranda situation and what ef-fect it’s had on private citizens, law enforcement and the judiciary. You see, when it first passed, officials were spitting up pieces of lung over how they would never be able to get a conviction again without unbridled, uncounseled statements from suspects. It wasn’t right to tell defendants they could have attorneys and clam up, prosecutors warned; it was flat-out stupid. Miranda would let everyone “lawyer up.” Convictions would end.

That, of course, never happened. It’s like the fear-induced BITS (Blood in the Streets) myth that concealed carry permittees con-stantly endure when protective laws expand.

Authorities found they could just use everything else except co-ercion to get convictions — little things, like evidence, witnesses, motive, opportunity, uncoerced confessions — and the world con-tinued to turn. Justice became more just.

The discussion panelists weren’t lightweights: The county attor-ney was there, along with the assistant chief of the Phoenix Police Department, a retired chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, an appeals court judge and a public defender’s office attorney. This was the real deal. Their observations mattered, so it was shocking when they easily agreed on a central point: Miranda doesn’t mat-ter, because everyone talks.

Let that sink in.The public defender talked about his repeat offenders, who’d

been through the system multiple times, who get their rights read over and over, whom he tells each time to just shut up, and it nev-er fails: They talk. They try talking their way out; try to explain, to reason, to rationalize. They just get in deeper, and it makes his job harder. The panel laughs and chimes in. No one takes Miranda’s warning advice.

MIRANDA DOESN’T MATTERBECAUSE EVERYONE TALKS

The panelists hardly care — it’s your call, not theirs. They’re sympathetic, but they can’t advise you individually. You’ve been warned. You ignore it at your peril, done. It’s so routine at this point for all of them. A moment of legitimate concern arose as to wheth-er people really understand the warning, but the language is crys-talline, tested, uniform. Their doubts evaporated.

They are concerned with making sure you get the message so that it holds up in court. A common fear is someone who almost invokes, so it’s not clear — “I think I might need a lawyer. What do you think?” Are officials good to keep soaking information from this guy? If a suspect confesses, was it totally voluntary or will there be a snag later to spoil the case, costing the office money and face?

The biggest learning moment, for me at least, was hearing there in public, in a room packed with lawyers and officials (the Coun-ty Bar staged the event), that the 911 call people think they must make after an incident is voluntary and must be voluntary.

If it wasn’t voluntary, if it was required, that would be a coerced statement and inadmissible. They want and need that call to be evidence, even though it virtually erases any right to silence and a lawyer. You lack those rights when you’re free. Huh.

The lawyers pointed out clearly you don’t have to call — “You’re free not to” — and don’t have to give statements to a police voice recorder. You could have called a lawyer, gotten someone else to dial or done something else. Of course, delaying medical help could turn assault charges to homicide if a shot perp bleeds out, and implications of delay play poorly.

There’s also the “who called first?” landmine, because the system typically treats that person as the victim and the other person as the assailant/defendant. You don’t want the attacker or accomplice to flip those tables.

Miranda means well and has value, but the 911 loophole and failure to invoke Miranda leaves room for improvement. The 911 Limited Immunity Law, if enacted, would help fix that.

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»I’VE ALWAYS FIGURED THE MIRANDA “LAW” — it’s actually a policy adapted from a U.S. Supreme Court case (Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 1966) — was a little odd, just logically. You mean the state is reading you your rights? In a free society, shouldn’t you be reading the state your rights? Aren’t your rights in control of them? The principle seems upside down.

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»IF YOU THINK A GUNFIGHT will be a static event where you stand 7 yards from your target and establish a good grip, proper stance and perfect sight pic … Bang! Bang! You are now bleeding, and in a few seconds, the severe burning pain will strike. Now you need to operate your firearm with just one hand. That is something you want to learn and practice before you have a bullet hole in you.

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›› With Murphy’s Law in mind, practice running the gun with your “other” strong hand — before you find yourself involved in a deadly force encounter.

RUNNING THE GUN!

RACKING THE SLIDE WITH ONE HAND~

DRILL OF THE MONTH

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BY KEVIN MICHALOWSKI

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WATCH DRILL OF THE MONTH https://youtu.be/mwpwT8hOLcY

WHAT IS REQUIRED?For the purposes of this discussion, we

are talking about operating an auto-load-ing pistol. That means, at some point, you are going to have to rack the slide with just one hand. The commonly accepted meth-od of doing this is to hook the rear sight on something and shove briskly forward to fully retract the slide before spring pressure drives the gun into battery.

As you would imagine, there are some safety concerns with this method. For training purposes, use only dummy am-munition or snap caps. All the other safety rules also apply. Ensure the muzzle is not pointing at any part of your body or at any-thing you don’t want to destroy. Keep your finger away from the trigger. When search-ing for something upon which to hook the rear sight, ensure there is ample room for what will be a violent movement of the firearm. You will likely need about a foot of free space. Ensure that nothing entering the free space will hook on the trigger.

Now, hook the rear sight on something (I prefer a strong gun belt) and shove it briskly down until the slide retracts fully. Then pull the gun away from your belt and let the slide run forward. You have cham-bered a round. Do it again, this time with your other hand. You don’t get to choose which hand or arm gets injured in a gun-fight. Learn to use your strong hand and your other strong hand.

FAILURE TO FIRELoad a magazine with four dummy

rounds. With your right hand, strike the base plate of the magazine against your thigh to ensure the magazine is seated. Hook the rear sight on your belt and work

the slide. Now bend down to one knee, hook the rear sight on the heel of your boot and run the slide. Switch hands. Repeat.

Safety note: Pay special attention to muzzle direction and trigger-finger disci-pline.

SLIDE LOCK RELOADLoad a magazine with two dummy

rounds and put it in your magazine pouch. Insert an empty magazine into your pistol and lock the slide to the rear. Using only one hand, drop the magazine; place the pistol muzzle down between your knees with the magazine well facing forward. Retrieve the spare magazine and insert it firmly. Grasp the pistol in a firing grip. Strike the base plate of the magazine against your thigh to ensure the magazine is seat-ed. Hook the rear sight on your belt and run the slide. Switch hands. Repeat.

An alternate method is to kneel down and hold the gun between the back of your thigh and calf muscle. Be advised that this method is hand-specific. If your right hand is out of commission, you must hold the gun with your left leg and vice versa. Make sure your opposite leg is out of the way!

Safety note: In addition to muzzle di-rection and trigger-finger discipline, notice the location of your feet. You can move them apart a bit to ensure the muzzle nev-er points at your foot while you are holding the gun between your knees.

STOVEPIPECreate a stovepipe with an empty case.

Load a magazine with two dummy rounds and insert it in your firearm. Simply hook-ing the sights and running the slide will typically clear the malfunction and run a

new round into the chamber. If it does not, adjust your grip so your thumb can press up on the slide lock, hook the rear sight and retract the slide while pushing up on the slide lock lever. This will lock the slide to the rear and allow you to clear the stove-pipe. After the chamber is clear, hook the sights again and run the slide.

Safety note: Practice muzzle manage-ment and trigger-finger discipline always. This operation becomes more difficult when trying to use your left hand; you’ll need to use your left index finger to press up on the slide lock lever. This is why we practice with dummy rounds.

ONE FINAL CONCERNFor those of you looking at your pistol

and wondering if your sights are strong enough to stand up to this type of activity, well, swap out your sights now for some-thing tougher. There are lots of good, sol-id-steel aftermarket sights available. Pick one and have it installed.

Avoid the Novak-style sights with the completely flush-fit angled front. There is no way to hook that smooth angle on anything. You need a sight that offers a flat area nearly perpendicular to your slide.

This drill, like all drills, should be prac-ticed and mastered before you are forced to employ it. The time to learn how to op-erate your pistol with one hand is now, well before you are required to do so during a life-or-death struggle.

Stay safe. Train hard.

THE TIME TO LEARN HOW TO OPERATE YOUR PISTOL WITH ONE HAND IS NOW, WELL BEFORE YOU ARE REQUIRED TO DO SO DURING A LIFE-OR-DEATH STRUGGLE.

❚ BY KEVIN MICHALOWSKI

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SUPREMEINJUSTICE

ONE MAN’S 803-DAY BATTLE FOR TRUTH

❚ BY RICK SAPP

MIRANDA AT 50

ONE MAN’S 803-DAY BATTLE FOR TRUTH

❚ BY RICK SAPP

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While Charles was repositioning his equipment, a vehicle raced by and then returned at a high rate of speed. The vehicle was driven by James, a delivery driver for a local pizza restaurant. James, who is also the drummer for a local rock band, was apparently try-ing to deliver a pizza to Charles’ neighbor.

Because James was on private property, driving too fast and turning out of control, Charles approached the delivery driver and told him to slow down, that his speed was too fast for the drive and that children and animals live along the way. James simply ignored him, barely slowing down and never stopping. It felt so “in your face” that Charles called the restaurant to complain.

Two hours later, from inside his home, Charles saw shadows cross the blinds over the windows. There was a knock at the door. He opened it and heard, “He’s right here, Mark!”

The shadows were two sheriff’s deputies, Donnie and Mark.

Apparently, restaurant management confronted James about the complaint and his careless driving. Perhaps the drummer decided to get even. He phoned the sheriff’s department: Charles pulled a gun, point-ed it at him and waved it around, James said.

Now the deputies had come to investigate.

‘I DON’T KNOW YOU’Charles has an Indiana concealed carry permit. Be-

cause he travels for business, he wears his Glock 19 in a holster on his waist. He was wearing the gun in a hol-ster on his hip the day he asked James to slow down.

The deputies questioned Charles, who was no lon-ger wearing his pistol, having left it on the kitchen table. Donnie’s hand was resting on his pistol when he asked Charles to step outside of the house to talk. Charles, 56, is losing his hearing and, during the con-versation, he asked Donnie to repeat questions sever-al times. This seemed to infuriate the deputy.

“You need to stop messing with me!” Donnie shout-ed.

Having been called by James, the deputies ap-proached Charles as the guilty party despite Charles’ insistence that he never drew his pistol, never threat-ened to pull his pistol and that his hand never touched

his gun during his brief confrontation with the pizza delivery driver. He even showed the deputies his Indi-ana license to carry.

Whatever Charles said, though, the deputies insist-ed he was lying.

“I know what happened, and you’re going to tell me the truth and cooperate,” Donnie said. “How you coop-erate will determine if you are arrested.”

Charles continued to deny James’ story. “I won’t admit to something I didn’t do,” Charles said.Perhaps in irritation, the deputies threatened

Charles with felony arrest.“You are going to be charged with a felony that car-

ries a term of eight to 10 years,” Donnie said.“What for?” Charles asked.“Because you drew your gun and pointed it toward

the driver,” the deputy insisted. Then Donnie said, “I’ve lived here all my life and I

don’t know you.”Southeastern Indiana is rural. Families are tight.

They cling to the land and to each other … and these families have long memories.

Donnie then swabbed Charles right hand.“I know you’re lying,” he said, “because the driver

identified the weapon as a black handgun.”A relatively safe guess, maybe.“Where is the gun now?” Donnie asked.“On the kitchen table in the house,” Charles said.Mark immediately entered the residence without

asking permission and seized the Glock.The deputies now began to badger Charles.“Tell us what happened,” Donnie said. “What you say

now will decide if you are arrested.”Charles stuck to his story, so Donnie instructed Mark

to charge him with felony criminal confinement and intimidation. James had told the police that Charles stood in front of his car and wouldn’t let him leave. Mark handcuffed Charles and drove him to the county jail.

The incident report indicates that Charles was “tak-en into custody without a warrant or previous incident report.”

Because Charles’ wife followed them to the county jail with $550 cash bail, Charles spent less than four hours in custody. It wasn’t the false arrest or false imprisonment

»IT WAS THURSDAY, Aug. 22, 2013, a little after 5 p.m. Charles had returned home from work and parked his truck and trailer on the private drive in front of his rural southeastern Indiana home. In the finest spirit of American opportunity, he owns a small business that also employs his son.

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in jail, however, so much as the next 803 days of harassment, intimidation and mali-cious prosecution that would change their lives.

TWO YEARS AND COUNTINGCharles spent more than two years liv-

ing with the threat of jail, fines and the loss of his business. And he swears not only that he was innocent of the charges but that the police and county prosecu-tor didn’t care.

Originally from Kentucky, Charles and his wife had moved to Indiana a dozen years before, purchased 3 acres in the country and planned to retire right there one day.

In the two years following his arrest, Charles was hauled into court six times for pre-trial hearings. Each time, the police and an assistant county prose-cutor — different each time and thus unfamiliar with the case or the previous proceedings — demanded that Charles plead guilty, sometimes to lesser charges but always involving three years or so in county lock-up. They demanded that he forfeit his right to own a weapon. Each time, he said no. He wanted to go to trial or at least find a judge who would hear his case.

Charles said he eventually became so exhausted and frustrated with the legal system that he considered pleading to a lesser charge. He even discussed it with his wife, who stood by him through the ordeal. But each time he became discour-aged, he found some inner strength and refused to be intimidated.

“The mess we went through was quite an ordeal,” Charles said. “To me, the only other constitutional right that might have affected me in the same way as taking away my firearms would be to tell me that I couldn’t be a Christian. What if someone came up to you and jerked away your Bible and told you that you couldn’t speak the words or read from it, that you couldn’t go to church for 803 days? Some people get it and some don’t.”

IS IT EVER OVER?Eventually, the prosecutor’s office

dropped the charges for the most fun-damental reason — the concealed carry permit holder was innocent. As it turns

out, during the entire time that Charles was being hauled into court again and again, neither the police nor the prose-cutor had performed a single minute of investigation. Everything they said, ev-erything they did, was based on the initial telephone call from the speeding delivery driver.

The chief county prosecutor as much as admitted there was no evidence that Charles was guilty of a crime, but he sim-ply refused to drop anything to do with a weapon. Apparently, the stroke that final-ly broke the case was the police interview with the neighbor who ordered the pizza back in 2013.

She had witnessed the confrontation between the pizza delivery driver and Charles. After two years, when the sher-iff eventually got around to asking her about it, she gave a sworn statement say-ing that Charles never removed his gun from his holster and did not wave or point the weapon at the speeding driver.

A FINAL THOUGHTOne would think that, after two years of

harassment based on a lie, the police and prosecutor would apologize for their in-competence and unprofessional conduct. You would be wrong. One would think they would immediately return the pistol they seized from Charles. You would still be wrong.

“Two weeks after the charges were dis-missed, I had to go to a judge to get an or-der to release my gun,” Charles said. “Then it took two months to chase it down. The captain of the property room is a detec-tive and he was too busy to make himself available. They didn’t tell us we needed an appointment, even though we left several messages … and he would never call back. Once I even went down there and took pictures and they didn’t like that and just ignored us for weeks.”

It was a case of blatant official incom-petence and misconduct, but Charles refused to submit. In August 2015, his attorney drew up an official complaint al-leging a violation of his rights guaranteed under the 2nd, 4th and 8th Amendments and his substantive and procedural due process rights as guaranteed under the 14th Amendment.

The flaw in Charles’ plan for justice,

after he spent more than $3,500 on con-tinuing legal fees, was revealed in a con-sultation with his attorney.

“Do you have $100,000 to spend on this?” the attorney asked, noting that, as the case progressed through the courts, that would only be seed money and far more might be needed.

Even if Charles won a jury award, the county would appeal, and the pockets of bureaucracy are far deeper than those of a small business owner. Charles and his wife simply did not have that kind of cash. Few of us do.

“At first, it bothered me a whole lot,” Charles said. “I’ve been a gun owner most of my life. I’ve had a permit to carry for eight years. I simply hadn’t done anything wrong.”

To deal with his mounting anger during the 803 days of official indifference and harassment, Charles turned to a counsel-or, who eventually asked a meaningful question.

“Are you going to let this incident take over your life?”

Charles realized he had to deal with it. He had to put his situation in some per-spective and move on with life. By the second year, he was sorting it out.

Still, to this day, it makes him angry that police and prosecutors can manipulate the law.

“They can take away your rights any time they want to,” Charles said. “What really sent this into the long spiral is the prosecutor taking it up without checking any facts. As an American, all of this is dis-heartening.”

Charles eventually got his gun back. He has become a strong advocate for ed-ucating and training responsibly armed Americans.

If Charles ever faces a similar incident, he will have a formidable ally in his corner providing financial backing and an abun-dance of resources. He is now a USCCA member.

Editor’s Note: The last names in this true story were removed to protect the anonym-ity of the people involved.

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NITTYGRITTY»THE AMERICAN-MADE Zero Tolerance 0450 is the result of the high demand for the original collaboration between ZT and designer Dmitry Sinkevich. When demand continued to grow after the initial run of the 0454 was depleted, the 0450 was born. The knife opens manually with a KVT ball-bearing system actuated by a finger flipper/guard and the frame-locking blade holds an edge extremely well. Rounded out by stonewashed titanium scales and a reversible deep-carry pocket clip, this EDC knife is as at home in a suit pocket as it is on a MOLLE strap. Head to zt.kaiusaltd.com for more information and to see the entire Zero Tolerance line.

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BATTLE BLADES

BLADE LENGTH: 3.25 INCHESOVERALL LENGTH: 7.4 INCHESBLADE MATERIAL: S35VN STAINLESSWEIGHT: 2.9 OUNCESMSRP: $200

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USE A DUELING TREE TO IMPROVE YOUR SHOOTING

DRILL OF THE MONTH

»THERE IS NOTHING better than adding some stress to your training to help you improve your shooting skills. If you have the opportunity, set your sights on a dueling tree as a means to help you put rounds on target. It’s not only a serious training tool; it’s also just plain fun. If you are not familiar with the dueling tree, it is a vertical steel target with six swinging plates attached. Hit the plate and it should swing from one side to the other. The typical arrangement is to set up three plates on the right side of the target and three plates on the left side of the target and have two shooters duel it out.

CHALLENGEACCEPTED!

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›› A dueling tree, or a set of vertical steel targets with plates that swing from one side of the base to the other

when hit, can add action and an element of stress to your outdoor training experience.

WATCH DRILL OF THE MONTH https://youtu.be/liIpW9Z4-MU

The goal is to get all the plates off your side of the target. Of course, as you try to do so, your opponent will be shooting as quickly and accurately as possible to get all the targets back to your side of the tree.

Effective training using the dueling tree means that you will employ all your shooting skills, including sight picture, sight alignment, trigger control, fol-low-through and the Look/Shoot Drill. We presented the Look/Shoot Drill in a previ-ous edition of Concealed Carry Magazine. Basically, you need to move your eyes before you move your gun. Look first, and then shoot.

SAFETY FIRSTOf course, you should always wear ear

and eye protection on the range. This is especially important when shooting at steel targets. Fragments will be flying. Most good dueling trees are designed to direct bullet impact down and away from the firing line, but don’t ever count on good luck where your eyesight is con-cerned.

Always follow manufacturer’s recom-mendations for distance and setback when using a dueling tree. Distance refers to how far back you should be from the target. A good rule is to keep a minimum of 10 yards between your muzzle and the steel targets. Setback is the distance your target should be from anything else downrange. You will want to keep your dueling tree away from other targets, be-cause the jacket fragments and lead spray can cause damage to other surfaces. Start with a 5-yard setback from any other tar-gets — but be prepared to move things based on the design of your target and the impact area.

Remember you are shooting right alongside another shooter. I should not have to remind people about muzzle management, but as soon as I don’t, someone will forget. Side-by-side shoot-ing also requires paying attention to fly-ing brass. (If you’re the type to game the system, make sure you are standing on

the left side so your brass distracts the shooter to your right.) A ball cap and a tight collar will help, but if a piece of hot brass drops down your shirt, ensure you maintain muzzle manage-ment and trigger-finger discipline. Your first reaction will be to dance around try-ing to get that hot brass off your skin. A bullet wound is worse than a brass burn; take the brass burn as a badge of honor and prove your skill at safe gun handling.

Remember, too, you are shooting lead bullets at steel. Then you will be carrying the steel targets to put them away. Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly with something like LeadOff from Hygen-all (hygenall.com), especially if you will be interacting with small children after shooting.

DRILLS FOR YOUR SKILLSStandard Race: I described it above. It

doesn’t get much simpler. First shooter to get all the targets to one side is the winner. Play fair. You know who won. Reset the tar-gets and try again.

Five-Round Reload: Load three mag-azines with five rounds each. Technically, you could win with just three shots if your opponent misses often, but more than likely you will be forced to conduct a speed reload to clear your side of the tree. If you both run out of rounds before one person clears a side of the tree, call it a draw and try again.

Alternate Hands: First shot right-hand-ed, next shot left-handed. Only hits count, and you can’t stop shooting with one hand until you have hit a target with that hand.

Alternate Positions: Start standing. Af-ter you score a hit from standing, drop to a high kneeling position (one knee on the ground). After you score a hit, drop to the low kneeling position (both knees on the ground). After you score a hit, return to standing.

INDIVIDUAL DRILLSJust in case you don’t have a shooting

partner, you can shoot some drills yourself with a shot timer.

Up and Down: Give yourself 30 seconds on the timer. Pull all six targets on one side of the tree. Starting at the bottom, hit each target as quickly as possible, moving up one side then down the other. Shorten your time as needed.

Crisscross: With 15 seconds on the tim-er and the targets set three to a side on the dueling tree, start on the upper left and move to the lower right. Then move to the next target on the upper left and back to the lower right. Move as many targets as you can in the time allowed.

PERFORMANCE, NOT OUTCOMEEven though you’re being timed, this

is still a performance-based drill, which means that you need to focus on doing everything correctly before you move on to doing everything quickly. If your per-formance is spot-on, you will score the hits and, in turn, your outcome will improve. The competition simply adds one more layer to the sequence. If you tune out the other shooter and focus on what you are doing, you will put together a pretty im-pressive performance — which will, of course, relate directly to your outcome.

Improve your skills one building block at a time. Then put everything together in a little friendly competition.

Check out the Look/Shoot Drill from the October 2015 issue of CCM on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/z_ZXDtulb8I

❚ BY KEVIN MICHALOWSKI

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LET’S GET SMALL

THE CASE FOR THE POCKET GUN❚ BY ED COMBS

MIRANDA AT 50

THE CASE FOR THE POCKET GUN❚ BY ED COMBS

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The punch line for me was that, earlier in the conver-sation, when I’d asked if he was carrying, he said no. He had to go somewhere later that didn’t allow guns and re-holstering with his IWB was a bear. As I’m certain you can imagine, I had to swallow what I really wanted to say.

DIG ITGuns are tools, much like many others. For those who

don’t immediately get the connection between the two items pictured here, consider this:

Implausible as it might be, imagine yourself in a cir-cumstance under which you have to dig a hole. Like, im-mediately. If you don’t at least start digging a hole right now, there will be dire consequences, up to and including death or worse. What would you prefer to use to accom-plish that?

Well, ideally, you’d use a bucket excavator, but almost no one has one of those just hanging around. Real-world ideally, you’d prefer to use a shovel; you know, spade blade with a place to put your foot for extra punch, 48-inch han-dle for leverage, nice big scoop for nice big scooping ac-tion, the works. But those are usually inconvenient to just toss in your vehicle unless you’re either very committed or regularly use one in the course of your day.

Would you rather start digging that life-saving hole with this folding shovel — which, if you ask anyone who’s used one, is no great shakes when compared to the afore-mentioned spade or even a fixed-handle folding shovel — or with your hands?

When everything’s bad enough, a shovel’s a shovel’s a shovel, and shovel beats hand like rock beats scissors.

I am a strong proponent of pocket pistols, because they lead to a higher number of responsibly armed Americans actually having a gun on their person during deadly force incidents. Is a pocket pistol the perfect self-defense tool from a projection-of-force standpoint? No. The rifle is still Queen of Battle, bested only by her old man Artillery, who is King. But just as a shovel’s a shovel’s a shovel when you need to dig a hole, a gun’s a gun’s a gun when a predator is closing in on you and it’s time to start shooting or start punching.

ONE SMALL PROBLEMThis is not to say that there aren’t any challenges pre-

sented by single-stack micros. For the average concealed carrier, the biggest issue with shooting a micro pistol is that the shooter is probably accustomed to a two-handed grip. Now, there’s nothing wrong with using a two-hand-ed grip on a tiny pistol; that’s exactly how I employ them. However, serious safety issues can arise if you’re not care-ful, especially if you have gorilla mitts like I do.

When holding a small pistol in the modern two-handed grip, the same off-hand thumb that normally extends onto the non-dominant side of the frame suddenly sneaks dan-gerously close to the muzzle. I’ve accidentally done this myself; say what you will about the .380 ACP as a defen-sive cartridge, but it’s certainly a solid training aid when a 90-grain jacketed hollow-point whips past your thumb close enough to leave you with what some of the old-tim-ers call a “coal miner’s tattoo.”

The solution for this issue is, like the solution for all oth-er issues in firearms handling, training. In order to employ a two-handed grip on a tiny handgun, we have to go back in history a little bit and re-examine a style that has fallen out of fashion since the auto-loader swept the revolver out of the law enforcement duty market.

When taking up the tiny gun in question, grip it in your dexterous hand as you would grip any sidearm. When placing your support hand, though, you’ll need to train so as to reliably curl your thumb and fingers down and around your shooting hand enough to keep all of your moving parts away from the muzzle. (This was one of the common law enforcement grips back in the re-volver days.)

I understand that some of you are scoffing as you read this, but stop and think for a moment about how many times you’ve acquired a firing grip on your full-size gun; now picture yourself grabbing a micro pistol during an immediate life-or-death struggle. If you’ve trained prop-erly, you’ll be incapable of doing it wrong, which might mean extending your off-thumb up onto that slide and removing the tip of it.

Now, were you actually facing said deadly threat, the tip of your off-thumb might not be all that important and its absence might even make for an interesting conversa-tion piece over the following years. Even better, though, would be to train consistently with how to handle a micro pistol. If you do, your hand will immediately recognize

»I RECENTLY GOT INTO THE “SMALL GUN/NO GUN” conversation with an individual who was serious when he said that pocket guns have no place in his defensive battery. They’re harder to shoot, have a lower capacity and why spend almost as much on a small gun when you can save a little longer and buy another big gun?

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it as such and keep all of the little piggies where they belong.

The other and essentially important op-tion is to train shooting your micro pistol one-handed. Not only is it a good idea to train shooting one-handed with any side-arm you own, but strictly defensive firearms are far more likely to be fired one-handed than the competition 1911 you had built for your husband last Christmas. With pocket guns, the chances of being forced to shoot before you’ve achieved a “proper” grip are very high, as your other hand might be oc-cupied fending off an attack that is already underway.

LADIES’ CHOICEAnother unpleasant reality a lot of mi-

cro-pistol shooters face is the fact that helpful souls often think, “Well, since she’s a woman, she should carry a little tiny gun.” I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone recommend a sidearm to a lady based on size alone. I’m not talking about

the size of the woman, let alone her level of hand strength, age, training capabilities or anything else. I’m talking about the size of the gun.

This is the kind of man who, when told that a woman is looking for a defensive sidearm, immediately hands her a snub-nosed revolver or a tiny auto. In his mind, a gun is a gun is a gun: He’ll look at the size of the hand it’ll go in and then select a gun that would look proportional in that hand to his own gun in his own hand. Though such a man is not always incorrect with re-gard to a Smith & Wesson Model 36 (and is often actually right on the money), there’s a reason I call tiny polymer .380s “border-line experts’ guns.” For starters, the combi-nation of a very small grip and extremely short sight radius makes for a difficult shot. Moreover, many of the newer micros hardly have any sights at all, so atop battling the diminutive stature of the gun itself, now this new shooter is being asked to shoot basi-cally instinctively, be it with the Applegate

Method, the C.A.R. system or some other permutation of unsighted fire that almost certainly wasn’t covered in her permit class.

All of that said, anyone could train to use any sidearm. I hate to bring her up, as she was a scumbag and a murderer, but never forget that Bonnie Parker could gunfight because she trained. She was barely 5 feet tall and never once in her life weighed more than 100 pounds, but she could hip-fire a chopped M1918 BAR while moving and taking the fight to her opponents. That’s an 18-pound fully automatic rifle chambered in .30-06 that her boyfriend, notorious cop murderer and generally trashy specimen Clyde Barrow, cut down to about the size of a modern home defense shotgun. It’s a weapons system that would tire out most rookie cops in one or two magazines, but she was adept in its use because she trained.

BUILT FOR SPEED, NOT COMFORTI’ve met very few women who out-and-

out prefer a Ruger LCP, Kel-Tec P3AT or Tau-rus TCP. Like men, women generally prefer guns that are easy to shoot: Glock 19s, CZ 75s, Walther PPQs and Smith & Wesson M&Ps. With extremely rare exceptions, we own and train with tiny guns because we have to … not because we like to.

True though that might be, we carry tiny guns specifically because they’re not Glock 19s, CZ 75s, Walther PPQs or Smith & Wes-son M&Ps. We carry them because we can drop them into a pocket rather than rig them into a pair of pants. We carry them because they’re small enough to sneak into a ward-robe that might not include a sweater, suit coat, fleece pullover or jacket. We carry them even though it can be painful to discharge them, and we understand that micro pis-tols and snub-nosed revolvers are a lot like punching an attacker in the nose as hard as you can: You’re not doing it because it’s fun; you’re doing it because if you don’t, you will likely die.

So take it easy on tiny guns. You don’t have to love shooting them, and you don’t have to love training with them. You don’t even have to own one, but I would ask that you understand why some do.

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QUICK ON THE DRAW»ADDING STRESS, NOISE AND REACTION to your handgun training does wonders for your performance.

This dueling tree from Tactical AR500 Targets, Inc. not only allows you to train alone or with a partner but its base accommodates furring strips for use with cardboard targets as well. The tree is modular; the six .375-inch steel paddles can

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IN THE 10-RING

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SURVIVINGA RAMPAGE

❚ BY K.L. JAMISON

MIRANDA AT 50

❚ BY K.L. JAMISON

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“We’re all going to die,” he replied mournfully.They thought he was joking.Actually, this mild interference in a mass murderer’s

rampage is a huge step forward for school districts. The previous policy was to cower in place and wait to die. Both policies are administratively easy for po-lice and school administrators; bodies are more easily collected and identified. It also makes it easier for the murderer to walk methodically through the facility building a homicide record.

In Surviving a Mass Killer Rampage, Chris Bird gives us the history of mass killings in America.1 Until the Oklahoma City bombing, mass killings by individuals were typically arson attacks. The hardcases of the Old West had repeating firearms but killed their enemies in ones and twos. The desperados of the Roaring ’20s and ‘30s wielded fully automatic weapons stolen from police departments and National Guard armories. However, they did so with more enthusiasm than ac-curacy.

Mass murder by firearm began 50 years ago when a disturbed young man took a trunkload of guns to the top of the clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin and began sniping people with a 6mm bolt-ac-tion hunting rifle. Responding police, armed with shotguns and revolvers, were hopelessly out of range. Local residents pulled rifles from pickup racks and car trunks and shot back. After they began to return fire, the murderer could no longer take careful aim and killed no more people. An armed civilian and two police officers entered the tower and three shotgun blasts ended the killings.

The Texas Tower incident gave birth to SWAT. Offi-cers responding to mass killers were told to establish a perimeter and allow negotiators to open communi-cation while SWAT prepared to act as a last resort. But mass killers do not want to negotiate; they want to

rack up a record number of bodies. By the time SWAT arrived, the targeted killer had been killing four to five people every minute.

The SWAT solution gave way to ad hoc teams of the first four officers to respond. This asks a lot from four officers who have never done small unit tactics together. However, mass killers are not tactical genius-es. The real problem with waiting for SWAT was that it gave killers time to increase their body counts.

Mass killers have a plan, the end result being sui-cide. When something disrupts that plan, everything falls apart. They might freeze, but they commonly de-fault to suicide. Usually, they are not tactically trained. They are typically loners but might have a partner. Ideological killers might work in groups. Islamic ter-rorists have created the rise of groups invading soft targets to create high body counts.

Bird demonstrates that mass killers do not do well when confronted with resistance. He recounts all the well-known mass killers. He discusses the less-er-known killers who did not become famous because they failed early, and they failed early because some-one fought back. In the face of resistance, mass killers die, commit suicide and, in rare cases, surrender. This led to the policy of the first officer on the scene en-tering. This allowed the killer less time, but, as Bird’s book’s subtitle says, “When seconds count, police are still minutes away.”

This obviously led to a policy of having armed secu-rity on school premises. NRA President Wayne LaPierre famously said that the only solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. This statement was ridiculed by the usual suspects. The Kansas City Star newspaper ridiculed the very idea, even the utility, of an armed guard. The newspaper has an armed guard at its door. (It was good for them but not for schoolchil-dren.) A number of school officials objected to armed

»A TEACHER WAS REQUIRED TO attend a training course on what to do if a mass murderer invaded his school. None of his school’s classrooms could be locked. Participants were given cords and told to tie their doors shut (while being shot at). When (when!) the psychopath broke through, they were to throw things at him … while he threw bullets. When the course was finished, the teacher, a former police officer, was asked to evaluate the program.

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guards from behind armed guards. Insur-ance companies warned against guards. They insure against accidents. In the re-mote chance of an accidental discharge, they will have to pay. They do not have to pay for intentional acts; they do not have to pay for mass murders. Armed guards are obvious and might provide deter-rence. Some mass killers have bypassed guarded facilities in favor of soft targets. This only changes the target. With a mass killer focused on a specific target or spe-cific persons, the armed guard is often the first person killed. This leads to the solution of having armed teachers and staff in schools.

This solution raised hysterics among the aforementioned usual suspects. Bird interviewed an early advocate of this solution, who found that school boards were willing to trust minimum wage guards with high school educations but not their own teachers with master’s de-grees in education. A number of states have authorized teachers and staff to carry guns in schools, though this au-thorization is often contingent on school board approval. School boards do not want to get caught making controversial decisions. One member said that if an ac-cident occurred, they would be blamed. If there was a mass killing, they would be horrified bystanders. Consequently, no authorization is given.

The author recounts the Pearl, Missis-sippi, case in which a vice principal ran to his truck for a pistol and captured a mass killer at gunpoint. If the gun had been closer, the casualties would have been fewer. The vice principal recounts some of the practical problems of teachers carrying guns at school. This is both the integrity of the work and the value of the book. The author sets forth the facts and does not pretend that there is a perfect answer.

Those who declare that LaPierre is

wrong — that good guys with guns aren’t the only ones who can defeat bad guys with guns — might point to a school ad-ministrator in Decatur, Georgia, who talk-ed an armed intruder into surrendering his AK-47. The woman was lucky. In other cases, persons who have tried to engage, understand or pacify the murderer were the first murdered.

The only reliable way to stop a mass killer has been proven to be an armed person on the scene. Bird’s book is the best source of incidents in which armed persons on-scene stopped killers. The mainstream media omitted the use of guns in these incidents, lest the public get the wrong idea.

Bird recounts attending school defense programs. These range from the simple lockdown to throwing objects to armed teachers shooting back. Bird reviews the curriculum of these courses with an em-phasis on the practical. When a killer goes down, the TV-inspired response is to kick away his gun. With most guns, this will not be a problem. With guns of indiffer-ent manufacture and perhaps kitchen-ta-ble gunsmithing, this could cause them to fire. Unsecured guns can be picked up by students or other untrained people. Neither of those situations will end well. The police will respond to reports of a “man with a gun, shots fired.” They will find a triumphant teacher standing over a fallen killer. They will not know these persons. They will respond under their pre-conceived notion of a mass killer and that the person with the gun is the killer. Bird’s book not only raises the question of awkward introductions all armed citi-zens must consider but also offers some answers.

The book exposes so-called “gun-free zones” as death zones. (It is hard to call them “gun-free” when most mass kill-ings occur in them.) The usual suspects continue to insist that these zones make

them feel safe; the facts prove otherwise.There is advice for children caught in a

rapid mass murder. A child huddled in a corner is an easy target. Moving targets are hard to hit, and most massacres oc-cur at close range. An instructor in one of the courses the author describes told his child that, in the event of gunshots, she was to break a window and run and keep running. He would pay for the window. He did so in front of the school princi-pal, who was not happy with the advice. The instructor decided he could live with that.

I had just read this book when my God-daughter started school. Her mother and I sat her down and had The Talk.

Kevin L. Jamison is an attorney in the Kansas City, Missouri, area concentrating in the area of weapons and self-defense.

Please send questions to Kevin L. Jami-son, 2614 NE 56th Ter, Gladstone, MO 64119-2311 or KLJamisonLaw@earthlink.net. Individual answers are not usually possible but might be addressed in future columns.

This information is for legal information purposes and does not constitute legal ad-vice. For specific questions, you should con-sult a qualified attorney.

ENDNOTE(1) Bird, Chris, Surviving a Mass Killer

Rampage, Privateer Publications, San An-tonio, TX, 2016, 398 pages, $22.95, Priva-teerPublications.com.

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BIRD’S BOOK IS THE BEST SOURCE OF INCIDENTS IN WHICH ARMED PERSONS ON-SCENE STOPPED KILLERS.

THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA OMITTED THE USE OF GUNS IN THESE INCIDENTS, LEST THE PUBLIC GET THE WRONG IDEA.

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❚ BY ED COMBSDRILL OF THE MONTH

REVOLVER RELOAD»SOME ANTI-REVOLVER FOLKS swear up and down that revolvers take too long to reload. Though the process is certainly different than with auto-loaders, this doesn’t mean that reloads cannot be executed quickly and reliably. The key is to break the whole process down into simple steps and then train on them.

For the sake of simplicity, we’ll be talking about reloading a modern swing-out cylinder firearm. When you’ve expended your five, six, seven or eight shots, you need to move to a position of cover (if possible) and do the following as fast as you can. Remember, though, “as fast as you can” means as fast as you can actually accomplish the task — not so rapidly that you start to make mistakes.

STEP 1 After the last live round is fired, place your trig-ger finger on the frame of the revolver, immediately press the cylinder release and press the cylinder out of the frame with the middle and ring fin-gers of your non-dominant hand.

STEP 2 Keep a strong hold of the gun with both hands and press the plunger to eject the empty shells. Be certain that you clear all of the empties out of the cham-bers. If you miss one, your speedloader will not be able to do its job.

STEP 3 Retrieve your speed-loader and index it on the cyl-inder. Some prefer to hold the speedloader by the knob that will eventually be actuated to release the cartridges, but if you’re a beginner, I would rec-ommend that you grip it by the frame. Until you are pro-ficient enough to smoothly and confidently position your fresh ammo, too much can happen … usually leading to your ammunition dropping out onto the ground.

STEP 4 After the cartridges are almost halfway into their respective chambers, release them from the speedloader. The exact sweet spot on your gun will vary from others. For some guns, just the noses of the bullets yield the best results. In others, it’s no more difficult to get almost the whole cartridge in and still clear the speedloader away from the revolver. Only practice will help you find out.

STEP 5 Keeping the muzzle oriented down and away from any part of your body, use your non-dominant thumb to press on the crane of the revolver to re-seat and index the cylinder. Closing the cyl-inder in this fashion reduc-es wear and is a more solid, more reliable technique than pressing on the cylinder itself.You’re now back in the fight.

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WATCH DRILL OF THE MONTH https://youtu.be/jEKBQGZP_rM

❚ BY ED COMBS

REVOLVER RELOAD

ARMED & READYYou will find your own personal best pace and your own

personal best tweaks to this process. Some of you will prefer to be clearing the gun of empties as you retrieve your reload, while some of your hands won’t allow you to reach all the way across the frame to reach the plunger. If this is the case, keep hold of the revolver in your non-dominant hand and push the plunger with the thumb or palm of your dominant hand. Again, remember to confirm that all of the cylinders are clear before you proceed. This is why I recommend that you clear the weapon first and only then grab your reload. If you have a charged speedloader in one hand and a revolver with one an-noyingly sticky empty shell in the other, you’ve got a problem.

Stay safe. Train hard.

DON’T TRAININ VAIN

❚ BY TAMARA KEEL

MIRANDA AT 50

❚ BY TAMARA KEEL

71

I once read a piece on the Brillianter.com blog (sadly defunct, so don’t go there — the domain name’s probably being cyber-squatted by fake Nigerian finance ministers now) that laid out some clear definitions that delineated actual training from what some people are actually doing when they say they’re “training.”

For instance, how many times have you heard a friend at the gun store or range describe the action pistol match-es he or she attends on the weekends as “training?”

The thing is, training involves learn-ing new skills, and after the timer beeps is generally an awful time to attempt to do that. Legendary instruc-tor Pat Rogers was fond of saying that just putting a gun in someone’s hand lops 10 points off his or her IQ, and it’s a known fact that the BEEP! of a PACT timer will trim off at least another dozen. Knowing that, the middle of a match is not the place to try to learn anything new, especially if you’re like me and don’t have a ton of IQ points to spare in the first place.

What competition is good for, how-ever, is testing skills upon which you have already trained. That draw from concealment, magazine change or technique for transi-tioning between multiple targets can get drilled over and over and over again, but until you can apply some stress, you don’t know if it stuck. Want to induce stress? It most certainly is not the same as a gunfight, true, but some timed and scored head-to-head competition against peo-ple whose respect you value will induce a lot more stress than standing alone in an empty pistol bay grinding out reps.

Another “training” reference you might hear is your friend who goes out to the pistol bay one or several times a week and grinds out those reps on various skills, but that’s a misuse of the term too.

Don’t get me wrong, going out and putting in work is maybe the most important leg of this three-legged stool

of training/practice/testing. I have seen people show up in gun classes with all the accouterments of veteran gun school attendees — the correctly branded t-shirts, good holsters on instructor belts, nice guns, an easy first-name familiarity with the instructor, etc. And then the drills start and it’s obvious that these people only shoot when they go to gun school. Everything’s rusty, and basic techniques from the instructor’s in-house curriculum get executed as

though for the first time. It’s sad to watch, but it is a good demonstrator that all the training in the world is of very little value if you don’t then go out on your own time and practice what you were taught.

Lastly, the most important thing for training to be real, actual training is instructor feedback. It’s popular to use a YouTube video or a shoot-ing book as a training aid, but the full value of training is only realized with a good instructor who can offer feedback. Sure, you can video your-self, but you probably can’t diagnose your own errors as well as an expe-rienced coach. Similarly, a training partner can be a help, but unless your training partner is skilled in di-

agnosing shooting mistakes and offering corrections, he’s not much more useful than a plain old video camera.

Remember: Training is where you go to learn new skills under the watchful eye of an instructor who can offer cor-rections to make sure you are doing things right. Practice is the self-directed range time that you use to reach a level of competence in that new skill. Testing is going out and, in matches and/or in force-on-force training, putting the skills you’ve learned to the test and seeing how well and smoothly they can be integrated with the foundational skills you already have.

Go now and train some more.

»THIS COLUMN IS USUALLY HARDWARE-ORIENTED, but with all the talk about training in this issue and this being “Ballistic Basics,” I thought it might be of service to newer shooters were I to lay out some definitions of what training isn’t. Heck, they might even provide some points to ponder for those who have been around the block a time or five.

LEGENDARY INSTRUCTOR PAT

ROGERS WAS FOND OF SAYING THAT JUST

PUTTING A GUN IN SOMEONE’S HAND

LOPS 10 POINTS OFF HIS OR HER IQ, AND IT’S A KNOWN FACT

THAT THE BEEP! OF A PACT TIMER WILL TRIM OFF AT LEAST ANOTHER

DOZEN.

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WORTHITS WEIGHT

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?❚ BY ED COMBS

MIRANDA AT 50

WORTHITS WEIGHT

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?❚ BY ED COMBS

73

I’ve mentioned this before: Basically any modern-man-ufacture firearm available new in a gun shop today is of high enough quality to function without failing very of-ten. Oh, it might be uglier than the underside of a rotten saddle and sit in your hand like a whittled brick, but it will likely fire and cycle as intended.

I understand that it pains many shooters to read such heresy in these pages — let alone in the “high-end” issue — but my point isn’t that you should buy inexpensive guns. My point is that you should never buy inexpensive defensive ammunition.

I once heard a man lament that, “You don’t always get what you pay for, but you always pay for what you get.” When he said it, he was complaining about the strength of a mixed drink served to him on a cross-country train. I’m here to tell you that the same can be said about a lot of ammunition, specifically imported ammunition. If you train with and carry nothing but corrosive North Korean mil-surp ball ammo, you shouldn’t be surprised if your results are less than optimal. I’m not talking about solid silver projectiles. I’m talking about spending on your am-munition like your life depends on it.

Which, incidentally, it just might.

GOING TO GROUNDWhen I was a boy, I was in a gun shop and saw a box

of cartridges that cost more than $100. Adjusting for in-flation, we’re talking about rifle cartridges that, in today’s dollars, were going for more than $10 a pop. I asked my father what they were and since he didn’t know, he asked the man behind the counter, who told us that they were cartridges for a rifle that you’d use on a dangerous game safari in Africa. Pointing at a Cape buffalo head over the cash register, he said something along the lines of, “When you’re facing something like that, it doesn’t pay to cheap out on your ammo.”

I would submit that a concealed carrier would have even less of a reason to “cheap out.” The man on the dan-gerous game hunt in Zambia went out of his way to put himself in that position and is probably enjoying the ful-fillment of a lifelong dream. More importantly, for the pur-poses of this conversation, he would also be backed up by his “P.H.” — professional hunter — who would be holding a rifle chambered for a cartridge that is as close as you can get to a “problem extinguisher” this side of a 20mm de-pleted uranium round.

The concealed carrier who’s being forced to defend

himself would rather be doing anything else at the time. Everything has gone wrong to such an extent that he’s now in a fight for his life, and if he manages to survive, he might well spend some time re-thinking his asset allo-cation. When the Cape ‘buff gets your scent, you’d rather know you bought the best. When a predator closes in and prepares to make you his meal, don’t be asking yourself why you absolutely, positively had to save $5 on 20 car-tridges.

A PREMIUM ON PERFORMANCEWill a less expensive cartridge “go bang”? Will its projec-

tile leave the barrel at a speed that would make it danger-ous to humans? Almost certainly, but will that projectile stop a deadly threat with the least number of shots pos-sible?

Well … it might, but I wouldn’t be willing to bet on it.Bearing this in mind, new shooters need to understand

that premium defensive ammunition is worth what it costs for several very good reasons.

First of all, the cartridges themselves are extremely consistent. By this, I mean there are almost no physical dif-ferences from unit to unit within a box. The bullets them-selves are of extremely uniform weight and size and are all equally and perfectly seated into the cases. The primers and case bases look almost as if they are clones of one another. There will be almost no difference between the amounts of powder each cartridge contains. This combi-nation results in ammunition that, if it pairs well with your specific sidearm, will reliably perform more accurately and, therefore, be a safer and more prudent choice for your defensive needs.

Secondly, that uniformity doesn’t just lead to better accuracy, it leads to higher reliability as well. When it was designed, that specific cartridge was manufactured to operate in firearms of its type, and deviations from these specifications result in failures to feed, fire and eject. When each and every cartridge is identical to the tolerances pos-sible with modern specialty manufacturing, the chance of your pistol or revolver experiencing an ammunition-in-duced malfunction drops to basically zero.

Third, the projectiles themselves will not only be of almost identical weight and dimension, more effort and resources will have been expended on their design and manufacture. Physically, they will be higher quality bullets. I don’t know how many rounds I’ve fired into gel over the years, but one reality immediately jumped to light: Certain

»THOUGH THIS IS OUR “HIGH-END” ISSUE, I’ll be mostly sidestepping firearms in this column. Not only do we employ writers who are far more versed than I in life’s finer pursuits, I consider the firearm almost secondary to what it eats.

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ammunition contains projectiles that are extremely predictable. Sure, all bets might be off if you have to engage a home invader who’s wearing improvised body armor, but through our testing here at CCM, we’ve con-firmed that money spent on quality jacketed hollow-points is as wisely as any concealed carrier can invest a few $10 bills.

INVEST WISELYThere will occasionally be exceptions.

I carried a Model 19 Smith & Wesson as a woods gun for many years, and try as I might, I could never find a cartridge that shot as accurately out of that old beast as the Winchester “white box” personal de-fense .38 Special +P jacketed hollow-points. It was, at the time, kind of an obscure load that I was only able to occasionally find at Walmart, but I bought them out of it when-ever possible because it shot like a laser out of that old K-frame of mine and a box of 50 jacketed hollow-points rarely cost more than Wally World wanted for a box of target .38 FMJs.

I only bring this up because it is the one and only time in my decades of pistol shoot-ing that I’ve ever even heard of the cheapest round on the shelf delivering the best accu-

racy and packing a quality defensive bullet. In literally every other circumstance I’ve ever experienced, a responsibly armed American would have to spend a little more on his “so-cial ammo” than on his training ammo.

IT’S IN THE MAGEqually important to folks who carry a

defensive autoloader is purchasing quality magazines. Many have been the times I’ve seen a man spend a grand on a quality 1911 only to hamstring it by pairing it with noth-ing but 1980s government-contract mags. After spending $1,000 on a pistol, all of a sudden it’s time to save a buck, and in do-ing so, he manages to turn a gun that’s al-most ultimately reliable out of the box into a shady jam-o-matic.

Whenever possible, you should only pur-chase OEM (original equipment manufac-turer) carry magazines for your defensive pistol. What this means is that if you carry a Glock 19, you should use magazines manu-factured by Glock, Incorporated. If you carry a Springfield or a Walther or a SIG, well … guess where I’m going to advise you source your mags?

The exception is the 1911. Though it will almost certainly ship with at least one mag-

azine, if you’re going to follow my program of “have as many magazines for each pistol you own as the average 7-year-old has indi-vidual LEGO blocks,” you’re probably going to have to do a little research about your specific gun.

This is where our old friend Mr. Interwebs comes in. Never before have you been able to read reviews from so many different 1911 owners who will be able to steer you in the approximate right direction, and this is one of the few areas in which borderline random Internet chatter is actually worth some-thing. You could bankrupt yourself buying and assessing every last 1911 magazine available. Reading about the experiences of other 1911 shooters who own your specific make and model of pistol can save you a lot of time and money.

Apart from that, I’m afraid you’re just go-ing to have to get comfortable with the fact that ammunition and magazines will likely be an expensive component of your EDC. Mid-violent assault isn’t the time to be wish-ing you could spend that money over again.

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Keeping something between the threat and you

DRILL OF THE MONTH

»THE HARD TRUTH is that most deadly force encounters happen at very close range and often involve more than one attacker. Your positioning can go a long way in keeping you alive in such a scenario, especially if you practice using any cover available —even one of your attackers — to protect you from incoming rounds.

BAD GUY COVER

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TARGET STACKINGIf your assailant has a sidekick and

you are forced to engage both of those attackers, the best course of action is to engage the closest threat, then put that threat between you and the next threat. This is called “target stacking” and is not very complicated. It is, however, some-thing you really need to think about and train for. Hence, this drill.

KEEP IT SIMPLE For the video version of this drill, we

used Target Marking Rounds from Ulti-mate Training Munitions. This allows us

to set up a tactical range just about any-where. The training could also be done with Laser Ammo or any other laser-in-dicating device, like a SIRT pistol. The most important part is the movement. At such close range, combat accuracy should be fairly simple.

Place two (or more) targets on the range, with one in front of you and at

least one offset as though in the “side-kick” position. The position doesn’t really matter much because you can’t always dictate the position of your ad-versary. Adapt to it. Move the targets often while training. Just make sure you have a safe backstop.

Run this drill only as quickly as you can safely and accurately draw, move and fire. Focus on the basics. Get the gun safely out of the holster. Keep your non-gun hand away from the line of fire. Don’t cross your feet as you move. Come to full extension if you have to engage the second or subsequent targets. I say

“if you have to” because you should al-ways assess before firing. Don’t train yourself to fire when you don’t need to fire.

Continually rearrange the targets during this training drill to force your-self to move in different directions and different distances in order to engage Target 2. By varying the location of the

targets and your starting point, this drill forces you to think ahead and choose the best possible angle for cover and concealment during the engagement. Never run this drill exactly the same twice in a row. Mix it up, because you can never predict how things will hap-pen on the street.

KEY CONCEPTSThis drill requires you to effectively

connect several elements of defensive shooting, including the draw, firing safely from a weapon retention posi-tion, movement and combat accuracy. It also requires situational awareness and the ability to rapidly develop and execute a plan of action.

Master the four-step draw. Ensure your off-hand is clear of the line of fire as you engage the first target. Never cross your feet as you move. Index your firearm on the center of the second tar-get before you fire. Repeat this until it becomes second nature.

Keeping something between the threat and you

❚ BY KEVIN MICHALOWSKI

WATCH DRILL OF THE MONTH https://youtu.be/2uMaASsiDDg

B Y T H E N U M B E R SStep 1: Arrange two targets in an offset position.

Step 2: Using all safety practices, prepare your training area.

Step 3: At a distance of less than 3 yards, engage the closest target to you. Draw and fire from Position 3 of the draw. Do not come to full extension at this distance. Index the firearm on center mass and fire twice.

Step 4: Take a large step to one side or the other, keeping Target 1 between Target 2 and you. Come to full extension, assess and fire if required.

NEVER RUN THIS DRILL EXACTLY THE SAME TWICE IN A ROW. MIX IT UP, BECAUSE YOU CAN NEVER PREDICT HOW THINGS WILL HAPPEN ON THE STREET.

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ASK THE USCCA

»ANSWER: Chester,Thank you for your letter to the USCCA

and your interest in our organization. To address your concerns about the “Letters to the Editor” page, we indeed print letters that are not complimentary. For instance, we have had a rousing debate about Con-dition 1 carry of a 1911 on the pages of the “Letters to the Editor” section and in my “Editor’s Shot” column. We never shy away from controversy, and I make it a point and stress to the staff of the magazine that we will always look at all sides of an issue. Ours is not “THE” way, ours is “A” way. If someone shows me a better way, I adopt it as soon as I can master it. We are all students here.

The reason you see so few negative let-ters is, quite frankly, we get very few. And we answer each one personally before it goes to print. I take this position very se-riously. In addition to this job, I am also a

working police officer and work very hard to employ other cops along with the best trainers in the nation and experienced people who, above all, are willing to learn. Self-defense training is a journey.

I would suggest you subscribe, and if our magazine does not impress you in every aspect, I will personally refund your $47 subscription fee from my own bank ac-count. We are not perfect, but I think we are the best you will find. I’ve made this offer several times and I have never had to write such a check.

As to the comments and opinions of our detractors, I am sure you can find some. I am sure you will find people who run other, similar companies who don’t like what we do or how we do it. You will get that in any business. But I have personally witnessed the excellent customer service and the speed with which this company handles

questions, claims and concerns. I know the care we take and the pride we

have in being the best in the business. Our goal at the USCCA is your complete satis-faction in every element of your self-de-fense training, education and insurance. We won’t let you down.

Stay safe.Kevin MichalowskiExecutive EditorConcealed Carry Magazine

»QUESTION: I am and have been doing the study to enter the concealed carry arena. I have looked at various sites and opinions. I have looked at as many sides of your organization as I can. I have read the opinions of your detractors and would like to hear your response. In addition, I have read much of your complementary magazine. I am interested in the “Letters to the Editor” section. Some read as promotional letters. I am interested in whether you print those who disagree and how you respond. I am looking forward to your response, as it might be the final straw as to whether I become a member. Chester, Missouri

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