You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2009.
This video is pure liquid awesome. Here is a disabled vet with something on his mind and he isn’t afraid to say it. This is how you talk to these career politicians that think they know whats best for you no matter what your opinion on the subject might be. These jackholes need to remember that they work for us, not the other way around.
Mind set is the hardest point to teach some individuals. It’s something that must be used during practice or training sessions. You can’t expect it to be there when you need it if you never make it a part of your training.
It’s something I’ve seen other places as well. Take martial arts. You can tell the ones that are there for an exercise program and the ones there to learn to really defend themselves. You’ll be practicing something with a person with a smile on their face and going through the motions. Switch to a new partner and even though you know they aren’t going to intentionally harm you in class but they are serious and focused and when they throw something for you to block you think they’re out to take your head off. That’s the spirit you want to have when practicing ‘gun-fu’ as well.
During a course you typically don’t shoot life like targets. It’s pretty plain that they are paper but you have to go at it as if they were someone trying to harm you. That being said I like the way Mr. Farnam explains this subject in the terms of winners and losers.
13 Aug 09
Winners and Losers:
I have a copy of a painting, commissioned years ago by Las Vegas tycoon Steve Wynn, called “Winners and Losers.” It depicts a smokey old gambling hall filled with poker players. Some are obviously fearful and frustrated. Others are cheerful and confident. It is a masterpiece!
In our line of work, we could probably teach chimpanzees how to operate a pistol, or play poker for that matter, but they still wouldn’t have a clue with regard to how either activity properly fits into their lives.
Among our human students, we typically have “nice” people who are personally honest and generally successful in our civilization, but many still display what we call “loser-traits” which will predictably sabotage an otherwise sincere effort to master our Art.
Winners are unafraid! They spend their time finding a way to win, rather than looking for an excuse to lose. Winners fear neither victory nor failure.Losers are deathly afraid of both!
Yes, losers are afraid! Fear ever haunts the base of their being and prevents them from ever walking upright, confidently, proudly.
Losers mumble! They don’t speak clearly, nor with conviction. They can’t even seem to speak in complete sentences, because their thought processes are confused and perverse. They are afraid of truth, afraid of reality in all forms. They doubt their ability to handle life, so they hide their faces from the light of day.
Losers are bitter and resentful! They are angry with everyone. They can’t handle correction. They savagely defend their every mistake, every blunder, every crime like a lioness her young! Their elaborate rationalizations are sadly comical.
Losers are afraid of growing up! They prefer to be “taken care of.” Accepting full, personal responsibility for anything is unthinkable.
Losers snivel, whine, and make excuses! They take personal responsibility for nothing, always blaming others and “bad luck” for every gloomy hand they’re dealt.Losers surround themselves with enablers and coddlers who never challenge them! Losers associate only with other losers!
Losers are chronically unproductive! They run their mouths continuously, but habitually shun productive work.
Losers know right from wrong, but conduct their lives as if they didn’t! They’re into “situation ethics,” offering up endless excuses for lying and other misdeeds.
Most of all, losers are ashamed, and should be! They cheerlessly watch themselves missing out on all the best life has to offer, but personal vanity and cowardice ever prevent them from sincerely repenting, and then boldly claiming their own magnificence.
As Instructors, these loser traits, some of which, to some degree, are displayed by nearly everyone, are our constant adversary.
Again, merely teaching a set of mechanical skills is just the beginning, and indeed, almost a side-show!
/John
I want to get something out here that I’ve been watching on the horizon for a while now. There was an article in the local news that really points us in the direction of my point.
Look we have had a few decades of decent living with decent people. Not many people in “good” areas remember what it was like to look over their shoulder for any good reason and we have grown complacent. The nice lady in the article just trying to make it home wasn’t in the inner city. She was in a decent residential area. There really shouldn’t have been need to worry.
Look folks, our national economy is in the toilet. Hundreds of thousands of people are loosing their jobs every month. The government is, in my opinion, actively trying to make things worse so “We The People” will be more and more reliant on them for our daily bread. The more they do so the more desperate people will become.
Okay, history time. The 1920’s and 30’s sucked. Why? The Great Depression. That’s the last time we have had a housing market this bad so lets use that as our equal spot in the time line. When there is no work to keep shady people active bad things happen. People found they could make a living by taking away other people’s living. My point with this is that hungry people will go to great lengths to continue living. You get people that loose their jobs, have no family to help them, and are at the end of their rope their survival instincts will kick in. They will do what it takes to survive.
I know here in Utah we are already seeing this. We’ve had two bank robberies in the last week. Bank robbery has been up in general the last six months. Now we have an older lady robbed while walking home in a decent area of town.
Now here’s my reason for all this. We have to open our eyes. Simply floating through life oblivious to our surroundings has to stop. We can no longer live with the belief that, “everyone around me is one of the good guys and I have nothing to worry about”. We can no longer sit while we let the police or “the gun toting crowd” watch over us like sheepdogs. You have to be aware of yourself and what is around you. You have to look at people on the street around you and size them up. Sound like profiling? It should in my book. Profiling to me is just using your natural instincts in order to keep yourself safe. You don’t want to carry a gun or a knife to protect your family and self from what I hope never happens to you fine. I’m really ok with that. Carry mace, carry a whistle, carry something. Just do something to take care of yourself. Please.
I don’t want to speculate that things are going to get worse because I really don’t want things to go that far. I will tell you this. I am going to carry my pistol when I go out. I’m going to watch around me more than I have in the past. I will look at the reflection in the store windows as I walk by to see who is behind me more. I will confront evil if, Heaven forbid, it comes my way. If you wont stand up for yourself and say I wont take this without a fight, then do it for your family. They deserve to have you come home from work or where ever you go. They need you to be there for them.
Defencive Handgun Course:
Our next handgun course is on 9-26-09 at the Buckskin Hills Range near Vernal, UT. We will be starting 9:00AM that morning and will go till 2:00PM. You’ll need 200 rounds of your pistol ammo and decent holster you can draw from. Course cost is $150. For other details and payment contact us via our website, www.crusaderweaponry.com
Well the write up on my new holster is going to have to wait a little bit longer than I wanted. I just got a message yesterday that it is on back order. Finding enough patience to go around isn’t going to be easy. I’m jones’n for it to get here enough as it is without it being on back order.
As soon as it gets here I will get it tested and the write up done. So just hang tight with me and we’ll all get through this together.
I’ve been looking into getting a new CCW holster for a while now. A good friend of mine (Mr. Dahl) turned me on to inside the waist band holsters. He let me try on his new holster some months back and that changed my out look on them. In the last week I was able to try on the Galco N3 holster with my pistol. That was so comfortable I couldn’t believe it. Re-holster was easy and the pistol glided out for presentation. Since every one of these holsters are gone in my area I ordered it yesterday.
I’m really excited about this holster showing up. I will do a full right up on it after it arives and I’ve worn it for atleast a week or two. That way you get the full perspective with some time wearing the holster.
Until then….
With our next course coming up on September 5th I wanted to post a couple pictures of our last course. We had a great group of students, everyone improved, and had a great time in the process.
George "Ogre" Hill (instructor)
The next class will be posted too. Don’t miss out on being a part of the next class.
TWO THINGS
Two things move under this night sky:
that Thing that came to murder, and I
He, released from prison to roam,
and I, peaceably headed home
He carries a knife and drug-addled sense,
seeing prey, without defense
I detect movement, intuitive fear
and put my hand to pistol near
Worried, alone in that gloomy blight
above the fear, I prepare to fight
He sees my pistol and makes no sound,
fleeing to hunt less risky ground
No predator dares go hunting for me
for I am armed, and that makes me free
I holster my pistol and slowly stand down
heading, once-again, towards home in my dark, sleeping town
For there are two things that, this night, shall not die:
my Right to be Armed, and I!
Anon
“A nation of sheep will beget a government of ravenous wolves, cynically
masquerading as ’shepards!’”
/John
How many shots? This from a LEO in CA: “Last week, during a sweep, two of our tactical officers confronted a well-known, local VCA and gang-member. He was armed and, without hesitation, went for his concealed pistol. He never made it! Both our officers fired simultaneously, and both rounds hit. VCA was 10-X’ ed, twice. He went right down and was DRT at the scene. All of which is wonderful, of course, but both officers attempted to fire their pistol multiple times, and both unhappily discovered they were, unbeknownst to them, carrying one-shooters! As it turns out, additional rounds were probably unnecessary, but both officers were astonished to discover that their pistols had failed to cycle normally after the first round. It was subsequently diagnosed, in both cases, to be a feed-ramp problem. Easily corrected. However, these guys are all high-speed, and this kind of misstep is not supposed to happen!” Lessons: (1) Test your gear before you carry it! More than once I’ve failed to adequately test, with the high-performance ammunition I carry for serious purposes, a pistol I just got back from my favorite gunsmith, only to discover (on the range, fortunately) that my new pistol didn’t like the ammunition I was feeding it. How unfair! In this business we don’t like surprises. Accordingly, don’t set yourself up to be “surprised!” Make sure you’re not “beta-testing” in the field! (2) When carrying an autoloading pistol, you’re pretty-much guaranteed the first shot. There are no guarantees after that. Your gun may run normally, and it may not! Accordingly, never forget that the most important shot you’ll ever fire, and maybe the only one you get to fire, is your first one! The naive foolishly believe that they can afford to pitch their first few rounds, because they have a “high-capacity” magazine. Never allow yourself to be seduced by that false line of thinking. Treat every round as if it were your only round, and you’ll live through many fights, as these two officers so expertly demonstrated!
/John
