Do you shoot human-like targets?

Right now I’m still on the West Coast and I’ve been traveling around Utah and Nevada looking at new shooting ranges to use for future training classes.

And the other day while I was inspecting one of the ranges the gentleman who was showing me around said, “You don’t use targets that show real people do you?” I explained to him that I use several different targets throughout my courses and some of them are indeed human-like.

He then got a frown on his face and said, “we do mainly hunter education here and we don’t like to encourage people to shoot other people so we don’t want human-like targets on the range.”

A comedy routine?

When he said that, I almost laughed out loud thinking he was deadpanning some comedy routine, but when I realized he was serious I simply said “okay” and left. The sad fact is, I guess this illustrates, much to my surprise, that all gun people aren’t perfect.

I do realize there are a lot of ranges and even states that don’t allow human-like targets. (I don’t know if this true, but I was once told that the state of Massachusetts did not allow human targets.)

Now for people who have common sense, and I like to think I’m one of them, obviously, shooting a human-like target is not going to encourage me to want to go out and kill people. Normal people (like you and me) have no desire to kill another person and will try to avoid it at all costs.

The only people who want to kill others are already “messed up” in the head and I’m pretty sure they’re going to kill people whether they’ve been training on human-like targets or bottle-shaped targets.

The thing is…

Us “normal people” who carry guns for personal protection need to make our training as reality-based as possible. When someone breaks into your home at 3am and tries to kill your family it’s going to be a person, not a bottle-shaped cardboard silhouette.

And if you’re sitting on the range and you get queasy about shooting at a human-like target then carrying a gun is not for you. It’s better you find out now before the gun is taken from you when you hesitate to use it, and instead it’s used on you.

The bottom line is, at my pistol courses we shoot at human-like targets because that’s what the threat is most likely going to be one day (it could be an animal too) and you need to train as close to real life as possible.

So if your range allows it I encourage you to take a few human-like targets with you next time or if you dry fire in your house you can start dry firing on a human-like target. And if your friends or family members tell you it’s “inhumane” or wrong to use a human-like target, just remember that these will be the same people begging you to grab your gun and protect them when someone’s trying to break into your house or cause them harm.  

Locking up my guns from my daughter

On Friday, my wife and I welcomed the newest member of the Concealed Carry Academy family. Although, unlike my other employees, this one won’t prove useful for a number of years and will probably end up costing me a small fortune... Her name is Scarlet and she weighed 8 pounds, 4 ounces.

Now that I’ve had my first child I can fully understand how someone could go all Charles Bronson Death Wish for messing with your child. I also understand why people’s gun purchases diminish after a child. (Let’s just say I almost had a heart attack when I found out the price of the baby pictures they take right before you leave the hospital. And yes, we got them. I may be cheap, but I’m wise enough to pick and choose my battles.)

And now that I’ve got my first child at home I thought it would be appropriate today to cover the topic of how I lock up all of my guns. I have a lot of guns in my house and I utilize a variety of safes and “gadgets” to keep them secure.

The two most common safes in my house are the Gun Vault and the Stack-On PDS 500.

Both of these safes are fast opening, allowing the gun to be accessed in 3 seconds or less. Personally, I have guns stored on every level of my house and thus, one of these safes is on each level so that I can quickly access a gun if need be.

Also, both of these safes require me to punch in buttons to open them and they don’t use any biometric/fingerprint scanning. The biometric technology in most safes is not good enough yet and you don’t want to be killed by an intruder because you swiped your finger 15 times and the safe still wouldn’t open.

For my long guns – shotguns and rifles – I do a few different things.

For some of my guns I have them locked in a hard side case. For guns that I want slightly quicker access to I use the Breechvault (made for shotguns by the Gun Vault Company) and the Magvault (for my AR-15, also made by Gun Vault.)

Of course, there a dozens of different firms that produce vaults and safes, but the important thing to remember is that all guns should be locked and secure somehow. In other words, I meet a lot of people who tell me they have guns hidden in their house in secret locations (like the clock the NRA sells that really holds a gun.)

These are obviously not a good idea, especially if you have kids around because they only hide guns, they don’t safely secure them. One other thing I want to quickly cover is what I discussed last week. When I’m in my house I’ll often carry my Ruger LCP or a S&W snubby in my pocket.

When carrying these guns I’m always mindful of where the gun is pointing to make sure I’m not muzzling anyone. And if I ever take off my pants to shower or change, then the gun obviously goes right into a safe and not on the ground still in the pocket of the pants.

And don’t forget, even if you don’t have young kids you probably still have friends, family members, plumbers, electricians, the cleaning lady, and other people walking through your house. So lock up those guns so nobody can access them, except you and your spouse.

How to carry in a restaurant

I rarely go out to eat unless I’m traveling. And the last few days I’ve been in Utah, Nevada and California. I was in Utah for my family reunion, which is always a good time since this is the side of my family that actually gets along and doesn’t try to avoid each other.

I was in Vegas for a few meetings, and now I’m back in California visiting the wonderful in-laws. And because of all of this traveling I’ve been eating out quite a bit and of course, carrying my gun in the restaurants (except in California.)

Today, I want to share with you some simple and important information about carrying your gun when you’re out to eat that will hopefully keep you and your family safer. First off, the gun I’ve been carrying is a Smith & Wesson snub-nosed revolver. I’ve been carrying it in my front right pocket, which is where I carry all of my pocket guns.

When carrying in your pocket…

The critical thing to remember is not to muzzle the person who is sitting across from you. In other words, before you sit down at a table in the restaurant you need to plan where you’re going to sit so you aren’t pointing a loaded gun at your family member.

Luckily, this is easy to do because when I sit in a booth I always sit on the left hand side, furthest out. In this position my right leg is pointing out into the walking area of the restaurant and nobody who is with me is getting muzzled. (This is because men typically have their legs spread when sitting, which is why my right leg is pointing in the walking area. For women, you may have to adjust your legs and pretend you’re a guy for the duration of the meal.)

The other important thing to remember…

Always try and face the restaurant entrance if you can. I’ve had people in the past tell me that this is “stupid” to do or is what “Rambo” types try to do and I think they’re crazy to think this way. Almost all police officer’s do this and it’s takes about 5 seconds to change seats with someone, so if you’re carrying a gun I highly encourage you to do this.

After all, if you see someone come through the entrance showing warning signs of an attack, that extra second you have to react may be the difference between life and death. Again, the two items I’ve just shared are so simple that there is no reason not to do them the next time you go out to eat because you should always follow the 4 safety rules and because we know that attacks happen everywhere.

My Thoughts on the Colorado Shooting

As soon as the Colorado shooting happened my cell phone began to ring. The callers on the other end were my friends who were Democrats who launched into the gun control tirade. I let them go on their tirade as I’m used to it and didn’t respond back because it’s pointless.

What I’ve learned over the years as a firearms instructor is that the only time an anti-gun person will change their mind is when something bad happens to them and they realize a gun would have prevented it. Case in point: The female students who attend my training and tell me they used to hate guns but they were raped and now realize they need a gun.

I’ve never claimed to be the smartest guy in the world, but I am thankful I was blessed with common sense to know guns keep the honest people safe and that the criminals will cause harm one way or another.

With that being said, here are the major thoughts I have on the Colorado shooting.

Obviously, it’s a horrible tragedy and it breaks your heart, especially to hear the stories of the young victims, such as the 6-year-old girl. All you can really say is that there are some evil monsters in this world and unfortunately we as society often don’t realize they’re evil until it’s too late.

I also thought to myself that it’s a shame that nobody in the theater was carrying concealed (or maybe they were and just didn’t draw.) They might not have been able to save very many lives because of the quickness of the shooter, but even if they had saved one it would have been worth it.

However, the big thought I had is that sometimes you can be as vigilant as possible and there is nothing you can do about stopping an attack. You and I are not the President of the United States and aren’t surrounded 24/7 by dozens of secret service, therefore we are much easier targets for a criminal and none of us can be on high alert all of the time.

But even though that’s the case…

It’s still important to not go down without a fight. The loser attitude is to be a victim, to lay down and assume you can’t control it and think they’re going to get you anyway, whereas, the winners in life will do everything they can to keep themselves safer.

And that’s why every time I leave my house I have my gun with me because if it happens to be the day that I’m supposed to meet my maker, at least I’ll go down firing and not helpless.

So if you happen to be like me and your friends and family members are on their high horse about the evils of guns, I hope you’ll just ignore them and not let them get to you. Because one day you may end up saving their lives thanks to your gun.

Perhaps most ironic of all, is that thanks to the Second Amendment and gun owners like you and I, our anti-gun friends have the freedom to talk bad about us and complain there’s not enough gun control, because without the guns, we’d long have been invaded by another country (or been fully locked down by our own gov’t) and who knows what America would be like now.

2 Drills for the Advanced Gun Fighter

This past Saturday I taught one of my Advanced Defensive Pistol courses. I had a really great group of students – one of those special classes – special in a good way, not in a bad way, if you know what I mean.

I can truthfully say there isn’t a person who attended the class who I wouldn’t be proud/comfortable to have by my side in a gunfight and I certainly don’t make that assertion lightly.

Today, I thought I’d share with you some of the drills we did at the class, a few of which you can practice on your own in the comfort of home. One of the first drills we did at the beginning of the day was a “Close Quarters Push-Off” drill.

The way this drill works…

Is that you’re standing about arms-length away from the target. When the “threat” command is given, the shooter pushes away from the target with their left hand while moving backwards and drawing and firing the gun.

We know the majority of gunfights are close range, so this drill teaches you to push off with your left hand simulating that you’re slapping away a knife, or hitting the person to stun them giving you time to draw and shoot.

You can practice this drill in your own home by pasting a target on the wall, hitting the target, then backing off and drawing and “firing.” Just make sure you have a safe and empty gun and you know your backstop.

The second drill is what I call the “End of the World Drill.” This drill takes place in a 360 degree shooting range and numbered targets are in a circle around the range. I walk the students into the very middle of the range and have them close their eyes and tell them that it’s the end of the world and they’re surrounded by zombies, Obama supporters and their mother-in-law.

I then spin them around a few times to disorient them…

And then I call the first number, which they must quickly find and shoot. Then I quickly yell at second number and they must charge in that direction and shoot too. I do this with multiple numbers until they’re running all around the circle engaging different threats from different directions.

Typing it here does not do the drill justice, but let’s just say by the time it’s done they’re huffing and puffing and they’re much better trained to quickly acquire threats that may come from all around them.

Probably the most difficult drill of the day, which every student accomplished, was clearing a “double feed” malfunction one-handed. (With both the strong and weak hand.) If I had to guess, not one in a million gun owners knows how to clear a double feed one handed, and I’d explain here, but it’s really something you have to seen in person, otherwise I’d totally confuse you.

With that being said, you should always be improving your self-defense skills, so if you’ve never practiced close quarters combat drills, or never been in a 360 range or never cleared a double-feed one handed, try and learn those skills in the future because life is strange and you never know when you’ll need them.

Quick Draw vs. Slow Draw

Today’s article is actually being written for my father-in-law, but I thought you’d find it interesting. Let me explain:

My father-in-law is a computer wizard. All I can really tell you is that he builds super computers for Oracle, and after about the first 30 seconds of explaining his job to me I had no idea what he was talking about.

This means he’s a very inquisitive guy and loves numbers and statistics and pretty much everything I don’t like. Well, apparently, the other day he was reading a gun article where someone was saying it was better to draw the gun slowly and that quick drawing was bad because it drew attention to the person, etc. etc. etc…. And my father-in-law asked me to find the statistics on this and wanted my opinion about which draw I thought was better.

And even though he’s committing the sin of living in California, he did play a pretty important part in producing my wife, so I decided to see what I could find out for him regarding quick draw vs. slow draw.

After much digging…

I can tell you that Officers in Baltimore County Maryland have a hit ratio of 64%… 77% of shootings occur in some type of low light… And that when one officer is involved in a shooting he averages a 51% hit ratio… but if it’s a multiple officer shooting the hit ratio drops to 23%.

In other words, I found a lot of statistics, but nothing on quick draw vs. slow draw. So here’s what I can tell you from my own experience. The two times in my life when I had to draw my firearm it couldn’t come out fast enough. If someone is coming at you with a knife at an ATM machine, that gun should come out lightning fast. If a guy is approaching your car with a gun, you better draw quick.

I read a story last month about a criminal with a knife charging a guy and his girlfriend in a restaurant parking lot. The guy drew quickly, his girlfriend ducked and he shot over her to kill the attacker.

On the other hand…

There are instances where slow draw may be appropriate. For example, if you’re in a restaurant and all of the sudden a guy pulls out a gun to rob the register it’s probably not a good idea to whip out your gun and start shooting. Let the guy rob the place and give a good description for police.

Or if you’re standing in line at the bank and the guy in the line next to you throws on a ski mask and takes out a shotgun to rob the place you may want to remain still. But, if he starts shooting people then you know it’s more than a robbery and you better draw that gun quickly and deal with him.

The bottom line is, quick draw vs. slow draw depends purely on the circumstances. One day you may find yourself in a position where you have to slowly draw the gun under a restaurant table to see what the robber is going to do.

But if I had to guess, I’d bet the majority of times a gun is drawn it’s coming out quick, which is why I believe if you carry concealed you better be able to draw your gun and get it on target in 2 seconds or less.

Should you have optics on your rifle?

This Saturday I’m teaching a defensive rifle course. And if it’s like most courses, I’ll have folks show up with a wide variety of optics on their rifles and most will be surprised to see that I use iron sights and I don’t use any optics at all.

There are many reasons for this. One of the main reasons is because I’m a simple man… a minimalist if you will. I like my guns simple and I don’t like to put a bunch of accessories on them if I don’t need them.

Luckily, I’m not out in the mountains of Afghanistan where I might have to take a 300-yard shot and my eyesight is good, so I do just fine without a red dot for my defensive rifle purposes. (In other words, I don’t pretend I’m Rambo, I realize my rifle is for my urban environment.)

Another reason I’m not a huge fan of optics is because I’ve seen them fail many times.

In fact, here are two instances from the last two rifle courses. In one case, I saw a guy staring at his red dot and pushing a bunch of buttons with a funny look on his face. He said his battery was dead so he went to change his batteries. He seemed to be back there for a long time and finally came back to say he had accidentally purchased the wrong batteries for his red dot so it was now useless to him.

In the other instance, the fellow was doing the same thing, staring at his red dot making a funny face, but this guy did bring the right batteries.

Remember, these were classes, where it’s no big deal if you run out of batteries, but if that was a life or death situation, obviously things could have gone downhill very quickly. That’s why, if you use any type of optic on your rifle you must have back up iron sights.

Even more importantly, both your optic and your iron sights must be zeroed.

If you’re too lazy to zero your iron sights and your batteries go dead, then I’d be very careful taking any shots because you don’t know where the bullets headed, and, as you’re well aware, you’re responsible for every round that leaves your gun.

But if you really want an optic on your gun, I’d go with Aimpoint if I were you. Their batteries last for a long time and you should only have to replace them every 5 years, even though I recommend getting fresh batteries every year, no matter what.

And if you really want to break the bank and pretend you’re Rambo, then go with an ACOG. It will probably cost you more than you paid for your rifle, but it should last you forever and you can certainly bet your life on it.