Is your firearms training realistic?
Will the way you practice self-defense with your gun work in a real life situation?
Unfortunately, criminals rarely shout “threat!” as they attack, they don’t conveniently stand stock-still, and they’re incredibly uncooperative with their would-be victims. The sad fact of the matter is that even most “advanced” self-defense classes offered by reputable organizations and shooting schools only prepare us to deal with caricatures of threats, and generally in manners that won’t succeed in a real conflict.
Interesting article, and one that anyone who wants to carry a weapon, concealed or open, should read and think about.
Readers!
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Will the way you practice self-defense with your gun work in a real life situation?
Unfortunately, criminals rarely shout “threat!” as they attack, they don’t conveniently stand stock-still, and they’re incredibly uncooperative with their would-be victims. The sad fact of the matter is that even most “advanced” self-defense classes offered by reputable organizations and shooting schools only prepare us to deal with caricatures of threats, and generally in manners that won’t succeed in a real conflict.
Interesting article, and one that anyone who wants to carry a weapon, concealed or open, should read and think about.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
The fact of being armed serves as a deterrent to a potential attacker.
I still think the world would be a safer place if everyone was armed. Would ISIS have ever been such a threat if every man woman and child in Iraq had been given a revolver?
The “Wild West” wasn’t so wild. During the 1800s in the 30 years or so considered to be the wild west period there were only about a dozen bank robberies in all the western states and territories combined. (how many last month in Chicago with all their “gun control”?)
An armed society is a POLITE society.
Everybody has heard about the shootout at the OK corral because it was so RARE.
The “Wild West” only existed in a small town we know as Hollywood.
How does the attacker know your armed?
They do not, so the premise that being armed deters anyone is false.
But the idea that you might be armed might stop a few attackers. Those who don’t want to make the jump to a blitzkrieg type of assault. Knocking you out first. This runs the risk of severe harm if not death to the victim and some criminals do not want to go that far, yet.
And you are correct about the ‘wild west’. My ancestor only carried a shotgun while working the herd on his Tex/Mex ranch. And never carried into town. No need.
On the idea that everyone should be armed. I’m not so sure about that. Some people just don’t need or deserve a handgun. And some I just don’t trust safety wise.
Have you ever taught someone who just flat out had a fear of firearms? I have tried, and even after getting them to a point were they could possibly hit a target when given time and no pressure I would never trust them to use that weapon in a hunting or even defensive situation.
Some people have just proven to the legal system that they can not play well with others and have numerous felonies to prove they have little impulse control. And in many cases are dangerous with nothing more than their hands.
And of course there are those who just don’t want a gun. I can understand their choice and fully support it. As long as they don’t try to impose that same idea of ‘no guns’ on me.
“The “Wild West” only existed in a small town we know as Hollywood.”
In the old west, there was another small town that really did exist and was most likely the origin of the myth of the shootout, brothel, and gambling halls that Hollywood (and therefore the rest of the world) associates with virtually every western town. It was a lawless place known as “Hell on Wheels” and was not stationary but traveled with the construction of the Union Pacific’s end of the transcontinental railroad. Had the UP bothered to supply adequate security to that part of the “construction town,” the well-known and seemingly common phenomenon of the wild west “shootout” (and other rarities) probably would be as rare as the OK Corral. Even that shootout is likely famous only because it reinforced the myth surrounding “Hell on Wheels.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_on_Wheels
I suspect that if it weren’t for the myth of the wild west shootout, we would still think of guns as defensive, especially since Hollywood provided us with yet another myth that all Indian tribes always attacked every wagon train that crossed the plains, and the gun and circling the wagons were the only defense (except for the Deus Ex machina cavalry coming over the hill at the last minute).
I somehow don’t think the idea that Hell on wheels referred to anything more than a moving cat house and bar. Operated out of nothing more than wagons and tents. Much like ‘Hookers’ women followed the troops in the civil war. They operated out of nothing more than a few wagons and tents.
And most of the camps residents would be relatives of the works just like in the civil war.
I don’t believe the workers on the railroad had enough time to travel more than a few miles on foot to go and ‘get some’. They would have made far more money on site right next to the crew camp and really only on the days right after payday. After that no one would have the spare cash.
So the idea that they set up any semi permanent constructions ahead on the crew would be a little far fetched. They would have no need.
Plus setting up new cat houses and bars in already established towns would bring a whole load of other troubles not the least of which would be ticked off citizens who didn’t like that sort of thing. The already established places would constantly be sending out guys to bust up the temporary establishments.
Their safest place would be next to the crew camps.
And the fact that a town is on the rail line now does not mean there was a town there when the rail line first went through.
The show “hell on wheels’ is no more real than Sherlock Holmes. At best an artistic conglomeration of several small unconnected incidents.