About Me

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Aproved instuctor for N.J. & Pa. for the Retired LEO Programs. Approved instructor for both Florida & Delaware. Retired Deputy Conservation Officer, N. J. Division of Fish & Wildlife, Bureau of Law Enforcement. Certified Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor; Handgun, Shotgun, Patrol Rifle, & Certified Tactical Shooting Instructor, with over 20 years of experience. Certified by N.J.Police Training Commission (D.C.J.), NRA Law Enforcement Division,& NRA Civilian Instructor Division. For information regarding Training Courses, Contact me @ 215 416 0750 or e-mail me @ rotac2@gmail.com

Monday, March 31, 2014

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

CAN'T ARGUE WITH THESE FIGURES, BUT THE LEFT WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE THAT OUR COUNTRY IS SO MUCH MORE DANGEROUS BECAUSE OF GUN OWNERSHIP.  TO ME IT LOOKS LIKE IT'S THE DIRECT OPPOSITE!

WORLD MURDER STATISTICS
From the World Health Organization
The latest Murder Statistics for the world:
Murders per 100,000 citizens per year.
Honduras 91.6 (WOW!!)
El Salvador 69.2
Cote d'lvoire 56.9
Jamaica 52.2
Venezuela 45.1
Belize 41.4
US Virgin Islands 39.2
Guatemala 38.5
Saint Kitts and Nevis 38.2
Zambia 38.0
Uganda 36.3
Malawi 36.0
Lesotho 35.2
Trinidad and Tobago 35.2
Colombia 33.4
South Africa 31.8
Congo 30.8
Central African Republic 29.3
Bahamas 27.4
Puerto Rico 26.2
Saint Lucia 25.2
Dominican Republic 25.0
Tanzania 24.5
Sudan 24.2
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 22.9
Ethiopia 22.5
Guinea 22.5
Dominica 22.1
Burundi 21.7
Democratic Republic of the Congo 21.7
Panama 21.6
Brazil 21.0
Equatorial Guinea 20.7
Guinea-Bissau 20.2
Kenya 20.1
Kyrgyzstan 20.1
Cameroon 19.7
Montserrat 19.7
Greenland 19.2
Angola 19.0
Guyana 18.6
Burkina Faso 18.0
Eritrea 17.8
Namibia 17.2
Rwanda 17.1
Mexico 16.9
Chad 15.8
Ghana 15.7
Ecuador 15.2
North Korea 15.2
Benin 15.1
Sierra Leone 14.9
Mauritania 14.7
Botswana 14.5
Zimbabwe 14.3
Gabon 13.8
Nicaragua 13.6
French Guiana 13.3
Papua New Guinea 13.0
Swaziland 12.9
Bermuda 12.3
Comoros 12.2
Nigeria 12.2
Cape Verde 11.6
Grenada 11.5
Paraguay 11.5
Barbados 11.3
Togo 10.9
Gambia 10.8
Peru 10.8
Myanmar 10.2
Russia 10.2
Liberia 10.1
Costa Rica 10.0
Nauru 9.8
Bolivia 8.9
Mozambique 8.8
Kazakhstan 8.8
Senegal 8.7
Turks and Caicos Islands 8.7
Mongolia 8.7
British Virgin Islands 8.6
Cayman Islands 8.4
Seychelles 8.3
Madagascar 8.1
Indonesia 8.1
Mali 8.0
Pakistan 7.8
Moldova 7.5
Kiribati 7.3
Guadeloupe 7.0
Haiti 6.9
Timor-Leste 6.9
Anguilla 6.8
Antigua and Barbuda 6.8
Lithuania 6.6
Uruguay 5.9
Philippines 5.4
Ukraine 5.2
Estonia 5.2
Cuba 5.0
Belarus 4.9
Thailand 4.8
Suriname 4.6
Laos 4.6
Georgia 4.3
Martinique 4.2
And ............................................
The United States 4.2 !!!!!!!!!!!!
ALL (109) of the countries above America have 100% gun bans.
It might be of interest to note that SWITZERLAND is not shown on this list because it has
NO MURDER OCCURRENCE!
However, SWITZERLAND'S law requires that EVERYONE:
1. Own a gun.
2. Maintain Marksman qualifications .... regularly .
Didja learn anything from this??
I think the message is - loud and clear - that gun bans and restrictions
DO NOT work


Thursday, March 27, 2014

LADIES, SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT!

THIS WAS FROM A FB POST, THANK YOU LINSAY.

 · 
Ladies!!!
Do not listen to the gun grabbers out there. We all watch 48 hours, Crime Stories, Forensic Files & Nancy Grace. You know women have DIED from being strangled, beaten or stabbed to death. The only defense weapon was their fingernails so they could lead the police to her killer.
Don't leave your babies behind! Mom's Demand Action will not be there to tuck them in at night. Cops will vouch they can not always be there in time, only to draw chalk lines around you and notify your family. YOU KNOW IT IS TRUE!!! Please ask someone you know to help you purchase and train with a firearm. It can save your life!!!


ARE YOU?



IF SO, HAVE YOU BEEN PROPERLY TRAINED?  IF NOT, WHY?

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Monday, March 24, 2014

Great Training Advice from one of the Best

Guest Editorial: Combative Movement
Before I proceed let me be clear . . .movement in conflict is beneficial and will help you prevail! I say this as I do not want to be misunderstood by people wanting to raise their own profile on line by picking apart sections of this article and not looking at its totality. This article is intended to create critical thought on a topic that is important to self- preservation if done correctly.

Movement in combat is considered an "advanced" technique by many trainers and institutions, but if you watch videos of people involved in armed conflict...both participants and innocent bystanders alike...it's something that happens automatically. People seem to comprehend if bullets are flying you don't want to be there! That said the concept of participant movement in a gunfight is not a new concept. Wyatt Earp discussed it during a newspaper interview late in his life..." I was a Deputy U.S. Marshal at the O.K. Corral fight, so I was coming forward and they was usually going back. You shoot straighter coming forward!" Earp is right and those who have been trained in the technique realize shooting on the move works best when moving straight ahead. You can shoot both fast and accurate, something that is not the case when moving back or laterally. In order to hit with a level of incapacitative accuracy in any direction other than straight ahead, the movement becomes so slow that using it to avoid being shot is just wishful thinking. Don't think so? Just watch the nation's best shooters use the technique during a match and ask yourself "would I be moving at a speed that would allow me to save my own life?"

Such wishful thinking can also be applied to other forms of "tactical" movement. A recent example would be a female police officer I had in one of my classes. She had been taught that anytime she was not shooting she was to be moving. Since she had been trained to do this on a crowded firing line her movement while she drew her gun, reloaded or cleared a malfunction looked more like a tree swaying in the wind. This minimal motion also slowed her manipulations way down...something like 3 seconds to do a simple magazine exchange or 10 seconds to clear a stoppage. When I called this to her attention her response was "movement will keep you from getting shot, thus I continue to move!" I guess it comes down to what is considered useful movement.

The more I have considered shooting while moving, the more I have come down on the side of shootingthen moving/moving then shooting. I have been studying armed conflict my entire adult life, interviewing many people who have been in armed conflict. I also have a few of my own experiences to draw on and I have come to the conclusion with the exception of a forward attack, we should probably be shooting accurately or moving quickly if we want to prevail. Such movement needs to be dynamic, aggressive, rapid or speedy...which ever word helps anchor the concept in your brain...as just moving back and forth or in a circle will not work and teaching such movement while leading shooters to believe they will avoid incoming fire is a deadly training scar. While movement in combat is situationally dependent I believe there are three primary reasons for doing so:

1. Moving dynamically until you are prepared to deliver accurate outgoing fire of the quality that will incapacitate the person trying to kill you.

2. Move to a location where you cannot the seen. While true cover would be the best option, being hidden from your attacker's field of view is certainly useful.

3. Remove ourselves from the kill zone completely.

This said reality sucks as you might be standing in a location that will not allow movement...a cop standing in a crowded living room, an armed citizen between two cars in a parking lot (FYI...I had a mugger once tell me this was his favorite position for his victims) or a member of an entry team moving down a hallway. These situations would require stand and fight, run away or attack in the classic shooting on the move forward technique. There is no way to know what the correct choice is until it is taken.

Dynamic, aggressive movement is both a technique and a tactic and must be used without hesitation to work. What we have known since the days of the Spartans is the person who can adapt to the unfolding situation fastest is the one who will likely prevail! Aggressive movement is part of this adaptation as it gives additional time and time is life! Is there a place for the minimal movement I described earlier? Yes, it is a training tool to begin the process of learning how to move while running your gun. Lateral side steps while drawing, moving back and forth on the line while reloading and other related skills are the initial stages of teaching movement in conflict but they are not the end technique. For this technique to become a tactic, movement must accomplish an end goal, not just be something that makes you feel "tactical".

-- Dave Spaulding

Dave Spaulding is a retired law enforcement officer with 36 years of law enforcement and private security experience. A graduate of many of the nation's premier firearms training courses, he is also the author of over 1,000 articles that have appeared in newsstand gun magazines and law enforcement trade journals. He is the owner and chief instructor for Handgun Combatives LLC , a training concern that focuses on "the combative application of the handgun." Handgun Combatives

Friday, March 21, 2014

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Scary, But True


The Traditional Double Action Pistol

This is an article written by Todd Green.  This is his perspective on this subject. 

DEFENSE OF THE TRADISTIONAL DOUBLE ACTION PISTOL
The mere title of this post makes me sad.
I have come to accept, begrudgingly, that we live in a world where the perception “one trigger pull is better than two” isn’t likely to change any time soon. It’s a perception that kept the 1911 dominant for decades among shooting cognoscenti. Then Glock came along and made the consistent “Safe Action” trigger a key part of its marketing campaign. We have generations of shooters who have never really worked with a traditional double action (aka “double/single” or “DA/SA”) pistol because they’ve simply been told it’s too hard.
But let’s look at some facts and compare some numbers.
A typical Glock, unless you modify the trigger or put what the company itself considers a competition only part in the gun, comes with a trigger pull of about seven pounds (it may be advertised as 5.5 pounds, but check out this report from Modern Service Weapons). Many, if not most, Glocks issued to law enforcement in the United States utilize the even heavier trigger return springs that add another 2-5 pounds to that number.
Your typical TDA pistol is going to have a first shot double action trigger pull around 10-12 pounds. But after that, all the rest of the shots you fire will be with a trigger pull of about four pounds, maybe five pounds. In other words, after you deal with that first shot, everything is easier than even a stock Glock with standard connector and springs! Even most out of the box 1911′s from major manufacturers like Kimber and Colt have trigger pulls above a typical TDA pistol’s single action.
Of course, plenty of individuals spend their time and money to get a lighter trigger on Glocks and 1911s. I can’t tell you how many students I see walking around with sub-4# triggers on such guns. Why? Because it’s easier to shoot. And if the only thing you ever measure is ease of shooting, that makes a ton of sense. It’s only when you start to think about the broader situation of when you might need your pistol and how you might need and what what you’ll really need to do with it that you begin to realize the a super short, super light trigger on a carry gun might not be so smart. If you haven’t done so already, I suggest you take a look at Darryl Bolke’s outstanding The LEM As A Street Trigger reposted here last September.
I know I’ll never convert the hordes, of course, who learned “this is my safety” watching Blackhawk Down and feel empowered by the words of a fictional character on a movie set to behave in a manner contrary to what the actual men of the actual unit depicted in the film seem to teach when it comes to safety (see, e.g., Paul Howe and Pat McNamara). But as I’ve been ranting lately around here, the reality is that under stress it’s far too easy to trigger check and drive that short, light 3.5# DIY five cent Glock trigger job straight to the frame with resultant Unwanted Noise.
So what are the trade-offs? If TDA is so awesome why do so many people choose otherwise?
The number one issue, obviously, is that long, heavier first shot. What was once considered the norm when police officers carried DA revolvers is now a trigger that many find unmanageable. It’s not. It’s simply something you need to learn how to manage. But when so many instructors have little to no real experience with TDA guns, it can be very hard to find good technique.
I’ve taken classes from some very big names in the training world who absolutely had no idea how to run a TDA pistol properly. One famously told a group of us in a private class that he recommends just firing the first DA round into the dirt to get the gun cocked for “real shooting” … this to a closed group of students who were allrunning TDAs (Beretta and SIG) for the entire three day class! Don’t let an instructor hiding his own ineptitude dictate what works for youIf you expect the “everyone should carry a Glock and if you don’t your’e an idiot” guy to be the ideal instructor to help you learn how to shoot your Beretta 92FS, you have chosen poorly.
I’ve been incredibly lucky to get instruction from, as well as train and compete along side, some of the best TDA shooters like Ernest LangdonRob Haught, and “Super” Dave Harrington. Learning how to do it the right way from experts imparts a lot more skill and confidence than trying to learn from someone who’s more interested in telling you that your chosen pistol sucks because it’s not the same thing he carries on his hip every day.
I’m not suggesting that a long 12# trigger pull is as easy to score hits with as a 3# tuned 1911 trigger. But with some proper training neither is truly difficult.
The only other real hurdle with a TDA pistol is the need to decock before holstering. Under stress this can become trouble because holstering a cocked TDA gun is like holstering a cocked 1911 without putting the safety on. Or like holstering a Glock that has been modified to have a light trigger. 8-) If you’re going to reap the benefit of that hammer-down condition you need to make decocking the pistol part of your ritual. Again this comes down to simple training. I had the great fortune to learn a lot of my shooting techniques from TDA experts and their range commands always included “decock/safe and holster.” That simple mantra is all it takes.
Even in the competition world, where the safety/street considerations are often completely ignored, the TDA pistol is seeing a resurgence. Having to deal with that one trickier first shot simply gets outweighed by the ease of a smoother, lighter, shorter trigger pull for the next twenty-plus rounds in a course of fire. The top two finishers (and half of the top ten) at the past two USPSA Production National were shooting TDA pistols. Clue.
Don’t think me hypocritical. I’m not saying you have to shoot a TDA pistol or you’re wrong. There are downsides to the TDA. Heck, some people due to injury or hand strength genuinely cannot manage a 10-12 pound trigger. For them obviously it’s a horrible choice! There are benefits to a 1911 or a striker-fired gun and DAO type guns just as their are benefits to the TDA. Make an informed decision. Choose what works best for you… but not simply what shoots best when you’re slaying cardboard & steel. Think about what really happens when it’s not on the range but in a dark parking lot late at night when your family is with you and a couple of shady looking characters start to ping your radar.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

Saturday, March 8, 2014

INTERESTING AND WORTH KNOWING

Picked this up off of a Facebook post.  I think it was posted by Dave Spaulding?

Violent Encounters: A Study of Felonious Assaults on Our Nation's Law Enforcement Officers (2006)

A little FBI data we came across about the bad guys and their training. This study is old, but not outdated. The actual report (like everything our government does) is huge... feel free to read it if you have time. 

Essentially, the study looks at the difference between officers and the criminals who assault them. Excerpt below:

"According to the study, 40% of the criminal attackers received formal firearms training, over 80% regularly practiced with firearms (averaging 23 practice sessions a year), more than 40% had at least one gunfight experience, and 25% had been involved in more than 5 gunfights.

If you're like most people, you operate under the popular assumption that bad guys don't have any firearms training and don't practice shooting. It's a comforting thought, because it suggests that as long as you're armed and have a little training, you stand a pretty good chance of surviving a violent attack.

However, the data in this report suggests that may not always be the case.

Here are some other facts presented in the study:

The offenders were exposed to more violence at an earlier age.

They are more willing and able to use force, including deadly force. 

Most are younger and less educated, but obviously have street smarts from their experiences (especially what they learn in jail from other offenders).

Gang members in particular learn "violent values" at an early age and these values are regularly reinforced.

The goal for gang members is to achieve status and respect from their peers, which comes from creating fear through repeated acts of physical violence.

Their behavior is not constrained by social, legal, or ethical considerations."

****************
"It's a mistake to assume that bad guys are untrained. It's true that this study on violent attacks on law enforcement officers may not be representative of all violent offenders. However, it does show that some portion of the most violent people in our society take crime seriously."

Thursday, March 6, 2014

FOOD FOR THOUGHT


Answer to last weeks post, Does anyone know who this is?

The shooter's name is Gunnery Sgt. Carlos Hathcock, USMC.  He was one of the most deadly snipers in our history.  The Viet Cong called him White Feather and had posted a $10,000.00 reward for him.  He had 93 confirmed kills.  He was a true Warrior and American Hero! 

Saturday, March 1, 2014