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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

Saturday, February 21, 2015

I AM THE BULLET

I Am the Bullet - Training and Tactics
 I AM THE BULLET - TRAINING AND TACTICS

I am the bullet—and I have no conscience.
You will treat me with respect because, once I leave, you have no control over my actions. Once I’m gone, I will do as I please, governed only by the laws of physics. And the next time you see me, I will have done my work, bringing on your life a potential gamut of emotions ranging from pleasure, satisfaction and exhilaration to anger, pain, grief and regret.
Use me wisely and with discretion, for I can snuff out the flame of a king’s life as easily as I can bring delight to a ten-year-old’s face by recording for posterity a first bullseye on a humble paper target.
It took the fire of a crucible to conceive me, but now I’m no longer molten metal—and therein lies the deceptiveness of my power. When I was cast in the mold of hot lead, you knew I was dangerous, but now you underestimate me as I lie in the womb of the cartridge case, a solidified metal teardrop the size of your fingernail. Beware, for the day I’m born I will go from womb to tomb in a fraction of a second. For me there will be no childhood, no puberty, no adulthood—just a nano-second of flight before I find my terminal resting place.
You must be mother, father, teacher, and priest, because you will guide me on my short life’s path. I am but an emotionless inanimate object with no conscience. Once the hot gases of propulsion give birth to my destination, they will also signal my death knell. Instant birth to instant rest, with but a momentary tick of the clock to bring pleasure or pain.
The responsibility for my actions rests squarely on your shoulders. You conceived me, you entombed me in a cartridge case with my brother primer and sister gunpowder, slaves to your bidding.
If you didn’t cast, size, lube and load me yourself, you bought me just like you bought Mister Gump’s box of chocolates. But unlike the box of chocolates, with me you know what you’re going to get. I am the corked bottle encasing a quiescent genie. Once the genie is free, you know exactly what potential can be unleashed—but you had better choose your three wishes wisely.
The acquisition of firearms and ammunition is sequential, one way or the other. Rarely does one initially have a vast supply of ammo of a specific caliber and subsequently acquire a firearm to use or expend this supply. While people often buy a secondary or tertiary weapon for this reason, usually one purchases the gun, cleaning equipment, accessories, and a storage unit—be it a case, bag or gun safe—before any thought is given to what ammunition is going to be obtained and used in the weapon.
And after spending a king’s ransom on all this equipment, you head for the local gun emporium and spend a pittance on a case of the cheapest garbage military surplus ammo you can find.
Then when you miss, you blame it on me. When you accidentally discharge a firearm because you neglected to extract me from the chamber, you blame it on me. When I plow my way through bone and muscle, and fail to incapacitate a madman, you blame it on me. But when you achieve the result you wanted, then it’s because of your masterful ability, and I’m forgotten—used, expended, and spent.
Such is my lot—Man’s ingratitude and lack of respect for the humble bullet. Because you paid for the ammunition, I become your possession. But you don’t own me—I own your soul. I will make you or break you in my short lifespan.
The slightest marksmanship error on your part and I will embarrass you in front of your peers. The slightest lapse in concentration while manipulating a firearm and I will take an innocent life. I will ricochet off a windshield, belt buckle, or baseball cap bill when you’ve been told I should have penetrated the material—and I will just as easily over-penetrate an apartment wall and snuff out the future of a defenseless child.
Doctor Mann spent a lifetime trying to find out why I didn’t always perform as external ballistics would demand I do—and he went to his grave with my secret intact. But you insist on imbibing alcohol and firing bullets into the air in a puerile Yuletide celebration, understanding nothing of the physics of my flight path—or my power to change your life forever.
You spend endless hours discussing the merits and demerits of my size and velocity, but when all is said and done, it really doesn’t mean anything. The truth of the matter is that, once I depart your gun muzzle, you no longer have control over me—and I, too, no longer have control over my own destiny.
The next time you see a humble unfired bullet, remember that without me your gun is as useless as fingers on a rooster. And once loaded, I can be as dangerous as a drunk in rush hour traffic. Once my power is unleashed, there can be only two results—delight and satisfaction, or disaster and horror. And this will reach fruition in the blink of an eye, for I have no childhood, no puberty, no adulthood.
Treat me with respect, for I am the bullet—and I have no conscience.
This first appeared ten years ago in the December 2004 issue, demonstrating that Louis Awerbuck’s articles are timeless.


Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Standards...Jeff Gonzales

Jeff Gonzales - Lower Standards, Lower Performance
Recently I read an article about injuries for rookie firefighters on the rise after they lower their physical performance standards. This is my surprised face in case you are wondering.
THE NEEDS OF THE MANY
The funny part was I came across that message as I was leaving Oklahoma where I had just given a leadership lecture, which had a major focus on standards. While we talked a lot about leadership traits and the importance of all the cute leadership quotes, the part regarding standards seemed to be the most engaging from the audience. These were the people in charge of the standards for a huge federal agency with a very important mission. You bet I was doing my best to get the point across because quite frankly it benefits me and my family.
BACK TO THE JUICE BOX AWARD
What is the downside to lowering standards, what does it really mean. I think from one point of view it means diversity. More people can live out their dreams from childhood, dreams like in this case being a firefighter. That means people who might not have had a chance now have a chance. It’s all about the “me” instead of recognizing it’s about the team. I sat there and told the audience there were times I didn’t get picked for a mission because I wasn’t the best choice. Yah, it pissed me off, yah I didn’t like it, but rather than cry about it, I did something about. I figured out my weaknesses as it pertained to the mission and worked to improve. That is the beauty of standards, the work when implemented, enforced and followed. I know it is silly logic, but it works.
THE DEMAND FOR HIGHER STANDARDS
There’s an old saying everything works until it doesn’t. So, if you lower standards what do you get? In plain English you get a watered down product. There was a time when we aimed for the moon, literally. It was the Space Race between the former USSR and the US. So many amazing things occurred and I believe the Apollo 11 mission of landing a man on the moon is still one of our crowning achievements as a country. The standards in place to make the cut as an astronaut are there for a reason, a damn good one. I get it, do we need to see the same level of standards if we are say going to run into a burning building. I’m going to say probably not, however what is the same is the development of standards as it pertains to each field.
BREAKING IT DOWN
It doesn’t matter if you are strapped into a rocket or running into a burning building the objectives to achieve peak performance from each field are pretty much the same. You identify a task, you establish the conditions and then you determine the standard. The standard is establishing the expected outcome for everyone. It is the most important part to the objective formula, you have to put the most time into it ensuring it is relative, realistic and repeatable.
SOMETIMES AND MAYBE ARE NOT STANDARDS
Integrity is component that is often misunderstood, but when I apply it to performance objectives it means they are the exact same across the board. As a training company we go out of our way to ensure our performance objectives are exactly the same. Without that, we become subjective and not objective. It is critical to remain objective when evaluating anything, there are no favors, backdoors or mulligans. There is just performance, you either pass or fail. Recently as we were establishing our 2015 calendar I had a host who wanted us to use their readily available targets. Our response was of course we can do that, but here is the cost of that decision. We will have to tell the students their final grade will not count since they were not measured against the standard that all others were. That is why people come to us to train, it is because of our relentless pursuit of standards.
I’m sure everyone can talk a good game until it is their ass strapped to 4.4 million pounds of rocket fuel. Hopefully there is some comfort knowing standards were not lowered because someone had a dream to work for NASA who didn’t get all A’s in school.
- Jeff Gonzales


Saturday, February 14, 2015

Tactical Skills

How to Develop the Situational Awareness of Jason Bourne
There’s a scene at the beginning of The Bourne Identity where the film’s protagonist is sitting in a diner, trying to figure out who he is and why he has a bunch of passports and a gun stashed in a safety deposit box. Bourne also notices that he, well, notices things that other people don’t. Watch:

That superhuman ability to observe his surroundings and make detailed assessments about his environment? It’s not just a trait of top secret operatives; it’s a skill known as situational awareness, and you can possess it too.
As the names implies, situational awareness is simply knowing what’s going on around you. It sounds easy in principle, but in reality requires much practice. And while it is taught to soldiers, law enforcement officers, and yes, government-trained assassins, it’s an important skill for civilians to learn as well. In a dangerous situation, being aware of a threat even seconds before everyone else can keep you and your loved ones safe.
But it’s also a skill that can and should be developed for reasons outside of personal defense and safety. Situational awareness is really just another word for mindfulness, and developing mine has made me more cognizant of what’s going on around me and more present in my daily activities, which in turn has helped me make better decisions in all aspects of my life.
I’ve spent months researching and talking to experts in the tactical field about the nature of situational awareness, and below you’ll find one of the most complete primers out there on how to gain this important skill. While the focus is primarily on developing your situational awareness to prevent or survive a violent attack, the principles discussed can also help hone your powers of observation in all areas of your life.

How to Develop Situational Awareness

Many of the resources out there on situational awareness say it can be cultivated by generally keeping tabs on your surroundings — “checking your six” and “keeping your back to the wall.”
This definition isn’t wrong. That’s exactly what situational awareness is: knowing what’s going on by scanning your environment. But I always found this explanation lacking. What exactly am I looking for? How do I know if I’m paying attention to the right things? Are there behaviors or warning signs of an imminent threat that I should know about?
Today we’re going to start by discussing the general principles of increasing your observational abilities, and then dive deeper into situational awareness itself to answer these important questions.

Observe + Orient = Situational Awareness

The thing that helped me finally understand situational awareness was framing it within the OODA Loop. For those of you who haven’t read my in-depth article on this important cognitive tool, here’s the CliffsNotes version:
The OODA Loop is a learning system and decision-making process that was first laid out by Air Force fighter pilot and military strategist John Boyd. The four steps of the OODA Loop are Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. In a head-to-head competition, like air-to-air combat, a violent confrontation in a parking lot, or even political contests, the person who can cycle through the OODA Loop the fastest wins.
Obviously, the Observe step in the loop is what most people associate situational awareness with.
But it’s the second step in the OODA Loop – Orient — that answered my questions about what developing situational awareness actually involves. Orientation tells us what we should look for when we’re observing, and then puts those observations into context so we know what to do with the information.

So Observe + Orient = Situational Awareness.

But how can we become better observers so that we can improve our situational awareness? And how should we orient ourselves so that we observe the right things and understand the context for what we’re seeing?

Observe: Stay in Condition Yellow 

In his seminal book, Principles of Personal Defense, gun-fighting expert Jeff Cooper laid out a color code system to help warriors gauge their mindset for combat scenarios. Each color represents a person’s potential state of awareness and focus:

For optimal situational awareness, Cooper recommends that we always stay in Condition Yellow.
Condition Yellow is best described as “relaxed alert.” There’s no specific threat situation, but you have your head up and you’re taking in your surroundings with all your senses. Most people associate situational awareness with just visual stimulation, but you can also learn a lot about a particular scenario from the sounds (or lack thereof) and even smells in the environment.
Even though your senses are slightly heightened in Condition Yellow, it’s also important to stay relaxed. By adopting a calm demeanor, you won’t bring any unnecessary attention to yourself. If you look antsy and your head is swiveling frantically while you scan your surroundings, people are going to notice you. Additionally, staying relaxed ensures that you maintain an open focus, which allows you to take in more information about what’s going on around you. Research shows that when we get nervous or stressed, our attention narrows, causing us to concentrate on just a few things at a time. A narrow focus can therefore cause us to miss important details in our environment.
Look up from your smartphone, don’t zone out, open your eyes, ears, and nose, and calmly scan your environment to take in what’s going on.
Besides staying in Condition Yellow, here are a few more tips to improve your observational abilities:
Put yourself in a position for optimal observation. To achieve effective situational awareness, you need to be able to observe as much of your surroundings as possible. Positioning yourself in obstructed spots will inhibit the flow of information coming in. For example, something might be in your way that prevents you from seeing a bad guy enter a theater or restaurant. You also don’t have eyeballs in the back of your head, so you can’t see what’s going on behind you.
So whenever you enter an environment, put yourself in a position that will allow you to see as much as you can. My buddy Mike Seeklander atShooting Performance recommends finding a place where you can view all or most of the exit points, and that allows you to put your back to the wall. This position readies you to make a quick getaway, and eliminates the possibility of failing to see a threat materialize behind you.

Granted, this isn’t possible in all situations. You don’t have much control as to which table a restaurant hostess seats you at on a busy night, and you’d likely get a lot of strange looks if you stood with your back in a corner while you’re waiting in line at Five Guys. So do your best within the given circumstances. In that busy restaurant, you might not have control of your table location, but you can choose which seat you take. Pick the chair that gives you the best view from your table. When you’re standing in line at a fast food restaurant, just nonchalantly look around and take in the scene.
Hone your observation skills by playing the A-Game. Mike plays a game with his kids called the “A-Game,” or Awareness Game, to help them (and himself) strengthen their observational skills. To play, when you go into a business, make note of a few things about your environment: the number of workers behind the counter, the clothing and gender of the person sitting next to you, how many entry/exits there are, etc. When you leave and get into the car to head home, ask your kids questions like “How many workers were behind the counter?” “Was the person sitting next to us a man or a woman?” “What color was his/her shirt?” “How many exits were there?”
It’s fun to play, but more importantly it’s training your kids (and you) to be more mindful of their surroundings.
Master memorization. Another fun activity that will help improve your situational awareness is to practice memorizing things. Bourne knew all the license plate numbers of the cars outside the diner. You can gain this skill by practicing with a deck of cards, or strings of numbers. Here’s a guide on how to gain the ability to memorize anything you want.

Orient: Baselines, Goals, and Action Plans

Being more observant isn’t enough to master situational awareness. You have to know what you’re looking for, and then put that information into context so it has meaning and becomes actionable. That’s where the Orient phase comes into play.
The Orient step provides three things to help us achieve situational awareness: 1) baselines and anomalies for our particular environment, 2) mental models of human behavior we should look for, and 3) plans of action depending on our observations.

Establish a Baseline Wherever You Go

Every environment and person has a baseline. A baseline is what’s “normal” in a given situation, and it will differ from person to person and environment to environment. For example, the baseline at a small coffee shop will usually entail people reading a book or working on their computer or speaking in hushed tones with their friends. The baseline at a rock concert would be loud music and people looking at the stage while either jumping up and down to the music or swaying their bodies to the beat.
We establish baselines so that we can spot anomalies. According to Patrick Van Horne, situational awareness expert, instructor of the Marine Combat Profiling system, and author of Left of Bang, “Anomalies are things that either do not happen and should, or that do happen and shouldn’t.” Anomalies are what direct our attention as we take in our surroundings and what we need to focus on to achieve situational awareness.
So the first step in orienting ourselves is to establish baselines so that we can direct our attention to anomalies. How do we do that on the fly? Van Horne suggests that you mentally ask yourself these questions every time you enter a new environment:
§  Baseline Questions: What’s going on here? What’s the general mood of the place? What’s the “normal” activity that I should expect here? How do most people behave here most of the time?
§  Anomaly Question: What would cause someone or something to stand out?

Behavioral Clusters to Look For

Our inability to pay attention to everything all at once makes it impossible to obtain complete situational awareness. The human mind can only handle so much information at a given time. Thus in the domain of personal safety, where things unfold quickly and seconds are often the difference between life and death, how we direct our attention is paramount.
So we need to focus on a few things at a time that provide the most bang for our attentional buck. And we do that, Van Horne argues, by relying on heuristics. Heuristics are quick and dirty problem-solving and decision-making mental shortcuts our minds use to figure things out when minimal information is available and time is limited. Decisions made from heuristics aren’t always perfect, but in the context of your personal safety, they’re usually good enough.
In Left of Bang, Van Horne lays out six domains of human behavior that Marine Combat Profilers use on the battlefield in order to quickly determine whether someone is a friend or foe. To get an idea of what civilians should look for in everyday situations, I interviewed Van Horne for this article. He told me the most important category of clues is what he calls kinesics, an area of behavior that involves people’s conscious and subconscious body language.
Within the domain of kinesics, three clusters of body language are of particular interest for situational awareness. They are: dominance/submissive behavior, comfortable/uncomfortable behavior, and interested/uninterested behavior.
Dominance/submissive behavior. Generally, most people try to get along with others, so for the most part people act in accommodating and submissive ways. Van Horne writes that dominant behavior “is an expression of the limbic system’s fight response” and often manifests itself in “gestures and postures that make a person look larger to intimidate ‘smaller’ individuals into submission.” Smaller vs. bigger here doesn’t just apply to physical size, however, but also relates to relative positions of power.
Because most people get along to get along, dominant behavior often constitutes an anomaly, and the person displaying it deserves more attention. If someone acts in a pushy, authoritative, or overbearing way, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a threat; context matters. You’d expect a boss to act dominant in relation to their employees and the employees to act submissive to their boss, but seeing extreme dominant behavior exhibited by a customer towards an employee isn’t as common. That’s something to keep an eye on.
Comfortable/uncomfortable behavior. Most people are going to look relatively comfortable in most situations. Think about a bus or a subway ride — passengers generally appear pretty relaxed while they stare out the window or read a book. If someone looks uncomfortable, that’s an anomaly that warrants extra attention, but it doesn’t mean they’re necessarily a threat. They could be distressed because they’re late for work or maybe they just heard some bad news about a relative. Again, it’s just something to keep your eye on.
Van Horne says that a common display of uncomfortable behavior you’ll see from individuals up to no good is that they’re “checking their six.” This is when a person looks over their shoulder to see what’s behind them or generally scans their surroundings. People who are comfortable generally don’t do this because they don’t feel any threat. So if you see a guy looking over his shoulder a lot when he should be standing there aloof, that’s an anomaly that should get your attention.
Now obviously, “checking your six” is something that situationally aware good guys do too. If you’re doing it right, it shouldn’t be noticeable to others, but it takes practice, and some guy with his head on a swivel might still be green. But until you verify that through further observation, be suspicious.
On the flipside, someone acting comfortable when everyone else is uncomfortable would be an anomaly. One of the ways law enforcement was able to identify the Boston Marathon bombers was that they noticed in surveillance footage that the men looked relatively calm while everyone else was running around in a panic. The reason they looked calm was because they knew the explosion was going to happen and thus weren’t surprised by it, while everyone else was caught off guard.
Interested/uninterested behavior. Most people aren’t paying attention to their environment. They’re too caught up in their own thoughts or whatever it is they’re doing. So individuals who are showing interest in a particular person or object that most people wouldn’t be interested in is an anomaly that warrants further observation.
These three body language clusters establish baselines for every situation in which we find ourselves and allow us to direct our limited attention towards things that are potentially more important and/or dangerous. If a person’s behavior across these clusters fits the baseline for that particular circumstance, you can pretty much ignore them. If their behavior doesn’t fit the baseline, they’re an anomaly and you should observe them more closely.

Other Behavioral Threat Indicators

Besides the above three kinesic clusters, Marine Combat Profilers are taught to look out for a couple other behaviors that could apply to civilian situations as well:
Shifty hands. Military and law enforcement officers typically check the hands first on any person with which they’re engaging. This is for two reasons. First, “checking the hands of a person ensures that the person is not holding a weapon and is not preparing to strike,” writes Van Horne. Second, hands often telegraph hidden nefarious intentions. People who are concealing something they don’t want discovered, like a gun, knife, or stolen object, “will often touch or pat that area on the body where that object is concealed, as if to ensure the object has not been lost or is still hidden from view.”
“Acting Natural.” It’s difficult to “act natural” when you’re not completely focused on whatever it is you’re really supposed to be doing. People “acting natural” will appear distracted and over- or under-exaggerate their movements. Insurgents in Afghanistan will often try to act like farmers, when they’re in fact attempting to collect information on U.S. military patrols. Marine Combat Profilers are trained to look for these “farmers” who appear to be trying too hard.

Have a Plan of Action Based on What You Observe

You visit your favorite coffee shop and a bad guy with a gun decides to drop in as well. But because you’ve followed the principles above, you’re the first to see him as a threat. Great. But what are you going to do about it? Seconds matter here. You don’t have time to formulate a well-thought-out plan. What’s more, the stress of the event will muddle your thinking and decision-making.
In addition to asking yourself the baseline and anomaly questions every time you enter an environment, Van Horne suggests you ask yourself a third question: “What would I do if I saw an anomaly?” In other words, come up with an action plan.
So let’s go back to the coffee shop example. Let’s say the anomaly for which you want to create an action plan is “guy comes in with a gun.” The best course of action in this scenario depends on a few things. And knowing what those few things are requires you to be situationally aware. If the robber came in from the front door and you’re near the rear exit, your best action would be to book it out the back door right away. On the other hand, if he entered through the back exit near you, according to the Department of Homeland Security, your best action would be to immediately close the gap between him and you and incapacitate him.
Establish baselines. Look for anomalies. Have a plan.
That’s what situational awareness comes down to.

Situational Awareness as a Preventive Tactic

Animals are creatures of opportunity. They’ll typically only attack another creature if they look vulnerable. Lions will go after younger, sicker, or older gazelles because they’re easier to catch. The same goes with humans. Criminals are typically going to go after a person who looks vulnerable, whether the victim is physically weaker or will simply be easy to catch off guard.
Practicing situational awareness goes a long way in keeping you from appearing like an easy target. When you’re out and about, look alert. Get your nose out of your smartphone. When you’re walking back to your car at night, have your keys at the ready and constantly scan your surroundings. The less vulnerable you look, the less likely someone is going to mess with you.
Here’s another tip on not looking like a victim, from the guys at Sage Dynamics: Always keep a tactical flashlight on you and bust it out at nighttime. Having a light allows you to better observe in the darkness, but it can also act as a deterrent to would-be bad guys. Because law enforcement officers are usually the only ones shining flashlights down alleys and under cars, if you’re shining your light as you walk to your destination or back to your car, the bad guys are probably going to think you’re a cop and will likely just leave you alone. If worst comes to worst and you do end up getting jumped, you can use the tactical flashlight as a defensive tool by blinding your would-be attacker with the bright beam or even hitting him with the beveled edge that’s often built into the handle. 

Practice, Practice, Practice


Situational awareness is a mindset that you have to purposefully cultivate. You want to get to the point that it’s just something you do without having to think about it. To get to that point, you have to practice it regularly. Starting today, consciously remind yourself to look for entry/exit points whenever you enter a new building. Start observing people and establishing baselines and generating possible anomalies while you’re at work, at the gym, or on a date. And then start coming up with action plans on what you would do in that specific situation if you see a possible threat. Don’t be paranoid, just mindful. Do that day in and day out, and situational awareness won’t be something you have to intentionally think about, just something you do naturally. And not fake farmer natural, but Jason Bourne natural.
Until next time, keep your head on a swivel, check your six, and keep your back to the wall.

I believe this article was written by; Patrick Van Horne and Jason A. Riley

Saturday, February 7, 2015

I Agree with Dale Comstick

Delta Force Operator and Friend of ‘American Sniper’ Chris Kyle Goes Beast Mode On Michael Moore

American Sniper is leading the box office for the second week in a row and on track to be the highest-grossing war film ever.
However, this success hasn’t come without Hollywood criticism. Film director Michael Moore has continued making headlines since his initialtweet about snipers being cowards.
He has doubled down on his comments by saying he’s done more for veterans than snipers:
IJReview talked to one of Chris Kyle’s friends, Dale Comstock, who met the SEAL on the set of Stars Earn Stripes and continued to keep in touch after the show:

Image Credit: Facebook – Comstock is third from the right.
Here’s what the former Delta Force Operator and author of American Badass had to say about Moore’s perspective:
Unless you’ve been in combat you’ve got no opinion on how combat works. What’s the premise of his argument? Does that mean that people who shoot artillery weapons, fly fighter jets and close attack helicopters are cowards because they’re not right in your face? It’s called smart warfare.
I’d rather shoot someone from afar. I don’t look at my adversary as someone I hold a personal grudge with. I look at him as the opposing team and I’m here to win. He’s a soldier and I’m a soldier. When you go into combat to fight, you expect certain things.
I’ve actually made friends with several of my adversaries. One of who, at one time, I was pointing weapons at from twenty five meters away.
Also, one of my best friends used to be in East German special forces. We were enemies at one time. Today, we’re good friends and business associates.
A sniper is far from a coward. They are skilled marksmen who use psychological warfare to scare the enemy. They make you keep your head down. They keep you paralyzed. And they will kill you because that’s their objective.
And for Michael Moore to call a sniper a coward…claiming he supports the military by hiring veterans and Special Forces guys. He says they’re his bodyguards. How hypocritical!
I don’t even know a soldier who fights the enemy in a combat role that has had anything positive to say about Moore.
Then, Comstock addressed Moore’s thoughts on Iraq:
99% of the soldiers I know supported George Bush and supported the war. I’m referring to SEALs, Delta, Green Berets and the Rangers. I’ll tell you what was most important: We went to save those people from Saddam’s family and their vicious butchery.
Screw Michael Moore’s idea of why we went. We saved the Iraqi people from the devil itself. Aside from the oil and the WMDs, we still went there for the right reasons. And we found WMDs, too.
So when Michael Moore and his buddies comment on how we are warmongers and killers from their armchair or sofa, offering their perspective — Guess what? They don’t get a perspective because they weren’t there, and I was.
I’ve seen the sex palaces that Saddam’s family ran, where they kidnapped women and handcuffed and drugged them. They raped them again and again.
While in Iraq, a source I interviewed told me that he had some cows cross onto Saddam’s son, Uday’s land. When the source protested and ask for his cows back, Uday had his wife and kids raped, then murdered. Then, Uday asked if he still wanted his cows back. You should be proud to destroy that type of evil.
As the conversation continued, Comstock elaborated on how he sees Moore’s support for veterans:
And Michael Moore talks about how he supports the veterans and the military. Moore is in it for himself. He’s earned millions off sensationalism and fear tactics. Moore will help a veteran, if he can make a dollar off them.
He acts like soldiers and veterans are stupid. Well, I’ve got a PHD and a master’s degree on top of 20 years in the military. I served in every campaign from Grenada to present-day conflicts.
See, Moore is coward. That’s the only word to describe him. No self-respecting veteran would protect Michael Moore. And if they do, I want to see Moore produce the DD214s and evidence that they are protecting him.
He is one of the most dishonorable and disrespectful human beings alive. How low do you have to stoop to attack a dead man?
He then touched on how some of Hollywood sees veterans.
What’s upsetting is how some of Hollywood looks at veterans as an opportunity to make a dollar. However, when the war passes they’ll go back to their agenda of slamming veterans. They make all these movies off soldiers’ stories. But at the end of the day unless it’s someone like Clint Eastwood, they go back to vilifying us.
Comstock ended by clarifying why Chris Kyle was far from a cold-blooded killer.
Look, Chris Kyle had to do a job. He wasn’t a bloodthirsty psycho killer. He wasn’t crazy. He was just the best at what he did. It doesn’t make him a bad person. Kyle is a hero and he is more of a man than Michael Moore will ever be.
What people should be talking about is not how many people he killed, but acknowledge all the lives he saved. Because that’s what Kyle’s legacy really was, saving lives.
As American heroes like Comstock have dedicated their lives to serving their country in multiple war zones, his perspective is invaluable. Especially when it comes to the national discussion surroundingAmerican Sniper.



Thursday, February 5, 2015

Caliber Debate....Tiger Mckee

Skill Set: Caliber Debate                                                                
                             
Anytime firearms are discussed, especially when it comes to defensive use of weapons, the caliber debate is going to come up. This is one of those debates that will probably never end, just like the "Modified Weaver" vs. "Isosceles" rap; there will always be a differing of opinions. But, when it comes to discussing calibers we need to do it based on actual data, and not myths or outdated information.

A lot of people don't realized it, but hollow points and ammunition specifically designed for stopping threats are fairly new, especially when you consider how long people have been shooting other people.

For example, you'll hear people talk about how ineffective the .38 special round is. And at one point in time this was true, but what most people don't know is that when this caliber was widely used by law enforcement officers the standard round was a full metal jacketed bullet. This type round doesn't expand, fragment or dissipate its energy very well. The bullet usually retains most of its shape, and punches through tissue unless redirected by serious bone structure.

This was a concern for shooters, and people often experimented with different ways to increase the bullet's effectiveness. Chic Gaylord – who documented and studied a lot of shootings - mentions in his book, "Handgunner's Guide," that "jacketed bullets are not so effective as lead bullets of the same weight," and adds that bullets "having a flat nose, as in the 'wad-cutter,' are more destructive than those with pointed noses."

Jim Cirillo also covers bullets and stopping power in "Guns, Bullets, and Gunfights." Cirillo had a lot of experience shooting people, and experimented in bullet design to increase stopping power. Ultimately he came to determine four factors that affect stopping power: Bullet construction and configuration, bullet diameter, velocity, and bullet weight.

The information and data was out there, but it was a long time before people really started paying attention. For example LAPD didn't issue hollow point bullets to their officers until 1990. The New York City police department switched from full metal jacket bullets to hollow points in 1998. Taking this into consideration there are a lot of bullet stories out there based on full metal jacket rounds, and good calibers, like the .38 Special and 9mm, got a bad reputation for "not being enough gun."

In the past few years the design and development of bullets has come a long way. Remember Cirillo's list above. Number one is the round's design and construction. Modern technology has covered this pretty well, and it's still ongoing. Bullet diameter is a consideration, but take a look at
 An Alternate Look at Handgun Stopping Power, by Greg Ellifritz. His study reveals that the average number of rounds fired until the threat was incapacitated doesn't vary a lot between the .380 caliber – with an average of 1.76 rounds fired – the 9mm, with an average of 2.45 rounds fired, the .40 S&W – 2.36 rounds - and the .45 acp, with an average of 2.08 rounds fired to incapacitate the threat. (An interesting fact in his study is that with the .22 there was an average of 1.38 rounds fired to stop the threat.)

Keep in mind most stops are "psychological," the threat could still continue, but decides not to. One-shot stops, or shots that totally eliminate the threat's ability to fight are rare, regardless of caliber. Ultimately you need to determine what you can shoot accurately and efficiently, what you will carry – a large frame, big caliber in the safe at home won't do you much good – and then train and practice until you gain confidence in your skills. Use a well-designed "defensive" round that will function in your weapon. If it's necessary to shoot, concentrate on good accurate hits, and repeat as necessary.