HAPPY THANKSGIVING

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!  HOPE YOU AND YOURS HAVE A GREAT DAY.  

PLEASE SAY A PRAYER FOR THOSE THAT ARE ON DUTY INSURING ARE SAFETY AND FREEDOM!

Pa Act 235 Classes

The Double Action Pa Act 235 School will be conducting its first of several classes on January 11, 12, 18, and 19, 2014.  This is a 40 hour program that will be held on two consecutive weekends.  Each day’s class will be approximately 10 hours long. 

The cost of the school is $350.00 and that will include:

1.  A complete and comprehensive Student Manual

2.  All of the ammunition, targets and range safety equipment and

Firearms if you do not have your own.  Minimum caliber for revolver is 38     special, and 9mm for semi-auto.

3.  Certificate of completion, once you have successfully passed all the required

     venues of the Act 235 Program. 

The cost of the Application fee, Fingerprints, Medical and Psychological Examination are not included in the school fee.

You can obtain all of the necessary information and forms by going to the following web site: www.lethalweapons.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/lethal_weapons_training_program/7611

Or, by coming in and picking up a complete package at the school.  A $5.00 fee will be charged - refundable when you enroll in a class at this school.

Classes are subject to cancellation if the minimum number of students for the class is not obtained.   We will notify you via e-mail ONE WEEK prior to the class start date if the class is going to be cancelled.

IMPORTANT

YOU WILL NOT BE PERMITTED TO REGISTER & ENROLL IN EITHER THE INITIAL BASIC TRAINING CLASS OR RENEWAL PROGRAM UNLESS YOU HAVE RECEIVED YOUR (APPROVAL TO ATTEND TRAINING) LETTER BACK FROM THE PA LETHAL WEAPONS TRAINING COMMISSION, PA STATE POLICE.

The letter will have to be brought to the school when you enroll.

40 HOUR BASIC TRAINING CLASS….A CASH DEPOSIT OF $175.00 IS DUE UPON ENROLLING IN THE CLASS WITH THE REMAINDER DUE PRIOR TO THE START OF THE CLASS.   

A FULL REFUND OF THE DEPOSIT WILL ONLY BE GRANTED IF THE SCHOOL IS NOTIFIED AT LEAST ONE WEEK IN ADVANCE OF THE START DATE OR UPON THE DECISION OF THE SCHOOL DIRECTOR AFTER ALL FACTS HAVE BEEN EXAMINED.

Please check our website for future dates of classes

We are planning on conducting the 8 hour renewal training class at least once a month.  Again, the class will be subject to cancellation if we do not get at least 5 students enrolled in the 8 hour class.  The cost of this 8 hour class is $125.00 with a $75.00 deposit required at the time of enrollment.  Balance due prior to the start of the class.  Refunds will apply in the same way as they do to the 40 hour class.

First date (Renewal Class) is scheduled for Wednesday, January 15, 2014.

ADVICE, FROM AN EXPERT

HANDGUN COMBATIVES

The thought that any handgun, regardless of caliber, having true stopping...read that RAPID INCAPCITATION POWER...is ludicrous if you take time to stop and give it critical thought. Think for a moment...the gun has a barrel that is 4 to 5 inches long, a sight radius not much longer, launching a bullet no bigger than your thumb at a speed of 1,000 to 1,300 feet per second. Take your thumb and place it next to your chest...move it around. Its not very big and there is A LOT of surface area. Now take into account the pandemonium that accompanies a close quarter gunfight. You are moving, your opponent(s) are moving, screaming, yelling, reduced light...is it really any wonder that handguns are anemic?

We carry them because they a portable, not because they are effective...or even efficient! They offer a stand off capability in a package we can carry and conceal. Yet when someone writes an article on the topic of handgun stopping power people stop and debate which is better, fast expanding or slow and large...do you really want to be standing in front of any projectile? I get the "what's best" question regularly. Recently it was something like "if all things are equal and no one is moving and you have perfect shot placement and no one is wearing body armor what is best, the .357 SIG or 10mm?" WHAT?! When will this happen?! What are you smoking?! When will there ever be a time when "all things are equal"?! For fu*ks sake...

I focus on the combative application of the handgun because it is most likely to be the weapon you will have with/on you when you need a weapon. It is also the hardest platform to shoot well and master...after almost 40 years I am still working towards that goal just in time for arthritis and poor eye sight! Understand that practice is not training. Training comes after proper instruction and then worthwhile repetition of the essential skills. You see, training is preparation! Practice is just shooting bullets at a tin can. Training requires proper mindset and imagery of life threatening events while launching bullets. Practice does not...

Carry the gun you can control in rapid fire, reach the trigger properly and can afford to buy ammo and practice. Are .22 conversions ok? Sure, as long as you mix in full power ammo of the caliber you carry (and can find .22!). My "Two Second Drill" is a good test of recoil control...from ready at 20 feet on an 8 inch square, four rounds in two seconds. It should break down to the first shot in 1 second or less and the three follow up shots in .33, .33, .33. If you can go faster, great! But everyone who carries a gun for personal security should be able to do this.

Train hard, image well and quit worrying about stopping power as it probably doesn't really exist...at least as we want it to happen. As Dr. Vincent DiMaio once said "It comes down to where you shoot them and how many time you can shoot them."

Dave Spaulding

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HAPPY VETERANS DAY

Remember in your prayer's those who serve and have served our GREAT COUNTRY! 

Good Article...Good Information

Spreading Lies

23-Sep-13 – 11:39 by ToddG

An interesting conversation onpistol-forum.com over the past few days raised the specter of “too accurate” as it is being taught at some fairly high places including some programs at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

The theory, in a nutshell, is as follows: Rather than put multiple rounds into a small concentrated area, it’s better to shoot wide open and hit someone in lots of different places all over his body because he’ll bleed from more places and become incapacitated faster.

Presumably, this is taught in the same class explaining that the Moon is made of green cheese, socialism is sustainable, and similar ridiculous myths. Now admittedly, I am not a doctor, don’t play one on television, and didn’t sleep at Holiday Inn Express last night. But when the guys who study this stuff professionally — like Dr. Gary “DocGKR” Roberts and retired FBI Ballistics Research chief Buford Boone — all scoff at this death by a thousand cuts approach, well, it’s hard to argue with stuff like “science” and “fact.”

When it comes to lethal confrontations and typical handgun caliber rounds, I like to group anatomical target areas as follows:

Group A: places where bullets are likely to cause substantial immediate trauma to critical life-sustaining organs

Group B: places where bullets aren’t doing a damn thing

So why does this lots of fast hits anywhere on the target theory keep coming back into vogue? Lazy instructors. It’s easy to teach people to launch unaimed bullets out of a pistol really, really fast and still hit a 30″ high, 18″ wide target at 3yd. It’s particularly fascinating to a certain subset of law enforcement instructors who’ve been told their entire career that firing six shots in 30 seconds at 25yd was fast enough and taught officers everything they needed to know about combat.

I still remember attending a ridiculously bad class put on for some military & law enforcement folks about a decade ago. The instructor literally had us stand less than a yard from a giant B27 target and the “challenge” was to hit the target five times in one second (measured from first shot to last, so 0.25 splits). The SWAT cops from one local department were so impressed and inspired that they were almost brought to tears… because he taught them to shoot blind quarter-second splits while keeping everything within — literally — 2,200 MOA.

When a few of us offered that we could probably do the same thing from ten times farther away while keeping our hits in a much, much smaller area we, too, got the old “make ‘em bleed from as many places as you can!” story. It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now.

Speed is good. Speed is important. But speed only matters if the thing you’re doing speedily is hitting vital structures in a way that will promote rapid incapacitation. Slicing up a bunch of distal arteries and capillaries might make for a gruesome appearance and could eventually cause someone to bleed to death, but not before he’s had enough time to kill you, bury your corpse, and drive himself to the local hospital.

Hit what matters.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

HAPPY BIRTHDAY USMC!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Handgun Combatives

"The essentials of a successful gunfight remain, precision, power and quickness. The elements are equal, but they are surpassed by one other thing and that is attitude. It is great to be quick, accurate and powerful , but it is more important to be ready. The readiness to take the irrevocable step is what will save your life. The Weaver firing stroke will do the job, but only if you are emotionally ready to employ it."
- Jeff Cooper

"Conflict is 10 percent skill and 90 percent attitude"
- Kelly McCann...

"Advanced skills are the basics mastered"
- Bruce Lee

"I don't want you to die for your country...I want you to make the other son of a bitch die for his!"
- Gen. George Patton

"Then you have just fulfilled the first rule of law enforcement...make sure when your shift is over you go home alive!"
- Sean Connery in "The Untouchables"

Keep in mind if you have made the effort to get someone to love or at least care about you then you don't have the right to quit!!! Dying is out of the question! Its not up to you any longer...you made a promise! NOW STAND UP TO IT!!!