Jeff Gonzales....Good advice

Jeff Gonzales - Concealed Carry Mistakes

A gun is better than no gun, but you need to properly conceal said gun for it to be truly valuable. Telegraphing your intentions, like a punch sets you up for failure.

START WITH THE RIGHT CLOTHES

One mistake I see in the concealed carry market is failing to select the proper cover garment. A cover garment is the main item of clothing you use to “cover” or conceal your blaster. It varies from person to person, but a big chunk of the mistake we see are when you try to force some combinations to work. The combination of holster/firearm/garment needs to be well thought out and practiced in advance. I just spoke with several friends of mine who carry daily in the performance of their duties. They oftentimes have to tailor or customize their cover garments. While that may be a great way to ensure their cover garment is optimized, it is not very likely for the average everyday carry practitioner. I discourage custom packages simply because you should be able to carry with anything off the shelf. You may not have the custom luxury, but if you develop a dependency you may find yourself in a real pickle when you run out of custom clothes or time to get them customized.

STOP FIDGETING

Comfort is a big part of being able to conceal well on an everyday basis. Most people really don’t carry every second of the day. That is a personal choice, but you should consider whether you could conceal from sunup to sundown. If you haven’t tried that little experiment I would encourage you to give it a shot. Start with an inert pistol and just keep it concealed from the moment you wake up until the moment your head hits the pillow. You will learn so much as it relates to comfort and the more comfortable you are, the more confident you will be about your cover garment. We all have to deal with different environmental conditions, some of us have extreme heat, while others have extreme cold. You will need to conceal in whatever your conditions and be comfortable to avoid the constant fidgeting or adjusting we often see.

BAD CHOICES

Selecting the wrong firearm is probably the biggest mistake I see people making. I reference my earlier comment about “a gun, is better than no gun”, but after a while you really have to consider whether your selection of firearms was the right one. So, how do you go about selecting the best option for concealed carry? My recommendation is not to select a firearm because it is reduced in size, thinking it will ideally make the best choice. Instead, create a list of criterion for your everyday carry requirements. Once you have done that, try your best to find the best match. Don’t hold onto the notion that just because so and so is carrying some super cool blaster you can get away with it, think whether or not it is practical for you. Probably the most important factor when considering is whether you can actually shoot the firearm well. If you cannot shoot it well in training then what makes you think you will shoot it well in the real world.

Nobody is perfect, but sometimes we just make bad choices out the gate.

- Jeff Gonzales

Written by Greg Ellifritz

“I’m in fear for my life!”

I’ve heard this phrase pop up a couple of times in the last month.

The first time was during a close quarters shooting class I was teaching.  The students were working a weapon retention drill and I had instructed them to use loud, repetitive verbal commands when defending their firearm from a takeaway attempt.

One of my students got his gun back from his attacker in a scenario, cleared his malfunction and then trained his gun on his simulated attacker.  The verbal command he yelled was “Stay away from me! I’m in fear for my life and I will shoot you!”

The command sounded forced and unnatural.  I asked the student why he chose to use those particular words.  He told me “When I say that, the criminal will know that I’ve met the legal standard for use of force and if he continues his attack, I’ll be justified in shooting him.”

I’m not so sure about that…

More recently, I read an article (from an author I respect) that advocated barricading into a safe room in the event someone breaks into your house.  The author instructed his readers to yell something like: “I have a gun and am in fear for my life.  Leave now!”

How is that phrase tangibly better than merely saying: “I have a gun. Leave now?”

“I’m in fear for my life” is a curious phrase.  I don’t think that using it will improve the outcome of your defensive encounter.  Telling someone that you are in fear for your life is simply not the same as BEING in fear for your life.  It’s not a shortcut to provide some sort of instant justification for shooting someone.

Being in fear for your life is generally grounds for using lethal force only when such fear is objectively reasonable given the circumstances.  Your statements have very little bearing on this standard of objective reasonableness.  The attacker still must have the ability and opportunity to cause you serious injury in order to justify your shooting.  Furthermore, you must reasonably believe that you are in jeopardy of being seriously injured by your attacker.

Let me give you an example…

If I’m physically attacked by an unarmed eight year old girl, do you think I would be justified in shooting her so long as I’ve screamed “I’m in fear for my life?”  I hope not.  The law doesn’t work that way.  Likewise, you won’t be justified in shooting a criminal attacker unless the ability- opportunity-jeopardy standards are met no matter how many times you tell him that you are scared.

Let’s take a look at another issue…

Have you ever been truly scared that you might die?  At the moment of impending death did you think or say “I’m in fear for my life?”  I’m betting you probably didn’t.  And neither has anyone else who has been in true danger.  We simply don’t vocalize very well when we’re truly scared.  All of our brain’s resources are being put toward working on a solution to ensure our survival.  You won’t be waxing eloquently about your perceived fear.

In fact, if I was the attorney prosecuting you for attempted murder, I might use your casual statement against you in court:

 “If the defendant was truly as scared as he said he was, why didn’t he try to run away?  He didn’t make any effort to escape.  Instead he calmly talked to the victim about his fears.  That isn’t the action of a person who is really scared to death.  The mere fact that the defendant could calmly utter those words is evidence enough to show that he WASN’T scared.”

Can you see how that statement might cause things to go sideways?

Beyond the legal considerations, consider the impact that such a statement will have on the criminal.  We know that criminals choose victims who are scared and unable or unwilling to fight back.  What message are you sending when you tell your attacker “I’m in fear for my life?”  Do you think it will scare him away or do you think it will embolden him to more violent action?  My bet is on the latter…

And if you think that those magic words will make the criminal understand that you have somehow met the legal grounds for using deadly force, think again.  The dudes attacking you are not legal scholars.  If they were, they would likely have a job that doesn’t involve hitting people like you over the head with a steel pipe.  The criminal doesn’t know when it’s legal for a citizen to shoot him.  More importantly, HE DOESN’T CARE!  He’s a criminal.  By definition he couldn’t care less about the laws that govern most of the people in this country.  He isn’t going to understand the message that you are attempting to communicate.

Words have meaning.  It’s important to choose them carefully.  Don’t say anything in a defensive encounter that might come back to bite you in the ass.

Rich Grassi....GOOD ARTICLE

Armed Lifestyle

Small guns can be handy, but "out of sight, out of mind." Keep track of it, know where it is and what condition it's in. Secure it when you're not wearing it.

It had to happen, I suppose. We've had a maturing of the shall-issue concealed carry movement - one that even brought us LEOSA for cops in the wake of 9/11. I should have expected it and I guess I just dreaded the moment.

It's the era of the non-sworn NDP. A term popularized by Mark Moritz back in the "long ago," he referred to people who are minimal in terms of their abilities - usually fueled by a lack of desire to learn - as Non-Dedicated Personnel. These unworthies are the detectives who "holster" their sidearms in desk drawers. Those in uniform were often no better. A number of them prided themselves on leaving handguns holstered on duty belts hanging in the closet when not on duty. They were happy to get them out only on qualification day.

That it would spread to people with permits is no surprise. Disappointment, yes. 

In Hayden, Idaho last week a two year old child got into mom's purse during a shopping excursion. It was a "concealed carry" purse, a gun inside a zippered pouch. The child was able to get to the gun and shoot mom to death.

Meanwhile, a police chief in Georgia called 911 because ". . . the gun was in the bed, I went to move it, and I put it to the side and it went off . . ." shooting his wife.

The TSA reported that they snagged 2,210 guns in 2014 from carry-on baggage. An aviation security analyst said that many carry concealed guns. "I think a lot forget that they have them with them because they're so used to carrying them in purses, laptop bags, on belts. It becomes a natural extension like their phone or car keys or wallet, they literally don't even think twice about it."

There's the point: not thinking. It's not that they need more training; we had an experimental period when we increased training. While we made some headway, many disabled their brains as they left the range.

It's a lifestyle.

Part of it is a misapplication of The Rules. Our friend, the police chief, clearly forgot a few. One is Rule 1: if there's a loose gun in the bed clothes (and why would there be?), it's loaded. Let's gingerly uncover its location without violating Rule 2 (having the muzzle cover someone) and Rule 3 (touching the damn trigger). It didn't "go off." You shot it.

Another Rule could have been violated - not one of the Four specifically, but a more general rule. It was the early hours of 1 January, traditionally occurring after the revelry of Dec. 31, New Year's Eve. I'm not saying he was "under the weather," but I wonder if GBI did a blood draw.

As to TSA and Idaho, we're looking at some Rule 5 issues. Stephen Wenger posted the TSA story on his email news digest. His take was "If you don't know where your gun is, it's not under your control. And the recent gun-purse tragedy (in) Idaho should remind us of the weakness of carrying gun in purses and laptop bags, much less using such containers for storage in the home."

Rule 5, for those who came in late, is "Maintain control of your gun (and your defensive gear generally)." Wenger came up with it on advice of counsel, as he relates on his website.

Wenger says to ensure you keep firearms within your control when you carry them. Guns in purses, briefcases and other off-body containers are difficult to control - just like a gun put between couch cushions, left in desk drawers or elsewhere. When you store a gun you're not carrying, secure the piece. Trigger locks are de facto Rule 3 problems; use locking containers.

The exception to Rule 5? It occurs in the event you fumble and drop a gun - let it hit the ground. Do not reach for it. We have a number of fatalities on record when people try to catch dropped guns in the air.

Wenger's corollary of Rule 1 and Rule 5 is the condition check. Whenever you pick up a firearms that's been out of your control - even for the shortest of times - check it by opening the action. Put the gun in the condition you need it to be in.

It's a lifestyle and to be a lifestyle, you have to condition habitual behaviors. There are so many small guns around. That's okay, but "out of sight, out of mind."

How can you defend yourself using that gun if you lack situational awareness?

-- Rich Grassi