Posted by
Mostly Genius – September 30, 2009
From the recent discussion about hand loading carry ammo, there is something that I think is being missed: equipment choices are cumulative in the minds of the jury.
Lets take an extreme hypothetical situation:
1. Subject exits his car and proceeds to cross the parking lot to enter a grocery store.
2. Subject is attacked by a known, violent, felon in a manner that clearly poses a lethal threat.
3. Subject responds appropriately with deadly force, shooting the attacker with his licensed, concealed, handgun (this is clearly a “good shoot”, with lots of witnesses.)
4. Police respond and investigate.
So taken at face value this is triumph for law abiding citizens, concealed carry, and the 2nd amendment. Now let me start adding a bunch of strange equipment and behavior to our hero:
- His (primary) handgun is Desert Eagle .50AE with a laser and a flashlight.
- He has 5 magazines for his primary handgun.
- All of his ammunition is hand loaded and he made his own jacketed bullets to some exotic specification.
- He is carrying secondary and tertiary handguns, with reloads for each of them.
- He is carrying 4 folding knives (of legal length in the jurisdiction), of a type originally designed for sentry removal and issued to the navy SEAL teams.
- He is wearing hard body with rifle plates and a ballistic helmet.
- “Born to Kill” and “I am justice” are written on his helmet.
Admittedly, this is hyperbolically weird, but all of this gear is legal (at least for the sake of this argument.) In the eyes of the extremely paranoid he is “well prepared” to buy a pack of hot dogs at the grocery store, but a lot of people would say he is “looking for trouble.” Some of the people in the “too much gear for a shopping trip” camp are very likely to be the witnesses, responding officers, prosecutor, the jury, the media, and the general population.
Posted by
Mostly Genius – September 9, 2009
According to this article they are discouraging Boy Scouts from carrying pocket knives. Apparently the criminal “knife culture” of Britain trumps the “Scout Culture.”
A Boy Scout without a pocket knife is just wrong. I started carrying a pocket knife (even to school) when I was about six or seven years old. Every Cub Scout I knew had a pocket knife. When we were full fledged boy scouts we graduated to fixed blade knives, hatchets, and machetes.
So much of the great tradition of Scouting has been pansyfied to the point that it is no wonder that kids would rather play video games than go to the woods. If all of the scouting adventure is going to be nerf, they might as well just stay home.
Posted by
Mostly Genius – September 9, 2009
I just read this post The Calm in the Storm over at Low Tech Combat, and I have few criticisms.
Full force training. Certainly if we need to perform a skill under stress we should have some practice in that skill under stress. Ideally we would be training in as close as we can to “actual combat conditions,” but there are limits to how well we can simulate this environment, and more importantly the student needs some ability to perform the skills required before applying stress.
If you can’t do it under perfect conditions what chance do you have under combat conditions?
Relaxed Training. Is where you learn new skills. Ideally drilling parts of the skill in isolation and building to a complete technique. I can take a new shooter and scream “speed reload” at him until I am blue in the face and eventually the fumbling will accomplish getting the gun reloaded, but not in a timely or efficient fashion. This also holds true with combatives techniques. Until a technique has been rehearsed without resistance and time pressure it has very little hope of becoming consistent. If you can’t do it under perfect conditions what chance do you have under combat conditions?
Stressed in training, calm in reality. This an excellent goal, and from what I have observed: confident, successful, application of technique comes from first training the skill in a low stress environments and after achieving proficiency, then ratcheting up the realism. I completely agree that you ultimately have to progress to executing techniques in realistic scenarios under realistic stress if you want the best chance at executing successful techniques in the real world.
Posted by
Mostly Genius – September 4, 2009
I know that this is kind of old news, but I am adding for completeness. I cannot fathom the purpose of this device. From the manufacturers website:
A LaserLyte original, the Pistol Bayonet is ready for any situation – or just looking cool on your favorite gun.
I can’t think of a situation where I need this, nor one where it would look cool. Some people have made the “weapons retention” argument, but I remain unconvinced. This is about as useful as a fish bicycle.
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