I talked about psychological stopping in this post: The Stop. In a recent discussion with a close friend we came to agree that wars are won in the will. The military talks about "imposing your will on the battlefield" but I don't know that most people really get it. You have to deprive the enemy of the will to fight. This fundamental truth is applied in all forms of human conflict. It is a matter of dissuading participation, and raising the cost of failure.

Over at Hell In A Handbasket Cautionary Tales: Home Invasions

James suggests key-opening deadbolt locks and I agree. There is nothing that says you can't hang the key near the door either. While this might violate fire codes, it is a good way to prevent people from breaking a window and simply unlocking a door.

Via SayUncle and KDT:

Homeowner fired to protect his wife during invasion

So we have two 19yr old adults, one with a prior criminal history, and one carrying a weapon, put on masks and break into a 70 yr old mans home and he shoots them both.

First I should begin by saying I have not seen the orginal SOP9 document (if anyone has a link to it I would like to get a hold of it.) So my comments are based on the analysis done here NYPD SOP 9 - Analysis of Police Combat

The bulk of this article is an endorsement of point shooting. Much of the SOP9 material here is used as a justification of point shooting. I am not a point shooting advocate, and I don't see any evidence here to change my mind.

We would like to see granular data that gives a picture of the hit rate for officers using a crouch in low light conditions at some particular distance. What we have instead is a mixture of point shooting and aimed fire under a range of different conditions.

US uses bullets ill-suited for new ways of war

This is quite a confusing article to read. Some camps say that 5.56 isn't enough bullet, others say that the M4 isn't enough gun, and still others say we should go back to 7.62. The article doesn't end with a solid conclusion.

Lifting the prohibitions on hollow points would be a good idea. Short of shooting people under laboratory conditions I don't think we are ever going to get a concrete answer.

Much of the argument that people will be disarmed of their weapons and have those weapons used against them stems from a long history of police officers being shot with their own firearms. To combat this problem law enforcement has adopted various handgun retention systems.

While the private citizen carrying a concealed firearm isn't as likely to be a target for a disarm while the firearm is holstered, I can certainly see a number of scenarios where an assailant might make an attempt against a drawn gun.

Joe has a very interesting piece about Knife rights. I think he is absolutely correct in saying that this is the flank of the gun rights movement.

Knives are a far more accessible self defense tool than firearms are. There are a number of good reasons that people should be carrying knives in addition to firearms.

I am glad that there is a knife rights movement before a knife control movement has emerged. They deserve our support.