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2015-11-07 -Land of the Free

This Week In Guns, November 7th, 2015

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Posted by badanov 2015-11-07 00:00|| || Front Page|| [12 views ] Top

#1 So someone added to my Jetlag Appreciation Day list of to-dos - check smoke detectors, change batteries in important electrical devices such as electric safes, and now begin practicing conceal carry drills while wearing winter clothing: gloves, various coats, so forth. Not only to refresh yourself, but also if you have new clothes - coat, gloves, undershirt - or new equipment - holster, firearm accessory, new firearm - you give yourself a chance to train and adjust and train again while merely looking out of place at the range rather than finding out at the worst time in your life that your fine new gloves do not allow you to properly operate your equipment.

I'm going to take some liberty from the show The Best Defense. As always, they remind viewers that awareness is your best defense. Second to that, they reviewed defense with items other than a firearm. They talked about escalation, focusing on pepper spray. They stressed practicing your pepper spray - do research and make sure the brand will disable most attackers rather than spice up their dinner. Go and spray it. Does it mist or stream, little of both? Here is me putting words in their mouths. Spray is not bad, don't have to be as accurate, but how does it behave in x mph wind? How offset is the aim with a crosswind? At what headwind does it come back on you?

I was hoping to post something else, but regionally we have an uptick of meth. If you are unfamiliar with the beauties of said drug, I can give you my opinion. Had an employee deal with a large male so twacked out a different customer had 911 all but dialed until said head left. It put the employee in an awkward position - leave him alone and he steals anything of value. Escort the head and potentially put them self into harm's way. Guy could have put $300 of graphing calculator into waist band pretty easily and nobody would have known. The merchandise loss would be a kick in the pants, but we know that at even a quarter value is a good haul (meth is cheap) but then we get the reputation of an easy mark so the whole damn hive starts coming in. It self perpetuates.

Awareness and communication, attitude, numbers were employee's best defense. Backing that up was pepper spray and telescoping baton - and it was at that moment employee realized she didn't know if she could properly deploy the pepper spray, because toe to toe would have been a loser even with the baton.

Practice folks. Practice.

Posted by swksvolFF 2015-11-07 18:35|| 2015-11-07 18:35|| Front Page Top

#2 IDPA is good practice too. Wear different clothes, wear different jackets. I don't do IDPA to compete, I use it for practice. My wife bought me some turkish ammo that failed about 1 in 20 rounds. Only thing I've seen fail in my XDm. But, it was good practice for a bad round, having to actually practice tap-rack-bang under some pressure. It was rather strange how quickly that became automatic too, after the initial surprise wore off, going through that drill is quick and reflex. No bang? Slap the mag, rack it and start firing again.

Another thing I found about the 3.8" XDm is that apparently there's a huge muzzle flash, but I never notice it when firing. Other IDPA people keep asking what I'm shooting but I think they forget it's a 3.8" and not the 5".

Posted by Silentbrick 2015-11-07 23:00|| 2015-11-07 23:00|| Front Page Top

23:00 Silentbrick
20:16 AlanC
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19:56 swksvolFF
19:43 JHH
19:08 Sgt. Mom
18:59 DarthVader
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18:45 Elmerert Hupens2660
18:42 Pappy
18:35 swksvolFF
18:14 Bobby
17:59 regular joe
17:51 Skidmark
17:12 Ebbart Glererong5900
16:52 SteveS
16:37 Procopius2k
16:35 Procopius2k
16:11 SteveS
15:43 g(r)omgoru
15:40 frozen al
15:29 Pappy
15:25 AlanC
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