Practice, Practice, Practice!

When was the last time you actually performed good quality training on weapon manipulation drills? Reloads (under stress), clearing weapon malfunctions, re-checked your zero? Has it been a long time? I hope your answer is no longer than a month ago for most of the items I listed above, and more like a week on the rest of them.

Just because you have taken a class or two, or have trained with your buddies, and long ago learned how to perform these actions does not mean that you are done and you will be able to react correctly in a stressful encounter.

These are perishable skills guys and gals, if you do not perform them on a regular basis you will become less and less effective at these skills. What you really want to do is to get to the point of “Unconscious Competence”. This is when you will just react and perform the action correctly in a timely manner without thinking about it.

Sometimes you will need to go back and cover the basics, professionals do it all the time. They practice the basics until they can not get it wrong (well very rarely anyway). That is what makes them the best at what they do. Even the most highly trained operator will continuously train on the basics as well as the more exciting stuff. They train each way, each action so many times that it becomes second nature. Most people do not have the time and money to train this often, but we need to be doing what we can, we need to be training as often as possible. Train on the basics by yourself, practice employing your weapon systems in various conditions, and reloads at home, this can be done anywhere anytime, so there is no excuse guys and gals.

I highly encourage you to get effective tactical training, but to also take the knowledge from there and train your team/group/family/friends in those skills. Become the "force multiplier" for your group by getting this higher end training, then going back and training them on the things you learned.

Check out a past post here on The Tactical Patriot about training, and links to training sites and schools here in the United States.

Training link post

Here is a little motivational video for you Patriots out there, keep in the fight! We need you to be ready!


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Gunfighting Safetly

Here is another great post by Max Velocity about an important topic we should all know about, and train on. None of us want to hit our friends, or family while in a tactical engagement. So we all need to keep these ideas and concepts in mind while training.

I left in the parts where Max talks about his tactical training because I highly recommend as many of you as can, attend his training. Unfortunately I have not been able to, up to this point, but I am trying to find time to attend, and recommend you do also.

Max Velocity Blog

I wrote the post ‘Buddy Position Awareness‘ on July 28 2015. I’m going to revisit that topic here, particularly in light of the comments I made on a student review yesterday:

If you have been reading the blog lately, you will have seen my post on the development of the Rifle Skills and Combat Team Tactics Classes (‘Adjustments to the Rifle Skills / Combat Team Tactics Lineup‘). We have also scheduled a number of the Combat Rifle Skills classes for those who want a shallower learning curve. We have moved zeroing entirely to the optional Rifle Skills day prior to Combat Team Tactics. This has freed up training time on the Friday of CTT. We have made some adjustments to that square range day to introduce some of the visual concepts early, so that they are not first encountered on the Saturday morning, as part of the introduction to fire and movement. This is done in a somewhat ‘monkey see, monkey do’ format on the square range, to put visuals of safe distances, angles, spacing and such into the mind of the student, so that when they are taken through explanations and rehearsal on the tactical ranges the following day, they have a better reference point. This is working very well so far. We had limited time this past class for this pre-concept training, because we still had to do some check zero, but for future classes the absence of zeroing has been made clear (unless you show up for RS) and we will have more time available.

If you haven’t been paying attention, the CTT class has been dropped from $600 to $500 (3 days), and RS from $200 to $100 (1 day), to allow students to complete the full 4 days of training for the same price as the previous 3 day CTT class. Don’t tell me I never give you incentives to train!

I am going to partially re-post the ‘Buddy Position Awareness‘ post below. Before I do, here is some additional comment:

We have been developing and improving the Combat Team Tactics class over the last three years. It went from a 2 day ‘CRCD” class, to a 3 day CTT class, to the option of making it a 4 day RS/CTT class. We often have to deal with the tendency of students to have past training scars from other ‘tactical’ training classes, and a general theme is the need to move people on from square range focused training to realistic combat training. This is something that we are working hard to achieve with the most effect possible. Does this mean I don’t like square ranges? Of course not, I have two! The point is that the square range should properly be viewed as a part of the progression to live field firing. Much training, in particular the stuff that can be viewed all over YouTube, is both unrealistic and dives into a rabbit hole because it has nowhere to go beyond the square range itself.

This amuses me, along the same lines of dealing with the obvious ‘You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know’ (DKWYDK) comments that I see. It amuses me because the training progression and focus that we work so hard on at MVT actually makes things safer for you to operate in a live fire / combat environment, whereas the focus on the pure (usually close range) target shooting of a square range environment makes it more dangerous. In fact, if this country does ever go to a full collapse shooting war, I’m going to get into a low crawl and simply crawl the hell out of it! It beggars belief the amount of friendly and not so friendly fire casualties that will likely be generated, and people shooting their own families and teams, as everyone is running aimlessly round in a panic.

I’m pulling a video out of the original post and putting it here, by way of an example of this chaos even among trained soldiers on deployment. This is the best example I could find on YouTube. Watch the video below for the first few seconds, and realize how close it came to a friendly fire incident, as the soldier runs across from right to left. After that, there is no safety angle as the helmet cam guy fires over the top of his buddies taking cover behind the low wall. Be prepared for random acts in combat! Unless you have effectively trained in a realistic live fire training environment, which develops an understanding of real world safety angles, you will make mistakes like this. This training should also be backed by solid rehearsal and drills in react to contact.

There a various things we tell students at MVT training. Among them:

•Scan, all the time. Scan means actually scan.
•Get your head out of your weapon.
•It’s not about you, it’s about your buddies.
•It’s not about your personal relationship with Ivan, but knowing where your buddies are first.
•Break that tunnel vision.

What does this even mean? Well if you focus only on square range training, including competition style training, or shot timers, or whatever, then it is all about you, and your target. It is about that personal relationship between you and Ivan (the target). I’ve even heard of training so naval gazing that it is all about filming the shooter and reviewing second by second technique.

Here’s the thing – you only have to shoot SO WELL. There is a limit of accuracy, a balance of speed and effect on target versus perfect technique. Yes, don’t conflate this with an argument about poor shooting being better, because it is not. It is about practical accuracy balanced with the need for relevant training, building situational awareness. If I get rounds on target to protect my team, that accuracy is good enough. If I have no awareness of where my buddies are as this firefight commences, and I put rounds into them instead of the target, as everyone runs around in a disorganized panic, then that is a fail. So it is a balance between individual proficiency and the awareness and ability to operate within and with a team. I’m not making these comments in an unlimited theoretical training time vacuum: Most people have limited training time, and thus the focus on training to become the ultimate-AR-driving-wizard is probably not as useful as spending your time learning how to get rounds effectively on target, take cover, and not kill your buddies while doing so – because if you put rounds into your friends or family, there is no undoing that. That is why you can learn good skills on the square range, but you must progress beyond it to learn the team tactics. Or, your ‘team’ will die, either by enemy or friendly fire, probably both.

This is the reason, precisely, that I harp on about this, and many who have not progressed beyond the square range simply do not understand it. I am trying to explain it here, in this post.

Consider these conceptual points, which may help you understand this:

On a square range, you are already on a firing line. Other firers are to the left and right of you, and the targets are downrange. It is safe. No other firer is within an acceptable safety angle from the muzzle of any other firer’s rifle.

When we teach you team tactics, and we have a 4 man team reacting to effective enemy fire (i.e. an Ivan target exposure) , we are teaching you drills to move from whatever formation you were walking in, to create an immediate firing line, just like on the square range. Thus, as you react, no one firer is within an unsafe angle from any other firers muzzle. Whatever direction the contact comes from, front, left, right, rear, you are adapting into a safe firing line to engage the target(s). This happens when you conduct individual and team RTR drills.

Other safety training, such as active muzzle awareness, how to move with the weapon, “Don’t go faster than you can go,” “Don’t be in a hurry to rush to your death,” “identify cover before you move to it,” head-body-weapon, and other team drills that are taught, are all to reinforce the awareness of what is safe and what is not safe: until you are sure where your buddies are (scan-head-body-weapon) you are not bringing your rifle up to engage the target. This is why we need to break that square range indoctrination of me-target-me-target.

If we are going to maneuver in the face of the enemy, either towards, away (break contact) or to the flank, then we now have to move that firing line. For this, we teach fire and movement (maneuver). Think about this as simply moving segments of the firing line, whether those segments are individuals or buddy pairs, in such as way that we maneuver to where we want to go, while suppressing the enemy, and while never moving into an unsafe position relative to the safety angle of other firer’s muzzles.

Now imagine this: 4 firers lined up on a square range, facing the targets. Maybe quite close, perhaps the firing line is 10 yards from the targets. Imagine there are 10 targets lined up in front of them, running from #1 on the left, thru #10 to the right. The shooters are only 10 yards from the targets and 5 yards from each other, so #1 is off to the left, #10 off to the right, and #5 is directly front in the center of the 4 man line. It’s safe to say that the 4 man line can probably engage #5, and targets to the left and right of #5, without causing any safety angle problems. Those targets are pretty much directly front. Now, if we call target #1, we have a problem. The left shooter can engage, by swiveling (head-body-weapon) to the left and engaging #1. When the other firers do their scan-head, before they even move their body, they will realize that the angle to the left, for them to shoot at #1, is too steep, and that they will be unsafely muzzling firers to their left (i.e. those firers would be at an unsafe angle to their muzzle if they engaged the target). In this case, the only solution is for the line to angle to the left, to create a new firing line aligned on Target #1. If target #10 were called, you get the opposite.

If a buddy engages a target and has not immediately called distance-direction-description, and you are trying to identify it, then you can easily see how he is oriented by looking at the direction of his barrel, and the angle of his shoulders, and thus know what position is safe relative to him before you can even think about bringing your weapon up towards a target you have not even seen yet. Whether you immediately see the target or not, and you want to bring your weapon up, but a buddy is in the way, you have to push left/right/up in order to move him out of your safety angle, and thus allow your weapon to come up.

All of the above seems very obvious, but it is not for those who have been conditioned to the me-target-me-target mindset of much of the shooting sports world. You have to also consider that on a tactical range there is much going on, stress inoculation is part of the objective, and the formation is moving relative to the targets and the ground, and thus it is easy for new shooters to become sucked into the target, tunnel vision, and lose the ability to scan. That what the safety cadre are there for!

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Buddy Awareness & Scanning

There is plenty of talk out there about ‘training,’ but unless you are incorporating professional live fire training into your overall training plan, you will probably not understand, in a practical sense, what I am discussing here. In the same way that it is easy to talk about ‘shoot, move and communicate’ on the internet, but harder to actually conduct it for real. You need to be building real ‘operant conditioning’ via the right training.

Buddy awareness and scanning, seems so simple. However, on training classes we spend a deal of time drilling this into people, and first drilling bad habits out of them. Unfortunately some of these bad habits come from individual focused training on basic shooting and weapons manipulation on the square range. When it’s all about ‘driving your AR’ and your INDIVIDUAL shooting skills, scans can become notional, robotic. This is one of the chief problems with training when it never makes it off the square range: it is an individual sport, not a team activity. This causes big problems when trying to operate as a team in a live fire environment.

At MVT, we run live fire training with movement. This means that shooters are not always ‘on line’ – something that is alien to many who have grown up on solely on ranges with no movement. We have specific safety procedures that will not translate well if I try and describe them here in writing. Suffice to say, there are safety angles and procedures that include mantras such as ‘head-body-weapon,’ ways to move (absolutely no pirouetting, ever), safety angles off your muzzle, and active muzzle awareness. The way weapons are carried and movement is conducted is operational safety, i.e. it translates to real situations when you are on patrol, or moving with weapons. Not ‘over safe’ procedures such as seen on many ranges, which actually end up being less safe (such as moving backwards with weapons). Patrol ready, active muzzle awareness, finger outside trigger guard, safety on at all times except when not engaging the enemy.

Buddy awareness:

This is vital. If a target pops up, the important thing is not to engage the target, but to know where your buddies are before engaging the target. You are always scanning and conducting a version of ‘head-body-weapon.’ The weapon part of the mantra applies equally to ‘ready ups’ when bringing the weapon on to target prior to firing, such as with an RTR drill, or equally to active muzzle awareness if you are conducting the manta as part of a move from one piece of cover to another.

When running training and safety, we are always fighting tunnel vision and students being glued to their sights. It is important to pull your head away from the sights every couple of rounds, to locate your buddies and maintain spacial awareness. This is a hard thing for new shooters to grasp. You need to turn your head towards your buddies and yell in their direction when yelling is needed (i.e. MOVE!) otherwise your yell will be lost into the stock of your weapon. Is your buddy moving to the next cover? Is he beating at his weapon because he has not yet grasped the muscle memory to conduct weapon manipulation under stress? Is he writhing on the ground, bleeding? Is he laying there silent?

Imagine you are lined up with your buddies on the firing line on a square range. Weapons will all be aligned facing down the range to the targets. Shoulders will be roughly aligned, assuming we are adapting dynamic shooting positions, and not ‘blading off’ to the targets. You are now ‘on line.’ Now, in a realistic combat environment it would not matter if you and your buddies were a little misaligned, perhaps due to the positions of cover, and the line was not exactly straight. So long as no one was inside the muzzle safety angle of each others weapons, we are good to go. That’s what happens in fire and movement.

Now, take that target away straight down the range and put one up half-left to the firing line. Because the enemy gets a vote, and will try and flank you. Now, everyone’s weapons and shoulders swing (although they wouldn’t swing, like a turret, they would scan and acquire the target and then go ‘head-body-weapon’) to the left by 45 degrees. This may have an impact on the safety angle. If there are two of you, and you are the right hand guy, then when you acquire the target with ‘head’ and scan, then you will also need to note the location of your buddy. As the angle of the target moves more to the flank, it may be that you cannot bring your weapon up to engage, because your buddy would be within the safety angle of your muzzle. This would mean you would have to ‘push right’ or ‘push up’ depending, in order to clear that safety angle and safely acquire the target. In a dynamic situation, it is always important to note your buddies as you acquire a target, keep both eyes open, and also be ready for when they may make an unpredictable movement, perhaps to adjust their position of cover. If they do this, be ready to drop your muzzle. The key is simply to avoid the herd mentality and keep spread out from your buddies, in order to open up the safety angle. Do not, and we do not allow, people to be firing past each others ears!

It is vital to always maintain awareness of where your buddies are, and to keep the scan going throughout the engagement as positions move and the team fires and moves. If you do not have a shot angle that is not going to potentially kill your buddy, then you need to move.

Scanning:

As alluded to above, scanning is a constant activity. You are looking for cover, for the enemy, for your buddies. It is more important to know where your buddies are than it is to get that shot off. We struggle with ‘square-range-isms’ at MVT, otherwise known as re-training the training scars out of people, acquired from tacticool training. We notice the tendency to try and scan with the weapon glued to the eyeball, or to perform that fake-robotic-square-range-scan. Or to not scan at all, or to just take quick tunnel glances, like to the left, to the center, to the right, down a ‘tunnel’ in the trees.

To Scan:

•Lower the weapon out of your face.
•Get your eye out of the optic.
•If you have a magnified optic, it is OK to use it as a monocular to check out an item of interest, but don’t be glued to it.
•Scan by looking THROUGH the vegetation.
•Scan in a ‘S’ near-middle-far left-center-right.
•Cover your sector!
•Look from your buddy on one side to your buddy on the other side, particularly after an engagement. What is their position and are they OK? Does anyone need to move, including you?

As you move towards the enemy position, or away from it in a break contact drill, you are always looking for your next position of cover. You are always running ‘head-body-weapon’ and practicing active muzzle awareness. You are scanning for your buddies and moving your position as necessary in order to engage the target safely. As you locate your next cover, locate your buddies so that you don’t run the wrong way, into their safety angle. Communicate if necessary – “I’m on your left!”

It is always better to run the lanes slower and under control, than faster and out of control/unsafe. It is better to maintain a steady momentum of fire and movement on the enemy, as you press closer and closer to his position, that it is to run about the woods like headless chickens, causing a safety STOP.

And here is the kicker: those students who train at MVT learn this all under controlled conditions. It is vital that you learn these things at a reputable school that conducts actual live fire movement training. Otherwise you really don’t know what you don’t know. We have an expression at MVT which is students ‘going bluescreen.’ By attending battle inoculation live fire training with movement, under controlled and safe conditions, you are pushing back the point at which you will become exhausted and ‘go bluescreen.’

“Shoot, move and communicate” sounds good on the internet. It’s not so easy to practice in the real world.

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Ambushing

Ambushing is a vital tool in Guerilla warfare, and the primary method we will be using to engage our adversaries in a SHTF scenario. Hit and run tactics will be very important to master, so hopefully, you guys are training on these concepts. I have posted videos below about ambushing that would be good for you to go over. Watch the videos, see the differences, then take what you learn and add in the most useful aspects for your AO to your training.




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GAT-TAC Flash Hider

GAT-TAC, Inc. is announcing the release of a new innovation in flash hider technology. The GAT-TAC Flash Hider System (FHS) replaces current static flash hiders with a dynamic unit that is capable of multiple functions.

The GAT-TAC .223 caliber FHS includes a GT-1 adapter that is installed in the same manner as a standard flash hider. With the GT-1 adapter in place, any one of three styles of flash hider can be installed and hand tightened with a simple tool (an Alan wrench or Philips head screw driver shank) by passing it through the porting and tightening to the right. See our YouTube instructional video for the complete story.

The GAT-TAC flash hider system:
•provides a reduction in felt recoil
•diffuses the flash (expanding gasses forced perpendicular to muzzle)
•features a one-time GT-1 adapter installation
•covers the adapter thread for full protection

Cleaning the rifle is simplified. Unscrew the flash hider and screw on a standard, inexpensive oil filter. All solvent, oil and soiled patches fall into the oil filter, making cleaning neat and mess free. When cleaning is completed, simply replace the oil filter with the flash hider, and snug into place with the same simple tool.

GAT-TAC, Inc. FHS components are machined from solid round steel bar stock. All .223 FHS units are made with ½-28 threads and mount on any rifle with compatible muzzle threads. The .223 FHS parts are finished with a heavy phosphate (military) surface treatment and Mil Spec Oil-3150.

GAT-TAC, Inc. now has available a set of Vise Jaws to make the change over damage free to your gun barrel. These are the same Vise Jaws our shop uses for installation work every day. More GAT-TAC .223 styles are coming and a series in .30 caliber (with all the same features) is planned for the big bore shooters.

Please visit them on the web at:

WWW.FlashStealth.com


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Training Plan Part 3

Developing a Practice Program, Part Three

Up to this point in this series, we’ve discussed the overall scheme of developing an annual training program, and we’ve covered some basic fundamental marksmanship drills for practice. In this installment, we will be covering basic Core Skills, and the drills we use to practice them. Core skills can be defined as those tasks that are fundamental to effective gun-handling and shooting that—along with marksmanship—are CORE to prosecuting a fight with the firearm. For the purposes of this installment, we will briefly cover reloading and other malfunction clearances. These are the skills that—programmed properly, as part of your training and practice—will allow you to fire each shot as a deliberate, conscious action, fast enough to solve whatever shooting—or non-shooting—problem that you find yourself confronted with.

General

A malfunction can be defined as any situation where the gun does something unexpected, or does not do what is expected. Generally speaking, the malfunctions we are concerned with are those that occur—for whatever reason—when we attempt to fire a round, and the weapon fails to do so, for whatever reason.

With contemporary fighting firearms, in my experience, the single most common reason for “click instead of bang,” is a simple one…the gun is not loaded. Whether that is a result of not having loaded it properly at the outset, or because you have run the gun dry, is irrelevant.

The second most common reason for malfunctions seems to be simple operator error (which is not to say that failure to fully seat a magazine or chamber a round is not operator error). In this regard, I am specifically considering things like an inexperienced shooter—or an experienced shooter who is an inexperienced fighter and suddenly finds themselves in an actual fight—messing things up. The reality is, shooting and gun-handling are relatively complicated tasks, when executed properly, and require higher order intelligence to manage. When you’re scared and your “reptilian” brain amygdala is screaming at you, it’s entirely possible to mess up even simple tasks like walking or chewing bubble gum.

Fortunately, over the last century-plus of semi-automatic weapons design and use, there has been enough experience accumulated in the practical shooting community (I’m using the term here to specify people who shoot for practical applications, like smoking bad guys, not for the shooting sport, although considering most of the skills advanced practical shooters use originated there, or vice versa, the two may as well be synonymous in this context), to have ready solutions to both of these issues.

Loading and Reloading

Administrative loading of a rifle or pistol of the semi-automatic variety SHOULD be reasonably straight forward. For our purposes, I’m going to limit myself to describing the methods I use to load my Glocks, my AR-variant rifles, and my Kalashnikovs. If you develop a set ritual for loading your weapons, then you KNOW, every single time, that you’ve done it the exact same way, every single time…

Glock

Loading the Glock pistol is the height of simplicity.

1. Ensure there is no magazine seated in the weapon. Lock the slide to the rear, and visually inspect the chamber and bore for obstructions.
2. Seat a full magazine in the magazine well, and slap it home firmly, with the heel of your hand. You should feel it click into place, but whether you do or not, grasp the baseplate of the magazine and tug it firmly to ensure that it is fully seated, and locked into the magazine well.
3. Reach up with your support-hand thumb and release the slide lock lever, allowing the gun to go into battery under the recoil spring tension. DO NOT “SLING SHOT” THE SLIDE!!! (Invariably, when I see people do this, they “ride the slide” forward with their hand. This may induce a failure, if it prevents the round from seating fully).
4. The weapon is now loaded and hot. PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU ARE DOING. FOLLOW THE SAFE FIREARMS HANDLING RULES!!!!!!
5. There are a couple of options to ensure that a round actually seated. The first is to use the loaded chamber indicator, sticking out of the ejection port side of the slide. That is, after all, what it is designed for. Theoretically, it is possible for this to get gummed up and not function properly. I’ve NEVER seen that happen, but… The second is to perform a “press check.” To perform the press check, simply pull the slide back, far enough to visually inspect the chamber and see the brass of the seated case. Allow the gun to go back into battery—under it’s own power—once you’ve done so. If you’re worried about the round not seating…with an AR-variant rifle, a) lube your gun better, and b) use the forward assist. That’s what it is there for. With an AK, slap the back of the charging handle. With a Glock, I make it part of my pattern to tap the back of the slide with the heel of my support hand, to ensure that it is fully seated, after doing my press check.
6. Voila! Your gun is loaded, and you KNOW it is loaded. Now, safely—looking the gun into the holster, go ahead and holster your gun. If you work with an instructor that tells you, “Never look at the holster when you’re holstering your gun,” I want you to do two things: a) call him out for being an idiot, and b) then ask him “why not?”
Generally, the reason given for this is “There might be other threats that you need to address.” If that is the case…WHY ARE YOU PUTTING THE GUN AWAY?” Another reason I’ve heard is, “Well, I need both hands to secure the detainee!” You should not be putting the gun away until you have physical control of the detainee anyway (something I cover in detail in classes and in The Reluctant Partisan) anyway, and if you have that control, you can take a second to look at the holster. Not looking is a really good way to shoot yourself with your own gun, when a piece of your cover garment gets caught between the trigger and holster.

AR-Variant Rifles

Loading the AR is also simple.

1. Lock the bolt-carrier group (BCG) to the rear. Insert the magazine firmly, feeling for the “click” as it seats.
2. Grasp the seated magazine and pull firmly, ensuring that it is seated. Failing to do this critical step is the single most common cause of malfunctions I see in students, period, bar-none.
3. Press the “ping-pong paddle” bolt release and allow the gun to go into battery.
4. Using the charging handle, pull the BCG back far enough to visually inspect that there is a round in the chamber. Tap the forward assist to ensure the gun goes back into battery.
5. Close the dust cover (Honestly, probably not the end of the world, but it drives me crazy).
6. Your rifle is now loaded.

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Limits and how to overcome them

Know Your Limits, by Molon Labe

In these times, there are many activities that we must train to be able to do, many skills we must know, and many tasks we are forced to accomplish to sustain our lives and those who we care about. In the days ahead, there will be even greater and more difficult things that we will have to do should a collapse or failure of civility occur to any degree in our area. Many things that are abhorrent to us may become required in order to righteously protect what is ours.

Taking lives in the defense of our lives, our property, and more importantly in defense of our friends and family, may well be absolutely necessary. This is a topic which is often neglected today but clearly shown in Holy Scripture. However this is one of the only skills that you cannot afford to do without or make a mistake. Realistically, you may not have to utilize the skills of a warrior more than 1% of the time, and probably less than that. But if a mistake happens during that 1%, you, and those you care about and are standing in front of, won’t live to enjoy the other 99%.

You must realize that I am not talking about going to the rifle range on a nice sunny day and excelling at punching holes on a non-moving paper target with all the time in the world. Certainly there is a place for that, but the best shooter in the world will not survive a violent conflict or be able to protect his family when the time comes if that person has not made the conscience decision beforehand that he or she will drop the hammer on that other living, breathing human being. That they will plunge that knife into the enemy’s neck, or bring that chair over their head, and repeat with savage fury until finished. If it isn’t in you to go up to that edge and know that you will, for a certainty step off and take that reprobate’s life from him, even as he comes at the unexpected moment to take yours, then you will not survive.

This cannot be overstated: Hesitation kills. Remember that! Most gunfights are over in less than four seconds. It has been stated many times over that a failure to plan is a plan to fail, and that is true. So the question is; what have you determined to do when the time comes that those you love are in danger? Even if you never have to endure a failure of society or go through a war zone, make no mistake, this is a cruel world and scumbags are everywhere. I’ve had a friend killed by a Muslim with a pistol at point blank range. A few of my friends have encountered men with lethal intent and had to defend their lives or die trying; they have survived and their enemies are either in the ground or in prison. None of these men had gone looking for a fight or had done anything stupid which should have been avoided. I’ve survived a potential violent conflict the best way, by keeping my eyes open and with the help of the Lord, escaping the narrow confined room where I should have been killed. In that case I didn’t have to snap the enemy’s spine or use my knife, but if I had, would I have been ready? If it quickly came to a “him or me” situation, could I have fought intelligently and fiercely? I hope so. I was young at the time, but I had already crossed that line in my head a hundred times before.

On a side note, you don’t have to be in a bad spot to be targeted by bad people. Sometimes they follow you. Or like in the case of my friend, they come to your door out of nowhere with a gun and a bag full of cutting tools and implements associated with torture. Had my friend not been the man that he is, he and his wife and two children would have been a sad memory instead of a shining example in our community. The point here is that you will not be able to decide when the moment of truth is: It’s going to choose you. And statistically, that means it will be up close and personal (and probably very dark, to boot).

Know Your Limits
In your mind, you have to know your limits. You have to know how far you are willing to take it and how much you are willing to risk to protect those you love. Ask yourself, are you willing to take a bullet, stop that bat swing with your arm, or get hit by that vehicle for someone you love? For principle? For right? No matter what the cost? Run through scenarios in your head, and know personally how far you will take it, for what, and why. For me, the idea of living the rest of my life knowing that I could’ve bit the bullet and saved someone I love dearly, but didn’t, is more horrible than death itself, regardless of how frightening the circumstances may be. What if it’s a little girl, or even perhaps one day, my own little girl? My mom, dad or sister? No, the preservation of their lives and the lives of my friends is more important to me than my own. And on the day, when that dirt bag has captured them and seeks to extinguish their life by the most barbaric means possible, or when those Religion of Peace types begin gutting, crucifying, beheading, raping, (fill in the blank), to someone I care about, in that situation time-is-life. Remember this, as Douglas MacArthur stated, “In war, you win or lose. Live or die. And the difference is just an eyelash.”

So let me now ask you. How fast can you get your shot off reliably from the method you carry? If it isn’t carried on your person, are you sure you can get to it, get it out and running before the gunfight is over? Remember from the first to last shot in a gunfight on the street, it’s going to be over in 2.5 to 4 seconds. When you’re slipping backwards in the dark and rain, that isn’t very long. If you intend on using an edged weapon or blunt instrument, how fast can you cover distance and disable your opponent, and how sure are you that you will be able to take down that threat? What if you are caught without a weapon? Do you have to resort to picking something up or can you kill with your bare hands? At what point in the fight will you draw your knife or gun, and why? If you take a single hit from a pistol caliber, you have perhaps as much as 95% chance of walking out of there alive; not so if you are stabbed in the neck. And never discount the method of making distance via your feet, sometimes referred to as the Nike Jitsu technique, if it is an option to you. If you are fired at while running away from an urban gang member with a pistol, statistics show you have a very good chance of not getting hit. Obviously, that isn’t always an option, from either a moral or strategic standpoint.

This is what you must know: You will probably not die from a single gunshot wound or knife slash. People survive them every day. If you are dealing with an opponent with a gun, the gun is probably going to go off; you may get hit. Knife, yes, you’re going to get cut, it’s not the end of the world. Pipe-bat-chain, yes, you’re going to get smacked and yes, it’s going to hurt, but that’s why we have casts and splints. The point is to keep fighting. It’s not over until you are dead, have given up, or have won. If you die, your worries are over. If you give up, you’re as good as dead, or you may have to endure a fate worse than death. But if you resign to fight until you can’t fight any more, or until you’ve no one left to fight, you’ve already won. Because if you do all you can and fail, it’s not truly failure. Failure is refusing to try.

Now if you know you’re going to fight and fight until you can’t fight any more, then what are some things that can help prepare you for that day and stack the odds in your favor? You must know your limits. That is, your current limits. Let us remember what Bruce Lee said once, “There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”

I know that I can draw my pistol and get a center mass hit reliably in under one second with movement in my open carry rig. Add 2/10ths of a second from concealment. I know that my carbine speed reload is on average 2/10ths of a second slower than drawing my pistol, but that if I have more ammo in my Redi-Mag, then I’ll take that extra time to get 30 rounds of .223 in the fight, versus 11 rounds of .45 ACP. I know that I can speed reload in pitch dark as fast as I can in the light, maybe faster. Sound impossible? The truth is that if you can perform an action without using conscious thought, if it can be controlled, regulated and maneuvered by using subconscious thought, it will be faster, smoother and more efficient. And this brings us to the next point.

Practice, Practice, Practice
Whatever action you may be called on to do when time is life, you’ll want to practice it until it can be done without conscious thought. The simple truth is that the better you become at subconsciously running your gun, then the better you’ll be able to use your conscious thought for solving problems. In conflicts there will always be problems that must be solved, obstacles to be overcome. One thing about guns is that sooner or later, (and probably sooner rather than later in battlefield conditions,) your gun will have a malfunction. So, can you clear your weapon’s malfunction quickly, no matter what kind it may be? How quickly? Can you do it without thinking about it, and keep your head in the game, thinking about the next move while you’re doing it? Make no mistake, this will take time and practice. A few inert rounds and some time spent with your weapons systems, off and on the range, dealing with malfunctions could very well save your life when it fails to go bang on the day. If you are carrying more than one weapon into the field or on the street, you need to know how quickly you can solve the problem, and at which point you swap to your alternate weapon or method. There will be no time on the day to stop and think, “Oh, yeah, NOW would be a good time to go to my back up!” It must be done via muscle memory or you’ll skip a beat, miss a step and be even further behind the power curve.

Don’t forget that your mind is your greatest and first weapon. It is the thing that drives all else and we want to keep it clear and have as few problems as possible to solve. So work with your gear and decide what your standard operating procedure is before it comes to it, and then practice it until it becomes instinct. When deciding your method in handling different situations or weapon systems, try to never go with a particular technique just because someone else said to, no matter how good or knowledgeable that person is, because people don’t always have the same body mechanics or application for any given situation. No, you’ll want to develop your own method based on good reasoning. If there’s a good reason behind why you’re doing what you’re doing, then at least you’re doing something right. But don’t stop there; look to see if you can find a better reason to do it any other way. Follow the 80% rule. You want to practice what is going to work for you 80% of the time or better. Ask yourself when you are doing your next dry fire practice or shooting at the range, or anything that may need to be accomplished during critical moments, “Is this going to work for me when it’s wet, when I’m tired, when I can’t think, when my lungs are working overtime to suck in some vital air, when I’m scared out of my wits?” And train to reality. Reality isn’t sunny and 75 on level ground with no pressure. Reality is dark-cold-scared with everything on the line and no do-overs.

How well do you perform when your heart is pounding at 145+ beats per minute, your legs and arms are smoked and your mind is struggling to find the answer to the current problem? Test yourself and know that at that point, the head shot at 25 yards is stupid with that pocket pistol, or manageable with that shotgun. Know that your speed reload falls to pieces if you go too fast, so you can slow it down, take a breath and think through the problem. If you train through enough stressful situations, running as fast as you can, then you’ll find where you melt down and where you need to be to keep things running quickly but smoothly. One important point to remember is that “You can’t hit by missing.” This means that if you’re going to miss, slow it down, correct it, move up, slow your heart and breathing or just man up and dig deep and do whatever needs to happen to get the job done right.

But don’t go faster than you can. I learned this lesson crystal clear when I was about 15 years old. I remember expending an entire 20 round magazine at a full-size steel through my rifle at 200 yards and never once hitting it because I was frustrated and was shooting way too fast; a shot that I should have hit the first time if I had slowed myself down a couple seconds. This was a stupid mistake that could have meant taking an innocent life through negligence down range on the day, because every missed round is a liability. But the point here is that if you shoot, move or operate too fast for your level, you’re doing no one any good. So if you find yourself missing, slow it down and get your hits. Again, this comes back to knowing your limits. Don’t go faster than you can on the street, means that you hit that failure point on the range, in training, so you won’t make that mistake on The Day. So where are your limits? Do you know them? Do you know if you can hit that half a head hiding behind your best friend when he/she becomes a hostage? It’s all on you.

Train hard. Fight harder. Live for God and do your best; leave the results to Him because they are His anyway. Love those you should and be ready to kill those who need to die. And always know your limits.

https://survivalblog.com/know-your-limits-by-molon-labe/


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