Category: shenanigans

Your failure to de-escalate a situation is not a good reason to draw your gun

I am a frequent browser on Imgur, because I like funny memes and laughing at things. Every now and then, there will be some firearms or self-defense related content, which I usually immediately skip over because it’s terrible. Usually whatever it is comes from someone with the same depth of knowledge and training as a puddle in Arizona, meaning that the best thing for my blood pressure is to just skip it and move on. However, a couple of days ago imgur user flubby1982 posted the following thread, and I just couldn’t deal with it.

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Epic Tactical Derp

I posted this video yesterday on my fan page, but it’s so amazing I wanted to repost it today for my readers. I present to you, Marshal Training Academy.

My favorite bits from the video are the gangsta-style retention shooting and when the guy jams a loaded gun down the front of his pants. However, the very best moment in the video is when the three dudes all riverdance their slides back into batter in a beautiful sequence. Next stop, Broadway!

But seriously people, just use the slide release. It’s right there.

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Gun Dates: Do or Don’t?

20130317-222316.jpgA few weekends ago, this happened:
I was driven an hour and a half into the Georgia mountains until we stopped at what seemed like a random turn off. We parked at the base of a chained driveway marked “Household trash must be in bags”. We hiked twenty minutes into the woods following a trail whose entrance was blocked by piles of branches and other natural items, intentionally placed there. We were each carrying about 30 pounds of gear, which made the barely walked trail even less navigable. At a bend in the trail just before the trail narrowed and the mountain curved up steeply, we stopped and dropped everything we were carrying.

Now, at this point in the story you might be worried that I was about to become another missing girl, on whose computer, the FBI would find very interesting internet searches. But that wasn’t my concern at all.

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No look re-holster

While surfing the internet this morning, I happened upon a video on a training group’s facebook page that was pretty comical. It had all the usual stuff you’ve come to expect from the latest crop of tactards – aggressive shoulder roll, paint by numbers movement, pretty much nothing out of the ordinary. I was ready to just laugh and move on with my day until I saw their dry fire video.

no look junk carry re-holster

I pulled a screencap from the video so you can see it in all its terrible glory, but that right there is a no-look appendix carry re-holster technique. Now, I try not to get down on people who are trying to learn to shoot better, and I don’t know the woman in this video either. I’m sure she’s a nice woman with the best of intentions, but that shit right there is dangerous. I’ve never been a fan of the speed re-holster trend; there are all sorts of phrases I could toss around reinforcing that, but the simple statement is that there is no prize for being the first person back in the holster after after a shooting.

This discussion only applies to people who aren’t law enforcement officers, mind you. I can accept that there are times when a cop may need to reholster his or her gun while maintaining eyes on a suspect. That’s cool, I’m totally down with that. That’s also usually done in a large duty holster, and not an appendix rig where the business end of the gun is pointed towards your femoral artery.

The act of holstering, regardless of holster position should be a deliberate action, separate from the shooting action. The argument that you should keep your eyes on the threat while holstering your gun is just stupid, because if there is still a threat you shouldn’t be holstering your gun. If it’s time to holster your gun, then you can spare a glance at your holster to make sure nothing’s going wrong, especially if you chose to carry in the appendix position. Most instructors teach some kind of deliberate pause before holstering the gun, this gives you a moment of time to compose yourself, get your thoughts right, and get your finger out of the trigger guard. This gets even more important if you’re wearing gloves, because you lose some of that tactile sensation in your finger, even if you’re wearing the super tactical mechanix gloves.

I’m not trying to break this woman’s metaphorical balls specifically; but rather put the focus on a dangerous technique that seems to be catching on because it looks cool. Yes, it does look cool to slam your gun into your holster without looking, for the same reason it looks cool when the 2nd baseman flips the ball behind his back to the shortstop after fielding a ball in the gap between 1st and 2nd to kick off a 4-6-3 double play. But unlike baseball, where the risk is not getting the lead runner, the risk of a speed holster is actually shooting yourself, and that’s just not cool.

When you put your gun away, take a moment. Pause. Reflect upon the beauty of life and nature. Take a second to make sure the holster mouth is clear of obstructions. Then deliberately holster your gun. I’m a huge fan of “doing things that look cool”, but I’m an even bigger fan of “not shooting myself”. The speed no-look holster involves too much risk of the latter to be worth the former.

What is Knight’s Armament hiding?

SHOT Show story: at SHOT, the media are allowed to take photographs, and the general attendees are not.  Because we want to feed the black rifle craze, Team Gun Nuts went by the Knight’s Armament booth to take some pictures.  After snapping some shots, we were approached by two of Knight’s booth staff that said “no photos, even for the press.”  I was kind of taken aback by this, because it’s a trade show, and the whole point of bringing your toys there is to get people excited about buying them.

So, we did like we were asked, and stopped taking pictures.  However, here are all the pictures that we DID take before we were asked to stop and complied.

Knight's rifles
More from Knight's
Knight's M110 SASS

Please feel free to reproduce these photos to your heart’s content across the web, with or without attribution to Gun Nuts (but preferably with).  While I’ve never experienced it personally, I’ve heard from reliable sources that Knight’s disdains the civilian market.

Gun Nuts doesn’t like secrets, and we really don’t like gun companies that are contemptuous of the civilian and sport shooter market.  If Knight’s Armament wants to hide their products, that’s fine – but don’t bring them to the biggest industry trade show in the world and expect that to happen.

Kel-Tec unveils new shotgun that’s not really new

Kel-Tec has announced that they will launch was is essentially an updated version of the Neostead shotgun.  It’s a pump-action tube-magazine fed shotgun that uses two tubes allowing the shooter to load one tube with say, slugs and the other with birdshot.  The shooter can then select which tube to load the next round from.  Oh yes, and the bullpup fanboys will flip, because well, it’s a bullpup.  Are the ergonomic issues combined with the heavy recoil of a polymer shotgun sounds like an awesome idea.

photo courtesy The Shooter's Log

I just don’t know what to say about this.  Actually, no I take that back.  I have a shocking prediction: this gun will not hurt Remington, Mossberg, Winchester, FN, or even Saiga’s market share.  I wish Kel-Tec the best of luck with this, but seeing as they still are having a hard time getting the PMR pistols to the market, and I’ve only seen one RFB in the wild, I doubt I’ll actually see these any time soon.