self defense

Don't talk to strangers

Posted on by Caleb

Mrs Ahab related a story to me from a friend of hers at her office that serves as a pretty solid object lesson in home security. Said friend and husband have recently purchased a new home, and one afternoon while relaxing in their house were startled by the doorbell. Friend’s husband answered the door, and was greeted by a man claiming to be selling Febreeze door to door. Quite rightfully, this made his his “WTF” alarm go off, which increased when the “salesman” kept trying to peer around him and see what was in the house. On top of that, the “salesman” had two accomplices friends down on the sidewalk as well.

The husband refused any samples or to let the sales guy in, and upon their departure, immediately called the police. Being good civic minded folk, they also went and spoke with their neighbors to let them know what had happened. I think that my wife’s friend and her husband handled the situation admirably, especially in the aftermath.

As far as self defense goes, the key thing in this situation is that they were both aware of what was going on. The suspicious actions, the “friends” in the street were all triggers that our friends observed and acted appropriately as a result.

There are some pretty good takeaways from this as well:

1) Don’t talk to strangers. Even in your home, you’re under no obligation to talk to people that you don’t want to talk to.
2) Construct barriers. A lot of houses have screen doors on the front door; which are not really a barrier. On the flip side, many homes including my mine have a thick glass storm door, which can be kept locked and will serve as an impediment to anyone trying to gain access to your home. A screen door won’t do that.
3) Be aware! My wife’s friend and her husband did a great job on this. If someone’s at your door, look around. See if there’s anything they don’t want you to see.
4) Don’t answer the door at weird hours. Seriously, doorbell rings after 8pm, if I’m not expecting anyone, I don’t even open the interior door. If the doorbell rings again, I’ll tell them to go away, and say I’m calling the cops.
5) Get good sight lines. Do you have a peephole in your door? Get one. Get lights on your porch. Hell, get a CCTV camera if you want to go big.

There’s no substitute for being aware – from awareness springs readiness, and from readiness comes a proper defensive posture.

rifles

Nemesis Arms .308 Windrunner

Posted on by Caleb

My Dad pointed this rifle out from an ad in a recent issue of an LE magazine he gets: The Nemesis Arms Windrunner.  It’s about as “bare bones” in appearance as you can get, and appears to be a .308 AR lower mated up to a bolt action upper with a skeleton style stock kit.  I am 100% in favor of this gun for two reasons: 1) I like cool looking guns, and 2) I like modular rifle platforms.

Windrunner

handguns/news

More tears from GlockTalk

Posted on by Caleb

The Albuquerque police department has switch to the Smith & Wesson M&P polymer pistol, replacing the Glock 17 and 19 as their standard issue handgun.  The M&P 9mm that they’ve switched to is the standard model, with the 4.25 inch barrel and the interchangeable backstrap, which allows the grip size to be customized for shooters with the smallest of hands.

“For me that was proof in the pudding this was a much better weapons platform,” Castro said. “It’s much more adaptable to the diversity of shooters we have here at APD.”

I have been seeing more and more stories about agencies selecting M&P pistols lately.  S&W’s LE sales team is pretty clearly on the ball with getting their pistols deployed to agencies across the country.  Last week it was North Carolina Highway Patrol getting M&P pistols in .357 Sig, and now APD has tossed their old Glocks in favor of the S&W design.

news

Beretta stepping up LE sales

Posted on by Caleb

According to the Tactical Wire, Beretta has increased their LE sales force from 5 dedicated reps to 30.  That’s a major step up in terms of “boots in the streets” that are working to sell the Beretta family of products to law enforcement agencies across the country.  I’d editorialize on that a little bit, but all you really have to do is look in the holsters of cops across the nation – you’re not seeing a lot of 92 series pistols these days, are you?

Uncategorized

Don't be that guy

Posted on by Caleb

Uncle posted this video earlier yesterday, and I’m still sort of in shock about the whole thing.  I mean, talk about a multitude of sins.

  1. Bumpfiring
  2. Beer and guns
  3. Shooting glass targets on the range
  4. Destroying range property
  5. muzzle violations everywhere
  6. Some more muzzle violations
  7. Pointing guns at people
  8. shooting at people!

Now, I don’t want the idiots in said video to get hurt, I really don’t.  That’s actually why I’m posting this.  Well that and because I believe that as a shooting community it’s incumbent upon us to police the bad behavior in our to insure that people do not think that people like that are the norm or even representative of the shooting sports.

As a personal aside, I really hate it when people shoot glass bottles on a range.  Ask anyone who has ever volunteered or worked at an outdoor range about it.  I come to Atlanta Conservation Club almost every weekend either to shoot a match, run a match, or practice for a match; on match days I find myself checking each bay for broken glass or other destroyed targets.

Seriously guys – don’t be that guy.  Don’t encourage this kind of behavior, and most importantly if you’re in any kind of authority position at a range and see this going on, put a stop to it immediately if not sooner.

ammo

.45 ACP Ammo!

Posted on by Caleb

You all saw my previous post on my search for reasonably priced ammo in .45 ACP.  Oddly enough, this morning I rolled over to LuckyGunner.Com (one of our sponsors) and saw that they had remanufactured .45 ACP in stock for a quite reasonable price.  I ordered 500 rounds to help tide me over the next month, and they also have a quite decent supply of 9mm, .40 S&W, and other popular calibers on hand.

Uncategorized

Gun Nuts and Gunsite

Posted on by Caleb

If you heard last night’s Gun Nuts Radioyou now know that I’ll be heading to Gunsite next week for a 3 day carbine class. This is a great opportunity for Gun Nuts Radio, as I’ll be in attendance at a class sponsored by Smith & Wesson, where the other attendees will be some of the top gun writers and producers of mainstream shooting sports media.

A great big thank you for this goes to John Snow, my editor at Outdoor Life. Officially, I’ll be attending on behalf of Outdoor Life as John’s representative, and I’d like to again thank him for thinking of me when S&W made the offer to him. I’ll also have a great opportunity to represent new media to quite a few writers and editors in the shooting community.

The other thing I’ll be needing for next week is a guest blogger to produce some content for Gun Nuts in my absence. If you’re interested in writing for Gun Nuts Media for a week or so, please send me an email, as you can find my email address listed under the “Contact” section of the website.

Uncategorized

Gun Nuts Radio: Show and Tell time

Posted on by Caleb

Yes, last night’s Gun Nuts Radio included discussion on popular TV shows, such as NCIS, Castle, etc – but the real focus of the show was a discussion on negligent discharges, the least favorite phrase of any serious shooter. We even took it so far as to do an informative “show and tell” section on how to unload and show clear both a revolver and a semi-automatic pistol of the 1911-type. While that segment works best with the video, the audio should be quite instructive as well for any new shooters. That particular segment of last night’s Gun Nuts Radio was definitely designed with new and inexperienced shooters in mind; but at the same time could also be used as a handy refresher for a veteran shooter. If you’d like to download last night’s episode, click here. For the same show in handy, portable .mp3 format click the link.

For next week’s show, I’ll be on the road again in Arizona attending a 3 day carbine class at Gunsite. Breda and a surprise guest host will be hosting, so make sure you tune in.

As always, Gun Nuts Radio is available on iTunes, just head to the iTunes store and search for “Gun Nuts Radio” or click this link for instructions. I also encourage everyone to check out our featured “Book of the Week” – this week’s selection is March to the Stars by David Weber and John Ringo. If you’ve not noticed, I’ve been bingeing on sci-fi novels lately.

Don’t forget to come back next week, and also make sure you tell a friend about Gun Nuts Radio! Our most effective marketing is word of mouth, so pass the word!