Pocket Pistols

04 Jan 10

On pocket-pistols, from a friend in WA:

"I picked-up a used Kahr PM9 late last year. Its prior owner was frustrated with its occasional hiccups, but I know many Kahr-owners who say all Kahr pistols require a 'break-in' of between two-hundred and five-hundred rounds.

They're right! After spending a day at Marty Hayes' wonderful Range in Onalaska, WA, all problems gradually worked themselves out, and the little gun now runs just fine.

My PM9 resides in a Stephen McElroy Pocket-liner. It comfortably disappears in my front pocket. Loaded with CorBon DPX, I am dangerous in non-permissive environments where I work, and I don't worry about 'printing.'"

Comment: Friends in the retail gun business tell me that "pocket" pistols are red-hot these days, as increasing numbers of nervous Americans come to the realization that they need to be armed all the time.

S&W Scandium Snubby revolvers, Kahr P380s, and SIG's P238 do not stay on store shelves for more than a day or two.

Artfully concealing these small pistols, particularly for women, is a much easier task than is the case with bigger guns.

All new guns, regardless of manufacturer, need to be "broken-in" to one degree or another. You should not carry a gun (for serious purposes) in which you have only marginal confidence. Shoot it now and then. Make sure it runs!

"In the long-run, there is no such thing as luck. However, the 'short-run ' is often longer than many individual lifetimes!"

Operator's Axiom

/John

Lucky Fools?

04 Jan 10

More Revelations from Scenario-Based Training, from an Instructor and Colleague:

"I conducted Airsoft, scenario-based training this past weekend with a group of DTI Instructors and students. I set it up my shop (indoors) in low light. Actors were all given rolls to play, but no one knew what rolls were being played by the rest of the participants.

In the first scenario, there were two VCAs, armed with blades, one otherwise-uninvolved eye-witness, one armed citizen (selected for victimization by the VCAs), and one responding police officer, who arrives after all significant events are concluded.

Armed citizen is aggressively stalked and ultimately approached by VCAs, who demand money. One VCA, amid belligerent, verbal threats, lifts his shirt in order to display a large knife in his belt, even referring to it and the damage it can do. He made this threatening display several times. Our armed citizen later said he never saw knives, nor was aware of their presence, until they were actually brandished in the hands of the VCAs, as he was being attacked!

Our armed citizen didn't even attempt to draw his pistol until both VCAs, knives in hand, charged him! He learned, graphically, the crux of the ' Tueller Drill" that day! VCAs were in physical contact with him before his first shot was fired.

The exercise continued with the armed citizen wounded, one VCA DRT, and on the ground, and the second VCA running away. Armed citizen, gun still in his hand, stood at the scene, dazed.

Then, police show up! At gunpoint, police command armed citizen to drop his gun. Citizen is then frisked, cuffed, and placed in the back of a marked beat-car.

A 'witness' shows up. He is himself a neighborhood punk and gang-member. He says, "Some dude just shot my friend" loud enough for the armed citizen to hear.

Police go back to the car and question the citizen. He sings like an canary! His high-pitched, gravely-voiced statements to police are disjointed, inarticulate, mostly incomprehensible, and factually incorrect. It is all little more than panicked blather!

Five minutes into it, as he is vainly trying to recall how many shots he fired, it finally dawns on him to take a long breath and say, "Officer, I'll be more than happy to answer the rest of your questions as soon as my lawyer is here."

Our hero had been through DTI Basic and two of Henk Iverson's Courses. He knew what he should have done, but even the small amount of pressure we generated in the scenario caused him to unnecessarily hesitate in responding to a deadly attack, and then subsequently blow it with police."

Comment: The lesson here is that a single exposure to competent training, when it is not regularly reinforced, will not adequately prepare most to competently deal with the potentially-lethal encounters that motivated us to go armed and seek training in the first place.

Critical skills must be learned and then regularly exercised. We can't just "take the pill" and then naively think we're "good to go" from that point forward. Training is not an "event." It is a life-long commitment. You're either "one of us," or you're not!

"Lucky fools rarely bear the slightest suspicion that they may be lucky fools"

Nassim Taleb

/John