I Survived

There has been an interesting program showing on the Biography channel called "I Survived". It features true stories of people telling their tales of surviving some pretty bad events. The ones that have intrigued me have been the women who have been assaulted.

Last night I watched a program that I had recorded earlier and it was about a young lady named Melissa from Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was home alone with her two year old daughter while her husband worked the night shift. She awoke to find a man on top of her with a knife to her throat. The short story is that he repeatedly raped and assaulted her and then tied her up and put her in the trunk of her car. He then drove around stopping a couple of times to further assault her. The entire ordeal lasted 12 hours.

One thing that keeps recurring during these stories is how submissive and passive these women are. I know that these are horrific events but many of these women had some good opportunities to defend themselves.

I teach in my classes that you should always fight in certain circumstances like being tied up, being taken to a different location or getting searched if you are carrying a concealed weapon. Although all of these women survived, there are many more in similar circumstances who don't.

If you get the chance, check out this program:
http://www.biography.com/isurvived/

Self defense basics - Part 2

Awareness is one of the most important tenets of self defense. When you are out and about in public you should be very cognizant of the people around you. It should not be possible for someone to come up from behind you and scare you.

Bad guys tend to pick on people who are unaware or who appear weak. It's like the cheetah surveying the herd of zebras and trying to figure out which one to attack - the one with it's head down feeding is a likely target.

Now I don't want you walking around in a paranoid frenzy constantly looking over your shoulder for the boogeyman. You should train yourself to employ a constant state of relaxed awareness. You should be looking for people or situations that don't seem right. Is someone paying too much attention to you? Has the car behind you been following you for awhile? Sometimes it's just your sixth sense that indicates something is wrong. If you get those feelings, listen to them! Don't worry about being called rude, crude, or worse - you'll need to exit the situation.

One of the recurring themes I hear all of the time whenever I interview someone who has been assaulted is something like this: "I knew I shouldn't have gone out with that guy", or "I knew we shouldn't have gone to that party". Learn to listen to those feelings and act accordingly.

Tasers

There is currently a series of three bills in the Michigan State House (5754,5755 and 5756) that would allow CPL holders to carry a Taser. Currently it is a 4 year felony for civilians to possess these in Michigan although about 43 other states do allow their citizens to use them.

I support this legislation as I believe it would provide another tool for citizens to protect themselves. I do know that there are people today who would never carry a firearm but would consider other "non-lethal" forms of self defense such as the Taser. I sell a lot of pepper spray to women who would never even consider touching a firearm.

The only reservation I have is the hassle necessary to carry one. First you have to have a CPL license (I guess they are doing this so that background checks don't have to be done) and you must receive specific Taser training. The units themselves are fairly expensive (at least $350) and must be activated after you purchase it.

If you support this legislation please let your Representative know.

Self defense basics - Part 1

There is an old cliche that says "If all you have is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail". In the CCW world you may interpret this as "If all you have is a gun then every problem involves a shooting". Here are a few of my comments on this issue:

1. First, if you wouldn't go to a certain area or place without a gun, then you absolutely shouldn't go there with a gun. Think about it.
2. Many interactions with a potential bad guy do not necessitate pulling out your gun. Remember, you should never pull out a gun unless you feel justified in shooting. In Michigan this means that you are in fear of losing your life, or incurring grave bodily harm or forcible sexual penetration. Brandishing a firearm is a felony in most jurisdictions.
3. You may be in one of the many pistol free zones and therefore do not have access to a firearm.
   
4. Lastly, many assaults will happen so fast, or so close that you will not be able to draw your concealed firearm. At this point you must have a pretty firm grasp on how to handle the situation. At the very least you need to know how to create that time or distance that will allow you to employ your firearm. We'll explore this area in a future post.
   

Citizen's Arrest

Someone asked me the other day if it is legal in Michigan to make a citizen's arrest. The simple answer is yes, it is. According to MCL746.16 :

A private person may make an arrest: (1) for a felony committed in his presence; (2) if the person to be arrested has committed a felony, although not in his presence; (3) if he is summoned by a peace officer to assist the officer in making the arrest; or (4) if he is a merchant, an agent or employee of a merchant, or an independent contractor providing security for a merchant, of a store and has reasonable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has violated certain laws in that store, regardless whether the violation was committed in the presence of the private person.

The more complicated issue is whether you should. Arresting a felon is a difficult, and often dangerous job even for a trained law enforcement officer. I would not recommend it except in very specific circumstances - such as you are convinced that this person will injure or kill innocent people if you let him go. Remember, as a civilian, you have no legal duty to apprehend this felon. Generally, my recommendation is to be the best possible witness and to notify the authorities as quickly as possible. If you do feel this person is a threat than the prudent thing to do would be to detain him (at gunpoint if you must) and wait for law enforcement to arrive. Trying to handcuff or tie him up is extremely dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.

6.8 EGR

Here is my latest AR-15 build and my new all time favorite rifle. The upper is a lightweight Kotonics 16" with carbon fiber handguard and TA31 ACOG scope. The lower is a 6.8 Stag Arms with Geiselle DMR match trigger, Magpul MIAD grip and CTR stock with AR-Restor hydraulic buffer and Tubbs CS spring. The gun is finished in OD green Duracoat (yes, the EGR moniker stands for Evil Green Rifle). Overall weight (without the mag) is only 6.75#.

The gun is light, short and well balanced - perfect for CQB or stalking deer in the northern woods. My best accuracy so far is with Barnes 110 grain Triple Shock handloads at 1/2" at 65 yards with a velocity of just over 2,600 fps. I have no problem hitting a steel IPSC target at 350 yards every time.

The hydraulic buffer and spring make this lightweight pleasant to shoot - it feels much more like a 5.56 than the 6.8 SPC.

I believe that the 6.8SPC (Special Purpose Cartridge) is the perfect caliber for the AR platform at it's too bad that it wasn't thought of 50 years ago. It was developed as a project for the US Special Forces and has a good following in that arena. Rumor has it that some countries are seriously considering it for adoption. the 5.56 is effectively a 150 yard gun but the 6.8 easily doubles that range.

So far I have shot 4 deer and one hog with it and all have been one shot stops with the last deer dropping in it's tracks. If I could only have one rifle, this would be the one.

Therapy Thursdays

I have a tradition with a friend of mine where we occasionally get together on Thursday's and meet for lunch and do a little shooting. Yesterday was the first Therapy Thursday of 2008. Although the temperature was in the low 30's and the range was still covered in ice and snow we did not let the conditions slow us down one bit.

My buddy had a new MSAR STG AUG that he wanted to test. I have always thought that these were ugly guns but after spending some time behind the trigger their functionality is amazing. The balance is superb, even with the 42 round magazine and they weigh even less than a standard 16" AR-15. The gun came with a half power scope that worked fairly well although I think a red dot would be more versatile - particularly an Aimpoint T-1. This is certainly not a long range gun but I think it would be great in CQB situations - especially in a building.

The only negative comments I had was that it uses proprietary magazines (it would be nice if it used standard AR-15 mags) and the trigger has a long reset and fairly heavy pull. I did not have my timer with me but split times are much longer than a good AR.

I also brought out my new Kotonics AR-15 in 6.8 SPC to wring out but I'll leave that review for another post.

All in all it was a great day of good conversation and fine shooting.