In Chicago, he would be considered a late bloomer.
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Yeh. U funny.
I went to Chicago on purpose once. Wife wanted to go shopping.
Been through O’Hare multiple times not so intentionally.
Can’t say I much care for the city, hate the state’s firearm laws - kinda understand y so many ppl shoot so many other ppl tho. I’d stay mad as hell if I lived in that city … 
If was a very rural area in a very rural state, you may be ok, rural values and norms are different. Place yourself in a metro area and if the media gets the info, you will probably face criminal charges like: Conspiracy to commit murder, terrorist threats and acts, Reckless Endangerment, Child Abuse and whatever else they can throw at you.
Thought for the day:
One man with courage makes a majority." Andrew Jackson
Some new tools on the market:
“There are just some daily tasks that you won’t subject your EDC folder too. As a general knife rule, you pretty much never want to use your knife blade as a pry bar. It’s a no-no for any experienced knife user. Not only is a knife blade’s heat treat hardness not suited for prying, using it as such is a quick way to a broken tip. Like our Ti Dog Tag Tool, we developed a smart Universal Wrench that works on both metric and SAE hardware. Most other pocket pry bar tools in this genre have only a few pre-determined hex sizes and far less capable. The cat’s paw detail on the pry tip works well on carton staples to small nails, carpet tacks. For our users who are EMTs, the oxygen wrench is always a good feature to have as backup. The PB&J Tool also has other useful common-standard features and is rounded out by the unique wire spring gate to easily clip to anything it can fit on, and at the heart is its make in 6AL4V titanium. This is a pocket tool developed with clear focus on purpose driven design, no-nonsense and excellent quality of make.”
The Gerber Empower is one of Gerber’s newest American-made additions to the automatic knife market. It is rock solid, has S30V steel and doesn’t scream tactical. It weighs in at 4.6oz and has an overall length of 8.4” when opened (blade length is 3.25). Best part, it’s priced at right around $100
Yesterday’s work and Skills:
Incline treadmill with plate carrier
Sandbag over the shoulder farmers walks
overhead plate raises
tennis ball throws with punishment push ups.
Question of the day:
Getting very close, can feel it now: Who is ready for some college football?
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In a metro area you probably couldn’t own a gun in the first place. When I lived in Jersey I went to the local pd to get the forms to buy a firearm. The detective I spoke to laughed and said good luck. It was easier to get a security clearance from the federal govt, I got it on two separate occasions, than getting a permit to purchase a firearm.
Time to come clean:
I do not like, watch, or keep up with organized sports!!! The ONLY exception is I like to go to a Major League Baseball game live at the ball park. However, since I can’t legally carry at those, I don’t have much interest even in that now.
I feel like an anomaly, but it is what it is…I don’t care. There I said it 
I am glad you were able to leave. I consider Jersey to be a Communist state, where the State and local politicians have stripped the rights to defense of self. You are an American citizen protected by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, yet, when you decide to provide yourself with the proper weapons for your protection, an arm of the Jersey government laughs in your face. The 2A means nothing to a Communist government. I also have a TS and I know the extensive background check they do on you, just to qualify for the interview, yet, Jersey says “fuck you”.
Imagine some nerd being told " you cannot use Twitter anymore or you cannot take selfies at Starbucks", they would be screaming about their 1A rights. Yet, the 2A is trampled on every day and no ones gives a shit.
Jersey has done everything it can to strip its populace of self protection, even passing the stupid 10 round magazine law.
What’s amazing to me is why the populace is allowing this to happen, why don’t they vote these Communist slime out of office?
Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
John adams
Well, I am close to you in that regard. I only follow MMA, College Football, and Hockey a distant third. I use to watch the NFL, but them pissing on the American Flag ruined that for me. All the other profession sports bore the hell out of me. I don’t consider martial arts, shooting in all disciplines, hunting, fishing, rucking, and kayaking sports, but a way of life.
Motivation Monday:
There is no humiliation worse than the consciousness of a wasted life. It stains the spirit, forestalls hope, and destroys any motive for action or change.
Yesterday’s work and skills:
Went to a local high school track, did walk / sprint, walk /sprint for 5 miles. Practiced kettle bell grenades, using traffic cones for targets.
Question for the day:
We have been discussing survival issues on and off for a couple of weeks. I want you watch the video and place yourself in this situation. If you survived the crash, could you do it?
On July 27, pilot Matt Lehtinen found himself living his worst nightmare. While flying alone in his single-prop aircraft over the remote Quebec wilderness, the plane suffered a mechanical failure that put it into an unrecoverable descent. After crashing into the dense forest (using parachutes to slow his fall), some people might have taken a moment to lament their luck — but Lehtinen instead pulled out a camera and set to work putting on a clinic on how exactly to get rescued.
First, he sent out an SOS distress call, then immediately set to work trying to locate his First Aid kit and signal flares. Then, he started a fire to mark his location with smoke. It’s worth noting that he started the fire using a Bic lighter he had in the console of the aircraft. All too often, people tend to overthink fire in a survival situation, opting to carry and use elaborate fire-starting gear while utterly forgetting about readily available sources of fire we often have handy.
The most important part of his effort, however, came by way of his satellite communicator (he used a Garmin inReach), which he was able to use to communicate with his family and coordinate a rescue response.
This video offers a number of important lessons, like the value of carrying a satellite communicator — but unlike so many guide books, how-to’s, and pamphlets, it shows how keeping your head and relying on your training can help get you through an actual bad situation. Lehtinen didn’t offer up hypothetical solutions, he got to work and made his own luck. More often than not, that’s exactly what it takes to survive.
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This.
All of my strength movements are paired with some sort of ‘conditioning’ movement.
Rowing, sprinting, burpees, box jumps etc.
If you stop moving, you die.
But they weren’t defenseless; they were defended by the police.
What would having armed citizens in this instance achieve? Wouldn’t it simply lead to greater confusion for the police on who the actual threat is?
Stuff like this make me consider on the nature of luck- no matter how well we think we’re prepared… we’re not. We can be in an accident and face life-threatening situations at any second.
I had two such incidents happen to me today, both while driving.
The first happened as I backed out of a parking lot. I stopped because I saw a car coming rather quickly on my rear-view camera. I’m not sure if he would have hit me, but it sure looked closed from what I could see.
The second happened as I exited from work. There are a lot of cars that park on by the side of the road, so it’s incredibly difficult to see incoming traffic. I deal with this by basically peeking my car forward for a second or two so that the incoming traffic can see me and slow down- worst case the front of my car gets hit and the passenger area does not.
This nearly didn’t work today. I did my normal peeking thing and started to go out when suddenly a car appeared and stopped about 5 feet from my car. This was sheer luck in my opinion- I had no real control over this situation. Given how angry the driver looked and acted, I assume that he had no idea that I was coming out either. So… we avoided an accident only because he bothered to look at the last second.
I’m finding it increasingly difficult to judge people for what happened to them, simply because I’m starting to think that luck plays a large part in our lives, and because so many of the events that happen to us are, in reality, out of our control.
In the case of this festival- there was a fence surrounding the premises and visitor had to have their stuff checked. There was a clear armed presence through the entire area. The gunman got in by evading security and cutting through the fences. I’m sure the police considered this possibility, but it happened anyways. The only possible way to have possibly prevent this is to post security near the fences so that all parts of it are visible to someone.
Perhaps that is what the Gilroy police should do for next year’s festival.
This one weighs heavily on my mind because I’ve actually considered going to the festival for once on the very day this shooting happened.
Edit- I don’t mean to imply that we shouldn’t be prepared. We should always try our best to prepare in a sensible manner.
I’m more wondering whether our preparation matters much against the sheer randomness of things. We can only prepare for things that we think are possible.
Thank you for the post and your thoughts. You are spot on about luck because anyone who has ever been in true combat knows that it is the luck of the draw whether, you get through or not. No matter how well trained you are, a 12 year old kid can still shoot you in the back ( happened, Iraq 2009). I could list many examples, including me surviving helicopter crash, which doesn’t happen often.
No one can wipe out the fact we really cannot control much of life, but, my “message” is the more you train and be aware, the more luck may fall on your side.
One final thought: Yes, the police responded with excellent timing and training, did what they had to do. Being a agent, I can tell you this, police are reactive and unless they are on the scene, you may need that weapon to defend yourself and your family. However, good awareness of exits, entrances, and solid structures in the scene are just as important as the weapon.
Don’t see you often, enjoy your posts, don’t be a stranger.
Thought for the day:
Yesterday’s work and skills:
Spartan 300 workout
Krav Maga drills
Question of the day:
Do you know if you are right or left eyed dominant?
Cross-Eye Dominant Shooting Options
When it comes to eye dominance, you have a few options:
If your dominance is not a severe case, you can train your strong-side eye to be dominant.
You can choose to shoot on your dominant-eye side, which ever that is. This would mean shooting left-handed, even if you are right handed, while using your left eye, or vice versa.
You can learn to shoot using your cross-dominant eye, with your strong side. This requires a little more effort and training and can only be done effectively with pistols. When it comes to long guns, you’ll need to pick a side to shoulder the gun on — left or right — and that has its own set of challenges.
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I thought about this a lot after my daughter was near the Dayton shooting. It occurred to me that they didn’t have this sort of thing happen in the Old West did they? Y do u reckon that was?
What sort of things? Mass shootings?
If you meant mass shootings, IIRC rifles during that time were transitioning from muzzling loading to breach loading, and cannot even come close to the rate of fire that modern semi-automatics have.
In other words- great difference in technology.
If you meant armed citizens- Things I read about the Old West are spotty. Some say that it was incredibly violent, others say it was actually not violent depending on how you calculate the population. I don’t know enough here to make even an educated guess.
Do you know anything that I may not know on this?
[quote=“idaho, post:2501, topic:232312, full:true”]
No one can wipe out the fact we really cannot control much of life, but, my “message” is the more you train and be aware, the more luck may fall on your side. [/quote]
I agree on this. If we consider something an actual threat, then we should prepare for it. We’d be irresponsible not to.
No point worrying about the problems that we cannot foresee. It probably just makes you paranoid and difficult to enjoy life.
I agree on principle- it is a good idea to always be aware of your surroundings and make plans as you go along.
But, again, how does the police know that you’re not the threat?
I think this is similar to how the police must treat the whole swatting insanity.
The police have no choice but to assume that the call may be true. Current training apparently states that they need to respond in force.
I think this is great and something all gun owners who own a gun for self protection should keep in mind.
Best rate of fire with a rifle would’ve been about 1 rd/1.5seconds is my best estimate, out of a fanned Colt Single Action Revolver.
For a rifle, a Winchester lever action, 6 rounds total from a tube magazine at 1 round per maybe 2.5 seconds.
Today’s rates are, in my experience, a standard AR-15 in 223, 2-2.5 rds/sec as long as your finger and 30 round mag holds out.
For my carry pistol, I can squeeze off 2 rds of 45/s, it holds 1 in the hole + an 8 rd mag = 9.
So yeh, nowadays ppl can throw more lead, faster.
BUT, what I was getting at was that back then, ppl would be a helluva lot more hesitant to just start randomly shooting at others because damn near every last person around was armed, knew how to shoot, and wouldn’t hesitate to do so.
Problem we have nowadays is that kids don’t fear consequences. Or worse, they desire to take as many ppl out with them as possible, and because so few ppl are armed and ready now, they can do that a lot easier than they could’ve way back then.
Of course there’s the real problem of WHY do these psychopaths commit mass shootings…
Seems one major issue we’re facing is that our society doesn’t value life from conception through natural death as we once did and should. If we legalize killing babies, it isn’t a far stretch to making it legal to killing any other age humans as I see it, and it appears that’s about where we stand.
They don’t know and there is no easy answer to this. I have advantages because I have a badge, most civilians don’t, but, I will always have some means to fight back. Yes, it’s a risk with no easy answers, but, having innocent people killed in front of of me and not being able to respond is worth the risk. IMHO
Thought for the day:
We breed boys to be sheep and allow wolves to be shepherds, and if we don’t right that wrong we’re going to have a nation of weak hearts when it’s time to fight the heartless.”~Michael Kurcina
Yesterday’s work and skills:
Landmine presses, double and single arm
Dumbbell snatches
Sandbag throws and carries.
Serpentine sprints
TKD and Kali katas
Krav Maga drills
Question of the day:
Something came up last night. Now, I don’t expect the JJ, Judo, or Akidio practitioners to have any problems here but, if you are primarily a striker, do you know how to roll? how to respond being knocked down? , because, outside the mats, being on the ground is about as dangerous as it gets. As Dan John said once in one of his articles, you should know how to tumble.
I chose this clip at random, don’t know anything about the guy or his instruction. Just watch it and ask yourself, can you get up during a fight?
