Wednesday Wisdom: 29 April 2026

Medal of Honor: Andrew Miller

As he led a rifle squad at Woippy, France a crossfire from enemy machine guns pinned down his unit. Ordering his men to remain under cover, he went forward alone, entered a building housing one of the guns, and forced five Germans to surrender at bayonet point. He then took the second gun single-handedly by hurling grenades into the enemy position, killing two, wounding three more, and taking two additional prisoners. At the outskirts of Metz the next day, when his platoon, confused by heavy explosions and the withdrawal of friendly tanks, retired, he fearlessly remained behind armed with an automatic rifle and exchanged bursts with a German machine gun until he silenced the enemy weapon. His quick action in covering his comrades gave the platoon time to regroup and carry on the fight.

 

At the outskirts of Metz, France the next day, when his platoon, confused by heavy explosions and the withdrawal of friendly tanks, retired, he fearlessly remained behind armed with an automatic rifle and exchanged bursts with a German machine gun until he silenced the enemy weapon. His quick action in covering his comrades gave the platoon time to regroup and carry on the fight. Two days later, S/Sgt. Miller led an attack on large enemy barracks. Covered by his squad, he crawled to a barracks window, climbed in, and captured six riflemen occupying the room. His men, and then the entire company, followed through the window, scoured the building, and took 75 prisoners. 

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No Second Place Winner 

Col. Jeff Cooper once wrote that “owning a gun doesn’t make you armed any more than owning a guitar makes you a musician."

 

From Wyatt Earp to Rex Applegate to Charles Askins to Bill Jordan to Jim Cirillo to Jeff Cooper to Tom Givens — the message is consistent: under stress you will do what you’ve trained and practiced to do. There’s more than 100 years of history, writing and study on the topic of fighting with handguns. Those that study it seriously all come to the same conclusions. That might be important.

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The Colt Walker Percussion Revolver

 

Texas Ranger Capt. Samuel Walker, serving as a member of the U.S. Mounted Rifles, went east in 1847 to recruit soldiers and on a visit to New York City met with Samuel Colt about improving his revolver. Walker praised Colt’s guns noted they were too delicate, took too long to reload and needed more stopping power. Colt returned to the drawing board, simplified the gun’s action, added a sixth chamber in the cylinder and chambered it in .44 caliber. The Army ordered 1,000 revolvers.

 

The Colt Walker could be loaded with a .44 caliber ball or conical bullet and up to a 60 grain powder charge. For comparison, most muzzleloading pistols would be loaded with around half that amount of powder for a ball of that size. A 60-grain powder charge was more typical of a .54 caliber rifle. They were the most powerful revolvers manufactured up until the introduction of the .357 Magnum cartridge and Smith & Wesson Registered Magnum Revolvers in 1935.

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This Old Gun: Smith & Wesson Registered Magnum

Some firearms and cartridges were literally made for one another. That certainly was the case for Smith & Wesson’s Registered Magnum and its exclusive chambering in the .357 Magnum, a cartridge that pioneering hand loader Phil Sharpe championed. Since its introduction in 1935, the Registered Magnum has achieved the unabashed title as one of the holy grails of modern-day gun collecting.

 

It started with the cartridge. With the country in the throes of the Great Depression, and organized crime running rampant, law enforcement—primarily armed with .38 Special revolvers—found itself under-gunned. But Sharpe felt that the caliber had potential. Assisted by Elmer Keith, S&W Vice President Douglas Wesson and Winchester, the .357 Mag. emerged, using a slightly elongated .38 Special. case to prevent it from chambering in standard .38 Special guns. Indeed, the resulting Registered Magnum was anything but standard.

 

Each revolver was built to order, with customers specifying a blue or nickel finish, any barrel length from 3½" to 8¾", and numerous front and rear sight options. Guns were sighted at 25 yds., with buyers specifying either a 6-o’clock or “dead-center” hold.

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Situational Awareness Pt 1

I harp quite a bit on “situational awareness” and how it is vital to preventing dynamic social interactions, but I seem to have been somewhat negligent at explaining what “situational awareness” actually is.

 

This point was driven home by an on-line conversation with someone who has been following me for years, who happily informed me that they “scanned for danger all the time”. That’s … not what situational awareness is. “Scanning for danger” means you’re looking for things that are already a threat — and only looking for active threats puts you way behind the power curve.

 

Situational awareness, for lack of a better term, is observing and determining what is “normal” for the area and time and looking for things that aren’t normal. The professional term is “baseline."

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Speed of Assaults and Decision-Making

In the 1950s, William Edmund Hick and Ray Hyman published a series of laboratory experiments that became known as the Hick–Hyman Law. Their findings showed that as people were asked to consider more choices, their reaction times slowed in a predictable way. Participants responded to simple signals, such as lights or tones, by pressing matching buttons. When each option was equally likely and clearly defined, reaction time slowed as alternatives were added.

 

Hick’s Law requires that decision-makers have time to consciously weigh multiple options before acting. But research on assaults shows that officers (and private citizens) often face conditions where considering multiple alternatives is unrealistic.

 

A fast suspect can point and fire a weapon or attack with a knife in around 1/10th of a second. By comparison, the fastest visual reaction times are just over 2/10th of a second (and that only begins the physical response). These timelines mean that the kind of slow, analytical thinking reflected in Hick’s Law would be too slow in force encounters. 

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What Is Cybersecurity and Why Is It 

Important?

A friend of mine just had his bank account hacked. He now thinks cybersecurity is important. Cybersecurity refers to the practice of using technologies, processes, and controls to protect networks, devices, programs, and data from cyberattacks, damage, or unauthorized access.

 

Today, common cyberthreats facing everyone include various types of phishing, malware attacks, and online scams. Threat researchers at Gen Digital warn that the emergence of generative AI is making these attacks easier to launch and more convincing than ever before.

 

While some people may associate cybersecurity with corporations or governments, following cybersecurity best practices is essential for individuals, too. Protecting yourself means combining smart habits with robust Cyber Safety software that goes beyond basic antivirus.

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Arguments Against the Shotgun

A Gabe Suarez video concerning view’s arguing against using shotguns as a defensive weapon. Most are based on simply not knowing the system sufficiently, or on not liking it. The only one that made sense was that there are some slight stature people that would have a difficult time using it. That is true...it is not an egalitarian weapon, which is likely why it is rarely seen in police work today.

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Real-World Trauma Skills with “Stop the Bleed” Training

If you have not taken a Stop the Bleed class, this is a good webinar to watch. I have taken Army Combat Lifesaver and Tactical Combat Care Casualty Care Combat Lifesavers Courses (https://tccc.org.ua/en/collection/tccc-cls). I learned several things from this webinar.

 

The guidance now and for several years now has been to apply a tourniquet two to three inches above the wound, not on the wound, and not over a joint. The old adage was always high and tight, as high up on the limb as you can get it as high up on the arm, as high up on the leg as you can get it.

 

That is still being taught. If the situation is exigent or it's still emergent, and you really can't do a thorough assessment. You can't figure out where the bleeding is coming from. Go ahead and apply the tourniquet as high up on the arm, as high up on the leg as you can get it.

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Enable Advanced Protection on Android 16 

 

With Google's release of Android 16 last in 2025, the company rolled out several hardened security settings you shouldn't ignore. Arguably, the most important change has been Advanced Protection.

 

Instead of hunting through many menus to secure your phone, you now have a quick way to lock down your Android device and better protect yourself against theft, unsafe apps, insecure networks, scams, and spam. Advanced Protection is a new one-tap mode that enables Google's strongest security and privacy features. It's like Apple's Lockdown Mode.

 

The thing is, it isn't turned on by default because it enforces stricter safeguards that create friction. While there may be some trade-offs, Advanced Protection is for those who care about security and want to be protected.

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Firearms Training Process and Method

 

When levels of stress increase—such as typically happens during real-world firearms use—the brain’s access to conscious memory becomes very limited. In fact, high levels of stress act as something of a “switch” to unconscious (procedural) memory.

 

While we may be able to consciously think about and control how we perform in relatively low stress range settings—where we almost always know what we are going to do before we do it—during a critical incident we are probably going to do whatever is in our unconscious memory system. Based on a variety of factors (most of which are related to how a person has trained and practiced) this may or may not be the same thing.

 

For example, if both memory systems contain the same information for “grip the pistol,” then the shooter will perform an equivalent grip both under stress and during range exercises. If not, the shooter may grip the pistol much differently in the real-world or during force-on-force training than during range training and qualification. 

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In The King’s Name: The “Citizen’s Arrest”

 

The power and process of arrest should never be taken lightly. By the person making the arrest, the person being arrested, or by the rest of us, in whose name someone’s liberty is abruptly taken away. The U.S. Supreme Court and many other courts have noted that an arrest is serious, traumatic, and never forgotten; even when no charges are brought, or an arrested person is acquitted. The handcuffs of a cop killed in the line-of-duty may be carried (with lights/siren activated) to the scene where the killer has been apprehended. They are ceremoniously ratcheted down on the murderer to confirm the arrest — in the name of the fallen officer. Even though the cop killer is being transported to the morgue.

 

I have argued in court (unsuccessfully) that a looming arrest serves no purpose and should be judicially preempted. I have surrendered clients for arrest and been granted unusual courtesy, being allowed to; confirm the cuffs are “loose,” remain during the “booking” process, and accompany the client into a holding cell. I have pleaded with prosecutors and LEOs (successfully) to “undo” the arrest of a client (sworn and nonsworn). I have accompanied cops as a civilian observer, and then, and otherwise, observed many dozens of arrests. I have assisted cops in several arrests, while armed myself. An arrest is of symbolic importance; it suggests that the law is irrefrangible.

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Wednesday Wisdom: 22 April 2026

Medal of Honor: Harold Edward "Speedy" Wilson

For gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as platoon sergeant of a rifle platoon attached to Company G, in action against enemy aggressor forces on the night from 23 to 24 April 1951. When the company outpost was overrun by the enemy while his platoon, firing from hastily constructed foxholes, was engaged in resisting the brunt of a fierce mortar, machinge-gun, grenade, and small-arms attack launched by hostile forces from high ground under cover of darkness, T/Sgt. Wilson braved intense fire to assist the survivors back into the line and to direct the treatment of casualties. 

 

Although twice wounded by gunfire, in the right arm and the left leg, he refused medical aid for himself and continued to move about among his men, shouting words of encouragement. After receiving further wounds in the head and shoulder as the attack increased in intensity, he again insisted upon remaining with his unit. Unable to use either arm to fire, and with mounting casualties among our forces, he resupplied his men with rifles and ammunition taken from the wounded.

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The Tueller Drill Revisited

Twenty-five years ago, an officer with the Salt Lake City Police Department by the name of Dennis Tueller wrote an article entitled “How Close is Too Close,” which initiated considerable discussion about law enforcement officers’ defensive options when confronted with a suspect armed with a contact weapon. Tueller’s study is now one of the classic survival lessons, taught to students of armed defense, both in police circles and by trainers educating qualified armed citizens, as well.

Dennis Tueller’s study went so far beyond him that his name has become inextricably linked with what is erroneously called the “21-Foot Rule,” as if an arbitrary distance could be established beyond which an assailant armed with a contact weapon was no longer an immediate threat, or put conversely, justifying use of deadly force if an assailant with a contact weapon was within a certain distance.

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Skill Development: Training, Practice, Drills, Standards, and Benchmarks

Skill development in the area of defensive firearms gets talked about far less than guns, ammunition, and gear. On the occasions it is discussed, I often get the statement, “I train all the time” or “I practice a lot.” When I ask what they mean by training, they usually say, “I go shooting.” When I postulate that training and practice are different things, I’m often met with blank stares. If I ask who they’ve trained under, the answer is usually, “I’ve been shooting since I was a kid” or “I learned to shoot in the Service.” That would be like me saying I’m a trained fighter because I took karate in 1987.

So what do you train and what do you practice? Why do you do these things? These are important questions to ask yourself and anyone you train with or receive training from. When it comes to firearms training, I would argue that marksmanship, holster skills, recoil management, trigger control, and movement are probably 80% of what you should seek training on and practice in your own time. Those are the skills most likely to save your life should the need arise. 

Seek out training from a high-quality, vetted source. Spend some money on training under a good instructor before you start trying to buy your way into competency through gear. Don’t get me wrong, quality gear is important. But as trainer Paul Howe has stated, “Get some training. A $500 bat won’t fix a $1 swing.” I also recently read a great analogy: “You wouldn’t go to a dojo and spend 8 hours with a martial arts teacher and expect to be a highly belted martial arts practitioner. Yet that’s exactly what people expect to do with a gun.”

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Beretta 20X Bobcat: Tip-Up .22 Gets an Overhaul

Let’s look at the Beretta 20X Bobcat. It was released in late 2024 as the newest evolution of their series of tip-up barrel pocket pistols. It’s a complete redesign of the 21A Bobcat, which was in production from 1984 until this year.

The 21A was originally intended to be a super-concealable carry gun. Of course, being a .22, it’s a lot more enjoyable to shoot than most pocket-sized centerfire pistols. Some people keep them around purely as fun range guns. A few years ago, Beretta leaned into this with the 21A Covert, which has a threaded barrel and wider, more ergonomic grip panels.

Other than that, the 21A has gone more or less unchanged for 40 years and while it’s got a lot of charm, it could use some updating. Has Beretta addressed the old Bobcat’s shortcomings with the new 20X? Let’s look at what’s different.

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American Liberators: Buchenwald 

Soldiers from the XX Corps of General George S. Patton’s Third US Army, advancing near Weimar, Germany, made a shocking discovery during the second week of April 1945. Elements of the Third Army had liberated a Nazi concentration camp at Ohrdruf on April 4, 1945, but few American leaders expected what they would continue to find. In a letter to his wife, Patton observed: “Ohrdruf was the first, and all of us prayed the last, concentration camp any of us would ever see. No such luck.”

For the soldiers of XX Corps, the first sign of something unusual came following a skirmish with German forces near Hottelstedt, Germany, on April 11, 1945. Combat Team 9, an American combined task force composed of troopers from the 6th Armored Division, had swept through the area in what official Army histories call a “spectacular drive” during the war’s final push. Afterwards, while mopping up resistance in the combat team’s wake, the 80th Infantry Division were fired on by a group of fifteen SS soldiers before encountering about 50 disheveled men who had emerged from the forest wearing striped uniforms. When intelligence officer Captain Frederic Keffer asked where they were from, “in disquieting and cryptic fashion, they pointed south and said they had escaped from a terrible place deep in the woods, not far away. The place was a concentration camp. It was called Buchenwald.”

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What Gun for a Woman?

I’ll confess right up front: this question makes me cranky. It makes all sorts of assumptions I’m not willing to stipulate. It assumes that all women are alike, for one thing. There is no one best anything for all women! Anyone who tells you otherwise has no idea what he is talking about, so don’t listen to him. He might know something about guns, but he knows nothing about women.

The other assumption usually hidden in this question is that all women are reluctant, beginning shooters with small, weak hands. Some of us might be beginners, but not all of us. Some have small hands, but others don’t. Some are reluctant when they first begin shooting, but most probably are not. Yet this question often assumes that women have to be cajoled and coaxed along, babied and humored, to get them shooting. That’s condescending, but worse, it’s inaccurate in most cases. Most women who begin shooting do so for their own excellent reasons.

Guys, please hear me out. Your wife’s or girlfriend’s femininity might be the most important thing about her in your eyes, but it really has no bearing on what she can shoot or how well she’ll learn to do so. There are a lot — I mean a LOT — of other variables that matter far more than the sex of the shooter.

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How the Kinect Series Advances the M-LOK Platform

Over the past decade, the M-LOK interface has become the dominant mounting system for modern rifle handguards. Its slim profile, lightweight construction, and flexible accessory placement have made it a preferred solution for shooters seeking highly modular rifle platforms. Traditional M-LOK accessories rely on mechanical fasteners that clamp T-nuts against the backside of the rail slot. This design provides excellent retention and durability, but it also requires tools and careful alignment during installation.

For shooters who frequently adjust their rifle setups, this process can become a barrier to experimentation and adaptation. The patented Kinect mounting system allows accessories to attach instantly through a spring-loaded wedge mechanism that locks securely into the M-LOK slot when the mount is pressed into position.

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The Smaller Springfield SA-35 (Hi-Power)

In 2025 Springfield Armory introduced the full-size SA-35 and delivered the look and feel of the P-35 while adding several welcome upgrades. They have just announced a 4-inch smaller version. The obvious change is barrel and slide length: 4″ versus the standard 4.7″. The slide is shortened to match the barrel. A notable mechanical change is a full-length guide rod with a .255-inch diameter that narrows to .199-inch, paired with a flat recoil spring instead of the classic round-wire spring.

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Tactical Patience

In the world of performance shooting speed and accuracy are illusory, artifacts of the aftermath. During the actual shooting process, they have no meaning or value; they are merely measurements of your performance applied after the fact. Shooters “trying to go fast” or “trying to be accurate” are distracting themselves from the shooting process.

Performance isn’t measured in haste; it’s built through a deliberate, repeatable process. Speed and accuracy are the natural result of disciplined execution. You should be profoundly focused not on the outcome but on the process leading to that result. Such focus is built by developing the mental discipline required to make every round a demonstration of tactical patience.

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Guns & Ammo Throwback: Jeff Cooper vs. Terrorism

So here we are in the “Age of Extortion!” Our local friendly felons have finally discovered what has long been taken for granted in what we used to call “more backward countries” — that crime does pay, in millions. All you need to do is threaten to do something terrible and people will throw money at you. You don't need any particular talent or skill to get rich this way, and you don't need education or training. The only requisite is nastiness, and that is no rare quality.

We can speculate at length upon why this foulness has come upon us so strikingly at this point in our history, but I doubt that any incontrovertible conclusion will result. My own suggestion is simply overpopulation. Like rats, we get testier as we get crowded. By simple arithmetic, if the proportion of goblins to people in our society remains constant, doubling our population doubles the number of goblins. And they reinforce each other as their numbers rise.

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Legacy Arms: The Finest Luxury Shotguns

True legacy arms are far more than the sum of their parts. Whether displayed at home or abroad, at the club or the cabin, a masterpiece sporting arm makes a defining statement in any gathering, an object of pride for its owner and an absolute standout for every collector, shooter, and fowler who appreciates the best of the best. While 99.99 percent of us will never own such a piece of art, we can certainly appreciate their craftsmanship.

For hundreds of years, high-end sporting guns were reserved for Europe’s wealthy elite. The introduction of the break open, breechloading action along with the invention of the hammerless boxlock and sidelock actions gave rise to a trove of classic European designs, including legacy arms from storied European manufacturers such as Purdey & Sons, Westley Richards, E. J. Churchill, and more.

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The Law of Unintended Consequences

You cannot read an Internet firearms forum without running across a thread about what to say to the police after a self-defense shooting. The in-vogue advice from Internet pundits is, “Say nothing. Demand to speak to a lawyer.” And, that is very good advice, if you are a criminal.

If I were practicing law, I would give that advice to all my clients who were criminals. After all, not much good can come from telling lies to the police, and certainly not much good comes to the criminal if he confesses to committing the crime. So, while well intentioned, the advice to keep your mouth shut until your attorney arrives has some potentially severe unintended consequences for the innocent.

Still, the question of what to tell police merits consideration, but because each self-defense incident will be unique, the question cannot be answered uniformly or with a one-liner. What you should do or say if you shoot a burglar in your home in self defense is likely different than what you should do or say if you shoot someone in the middle of a parking garage late at night during a robbery attempt. Why? Because the circumstances and events differ. Your decision to shoot comes in response to actions by the perpetrators, and events unfold differently during those dissimilar attacks. As you know, one size does not fit all, and neither does one uniform statement to the police–or no statement at all–work effectively in all cases.

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The Pistol Optics Quick Guide

Pistol red dots make shooting faster, more intuitive, and more accurate—but they come with choices. This short resource explains four things every shooter should understand when picking a pistol optic: Footprints, Reticles, Dot Size, and Closed vs Open Emitters.

Footprints: The physical dimensions as well as bolt / screw pattern that determines if a dot will mount to your slide or adapter plate. Match footprint → no adapters → clean install. Some guns will require the use of adapter plates.

Reticle types: Dot, dot + circle, multi-reticle options — simplest often works best for pistols.

Dot size: Measured in MOA (minutes of angle). Smaller = precision, larger = quicker to find and track.

Closed vs Open Emitters: Closed (window) = more protected optics; open = wider field of view but more exposure.

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 Shot in the Back! Justified or Not?

 

Prosecutors have criminally charged police officers when the officer has shot someone in the back or when the officer shot someone falling down, stating that these shots were unjustified. There is a fine line between shots that are a lawful response to a deadly threat and shots that are fired after the deadly threat ceases. The only time a private citizen defender (or law enforcement officer for that matter) may use lawful deadly force is when another is threatening or using unlawful deadly force. When the threat has ended, the defender must stop using deadly force. Of course, the problem lies in determining exactly when the threat has ended. The fact that basic human nature often causes an attacker to reflexively turn away from the defender’s gun compounds the difficulty of making this determination.

Dynamic, deadly encounters can happen very quickly and a private citizen’s use of deadly force in lawful self defense can be over in moments. However, close legal scrutiny on the defender’s decision to start and stop shooting can result in the aftermath taking years to play out. 

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Wednesday Wisdom: 15 April 2026

Medal of Honor: John J. Duffy

Major Duffy directed the defense of Fire Support Base Charlie, which was surrounded by a battalion-size enemy element. In the morning hours, after a failed effort to establish a landing zone for resupply aircraft, he moved close to enemy anti-aircraft positions to call in airstrikes. At this time, Major Duffy was again wounded by fragments from a recoilless rifle round and again refused medical evacuation. Shortly thereafter, the enemy began an artillery bombardment on the base and he remained in an exposed position to direct gunships onto the enemy positions which eventually silenced the enemy fire. Following the bombardment, Major Duffy assessed the conditions on the base and personally ensured the wounded friendly foreign soldiers were moved to positions of relative safety and the remaining ammunition was appropriately distributed to the remaining defenders.

Shortly thereafter, the enemy resumed indirect fire on the base, expending an estimated 300 rounds. Nevertheless, he remained in an exposed position to direct gunship fire on the enemy positions. In the late afternoon hours, the enemy began a ground assault from all sides of the firebase and Major Duffy moved from position to position to adjust fire, spot targets for artillery observers, and ultimately to direct gunship fire on a friendly position which had been compromised. As the evening wore on, it became clear that the defenders could not withstand the overwhelming enemy forces and he began to organize an evacuation of the firebase under the cover of night. With the goal of a complete withdrawal, Major Duffy was the last man off the base, remaining behind to adjust the covering fire from gunships until the last possible moment.

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North Korean hackers hijack popular Axios open source project to spread malware

A suspected North Korean hacker has hijacked and modified a popular open source software development tool to deliver malware that could put millions of developers at risk of being compromised. On 30 March 2026 a hacker pushed malicious versions of the widely used JavaScript library called Axios, which developers rely on to allow their software to connect to the internet. The affected library was hosted on a software repository that stores code for open source projects.

Axios is downloaded tens of millions of times every week. The hijack was spotted and stopped in around three hours overnight, according to security firm StepSecurity, which analyzed the attack. It’s unclear at this point how many people downloaded the malicious version of Axios during that time span. Security company Aikido, which also investigated the incident, said anyone who downloaded the code “should assume their system is compromised.”

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3D Printed Suppressors

 

When you hear the phrase 3D printing, you likely picture a machine printing plastic toys and gadgets for Etsy. What if we told you that 3D printed suppressors are now a reality? This isn’t your cool uncle’s 3D printer. This revolutionary manufacturing style, known as additive manufacturing, uses a process called Direct Metal Laser Sintering. DMLS employs a high-powered laser to fuse metal powder into a single, cohesive, three-dimensional shape.

Traditionally, a suppressor uses subtractive manufacturing: a solid block of metal is cut and milled down to the final tube shape. DMLS flips this on its head by building the product up layer by layer. This allows manufacturers to design complex, weight-saving internal geometries that were previously impossible to achieve with standard machining, leading to extremely durable cans that offer excellent back pressure reduction and improved sound suppression.

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The Gun, the Master, and the Student

Few of us who grew up loving to watch the “shoot 'em up” cops and robbers movies will ever forget that great scene from the 1971 movie Dirty Harry where Inspector Callahan pulls out his 61⁄2 inch Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum and blows away the bad guys trying to rob a bank in downtown San Francisco. There was Clint Eastwood, looking all macho and everything, eating a hot dog, firing the “most powerful handgun in the world” while taking down the bad guys all by himself. I went back several times trying to count the number of rounds he fired to see how accurate the film makers were, after watching Clint taunt the bad guy, “I know what you're thinking, did I fire six rounds or only five... well, do you feel lucky, punk?”

 

There is not way to know how many Inspector Callahans there might have been in law enforcement carrying .44 Magnums in 1971, but the numbers would have been few and far between. That's why it was more than interesting that the El Cajon Police Department, in a small town of about 40,000 residents, had authorized their use for general duty purposes as early as 1961, ten years before Dirty Harry. You might say that Chief O'Connor, an old-time western style cop, was leading edge back then when he authorized his department's officers to carry this magnificent but not-so-popular weapon. Having consulted with Officer Elden Carl, O'Connor was convinced the Model 29 had a place in his officers' arsenal of handgun choices, particularly after reading of Elden's incredible accomplishments in pistol competitions.

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Tips & Suggestions For Surveillance Detection Operators

The following tips and recommendations come from actual operational experience, and address a few common points that come up in private sector surveillance detection operations. The recommendations I give here are not, strictly speaking, focused on covert protection, but on surveillance detection.

As always – no article, book, or seminar can actually teach people how to perform surveillance detection. Though some of the wording in this article might seem instructional, please keep in mind that this article is not intended to teach anyone how to execute surveillance detection operations.

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Those who suggest the feasibility of a nationwide pistol permit must realize that such a procedure would be un-constitutional according to the Tenth Amendment (assuming anyone still pays any attention to the Tenth Amendment). However, since the Constitution preceding the Bill of Rights makes it clear that states are bound to honor the acts of other states it would seem to follow that a citizen who has a permit to carry in a permit-to-carry state may expect his permit to honored in any other permit-to-carry state. The legal aspects of this issue are not fully understood and one should not expect the gendarme on the beat to be fully apprised of the situation. Jeff Cooper's Commentaries; Vol. 4, No. 3; February 1996

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Top Break Revolvers

 

What is a Top Break Revolver? A top break revolver uses a hinged frame that opens at the top so the barrel and cylinder can tip down. First introduced in the mid-1800s, the break top system allows faster loading and ejection compared to its gate loading counterparts like the Colt Single Action Army. 

In 1836, Samuel Colt's Paterson design introduced a revolver that would serve as the blueprint for decades of cap-and-ball wheel guns. Early Patersons were slow to load, however, requiring disassembly and the removal of the cylinder. Some later iterations, like the Ehlers Improved Paterson models in the 1840s, incorporated an attached loading lever and capping window, enabling faster powder charging, ball seating, and capping directly on the frame.

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Don't Post Photos of Your Keys!

Few among us would knowingly hand out copies of our keys to strangers. Many of us do, however, provide strangers with all the necessary information to generate a working copy of our key(s). Within two minutes of scanning this site I found at least half a dozen unredacted photos of common, residential keys - bad business.

First, it is important to understand the pieces of information necessary to generate a key. They are the key profile, the number of cuts, and the depths of each cut. All of this information is available from the lock itself by a sufficiently skilled attacker, but the information is much more easily acquired from the key. If you're interested in learning key generation, go to Deviant Ollam's outstanding Keys to the Kingdom: Impressioning, Privilege Escalation, Bumping, and Other Key-Based Attacks Against Physical Locks.

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Scoping Gang Violence

 

To say that gangs are the principal source of gun violence in America is akin to saying a Russian invasion is a little noisy. We at Gun Facts have repeatedly noted that gangs cause most of the bloodshed. A new (to us) academic work helps to illustrate this and to compare with some of our estimates as well. It’s worse than we thought in some respects. Take-aways. Gun homicides are primarily street gang related.

This violence is highly concentrated in a handful of metro areas.
Focusing on core gang members reduces street gang gun homicides.

Gang related… multiple definitions. We first must discuss yet another problem with criminology data consistency. There is no single and uniformly applied definition of “gang related” for crime circumstances. Each locality applies their own… if they even bother with writing down a formal definition. Hence, any national data you have seen concerning gang-related violence is ± a lot.

How broad are the definitions? Enough so that one academic review of crime data claims that between 30-50% of homicides are gang related. That’s a wide gap, and that is far below our estimate of 85%.

Much like the concept of “mass shootings,” the devil is in the definitions. The “Chicago definition” holds that a homicide is gang related only when there is evidence the killing was motivated by gang concerns. Conversely, the Los Angeles definition is when gang members participate even if the motive is not clearly gang driven. Because of this, LA will report gang-related homicides at twice the rate of Chicago.

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The Compact, Concealed Handgun in Law Enforcement: A Fascinating History

Most uniformed law enforcement personnel in the U.S. carry a full size ‘service’ pistol. Among plain clothes officers, smaller variants, such as the Glock 19 and Glock 27 are very popular. This offers plain clothes and undercover officers the ability to carry full power pistols, but in a more concealable package. While the advantages of this are obvious, the story of how this came to be is fascinating, and for the most part, untold.

The first practical, multi-shot ‘service’ handguns were the Colt Paterson, created in 1835, and the Colt Walker, created in 1847. These were initially called ‘Holster’ pistols by the factory, not because they were intended to be carried in holsters on the belt, but because they were intended to be carried in Pommel Holsters on a horse. When you consider that the .44 caliber Colt Walker weighed in at 4 lbs., 8 oz., and had a 9-inch barrel, then horse carry, with the nick name of ‘Horse Pistols’ becomes obvious. These huge revolvers were used with great success by the Texas Rangers, but it goes without saying that attempting to carry one concealed would be a challenge at best. (Comment: Link downloads a .pdf file)

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That Time Germany Wussed Out

In mid-April of 1918, Germany rained high-explosives and chlorine gas on American troops protecting the French village of Seicheprey … for a solid 36 hours. Then, 3,000 elite Sturmtruppen overwhelmed the American trenches with flamethrowers and stick grenades, forcing the battle into a house-to-house brawl.

Germany’s objective at Seicheprey wasn’t to gain ground, but to embarrass America. Nonetheless, the 102nd Infantry rallied at nightfall and repelled the Sturmtruppen back to their original trench lines, thereby reversing Germany’s humiliation attempt: the Kaiser deployed his very best, and America’s Doughboys sent them packing.

In addition to encountering U.S. grit for the first time, Germany was also introduced to a new American weapon that helped turn the tide at Seicheprey, and beyond. Except … the Germans couldn’t figure out what this Sturmtruppen-defeating armament might be. The High Command demanded answers! After all, their elites couldn’t possibly be defeated in a fair fight. The enemy must be winning through some unnatural means.

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Controlling Fear

When a responsible person first begins going armed, he is usually haunted by two recurring questions, or self doubts:

-- If I’m really attacked, and my life is at stake, will I be able to handle it?

-- What if I screw up and kill an innocent person?

This is a normal reaction, and to a degree it is healthy. We do, however, need to address these issues and resolve them, before a conflict, so that they will not raise their ugly heads when we should be concentrating on winning the fight. Remember, if an unavoidable fight is thrust upon us, we MUST WIN! The alternative can be death, or crippling injury.

The first issue to face is that of FEAR. Fear is a normal reaction to physical violence for most people. In addition, since most of us no longer have military experience and live in “civilized” surroundings, we may not have ever actually engaged in a true fight before our moment of truth in a criminal attack. This fear of the unknown is, for many, worse than the fear of being hurt or killed.

Unless you are an exceptional person, a nutcase, or a liar, and you have actually been involved in armed conflict, you have tasted fear. I’m not ashamed to say I have been scared several times, and I fully expect to be scared again before my life is over. What you must learn to do is control your fear and do what you must to win. 

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