Haley Strategic Partners is expanding their offerings to include various health and medical gear including skin care products (yes, skin care) and Oral I.V.
HSP released this video that outlines some of the reasoning behind the expanded product line, some of the products that will be included, and shows a very impressive demonstration of Oral I.V. If you watch the video, the skin care product stuff will make more sense. I promise.
Those of you who have already used TacStrike steel targets understand what makes them great. Those of you who haven’t might need a little persuasion. Well… this might help. As of yesterday, TacStrike will be including a 1 year NRA membership with every purchase of a 1/4 Scale Steel Target or Full Size Steel Target. If you are already a member, they will make a donation for the amount of a 1 year membership. This is just part of why we are proud to have TacStrike as a partner here on JTT.
If you are going to train with Larry Vickers, it pays to join the NRA. Hopefully you are already a member, but if not, this may be motivation for you.
From Larry Vickers:
I am giving every NRA member who can show me proof of membership during any of my classes in 2013 $20 cash back on the spot – if someone isn’t a member they can join the evening of the first day, show me proof on day two, and I’ll give them $20 back.
At that rate the yearly membership only costs the individual $15 or $1.25 a month.
Just another way I am trying to get people engaged in the fight of our lives.
Larry Vickers
One of the most talked about components of gun control legislation is a magazine capacity limit. Proponents of gun control will often question why anyone needs more than X number of rounds (often 10) in their magazine. This is usually answered with a response about how it isn’t about what we “need” or with an analogy like “why does anyone need a car that goes faster than the speed limit.” Both of these answers are true. It is not about what we need – it is our birth right to keep and bear arms. However, just because it is our right doesn’t mean that there isn’t a need. There certainly is a need.
Many of the people who are proposing this legislation have an agenda beyond public safety so they are unlikely to listen to reason. However, there may be those who you come across in your everyday life that genuinely do want to know why someone might need magazine capacities of 10 or more. Much of their misunderstanding of why these higher capacities can be dispelled by addressing 3 main misconceptions/preconceived notions about the nature of terminal ballistics and what really happens in a gunfight:
Many people, whether they realize it or not, are basing their perceptions of the “need” for larger capacity magazines based on these misconceptions/preconceived notions. These notions come from a number of sources but mostly from the various forms of media that we consume. Of course, it may also be true that they have never really given it much (if any) thought. Either way, this is a chance for the informed gun owner to politely engage someone in a conversation about the real world.
You can blame Hollywood for this one. The good guy shoots the bad guy and, in moments, the bad guy is crumpled over dead right there.
People survive gunshot wounds at a rate of 75-95% (studies vary). This is especially true when a handgun is used. Often, people continue to function after being shot which means that they continue to be a threat. We also know that due to the dynamic nature of a gunfight, most gunshot wounds happen in the extremities which can have little to no effect on a person’s ability to continue to harm you or your family.
If you are being attacked by a determined attacker, you will likely need to shoot more than once. You may even need to shoot more than 10 times to stop an attacker. There are multiple documented cases of people continuing to be a threat even after being shot more than 10 times. The most famous of which is the Miami Shootout of April 11, 1986. This is just one of hundreds.
The reality is that it is far more likely that you will have to shoot a determined attacker multiple times in order to stop them. You cannot predict the number of shots that it will take to incapacitate someone.
Again, you can thank Hollywood. The good guys only miss when it is convenient to extend the plot. Characters in movies often don’t even need to use the sights in order to shoot their adversaries.
Here in the real world, it is very hard to hit an attacker that is moving in an unpredictable way. It is even harder to hit an attacker in a way that will produce a stop. Take for instance the recent police action shooting that took place at the Empire State building which actually had a high hit percentage (62.5%) at 10 hits out of 16 shots fired. Various other studies put the hit percentages of large police departments in the range of 27-50% (NY Times, CBS News). These are the same police who gun control proponents hold up as firearm experts with a higher degree of training than the average gun owner. If professionals can miss, so can you. This is especially true with handguns which are difficult to shoot under stress.
The reality of a dynamic situation like a real, live gunfight is that you are going to miss at least some of the time. You cannot afford to give up any capacity in a situation that is as unpredictable as a gun fight.
No one will really say this out loud, but this is the scenario that people envision when they are handing down new gun control legislation. Life isn’t always like an ADT Security commercial where you inadvertently scare off the healthy, well-fed looking guy with 3 days beard growth trying to lift your new flat screen TV.
Violent crimes that involve more than one attacker are not uncommon – in fact, some suggest that they are the rule and not the exception. Homicides involving more than one offender have been trending up since 1980 according to the most recent statistics that I could find (BJS).
The reality is that you may have to defend yourself from multiple attackers. You cannot predict the number of attackers that you might face.
Someone who spends just a modicum of time researching the realities of violent crime, terminal ballistics, and the use of firearms in self defense will find it immediately apparent that magazine capacity limits in any form infringe upon the ability of a legal gun owner to defend themselves. A self-defense scenario is likely to likely to involve multiple attackers that must be shot multiple times each all while you are missing at least a few times (maybe a lot of times). It is that simple.
Again, I know that this won’t make a difference for many of those who propose magazine capacity limits because the magazine capacity limits are merely an incremental step toward their larger goals. However, this might give you some answers beyond the typical ones. It turns out that we DO need high capacity magazines.
Listen… I am not a doctor. That should be obvious to those of you who read here once in a while. This isn’t medical advice. You should check with a real doctor before make any drastic changes to your diet. That conversation will probably go something like this… “Heck yeah you should change the way you eat! You could stand to a lose a few pounds.”
Vuurwapen Blog published a post back in December titled Fat Is Not Tactical. I was already on my path to better health when that article was published so it wasn’t exactly my inspiration or anything fruity like that, but it was timely and served as some positive reinforcement for the path that I was already on. Andrew, the author, talks about coming to the same realization that I did – I’m fat and I don’t want to be anymore.
It is silly to hit the range to practice all these “tactical” drills and buy all this “tactical” gear if I am going to carry around all this extra “tactical” fat. I was a walking contradiction in some ways. I was training skills that my body wouldn’t let me complete to their fullest. Maybe you find yourself in the same boat and you are wondering what to do about it. There probably isn’t really one right answer but I can share what has worked and is working for me.
Can you exercise yourself skinny with out changing your diet? Can a Lorcin get through a handgun course without breaking?
Remember when you were young and you could eat anything you wanted without gaining weight? Remember when you could burn off that entire pizza you ate by yourself just by playing a game or two of pick-up basketball? Yeah, me too… but barely. There are probably some guys who can still do that at my age, but I am not one of them. I am not that old but I have noticed that my body has been changing. Of course, it doesn’t take a keen whit and an impenetrable sense of situational aware to notice a few extra waist sizes and 50 extra pounds. I was exercising 3 or 4 times a week and could never really lose much weigh, if any. In fact, most of the time I was slowly gaining.
Exercise is certainly important, but, for me, loosing weight meant getting real about the way that I ate. There are people who will tell you that if you work out enough, you can eat whatever you want. That might work for some people who are already fit and skinny, but it just isn’t true for the guy who has 50 pounds to lose. That sounds obvious, but I was more than happy to cling to that as justification to stuff my fat face with cereal as a snack 3 times a day. This is what I found to be true for me: I get skinny at the dinner table and I get fit in the gym.
I ended up choosing to eat and exercise in way that was based on the Primal Blueprint. I cut out grains and refined sugar completely. That last sentence is easy to type and a lot harder to do when you have a wife and 2 kids under 4 years of age. Did you know that there are grains and sugar in approximately 457% of our food supply or at least that is how it feel when you are trying to cut them out. It is tough and it takes a lot of planning, but you have to take drastic action if you want to see drastic change. That drastic action for me has resulted in 30 pounds lost over about 3 months.
Here is the bottom line. Improving in any area of your life takes self discipline. Want to speed up your draw stroke? Get out the shot timer and hit the range regularly with a repeatable, measurable plan each and every time. Want to learn to pick locks? Break out the pick set because you are in for some long hours feeling around in a keyway. Want to lose weight and get fit? You are going to have to change your diet in some meaningful way.
Skinny you will outperform fat you every time. Vuurwapen Blog was right. Fat is most certainly not tactical.
