Immediate Action Combatives

We need to be extremely careful about listening to self-proclaimed legal "experts" on social media, even if they have testified at some point as an expert witness in some court. Testifying in court on a matter you may know about gives you the same in depth understanding of the legal system as someone who has changed the oil on their car knowing how to design and and build an auto from scratch.

Case in point is the recent Daniel Penny case. A number of people who love to hear themselves talk spent a lot of time pontificating about how the case shows that using a "chokehold" is self-defense is the same as using a gun and you shouldn't count on it.

That sounds really, really good except it is not true. The prosecutor's office never disputed that it was perfectly legal for Penny to use what basically resembled a rear naked choke (RNC) from jiu-jitsu. It is in the legal findings that he had the justification to do so. So not only was Penny found not guilty, there would not have been a precedent set for the status of a choke being lethal force if he had been found guilty.

But note that not one of the social media experts has had the decency to backtrack and apologize for being wrong. Because that would let their followers know how ill-informed and non-expert these experts are. Being a true legal scholar takes decades of schooling and real world training. Caveat Emptor.

The privileged dilemma of a gun nerd.

I am not sure what I am going to do with my S&W 432. The VZ grips that came with the gun are awesome. Supremely comfortable to shoot, not too big to easily conceal even in a pocket or on an ankle, and they look sharp.

On the other hand, I have a set of the Hamre Forge snub grips with the right side hook (with design input from Dragomir Balaganand Bryan Eastridge). These things are just as great. Even easier to conceal than the VZs, and almost as comfortable in the hand, they add the ability to carry for a short time (and when there is a pretty sure bet there will be no hard physical movement) by using the hook to run in on your waistband. They are a fraction less comfortable to shoot than the VZs.

Both work great for any of my needs, but there is just enough of a difference between the two that the decision to go with one over the other is not a slam dunk.

A good problem to have!

Since I have been posting and talking online about these types of situations for over 20 years publicly, I may as well start the new year off with this bit of information.

An entangled fight with weapons involving a private citizen:

Convenience Store Employee Disarms Alleged Armed Robber A Salt Lake City, Utah, convenience store employee disarmed an alleged armed robber about or shortly after midnight Sunday.

The “Hail Mary” pass in football is one of the most exciting moments in sports. When there is no time left on the clock, and your team is down by more than a field goal, and the Quarterback throws that ball up high, and your receiver comes down with it in the middle of a pack, that moment may be the epitome of why we watch sports.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqMYRodkkQw

This video is a perfect crystallization of the moment and why it is so exciting. I actually saw this live as a young kid. I grew up a Cowboys fan and I was watching this on TV, and when Pearson snagged it, you would think from my (and probably every other Cowboy fan in existence) reaction that the “Boys had already won the Super Bowl, rather than just got the chance to go to it”.
The problem is, that in the excitement of the success, and the water cooler talk that follows for weeks after, we forget one little thing – that the Hail Mary is a desperation move that fails far, far more often than it succeeds. We are so giddy from the excitement that we lose sight of that fact. Not one football team plans to use the Hail Mary play as part of their preferred game plan. It is instead a “nothing else left to do” moment.

So why do I bring that up on a website devoted to self-defense oriented issues? Because too much of the techniques and tactics in self-defense are the equivalent of the Hail Mary pass. We are going to do that cool technique that “worked” one time because it seems cool and makes us feel like John Wick, when in fact the move will fail 98% of the time. Years ago I got into a debate with fairly known instructor about the efficacy of the Superman punch. He was advocating for it as a legitimate and useful move for self-defense, and insisted that because it “worked” in MMA, that was enough proof it was good for self-defnse. So I went back and looked at the prior two years of UFC fights and I found that indeed, the superman punch worked – about 20% of the time! The rest of the time, it failed, either to do any damage or to even make contact. I used that info in the debate because it makes exactly zero sense to try to train a technique that only works two out of ten times when it is performed by a professional athlete at the peak of fighting condition, when none of us fit that description because it will work even more poorly for us lesser mortals. Yes, when it lands, it is spectacular, and makes us feel awesome. I am far more concerned about all the times it does not land, because that is where most of us will be most of the time.

Unfortunately, this type of thinking is too prevalent in the training community. I think, besides that it may make us feel cool when it works, that the biggest reason people like to focus on these moves is that they tend to be easier to work and train. It is much easier to plan on using an eye gouge or a hair grab or a throat punch that we only need to work for a little bit in order to be ready to fight than the alternative which is much more difficult to face up to; that this work is hard and requires a much blood, sweat, tears, and time, and that the entire way our ego is undergoing constant attack because we will realize we are not actually John Wick.

And it is not just techniques or physical action that can constitute these wishful tricks. Hardware tends to be a big go-to move for too many people. “I carry a back up gun in my pocket to deal with anyone who tries to grapple me” is an all too typical refrain, as is people looking for another trigger, or sights, or ammo to make up for a poor skill set. If our shooting is lacking, it becomes much easier to buy new gear than it is to shoot more repetitions on Dot Torture or other similar foundational drills.

The solution is that we need to focus on the things that we regular everyday folks are able to do. What are the most robust, reliable, and replicable concepts and techniques that will work in most contexts and most situations that can be trained in a reasonable amount of time.

Those are the things we can count on, not the flashy tricks.

Hail Mary Roger Staubach to Drew Pearson 1975 Hail Mary Roger Staubach to Drew Pearson 1975

am seeing a lot of New Year resolutions posts all over the place and I think that is great. We should always be trying to make ourselves better. Here is a tip I have found that is incredibly helpful to making those resolutions become real.

Have your goal, but then write down the action plan to achieve the goal. The more steps you can take, and the more specific they are, the greater the likelihood that they become true. For example, losing weight is always a goal for so many people. But if your action plan consists of “eat better” or “cut out junk food”, I suggest that you may find implementing those things are close to impossible. The more nebulous the plan, the harder it will be to make work. On the other hand, if you have concrete plans, they become easier to follow. If you want to lose weight, an action plan that looks more like this – for the first month do this 1) one day a week do not eat starch foods, 2) eat dessert only Friday through Sunday, 3) add one serving of fresh fruit into diet once a week 4) eat one lunch a week with only a large salad - is very doable with little extra planning or need to do too much else (i.e. buy supplements or special foods, or make a special grocery trip, and throw out tons of food in your pantry).

If you are trying to get more fit, don’t try to do it all by next week. See what small but immediate step you can take today or tomorrow, and then sketch out the following steps. If you are trying to get better at an activity, don’t say “I will practice it x amount of time every day” if you have not been doing it at all. Start small, say one session a week, and then chart a very basic progression. Don’t jump in too fast or too far ahead. Make the steps the kind you can do now with little preparation.

I know some people who are reading this are thinking “but I want to do a lot right away and fix stuff”, and I understand. Here is the cool thing about the approach I have outlined. You start the small steps, and if you find yourself being able to do more, then do it! All it means is that your action plan gets done sooner than you anticipated. It is not a timeline or a plan you chain yourself to, but rather one that gets things going. We can always do more, but we first have to make sure we do something.

"The aim of a worthy life is excellence. There can be no other. Not money. Not power. Not rank. Not fame. Excellence. Whether one drives a car, sells a shoe, bakes a pie, skins a deer, changes a baby, or writes an essay, the need is to do it well - better - perfectly. This is the secret to happiness."

Jeff Cooper
December 1983

This goes along with one of Craig Douglas' sayings : "You can try to accomplish something, or you can try to BE somebody." If you accomplish something, you WILL be somebody. But if all you desire is to be seen as important, chances are you accomplish nothing, and will be forgotten.

And this leads to lying online, pimping up accomplishments that really are not all that relevant, and making fun of others who don't follow exactly what you do.

Rather than trying to bend others to what you want, work on excellence in your own life, and people WILL want to listen to you.

Over the past few years, there has been a great deal of talk in the training community, especially on the instructor side, on how to reach beyond the 1%. Which, in this case, we define as the hardcore enthusiast/hobbyist who is willing to put much time, effort and money into taking training classes, shooting a lot, buying a great deal of guns, ammo, and gear, going to training conferences, and spending substantial time online looking at websites and social media spots where shooting is discussed ad nauseum.

The idea is to a) help more people become more capable of defending themselves which is a huge positive boost to the world, and b) make more money by teaching more people and selling more gear. And there is nothing wrong with the second part in any way. The more financially successful instructors are, the more they can help people, and the more the art is pushed forward with better and better “best practices”.

I have been very successful in reaching beyond that 1%. I have done fully packed seminars in places like NYC and New Jersey where almost every single attendee and never even fired a gun, let alone carried one on a regular basis. I have done multiple seminars at dedicated BJJ academies in Northern California, where even carrying a folding “tactical” knife is a bit iffy in the eyes of the local governments. I also receive constant emails and messages from all over the country from folks who are solidly on the jiu jitsu and martial art side, who don’t shoot, but ask me how they should step into that world.

So I am solidly confident in saying I know some ways to reach that 99%. Here is one thing that I have found to be extremely important in achieving that goal, and that often in the gun community is neglected.

Stop insulting people new to the community who don’t automatically follow what you think is the best way to go about things.

That may seem self-evident, but it is overlooked constantly, especially on social media. It does not help our case when a noob posts a question and says they carry in a Serpa, and they are immediately called an idiot for doing so. Or when someone just dipping their toes into the CCW world says they are not comfortable carrying with a round in the chamber and they are told by a cascade of voices that they are stupid and should not even be allowed to carry in the first place. Or if someone is brand new and says they don’t have a red dot on their pistol, and a known community figure calls them “stupid, lazy, or a poor” (that is a verbatim quote BTW from an “expert who loves to call himself caring and compassionate. I don’t see a lot of caring, compassion, or even kindness in his quote).

I don’t insult those folks, nor do I talk down to them like they are children (another common fault in our training community). If they are making sub-optimal choices, it is much better (and kind!) to discuss with them, on their level and with no derision, why their choices may be less than stellar. This has worked for me for 25+ years of being present online and in the public.

By treating them as people who deserve to know the best information, and are capable of understanding said information, we gain that person into our community and that is one more ally we desperately need as so much of the world tries to take away not only our right to own fi****ms, but our very right to self-defense.

Be kind and thoughtful, and don’t insult others. It is a simple and proven formula.

IAC Seminar Yadkinville, NC Jan 24-26, 2025
I will be going back to NC in January to work with the great guys at Apache Solutions Fi****ms Training to do my foundational coursework on Surviving an Entangled fight in a weapons based environment. The people there are terrific, the facilities are great, and the hospitality is second to none. Come join us!

Link in the comments.

A really nice article talking about a bit about what I taught at the Revolver Round Up, as well as some quick tips on shooting from retention.

https://americancop.com/working-in-close/

Since Meta loves to throttle these kind of things, if anyone feels like sharing this or commenting on it, I would greatly appreciate it.

Working In Close Two recent articles on improving and increasing the standards for law enforcement fi****ms training generated feedback based on readers’ experiences. They asked for articles discussing close-range and point shooting. if (!window.AdButler){(function(){var s = document.createElement("script"); s.asy...

I was doing a deep dive on a particular handgun the past couple of weeks and I was watching a lot of YouTube videos from multiple creators to find out as much as I could on the gun. What I found was a reinforcement that most GunTubers are sanctimonious wannabes with the emotional maturity of a spoiled five year old.

This particular handgun has a manual safety. Like pretty much all modern polymer striker guns that has one, it is pretty unobtrusive and nearly impossible to accidentally swipe on, so to any mature and critical thinker, if you don't like it, you can either ignore it, or even better, get a different gun.

But apparently this concept is too hard for Guntubers to grasp. Not only did all of them spend a significant amount of time lambasting the fact that safety existed, they took the manufacturer to task for including it. But they didn't stop there. They then insulted anyone who actually liked the idea of having a manual safety. In fact, one of these geniuses even said that if you are someone who feels the need to have a manual safety, you should not even be allowed to carry a gun!

Memo to these losers - just because some people - to include me - prefer to have an extra potential safety layer on a trigger that needs very little movement AND requires less then 5 1/2 pounds of pressure to go off, IT DOES NOT AFFECT ANYONE ELSE. The fact that I want one does not impact their lives in any way whatsoever, so why they feel the need to dictate and insult us only shows that they are petty and actually are unsure of their own decisions. They need external validation that they in fact are awesome and so smart.

So let me invite them to A) S**U because they are saying dumb s**t, and B) say to my face that I should not be allowed to carry a gun.

Anyone want to take bets on any one of them ever having the guts to face me and talk smack?

The problem with social media is not that a lot of people with low levels of experience or knowledge get to put their opinions out there(including making videos and livestreams), but in that it is easy to hide the fact that they don't have much experience.

I truly love that social media has given essentially everyone a voice. I remember the old days of the Self-Preservation community (both on the gun side and the martial art side) where the only time the public had any input was in letters to the editor. It is fantastic that now we all can express ideas on the public field of battle to see what is valid and what is not.

The issue though is that far too many people put their stuff out there and willfully hide the fact that their depth and breadth of experience and knowledge is low, and try to imply that their opinions have the same weight as someone who has been in that space for 20+ years. Certainly, there is a lot of responsibility on the part of the reader/listener/viewer to try to exercise due diligence, but if they are new, how do they truly do that?

I saw today recently where someone was putting out an online video about concealed carry and making good choices and what they think is best. Which is fine, but nowhere in their sales blurb was a mention that this person had been involved in this world for less then 5 years, and does not do it for a living.

Does that invalidate their offering? Absolutely not, but when it is being sold as deep knowledge, it is pretty disingenuous to sell it as if it was when it most certainly is not.

This is not a call to ban anything. But I do wish people could exercise a tiny bit of integrity and be more transparent.

I spent the past three and a half days at Gunsite Academy teaching at the Pat Rogers Memorial Round Up. It was a great time, with over a hundred students shooting over 500 rounds of ammo through their guns. It was an enlightening experience watching switched on and knowledgeable shooters who understood aspects of revolvers run through drills, and shoot houses, and interactive force-on-force scenarios.

And you know what we saw very little of? Guns going down. There was a tiny number, and almost all of them were ammo related that would have cause semi-autos to go down as well.
I know there are internet experts out there who may have a total of a single day of four hour revolver work who like to pontificate and make sweeping pronouncements on the reliability of a weapon they know nothing about, so maybe listen to those who do this with depth and breadth of experience and knowledge.
You do not treat wheelguns and pistols the same. There is a different procedure to maximize the reliably of each. Neither procedure is hard or time consuming, they are just different. It is easy to keep a revolver running. But if you do not take the time to learn, you will never understand.

Look at the accompanying picture. This is my Manurhin MR88. It was made roughly 30 years ago. There is nothing unique or special about it. It is just as the factory made it. I shot it this weekend, and loaned it to others, over there days. It had over 500 rounds run through it. If you look at picture, you will see lots of carbon fouling, and dust from the high desert, as well as lots of fingerprints and oils from different hands. Guess how many stoppages it had? Anyone?

ZERO. Why? Is it a unicorn with magic powers? Nope, I know how to take care of it with simple things that take no more than seconds at a given time.

And any well made revolver will do the same. So please, take wheelman advice from people who actually know what the hell they are talking about.

Recently a student emailed me to ask me some questions. He's a distant student who is trained with me at some of my seminars and works pretty hard at becoming better. He's new to this life but he's trying to fill in the gaps.

The question he asked was a question I get all the time and have gotten for the past 25 years of me doing this publicly. However this time the question took me aback slightly because of the way it was phrased.

It's a very common to ask what other things should I be training? When we are new to the multidisciplinary Self preservation training paradigm, It can be somewhat overwhelming when we try to figure out how to work all these disparate skill sets Into a functional and reliable base that we can access under pressure. I totally understand this question and never once have I had an issue in answering it. In fact I try to Go fairly deep when doing so. I've also written blog articles and social media posts trying to get the information out to as many people as possible. I feel it's an obligation as an instructor to do these things.

What took me by surprise was his wording. What he asked was "What secondary skills should I be working?"

I was not quite sure what he was asking as far as what he was considering secondary skills. So to get clarification I asked him “what do you think are the primary skills?” His answer was simply “the gun.”

It took me a moment to wrap my head around what he said. Since he had trained with me a couple times and I knew he read what I wrote online or what I put on my YouTube channel, I felt like a complete failure.That answer was completely antithetical to everything I've said or done or taught or wrote.

The problem is not in thinking of the gun as primary. The problem is thinking the gun is the only primary. If you think of everything else as secondary you are wrong. Period. A gun certainly is an important part of the self preservation skill set, but it is no more important than personal health and vitality, pre-fight threat containment, or basic medical skills like CPR, being able to recognize a stroke or heart attack, and knowing what to do when a child is drowning.

All of those are far more likely to be used, on an order of magnitude, and will be used more frequently than the firearm, even for professional gun bearers like law-enforcement. Ask a typical cop who's been on the job 10+ years how many times have you had to use your gun versus how many times did you have to do medical on somebody, or when you needed your own personal fitness to be at a high level, or how many times did you prevent something going wrong by controlling the situation verbally and physically. These if anything should be considered primary and arguably everything else is secondary.

I will never diminish the need for a firearm, but there are a number of things far more useful on a daily basis to keep ourselves alive than the gun and that needs to be understood before you take another high speed shooting class.

There is a very famous saying in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and it's attributed to Carlson Gracie Sr. What he said decades ago was " take a black belt, punch him in the face and he becomes a brown belt. Punch him in the face again and he becomes a purple belt "

For those who don't know Carlson Sr. was essentially the second champion in the Gracie family. After his Uncle Helio got a bit older into his mid to late 40s and was no longer able to fight the challenge matches that he had the previous 25 years, Carlson took over and was the family Champion through most of the 60s and into the early 70s. He also was instrumental in bringing modern training concepts into the traditional world of valle tudo ( in other words traditional Brazilian MMA). Carlson built one of the first teams both to compete in Jujitsu and to compete in MMA, so he understood a Jujitsu player getting punched in the face and what can happen.

Essentially his point was that you needed to train in the situation of getting punched otherwise if it was your first time your skill goes out the window. He was an early advocate of cross training to some level and to do all your traditional Jiu-Jitsu stuff while punching or getting punched. and he and his team were incredibly successful at doing so.

What Carlson was pointing out that you could have an awesome game plan and awesome skill to pull it off, but if you have not gotten rid of the novelty of incoming violence - including Getting punched or getting struck in the face over and over again - then there is a good chance your game plan and your skill goes out the window. And this is true across the board in all areas of self-preservation and self-defense, to include shooting.

Shooters need to understand this concept almost more than anybody else, mostly because it is not part of almost any shooting training course. The single most overriding reason being that in almost all shooting training there is no oppositional pressure. There is no one putting direct physical pressure on your ability to shoot. Unfortunately, in the real world the bad guy is always doing exactly that, and his oppositional pressure may very well include hitting you in the face over and over and over and over again. What you will quickly find is that your sub second draw suddenly after a punch in the face becomes a two+ second draw. Get punched again and now you're probably not even finishing the draw and there's a very good chance that your gun that you brought to the fight is now up for grabs to whoever can control it.

Of course, there is someone out there reading this and going "I never let anyone get that close to me. I will shoot them long before they can punch." Stop living your self-indulgent and mastubatory John Wick fantasies. This is impossible in the real world. Please try to shout "Get back from me! I am in fear for my life!" while you are in line at the grocery store. Or the bank. Or TSA. Uniformed people will very quickly get VERY close to you and you will have lots of 'splaining to do.

If you think you can maintain distance at all times, it is very easy to prove. Get a video out, some safetly equipment, and try it out on someone who has incentive to get close. I have spenbt 20+ years working this problem, and have seen a lot of people try to do it. I know how it will go 90% of the time.

So take some time to make sure your draw - or whatever self-defense tactics you prefer - can withstand a punch in the face.

Straw Man

Do you want a quick and decisive way to absolutely know you have won a debate? When the other side produces a Straw Man. At that point, they have shown all their cards and they have nothing left to refute your arguments.

Here is the classic definition of the Straw Man Argument :

Straw man fallacy occurs when someone distorts their opponent's argument by oversimplifying or exaggerating it, for example, and then refutes this “new” version of the argument

It is always fun to watch people desperately throw that out there because they lack the intellectual ability to engage, or they realize their side of the debate is wrong. Rather than come to grips with that, they have to change the argument.

Recently, I have had this happen to me twice in online discussions. And both times it was hilarious to watch the other side collapse.

The first was earlier this year when some online voices tried to put over the idea that physical fitness did not matter for self-defense. With a large number of real world video examples, I showed how fantastically idiotic that was. Rather than try to continue the debate with intelligence, or admit that they said something profoundly stupid, the other side went right into a Straw Man. Their excuse as to why they said that fitness does not matter, is because they did not want someone out there to think that if they were not fit then they would not be able to defend themselves. And again, they tried to say that is exactly what people like myself originally said about fitness - that if you are not fit, you will fail at any self-defense encounter. But did they produce one single quote to that effect? Or did they point out where someone could go to see those words? Of course not. Because no one ever said them. It is merely a convenient way for someone to not admit they were wrong.

It happened again more recently when internet commentators who have literally zero time with revolvers showed how lacking in knowledge they were by going to the Straw Man because they have no other way to argue. They tried to say that I said a double action trigger on a revolver is a good thing because it makes a revolver immune to negligent discharges.

Which would be a hugely stupid thing to say. But I never said that. I wrote and have said in interviews that it is HARDER to have an ND with a longer, heavier trigger, but it is not impossible. And what is ironic, is that the other side agrees with me. The whole reason they will push that you should only run a striker fired trigger is because IT IS EASIER TO SHOOT. Which means a trigger that has a longer and heavier pull is harder to make it go off. Which, by their own reasoning, means a DA trigger gun is harder to have an ND with!

But, that is somewhat irrelevant to the discussion because I never said or wrote that DA triggers cannot have an ND. And you know how I can prove that? Because the other side did not - and cannot - point you to where I said it. They create the Straw Man and then let you assume that is what was said. Unlike them, I can produce exact evidence to what they wrote or said with their Straw Man. But they cannot do the same, even though I am very public in the things I say or write.

It is a made up Straw Man argument. In other and more simple words, they lied and did so in order to try to appear like they won a debate. But they did not win the debate. They actually lost the war.