August 28th, 2009
Dear Friend,
Make sure you have a box of tissues at your side when you read this week’s feature story, written by our very own Kathy Jackson.
This story is exactly why we all need to be armed.. at all times: Because evil does exist.
A young woman is jogging, exercising her body and her dog, and enjoying nature.
A man is stalking her, intent on committing unspeakable trespasses against her, and then killing her slowly.
Who deserves to live, if it must be one or the other? Do you want to know what I think?
I believe an innocent, Good human life is more valuable than a corrupted human life. I believe that some humans are too far gone, and that if what you are about to read seems like “…fun…” to anyone, then they deserve nothing more than to be met with a .45 ACP slug. Several of them.
You will not like this story, but as an armed citizen, you will be reassured that you are making the CORRECT choice in going armed. By being an armed citizen, you are making this world a better place.
I want to thank you for that, and I want to ask you forward this story to everyone you know. Everyone needs to understand WHY we do what we do.
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== Survival Update == |
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This One’s for Meredith
“…she almost got away…”
BY KATHY JACKSON
Today, I remember Meredith Emerson, a strong and healthy young woman who was struck down in the prime of life even though she desperately fought against her attacker. Rest in peace, Meredith. God knows you earned it.
I never met Meredith Emerson. The news pictures show her to be a beautiful young woman — strong, vibrant, alive. You can see her posing with her dog, smiling for the camera. She looks like a joyful sort of person. We know she was outdoorsy, that she was independent, that she could take care of herself. Could she take care of herself?
Like most healthy young women, Meredith thought she could. She cared about her physical ability to defend herself so much that she took martial arts classes. And although she loved to be alone in the outdoors, she rarely hiked without the company of her large dog.
That’s not why I remember Meredith.
I remember Meredith because the horror that struck me, after reading the news accounts of her death, followed me for days. I was so angry I literally shook from the emotion. And of course I cried. Who wouldn’t? A strong and healthy woman, struck down in her youth by a violent predator, a shark among human beings. No, not a shark. Sharks are — mere animals. What happened to Meredith was evil, pure evil far below anything an innocent animal could achieve.
Shall I retell the entire gruesome tale? I’d rather not. Let us repeat only the important facts, mercifully blurring over the details.
Meredith Emerson went for a hike one beautiful day. She was young, in her early 20’s. She was in good health. She’d had training in the martial arts, and knew how to take care of herself. And she took her big dog, Ella, with her on her hike.
She should have been safe.
But on that hike, she met a … words fail. She met something so evil it defies description. She met wickedness masquerading in human form. Gary Michael Hilton was 61 years old. He briefly befriended Meredith, spoke to her. For a short spell, they hiked together. But, he told police later, Meredith soon outdistanced him and he fell behind.
Could her intuition have been working, even then? I suspect it was. I suspect she walked with him briefly, out of … not fear, but wariness. A desire to dispel the creepiness of the first encounter. And I believe she walked away from him for the same reason. I think her alarm bells must have been ringing, so she deliberately forged ahead and away from the unwelcome contact.
According to later interviews, he had already selected her to be his prey.
Hours later, she returned along the same trail. Surely by now the man had gone away, she must have thought.
He had not.
While she hiked, he had armed himself with a baton and a knife. And when she returned, he attacked her.
She fought. She fought like a wildcat. “She wouldn’t stop,” Hilton later told investigators. “She wouldn’t stop fighting. And yelling at the same time. So I needed to both control her and silence her.”
She did disarm him successfully, just as she’d been taught to do. She knocked the knife out of his hand. She knocked the baton away. This petite, martial-arts trained young woman fought with everything she had. And she disarmed him. They rolled away from the baton and away from the knife. Barehanded, she fought him.
She almost won.
Almost.
Almost….
Almost is not good enough.
Four days later, he finally finished killing her. Months later, her attacker returned to the crime scene, to tell the story to the officers who had arrested him for her kidnapping and eventual murder. She almost won, he said.
“She was doing everything she could to stay alive,” Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vernon Keenan later told reporters. “It’s not something you can train for. Instinct kicks in … She nearly got the best of him. She’s very much a hero.”
She almost got away.
Almost.
This is just another sad news story of a pathological creep overpowering a young woman, raping her, and finally killing her. It happens every day in America, in towns and cities, in state and national parks, and on private property. It has happened in your neighborhood — if not this year, then last year or the year before.
Just another serial killer, without pity and without remorse.
Just another innocent victim whose mangled body was found in the woods.
Just another beautiful, vibrant soul snuffed out to give a few minutes’ sick pleasure to a man who had no soul of his own.
The day after I heard the news, I was talking to a friend, a liberal friend. My friend asked why I was upset. I told him I’d been listening to the news, and couldn’t get over the story of Meredith Emerson. He asked me what had happened to her, so I told him.
“The thing is,” I told him, “the thing is, she was young, strong, healthy. She had martial arts skills. Her big dog was with her. She fought with grit, determination, bravery. She fought with him everything she had. She did all the right things … ”
My friend said slowly, “… but the attacker had a gun?”"
No, I replied. The attacker did NOT have a gun. He didn’t need one.
So what’s the lesson? “Give the attacker what he wants”? Oh no. What the attacker wanted was to kill, to deliberately and gruesomely slay, this vibrant young woman. What he wanted was to watch her suffer and struggle, to watch as her life slowly ebbed away, to take his sick pleasure from her helplessness, her pain and her death. Should this sociopath simply have been given what he wanted? Gah! That’s not the lesson.
The lesson certainly is not that martial arts are useless. For every Meredith, I can point to dozens of women in slightly less-desperate circumstances, who did successfully fight back using empty hand techniques, and who survived and prevailed because they had the physical skills they needed in order to escape their attackers. Only a short-sighted man or a fool would tell his wife, his daughter, his girlfriend or his sister that she is so helpless there’s no sense in even trying to defend herself if she is caught while unarmed. If someone you love is ever caught in a horrific situation as Meredith was, I hope she uses at least as much determination and intelligence as Meredith did in her efforts to survive and escape.
And I hope she makes it.
So what is the lesson?
Here’s one part of it. Women need to be taught that fighting back can make a difference and that you should never ever just give up. Women should know that they are not, by nature, incapable of defending themselves, no matter what the “women can’t…” brigade might tell them. Most of us can benefit from martial arts training, sometimes to an amazing degree. In part this is because the self-confidence the physical training gives also often provides its own protection during the prey selection process. From an early age, girls should be taught that if they are attacked they should use every ounce of strength, guile, savvy, and grit that they can summon to get away. The physical skills to do this are beneficial and should not be neglected.
Teach your daughters well. Teach them to protect themselves. Teach them how to escape from a grab, where to strike, how to use misdirection, why sometimes it is necessary to fight back. Teach them to defend themselves with every ounce of their strength, every smidgeon of guile and deception they can concoct, and — above all — teach them to never, ever, ever give up. And … teach them one more thing, the final lesson.
For Meredith’s sake, teach your daughters that there might come a time when a larger and stronger attacker can overpower them, when their physical skills are not enough and when their natural intuition has catastrophically failed. In the gravest extreme, they may need a gun to defend themselves. And in that final and desperate place, only a gun will do.
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Kathy Jackson is the Managing Editor of Concealed Carry Magazine. A handgun instructor at the Firearms Academy of Seattle, she takes special pleasure in teaching women how to shoot. She and her husband have five teenage boys and live in Washington state.
Notes:
Quotes from Hiker Fought to End for Survival; Confessed Killer Tells Investigators a Georgia Hiker Fought to the End to Survive athttp://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=4505249 and from reports in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s website at http://www.ajc.com
USCCA Laugh of the Week
“I only wish I had this stuff 10 years ago…”
Last month I sent you a link to a complimentary program I felt every USCCA members should own. It was created by a hand-to-hand close combat expert named Tim Larkin. The feedback on it has been phenomenal. In a phone call, one guy called it “a life changing experience.” Here’s what he wrote directly to Tim Larkin (he asked to remain anonymous and we’ve respected that wish by deleting his name).
——
“I can honestly not thank you enough for giving USCCA members the huge discount on your Human Weapons ‘package’ deal.
“I have trained most of my life to survive. I’ve taken multiple survival classes (you know, being dumped out in the desert with absolutely nothing and having to live for a week). I took firearms training classes as soon as I was old enough to own one and I’ve taken practical self defense courses, mostly emphasizing on getting it over with as quickly as possible. I’ve worked with Marines all my life so I’ve had advantages other civilians have not had. I’ve also taken medical classes, EMT certified, you name it. Being prepared is something I take seriously. The safety of my family and myself I take very seriously.
“But this mega pack of materials is amazing. The practicality, straight forwardness and focus of the material is fantastic. I have always wondered why so many instructors insist on teaching things that have absolutely no practical value in saving my life or the life of another. Why fill student’s heads with crap. We are only going to retain so much in a true life or death scenario – so give people the best possible odds of winning. The rest is fluff and gets people killed.
“Your information is just so valuable - I have already had many of my friends and co-workers purchase the set.
“As I emailed Tim Schmidt of USCCA - I can only hope that all the money, time and effort that I continue to put into this program is completely ‘wasted’ (ie, I’ll never need to use it).
“Your concept of ’break things inside people so they don’t work anymore’ honestly is so, I don’t even have words for it, unbelievably simple. For the life of me I cannot understand why that isn’t at the core of every training class I’ve ever taken. I’ve heard it said other ways with a lot of fluff around it but it is a straight up truism. All of my firearms training - that was the point of it. Just that simple. From that axiom everything can be built.
“I feel like a lot of my training has been complete crap and I also feel like it is so damn obvious I am annoyed at myself for not realizing it before. After reading your book I know why I didn’t realize it but still, it isn’t a pill that’s easy to swallow.
“A while ago I was put on the disabled list that severely limits the amount I can train. I have to take every opportunity I can to keep pushing myself but I have to do it in a way where I am not making things worse for myself. The material that is in this program is a major help to me. Some things I simply cannot do, others I can adapt to my situation. What is important is that I now have better tools to use and a better understanding of how to use them and when. I hope that I can one day attend one of your classes.
“So - thank you. I only wish I had this stuff 10 years ago and was ahead of the curve instead of catching up.”
(name withheld for confidentiality reasons)
-USCCA member
If you missed it last month, here’s the link again:
=> http://www.targetfocustraining.com/uscca <=
Coming Up On Armed American Radio
The Official Voice of the USCCA
BY MARK WALTERSWow, what a next few weeks we have shaping up on Armed American Radio! The program is gearing up for its fist TWO hour broadcast on September 13th and the syndicators are hard at work bringing AAR to a city near YOU.
Coming up on the next broadcast, Dr. Bruce Eimer rejoins the show to discuss some very fun and informative topics. We’ll delve into his area of expertise, the revolver, and get answers to some of the most asked questions as well as all kinds of fun CCW info.
Also, the first 2 hour show is shaping up to be a GREAT one! Check outwww.armedamericanradio.org for more information on the happenings at the hottest new syndicated radio program to hit the airwaves.
V Sharp Xtreme Edge
USCCA Gear Review
The new Xtreme Edge is so new it’s not even on the market yet, but it’s supposed to be soon. It has some key features that set it apart from the Classic V Sharp that I use to sharpen my blades. I don’t have the final word yet, but I would suspect that this model will be available at a lower cost so that even more consumers can enjoy the easy way to get a good working edge on a blade.
The key word here is “working.” Warthog’s V Sharp line of sharpeners is designed to get a sharp working edge on blades quickly and without any hassle or complex sharpening rituals. Simply run the blade through the sharpener following the instructions, and the blades come out ready to go to work with a nice sharp edge.
The frame assembly of this unit is plastic. Remember, that’s not a bad thing. Many of the guns we concealed carry folks lug around have polymer frames. Polymer is just a fancy way to say plastic (for the purists: yes I know that plastics are polymers, but not all polymers are plastic). Anyway, the plastic frame is a good move from Warthog Sharpeners. It makes sense from a materials and manufacturing perspective which equates to savings that can be passed on to the end consumer.
Another good thing about this unit is slide-on diamond hones. Each hone rod can hold two diamond hones so the owner can have two grits available for immediate use. The hones are available in 300 (course) grit, 600 (medium) grit, and 1000 (fine) grit. A really good thing about the Xtreme Edge is that a screwdriver is no longer necessary to switch the angle of the hones. The Xtreme Edge adjusts to four positions to produce sharpening angles of 17, 20, 25, and 30 degrees depending on what type of blade is being sharpened. Just use your hands to pop the hones in or out, or to turn them over to use the steels or another grit of diamond hone.
The springs feel a bit beefier on this unit; providing more resistance during the sharpening strokes. The spring tension is also adjustable on the Xtreme Edge. I like that. My Classic V Sharp sharpened my knives without any problems at all, but I always did wish that there was a bit more resistance on the Classic V Sharp. Now I can adjust the tension to suit my preferences using the Xtreme Edge.
One other design feature that I am glad to see on this newest V Sharp is an adjustable blade guide. It is important to maintain a straight up and down angle of the blade one is sharpening when using any V Sharp. The edge of the blade needs to maintain a constant position so that the sharpening angle stays as perfect as possible.
This is done by maintaining contact of the blade against the blade guide throughout the whole sharpening stroke. However, there are some blade shapes that make this a bit difficult without a blade guide that is adjustable. The blade guide on the Xtreme Edge adjusts for tapered blades and wedge-shaped blades easily.
The Xtreme Edge is a freestanding unit with a rubberized base built into the frame. There is a gripping spot on top of the frame to hold the unit in place while sharpening is in progress. Not having a wooden base that needs to be attached separately during manufacturing is also a cost-saving feature that gets passed on to you and me. And I’m all for saving a few bucks.
What makes the V Sharp brand of sharpeners so effective is that a constant angle is maintained on both sides of the blade at the same time with each stroke of the blade through the sharpener. The user doesn’t need to get a PhD in honing just to get a keen working edge on blades, whether those blades be knives in a kitchen drawer, knives used for filleting the days catch, knives used for skinning and butchering wild game or store-bought meat, knives used for utilitarian purposes, or even knives for self-defense.
The V Sharp is the easiest and best knife sharpener I have ever used. I don’t have to fool around with it, I just run the blade through it and the blade gets sharp. Plus, I don’t have to keep ripping away good steel off of my blades every time I sharpen them. Unless I’ve really messed up the edge, I can get the edge back by just running the blade over the steels. The steels realign the edge bringing back the sharp that I like without removing any steel from the blade.
I don’t have a price on the new V Sharp Xtreme Edge yet, but I will let you know as soon as I know. It is manufactured in South Africa by Warthog Blade Sharpeners. South Africa makes sense. After all, where do most of the diamonds come from? Diamonds, in this case, can be a man’s best friend too. (Sorry, dog!)
Comments? I’d love to hear from you!
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Quote of the Week
“Resistance to sudden violence, for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs, and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I have never surrendered to the public by the compact of society, and which perhaps, I could not surrender if I would.”
-John Adams, Boston Gazette, Sept. 5, 1763,reprinted in 3 The Works of John Adams 438 (Charles F. Adams ed., 1851).
USCCA Forum Highlights
Every paying website member has complete access to the USCCA forum, which is constantly being accessed by members sharing information, knowledge, insight, and fun. With well over sixty-thousand posts and growing by the hour, this is one heck of a valuable resource!
If you have never logged in but are a member, visit THIS location to watch help videos, including how to find out your username and/or password!
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The Very Best Shotgun and Ammo… ?
… for nothing but home defense?
In my home, I have an interior hall that’s maybe 4′ wide and 15′ to 20′ long that leads from my living areas back to my bedroom. [That is not a very long hall as you know...]
If I bought a pump or other shotgun to keep by my bed [my headboard is against the wall facing the hall, and the bed faces away from the BR door] to splatter some BG all over my hall if he was headed to my BR in the middle of the night…
1. What specific brand and model do you feel I should consider?
2. What specific gauge and specific ammo should I get for it?
NOTE: I am not a hunter or clays shooter, likely never will be, and except to take the SG to the range and practice, it will never leave my home…
NOTE2: I live alone, so accidentally injuring an innocent party in my home while ventilating a BG is not an issue…
I would want an SG I could pick up, halfway-decent aim down the hall, and waste a BG hopefully with one blast. More shells would be there if I needed them, so a double-barrel shotgun is not really what I would want. And BTW, I can repair the walls or ceilings if necessary, so that is also not an issue … …
Thank you for your suggestions and advice -
PS — A couple of the guys at the range here suggested a Judge
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I am now big-time chicken farmer…
Just finished up my latest project. I am the new daddy to 12 little chickens. Hope to start getting eggs in about 5 more weeks.
Video of the Week
John Stossel Links Gun Control to Higher Crime Rates
USCCA Photo of the Week
All Photos of the Week are taken from Mr. Oleg Volk’s website:
http://www.a-human-right.com/.
It is a fantastic site. Please check it out!
USCCA Self Defense Story
Every day, thousands of Armed Americans use their firearms to preserve human life. Let this section of my newsletter serve as a record of this fact!
August 15, 2009
Houston, Texas
From:KHOU
Clerk armed and ready for robbers, kills one
Life can change in a second. It can also end. Cell phone store owner, Javid Iqbal saw both on Wednesday afternoon, in just 17 seconds.
“It is a part of my life that I will have to remember all of the time,” Iqbal recalls.
It was amazingly fast. Security video released to 11 News showed Iqbal behind the elevated counter, when the would-be robbers rush the store.
Two men with bandanas covering their faces, the leader gun in hand, vaulted over the case.
But in the five seconds that it took, Iqbal was already around the corner in the back, gun in hand.
“I see that guy come in the back pointing a gun. I just started shooting,” Iqbal says.
The two men were just inches apart, arms and guns extended. Iqbal fired three times, hitting 34-year-old Bryan Thorn.
Both robbers tried to flee after shots were fired, the second (still unidentified) man made it out, but Thorn did not. He collapsed dead in the doorway.
Iqbal said he could only think about the three most important people in his life, “I was thinking about my family; my little girl, my wife, my father,” he said.
All of them were within six feet of the shooting in the back of the store.
“My little three-year-old girl was in the store playing on the computer. The first thing wasn’t mine. I have to save my family,” Iqbal said, recalling the 17 seconds he will never forget.
This isn’t the first time. This store’s prior owner back in 2005 was also the victim of multiple robberies. One of those resulted in a shootout, which was also captured on video.
Not long after that, the owner-who was held up by three men and was not hurt- would sell this store to Iqbal.
Iqbal went on to do great business; but not all for profit, sometimes it came at a price. In all he’s been robbed four times, but no suspects were ever caught.
That is why his wife forced him to buy a gun and learn how to use it.
“Four robberies? Now I am not going to go through that again. All this happens. I have to take a stand somewhere,” Iqbal says.
The store is now open again after the shooting. His customers are standing with him.
“What if a stray bullet would have hit their daughter or hit his wife? Oh I’m sorry? For $20? Come on man,” said Carl English, who was in to pay his cell bill.
The store is still open, but Iqbal doesn’t know how long that will remain. He is now looking for a new, safer location.
Iqbal said that being robbed four times in a little over a year is all that his family can take. They are planning to move on soon.
Closing Thoughts
Dear Tim, I read one of your articles where a man had put another hand gun on layaway. I didn’t know that it was possible to layaway a handgun. Can you tell me what retailers allow you to do this? Thanks, Karen
Karen, you bet! Most local gun stores have policies that allow you to “lay away” a gun on certain terms.
Sometimes you have to put a minimum amount of money down on the gun to keep it on layaway every month, until you pay it off. For example, at one local gun store here, you can keep a gun on layaway for as long as you’d like, as long as you pay a minimum of $100 per month on the gun.
Other times, you only have to have it paid off within a certain time frame- ie, within six months.
I hope this helps!Do you have a pressing concern? Use the ‘Ask Tim’ contact form found at this page to let me hear your advice. Just use the graphic below!
Tim Schmidt
Founder - U.S. Concealed Carry
http://www.usconcealedcarry.com
Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited.
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