I was driving on the freeway the other day, following closely behind a black Mercedes Benz. In the lane to our left, next to the Mercedes was a maroon Buick. Apparently without looking, the Buick began to merge over. The driver in the Mercedes didn’t start waving his arms- he didn’t start honking- and he didn’t unnecessarily slam into the Buick.
He simply reacted perfectly- I saw him look to his right, and he merged onto the shoulder at the same speed as the Buick was merging into him, all the while gently tapping on his brakes to let me know that he was slowing down. I gave him plenty of room, and once the Buick was completely in his lane, he merged back on, in front of me.
While some people might fall into a panicked series of swerves of corrections, this driver handled a bad situation perfectly- I don’t think we even lost 10mph.
My point is this- THIS is the essence of the Armed Citizen. We don’t take things personally, we just see what needs to be done… and we do it. The driver in the black Mercedes could have retaliated. He could have been offended that this guy would merge without looking- but he knew that getting upset wouldn’t help him avoid an accident.
Stay safe, armed citizen- and enjoy this week’s Armed American Report!
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Dangerous Animals of the Americas: The Grabby
“…it has gazelle speed, rhino strength, lion claws, grizzly teeth…”
by Tim Thorstenson
One night I couldn’t sleep (note to self: do not eat Chinese buffet at 9 PM), so I turned on the radio and learned about the “chupacabra”, a nasty critter that supposedly prowls Central America. From what I could gather, it has gazelle speed, rhino strength, lion claws, grizzly teeth and a proboscis the size of a two-bore black powder barrel that it uses to suck the guts out of its victims.
Then I found myself with an odd thought. If chupacabra did indeed exist, would it behoove us to understand them?
There is a natural tendency among sensible people to avoid understanding things that are annoying, evil, or useless, especially since what is meant by “understanding” has been so badly corrupted. For instance, soft-soap documentaries allege “understanding” as a goal when they present evil old men like Fidel Castro and Yassir Arafat as nice old grandpas. Efforts to “understand” criminals paint them as the unfortunate victims of psychological complexes, social pressures, and bad toilet training. But PROPER understanding can be very useful, and we must not reflexively avoid it. If there were indeed chupacabra, would we not want to understand them if it could help us protect people?
Now don’t tell the overnight radio folks, but I’m a bit suspicious about the chupacabra. However, it has some relatives that are definitely real. One is known as gunnygrabius decepticus — more commonly called a “grabby” — and it is as fascinating as it is dangerous. Let’s see if understanding the grabby a little better can help us protect its victims:
While the grabby shares many similarities with its cousin the chupacabra, there are also interesting differences. For instance, grabby attack is almost never immediately fatal. Sadly though, victims are left with a chronic vulnerability to certain annoying ailments — like getting robbed, burgled, assaulted, stabbed, shot, raped and murdered. Somehow, this susceptibility has never been linked to grabby attack. The Centers for Disease Control should do a study. Also in contrast to the chupacabra, the goal of a grabby is to suck the brains, rather than the guts, out of its victims. Oddly, however, most of the victim’s guts usually get sucked away too. The after-effects on the victims have been widely reported in the scientific literature, and the interested reader is referred to the research of Professor John Connor in particular. Our focus here is the grabby itself.
To do some grabby field research, we want to find them in their relaxed, natural condition, so protests and political rallies are not the best places. We can instead go to one of the five-buck-a-cup coffee joints, where they are also abundant but in a restful state. Here we go:
As we sneak up behind a fake palm tree and focus our binoculars, keep in mind that first goal of grabby observation is to see what they think of themselves. And what we find is that they fancy themselves open-minded, free-thinking and tolerant to a diversity of opinions. Self-appreciation about these points is almost palpable in the air. Having made this note, a little further observation reveals an irony: grabbies often tend to be rather closed minded about purely subjective matters of personal taste like art, movies, music and fashion. They may not come out and say it, but they do tend to look down on people who do not share their preferences. Anyone with the audacity to suggest that he likes Folgers better than a mocha-espresso-latte-thingy which tastes like hot Hoppe’s No. 9 (and costs as much as a burger and fries) will probably receive a self-assuming smirk of cultural superiority from every grabby in earshot.
It is equally fascinating to observe their views about objective matters. But before we do, there is something to be aware of that is so obvious to us that we never think about it: when an honest human says something about an objective matter of fact, the statement is intended to mean something specific. Duh. If a firefighter says “turn right to get to the exit” or an electrician says “the red wire is electrified”, we have plain-spoken statements intended to have certain meaning. In matters like these, the open mindedness and free thinking preached by grabbies are not necessarily appropriate. In fact, it can get people killed.
As we consider grabby-thought, it is also useful to note that the Constitution and Bill of Rights contain exactly the same sort of literally intended statements. Unfortunately, such a sensible attitude (which the grabbies would call “narrow minded”) makes it logically impossible to construe something like the Second Amendment as meaning anything other than what it says, and this is very inconvenient for the grabby. So, the Second Amendment says “yes” and the grabby wants it to say “no”. What’s a grabby to do? Watch carefully.
Obviously, people must be made “open-minded”. The clear answer to the objective question may be “yes”, but if people’s minds can be opened far enough (until they tear something, if necessary), perhaps they can be convinced that the answer is actually “no”.
Are you with me so far? In a way, I kinda wish you weren’t. Actually, as weird as it is, the thought process we have seen so far is fairly easy to understand: the grabbies are closed-minded when they should be open-minded and open-minded when they should be closed minded. Make sense? No, Thank God, but we can still understand it.
But if we sneak closer for a better look (shhhhhh . . .), things get even stranger: if the grabbies REALLY applied open-mindedness to the Second Amendment, then they should also be open-minded to the viewpoint of, say, Antonin Scalia, should they not? Hmmmm . . .
Oops! We’ve startled them. And as they run away, what we see is that the grabbies are really only using open-mindedness as a sort of cheater-bar. They allow (even demand) its inappropriate use just long enough to flip things upside down, but then they immediately prohibit its further use. The red light becomes green in their minds just long enough for them to slip through the intersection. But once they are through, nobody else had better try the same stunt! In other words, it is OK for the “living, breathing document” to inhale, but then it had better hold its breath.
As we slip out from behind the palm tree and quietly exit the coffee shop, please realize that our observations, though essential, are useless by themselves. There are lots of people out there who believe lots of strange things. The overnight radio folks ponder chupacabra, yeti, aliens and UFOs. Some people wear tinfoil hats to ward off the Martian brain signals. Yet, unless they become violent, these folks really do not pose a great danger to society.
The difference with grabby-thought is that the general populace falls for it. But why do they do so? There are a number of reasons — lies, deceptions, dishonesty, abuse of statistics, and so forth. All these explanations are true. But they miss the deepest one of all; people’s inability to consistently distinguish the objective from the subjective. People who would never in their lives grab the red wire willingly do so here because the grabbies have convinced them that “the electrician’s warning was only his opinion and you should be free to develop your own”.
So, how do we protect people from the grabbies? Well, we are back to a previous column (see Concealed Carry Magazine, Nov/Dec 2007): when you talk to non-gunners, drag the objective/subjective idea out into the conscious light of day and make them think about it. We spend a lot of time telling people what is wrong with WHAT the grabbies think. I would suggest that we also need to put some effort into explaining what is wrong with HOW the grabbies think. Some grabby field research, as unpleasant and unnecessary as it may seem at first, is the thing that provides us the tools we need to do so.
Tim Thorstenson is a chemist by education. His goal is to inform readers of the scientific aspects of self-defense to allow a better-informed evaluation of the available tools and information. Contact him at timthorstenson@yahoo.com
USCCA Laugh of the Week
Coming Up On Armed American Radio
The Official Voice of the USCCA
by Mark Walters
Coming up this week on Armed American Radio meet the folks at Galco Gunleather for the first segment of the show to talk about holster options, products and carry methods. Great stuff from one of America’s premier holster manufacturers…THEN for the remainder of the hour, I have the privilege of introducing you to Mr. George Hill, the Mad Ogre himself, The BlogFather, gunwriter, trainer, and public enemy number one of the prairie dog community in Utah. You can check out George before the interview at www.madogre.com Don’t miss the unique and brutally honest answers from the man who was blogging about guns before the word blog existed. Tune in LIVE in the Atlanta Metro area on Intelligent Talk 920 WGKA at 8 pm, LIVE at 5pm in Reno, Carson City and Sparks NV at 99.1 FM Talk-The station with Nevadatude, or catch us delayed in Anchorage on KBYR at 8pm local time Sunday’s and Saturdays on Mountain Talk 97.1 FM in Mountain Home Arkansas at 8pm. You can always hear us LIVE at www.920wgka.com at 8pm eastern. Don’t miss Armed American Radio this week (new stations coming to the affiliate lineup soon). For more information please visit www.armedamericanradio.org ! AAR is gunradio at its BEST!
Columnist-Contributing Editor
Concealed Carry Magazine
“The Ordinary Guy”
United States Concealed Carry Association
Host-Armed American Radio-Intelligent Talk 920 WGKA-Atlanta
Visit me at:
www.theamericangunfighter.com
www.armedamericanradio.org
BE A PATRIOT!
A Galco Holster & A Blackhawk Holster
USCCA Gear Review
Okay, the two holsters are in two entirely separate classes, but I wanted to tell you about both of them this week since they both fit the same gun. I particularly like the belt holster from Galco, so let me tell you why. I’ve had a Smith & Wesson Model 669 9mm since the late eighties. I think I bought it in 1989. I’ve owned two holsters for that gun in the last twenty years. One is a duty holster and the other one is an old Gould and Goodrich leather pancake-style holster.
I still like carrying that S&W 9mm, but the old holster I use for concealed carry is getting a bit long-in-the-tooth. It is a holster that is molded to the shape of the gun instead of being a holster designed to fit a bunch of different guns of the same class. For me, that’s really the only type of holster that I like in leather. Being twenty years-old, I wasn’t able to find any new leather holsters fitted specifically for it until I happened upon one at Galco.
I was actually looking for another holster type when I happened to notice that there were holsters available for my S&W 669, during my search on Galco’s website. I was really surprised to find that there are brand new holsters still being made for my gun so of course I had to get one. I wanted a pancake-style holster with a thumb break, just like my old Gould and Goodrich holster, but this time I wanted it in brown instead of black.
Just like other Galco holsters that I own I was not disappointed with the quality of this new one at all. Just look at how nicely it fits my old gun. This holster is their F.L.E.T.C.H. High-Ride Belt Holter model. The boning, or shaping, of the holster to the gun is perfect. And if you have ever owned any new leather, whether it be a saddle, jacket, belt, or holster, you know how nice new leather looks and feels.
Here’s a picture of my old Gould and Goodrich pancake holster. Still serviceable, but it’s wearing out.
The thumb breaks on each holster are shown in the next photo. Both are sturdy set ups designed to last a long time. The new Galco holster appears on the left, and the old holster’s thumb break is on the right.
In addition to how well the new Galco holster fits my old 9mm, the other markers of a good holster are present as well. The leather looks and feels perfect, the color is deep and rich, the stitching is perfect, and the edges are rounded and polished. I thought that I would have to order a custom holster for this old gun to replace my old pancake-style one. But who needs custom when quality like this is available right now from Galco?
If I hadn’t come across this holster at Galco, my choices would have been a universal type of holster made to fit compact autos the same size as my old S&W 669, or try to find a custom holster maker who had a mold of a 669 that they could make me a holster from. Then if I was going custom, I would have to wait weeks or even months, and pay a princely sum for a holster to fit an old gun.
Take a look at some close-ups of this quality holster from Galco that is available for only $86.00.
Do you have a gun that you are looking to holster? New one or old one, it doesn’t matter. Whatever you have, I highly recommend that you go take a look at what Galco has to offer before you make your final decision. I hear people who say that they have a box full of holsters for each gun they own. Well, I don’t. I take the time to do the research and get exactly what I want. I have never been disappointed by any holster from Galco. Visit their website at www.usgalco.com
Blackhawk Inside The Waistband Holster
This holster is of the universal fit type for guns the size of my Smith & Wesson Model 669. I’m not a fan of inside-the-waistband holsters, but this one is made to stay in place. The belt clip is sturdy and stitched well to the material of the holster, and as can be seen in the photo, it has a shape that will grab onto the bottom of the wearer’s belt.
The outer material holds onto fabric like glue, and the inner material is slick allowing for a quick draw of the weapon. Although I prefer retention style holsters such as pancake-style with a thumb break, many others do not wish to have any retention devices on their holsters. Holsters such as this inside-the-pant style (ISP) that Blackhawk refers to them as, only retain the gun with pressure caused from the wearer’s waistband and belt.
This holster offering from Blackhawk is well-made and start at $12.60 for this model. It is available at www.blackhawk.com
A Must Read…
USCCA Exclusive
Dear Tim,
I am not writing to ask a question, I am writing to say thanks for the Beat the Ban. I thought I was ahead of the curve, but only realized I had been putting off buying what I may need and what I really wanted before the Obamanation takes place. I wanted to beat the ban.
I was going to joke and say your Beat the Ban cost more than 17.00 dollars, hell I bought a Saiga 12 Shotgun overpaid but got it anyway and to 2 RRA AR15s at retail cost due to having a gunsmith relationship. I also bought some fantastic 5.56 ammo and over 2k rounds of practice ammo.
My next purchase will probably be an SKS or AR47. I have read a great deal more about my rights to arm myself and to protect my country from a threat.
Thanks for placing me ahead of the curve and your book only cost me over 2800.00 dollars in guns and ammo. Well lets just say it was a good investment in my family’s future! Best to you and your family and may you continue with success and great health.
-Mike P.
Proud USCCA Member
Proud Member of the NRA
Proud American!
This is a DIGITAL PRODUCT on PDF and MP3, so you get this timely information instantly delivered to your inbox, so you can Beat the Ban ASAP!
Quote of the Week
“Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.”
-Thomas Jefferson
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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Armed American Radio Interview Last Night
Last night I had the opportunity to interview Ms. Nikki Goeser who has appeared on a number of media forums about the murder of her husband including Cam and Company and Buckeye Firearms Forum.
Nikki was disarmed by the state of TN by not being able to take her CCW gun inside the bar she was working that night with her husband. Within hours her husband was murdered in front of her by a crazy whacko who PAID NO ATTENTION to TN law and carried HIS gun inside.
TN law has since been changed albeit too late but changed nonetheless to allow CCW holders to carry in bars and restaurants.
Please take a listen to it on the AAR website at www.armedamericanradio.org and hear her heartbreaking story. Nikki is the newest member of USCCA after today and needs the support of everyone here. If after listening to her story you have any ideas on how we can support her as a group, please let me know and I will pass the information to her.
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Need help! Wife says..NO guns!
I now have my concealed carry permit and nice semi-auto pistol and she won’t let me at least keep it accessable at home even at night in case I would ever need it. We are a Christian family and she continues to say that God has always protected her and family and that He will continue to do so. I pray she is right but she fails to recall that BAD things happen to GOOD people! Also, that it is great to have a gun and never need it but NOT GOOD to need it and NOT have it! I read on another thread that it is best to have a third party help educate the wife rather then she and I to continue to argue over this topic. I pray God will send just the right person into her life to accomplish this. Hey, if she does not want me to protect her and the family, that’s one thing but to say I cannot protect my own life is a different story! For now I am laying low but it can’t go on like this forever. All suggestions are welcome!
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So, tell me about alternative hunting/defense weapons
Longbows, crossbows, blowguns, slingshots. Primarily for hunting, secondary use as defensive or special-purpose weapons.
For use in long-term survival, to compound bow mechanisms hold up well? Can they be fixed easy when they break? For ‘normal’ bows, recurve much better than standard longbow type? Optimum pull to take up to medium-sized game? (Define medium sized game in your eyes, please.) Crossbows…what about crossbows? Effective range comparison to longbows? Bows very quiet when fired?
Slingshots…effective range? Good for hunting small game or not? Recommended models? Want heavy-duty stuff, it’ll have to last who knows how long. Can you fire things like crossbow bolts from a slingshot with any hope of effectiveness?
Blowguns…any use at all? For what? Optimum reasonable length? Effective range? Serious possibility or mall ninja wet dream?
Anything else in the way of alternatives come to mind?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Video of the Week
Seventy-one year-old Bob Basso playing the part of Thomas Paine, and presenting an open letter to the president.
Open Letter to President Obama
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!
July 28, 2009
Grant Pass, Oregon
From: KTVL News 10
Homeowner Shoots, Kills Bear After it Climbs Through Window
A Grants Pass man woke up in the middle of the night, and came face to face with an intruder. That intruder was a bear, and the man jumped into action.
Everett Skinner was awakened by his daughter in the middle of the night. Skinner grabbed his shot gun.
“I shot him once with the gun and that didn’t bother him” skinner explained. “I put a third shot into his mid section and he was still growling and roaring” said Skinner. It took three more shots to finally put the bear down.
The bear eventually collapsed dead. Ironically, Skinner explained the bear died with his head next to a picnic basket. Skinner says it was all over in about a minute. He says the bear had run out when the two saw each other, and is sorry that he had to kill the bear, but says it had to be done.
Closing Thoughts
This week, I have a few words to share with you, from a USCCA member. This guy does a great job summing up how I believe we ALL feel. You’ll love this:
I am neither a paranoid nor an insane nor an insecure person. Nor am I a law-breaker, an alcoholic, nor a drug user.That’s why I have a concealed carry permit issued from my home state. I carry my NAA .22LR MAG mini revolver each and every time I go out.
I am ready to accept the responsibility of my actions if and when the time comes to defend myself from an attack from any low-life who might want to prey upon me or any member of my family, if it be in my home or out in public. Self-preservation and self-protection is every law-abiding, responsible american’s right. Exercise that god-given right. Respect your fire-arm for what it can do for you.
Carry your concealed weapon low and out of sight. Walk with confidence with a smile on your face knowing that you are ready and willing to protect yourself if need be. Your chosen-carry weapon can save your life.
Why then isn’t there more armed american citizens willing to except the truth that an attack from a predator can happen any where at any time?
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
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