Material Wealth has Driven America to a Poverty of the Soul.

I’ve been reading some Machen. The introduction of his short work, Christianity and Liberalism, is an excellent snapshot of the progressive conquest up to 1915 or so. The leaps the communists have made are clear from that starting point forward. This post is random thoughts, less so on the depth of the problem, but offers, from my own negative experience, some possible solutions.

Public schooling has reduced all education to a simple tactic, obeying the State expert and paraphrasing information, willfully neglecting consideration of that information’s purpose, usefulness, or validity. But it’s gotten worse still, full of communist dogma.

That system has been so deeply ingrained that Christian education is little more than State education without the overt worship of centralized authority. However, even then, most Christian schools still teach government worship while adding veneers of wholesomeness or tradition that are also accurately described as teaching helplessness but with Christian-sounding words and themes. Changing a curriculum is not enough if it still teaches children to remain dependent on the thoughts of other men.

Under the communist program, all hope of a child later finding his true purpose and potential is gone before ten years of age. Please don’t do this to your children; don’t teach them, as the heathen religions do, to reject the honest exploration of God’s purposes in anything. The object must be for boys to fill them with the ability to do things more significant than themselves. When boys hit young adulthood, they desire to be part of something bigger than themselves, for their people.

Gone from modern society in the last 100 years or more are excellent and beautiful art of all types. Also absent is the study of science, which the Christian correctly defines as the examination of God’s creation and His created order; science should always look for God’s purpose in a thing, or science itself becomes a false religion. To the religious mind, understanding that sin exists, where evil appears in creation, does not excuse that evil for some purported greater good in the name of “science.” Science absent from God can only lead to one place; mass murder.

There are no literary works of worth, probably because people must be taught how to write but are only shown what to repeat for a grade. Writing starts with critical thought upon the ponderance of an idea. Or, it begins with something else for the creative mind; I don’t know what that is; ask them.

The purpose of this is not yet another litany of complaints but to present a few ideas we hope will help. Sadly, almost all of these suggestions come not from positive experiences but from negative ones, so untested they remain.

I’m not claiming to be a good writer here. Of course, good writing starts with reading complex and rich texts, which is not the primary, but one reason that I reject all modern translations of the Bible. Reading that educates and teaches a man to think requires work to understand and, in the case of the Holy Bible, prayer. Much of the purpose of reading should be not to assimilate information but to teach the mind to take ideas and apply them critically, teaching how to think. Don’t teach children to read things to know what is said, becoming consumers of other men’s thoughts; they must read rich and complex texts thinking for themselves. Avoiding specific texts is prudent, but reading should teach how to think, not what to think; children learn that from listening to parents daily.

One positive is that my father taught me how to read and instilled a particular love for reading, or more precisely, respect. The Department of Defense, for all its flaws, taught me how to teach myself. That didn’t come by general instruction offered to every recruit but from a small program that required not compliance with orders but problem-solving in a unique environment. But, the point is, people can be taught how to teach themselves; this is a gift of immeasurable value to impart to somebody. Teach your children neither by rote nor through informing but by showing them how to learn and teach themselves.

It’s been many years since meeting a heritage American who speaks more than one language, other than missionaries who get trained as adults. So thorough is the brainwashing that folks with language knowledge are viewed with suspicion. There may be a sound basis for that; foreigners bring foreign ideas, but Christians shouldn’t consider teaching language to their children as some anti-civilization enterprise; quite the contrary. Otherwise, why do we train missionaries in language except to bring the great truth of Christ to that people’s dying souls and meaningless religions? Much of the spreading of quality of life beyond Europe had a humble beginning in the missionary work of extending the Gospel to every creature. Giving the heathen skills and resources makes them merely a more effective enemy of Christ; they need salvation.

Missing are complex and rich music, local agriculture and horticulture, and training in religion, including the history of the Church. Everything seems geared toward repeating what some other person has discovered or produced, perhaps worthy, perhaps not, but gone is the free expression of ideas, teaching children to think for themselves and act on their own accord under the law of grace.

Material wealth has driven America to a poverty of the soul. All aptitudes of intellect and physical ability are of God. This is the root of the problem; denying God’s grace in ordinating men’s gifts or talents denies the grant’s purpose from the giver. Of course, the converted must walk by faith in using the spiritual and material facilities that God endows. Our purpose on earth is to glorify Holy God; this is why He made each individual the way they are and gives children aptitudes toward certain enterprises so that they may bring glory to God in those pursuits.

I’m not sure that American Christians believe what the Holy Bible says; the communist project has been so thorough that it’s hard to know where to start, but as with all things, prayer and the word of God must be first.

To grow children in resurgent traditional heritage America, outside help with language, music, art, natural science, etc., is needed. Other than old books, I don’t know where to get good help, but language training needs to start well before eight years old, and so does music training. Where to get training not overrun with the effects of willfully making children dumb and dependent on central authority is a huge problem even in Christian curriculum.

Civilization is gone because of the loss of classical liberal education. Just using the words liberal education causes consternation; since the War of Northern Aggression, communist demagogues have entirely destroyed the word liberal.

The point is that the simplicity that is in Christ is the foundation and root of all expression that lifts man, causing his mind to wonder at what he could create, his soul to yearn for a better day, and his heart to seek well and thoroughly the gifts that God has given not that he may walk in the uselessness of private knowledge but that he may bless his fellow man through works using the skills that God has ordained. The grace of God teaches us to share our gifts, for He shared His own Son upon a cross for our sin against Him, bringing the miracle of salvation unto eternal life in us through the resurrection. And He continues to teach us through His word and lead through His Spirit.

Teaching children to be anti-state is not enough; they must be pro-civilization and pro-culture of grace and love. Teaching children merely the basis of knowledge is quicksand over generations as each loses a small fraction. Preparing children in anything, however right and proper, without emphasis on our duty to Christ to be of service to civilization will not save the next generations.

Communism or socialism isn’t the only problematic cause. The hyper-personalization of Christianity is destroying the religion. Personal soul salvation is not the end; it’s the beginning, the launching pad from which the great faith of grace and truth in Jesus Christ is to permeate all aspects of society. Hiding Christianity away will not save it, for the agents of evil will not be satisfied with merely locking you in your church buildings or limiting you to silent prayer. Nor will they tolerate compromise within the word of God when Christians allow adding theoretical origins and hypotheses to the creation and other events in the Old and New Testaments. Evil will not stop its march if we integrate sciency-sounding excuses into the faith of the Old Testament forefathers. If science “proved” Christ never walked the earth (because that’s the direction we’re headed), would you still believe? Would you still earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints?

Though solid doctrine hid well in the heart that we might not sin against God is foundational, and teachers of the Christian religion abound, but where are the doers of the word, where are those dedicated to the Lord of the harvest, how are His fields ripe for the picking but left fallow? Hyper-personalization leading to a secret selfish religion is how Christianity shrinks to a mere ember. Evil will never be satisfied until Christ casts Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple. But the grace of the cross exists because Christ had a mission; do you think you’re immune to the onslaught of evil or that neglecting the assignments of a disciple will save you or your people?

All things come by the grace of God, for He owns all things. That simple fact produces character in the young, humility before the Creator builds love in a man’s soul. I deeply fear that God must take our material ease from us to bring us back to faith and knowledge of He who created and bestowed these things upon us.

The government has its own project of dependence, but God will not long compete with this mocking. The tremendous redemptive religion that is in Christ appears backed into a corner with enemies on all sides. Still, we reckon that’s just how Christ likes to fight, up close, personal: restorative or damning to the hearer of the word, for a man chooses his way upon contact from God, heaven or hell?

Read Joshua 23 and 24. We have gone the wrong way in all things, yet God offers a choice.

There is a longing for traditional ways, but it’s not enough to be anti-modern. There must be more than pious-sounding yet vacuous religious tenets for the building of a resurgence. With all assuredness, we begin in our own houses first. From there, the way to a future for our people is through knowledge of the giver of all graces who granted dominion to us over His creation, and becoming doers of the word in the name of Jesus Christ.

Red Flag laws are gun control. There’s no way around that fact.

“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,” – 2 Corinthians 6:17

I have to bite my tongue here but will say, get out of the false church and touch not the unclean thing; “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” – 2 Corinthians 6:14

Brent Leatherwood is president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Never ever forget this fact, dear Christian brothers and sisters; ethics is just something the wicked use to justify their sin and is the pinnacle of modern self-righteousness.

Leatherwood looks just as you’d expect, a pretty effeminate (which is sin) do-gooder in his own mind, yet breaking the covenants of God by multiples. And I’ll say it again; this law will not be used against sodomites who obviously are devoid of spirit and unhinged in their minds by the devil, but it will be used against you!

The head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm, who is a Covenant School parent, is urging the Tennessee General Assembly to back Gov. Bill Lee’s proposal for an extreme risk protective order law.

“The Covenant School tragedy was the worst school shooting in our state’s history,” Brent Leatherwood, president of the Nashville-based Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, wrote in a letter to Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, and every member of the legislature. “I am asking that you take steps now to ensure no school in Tennessee ever has to endure our nightmare again.”

Leatherwood’s letter, an appeal from both his personal experience and on behalf of majority Southern Baptist sentiment, comes amid uncertainty about the success of Lee’s proposal to prevent people deemed a danger to themselves or others from accessing firearms.

Lawmakers are rushing this week to wrap up the legislative session, a tight timeline that makes debate on the legislation difficult.

“Other voices are saying there is too little time left in this legislative session to consider such a proposal. Little credence should be given to that,” said Leatherwood, former executive director of the Tennessee Republican Party.

Woe unto all who vote in support of this; may the wrath of God abide on them!

Denizens around here (at TCJ) enjoy some history and probably know more about these two rifles than this article delivers. Mixed with the back story of both and a bit of technical talk, and several factors and trade-offs in the report, we thought you might enjoy adding comments to enlighten further. For the collector, it’s probably a no-brainer, but a modernized M14 has some value in use.

So you want to buy a classic battle rifle? Fair enough. It’s something that most men desire to own in their lifetime. Sure, you could buy a Rolex, Leica camera, or some other luxury tchotchke. But there’s something about a linseed oil-rubbed woodgrain stock and parkerized stainless steel finish that excites you. It calls to you on some primal level. The only question is how do you decide between the M14 VS M1 Garand?

The M1 Garand served with distinction in both the Pacific and European theaters of World War II. Gen. George S. Patton called it, “The best battle implement ever devised.” This semi-automatic rifle accompanied our troops in the Korean War and claimed the U.S. Military’s small-arms throne until 1957, when the M14 took the kingdom.

Not everyone was happy with the decision, and opposing camps remain deeply entrenched on both sides of the M14 VS M1 Garand debate.

Ironically, the man who designed the heavy-hitting .30-’06 Springfield-chambered gun that American troops used on D-Day, Guadalcanal, and Inchon, also helped create its replacement. John Cantius Garand, eager to aid the war effort, refused a single cent in royalties for the roughly five and a half million M1s that bore his name. A post-war attempt in Congress to issue him $100,000 in gratitude failed. Although he was born north of the border, near Montreal, Canada, he was a patriotic American.

M14 VS M1 Garand: The M14/M1A (Top) has a higher capacity, but many prefer the simple operation of the M1 Garand (bottom).

At a glance, the M14 looks like a modern version of the M1 Garand. It still has all the charm of a classic battle rifle, but its upgraded features give it a contemporary flair. It weighs roughly 9.2 Lbs unloaded, while the M1 Garand tips the scales at 9.5. Their barrel lengths are 22 and 24 inches, respectively. Muzzle velocity is nearly identical—a byproduct of cartridge propellant improvement, as it turns out. The newer model was also about an inch longer, despite the shorter barrel.

In hand, the M1 Garand feels more balanced. It may be heavier, but the weight distribution is better. The detachable magazine of the M14 makes the rifle difficult to rest in any position other than its side. The peep sights on both rifles look the same, but something about the M1 Garand’s setup feels more natural when sighting a target. Both guns have a safety in the same position on the trigger guard. The trigger pull and reset on both rifles is similar, with the M14 having a slight edge in reset smoothness.

The rate of fire, however, is where the M14 shines. The limited number of fully automatic guns could deliver 700 to 750 rounds per minute. The vast majority, however, were semi-autos capable of slightly improved speed over the M1 Garand – which stood at 40 to 50. When firing both guns side-by-side, you’ll notice the M14 has a bit more muzzle rise. The M1 Garand has more felt recoil, it’s “kick” is harder. Follow-up shots become natural once you figure out each rifle’s cadence. So it comes down to which gun you’re most comfortable with operating.

Check out the rest at the link.

H/T g/@silvernightpanther, the editor of the piece.

I didn’t respond to this comment at the time because I wanted it to “soak” a while first.  Here is Steve Kellmeyer’s comment on a previous post.

Shooting individual hogs is a VERY bad idea. The only way to eradicate feral hogs is to capture an entire SOUNDER, the whole thing, at one time. If you just kill individual hogs, they break into multiple sounders which all go their separate ways. You turn them into quicksilver and they spatter everywhere.

There are ways to catch whole sounders at once. Do that. You get more meat for the poor, you actually eradicate the population.

Steve isn’t a thinking man.  No one is going to “eradicate” the feral hog population.  Hear me now and hear me good.  Feral hogs are around for good.  They will not be eradicated.  Period.  Full stop.  But this comment goes further by asserting that “If you just kill individual hogs, they break into multiple sounders which all go their separate ways.”

Steve has never hunted hogs before.  That isn’t how any of this works.  Hogs sometimes travel in sounders, sometimes not.  Sometimes if there is a sounder, it might consist of a few hogs, mostly sows, but even sows run alone sometimes.  I’ve seen it.  Boars mostly run alone.  They may come back to a sounder from time to time for copious mating, but they don’t necessarily stick around other hogs all the time.  When you see hogs, you may see one, or you may see two, or you may see twenty at a time.  The boars that are alone aren’t in some sort of panic to get around a sounder because he loves his pigs.  Wildlife biologists are anthropomorphizing hog behavior.

They travel in the day, they travel in the night time hours.  They adapt and adjust rapidly, and no one tactic will be successful all the time and in all circumstances.  They feed in the day, they are nocturnal feeders.  They defy strict categorization, regardless of what “Steve” says.  Ask me how I know.  I know partly because I’m not a pointy head wildlife biologist who thinks he can write a journal article or be interviewed for the newspaper, or contract a hired hand, and make things okay.

That seems to be the way of things at the moment while time is ebbing away to cap their population.  Witness this article concerning Canada’s exploding feral hog population.

What Manitoba does have are provincial rules that allow wild pig hunting any time of year with no bag limit, or restriction on number of animals they take. In B.C., “hunting is the only control measure,” the Invasive Species Council wrote in 2019.  In Saskatchewan, although “wild boar may be shot by Saskatchewan residents without a licence to protect their property, hunting is not a recommended control measure,” Sharks explained in an email.

Alberta’s strategy incentivizes hunting directly, offering to pay hunters $75 per set of ears. The CBC reported last fall that zero kills had been made in the bounty program, but Brook is not a fan of the idea.

“I have been vocally saying that a bounty is a great option if you want more wild pigs. That is a fantastic strategy — if you want to double your pigs,” Brook said sarcastically.

He explains that research shows hunting actually accelerates the spread of wild pigs, as they flee to new areas to evade hunters.

Instead, the wildlife biologist recommends hiring a professional trapper.  Next up, this stupid article.

An open hunt intended to eradicate Alberta’s wild boar population may instead make the feral swine more elusive to bounty hunters, a researcher warns.

The province has placed a price on the heads of wild pigs — re-establishing a bounty program designed to root out stubborn populations of the invasive species.

The hunt must be carefully managed, said Ryan Brook, an associate professor in the agriculture department of the University of Saskatchewan and director of the Canada Wild Pig Research Project.

Sporadic hunting will make the animals harder to track, Brook said. Wild boar quickly learn to disperse and evade threats — and will pass these tricks onto their young.

They already know those lessons, Ryan, and if they don’t, they’ll learn them in a single day when your local trapper puts out corn feeders and drops cages on them.  I could go on and on with these articles, but you get the picture.  Some of them want to hire professional “sharpshooters,” as if he can do something that a hunter can’t or his shot won’t scatter a sounder while a hunter’s shot will (by the way, neither will happen).  They want to use tactics that will be equally found out and learned by the hogs.  Additionally, those methods are affecting the known, visible hog population, not the ones we know are there but not cataloged by the pointy head wildlife biologists.

I repeat, feral hogs won’t be eradicated.  It’s not going to happen.  It’s far too late for that.  These hog cages dropping on corn feeders require expensive material and construction, cameras, people watching and patterning them, and they’re good for about as long as one or two catches, and then it’s over.  The hogs won’t come back after investing weeks of patterning the hogs and ensuring that they are healthy with good food.  And the trappers charge a lot of money.  Besides, this video shows what happens fairly well – the catch of this massive operation is about 50 hogs with two cages.

There are more than 1.5 million feral hogs in Texas alone.  That estimate is probably very low.  At 1.5 million hogs, 50 per massive nighttime operation, and assuming 10 such catches per night over the state (consider the cost of an operation like that), it would take 3000 days or 8.22 years to make your way through the population assuming no reproduction at all.

Do you see the scope of the problem?

So follow the pointy head wildlife biologist’s advice and trap if that’s what you want to do.  Also, hunt them, individually and collectively, alone and in sounders.  Don’t poison them as I’ve seen some idiots suggest because that poison will make its way into the ecosystem.  That may be the dumbest solution I’ve seen floated.

But to assert that killing a hog will make the problem worse is the most asinine advice I’ve witnessed.  Feral hogs don’t fit neatly into your Aristotelian categories.  Your error is in trying to categorize them at all.  Don’t categorize them – kill them.

They don’t do what you would predict, and they won’t do what you want.  If you want to cap the feral hog population, do everything possible to kill as many as you can by any means you can wherever and whenever you can.  Hunters are not the problem and the solution isn’t another tax and public works project.

Got it?

There are consequences to both winning and losing a gunfight and consequences still for never taking up the duty to defend your family. Weighing in the balance that winning is the preferred option, how can we prepare? Much of this article, past the introduction, is interesting, and it has many links to excellent primary source material for the conscientious Concealed Carrier. The links and book mentions are one main reason to post it here.

Please do your own research to become conscientious about carrying a weapon; it’s no small thing. Having a weapon lends power, making a man no longer a victim; with it comes great responsibility.

For those who’ve been carrying for a while, we can become complacent. Perhaps mindset refresher training is even more critical than maintaining shooting ability, or at least it’s due an equal time and importance. Most firearms negligent discharges have their root not in any action, but long before that, in a complacent or casual mindset, leading to carelessness.

Mindset is at the core of self defense. From what I recall from the martial arts I studied in my youth, the concept of “mind, body, and spirit” was frequently mentioned and I think that mind being the first element identified by the concept was intentional. Some prominent firearms training organizations include this concept in their slogans and marketing. For example, the first thing one sees on the homepage for Tactical Response is a slideshow with mindset as the first item, that’s followed by tactics, skill and gear. Again, the order is intentional. Another example is Active Self Protection, who uses “Attitude, Skills, Plan” as a slogan in their logo and throughout their content. I suspect attitude in this slogan is synonymous to mindset. Other synonyms might include terms like “mental preparedness” or “emotional fortitude”. Regardless of the term used for mindset, it seems like every philosophy that surrounds every martial art fundamentally identifies mindset as the foundation that is required and necessary in order to win a fight universally. Even various depictions of the Combat Triad introduced by the late Jeff Cooper, which was used to explain the philosophy of violence places mindset as either the foundation of a pyramid or the base side of an equilateral triangle.

For us Christians, the spirit must be the first consideration and the body last. If you have to shoot somebody, you’ll learn the hard way why you should have set your heart right before the God of creation because your mind, sooner or later, for one reason or another, will surely fail to keep you grounded in your prior reality; that’s a promise.

You must have something larger than yourself; that must be God through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Nobody really knows their own spirit until they meet God because He alone is holy, and we, at our core, are full of sin and corruption. May you meet Him before you die; God have mercy on them.

Consider carefully what will become of your mind if you kill a man, even if justified before God and the laws of men; this is why I prefer the translation of “Thou shalt not kill.” It’s easy to tell a man who has never had to take a life if he prefers the word murder instead of kill. If you kill for any reason, you will soon be met with the knowledge of the depths of the curse of sin upon man and earth. Blood in taking a life made in the image of our God upon your hands, for any reason, is no small thing, and you will never fully recover your innocence nor be the same again. Rarely do some men take to war. But it’s also easy to tell somebody who has never been shot at because they ignorantly promote war.

In my opinion, which I’m still refining, mindset is part confidence and part commitment. Both of those components are developed over time as one works on becoming better prepared to deal with a violent encounter including its prevention (avoiding it), intervention (fighting to break contact), and postvention (dealing with the aftermath). Neither confidence nor commitment are things that can be taught. They are things that are built through education, developing abilities, and introspection. Let’s break these components down a little bit more individually.

Confidence comes from having well placed and earned trust in our abilities and tools. Abilities, in my opinion once again, aren’t limited to marksmanship and tactics. It also includes our abilities to make good decisions. Meaning we know in our heart of hearts that we are unlikely to make a serious mistake that could result in a negative outcome that Claude Werner’s work has warned us about. Confidence minimizes doubt which in turn minimizes hesitation.

Confidence also comes from being adequately prepared to solve the self defense problem that is in front of us. This means being competently skilled and familiar enough with our tools while knowing enough about violent encounters so that there is little to no novelty about what is happening. Based on my limited understanding of the research and work from Dr. Paul Whitesell, Jeff Cooper, John Hearne, and Dr. William Aprill, novelty is something that our brain doesn’t deal well with and can trigger the flight, fight, or freeze response that occurs when the limbic system, or “animal brain”, takes over preventing the use of our cognitive abilities during the encounter which can lead to serious mistakes and negative outcomes.

Commitment comes from knowing and understanding what is at stake coupled with having a deliberate game plan. The stakes at a minimum are serious injury or death for yourself and loved ones present. Those are pretty high stakes, but like I said, those are the bare minimum.

The real danger in mindset, the article goes on to explain, is in finding yourself not knowing what to do. You can read the rest at the link. It’s nice to find worthwhile firearms knowledge that doesn’t gratuitously and needless cuss and denigrate. America needs more family-friendly gun knowledge.

When real potential security threats are present, unless you’ve practice handgun skills extensively and shot in individual or group training scenarios, all of that prior training, though useful to a degree, was done in the abstract. When facing a known potential threat, for the average CCW holder with basic training, additional training must begin immediately. Here are some basic steps to begin.

Pray individually and as a family. Start reading the works of David and about David together. Discuss his reliance on the Lord and his war/defense tactics and strategies. The Lord of Hosts is not a pacifist, so read the Holy Bible in a new light.

And everyone 16 and up read The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker.

Due to that abstraction, I recommend starting back at the beginning with a basic handgun course for husband and wife and any grown children or other adults in the home. Do the training together. This builds a sense of group purpose and team cohesion, helping to know who is capable and to what extent in order to support each other.

Next, at least take intermediate-level handgun training together. The family can take a training progression to the level they feel necessary, all the way to tactical kill-house, vehicle handgun use, scenario training, etc., if desired.

Fourth, while you’re training, you must develop a home security plan. Do regular walkthroughs of your home at night with the lights off to get used to the layout with limited or no light because you must practice your plan with lights on and with lights off. Without practice, you are back in the world of abstraction again. Plus, what’s in one adult’s mind may not be what the other is thinking and planning, which can get you or your children killed. If you have young children, you must involve them; sorry, no exceptions; this must be done. If children are too young to remember and follow instructions to participate, then the plan must include covering them. To lessen the shock to children, you can start with a fire plan, which every household, eh-hem, should already have. Refine these plans as you learn and practice.

There are home-security consultation firms. I have no experience with any, but we’re supposing that quality ranges widely and some prices may be outrageous.

Additional reading for serious-minded adults can include On Killing by Grossman and Left of Bang by Van Horne. These books are not for everybody and are by no means Christian literature.

In another very interesting and insightful video, Mark makes a very good case for the reason and justification for the supreme court having accepted this case with one justice recusing herself in the case.

He predicts the end of the Chevron doctrine within a year.  I hope so.  The deep state needs to take a very large blow to their authority.  I don’t even believe the three-letter agencies have a constitutional right to exist.

His show-and-tell on hammer fall between single action and double action is interesting.

I know that Colt reduced the spring coefficient on the design, leading to some degree of concern over light primer strikes.

But I haven’t seen this with any ammunition except poorer quality (or in his case, exotic hand loads).

Comments on this are always welcome if you have experience with the new Colt Python.

This post on drawing a handgun covers a critical skill gap suffered by many concealed carriers. Time to muzzle on target wins gunfights. Or, as this very essential short article points out: draw to a first solid hit is most important.

The most important skill with a pistol, as it pertains to self-defense, is being able to deploy it efficiently, safely, and quickly.  We could say that the draw to a first, solid hit, is most important.  I would submit that the draw itself can be separated out from the first accurate hit to an extent because most defensive gun uses end with a gun displayed yet no shot fired.

Ironically, many self-pronounced practitioners of defensive pistolcraft tend to ignore this skill.  I see at public ranges, all the time, people practicing only from ready positions, usually not even wearing a holster.  Similarly, even some serious shooters who are technically skilled and focus on competitive shooting do practice from the holster, but from a holster that is not applicable to concealed carry.

[…]

The draw needs to be well practiced for any number of scenarios.  Most people who do actually practice the draw tend to focus only on the best-case scenario or performing the draw from a standing position with the hands in an optimal position, with both hands available to work on the task.

At the link, this drill offers 8 different situations or types of draw to practice.

There isn’t a lot of shotgun training available these days. Everybody has gone tacticool, but this is a good primary starting point for an average home defense family. There’s been a recent self-defense situation that’s come up with somebody I know, and the primary weapon selection for their home has been a 12ga pump shotgun. One reason is small children, therefore, a desire for limited penetration. I’m not a shotgunner. Any help in the comments would be appreciated.

This three-part shotgun drill at what some consider a reputable resource looks helpful for starters.

I tried to really give this some thought with regard to what is required to actually work in live fire with a shotgun, since a lot of it can be worked dry fire. Also, to set the context, this is meant to be a basic “I have a shotgun for home defense” type thing. Obviously there are skills above and beyond what is covered in this short range session, but those skills are less likely to be used in this context. So what we have here is a narrow focus on the key aspects of shooting a shotgun for home defense.

• The ability to quickly mount the gun properly, acquire an acceptable sight picture, and fire an accurate shot.
• The ability to manage recoil and fire multiple, quick shots as required.
• Building good habits with proper follow through and maintaining a fully loaded shotgun as much as possible.
• The ability to recognize an empty gun and quickly get the gun back to a fighting condition with an emergency reload.

If someone had the ability to set up multiple targets, or wanted to add movement to these drills, that could easily be done while still shooting the same basic drill. The assumption in this case is that range limitations prevent those sorts of things. For the minimal investment of about $10 in 12 gauge ammunition and maybe 15 minutes of time, that is a lot to check off the list with regard to the shotgun.

Full drill at the link.

Edit: Also see, Understanding Different 12-Guage Ammo at Widener’s. Includes pics of patterns for buckshot and slug results.