Category: Blog

Following a discussion with gun writer/photographer Tamara Keel on social media last week about the originator of this quote, I sent an query to Massad Ayoob on Saturday:

Me: I’m looking for the originator of the aphorism:

“Shot placement is king, adequate penetration is queen, and everything else is just angels dancing on the heads of pins.” … or words to that effect. Any clues in that encyclopedic brain of yours?

The response from Mas came yesterday:

Massad: I thought it was coined by Karl Erich Martell, a brilliant now-retired appellate lawyer whom I consider a gun expert in his own right. I reached out to him and he confirmed. His response is cut and pasted immediately below. Please confirm receipt. Hope you are well.
Best,
Mas

[The following was KEM’s email reply to Mas.]

Karl Martell: ‘Thanks, Mas: my recollection is that I invented it (my wording: “Shot placement is king; adequate penetration is queen; everything else is angels dancing on the heads of pins” and it was regarding handgun usage specifically) for use on The Firing Line forum during the first of the “Caliber Wars” back around (before?) the turn of the century.

‘I was at a period in which I was finding enlightenment on the issue of handgun stopping power after seeing dozens of autopsy reports in murder cases that my office handled (at the time I was working at the Appellate Division of the New Mexico Public Defender, which – at that time at least – handled 19 out of 20 murder appeals in the state – as you know, by the time a person is done with a trial, he is indigent and doesn’t have money to buy an appellate lawyer – the Appellate Division was a great specialized practice). After all the nonsense about kinetic energy in the Eighties, I was surprised to note that injury to the heart/aorta or brain/spinal cord seemed to be the only thing that effected a quick stop with a handgun, and I was starting to see cases in which the expansion of hollow point rounds in small calibers “braked” the bullet too soon for an impact on those vital structures. When I’d hear the folks going back and forth about “You gotta have a JHP in your .380” or “If it don’t start with a ‘4’, it’s not serious,” I started posting the line as a tagline on TFL

‘It’s one of a couple things that I’ve come up with (others were legal
concepts) that have actually spread out into the world.”’

Karl Martell’s observations of the key to handgun stopping power–gained at around Y2K as you can read for yourself above–were made at about the time that a number of people in the ballistics community such as Dr. Gary Roberts and other denizens of IWBA were getting some traction outside of academic literature in terms of what “handgun stopping power” actually was and is. This was, in my view, largely due to the advent of the internet and the sudden release of the free flow of information that this technological revolution produced.

Prior to the advent of the internet in the late 1990’s, if it wasn’t in a published book or maybe a magazine, information on terminal ballistics and especially terminal effects of GSW’s was simply not accessible to the shooting public. As a physician with access to a good medical library and MEDLINE, I was able to get my hands on the entirety of the IWBA Journal, and many other publications in medical journals… including the entire published works of Dr. Martin Fackler (the father of modern terminal ballistics studies). When I say I had access, I mean I got in my car and drove 2 hours to the University of Wisconsin Medical Library in Madison, where I looked up the relevant journals, physically took them down from the shelves, and then photocopied the articles I wanted to study. Which is why I have several cardboard file boxes in my storage unit with photocopies of the bulk of Dr. Fackler’s work as well as many of the articles published in IWBA Journal by other experts such as Duncan McPherson and Gary Roberts, among many others.

In other words, 25 years ago the only people who had access to the terminal ballistics information that most Gunternet Gurus know to be true today were professionals who had to work at it to unearth these truths. To put it into some perspective, the predominant authority on terminal ballistics and handgun stopping power available tot he public at that time were the books written by Evan Marshall and Ed Sanow, “Handgun Stopping Power” and “Street Stoppers”. The contrast between Marshall & Sanow’s books and the ballistics research of the IWBA led to an ongoing debate that many of us came to know as The Caliber Wars.

Karl Martell’s observations on what seemed to work when using a handgun to stop an adversary were gleaned at about that time. Karl was neither a ballistics researcher nor a trauma physician, but an attorney. Regardless of his academic background, he was a shooter and “gun expert” (as Massad pointed out in his email to me). From his unique perspective as a lawyer working on murder cases, he had access to information that most people outside of the trauma medicine field do not see or hear about. And his observations are very, very important.

As it happened, this was also the period in which I was formulating the Shooting With Xray Vision training program, which of course is based entirely on the concept that shot placement with adequate bullet penetration equals stopping power. My observations and experience in the world of trauma medicine were a big part of my understanding of this field. But my observations and experience as a hunter who had killed a lot of animals and done the “field autopsies” on them to determine how my bullets had stopped my quarry were equally important. My readings in the field of ballistics confirmed my own observations, as did my discussions with other ballistically-inclined people.

A good friend and firearms trainer is fond of telling his students, “Think of your handgun as a portable cordless remote control drill. All it does is drill a little hole in whatever you aim it at.” He is absolutely correct.

Handgun bullets stop by drilling holes in critical anatomic structures. The amount of kinetic energy they impart to the target organism is a fraction of the kinetic energy of a rifle bullet. As a consequence, your only hope of stopping a criminal attacker with your handgun is to place your bullet(s) precisely into the vital target anatomy of said attacker.

And you cannot place your bullets precisely if you do not know where those vital target organs are, in three dimensional space. The entire purpose of the SXRV program is to teach you this information.

It ain’t rocket science, folks. If even a lawyer can figure it out, so can you. (JK!!)

We still have slots open in our May 4-5 Shooting With Xray Vision Instructor class, and Operator classes are pending in several locations. Sign up soon!

A recent meme on social media complains that it’s a mystery how “a hundred dollars worth of ammo turns into only 15 minutes of range time”.

We all laugh at this, but there is chagrin behind the chuckles… because we all know that there is an unpleasant truth behind the laughter. Ammo is expensive, and we know it. Which brings up the uncomfortable knowledge that unless we practice, any hard-won pistol skills we have attained in recent months will drain away in a ridiculously short period of time. And practice requires shooting, shooting requires ammo, and ammo requires dollars.

Feeding our favorite blaster is always an exercise in cost-benefit analysis. Since the seemingly never-ending cycle of ammunition shortages and price increases started in the early Aughts, every shooting enthusiast has had to look hard at what has to be given up (money for ammo) and what can be gained (shooting proficiency) and try to find an acceptable balance. It seems to be worse in recent years, but when you look at the inflation-adjusted prices of ammo today compared to 2003, the reality is a bit less alarming. (But only a bit)

I don’t want to get bogged down in politics and economics here, but just to put some perspective on it, the increase in cost of ammunition over the past 5 decades has been consistent with the overall cost of consumer goods and services. (Since 1976, the cost of ammo has increased 482.6%, while the overall cost of consumer goods and services has increased 414.3%. Source: https://247wallst.com/special-report/2023/01/24/how-the-price-of-ammunition-has-changed-each-year-since-the-1970s/ ) So, yeah, it costs more to shoot now than it used to, but it also costs more to eat at a restaurant, or buy gas and groceries, and the increase is more or less proportional.

So let’s us all stop blaming our infrequent practice sessions on cost. Instead, let’s go back to that old standby, the cost-benefit analysis, and see what we can do to put together a practice program that can keep our pistol proficiency up and still be reasonably affordable.

The first thing I suggest you look at is potential benefit. In other words, ask yourself what it is you hope to gain from your practice regimen. Are you looking to advance from rookie to USPSA Grand Master status? Or are you just hoping to knock some rust off your basic pistols skills? Or something in between? Because Grand Master bragging rights is gonna cost you a shitload of ammo and money, whereas the Rust-Knocker project can be done for less than you spend on coffee-&-snacks at work each week.

So now we are looking at cost. Ammunition costs vary depending on where and how we buy our ammo. Let’s use 9mm as our basic example. I personally use 9mm for most of my regular auto pistol practice, about half of those sessions with a Springfield Range Officer 1911 (because my usual daily carry pistola out here in Cactus Country is a 1911), and the other half is done with a wide range of 9mm’s that I like to keep some currency on (because when I go to the Big City I prefer carrying a double-stack striker-fired pistola… and if you’re tempted to go all Gun-Karen on me for having a ‘daily carry rotation’, save your breath for the day you meet me in person). So let’s use 9mm for our pistol practice cost-benefit analysis.

If you order 9mm 115 gr FMJ ammo online and buy it in bulk, your cost at the time of Jan. 2024 can be as low as 24 -26 cents per round. But buy that ammo at the counter at your local gun range, and you may be paying 40 cents or more per round. Which makes more sense? Duh!

It used to be that you could save a lot of money by reloading your ammo, but given current component prices, that is only partly or sometimes true in 2023. Using the best prices I can find online, and using brass you already have on hand at zero cost, you would be paying about 28 cents per round for 9mm practice ammo, in which case you’re better off buying your practice ammo in bulk from an online dealer. This will likely not be the case if you want to practice with your 1911 in 45 Auto or your Dirty Harry 44 Magnum, as the cost of factory ammo for larger/scarcer calibers can be high enough to make reloading more attractive. Each caliber and load will cost out differently. But again: do a real cost-benefit analysis, taking into account the price of your reloading equipment and your time spent loading, before you jump into the handloading game with both feet. For many people it just doesn’t pay off.

The bottom line on our cost vs benefit analysis: you’re gonna have to spend about a buck for every 4 rounds of 9mm ball ammo you fire downrange, best case scenario… so if you’re going to squeeze the maximum benefit from that, you should start planning your practice program instead of just blasting away when you get to the range next weekend. So how do you do that?

The basic principle that should underlie your plan is this: every trigger press should be a high-quality rep. Each rep should be as good as you can make it, because it’s the cumulative effect of all those repititions that builds and maintains your skill. Here’s what I recommend, after expending somewhere between a quarter to half a million rounds of pistol ammunition over the past 25 years:

1. First thing, get your blaster out of the safe, take it to a quiet room where there is NO AMMUNITION, set a target up against a bulletproof backstop such as a basement wall, and dry fire. I use Massad Ayoob’s dry fire method (https://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/MAG-safety-rules-student-copy.pdf). Do this for about 10 minutes, then put your pistol away. Do that every day, or at least 4-5 days a week if you can. Dry firing really, really works. The best competitive shooters do it religiously, and some of the best “street shooters” of the past did it as well: John Wesley Hardin and Wild Bill HIckok are both reputed to have started every day with a dry fire session. And dry firing is not limited to the basement… it works on the range, too. I like to start every practice session with a few dozen dry fire trigger presses with each gun I plan to work with that day.
2. Second thing: buy (and use) a .22 pistol. Or buy a .22 caliber conversion kit for your daily carry blaster. Bulk .22 LR ammunition can be had for as little as 5 cents per round, and target quality ammo for about twice that price. Which means you can get 3 to 5 times as many bangs for your buck compared to your 9mm practice ammo. Personally, I use my usual .22 pistol (a Ruger Mk IV) to work on pure pistol skills: grip, stance, sight picture, trigger press, and follow-through. I like to fire 3 to 5 sets of 10 rounds, slow fire, at 7-10 yards. Each successive target will show a slightly tighter group. Your last target will typically be quite a bit better. At this point, you’re warmed up.
3. Use a practice plan. If you’ve never used one, you should get into the habit. When I was shooting IDPA at championship level, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, my practice sessions would consist of a dry fire warmup, a rimfire warmup, then a series of slow fire exercises in basic skills starting from firing from high ready, then from low ready, then from “pushout” position, then from the holster. At that point I would start working with my shot timer on specific skills, using specific exercises to address what my last match had showed me to be the areas I needed to work on. I would finish each session with several Double Bill Drills and finally some slow fire “head” shots at 20 yards. This plan would consume 250-300 rounds of ammo. I don’t practice like this any more, and I would not recommend this level of training for most people. It’s expensive, and its purpose is to get me to the point where I can win another match. Most of us are far better-served, in terms of cost-benefit analysis of pistol practice, by a shorter and very structured pistol practice plan, and shooting more often.
4. Pick a good 50-round practice drill. A 50-round practice drill every week will benefit you far, far more than a 200-round practice drill once per month. Frequency of training has been proven to be far more effective than total time/ammo spent in training. As for which 50-round drill you should use, there’s a plethora of recommendations out there. This morning, I did a quick googly search for “50-round practice drills” and got pages and pages of recommendations. Pick one, and use it. Most of the time nowadays, when I go to the range I start with my dry fire warmup, then usually a 22 rimfire warmup, then I do one of the many 50-round practice plans that are available online. I’ve used a bunch of different 50-round drills over the years and they all have their strong points, so if you rotate through different ones you’ll find yourself working on more pistol skills than if you stick with a single program.

The ammo cost of my weekly practice sessions is about $13.50 for 9mm ammo and another $10 for .22 LR. Which means that I can do a decent job of maintaining my pistol proficiency for about $100 per month, which is a pretty reasonable investment.

We just wrapped up the first Tactical Anatomy Shooting With Xray Vision Instructor Class this past weekend. It was an intense experience for all of us. This material never fails to shake up everyone’s expectations and prior assumptions, including me.

There comes a time in every class when the utter finality of self-defense shooting hits home. The room becomes very quiet, and every student has the same look on his/her face: I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s crystal clear as I look out into the room that the reality of what we are talking about hits home. Every person in the room steps across a threshold of understanding. This class isn’t about punching holes in a cardboard target and taking a smiling selfie with it. Shooting With Xray Vision is about hitting the STOP button. Incapacitation is highly congruent with mortality. And there’s a lot to unpack when you think about that.

This weekend, the moment was on TD1, just before the lunch break. Afterwards, as we all settled down to chow and fraternization, a few student instructors approached me and told me that the class had really hit them hard at that moment.

I can sympathize. I had my own “Aha!” experience at Massad Ayoob’s LFI-I class in Winnimac, IN, in 1998. It’s all well and good to talk about the use of deadly force in the abstract, in intellectual terms, but at some point we all have to come to terms with the visceral. emotional and for some the spiritual reality of what it means. It shakes you up. It makes you question yourself.

Fortunately, the people who were at SXRV Instructor this past weekend were well prepared for the “Aha!” moment, and were able to accept it and move on. I couldn’t be more proud of my student instructors than I was at the point in the class. Moving forward, we were all on the same page.

As I told the class at the outset the topics we cover in the “basic” Shooting With Xray Vision Instructor class are the same as the topics in the “basic” Operator class… but we were going to cover them in a different order, and with different emphasis. This was an instructor class, meaning we intended to show the class how to teach this material.

That’s a critical distinction. As several students told me over the weekend, most “instructor” classes simply present the material to be taught and expect you to be able to teach it. In SXRV Instructor, the whole point of the class is to teach you how to teach the material,

As the class unfolded, the student instructors realized why this class is so important to defensive-minded citizens in our day and age. There is a whole lot of how to shoot training out there, but not a whole lot of why and where to shoot training. And SXRV is all about why and where to shoot bad guys.

We started the day by exploring the realities of officer-involved shootings (OIS)–which reflects the realities of armed citizen defensive shootings (DUGs)–and how SXRV has turned outcomes for OIS/DUG on their heads. And then we spent a good bit of time exploring the “secrets” of Adult Learning theory, and unlocking some mysteries.

We then got into the meat-and-potatoes of SXRV, exploring the subject material on human anatomy and physiology, then short course on terminal ballistics and terminal effects. Following that, we went out to the range and Chuck Haggard did a superb 90-minute educational experience demonstrating how bullets work when they strike ballistic gel (which simulates human muscle tissue). We saw how hollowpoint bullets expand, how they penetrate, and how our bullets sometimes don’t do what they are supposed to, and Chuck explained why this happens. The class was suitably impressed: Chuck did a superb job, as he always does.

We then went back to the classroom to discuss Gunfight Realities. This is a discussion based on my experience as a trauma physician, but also on getting feedback from cops who have taken my class over the past 20+ years. It’s one thing to read about an OIS in a magazine article, and it’s even better to read the reports and analyses of them… but to hear about an officer’s experience directly from him or her, face to face, is another thing altogether.

In the Gunfight Realities portion of SXRV, I share the lessons I’ve learned from all those cops (and the expert analysis of their gunfights). This is not “top secret” material, but it’s not material that most citizens will have access to. In SXRV, I have consolidated that material into a digestible lump that can make sense to the average defensive-minded citizen. The student-instructors were impressed. Moreover, one of the attendees, Greg Ellifritz, has collected a huge compendium of street shootings and analysis, and he was able to contribute a good deal to this discussion because of that knowledge. (Spoiler alert: with Greg’s permission, his shootings data will be included in my soon-to-be-completed book, an updated and expanded Tactical Anatomy Instructor Manual.)

Next topic was all about learning the 3-dimensional relationships of the first 2 Zones of Incapacitatation: the high chest or mediastinum, and the lateral pelvis. This was demonstrated to the class, then we moved on to the core lesson of SXRV Instructor, the how-to-teach-3D-anatomy lesson. This involves tight white t-shirts, marking pens, working with a partner, and whole lot of fun. Listen, figuring out the anatomy in your head is one thing: being able to draw it on another person’s torso is “a whole nother thing” altogother. But it’s essential to the process of learning to be an SXRV Instructor, and I’m pleased to say that the class did very well as a whole.

I traditionally snap a class photo at the end of the t-shirt exercise at every SXRV Instructor class, and we did so at the end of TD1, to the accompaniment of much ribbing and laughter. I love the smiles in this photo. What a great bunch of people! By the way, when we snapped this photo we had spent almost 12 hours in class and on the range. TD1 is intense, as several attendees have told me in emails this past week!

As the sun dipped below the tops of the Oklahoma hills Billy Armstrong, owner and operator of Mead Hall Range, cooked us up a fantastic meal of burgers and brats, and we all enjoyed a fulfilling meal with lots to talk about. Then we went back to hotels and campers and whatnot to sleep and in doing so to consolidate the learning. (There is so much more important stuff to learn about learning and sleep, as we touched on in this class… more to follow in upcoming blogs.)

TD2 dawned clean and bright, and despite the fact that we had had a 12-hour day on TD1, everyone was ready for more. We got into the class by examining the Ethics of Use of Deadly Force with some real life examples. We then moved on to analysis of the terminal ballistics and effects in a couple of real world shootings, demonstrating how these principles play out when actual bullets hit actual flesh.

Then we moved on to the third Zone of Incapacitation, the Brainstem. I was pleased to note that many of the class attendees were up to speed on this zone already. We covered that material, then we went out onto the range to shoot some bad guys.

But first we had another ballistic gel lesson with Chuck Haggard. This time we shot the gel with some shotgun loads, to demonstrate to everyone how a 12-gauge loaded appropriately with buckshot or slugs impacts tissue. We tested several loads, including 00 and #4 buckshot, as well as a 1-oz. rifled slug. Then it was time for the class to do some shooting.

The SXRV Bad Guy Brigade was out in force: 10 tactical dummies from Law Enforcement Targets were set up with nylon stockings on their heads, and we did some more anatomic modeling with our tactical Sharpies. Then the class shot some holes in the bad guys with their personal carry pistols from various angles of presentation, followed by more analysis of shot placement, target organ presentation, and terminal effects.

We rounded out the range session with some rifle work, shooting both high chest and brainstem zones from 25 yards. I am pleased to report that the class did extremely well in this exercise, as they did with ALL the dummy shooting exercise. All in all, this was one of the most capable groups of shooters I have had in a SXRV class over the past 20 years.

We broke for lunch, then spent some time in review of the course. Many questions and comments were forthcoming, which I believe enhanced everyone’s learning. This was a highly interactive class, as I had anticipated. Then we moved on to the computer simulator.

Computer simulators can lend an element of learning you simply can’t achieve with any other modality, I have learned. Even force-on-force training with SIMUNITION can’t do everything, and when it’s available at a training site I always teach one segment of class with the simulator. Since this was an instructor class, we had the student instructors do the breakdown of shot placement. At this point of the course, they were all more than ready to do so. The result was an excellent learning experience.

At the end of TD2 we shot a second class photo, this time in street clothes. The pics are up on Facebook, if you care to view them. I have looked at both class photos this morning, and I must confess I have bit of a grin on my face. Great times with great people.

So it appears we have unloosed at whole new crop of instructors on the shooting world, and they will be able to teach this material in their home states to their home crowds. I could not be more pleased. If any reader has an interest in taking one of their classes, I encourage him/her to do so.

In the event the reader wants to get training at the source, we are planning a SXRV Operator class for this fall at Mead Hall Range, and we may do another SXRV Instructor next spring if there is sufficient demand. Watch this blog for more info as plans come to fruition.

During the quarter century that Tactical Anatomy Systems has been conducting training, we have come across many statements of “fact” that we have found to be, shall we say, “interesting”.

They’re things people believe because Hollywood, or books, or magazine stories, or the statements of that Guy Behind the Counter down at the local gun store said so. They don’t have any basis in reality, but like any other myths they have their adherents.

Why do people believe in these myths? Well, I guess it’s because they’re comforting. When you know the Boogeyman is out there, and you know he might hurt you if you encounter him, but you have never encountered him (nor have any of your friends), your mind seeks reassurance. Sometimes the easiest way to put those anxieties to rest is to believe in something that you think sounds reasonable.

Some of the more common gunfight myths we’ve heard over the years are as follows:

1. I carry with an empty chamber. It’s safer, and I’ll have plenty of time to chamber a round if the time comes.

2. “45 ball drops them all.” Ditto 8mm, 357 SIG, 338 Win Mag, etc, etc, etc.

3. A double-tap (or El Presidente, etc) will finish any adversary. Fire and forget it. Stick a fork in him, he’s done.

4. I don’t need to carry a spare magazine, I’m not a cop.

5. If I can’t get it done with six (or five, or fifteen), it ain’t gonna get done by anyone/anything

6. I don’t need to train with my gun at ranges longer than 5 yards. All gunfights happen at less distance than that.

7. I have a gun. He’s only got a knife. He doesn’t have a chance.

8. My Glock/SIG/1911 is superior to that popgun he’s got. My equipment gives me an insurmountable advantage.

9. I don’t need to train with a timer. I know I’m fast enough.

10. Competition shooting is a waste of time. Real gunfights are totally different than matches.

11. I was in the Army/Navy/police. I’m superior to all the bad guys out there already, I don’t need to train.

12. I don’t need to practice clearing malfunctions. I keep my weapon in tip-top condition.

13. It will never happen to me.

NUMBER THIRTEEN is the one Gunfight Myth that underlies all of the others. In psychology, we call it DENIAL. Don’t be Cleopatra, kids.

We could go on and on about why all of the above myths (and many more) are unrealistic and lead to a false sense of security.

But why, exactly, is belief in Gunfight Myths so dangerous?

Because believing in myths sets us up for unrealistic expectations. Unrealistic expectations, when countered by hard, cold reality, lead to cognitive dissonance. And cognitive dissonance in a life-or-death situation leads to Brain Freeze and a Death Spiral.

In a deadly force scenario, a death spiral happens like this: 

1. You act deliberately, in defense of your life; let’s say you fire your gun at your adversary;
2. Because of your belief in one or more of the Gunfight Myths, you expect your adversary to respond with one or perhaps two reactions;
3. However, your adversary DOES NOT react as expected;
4. Events have departed from your planned, rehearsed, or imagined script, and you do not have a planned response to counter your adversary’s actions;
5. You experience cognitive dissonance, because what you expected didn’t happen, and worse, your adversary has done something you did not expect: “He was supposed to do this when I did that, but he didn’t do this, he did something else! But he was supposed to do this, but he didn’t do this, he did something else!”  And on and on and on, in a tautological spiral of confusion and failure to act until;
6. He kills you.

In his landmark reality-based training book, Training At The Speed of LIfe, author and police trainer Ken Murray describes the death spiral in much more detail. I strongly recommend it. We have incorporated the principles of Ken’s excellent SIMUNITION School in much of the material we teach at Tactical Anatomy training classes.

So how do you avoid finding yourself in a Death Spiral and ending up at Point Number 7??

Well, first thing, reject the myths. And second, get some good training, and then get some more. Myself, I’ve been a “training junkie” since 1998. I firmly believe that I can never be too trained.

For more on this topic, look for the upcoming publication of the 2nd Edition of the Tactical Anatomy Instructor Manual, coming soon.

I like revolvers.

This ain’t a secret. I have been shooting revolvers with some regularity for the better part of 3 decades. I have hunted with revolvers, both of the single action and the double action variety, and have taken whitetail deer and hogs with both types. I have done considerable competitive shooting with revolvers, primarily in IDPA, but a little bit in USPSA matches, and a bit more in National Match (Bullseye) competition. I have also become certified as an NRA Pistol Instructor with the revolver (as well as the autopistol) and have taken a good deal of training in the use of the revolver from such luminaries as Massad Ayoob, John Farnham, Clint Smith, and others over the years.

I have carried revolvers for personal defense for many years. Yes, I admit my primary sidearm has been more likely to be an autopistol of some variety more often than not, but I’ve been known to strap a sixgun on my belt for months at a time as my daily carry pistol under certain circumstances, and I’ve never felt undergunned in doing so.

So you might say I have a fair bit of experience behind the hammer spur of a sixgun.

So it should come as no surprise that when Darryl Bolke and Wayne Dobbs started up an annual revolver get-together in the DFW area about 7 years ago, I was very interested in attending. It was not yet called the Pat Rogers Memorial Revolver Roundup at that time. Pat, who had been a huge influence in the law enforcement and tactical training community for many years, was scheduled to be an instructor at the 2016 Roundup, but passed away unexpectedly only a few weeks before that. The fellas who run this show named it after Pat thereafter. (More on Pat Rogers in the postscript, below.)

My schedule did not permit me to do so that first year, and since then one thing or another has undercut my efforts to attend the annual shindig. But this year the stars aligned: Chuck Haggard, who has been an integral part of the Roundup for many years, sent me a text message announcing the Roundup arrived on a day where I could act on it, my ER schedule had that weekend open, my wife gave me her blessing to go, and my credit card deposit wasn’t declined by my bank… and so it was that I found myself at the gates of Gunsite a little over a week ago with a bag full of revolvers and an expectant attitude.

My first contact with the Roundup happened Friday evening, when my training partner and friend David Maglio and I stepped into the Gunsite office and shook hands with Ken Campbell, Gunsite’s CEO. Ken is another well-known gun guy who has been a part of the Revolver Roundup since its inception. I have known Ken online for many years, going back to the 10-8Tactical discussion boards, but this was the first time I met him in the flesh. Ken runs a tight ship on the Gunsite property. But it’s a friendly ship, for all that, and he made us feel more than welcome from the get-go.

Saturday morning opened with an all-hands-on-deck meeting to get the organizational housekeeping stuff taken care of, and then we all stood for the Pledge of Allegiance. I don’t know about you, but any time I attend a function that starts out with the Pledge I have the sense that I’m in the right place and the right time. So it proved to be.

I should mention that there were 70+ people in attendance. There was more gray hair in evidence than any other color, but that’s to be expected among revolver aficionados. What was truly interesting to me was the wide variety of wheelguns on display in various rigs. I was somewhat surprised to see as many folks carrying AIWB as I did… this was the second most-common carry option seen. The number of folks with their guns on the strongside hip was only slightly greater, and was about evenly split between outside- and inside-the-waistband carry. The types of ammo carriers was similarly highly diverse. HKS speedloaders still dominate, but there were a lot of other speedloader types in evidence from Safariland Comp2’s and Comp3’s, Jetloaders, Zeta, and various iterations of speed strips.

As for the types of revolvers in evidence, they ran the gamut. I saw one Kimber, a good number of Colt’s, but most were S&W offerings. There were one or two single actions as well, which is a viable carry option in my opinion for the skilled user. Most of the revolvers were small or medium-frame guns, but there was a smattering of N-frames as well. The variety in grip types and materials was impressive. I found myself constantly snapping my head around as I caught a glimpse of an exceptional set of horn or ivory grips out of the corner of my eye! There was an equally impressive display of quality leather as well.

Myself, I brought one of my competition-tuned S&W 686 revolvers as well as a 3″ S&W M65. I ended up using the M65 exclusively for this confab, and was perfectly comfortable with it. The classes are all geared toward the revolvers that folks actually carry; as such, there were a lot of small-frame revolvers in evidence, J-frames, Colt Dick Specials, SP-101’s, and so forth. David brought only one gun, a 3″ Ruger GP-100 expertly tuned and refinished by Gemini Customs. I’m not a Ruger revolver fan, but this GP-100 is not only gorgeous, but its action is as smooth and clean as any decent S&W I’ve used.

The Roundup was organized so that multiple instructors were able to hold multiple sessions simultaneously. The courses were organized into 2-, 3-, or 4-hour blocks on several of Gunsite’s excellent ranges. There were also lecture-style classes at various times, on various topics. Attendees were free to attend any of the classes as they saw fit. This led to some very full firing lines now and then, but the instructors adapted and so did we as attendees.

I can’t speak for every class, but I will touch on a few that I attended that spoke to me. By the way, all of the instructors were/are very experienced folks. Most are active or retired law enforcement, and all have deep experience with carrying and shooting revolvers.

Starting out, I tried to attend a tandem class taught by Mark Fricke and Wayne Dobbs on revolver carry options and fundamentals, but that class was waaaay oversubscribed Saturday morning, so we slid down one range and joined Dave Dolan’s snubbie class. I had to borrow a snub for this, as I hadn’t brought one with me… next year I will do so. There were several classes devoted to aspects of carrying and shooting snub revolvers, particularly the ubiquitous 5-shot J-frame revolver. Dave covered details on ways and means of carrying and drawing the snub, and he took us through some good practice drills to illustrate ways to train with the snub.

In the afternoon we attended Caleb Gidding’s session on Speed Shooting. Caleb is a perennial IDPA champion, and knows what he’s doing in this arena. This was a highly enjoyable class for me, as a guy who used to live and breathe IDPA revolver competition (and I still do it occasionally, though my zeal for competition has waned somewhat). The short answer to “what’s the secret to speed?” is, in a word, cadence. Caleb covered the concept well, and showed the class ways to improve your cadence, as well as an approach to planning your training in ways to get your cadence (and thereby your speed) to continually improve. I can’t say I learned anything new in this class, but I agreed 100% with everything he said. It flat out works. I’ve used the same techniques myself to win 3 IDPA state titles and a regional title. As most of the folks in that class were not serious competitors, this was welcome new material… and a number of these people told me they really appreciated this new information.

We finished up with a classroom session that afternoon with Darryl Bolke, who has a wealth of knowledge of revolver lore to draw from. In all I attended 4 of his lectures, and was fascinated each time. As my friends will tell you, I don’t sit well in lectures… but Darryl’s presentations were fascinating and I didn’t have to try borrowing anyone’s Ritalin to sit still.

Day 2: Sunday morning we revisited Mark and Wayne’s tandem class, and I was very, very impressed. In the first half of the class, Mark covered a broad range of revolver carry options, particularly the types and uses of the various means for loading and reloading our wheelguns. Now, I have a pretty decent knowledge of loader technology, but Mark’s class blew me away. He had examples of every type of loader I’ve ever heard of, and quite a few I had not. Moreover, he had the latest and greatest offerings out there for us to look at and handle. To say I was very impressed would be a gross understatement. He then took us to the line where we practiced loading our revolvers with various types of loaders using dummy rounds. For me, the most entertaining part of that was the pocket dump we had to do first, to make sure we had no live ammo on the line, and then the frisk-your-neighbor exercise to ensure no live ammo had inadvertantly been brought to the line. There were a few “oopsies” up and down the line, but these were quickly remedied and nobody got shot. So all was well.

We then went on to Wayne Dobbs’ Fundamentals session, ably co-instructed by Mark Fricke, which was simply outstanding. I can’t tell you the last time I had my double-action technique so thoroughly critiqued and corrected. As an instructor–and perhaps like most instructors–I tend to view another instructor’s approach to correcting my technique with a hard squint. To be honest, I often find myself critiquing the instructor’s instructional technique more than I find myself learning from him/her. But not in this class! Wayne and Mark were exemplary in their conduct of the class. I found it perfectly natural and easy to slide into the role of student, as these two gentlemen truly know their stuff. My “aha!” moment came about half-way through the session, as we were working on ball-and-dummy drills to improve our DA trigger roll, and Wayne came up behind me and said, “James, you’re staging the trigger. You don’t want to do that.” And he was right, I was staging the trigger… albeit unconsciously, and perhaps most of the time quite subtly, but staging it I was, and sabotaging my DA trigger roll in the process. BOOM. I consciously watched myself after that, and sonofagun if my groups didn’t tighten up considerably thereafter.

Our afternoon class was “Real Revolver Techniques”, as best as I can remember the title, with Chuck Haggard as instructor. Again, the quality of instruction was superb. Chuck engaged us with a mix of revolver technique and real-world experience, with a smattering of interesting anecdotes to punctuate the mix. He then brought us to the line to try some ball-and-dummy drills. After the coaching I’d received in the morning from Mark and Wayne, Chuck’s contributions sealed the deal for me. I ended up the afternoon shooting what was quite possibly the best 5-yard group I’ve ever shot with a revolver, 24 shots into a single ragged hole… but the 24 shots were punctuated with about 120 dry “clicks” as the hammer fell on fired cases. The utility of the ball-and-dummy drills was brought home to me in a big way.

By the way: the take-home my students get in all my Tactical Anatomy classes is that putting your bullets where they need to go, first shot and every shot, is the most important aspect of using a firearm to defend your life. The instruction I received on Day 2 from these 3 instructors underscored that lesson heavily. Moreover, I am grateful to these guys for actually improving my own accuracy skills with my personal revolver.

On Day 3, we had a mix of range time and classroom. Again, the quality of the instruction was excellent and I was thoroughly engaged in the class material and approach. One highlight of the day was Chuck Haggard’s ballistic gelatin class, in which he demo’d a variety of common revolver ammunition offerings to illustrate their relative utility (or lack thereof). For many of the attendees, who do not have access to this body of knowledge, this was the highlight of the day and perhaps the whole weekend. Knowing WHAT to load your personal defense revolver with is a critical decision, and your life could well depend on it.

Over the lunch hour, Ken Campbell gave us a guided tour of Jeff Cooper’s home, which is preserved as it was when the Colonel and Mrs. Cooper lived there. I will admit to feeling pretty pleased to having my picture taken in Col. Cooper’s office chair in the Crow’s Nest, his tower-top study. The tour was very much appreciated by the attendees.

We finished up Day 3 in the classroom, with Darryl giving a presentation of Pat Rogers’ personal revolvers and retelling of some of the best Pat Rogers lore I have been priveleged to hear. We then segued to his presentation of the “Fitz” revolver, and a discussion of the origins and utility of this unique form of revolver. Many of the attendees had to leave that afternoon, however, so they missed a stellar presentation.

Would I recommend the PRMRR to anyone else? Heck yeah! In fact, I have signed up already to go again next year.

Postscript: For those who don’t know, Pat Rogers was a phenomenal human being whose personality and talents touched a lot of lives in the firearms world. I was privileged to attend one of Pat’s carbine classes in 2008, which I regard as one of the two most important firearms classes I ever took in my shooting life. His untimely passing in 2016 from heart disease was a shock to me, as it was to many others who held Pat in highest esteem. The fact that Ken, Darryl, and Wayne chose to name their annual revolver get-together in Pat’s honor was and is a fitting tribute to the man we all benefitted so much from.

I watched a video this morning purporting to cover this burning issue: “What is the best weapon for home defense: pistol, rifle, or shotgun?”

It sucked.

Basically, the video personality guy showed 3 types of weapons, covered a few points about each, used a lot of meaningless terminology (yeah, he pissed me off by using the “center mass” nonsense term… again…), glossed over a bunch of important stuff, and completely failed to discuss some of the most crucial aspects of the question.

I’ve spent a lot of time and effort researching the realities of home defense with firearms. (And no, by “research” I don’t mean I opened a bottle of adult beverage and used my google-fu to read some internet articles by people I don’t know whose opinions may or not be valid.) I have taken courses on tactical defense from accredited and nationally acclaimed instructors. I have taken courses as part of my LE training. I have read books. Many, many books. And I have learned and modified my views as a result of this research.

Here’s a brief summary of what my research has told me about how a sensible person should go about preparing for armed home defense:

Develop a Defensive Mindset

Massad Ayoob, John Farnham, Jeff Hall, Marty Hayes, Clint Smith, Henk Iversen, and many others I have taken training from have all said the same thing: your mind is the most deadly weapon you possess.

So use it. Use your mind, your imagination, your ability to assimilate information and process it to fit your unique home defense situation. After all, it’s your home you’re planning to defend.

Start by trying to visualize how an armed aggressor is going to come at you in your home. Will he come through the door? Through a window? Across the lawn, or from behind the shed? Will he drive his vehicle through the plate-glass entry hall? Will there be more than one attacker? Will they come at you from two different directions? Look at ALL the possibilities. Then start to work on how you would have to defeat each type of attack.

Oh, and by the way, this is really important: be sure you know when and how you are justified in using armed force on an attacker. This isn’t something you can get from surfing the web. You need to take a class on this. I highly recommend Massad Ayoob Group for this: MAG-40 is his extensive entry-level class that covers everything you need to know. I also highly recommend John Farnham’s Defensive Tactics International class on this. Marty Hayes, a MAG staff instructor and highly qualified firearms trainer out in Seattle also teaches this material.

Prepare the Ground

The day before the Battle of Gettysburg, General John Buford was scouting in advance of the Union army. His far-ranging patrols had told him where Lee’s Army of Virginia was, and in what direction it was heading. He plotted these bits of information on his maps, and concluded that Lee’s advance could be stopped if the Army of the Potomac could occupy the high ground above Gettysburg. His eye for ground (something that can’t really be taught, although tactical instructors have been trying for millenia!) led to the catastrophic defeat of Lee at Gettysburg, and the salvation of the United States as a union.

Look at the ground of your imagined battle, people. This is your home we are talking about here. You know it better than any attacker can know it. So use that knowledge to prepare the battlefield before the battle takes place. You can choose where and how the battle–if it ever does take place–will unfold.

You’ve already started on this, by recognizing the likely points of attack. Once you know where attacks are most likely to come from, you can prepare the ground. If it’s gonna be through your front door, prepare the doorway and entry hall. Placing a long table or a couch across from the door will dictate how an attacker can move as he enters the home, so you should place the furnishings so that he is directed in the way that is most favorable to you.

Set up your fields of fire. Where is the best place to set up to shoot at your attacker without revealing your position, or better yet, that gives you actual cover against returning fire? Plan your fields of fire so that you can interdict the attacker at the safest distance… close enough to hit him, far enough to allow you to escape to another position, or preclude him returning fire. And set up your enfilade for outdoors as well as inside your home, if you have a large yard or you live on a farm or ranch. What windows can you fire from on an attacker outside your home, should that prove necessary?

And while you’re at it, why not create some cover? A shelf packed with dense books or a heavy wooden cabinet with sandbags piled inside it will absorb bullets as well as any purpose-built armor, and you can set it up without making your house look like a fortress. If you’re going to fire from a window, is the paneling below that window bullet-resistant? If not, you need to make it so.

And speaking of fortresses, think about ways of “fortifying” your home that will make it as impenetrable as a castle. How good are your doors and locks? How about your windows… are they lockable? Do you use deadbolts? Experts tell me that the most cost-effective improvement you can install as part of your home security plan is good door and window locks.

Then look at construction. Do you have easily-breached entry points? Are your entry doors flimsy? How about the frames they’re mounted in? If you don’t have the construction know-how to assess this, hire a contractor to look at them and give you an opinion, and perhaps an estimate for installing upgraded doors and frames.

Finally, think about electronic security: alarm systems, cameras, and exterior lighting. You can go cheap and still put up a really good defense. Or you can spend a bundle and get a worthless security system. It makes a lot of sense to talk to a security expert who doesn’t sell alarm systems before you commit to an alarm system.

Make a Family Plan

Unless you live alone, your entire family needs to know what the home defense plan is. Each person needs to know where to go, what to do, and when. Someone needs to be on the phone to the police while someone else is shooting (or preparing to shoot). Kids need to move to a safe place, preferably near the defender(s), but behind bullet-stopping cover. All persons capable of handling a firearm need to have one, and know what they are supposed to do with it. Yes, it’s possible that your spouse could panic and shoot you in the back of the head instead of shooting the armed attacker. This has happened.

Choose Your Weapons(s)

You may have noticed I have put this last on my list of priorities. That’s because figuring out what type of firearm you’re going to use is less important than any of the above.

Now, I’m a firearms guy, so I’m obviously gonna tell you to have a gun. Or maybe even lots of guns. But every person who is armed in your home defense plan needs to have training. It’s not good enough to take your spouse to the range and let him/her plink at targets… we are talking about life-and-death situations when we are talking about armed home defense, so let’s train as if it was actual life-and-death stuff, okay?

I personally feel a handgun and a long gun for each trained home defender is the basic firearms equipment package. I know people who have a veritable arsenal in their bedroom, but let’s be honest… you aren’t Buford, and this ain’t gonna be Gettysburg. But the basic rule of “have a gun” does apply.

I firmly believe having a handgun on your person in your home is smart. Concealed carry is the smart way to go about life, in my longstanding considered opinion. Be deadly, but don’t advertise it. I have a handgun on my person at all times. If the doorbell rings and I answer it, my firearm is concealed. That way I don’t alarm the UPS delivery guy or my neighbor stopping by with a piece of misdelivered mail. But if it’s someone about to attempt a home-invasion type robbery, I don’t have to run back to the bedroom and hope I get to my gun before the attacker gets to me.

There’s an old police adage: “My handgun is primarily for fighting back to my squad car, so I can get to my rifle/shotgun.” There’s some merit to this. Any long gun, whether rifle or shotgun, is a better fighting weapon than a handgun. Long guns fire more powerful projectiles, and they are inherently more accurate. So having a dedicated home defense long gun makes sense.

But long guns are hard to carry around all day, every day, which is the primary deficiency of the long gun. Okay, but if we’ve covered that by being sure to carry a handgun all the time, we’re good. So let’s look at the other drawbacks of the long gun.

First, long guns are really, really loud. Muzzle blast is directly proportional to the amount of gunpowder in the cartridge and the chamber pressure of the firearm. The muzzle blast from a handgun is therefore pretty mild, but will still cause hearing damage if you aren’t wearing ear-pro. The muzzle blast from a shotgun is really loud, and when fired indoors will instantly deafen you, at least temporarily. (I have had this experience… firing shotgun inside an abandoned farmhouse while researching bullet penetration through walls for a long-ago magazine article. I only did it once, and then put on extra ear-pro for the rest of the projecat.)The muzzle blast from an AR-15 is REALLY loud, much worse than a shotgun. The hearing damage you sustain from firing one of these in your home may be major and may be permanent.

So if you’re contemplating using your 5.56mm carbine or your 12-gauge for home defense, you need to have a set of ear-pro right next to the long gun. Preferably active-protection earmuffs, so you can hear what’s going on while protecting your ears from damage. While you’re at it, put on some shooting glasses, because there may be a lot of flying debris if you let loose with a long gun in your house.

Which specific firearm(s) do I recommend? I don’t. You need to determine what works best for you. If you live on a farm/ranch or your home is huge, a rifle might be a better choice. Ditto if you are recoil sensitive. An AR-15 or M1 Carbine is a kitten compared to a heavy-loaded 12-gauge.

Personally, I prefer a shotgun loaded with 00 buckshot as a home defense long gun. I have many years of experience in hunting, competition, and police training with shotguns, and I have fired hundreds of thousands of shotshells, so I am very, very familiar with the platform. This is the most important criterion in choosing your weapon: use the type of firearm you are most proficient with, which is usually the gun you have the most experience with.

I have had several good defensive shotguns, but I’m not married to any of them particularly. I prefer 12 gauge, but a 20 gauge is suitable, too. A pump gun is good, but an autoloader is good, too. I prefer autoloaders for this purpose, for two primary reasons: 1) I can put multiple shots downrange with accuracy much faster with an auto than I can with a pump; 2) a gas-operated auto like the Remington 11-87 reduces the recoil of the gun by its design. Put an extended magazine tube on your shotgun so you have at least 5 rounds available without reloading. Then put a butt-sleeve or side-saddle on the shotgun, with another 5 shells.

My experience and research (both personally conducted and that conducted by others) into the question of shotgun ammunition has led me to unequivocally choose 00 buckshot for anti-personnel use. Birdshot is a very poor choice, and the smaller sizes of buckshot aren’t any better, with one exception: Number 1 buckshot–but only the hard-plated kind, which is really hard to come by–will work almost as well as 00 buck. But 00 buckshot is readily available, and it works. Why fix it if it ain’t broken? But whatever type of buckshot you buy for your defense shotgun, make sure you pattern it. I have done so with all my defensive shotguns, and the results have been surprising. You won’t know what ammo makes good patterns in your gun until you test it yourself.

Test your shotgun pattern at realistic defensive distances: 5 through 25 yards. Shoot several patterns at each distance with each load. You’ll know in short order which ammunition does or does not work well enough in your shotgun.

Keep in mind that the shotgun must be aimed. It’s not going to work if you just point it in the general direction of the attacker and pray some of the pellets find the target. At home defense ranges, the pattern of buckshot will be very, very tight… 2 or 3 inches wide at most. So you need to aim your shotgun as carefully as you would aim your rifle or pistol. (But you’ve taken tactical shotgun training, so you know that already, right? No? Well, go take a tactical shotgun class and get back to me if you have questions.)

Now: what about rifles?

OK, I’ll confess to being a fan of the AR-15 platform. I’ve owned a bunch, fired a bunch more, and liked almost all of them. The AR is light, ergonomic, and accurate. The standard 20- and 30-round magazines hold plenty of ammo, certainly more than enough for effective defense against a single attacker, or even a handful of attackers.

The best ammunition choices for anti-personnel work are soft-pointed bullets in the middle range of weights: 60-70 gr. Don’t cheap out and use mil-surp FMJ ammo, and for goodness sake don’t EVER use armor-piercing ammo in your defensive firearms. There are a lot of effective loadings available from the major ammunition companies in this class. These include (but aren’t limited to) Federal Power-Shok 64 gr, Winchester XP 64 gr, and Black Hills 60 gr (Nosler Partition).

I’ve heard supposed authorities state that you need to shoot bad guys 5 times with 5.56/.223 rounds. This intel supposedly comes from warfighters from the Sandbox, which explains a lot. First thing, our military rounds in the Sandbox were all FMJ, which is a really poor choice for shooting people… they don’t expand, so they simply drill a little hole through the subject. Unlike an expanding bullet, either a hollowpoint or a softpoint, FMJ rounds are not designed for maximum tissue destruction. Law enforcement agencies use expanding ammunition, and you should too.

Do you need to shoot a bad guy multiple times? Maybe. I often quote a guy who once told me, “I don’t shoot the bad guy until I think he’s dead. I keep shooting him until he thinks he’s dead.” In more professional lingo, we shoot until the threat is effectively neutralized. Which means until the attacker is no longer able to press his attack. But as I teach in every Tactical Anatomy class, “Effective neutralization by firearm is highly congruent with mortality.” So govern your shooting accordingly.

That’s about all I have to say on home defense with firearms today. To distill it down to its basic elements: get your defensive mindset straight; harden your home so it is harder to attack; get training in effective tactical use of firearms; and lastly, choose your home defense firearms according to your training and proficiency.

This article from LawOfficer.com popped up on my Facebook feed this morning, and it struck me as important in more ways than one:

Officer Down: The Peter Soulis Incident

To summarize: bad guy in a car, cop decided he was a suspicious person and went to investigate; stuff went sideways, lots of shots were fired, cop was hit 3-4 times, bad guy was hit 22 (Twenty-Two) times with 40 caliber bullets and eventually succumbed.

For you coppers who follow my stuff, this may have some lessons for you in your continuing upgrade of your felony carstop/vehicle approach tactics, so look it over carefully. For everybody else, there are some terminal ballistics/effects lessons here that need to be understood.

First thing: the author of this piece, Brian McKenna, is a guy I’ve read before and I think he does a pretty good job. He’s a good writer and a former street cop with some real experience behind him.

Second thing, and to my mind, the most important thing: Brian uses terms like center chest and Center Mass like they are actually meaningful. Saying “Center Mass” sounds cool… it has the sound of the expert about it, I guess. But these terms are ANYthing but meaningful. They are not clearly defined, not clearly understood, and the result of this is that good people are getting injured and killed.

That’s right, I said it: if you persist in teaching your people to shoot “center mass”, YOU are contributing to a training scar that is going to get good cops/armed citizens KILLED.

I have multiple cases in my files that illlustrate this problem. Every one of my SXRV students for the past 10 years has seen my breakdown of the Pennsylvania OIS where the scumbag cop-ambusher absorbed nearly 22 police bullets (17 rounds of .223 and 5 rounds of 40 S&W) before he finally went down. So every one of my SXRV students knows that by shooting for Center Mass the coppers in that incident experienced a failure that resulted in the wounding and permanent disability of one of them, and could have led to their deaths. The FBI broke down the gunfight at the request of the Agency in question, and to no one’s surprise, they blamed the ammunition for the bad outcome of that fight. (The actual blame should have been placed squarely on the Agency’s firearms training program for failing to train their officers appropriately, but that would have been embarassing. It’s easier to blame ammo, since ammo doesn’t have feelings to get hurt or a career to get sidetracked.)

But it wasn’t bad ammo. The ammunition performed as it was designed to do, and the FBI proved this. It was bad shooting, which wasn’t the cops’ fault, because they had received faulty training. Despite the fact that Tactical Anatomy Systems and other trainers have been training cops on anatomically effective target acquisition for more than 20 years, the majority of cops and LE firearms instructors are still propagating the same old Center Mass bullshit.

And bullshit it is. Don’t believe me? Get you copy of Gray’s Anatomy out and look up Center Mass in the index. (What? It’s not there?!? How could that be?) Center Mass isn’t a place, or an anatomic structure, or a physiological zone of incapacitation. Center Mass is a bullshit police trainer term that means nothing more than “shoot them somewhere in the middle”. People use it to sound cool, like they know what they’re talking about, like they’re experts. It’s not just a bullshit term, folks: it’s a term better suited to use by posers than by actual trainers.

Here’s an interesting story: in my early years of teaching Tactical Anatomy, I would ask class members to write down their definition of Center Mass on a piece of paper and hand it in. I stopped doing it after a couple classes, because the results were predictable. No one could define Center Mass with any precision, and the average answer basically came down to “in the middle”.

Twenty years into this training business I am still amazed that people think it’s OK to just teach their students to shoot an armed opponent in this manner. “Oh, don’t worry about it, just shoot somewhere in the middle. You’ll be fine.” (Poser.)

If you were to walk into the bar in any hunting town in Zimbabwe or Mozambique, order up a Pimm’s with ginger, and then tell the assemblage of African dangerous game hunters that it’s OK to just shoot a Cape Buffalo “somewhere in the middle”, you’d be laughed out of the saloon, chum. DG hunters know that when you’re trying to kill something that could very easily kill you, it is essential that you put your bullets where that dangerous creature’s life depends: the heart/great vessels, the spine, or the brain. Failure to do so will not only fail to incapacitate the beast, it just might enrage him and cause an attack on your person that you very likely won’t survive.

Yet law enforcement trainers persist in telling cops that they can shoot an armed and dangerous felon–arguably the most dangerous of dangerous game on Earth–“anywhere in the middle” and expect a good outcome!!

How has this become acceptable practice? In fact, how does this not constitute malpractice? We are arming our police with deadly implements, teaching them the law of the application of those implements, then failing to teach them where their bullets need to be placed, with precision, in order to carry out their lawful duty in the most effective and efficient manner possible!

If YOU are a deadly force firearms instructor and you are doing this, I submit that you are committing malpractice. You are creating a training scar in your students that might get them killed.

I’ve had police firearms instructors tell me that teaching their people where to shoot the bad guy is ridiculous. “They’ll be so fired up in a gunfight, they’ll be lucky to hit the bad guy at all, so we teach them just to shoot Center Mass.”

Did it ever occur to one of these Neanderthal (no offense to Neanderthals, mind you) that this failure to teach precise target acquisition is precisely why their officers can’t hit the bad guy in an officer-involved shooting? Did they never hear the marksman’s axiom, “Aim small, miss small”?

Here’s what I think when I hear a firearms instructor use the term Center Mass: I think they are ignorant, and probably lazy.

Are you insulted by that? Too bad. Prove to yourself and to me that your umbrage is justified. Look at the OIS data, as I have; read the after action reviews, as I have. The evidence shows that officers who know where to shoot the bad guy are able to end the encounter faster and more effectively than those who simply try to hit the bad guy “in the middle”. Well-trained officers have a higher hit ratio, they stop the offender more effectively, and they are less likely to be shot or killed in the encounter than officers who are not so trained. The data don’t lie.

The first major metropolitan police department that adopted the SXRV program for their entire force did so nearly 20 years ago. They dropped the Center Mass nonsense and adopted 3D anatomic targeting as their standard. Their OIS hit ratio went from 20% to 94% in the first 2 years after the program was implemented, and remains above 90% to this day. More importantly to my mind, in that same 2 year period not one cop was hit by a felon’s bullet. And these numbers have been repeated in other police departments across America since then numerous times.

Here’s the deal, kids: Center Mass is a term that has been in the vocabulary of deadly force trainers waaaaaay too long. There is no excuse for continuing to use this term. “Center Mass” should never be uttered by a firearms instructor anywhere, any time, except to correct their students who come to class believing in the myth. There is far too much information out there proving that teaching our students to shoot this way is leading to bad outcomes in OIS’s and it’s getting good cops injured and killed. It should be as hated as the dreaded C-word or the N-word is in public conversations. It’s a useless concept, and the persistence by our instructors in using it needs to go away.

Well, the verdict is apparently in, and I for one am pleased to hear it. 

I have enjoyed a lifelong and mostly happy relationship with wild bears. I have watched them, studied them, and (occasionally) hunted them. For many years I held the belief that handguns were poorly suited tools for defense against bear attacks, based on the experience and advice of woodsmen and bear biologists who I considered more authoritative sources than I was myself. However, as early as the late 1970’s I began collecting anecdotes of hunters, campers, and other outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen who had successfully defended against bear attacks with handguns. By the time Stephen Herrero et al. came out with their report in 2012 supporting bear spray over firearms, however, my compilation of bear attack stories stood in stark opposition to Herrero’s findings. My studies and critical experience told me while Herrero’s findings confirmed that bear spray was and is effective in stopping some bear attacks, firearms were and are more effective than his study showed. 

I was still leaning toward preference for long guns as opposed to handguns for such purposes, but the lean had become a lot less acute over the years. Over the years, I had become enough of a convert that I had begun carrying a handgun while hunting in all places and at all times where legal to do so. I had in fact tested my own handguns on wild game, including small game as well as deer and hogs, and was satisfied that handguns are effective hunting tools.

Greetings, war brothers and sisters, and Merry Christmas!

2018 was a busier-than-usual-lately training year for Tactical Anatomy Systems. In addition to having the honor of being asked to return to teach at the IALEFI-ATC (International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors – Annual Training Conference), I was brought in to conduct training with several LEA’s. On top of that, I was brought in to provide expert testimony in two separate (but similar) lawsuits brought by condemned men to have their executions conducted by Firing Squad. An interesting side note, this last bit… and one I’m sure will garner a lot of negative publicity for me if the mainstream media decides to act like the pack of jackals they are on this issue. 

On the training side, it was a really good year. By this I don’t mean financially, as Tactical Anatomy Systems barely breaks even at best. No, I mean it was a good year because the agencies I was brought in to train for the most part performed superbly. I would like to single out Captain Michael Maynard and his Nevada Department of Wildlife LE Division officers, who brought me out to their training facility in Winnemucca, NV, in March. This group of men and women performed at a level of firearms proficiency that met or exceeded that of any SWAT team I’ve ever trained with, and that says a lot. I’d like to point out that every group of wildlife enforcement officers I’ve ever trained was well above the average in firearms proficiency, by the way,  but this Nevada bunch was truly exceptional. 

There’s good reason for that. First, wildlife LEO’s tend to be pretty damn self-reliant types to start with. The nature of the job means they work alone 99% of the time, with no backup whatsoever, so they know they have to perform at a high enough standard to stay alive in any SHTF scenario. In other words, they are motivated to be highly proficient with their firearms. But in the Nevada DOW group, I believe they have a second advantage: a command staff that takes firearms training very, very seriously, and puts their money where their mouth is. I wish every LEA administrator in America could be more like Captain Maynard. 

However, I also trained one agency that was a grave disappointment to me. Despite their training sergeant’s claim that they were “highly trained”, this group of cops performed so poorly with their firearms I had to spend more than half the allotted range time teaching basic firearms skills. These cops never train strong-hand-only, and less than half of them had ever fired their duty handgun with their nondominant hand. They never conducted low-light shooting. They never conducted force-on-force training. Not surprisingly, they had a hard time managing even the most basic SXRV training exercises.  At the end of that training day, I had to say a prayer for the good citizens of that city, because in an armed encounter with Bad Guys, the cops there are not going to be able to help them. 

(As I’ve said before, do NOT take SXRV unless you and/or your officers have a degree of firearms proficiency equivalent to a USPSA C-class level. This is not a beginners class, nor a remedial class. It is high-performance combatives training. Come prepared. You won’t be shooting a lot of rounds, but the rounds you do shoot will have a high level of expectation attached to them. You will learn stuff at SXRV that you can use to hone your personal training and/or develop training for your department, but this is not a class designed to make you a better shooter. It’s a class that will make you a better fighter. Learning to shoot better is on YOU.)

Which brings me to the sad case of the recent Force Science Institute study analyzing the firearms performance figures for the CIty of Dallas, TX, Police Department. (I have not trained with Dallas PD, in case you wondered.) If you have not read this report, you can read a summary of it on my Facebook page or go directly to Force Science Institute’s website for the full paper. 

What it breaks down to is this: Dallas PD officers were involved in one-on-one OIS’s 149 times from 2003 to 2017 (14 years, or 10.6 OIS’s per annum). They had a hit ratio of only 35% in these OIS’s, and in more than half of those OIS’s the cops missed the target with every round.  Now, folks who’ve taken my class will already know the sad fact that this is actually better than average performance for America’s law enforcement officers, who typically hit their target only 20% of the time. But 35% is still pretty dismal, and far, far below the 80+% hit ratios being achieved by SXRV-trained agencies. 

How does this happen? 

Simple: don’t train enough, and don’t train well. Design a simple qualification CoF that any idiot can pass so as to keep them all on the streets, and call it good. That’s what Dallas PD has been doing. And it’s what many, if not most, of America’s law enforcement agencies are doing. 

Contrast that with the sort of training conducted by Sgt. Joe Szaz and the FTU of City of Milwaukee PD, with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working for many years. MPD conducts firearms inservice training quarterly, and this is in addition to shooting qualifications twice annually. Each inservice is a 4-hour session, and Milwaukee coppers typically blow off well above 100 rounds in closely regulated exercises at each training session. It’s no wonder that MPD’s hit ratio is the highest I’ve ever seen or heard of among metro police departments in America. 

Again: the difference isn’t just in the quantity and quality of the firearms training given to these deparments. It’s a top-down deal. Good command staff want their cops to have the tools they need to succeed on the streets, and they make sure they get it.  

So hats off to those great police administrators and firearms training units across America who are doing what’s needed to get this job done. Now if someone can just get the word over to Dallas PD…

A police training advocate and former police chief, former federal prosecutor, and continuing very smart man, Chief Jeff Chudwin is a man I am honored to call my colleague and friend. I first heard him speak at the ILEETA convention in Wheeling, IL, a number of years ago. He said something then that stuck with me, and should stick with you:

“If you don’t get up and go to work every day expecting to get into a fight, then you are wearing a uniform that rightfully belongs to someone else.”

I took Jeff’s words as a personal challenge. At the time, I was the Medical Officer for the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Office and SWAT Medic. I had a uniform, a sidearm, a rifle, and I responded to SWAT callouts routinely. Now, I was never supposed to be the guy at the top of the stack of the entry team, and I was never the designated marksman with the 308 doing overwatch; I was supposed to be the guy inside the perimeter who was designated to provide second-tier emergency medical care in the hot zone.

But I was there in uniform and armor with a loaded gun, just like every other team member in that hot zone. And just because I was a doc didn’t mean I wasn’t there to get into a fight if a fight came to me. I was trained to fight and prepared to fight because every member of the team depends on every other member of the team. I would not have taken the job if I wasn’t prepared to fight. I would have stayed in my nice, safe, Emergency Department every day otherwise. 

And this is where the problem arises. In every job there are people who are good at it, dedicated to it, and who embrace the full spectrum of duties and responsibilites. But there are also people who aren’t very good at it, who may even avoid doing parts of the job that they aren’t good at or comfortable with; and this is OK, as long as they move into a position within that job that doesn’t require them to do those “undesirable” parts of the job. 

For instance, a USPS employee who has bad feet. This guy may be a great postal employee, but he’s not cut out to be a letter carrier making home deliveries. He needs a job in the post office where he can sit to do his job, or at least not have to walk as much. No problem, those jobs need people to do them too. 

Or, in the case of my Emergency Department, there are docs who are great at doing all the aspects of the job, which covers the whole spectrum of skills and talents from taking care of a toddler’s boo-boo and comforting the kid’s anxious mom (who is the real patient, most of the time, btw!) to being able to run a trauma code, intubate the critical patient, bang in the central venous lines and chest tubes, and manage the cardiac drugs that will keep him alive long enough for the surgeons to fix the internal leak. This part of the job, the critical care part of the job, is the talent/responsibility that makes the difference between and urgent care doc and a true Emergency Physician. And if a doc doesn’t have those talents, skills, and willingness to jump in to use them, he or she has no place in my Emergency Department. Funny thing: in today’s ED’s, something like 60% or more of our work is basic Family Medicine, 30% or more is complex internal medicine, and less than 10% of our work is critical care medicine. Yet the skillset and mindset that defines us as Emergency Physicians is the ability and willingness to tackle that 10%. 

It’s the same thing with cops. Yes, cops are trained to fight, shoot, tase, pepper-spray, and even shoot bad guys; but new boots quickly learn that almost all of their work is a combination of social work and traffic bylaw enforcement. Most of them grudgingly accept this, because if they wanted to be social workers, they’d have gone to school to become social workers. But a smaller minority of cops actually like the social work, and get into policing as a way of doing it. Some of them start off that way, and some of them drift that way. 

These cops may find that they like to wear the badge and the uniform, but they’re scared of the fights… and this can be good, or bad. It’s good if they recognize it and move themselves out of active patrol duty into an administrative job. Just like the postman with bad feet. But if they don’t make that change, they are putting themselves and their fellow officers at risk should the shit hit the fan.

More important, like the SRO at Parkland, FL, last week, they could put the lives of the citizens they are sworn to protect at risk. I won’t name the deputy who failed in his duty so tragically. But let his shameful lack of action serve as a beacon, like a lighthouse warning ships of a rocky shoreline, to the officers who still serve. 

The role of School Resource Officer looks awfully good to the wrong kind of cop. The chance of a fight is very low. So a cop who’s afraid to fight, or too old and close to retirement to fight, may look at the SRO job as an easy way to finish out his service and slide into his pension. But this is NOT the sort of cop we need in our schools. We need the cop who can and does get along with kids and teenagers, who can be Officer Friendly 99% of the time, but who is not afraid to get into a dust-up or a shoot-out every day.

Every. Single Day. 

As Chief Chudwin said, if you’re not the guy or gal who’s prepared to do that, you have no business wearing the badge and carrying the gun. That badge and gun belong to somebody else, and you’re just an imposter. Get out of there before you screw up, before a bunch of kids get killed due to your inability to do your job, and before your cowardice is put on display for the entire nation to see. 

Let that job go to someone who can do it. Let that job go to someone to whom it rightfully belongs.