Category: self-defense

In my book, I used the “fact box” to discuss the benefits and harms of concealed carry. The fact box was created by the Harding Center for Risk Literacy. I first read about them in the book Risk Savvy by Gerd Gigerenzer. They were developed to help people determine the risk of specific health tests,…

I like memes! For a wide variety of reasons, when I am traveling, I carry a 1911 in condition 3, which means I have to rack the slide to shoot. I’m an ordinary civilian with a normal threat level. I’m mostly concerned to minimize opportunities for negligent discharges and being able to easily separate my…

In the March/April 2024 Combat Handguns magazine, we have another article called “What To Say To The Police” by the vetran Massad Ayoob. Ayoob writes great thought provoking articles and his experience provides him great insight. I’ve written about this topic in the past here and here, so I’ll try and focus on a couple…

In her book, “Thinking in Bets,” author Annie Duke remarks in the introduction, “Thinking in bets starts with recognizing that there are exactly two things that determine how our lives turn out: the quality of our decisions and luck.” She continues in the chapter LIFE IS POKER, NOT CHESS: “[…] our tendency to equate the…

The first part of my book is called Perceptions. What I explore in that section is an ordinary civilian’s perceptions of violent crime. It is evident through the social studies data cited that the public’s violent crime perceptions do not follow violent crime statistics. This mismatch should be disconcerting to everyone. What this means is…

As discussed in my book, I keep my identification separate from my wallet when I am out and about. Since most Americans keep their wallet in their back pocket, reaching for a wallet can be dangerous when stopped by law enforcement, as many people carry weapons in that vicinity. I carry my identification in an…

You are the operations manager of a firearms training facility that caters to the concealed carry market. Business is slow. Your marketing director says that to improve business, they are going to offer the following program: If you do your training, practice, and refresher, the training facility will pay all your legal bills if you…

If you carry a concealed firearm for protection, you should also wear a body camera and potentially an audio recording device if legally allowed. If you feel uncomfortable wearing recording devices because you might record evidence that can be used against you, you probably shouldn’t be carrying a concealed firearm. The footage you capture can…

After taking many self-defense classes and talking with many concealed carry people, here are my uncomfortable truths. I hate to say it, but the truth hurts. How do I know these uncomfortable truths? Partly via experience but partly just doing some simple math and conservative estimates. First, what we are going to do is estimate…