http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXCSuFOMkdo

Other than obeying gun control laws (so as not to lose all your gun rights) and the intractable issues surrounding beach and shower carry, I can’t think of a single reason not to schlep a self-defense firearm. And yet there may be times when you don’t have a gat or can’t get immediate access to your gun. Times when you find yourself on the wrong end of a gun/knife/fist/pool cue/hammer/brass knuckles/etc. What then? Well, anything . . .

What you use when you don’t have a gun handy (or to buy yourself some time to get to your gun) isn’t as important as how you use it. As Krav Maga instructors like to point out, a potential victim of an attack is best advised to unleash as much violence as possible as early as possible. In other words, if you’re going there gunless, go all-in. Find something, anything hard and unleash the dogs of war.

That said, as much as I love septuagenarian shopkeepers in general and Virginia Heart in specific, I don’t think a stack of magazines is gonna discourage your average armed robber. Ipso facto. That stool, however, was a damn fine idea.

Another question raised by the incident: should you threaten someone with a weapon or just bloody well bash them with it? I say bash while the bashing’s good. As always, speed, surprise and violence of action. Note: it’s a mix, not a list.

I reckon that anyone who carries a gun should practice at least one or two strike moves in combination with unholstering their weapon and moving. Not all the time and not necessarily in that order. Sometimes, strike and move. Sometimes move and strike and unholster. Sometimes unholster and strike and move. Change it up.

The basic principle is this: there’s no such thing as a a fair fight. There’s only survival. When it’s go time go hell-for-leather with whatever you’ve got. If you have a gun when you, your loved ones or other innocent life are facing a credible, imminent threat of death or grievous bodily harm, so much the better.

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37 COMMENTS

  1. Did those magazines have more than 10 pages?

    Did she do a magazine dump on this perp?

    She needs something to compliment of a stack of magazines, revolvers need not apply.

    I never bring a stack to gun fight but at least a spare.
    ba dump bump

    Ok, someone else take over.

  3. Washington County, OR
    Washington County, TX
    Washington County, AR
    Washington County, MN
    Washington County, PA
    Washington County, NY
    Washington County, MD
    Washington County, KY
    Washington County, KS
    Washington County, WI

    Would it be too much to ask to mention STATES in stories such as this one? It might actually be *important* on occasion. That’s 9 or 10 Washington Counties that I could find quickly.

  4. From my personal observation, most criminals don’t think their situation all the way through. They think they’re going to win over sheep. As soon as someone shows some fang, the perps are usually trying to figure out how to disengage, because they didn’t plan on getting resistance. The “smart” set has been peddling the trope of “don’t resist, give them what they want” for four decades now.

    I’ve thought for some time now that with a little martial arts training and a made-for-retailers baton that has a tough plastic handle and a business end filled with lead shot, that lots of these encounters would end with a dead or laid-out perp on the floor, no shots fired and no worries about bystanders in the store.

    • Dyseptic,

      Similar to the plastic handled baton (filled with lead shot) as you mentioned, I suggested solid hardwood canes in my post below. I have observed martial arts training with just such a solid hardwood cane. They are lightning fast, extend your reach considerably, and enable both thrusting and striking blows that are pretty much guaranteed to incapacitate someone. (While a single strike from the cane would not necessarily incapacitate someone, that single strike normally stuns an attacker just long enough to deliver a second strike to the attacker, which stuns them long enough for a third strike, and so on.) Best of all, defensive training with a cane only takes about 5 minutes and most people are quite capable with little more than 15 minutes of practice.

      • There’s a whole sort of martial-arts training for seniors and the disabled, called CANE-FU. You can look that one up!

  5. that’s a good way to get yourself killed. obviously the perp had no intention of using her weapon.

    • It wasn’t so obvious when she first took the perp to the library.
      She probably hadn’t taken Advanced Defensive Pistol yet, so she stuck struck with the tried and true. Probably had completed Advanced Bar Fight years before:

      There once was an elderly dame
      Who thought getting robbed was a shame.
      She with mags hit the fool,
      Struck again with a stool,
      Knowing stools are quite easy to aim.

  6. I was trying to figure out why you wouldn’t want a stack of magazines in a gun fight when I read the title!

  7. Take any magazine and roll it up nice and tight. Hold it close to both ends and drive either end into someone’s rib cage. It will break bones for sure. Remember…. Not like a bat but like poking them with a stick.

  9. Well, where you cannot possess a firearm for some reason, there are alternatives. Bring a cane and a fake limp and you now have an excellent striking weapon. (Make sure to use a solid hardwood cane and not a hollow metal cane.) If you work in a fixed setting, keep a pressurized can of something like real bear spray (the stuff that Dyspeptic Gunsmith likes) or wasp spray. If you are going to keep wasp spray, remember that it is basically pressurized charcoal starter fluid which is extremely flammable. That could make its use somewhat dangerous — especially for the criminal if an ignition source happened ignite the wasp spray on the criminal.

    When improvising, hot liquids (such as glass coffee decanters) can be quite effective for self defense. And fire extinguishers can make pretty fine defensive weapons as well — whether you use the mass and hardness of the metal can itself or the pressurized contents inside. The beauty: fire extinguishers are just about everywhere. (Hint: glass coffee decanters with hot coffee and fire extinguishers are on every commercial airliner!)

  10. As a sergeant of mine (many years ago) was fond of saying, “If you find yourself in a fair fight, you’re doing it wrong.”

    • Fair fights are for movies. Being in a fight only has one acceptable outcome: winning. Fair, dirty, double dirty who cares. Winning is all that matters.

  11. The old lady is a moron. She is not long for this life. I remember a few convenience store robberies that took place here a few years ago where the robbers came in and just killed the store workers. No threats, just BANG.

    • It would please you to be right, wouldn’t it?

      I could say your mother’s a moron, but no, she probably isn’t. She just raised one, that’s all.

  12. If you learn a martial art, you’ll never find yourself completely unprepared. And it comes with a lot of side-benefits, like physical fitness and mental discipline.

  16. I seriously thought this was about GUN magazines as in the thingy that holds the extra bullets for your gun… I thought it was strange the blog post appeared to be against carrying a stack of extra GUN mags. I try to carry one or two extra mags (the bullet holding ones) with me all the time.

  17. Just watch the karate kid a couple of times. Wax on, wax off. Sand the floor, paint the fence, paint the house side to side. Breath in, breath out, and don’t hit like a girl. Ki-a one inch. Watch some seagal movies if you can bare it, he does actual know some martial arts.

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