V. Defensive Use of Firearms

D. Out-of-Home Defense

2. The Ten Commandments of CCW [Humor!]

Commentary by J. Sean Keane (keane@wynken.ece.arizona.edu)

[Maintainer's Disclaimer: Note that this article is meant only as satire, and should not be taken seriously. Do not, under any circumstances, take anything found in this article as serious advice. It is meant to be *funny*, a joke, humour, you know? It is totally ridiculous that I have to put in a disclaimer like this!]

My observations on handgun practice and practical concealed carry may be somewhat controversial but here goes:

If you're going to carry concealed, never practice with your carry gun. Your performance will be so poor with man killer calibers you will lose all confidence. Practice with a .22. Maybe one with a scope. At seven yards.
Wrong, wrong, wrong! Even a .22 can be intimidating when it throws those little bits of metal out the pointy end. It's best never to practice at all. If you have to once in a while to impress your girlfriend or Canadian friends, use a capgun or one of those "full-auto" squirt pistols. Be sure to say "bang!" real loud each time you pull the trigger, so that it sounds authentic.
If you really think your time at the range is to prepare you for concealed carry situations, then always enact a scenario similar to your normal life. I always shoot in a wool suit with three VCR tapes in my left hand and a twelve pack under my right armpit.
Not a bad start, but even this "scenario" (make sure to use that word a lot, by the way) is unrealistic. I like to have my wife wake me up at 3:00 a.m., screaming "Shoot him! Shoot him!" Then, I can blast away in the *very environment* I'll need to know. It's a fabulous training technique - I've never been able to get that "sleepy eye goo" part right at the range - but it does have its drawbacks: we'll sure miss Fluffy.
Many self defense scenarios occur while driving. As it is impractical to shoot from your car while at the range, save a couple boxes of ammo for the drive home and practice on the highway signs. This seems to be real popular in my county.
Highway signs don't give proper realism, since they are inanimate. I like to wait until women pedestrians walk in front of my car, and then scream "CARJACKER!" at them and try to shoot their purses. The big flashy ones with purple sequins are definitely the easiest.
Don't bother loading your concealed weapon until late morning. This gives your body time to absorb all the caffeine and, perhaps, nicotine and you might finally be able to hold your hand steady enough to hit something after lunch.
Bad advice. Load it alternately with "Black Rhino Cop-piercing Uranium Death Bullets" and Snap-Caps. This allows every hostile encounter to become a valuable opportunity to practice "tap-rack-bang" drills. In the afternoon, use those shotshells for killing mice. Man, does that ever piss the perp off!
If you're carrying concealed and you feel that you may be in a dangerous situation, pick an inanimate object roughly the same distance away as the suspected assailant, pull your weapon, and drain off a few magazines. Your only prayer of hitting something on purpose is to warm up a little first.
This is excellent advice, but I must once again reiterate redundantly by repeating: inanimate objects are unrealistic, unless the encounter is within a morgue by a barely re-animated corpse (which, according to Mas Ayoob [we're tight; he *wants* me to call him Mas] occurs in less than 0.02% of all self defense shootings). Scurrying children make *far* better practice targets.
Successful aimed fire always begins at the assailant's feet. Thus while backpedaling and yanking on the auto's trigger, as the muzzle marches its way to vertical, you may actually hit something important. You can practice this at the range. In fact, other range users will encourage you to practice this by giving you all the room you need. A real boon on crowded Saturday afternoons.
I agree with this technique's effect at the range, but for that truly "Hollywood" look, try to work on a scenario (remember my earlier advice?) that provides plenty of opportunity for impressive showers of sparks from bullets striking things. I have personally had excellent luck shooting at a large pile of Zippos.
When actually being challenged in a real life scenario, (Excellent!) suggest that the assailant use your gun. Then immediately surrender your weapon. You've doubtlessly proven you can't reliably hit a stationary, unarmed, piece of paper, let alone something moving, with that handgun. Now run, or just walk quickly, away from the scene. This is also a handy way of disposing of all of your crummy reloads.
This is even more effective if you can manage to shoehorn some .454 Casull loads into your .22 Mag revolver. Warning! Take this from personal experience! Use a rubber mallet!
If you really want to protect yourself on the street and you have a reasonable assessment of your skills, get one of those riot shotguns, preferably one of those tactical ones with the pistol grips. Then spend your Christmas holiday disguising it to look like a cane.
Even better, obtain any quality submachine gun (HK preferred, of course) and dress it up to look like the "Baby Wets-and-Goes-BANG!" that your daughter wanted from Santa. Explain to her that the Red suit is just so the Commies will *trust* him!
If you insist on concealed carry, begin a letter-writing campaign to your elected representatives. Demand criminal reform where the skinnier the bad guy, the longer the jail time. For concealed carry to be an effective deterrent, we need a new class of morbidly obese, slow moving criminals.
The legislature being what it is, I doubt this scenario (your're really catching on now, aren't you?) will ever become a reality. A much more practical approach is to become chummy with the cook at the nearest prison, and convince him to feed the prisoners nothing but pure lard. Oh, and Ding-Dongs(tm) for dessert.
Finally, there is no need to carry concealed. If you had the need to carry concealed it would be to defend yourself while out in public. But if you are out in public its because you are running an errand. Successful errands means you're carrying something home. If you're carrying something then your gun hand is occupied, anyway, so there is no point of a concealed weapon.
Right theory, wrong response. This scenario (!!!!!) merely points out the necessity for the "ring-of-dynamite-around-your-chest" backup weapon. The bad guys really wet their pants over this one!
Just trying to help, folks.
Regards,
J. Sean Keane

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