New American Truth

You can be the best equipped, most prepared person on the planet but if you aren’t sufficiently fit to do the necessary work to survive, all that equipment and preparation is for naught. So, let’s start our survival preparation where we most need to: with ourselves.

Experienced shooters know that there are many components of skill involved when placing a shot on a target. In fact, the seven basic fundamentals of marksmanship were developed and listed so that we could teach new shooters how to shoot accurately. That said, just because someone masters the seven basic marksmanship skills does not mean [...]

I’ve trained under most of the top guys in the country and have a PhD in Criminal Justice Education. Most importantly, I’ve been involved in several shootings personally.

After Action Reviews (AARs) on our OODA Loops (repetitive cycles of the process) to see if we can identify where we went wrong, or where we did exactly the right thing. Such intimate examination of our own decision making process under stress is critical if we’re to improve our performance in such situations.

Today, if you carry a self-rescue kit, no one thinks you’re crazy or paranoid. In fact, they generally want to know more about it and where to get one. Naturally, training in self-rescue is a booming mini-industry, and it’s becoming incorporated into more and more in-service training.

I still have much better than average (that is, 20/20) vision at distance, and when I was a young man I had even better distance vision. I never needed glasses at all until the dreaded “P” thing happened, and I discovered it just as described above. Now in my early fifties, I am dependent on my reading glasses for much of my daily activities.

For the many campers and backpackers we have in our readership (look for a future survey on what your favorite outdoor activity is) we’re going to talk about the options available in handguns, the pros and cons of various designs and the best methods and places to carry them.

Throughout all of this I hope you’ve realized: if you don’t plan for success then you’ve (by default) planned to fail.

What is Combat Mindset? For the fighter, mindset is the conscious or subconscious willingness to commit harm (lethal or non-lethal) against another. When engaging in combat, mindset, more often than not, will be the determining factor as to your success or failure, regardless of technical proficiency.

Once at the range, most people tend to shoot the same routines – they have fallen into a rut. Most practice is at 7 yards plus, and people tend to care a lot about nice, tight groups…and they practice all the little things that achieve them: sight focus, steady posture, two-handed shooting, deliberate shot release, and so on. None of that is realistic.