By MamaLiberty
In many parts of the country, it really is too hot to shoot much of the time these days. And then, of course, there’s always the problem of scarce ammunition. What to do? How do you keep your skills sharp under those conditions?
Practice – General guidelines for dry fire exercises:
CAUTION: All of the safety rules must be maintained during these exercises. Remove all live ammunition from the room. Eliminate all distractions as much as possible. Establish specific times and places for exercises. Check to be sure gun is unloaded EACH TIME you begin a dry fire exercise. Exercises done on the range, live fire, should be done with a qualified instructor or experienced mentor and conform with all standard and range specific rules and safety precautions. Ask an instructor for schedule of live fire sessions available or to arrange for one.
What is “dry fire?” This simply means that you use an unloaded gun, dummy ammunition or gun simulation for practice and drills to learn new skills and practice them to a desired level of competence before you shoot live ammunition at the range. [Make sure your gun would not be damaged by dry fire (empty). You may need to use a dummy round or “snap caps.“ Check with manufacturer.]
Why dry fire? Believe it or not, dry fire is far more important for building good skills than live fire. You don’t have the recoil to deal with, and it doesn’t cost anything. The only way to build “muscle memory” is with many repetitions of a PERFECT action, so taking the time to learn things and practice them CORRECTLY from the start will save you countless hours. It takes about 300 repetitions to learn a habit, but at least 10,000 to UNLEARN one. Therefore, if you are not confident that you fully understand the operations called for in an exercise, wait to consult your instructor before you proceed. You’ll save lots of time and money in the long run.
Make specific plans for place and time to practice. If you make and stick to a schedule, you will benefit the most and create safe habits. In the ideal world, you would practice at least 10 to 15 minutes every day. Most people who are serious about self defense manage this about three times a week – at least in the beginning. Your choice.
Choose one place in your home, garage, patio or other for your dry fire exercise. Do not engage in this activity anywhere else except on the gun range. This helps form good habits and reduces risk of accidents. Evaluate the area for hazards such as appliances, fire sources and anything that would make the actual discharge of a gun a danger to you or anyone else. Eliminate those where possible. Choose a “safe direction” for your dry fire and keep your gun pointed in that direction as much as possible, depending on the drill.
Unless the drill calls for it, do not allow anyone else to be in the room. Do not use anything but simulated guns if others are present. Never point ANY gun at another person unless you are being attacked. Use an actual target.
Remove ALL live ammunition from your dry fire area. Check to make sure the gun is unloaded before entering the dry fire area and before EACH exercise. This may seem excessive or redundant, but it is a vital safety habit. The first thing said in most negligent (accidental) discharges is, “I thought the gun was unloaded.”
Maintain the three absolute rules each and every time you handle a gun. Muzzle and trigger control, along with frequent – even obsessive – checking for an empty chamber will go a long way towards guaranteeing that nobody will ever get hurt unless they attack you.
Eliminate distractions as much as you can. Turn off TV or radios, unplug the phone and lock the doors.
When you come to the end of your dry fire session, review what you have done and consciously END your session before you leave the area. Be very aware of what you are doing before you reload and store or holster the gun. This is the point were many unintended discharges occur. Do not reload in your dry fire area under any circumstances.
The above is from my book, “I Am NOT A Victim.” It’s available free to anyone who sends me an email and requests it. Follow the link to find contact information at the bottom of the page.
Next, we’ll look at some specific dry fire drills. I’d love to have comments on the drills you use and find helpful.
Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-28C: Stupid government, politicians, and people
Stupid government – Stupid politicians
Iowa fires agent who pursued governor’s speeding SUV
(Yahoo News)
Nathan: Even South Dakota’s Bill Janklow (known for a heavy foot) didn’t do this; Iowa is a thug government on an ever growing basis, much like that of Colorado. The criminality of the political class grows ever more quickly.
Mainstream Media
ABC, CBS, NBC, Obama and 350 Bottles of $300 Champagne
(CNSNews.com)
Nathan: This nation’s (and the government official’s) fixation on booze has always irritated me, and this even more so. It is part of their growing arrogance and belief in their own superiority and elite nature: only THEY can handle booze while the peons must be carefully controlled. Of course, they ignore the fact that a far LARGER percentage of politicians and media types and bureaucrats are abusers of alcohol (and other drugs) than the general population. Speaking of which, we have Rangel in the next couple of stories.
Congress in action – Theft by government
Rep. Rangel’s Solution To Student Loans – Free College
(CNSNews.com)
Nathan: Coupled with his constant demands for enslaving young people (the draft), this is Rangel’s usual irrational and contradictory behavior.
Congress in action – Bootlicking Tranzis
Rep. Rangel: If Obama ‘Walked on Water,’ GOP Would Say He Can’t Swim
(CNSNews.com)
Nathan: Old, hoary joke. Frankly, I’m disgusted at the way the GOP has given the current resident of 1600 PA a pass on so much: let all these issues go by, let his CRIMES go unchallenged, and essentially rolled over and played dead. The LP has at least made an effort.
Hoplophobes and hoploclasts – Government thuggery
From an article by Anthony Gregory at Laissez Faire:
“Gun controllers seem not to recognize that their policy itself encapsulates violence. All the government’s prohibitions rely on violent state power. Indeed, the state itself is simply the institution with a socially legitimized monopoly on legal force, as most law and political science professors would agree. When the state criminalizes an activity or the ownership of contraband, it enforces its prohibition through legal violence — ultimately, through police using guns to force suspects to go to court and, if convicted, to go to prison.”
Mama’s Note: Of course. They are not at all against violence. They simply want to be the ones in control of it.
Nathan: What is more, many people who CLAIM to be against all violence (especially many church-going people) cannot and will not see that they accept government as having some “sovereign” exemption from the concept that initiating violence is evil. Even those “nice people” who do NOT want to be in control all too often do not understand the disconnect that they are taking accepting it as a natural law.
Stupid government – the “messiah’s” plan backfires
CDC Study: Use of Firearms For Self-Defense is ‘Important Crime Deterrent’
(CNSNews.com)
Nathan: The closest thing I found to a “mainstream” or leftist-leaning media story on this CDC study was this piece of bilge from the Daily Kos.
The point is, the “messiah” ordered this study (by executive order, no less) and it turned around and bites him. NOT that the CDC is anything like unbiased or objective: they are, after all, part of a government which desperately needs to disarm as many of its citizens as possible. But it is ironic, is it not, that even THEY couldn’t bias the study and report more than they did?
Local Tyranny
ACLU: Police record license plates by the millions
(CNSNews.com) Tracking Everyone All The Time, Cops Log Data On American Motorists The American Civil Liberties Union released a report Wednesday indicating that American law enforcement largely considers simply traveling in an automobile reason enough to track American citizens and log their movements.
Nathan: Of course they do – remember the mindset of the “law enforcement officer” is usually “everyone is a stinking criminal that just hasn’t been caught yet.” (Unlike those men and women who are really peace officers and public safety people, who care about their communities and try to make them a better place – what, 1 in 50 cops? 1 in 1000? I have known about ten like that my whole life.) We have every reason to fear EVERY time a cop car passes us, going or coming, unless we know them to be one of the rare good guys; this just gives us another reason.
Islamic wars: Canaanite front – Stupid politicians
Arabs Tell Kerry the Israeli-Palestinian Dispute Is Region’s ‘Core Issue of Instability’
(CNSNews.com)
Nathan: No, it is the ROOT of the Israeli-“Palestinian” dispute: the combination of the antipathy of Arabs – MUSLIM Arabs towards Jews, the essential, fundamental insanity of Islam and the evil nature of the Muslim and Arab culture is the root. To Arabs as a whole (I realize that there are MANY Arabs who are christian and who are peaceful), the ONLY human right is “Might makes Right.” Their society is and has been corrupt since long before Mohammed (peanut butter und honig) created the religion which made it worse: tyrants, thugs, abusers are the NORM for Muslim society: a society which Arabs then exported to the entire Ummah, finding fertile ground in corrupted “christian” societies, animist and non-Hindu cultures across half the globe. Part of that culture is lies and more lies: their enemies (which they themselves chose) are ALWAYS wrong, ALWAYS the instigators and the aggressors. And the West buys into that too often, going all the way back to the Crusades, which originally started as defense against Muslim (mostly Arab) aggression against peaceful pilgrims in Canaan and other areas of the Levant.
Theft by government
Time to Fix the Charitable Deduction
(Politico) The Urban Institute has estimated that, as of 2010, governments at all levels directed more than $100 billion to some 33,000 human-service organizations…
Nathan: Politico suggests that any charitable organization getting more than 25% of its revenue from a government agency not have donations considered as deductions for tax purposes. That idea is stupid: for one thing, it greatly complicates the paperwork that people have to do. Mama Liberty points out the obvious solution: get rid of the taxes, period. But failing to do that, it seems clear that a VERY simple solution: easy to understand and identify, and with many benefits (though not as many as getting rid of the taxes) would be to prohibit ANY contribution or donation to ANY organization that receives ANY money from ANY government (even for goods or rendering services) from being deductible.
Mama’s Note: That would certainly work in the meantime, but there is also this to consider. Why not give one’s alms in secret, quietly, with no trumpets or pats on the back?
Home front – Local tyranny
California Sheriff Sued For Deadly Attack On Sleeping Man »
(Personal Liberty) The partner of a California man is suing the Kern County sheriff’s department after a May incident in which she alleges sheriff’s deputies attacked him while he slept in someone’s front yard and beat him to death, without his having had a chance to demonstrate that he was a potential threat to their safety.
Nathan: My entire adult life, I’ve heard many of those who object to libertarian political philosophy use the argument that “if you have libertarian ‘laws’ that make property rights inviolate, then you give property owners the right to kill anyone who trespasses.” Well, it appears that for this man, merely trespassing WAS rewarded with a death sentence, imposed by jack-booted thugs (psychically if not physically jack-booted) without ANY chance at all to defend himself in ANY way.
Stupid people
Just three pints of beer a week
(Daily Mail) Just three pints of beer a week can dull your brain by 20% and make it harder to react to stimulus. Drinking beer and wine regularly permanently inhibits concentration; Research showed that binge drinking affected both attention and memory
Nathan: Thanks to ArcLien for this one. As much as we have to take any study like this with a large grain of salt, it could explain why the mental deterioration in the UK and the US is so pronounced and accelerating. There were once large segments of the population who were teetotalers: who believed that whiskey and beer and wine drinking were as sinful as stealing your neighbor’s husband or wife, or many other things now “acceptable” by 95% or more of the population. Beer, bread and circuses – more ways to destroy a society and a world.
Mama’s Note: Well, I completely disagree. If this were even partly true, mankind would either have stopped making spirits long ago, or become extinct. The rot in the UK has little or nothing to do with their beer. The “teetotalers” are actually a fairly modern and rare aberration in history. For much of human existence, beer especially was the accepted drink of the whole family and is very healthful in moderation.