Rangemaster Tactical Conference 2014

Every year Tom Givens puts on a conference in Memphis, TN, at his facility. It is called the Rangemaster Tactical Conference. It consists of three days of instruction by top instructors in the firearms and self defense community. At any given time there can be three to five instructors presenting on any number of topics related to self defense, particularly with a firearm. Most instruction blocks are two hours in length but from time to time and with an important enough topic it's not unheard of to see a whole four-hour block dedicated to one instructor and his information.

After years of hearing great things coming out of the conference we finally made it a priority to attend this year.

The Conference was held on Feb 21-23 and the hardest part was deciding which instruction blocks to attend vs the others.

My schedule started with Shane Gosa, instructor with CQB Services International, talking about The Mental Trigger. This entire two-hour block was largely centered around mindset. Shane had a unique perspective on Jeff Cooper's color codes of awareness, how they were intended to be used and how to apply them to daily life. We did one group visualization technique, discussed mental barriers and the aftermath of violent encounters and finished up with a training exercise on what Shane called, "Accessing State." The exercise is meant to train the mind and body to work together and to limit or completely eliminate the freeze response and allow for a faster and more efficient aggressive, defensive or offensive response. Not only did it address turning the aggression on, immediately, but also turning it off (often the hardest and most damning part of self defense). The lecture concluded with a discussion on winning vs survival, the importance of combat breathing and other tips on getting the most out of training sessions.

Next was Kathy Jackson, author and instructor for Cornered Cat. Her lecture was very bluntly titled "What Women Want" and centered around getting more women to attend professional firearms and self defense training. She opened with statistics about how many women were getting their carry permits and buying guns compared to men (hint, it's a lot more women than you think) and on the high note she dashed us down by showing the number of women who attend regular training past the basic carry class (hint, it's way less women than you'd hope). She drew parallels from other male-dominated fields and how they have fought to retain women. Her discussion on how women often feel in the firearms community (and other male-dominated fields) left my mouth agape in it's accuracy at how I have often felt. She then held back nothing as she talked about some of the common flaws in firearms training that set women up for failure or at least for being undermined in the industry. She slaughtered a few sacred cows (which I was gleeful to see butchered (there were at least two times I literally almost clapped)) and moved on to the best strategies for encouraging women. She was very frank that if you are going to teach women you have to be okay talking about and at least have a working idea of some women's issues like drawing around big breasts, discussing bra or thigh holsters, or even being able to address long fingernails and how it relates to shooting. In short, if you want women to come to your classes, you need to make them feel like they belong in a human space vs feeling like they are guests in a man's house.

After lunch I was off to Jim Higginbotham, a former instructor at Gunsite, from Riposte Training. His lecture was called "Fire for Effect" and entirely centered on how the body reacts to gunfire and how bullets may (or may not) physically stop a determined attacker. He discussed the factors that influence incapacitation, how one should train to maximize the effectiveness of their shots if they are needed and what physically needs to be achieved in order to stop a determined attacker instantly, rapidly or marginally. He addressed head-on the growing concept that it's better to spread your shots around vs making tight groups and how ineffective that can be. He addressed the issue of training scars developed through targets with poorly defined targeting zones and concluded with practice tips on improving ability to make better incapacitating shots.

My last class on Friday was Chuck Haggard, a former SWAT officer and current supervisory officer in Kansas. I had the privilege to meet Chuck at the Rangemaster Instructor Development class in September and we've kept in touch ever since. His block of instruction was on Active Shooters/Terrorist Events. Chuck has been personally involved in two active shooter events and his unique perspective was insightful when going through some of the information. A good majority of the class was going over many of the major active shooter events and discussing the tactics used by law enforcement and what worked and what didn't as far as slowing or stopping the events. He talked about what motivates active shooters and what civilians can do to better prepare for an active shooter event.

Saturday morning started with a four-hour block of instruction by John Hearne; a Rangemaster instructor, federal law enforcement officer and self-proclaimed research geek; called "Performance Under Fire." He gave the four-hour version of an eight-hour class and if I ever get the chance to take it in more depth you will find me there. A long-held belief is that humans are predestined to become quivering masses of unpredictable goo when confronted with traumatic events. John's lecture went over the brain, how it works and functions with other body systems to respond to emergencies, why it is conditioned to do what it does under stress and how it can be optimized to respond better or entirely differently. He explained the difference between the neocortex and limbic system and their roles in traumatic events and how to keep the neocortex in control. He defined what it meant to be untrained, to have learned a skill and what was an overlearned skill. My favorite part of his lecture was what he called the "Sacred Cow Slaughterhouse" that took on the concepts of heart-rate being a key factor in performance, the idea that a "natural" response is somehow superior vs an overlearned response, the famed "startle-response" we all train to start from, the supposed innate aversion we are said to have against killing other humans, and whether or not we really do loose our ability to perform fine motor skills and see something as small as a front sight when fighting for our lives. He concluded his lecture with training tips and tips for instructors on how to maximize student learning. All-in-all a very intensive and eye-opening block of instruction.

And from there I stood in line for twenty minutes waiting to attend Craig Douglas' workshop on Managing Unknown Contacts. Craig Douglas is often known through his former screen name "Southnarc." As his handle would suggest, he was an undercover narcotics officer who has since retired and started his own training company called shivworks. The man has a stellar reputation in the training community that is well-deserved. Many of his techniques were developed directly from his own experience interacting on a regular basis with the criminal element. The workshop was based around the simple premise that you are being approached by an unknown individual. You need to decide whether or not this individual is a potential threat with enough time and/or distance to do something about it if it turns out this individual means you harm. We spent most of the instruction block working his three-part interaction system of Verbalizing, Moving and preparing your Hands for action. He then went over four of the most common pre-fight indicators and we practiced identifying them in class. Lastly, we talked about what to do if we are still unsure of the genuine intent of an individual but decide we want to help them vs shutting them down. This was mostly a live-action class worked with other partners and a great exercise in staying relatively safe while deciding if someone is a legitimate threat or not.

My final Saturday class was Skip Gochenour, a retired police investigator who specialized in homicides and helped prepare cases for trial. Skip's lecture was titled "Problem Two: On Trial." In other words, you've survived a lethal encounter (problem one) but now you are being charged with a crime (typically some form of homicide). He opened his lecture with some pretty harsh facts about the law and legal system, the hardest to accept by your average gun-totter being that the truth has absolutely no relevance in a court of law. If a question cannot be clearly answered by the evidence it is what is considered "a jury question" at which point a prosecutor and defense attorney will both make a case on how they interpret the evidence and the jury makes a declaration and what they believe the evidence likely indicates what happened. He went over a lot of history of our legal system and broke down what four main questions a prosecutor will ask in order to determine whether or not someone acted in self defense. He then moved on to what criteria the jury will look at as to whether or not they will convict (or acquit) someone of the various degrees of murder. One of the quotes of the class that particularly resonated with me was, "When you decide you will take on problem one you agree to accept the bill and pay for problem two no matter what the cost." Be that emotional, financial, physical, legal or in prison. A sobering reminder of the responsibilities involved in carrying a firearm.

Sunday morning opened with Cecil Burch, a career martial artist and instructor. His block of instruction was titled Immediate Action in Extreme Close Quarters. In short, you've just been taken by surprise in a violent attack and you can't get to or don't have a gun. What do you do? This was another live-action workshop and we spent much of it on our feet working with partners to protect our most vital area (the head) and work on switching from a defensive posture to an offensive one and gaining ground to either fight, access tools or flee.

Next I attended Tom Givens' Active Shooter lecture. His lecture differed from Chuck's in that he did not spend a lot of time discussing individual cases but rather patterns across many active shooter events. He went over a lot of information that is already known in the community such as the fact that most active shooter events happen in gun-free zones, a large portion of them being schools, and that the shooters tend to be lone, white males with one gun. He went over the phases of an active shooter from fantasy all the way to the shooting and how the best time to stop an active shooting is in the planning or preparation stage. He discussed the difference in outcomes with civilian's have responded to active shooters vs law enforcement with the results being in favor of a civilian response. Lastly, he talked about what to do if caught up in an active shooter event and wrapped it up with an admonition to be armed and fight for abolition of gun-free zones.

After lunch was William Aprill's lecture titled, "Fatal Choices." William Aprill is a psychologist who works with criminals in a law enforcement capacity and a brilliant speaker. His lecture was primarily about what makes a criminal pick a particular individual to victimize. His initial task was to distinguish between those who are targeted and those who are victimized. Anyone can be targeted but only a portion of those are actually chosen to be victimized and that comes down to a criminal deciding whether or not that target is a "go" or "no go." How does he make the decision? William went into depth about what is called "thin-slicing" and it's connection to the intuitive mind that allows us to make instant and more-often accurate decisions about people based on very limited, external data. Facial expressions, gait, appearance, even the amount of multi-tasking we seem to be taking on in a particular moment, can all be factors in what makes a criminal decide whether or not to victimize a particular target. He talked about what we can do to lower our chances of being targeted in the first place or even "deselected" as a "go." Of all of the presentations at the conference, it was William's that fascinated me the most and has made me want to research much more into the topics of thin-slicing and how it relates to criminal choice.

Finally, when I thought I could cram no more into my little brain I sat down in Greg Ellifritz's "Armed Citizen Response to Terrorist Bombings." Anyone who has followed my blog for any length of time has seen Greg's name before. He's one of my favorite instructors and this is my third class with him. He's the author and lead instructor for Active Response Training. He holds more instructor certifications than I care to list at the moment and his topic of the day was bombs. He went over what they are, how they work, how we might be able to identify them and how they are being used by terrorists and active shooters. After pretty much letting us all in on the terrifying reality that there's not much you can do about a bomb he dampened the mood even further by alerting us to the fact that most active shooter/terrorist bombs are homemade and unstable and it's not even a safe bet to try to shoot someone, even if you are 100% sure he has a bomb. If you choose to do so you're doing so with the expectation that you're going to die and generally not going to stop the bomb from going off anyway given the instability of the device, handlers who will set it off anyway, timers, or a hit to the device that triggers it early. He did try to end it on an upbeat note by assuming if we were involved in a bombing we were far enough away or able to get to cover quickly enough to survive. He talked about steps to take to identify secondary devices, how to manage other survivors of the blast and then talked about relative safe distances and cover from certain sizes of devices (which can vary depending on device).

On that happy note we piled in our car, went for some good bbq and just about crashed in an information-overload coma.

These were only the classes I was able to attend. There were so many more I missed and am disappointed for it.

I got to meet some of my heroes and other top-name instructors, got to network with some great people and trainers, meet some of the people who have followed me for years and generally rub shoulders with some great, like-minded individuals.

In addition to the instruction, there is an ongoing pistol match which I shot on Saturday night and learned later that out of 129 shooters I came in 22. To say I was pleased would be an understatement.

I'm not done processing the information from the conference and I fully expect to write more in depth thoughts on several of the training blocks I attended, but for now, I'll leave you all with the admonition that if you can even remotely conceive of going to a Tactical Conference you should do so!

I plan on returning often! I hope to see you there!

The Shot That Breaks The Legal System's Back

When people work self defense scenarios or force-on-force training the question of legalities--always so black and white on paper--present themselves in a hazy variations of muddled gray.

And if you add the stress and excitement of working a scenario you very well find out that a split second of irrational thought could be the difference between justified self defense and aggravated assault, manslaughter or a variation thereof.

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to take a class that's been on my short list for three years: Extreme Close Quarters at the Tactical Defense Institute.

On the second day of the class, attendees are invited to participate in two force-on-force scenarios. You can choose to participate in one, both or neither. The point of the scenarios is to let you work the techniques you've learned over the weekend and to put them into the context of a physical assault.

Something unique about the scenarios is that you are also supposed to think about the legalities of your actions. Class attendees who are watching the scenario act as a pseudo jury and opine as to whether or not they believe your actions were justified as you fought.

The first scenario is a "stand up" scenario which usually begins with some sort of interview process. Deciding when and how and what level of force to use can be much more tricky.

In the second scenario, it is assumed you have been hit and rendered unconscious. You come to with your attacker already on top of you, beating you. It assumes lethal force is already justified. The point of the scenario is to illustrate that even though lethal force is already justified you may have quite a bit of fighting to do before you can get to a lethal force option like a knife or a gun.

I was the first student in this scenario. I laid down on the mat and the lead instructor, Greg Ellifritz, got on top of me in the mount and said, "Go!" while wrapping his hands around my neck.

I worked the ground fighting techniques we'd learned over the weekend and in Krav and while he was trying hard to get my gun off of me I was able to adequately defend it. However, towards the end of the scenario I was feeling as though I was running out of time. He grabbed my left hand and pulled me across him so that he had access to my waistband. I felt him grab at my magazine carrier/knife sheath. I heard something hit the floor, looked and saw he had successfully taken away my spare magazine.

I realized that, given enough time, he'd get my gun or knife and making space for me to get to my gun without having better control of him would mean he might be able to take it away from me.

I needed to make a move, now!

I dropped my hips below his to take away his reach and with my right arm pressed under his chin, trying to choke him with my forearm I drew my knife and buried it into the inside crease of his right leg and groin. I twisted it a couple of times simulating a deep wound and when I felt his legs loosen from around me I darted back and away.

While falling back from him I drew my gun, aimed in on his head and started pressing the trigger.

He was sitting up by now and staring at me.

I was surging with adrenaline and still had my knife in my off-hand. I wasn't even thinking about legalities. I was only thinking how scared I was at how close he came to getting my knife and how lucky I was that I got it first.

I can't tell you what stayed my hand but I didn't shoot. I screamed at him to stay back and the scenario was over.

I holstered my gun and deescalated. I didn't think about the scenario again until I watched it later on video my husband had recorded.

Between the time I cut him and my gun aimed at him is about 3 to 5 seconds. In that time I'm pushing myself away from him, making my way to my feet and drawing my gun. I've also put about 10 feet between us.

In that time a lot changed. I'd already used lethal force against him and with the type of cut I made it would be very likely that he would be bleeding to death. However, the dynamics of the scenario had changed.

If you are a student of self defense it's important to become familiar with the principles of AOJP in order to use lethal force.

A = Your attacker has to have the Ability to cause death or great bodily harm.
O = Your attacker has to have the Opportunity to cause death or great bodily harm.
J = You have to believe your life or limb is in Jeopardy.
P = There has to be no other reasonable option for you to remove yourself from that scenario or defend yourself. This is known as Preclusion.

In that scenario the AOJP was satisfied enough for me to be entirely justified in using lethal force as a means of self defense initially.

My attacker had the ability. He was a healthy, large, fully-functioning man.

He had the opportunity. He was sitting on top of me.

I was certainly in jeopardy. I was beneath him with his hands around my throat.

There was no preclusion. I had no other reasonable options. Despite how I tried I was not able to get away from him until I cut him in the groin.

There was also some disparity of force and position going on. Lethal force was justified.

And in 3 seconds the scenario changed drastically.

My attacker may still have had the ability to cause me death or great bodily harm (at least until he passed out from blood loss) but he no longer had the opportunity. Depending on how badly I cut him he may not have been able to use his leg to come after me. While I certainly could have felt like my life was still in jeopardy I now had reasonable options of escape. I didn't need to shoot him. I could leave.

I wasn't thinking about those things at the time. At the time I was feeling a mixture of fear and relief and I was putting pressure on a trigger beneath the barrel of a gun pointed directly at his head.

The threat was over and had I put another pound of pressure on said trigger I would have been stepping beyond the boundaries of self defense. The AOJP would no longer be satisfied.

If it had been real would I have been charged given the nature of the scenario? I don't know.

Would I have been convicted? Again, given the nature of the scenario, I don't know.

But the fact of the matter is, those 3 seconds and the smallest press of my trigger finger could have landed me in a serious mess of legal trouble I couldn't begin to comprehend (much less afford) if the scenario had been real.

There will be some that will argue that I would still have been justified in taking the shot. There will be some that will argue that I would not have been. I anticipate getting private messages from now until kingdom come with differing opinions. And it will all go to illustrate one thing: that that shot would not have been clear-cut self defense.

And therein lies the importance of thinking about these scenarios and attending force-on-force and the kind of training we worked over the weekend. Until you are there and experiencing the adrenaline and wondering what you are supposed to do and afraid and, yes, a bit panicked, you have no idea how well you will judge the scenario, when to use lethal force and when it may no longer be justified.

These classes not only help you learn about techniques of self defense but set you up to better judge situations. You learn how you can work them and when they may be over while also preparing you to continue to fight if need be or search for more threats. They construct patterns of behavior that are within legal boundaries (or at least they should!) and help you identify lethal force moments.


They also help you identify when you have fought yourself to a position of no longer needing that force.

If you haven't taken a class like that yet, I recommend you go out there and find one!

And if you want to watch the scenario for yourself here is the video. Watch between the :44 and :58 second marks. 

Massad Ayoob on Zimmerman

I've not commented on the Zimmerman trial because I don't feel qualified to do so. I didn't watch the trial or research any of the evidence. So when people ask me about my thoughts on George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin I prefer to refer them to better men.

Massad Ayoob is an expert in the field of self defense and the criminal proceedings thereafter. He spoke with Zimmerman's attorneys and followed the trial. His legal knowledge and understanding combined with his closeness to the case give him far more authority to discuss the case than many of the people who have been giving opinions.

Read his series on the Zimmerman trial. I think you will find them well worth your time:

The Zimmerman Verdict, Part 1
Zimmerman Verdict, Part 2: "The Unarmed Teen"
Zimmerman Verdict, Part 3: "Who Started It?"
Zimmerman Verdict: The Stand Your Ground Element
Zimmerman Verdict, Part 5: The Gun Stuff
The Zimmerman Verdict, Part 6: "What if" Versus "What Is"
Zimmerman Verdict, Part 7: Why The Jury Didn't Learn About Trayvon Martin
Zimmerman Verdict, Part 8: The Quantity of Injury Argument
Zimmerman Verdict, Part 9: The Propaganda Factor
Zimmerman Verdict Part 10: The Semantics
Zimmerman Verdict Part 11: Rating the Lawyers (Defense)
Zimmerman Verdict Part 12: Rating the Lawyers (Prosecution)
Zimmerman Verdict Part 13: Angela Corey


The stand your ground one is particularly good.