Rob Pincus on Shooting From Seated Positions
The good survivalist shouldn’t really be getting into shoot outs, although some violent confrontations may be avoidable post TEOTWAWKI. The truth is that most so-called survivalists will spend more time and money of firearms and gunfighting training than they will on food storage and learning what wild edibles will can be harvested in their areas. This creates the Survivalist Paradox, as I like to call it. When all these supposed survivalists run out of food they will fall back on what they “know” (shooting people) to try to get a hold of the food you’ve worked so hard to learn how to procure. Ergo we survivalists end up having to train not just in the essential skills (farming, trapping, hunting, building, nursing etc) but in the mall ninja dominated arts of “combat” shooting, counter sniping and small unit tactics.
I have never been in a gunfight per se but I have had guns pulled on me several times and had a guy empty a clip at me one late night in Newark, New Jersey. I will no doubt scandalize the legions of Internet pistoleros when I say that with my limited experience being on the wrong end of guns I find Shooting to Live by Fairbairn and Sykes to be the most realistic tome on gun play by badmen. Of course, my experiences are from living in a crime ridden inner city so Shooting to Live (written based on the authors service in 1930s Shanghai which put the worst American ghettos to shame in terms of criminality) speaks to my personal observations of how these things unfold. I know nothing of full on force on force conflict and thus cannot recommend any trainer or material.
I will relate a story however I read about Wild Bill Hickok that I read reprinted in an old outdoor magazine. Buffalo Bill Cody once told a reporter that Hickok actually wasn’t a particularly fast draw, but that if he thought would have to shoot you he simply did it before the other party had even decided whether or not there would be trouble. Learning to recognize the intentions of others, and acting on those intentions rather than re-acting to actions may be the best advice for post-TEOTWAWKI gunfighters to think on.
Here Rob Pincus from Personal Defense Network runs through the mechanics of how to engage a aggressor with your firearm when you’re seated. Books and videos don’t replicate training, but if you’re surfing the web in the middle of the day or night chances are you don’t have a few hundred to slap down to take a course so this is better than nothing:
Cotton Reaches 140 Year High!
Bad news from WSJ:
Cotton prices touched their highest level since Reconstruction on Friday, as a string of bad harvests and demand from China spark worries of a global shortfall.
The sudden surge in prices—cotton has risen as much as 56% in three months—has alarmed manufacturers and retailers, who worry they may be forced to pass on higher costs to recession-weary consumers.
The December cotton contract hit $1.1980 a pound minutes after the opening of trading on the IntercontinentalExchange on Friday. It is officially the highest price since records began back in 1870 with the creation of the New York Cotton Exchange.
[…]
“I’ve seen a lot of big moves, and this exceeds everything,” said Sharon Johnson, senior cotton analyst at First Capitol Group, a financial adviser. “It’s not something you’re going to see again in your lifetime.”
The cotton surge is part of a broad-based commodities rally since the beginning of the year, underpinned by fears over a weakening dollar, healthy demand from emerging markets and various weather-related supply disruptions. Along with cotton, prices of so-called soft commodities such as sugar, orange juice and coffee all have soared, adding to concerns that consumers might soon be paying higher prices for daily necessities.
For the apparel industry, rising prices have upended roughly two decades of cheap cotton. Consumers have become used to relatively low prices, making it hard for garment producers to pass on the rising costs, especially as the economy struggles to recover.
With colder winters on the way more expensive clothing is the last thing Americans need, especially Americans with children who need yearly wardrobe replacements. Hit those sales at the mall now.