Paladin Planet

Ground and Pound and Return to Sender

2012-01-26T06:25:00.007-07:00

by Loren W. Christensen

Ground and Pound
Let’s say you defend yourself against an attacker by slamming a hard roundhouse kick into the peroneal nerve on the outside of his thigh, sending him crashing to the floor, stunned and helpless. Seeing an opportunity to administer some serious payback, you unleash on him a hailstorm of punches, kicks, and a few head slams into the pavement.

MMA folks have coined the term “ground and pound” for this sort of finishing technique, a phrase used in competition to describe the repeated striking of a downed opponent until the referee calls stop. Outside the ring, law enforcement has a term for it, too. They call it “jail time” — for you. Attorneys have one as well. They call it “give my client your house and your bank account.”

In short, understand that administering a so-called ground and pound in a street self-defense situation places you at risk of criminal charges and being sued civilly for using force that was unnecessary and unreasonable.

A savvy prosecuting attorney will likely bring up the term “ground and pound” to describe how your actions were out of control and went far beyond what was necessary to protect yourself or to protect someone else. “You knocked the attacker to the ground, but instead of taking the opportunity to flee, you chose to beat him senseless.”

Of course, if the knocked-down attacker is still capable of causing you or someone else harm (you must be able to articulate how he is capable of this), you can continue to use reasonable force to restrain or stop him in some other way.

Return to Sender
I know you’ve seen these clips on YouTube. The master blocks the student’s knife thrust, snatches the blade away, and then fillets the guy into a dozen little imaginary chunks. It’s like the master is going all Julia-Childs-on-a-bad-acid-trip on the guy.

Some knife aficionados call this counter “return to sender.” Refer to the above paragraph to see what cops, prosecutors, and civil attorneys call it.

You do not have a right to use deadly force on someone you just disarmed. In fact, some attorneys will successfully switch it around to say that their unarmed client had a right to defend himself against you. Outrageous? Sure, just like it’s outrageous for burglars to sue homeowners because they were injured in the course of breaking in. But they do, and some win.

If you disarm the knife and the attacker has another blade or a gun, or he picks up some other kind of dangerous weapon, it can be argued that you have a right to cut him with the newly obtained knife, but only if there are no escape options. Do train to defend against a knife and to take it away from the attacker, but know when and how you can return it to sender.

• Use only necessary and reasonable force when acting in self-defense.

• Use return to sender only if a deadly threat remains after you have removed the weapon.

• Keep “ground and pound” out of your vocabulary, even if you’re a competitor.

• Be prepared to explain how the term does not describe your personal code of self-defense and training philosophy.

• Be ready to explain that you based your force on the action/reaction format. “The attacker assaulted me [the act], and I responded in self-defense [the reaction]. I continued to defend myself until I had an opportunity to flee (or until I got the attacker under control).”

Save yourself a lot of money and grief by training to get away from the attacker after he has been stunned. Untangle yourself, scoot away from him, get up, and flee. If you have no other choice than to hit him further, do so only enough to give you an opportunity to flee. Or if the situation is such that you have to restrain him, use a pain technique that encourages his cooperation rather than one that causes serious bodily injury.

Take it from a guy who has seen many lives ruined by a burst of temper, an ego-satisfying need for payback, or a final cheap shot. Don’t do it.

Resist the desire and live a hassle-free life.

Loren Christensen is the author of two dozen Paladin books and videos, including Fighting Dirty, Fighting in the Clinch (with Mark Mireles), and The Brutal Art of Ripping, Poking, and Pressing Vital Targets. Loren was a military policeman in Saigon during the Vietnam War and retired from the Portland, Oregon, Police Department after more than two decades of service. He can be contacted through his website at www.lwcbooks.com.

Ignorance of the Law . . .

2012-01-19T06:19:00.007-07:00

by Claire Wolfe

. . . is no excuse.

So authoritarians like to say as they demand harsh punishment for every poor boob who runs afoul of any obscure diktat.

They're only partly correct. Historically, the phrase carried a more
humane implication: Ignorance of a law that everyone should know is no excuse. In other words, you can't murder your mama and claim you didn't know it was against the law. But you might fairly claim that you had no idea that failure to complete line 42B of Form 7630-X from the Federal Pencil Sharpening Board was a felony.

There was also a historic legal concept, mens rea, that protected harmless folks from being punished for crimes they might not have meant to commit. Mens rea means “a guilty mind." It is from a Latin phrase that translates as, “The act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty.”

In other words, in a just legal system, you can't innocently bumble your way into committing a crime when you have no intent to do any harm and aren't even behaving recklessly.

And that brings us to today’s legal system, where you can be guilty of
thousands of things without even knowing it. As attorney/author Harvey Silverglate notes, the average person probably commits three felonies a day.

Specifically that brings us to the lair of the Great Satan — at least where Second Amendment supporters are concerned — New York City.

In recent weeks there has been a spate of gun-owning innocents running afoul of NYC’s draconian antigun laws — in some cases not merely in spite of being proverbial “law-abiding citizens,” but because they thought they were abiding the law.

Take Tennessee tourist and med student Meredith Graves. She faces 3 1/2 years in prison and a $12,000 fine for being naive enough to seek a place to check her gun when visiting NYC’'s 9-11 memorial. Because she holds a concealed carry permit in her home state, she thought she was okay to carry in New York and that all she had to do was find a place to store her gun.

Next we meet Ryan Jerome, a young jeweler and ex-Marine and a concealed-carry permit holder in Indiana. He brought a gun on his first business trip to New York to protect the $15,000 worth of jewelry he carried. He
was honest and naive enough to ask a guard at the Empire State Building where he could check his sidearm. He may face 15 years in prison.

Frank VanKirk, another visiting businessman with a concealed-carry permit from Ohio, was foolish enough to leave firearms in plain sight in his hotel room. The maid ratted him out.

At the same time all of the above was going on, Mark Meckler, founder of Tea Party Patriots, tried to get a firearms declaration for the unloaded gun he had in his luggage at LaGuardia airport. He was actually obeying posted signs in the airport describing the procedure. Whoops. They hauled him off in handcuffs, too.

Now, it’s likely that none of these folks will end up paying the maximum penalty. Meckler has already gotten off by pleading guilty to the catch-all charge of “disorderly conduct.” They’ll never see their guns again, but with luck they’ll suffer no more than a few thousand in lawyers’ fees and a few months of dread and/or minor jail time.

But what were they thinking?

If you’d have asked me a month ago, I’d have sworn that every gun owner in the country knew that NYC was “Venezuela on the Hudson” when it came to draconian antigunnery. Is it really possible that four apparently educated gun owners didn’t know that? Meckler, who holds a carry permit from California (where such a thing is still darned difficult to get) and who is a political activist to boot, surely must have been aware of New York’s notorious gun laws.

My first response to this onslaught of news is, “What? Are they all freaking morons?”

My second is to guess what they might have been thinking. Maybe they imagined the licenses they got from their state governments were like driver’s licenses, good anywhere. Maybe they vaguely knew about the Heller and McDonald Supreme Court cases that said states and cities can't outright ban guns. Maybe they didn't realize cities still have the court’s blessing to make life miserable for anyone who wants to carry a gun.

My third thought is that, even though obviously none of them intended to become legal test cases, it would be interesting to see that happen.

Whatever. Fact remains that not one of the four intended any harm or did any (except to themselves). Fact remains that they broke laws that are common knowledge among gunfolk. Fact remains that they got into hellish trouble with Authoritah.

So . . . do these four solid citizens deserve whatever punishment or harassment New York City cares to dish out? Should Meredith Graves become a felon and have her career ruined? Should Ryan Jerome lose his freedom and his business? Does Frank VanKirk deserve to spend a few years in the slammer? Does Mark Meckler still qualify as the “law-abiding citizen” he so proudly claims to be?

Claire Wolfe is the author of the Paladin books The Bad Attitude Guide to Good Citizenship, Freedom Outlaw’s Handbook, and I Am Not a Number, and a contributor to The Paladin Book of Dangerously Fun Stuff and Tough Times Survival Guide, Vol. 2.

Meet the Paladin Staff: Brad

2012-01-18T08:58:00.006-07:00

By day, Brad spends his time sitting behind a computer as Marketing Director at Paladin. His second-floor office window overlooks the mountains, the view from which too often lures him from his work to daydream about what extreme sport he can attempt over the weekend for that adrenaline rush he craves.

Before leaving the office on Fridays, Paladin's publisher and owner, Peder Lund, usually asks Brad what his plans are for the weekend to gauge whether on Monday morning Brad will be walking into the office unaided, he’ll be sporting a sling or crutches, or a staffer will have to call around to see what hospital he’s in.

Brad’s current nonwork activities include downhill mountain biking (bombing down a ski resort run), riding motocross, snowboarding, wakeboarding, hiking, and shooting firearms. The items on Brad’s bucket list right now include skydiving and base jumping.  

The Most Dangerous Publisher in the World?

2012-01-17T11:43:00.008-07:00

Is Paladin Press owner Peder Lund the world’s most dangerous publisher or the world’s most sincere publisher? That’s the question author John H. Richardson tackles in this month’s Playboy in an article entitled “The World’s Most Dangerous Publisher.”

Richardson interviewed Peder during the shooting of the Ultimate Sniper III in John Plaster's hometown, Iron River, Wisconsin. In his quest to find out what makes Peder Lund tick, Richardson examines Peder’s combat experience in Vietnam as a Green Beret, his hookup with Soldier of Fortune’s Robert K. Brown, how the Hitman lawsuit changed Paladin, the Diane Feinstein rider that targeted Paladin’s “mayhem manuals,” the limitations of free speech in publishing, and the undeniable mystique of the warrior. Plus, in this article readers get a front-row view of three of the world’s most dangerous snipers in action: Rob Furlong, Jim Gilliland, and Steve Reichert.

So which is Peder, the most dangerous or most sincere publisher in the world? You’ll have to read the article and make up your own mind . . .

Philippine Police: New Year’s Eve with Muzzles Taped

2012-01-12T06:36:00.003-07:00

Referencing Paladin’s December 15 blog entry on the topic of hazardous “celebratory gunfire,” readers rest assured we’re not making this up: according to a story in the London Daily Mail, to prevent Filipino police from participating in the traditional and unsafe practice of celebratory gunfire on New Year’s Eve, they actually had to go on duty with the muzzles of their handguns, rifles, and patrol shotguns securely taped over with white surgical tape.

They even had a formal “sealing of firearms” ceremony at the police headquarters in Camp Frame in Quezon City near Manila, where the officers paraded with their weapons’ muzzles securely taped over, with the tape signed by a senior officer to ensure it could not be removed and reapplied later. National Police officials cited the traditional celebratory gunfire during New Year’s revelry, which injures or kills a number of Filipinos each year, as the rationale for this procedure.

Power and Strength Factors in Solo Training

2012-01-05T06:53:00.015-07:00

by Tony Torre

The average martial artist in a class setting typically trains two to three hours a week, and the bulk of this time is spent on partner drills or formal exercises (katas). What if I were to tell you if that if this is all you are doing, you are missing several very important aspects of training, most notably the various methods of solo training?

Solo training is often overlooked as a viable training option. To me, it’s one of the more important methods since it is always available. All you need to do is get to it. It is overlooked mainly because most people do not know how to properly train on their own.

What I’d like to do here is introduce you to a very important principle we teach in our school: the “power and strength factors.” Simply put, the power factor is expressed when the technique is executed perfectly, both technically and in timing. The strength factor is expressed when perfect technical execution doesn’t happen. Perhaps you mistimed it, or your opponent defeated your attack. Whatever happened, something is off. Most of the time you will either be too close or too far away. If you are too far, you can extend that distance, mentally and physically regroup, and start again. When you are too close is when you can best see the strength factor’s importance, when you have to “muscle” a technique.

The standard protocol for developing skill is very simply to drill repetitions of the given skill with enough volume and frequency to improve said skill. Yes, the skills should be done as technically precise as possible. The kink in the chain occurs during testing when you discover that often the skills will not play out as perfectly as planned.

Since I already discussed the importance of training with as much technical precision as possible, you already know you can’t drill the errors in order to learn how to “muscle” through them. This is where our physical conditioning and strength training come into their own. Technical skills training seeks to make your movements as efficient as possible. Strength training is designed to put you in mechanically disadvantaged positions you will have to force your way out of. Therein lies your answer.

Think about it. Simple pushups teach you how to “push out” a punch, which has been crowded. A reaching lunge teaches you how to recover when you’ve overreached throwing that punch.

In closing, let me also say that physical conditioning and strength training do much more than simply improve the strength factor. A stronger fighter can deliver techniques with more force, thus expressing the power factor more powerfully. A stronger fighter can move with less effort, thus also becoming faster. Finally a stronger fighter is healthier, and health is an attribute even when you’re not fighting.

Guro Tony Torre is featured in the new Paladin DVD, Filipino Dirty Boxing. In the video Torre blends the traditional with the modern to form a comprehensive fighting system designed to enhance any fighter’s training regimen. To see Tony in action, click on the following video links.

Straight-Up Dudes Don’t Shoot Straight Up

2011-12-15T11:49:00.008-07:00

With New Year’s Eve (and the resultant celebration that often entails) in just a few days, the following seems very timely. It was written by an anonymous Paladin author.

The lame-brained poet wrote:

“I shot an arrow into the air.
It fell to earth, I know not where.”

He should have that arrow, bow, and quiver stuck up his nose, for the apparent permission he gives the witless among us to launch projectiles into the air to “fall to earth, they know not where.” Like this is some sort of romantic mystery as opposed to a grindingly stupid act.

Although it goes without saying that “what goes up, must come down” and “every bullet launched moves until something stops it,” we’ll say it anyway because every now and then you meet some knuckle-dragger whose Daddy didn’t teach him proper firearms handling like Thomas Jefferson recommended. And we’re not talking about the possibility of hitting a camel here; we’re talking about the US of A, a “nation of riflemen,” where everybody old enough to shoot should know better.

One astute writer noted, “Dumb asses shooting into the sky to celebrate . . . isn't something that only happens in the Middle East . . .” He’s right, you know. He also concluded, “Remember the old days when we just tolerated drunk drivers? Even though we all had a relative who had been killed by one? This is the same damn thing.”

Hard to argue with that, as well. And since friends don’t let friends drive drunk, they shouldn’t let pea-brains shoot into the air, either. Whether the person is holding the gun or not, say something. OK, he’s holding a gun, so be polite, but say something.

In a vacuum, a bullet launched straight up, would return at the same speed, accelerating downward from its apogee at the rate of 32 feet per second. But bullets fired into the air usually fall back at speeds much lower than those at which they leave the barrel, because of wind resistance, which is usually compounded by the tumbling of the projectile once its spin-stabilization gives out.

Firearms expert Julian Hatcher studied falling bullets and found that GI .30-06 bullets reach terminal velocities of 300 feet per second (90 m/s), while larger .50 BMG bullets have a terminal velocity of 500 feet per second (150 m/s) on the way back down. A bullet traveling at only 150 feet per second (46 m/s) to 170 feet per second (52 m/s) can penetrate human skin, and at 200 feet per second (60 m/s) it can penetrate the skull.

Despite these unimpressive velocities, countless people are injured, often fatally, when bullets fired into the air return to earth. The mortality rate among those struck by falling bullets is about 32 percent, compared with about 2 to 6 percent normally associated with gunshot wounds. Despite the lower velocities, the higher mortality is related to the higher incidence of head wounds from falling bullets. Except for the pea-brain who shot into the air: he’d be more likely to be hit in the butt, as that is where his head is.

A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 80 percent of celebratory gunfire-related injuries are to the head, feet, and shoulders. In the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, a couple of people die and a couple dozen more are injured every year from celebratory gunfire on New Year's Eve, according to the CDC.

Between 1985 and 1992, the King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles treated some 118 people for falling-bullet injuries: 38 of them died. Kuwaitis celebrating the 1991 end of the Gulf War by firing weapons into the air caused 20 deaths from falling bullets. In July 2003, more than 20 people were reported killed in Iraq from celebratory gunfire following the deaths of Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay. In July 2007 at least four people were reported killed and 17 others wounded by celebratory gunfire in Baghdad, after the victory of the national soccer team in the AFC Asian Cup. (Sigh)

If you could fire exactly straight up — odds are good that you can’t — this would probably result in a more slowly falling projectile, as it would be more inclined to tumble, whereas one fired even in a steep arc would more likely have retained its spin stabilization, point-first orientation, and lessened air resistance. In World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam, “unpropelled” missiles of the Lazy Dog type, aerodynamically shaped and heavier than most small-arms projectiles, were dumped from aircraft, their aerodynamic shape helping them gain far greater terminal velocity. In World War I, they were dumped from dirigibles and slow-flying craft and relied on gravity, but when dumped from fast-movers they start with the speed of the aircraft and accelerate at 32 fps/sec in relation to the ground. Some World War I reports were that these could penetrate an enemy’s helmet and completely through his body, but this seems optimistic. And that arrow? It probably would have greater lethal effect than many projectiles, again because of its aerodynamic properties.

Check the Bob Tuley and Wikipedia links on celebratory firing for further info and tabulations. For the best titles on safe and effective firearms handling, check out the Combat Shooting section on the Paladin website.

Switched On or Switched Off?

2011-12-15T10:09:00.007-07:00

by Dave Spaulding

The phrase situational awareness is thrown about frequently these days. So much so that I am concerned it may be losing its importance.

Situational awareness is a heightened state of mind directly related to a particular circumstance one may face or be facing. It’s not general alertness, which we should all possess; it’s caused by something that is happening in your presence or general area, some type of unfolding situation or circumstance that has caught your attention. You may have heard it referred to as “the hair on the back or your neck standing up” or a “gut feeling” or maybe even “women’s intuition.” It doesn’t matter what it is called, it’s that internal sense that something is not right and a greater level of attention should be directed toward it. If we do not pay such circumstances due notice, we run the risk of being caught off-guard, to be surprised.

In 1732 Thomas Fuller observed, “A man surprised is half beaten.” In 1943, German ace Erich Hartmann (read Paladin’s The Deadliest Men by Paul Kirchner for more information) said, “The pilot who sees the other first has half the battle,” which coming from a man who flew 1,000 combat missions downing 352 pilots should be heeded.

How do we remain alert as we go through our daily routine? Such awareness models as Jeff Cooper’s Color Codes andr John Boyd’s OODA Loop are excellent for explaining what awareness is and how it should be achieved but are a bit lengthy to act as a daily reminder. What I have used to remind me of the state of mind I want to be in is the simple light switch. I just ask myself, “Are you switched on or switched off?”

When the lights are switched off, light levels are reduced to mere shadows if not complete darkness. In such an environment it is difficult to make informed decisions, as our primary sense, sight, is greatly restricted. You can still hear and smell, but without the ability to see these other senses can be disconcerting. However, when the lights are switched on, it is light and bright with the ability to see in all directions making it much easier

From this moment on whenever you venture out from the security of your own home ask yourself, “Am I switched off or switched on”? Stay alert . . . stay alive.

Dave Spaulding is a retired lieutenant from the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Dayton, Ohio, where he worked in all facets of law enforcement, including SWAT, training, crime-scene investigation, undercover operations, and violent crime investigations. He is a graduate of most of the better-known shooting schools and the author of more than 1,000 articles in firearm and law enforcement publications. He is the author of the two best-selling books Defensive Living and Handgun Combatives, and has been featured in Ruger’s Tactical Tips at www.ruger.com.

End the Double Standard!

2011-12-15T06:08:00.014-07:00

by Claire Wolfe

Picture yourself in the following situations. Then imagine the consequences:

1. You have a dog that’s specially trained to chase and attack anybody
who runs. You’re walking the dog off-leash in an area where children are playing. Predictably, a little boy runs; your dog goes after him and knocks him to the ground. Worse yet — a police officer witnesses the attack.

What happens to you and your dog?

2. You have been caught red-handed lying to federal officials about
criminal activity.

How long is your prison sentence?

3. You are a prominent and wealthy author doing a book signing in a mall. Your bodyguards overhear a man saying he is going to ask you a thorny question. When the man actually does ask his question — and perhaps touches you in some way — your bodyguards confront him and drag him off.

How much trouble are you in?

4. You make a fortune on insider trading on the stock market, which everyone knows is illegal. Your deeds become national news.

What’s your punishment?

5. You throw an explosive device into a home. It goes off as it’s designed to, permanently disfiguring an innocent woman.

What consequences do you pay?

Here are the answers:

1. No, the police officer does not shoot your attack dog. Nor does he arrest you or cite you for keeping a dangerous animal. Far from it. The police department calls it an “unfortunate accident” and praises the dog effusively. Because in this case the dog and its irresponsible dog walker are members of the department.

2. Nothing happens to you for lying to federal officials, of course. Not if you’re the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, Eric Holder. Never mind that lesser folk routinely get hit with federal charges for doing much less.

3. And if you’re a book-signing author who also happens to be Dick Cheney, and your bodyguards are Secret Service agents, nothing happens to them or you — although the man whose First Amendment rights you violated does eventually takes his case to the Supreme Court.

4. And if you’re a member of Congress who trades stocks using the secret inside information you routinely get as part of your job, the only consequence is that you get even richer than you already were. Because what’s illegal for us peasants is perfectly okay for you.

5. Finally, you can throw all the explosive devices you like if you claim to be fighting the war on drugs even if there are no drugs or criminals in the home you’re invading. The taxpayers eventually get the tab for your irresponsibility.

These are all examples in which members of the government class get a free pass under circumstances where you or I would be in serious trouble. Grotesqueries like these can be found in the news every day.

Three of my examples involve politicians. Nobody feels much sympathy for them (especially for Holder, whose latest lies are designed to cover up some serious anti-gun machinations. Nevertheless, members of the political class are increasingly an elite to whom none of the rules apply.

Two examples involve the police, and I know a lot of people assume that police officers should get a free pass. But when police bear no consequences for harming the innocent, they get sloppier in their investigations, more brutal in their tactics, and more heavy-handed in their dealings with the public. The result is increasing violence against the innocent.

The bottom line is that our “public servants” are becoming increasingly arrogant and terrifying masters. Despite the occasional Supreme Court case or million dollar tax-paid settlement, the worst offenders aren’t paying any personal consequences.

As long as they get away with it, our lives are only going to get worse.

Claire Wolfe is the author of the Paladin books The Bad Attitude Guide to Good Citizenship, Freedom Outlaw’s Handbook, and I Am Not a Number, and a contributor to The Paladin Book of Dangerously Fun Stuff and Tough Times Survival Guide, Vol. 2.

“Let Slip the Dogs of War”

2011-12-08T08:19:00.010-07:00

Yesterday, Paladin Planet featured an article commemorating the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Today, we'd like to share another World War II story that will surprise most people. It comes to us courtesy of a Paladin author who prefers to remain anonymous on the Internet, a sentiment we understand completely.

William Shakespeare was more a student of the human condition than historian, although he commonly used historical characters and contexts. When Mark Anthony stands over the corpse of Julius Caesar and vengefully calls to “Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war,” the allegorical plea was to remove all restraints from any troops who would avenge Caesar’s death. We have never found a reference to dogs used in war as massed combatants per se.

That oversight would change [not] early in World War II war when a wildly eccentric but well-spoken Swiss immigrant by the name of William Prestre of Santa Fe, New Mexixo, found sympathetic ears in the U.S. War Department.

During World War II, Cat Island, Mississippi, became home for the Cat Island War Dog Reception and Training Center, another site where donated family dogs were trained for military use. There is probably some sort of natural law that states, if you’re going to spend millions of desperate war bucks on a war-dog program as messed up as we describe here, you’ll do it at a place called Cat Island, named by exploring Spaniards, who found it crawling with raccoons, which they thought were cats.

In meetings with Army brass in June 1942, Prestre convinced them he could produce up to 30,000 dogs to form assault brigades to take Japanese-held jungle islands, by training dogs to selectively kill Japanese on sight, without handlers.

His scheme was to have greyhounds [of course] blitzkrieg across the beaches and go for machine gun crews. Hot on their tails [heh, heh] would be packs of Great Dane and wolfhound grunts who would then mop up the Japanese troops. The army hoped to train as many as two million dogs. Even without a Power-Point presentation, the brass could envision landing craft releasing thousands of dogs against the Japanese. When the defenders scattered in confusion, amphibious troops would land undeterred and stack the bodies. The problem became, where do we find Japanese troops for training bait? Very few Japanese soldiers were being captured.

In October 1942, a group of 25 soldiers from Company B of the 100th Infantry Battalion Separate, Nisei Hawaiian National Guardsmen, were selected at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, and moved to Ship Island, Mississippi.

The training pretty much consisted of putting on a protective suit and abusing the animals in an attempt to get them to hate “Japanese.” Smarter than many people of the day, the dogs never saw any racial difference between troops of Japanese ancestry and anybody else.

In subsequent investigations, testimony by one Army dog handler noted that Prestre "did not know dogs or how to handle them." For instance, Prestre specified French horns to urge the dogs to assault the beaches, but these only served to confuse them—and most dogs that did make the beach were terrified by shellfire and became totally uncontrollable.

On February 2, 1943, after two disappointing exhibitions in front of the brass and millions of much-needed dollars misspent, Prestre was sent packing and his involvement in the war effort ended, but it was not an amicable divorce.

In the aftermath, one observation of the intelligence investigation into “where did we go wrong?” noted, “Prior to his departure Mr. Prestre made several threats, the gist of which were that unless the project is continued, he would make plenty of trouble for any and all who opposed him, up to and including the president . . . it is believed advisable to acquaint the FBI with his actions and attitude, and request that he be placed under surveillance if deemed necessary.”

We love the First Amendment, but mouthing veiled threats against the president in wartime really pushes the envelope.

Fatal Flaws of Attack on Pearl Harbor

2011-12-07T07:20:00.004-07:00

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. We’d like to mark this solemn anniversary by thanking all the veterans who served both in the Pacific and European theaters during World War II and by examining the fatal flaws in the attack by Japan.

In 1940, nationalistic and militaristic pride and the successful conquest of China were driving Japan inexorably toward war with the United States, and the paper conquest of Southeast Asia through a treaty with the Vichy French gave Japan control of vast new territory that resulted in the U.S. embargo of strategic materials and seizure of Japanese assets. At this point war seemed inevitable, although many Japanese military leaders were concerned about the long-range implications of a protracted war with such an industrial powerhouse. As the storm clouds darkened, Admiral Isoruko Yamamoto expressed doubt, apprehension, even disgust over Japan’s headlong push toward conflict and observed that it would be a terrible mistake to “wake a sleeping giant.”

But a loyal commander, Yamamoto dutifully began plans to attack the American fleet, based at Pearl Harbor. Approval of the operation was given on 6 September 1941, and December 7 became “the day that will live in infamy.” Although Yamamoto viewed any attack on the United States as a strategic mistake, and hinged any hope of success on smashing our Pacific Fleet and demoralizing Washington, there were great tactical mistakes built into the attack on Pearl as well.

The attack on Pearl Harbor is often held as one of the most successful preemptive strikes in history. A candid analysis of what the attack was intended to accomplish—and how fatal tactical flaws within the attack plan made the attack fail in the initial goal and ultimately led Japan into a war it could not possibly win in the long term—belies that characterization. That the Japanese indeed caught the giant asleep is undisputable, but, alas, they wasted their only shot at crippling the sleeping giant.

The fatal flaws in the attack on Pearl? Who better to state them than Admiral Chester Nimitz, whom President Roosevelt called from a concert the night of the attack to give him command of the Pacific Fleet.

In his small volume Reflections on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Nimitz recalled arriving at Pearl to assume command on Christmas Day, 1941. After a boat tour through the wreckage of sunken battleships and naval vessels that was once our Pacific Fleet, the helmsman asked the admiral’s reaction.

Nimitz was never known as loquacious, but he was candid: “The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America.”   

The fatal flaws in the attack?

“[T]he Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk—we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.
“[W]hen the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.
  “[E]every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top-of-the-ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That’s why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or God was taking care of America.”

A third-wave Japanese attack had been contemplated to address such matters as the fuel depot, but low on fuel himself and fearful of the American carriers missed at sea, Admiral Nagumo aboard the flagship Akagi took the Japanese task force back to Japan. And now it was too late: they had awakened the Sleeping Giant, and the decision to disengage dramatically lessened the long-term effect of the attack.

Who Is Paladin Press?

2011-12-06T06:46:00.012-07:00

For the next several weeks, Paladin Planet will be running a series featuring short profiles of various Paladin employees. The profiles are intended to put a face on the various people involved in the acquisition, production, marketing, sales, and distribution of Paladin books and videos. Once an employee is profiled here, we'll move their information to our Facebook page. The first in the series is owner and publisher Peder Lund.

Lately, Peder’s been popping up in some unusual places. The January issue of Playboy magazine (due to hit the newsstands mid- to late December) has an article about him, and he will soon appear in Soldier of Fortune magazine in an interview conducted by publisher Robert K. Brown. Some of you may be wondering just who this guy is.

Peder Lund started Paladin Press in 1970 with Robert K. Brown, now publisher of SOF magazine. Peder fought in the Vietnam War with Special Forces, and he is especially proud that Paladin was one of the first publishers in the country to offer books about the Vietnam War, written by Vietnam veterans themselves. He remains a staunch supporter of the First and Second Amendments and the idea of personal responsibility and accountability, and he insists that Paladin titles reflect these sensibilities. He feels very privileged to have known many supremely talented, fascinating, and exceptional authors, employees, and customers over the past 40 years.

Peder enjoys traveling the world with his wife, Sheila; sails in exotic locales; is an avid wingshooter; reads voraciously; follows the University of Colorado football team, the Denver Broncos, and the Colorado Rockies; entertains frequently, as he takes great pleasure in cooking; and remains ever hopeful that the Paladin garden will one year yield a bountiful harvest of heirloom tomatoes.

Homesteading and Sustainability Blogs

2011-12-01T06:10:00.004-07:00

The school of hard knocks is a good teacher. But the fast-tracks to learning are studying what has been done before that worked, and associating with those who know because they are in the arena, trying new ideas. Blogs make virtual association easy as pie, and you don’t even have to be polite while you winnow the wheat from the chaff. There are enough whiny, unproductive “greenie weenie” sites, and some so daft we wonder whose Useful Idiots they really are. We’ve gleaned some we think may be of interest to folks who are less likely to hug a tree and more inclined toward planting a tree . . . or several.

The sites below offer good ideas galore to winnow for those interested in personal and natural sustainability and homesteading. Check these out. They can be as much fun as swapping ideas down at the Grange hall:

http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/JackieClay/

http://www.backwoodshome.com/forum/vb/

http://a-homesteading-neophyte.blogspot.com/

http://achornfarm.blogspot.com/

http://antiquityoaks.blogspot.com/

http://www.appalachianfeet.com

http://applegarthgardens.blogspot.com/

http://www.backtobasicliving.com/blog

http://blessednationranch.blogspot.com

http://blessing-farm.blogspot.com/

http://chickenista.blogspot.com

http://circletheworld.blogspot.com

http://www.clotheslinemusings.blogspot.com

http://www.cookingtf.com

http://craftycountrymomma.blogspot.com

http://experimentalhomesteader.com

http://farmerron.blogspot.com/

http://farmingonfaith.blogspot.com/

http://fastgrowtheweeds.com/

http://forbetterorworsted.blogspot.com/

http://fredandautumngoinggreen.blogspot.com/

http://www.frugal-families.com/blog/

http://frugalhomesteads.blogspot.com/

http://www.gardenatrix.com

http://www.goatsinthegarden.blogspot.com

http://goddesshobbies.blogspot.com/

http://goingtothecountry.com/

http://gramaryehomestead.blogspot.com/

http://www.grannysu.blogspot.com

http://grninnovations.blogspot.com/

http://heartrockgarden.blogspot.com/

http://www.heritageacreshomestead.blogspot.com

http://hexemausfarms.com

http://www.homestead-acres.com

http://www.homesteadblogger.com/motherofblessings

http://homesteadlightcondensed.blogspot.com/

http://www.homesteadmomma2.blogspot.com

http://homesteadnotes.blogspot.com

http://www.homesteadquilter.com

http://homesteadrevival.blogspot.com/

http://www.hooverfarmsthehooverfamily.blogspot.com

http://inhabitat.com/

http://insearchofgoodfood.blogspot.com/

http://www.lintrezza.blogspot.com/

http://www.jensfunnyfarm.blogspot.com

http://journey-of-eleni.blogspot.com/

http://www.katlupesblog.blogspot.com/

http://www.livingasimplelife.com/

http://maggiesfarmicelandics.blogspot.com/

http://matronofhusbandry.wordpress.com/

http://www.networkedblogs.com/blog/frugal_homesteads_not_just_for_hippies_anymore

http://newlifeonahomestead.com/

http://www.noordinaryhomestead.com/

http://notdabblinginnormal.wordpress.com

http://www.pioneerliving.net/apps/blog/

http://playritefarm.blogspot.com

http://prairieroots.org/

http://www.prudentpantry.org/

http://quinceurbanhomestead.blogspot.com/

http://www.reformedfarmerswife.christianagrarian.c...

http://senesacfamilyhomestead.blogspot.com/

http://serenityacresnow.com

http://www.showmecaroline.blogspot.com/

http://www.snowboundfarms.blogspot.com

http://www.stliving.com
http://suchtreasures.com

http://www.survivalistblog.net

http://teambettendorf.com/

http://thecardamomspod.com/

http://www.thecolestead.blogspot.com

http://thefieldlab.blogspot.com/

http://www.thegreengrok.com

http://the-mama-crow.blogspot.com/

http://www.themodernhomestead.com/Blog

http://thenonconsumeradvocate.com/

http://tinyfarmblog.com/

http://u-latch.blogspot.com/

http://www.wagsranch.com/index.html

http://www.waldeneffect.org/

http://walnutspinney.blogspot.com/

http://WildMoonCottage.blogspot.com

Dave Spaulding’s New Website

2011-11-29T07:44:00.011-07:00

Dave Spaulding, a regular contributor to the Paladin Planet and soon-to-be Paladin video author, has launched his own website (www.handguncombatives.com) offering his acclaimed Handgun Combatives Training Program to the public.

As many of you in law enforcement and combat shooting circles know, Dave was awarded the 2010 Law Officer Trainer of the Year at the International Law Enforcement Trainer and Educators Association’s Conference in Chicago.

Dave has 36 years of law enforcement and federal security experience. A founding member of his agency’s SWAT team, he served as its training officer for 12 years. He spent five years as a full-time use-of-force instructor and another five as the commander of a multi-jurisdictional drug task force, working major narcotics cases from Seattle to Miami. During his years in SWAT and the drug task force, he performed hundreds of high-risk, forced entries. After working all aspects of law enforcement—including corrections, communications, patrol, homicide detective, burglary investigations, evidence collection, and a long-term, high-risk, deep-undercover operation—Dave honorably retired at the rank of lieutenant.

To learn more about Dave and his Handgun Combatives Training Program, visit www.handguncombatives.com, or follow him on his new blog (The Combative Mind) or on Facebook.

Police Work, Fatigue, and Personal Security

2011-11-22T10:23:00.007-07:00

Here’s something you don’t see often in discussions on personal security—the impact of sleep deprivation on the ability to make sound judgment calls during a dangerous encounter. But that’s exactly what Paladin author and Washington State University criminal justice professor Bryan Vila is studying. As a U.S. Marine veteran of Vietnam, street cop with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and police chief in the Pacific Ocean region of Micronesia (recounted in his acclaimed Paladin book, Micronesian Blues), he knows the subject first hand.

Vila is the founder/director of WSU’s Simulated Hazardous Operational Tasks (SHOT) laboratory, a cutting-edge facility that puts both sleep-deprived and rested police officers into simulations of actual high-stress police calls—“hidden hands” motor vehicle stops; highly charged domestic disputes; etc.—and monitors their actions and reactions down to the second as the intensity mounts and snap decisions have to be made. The informative results are helping to drive policy changes that can only make make officers and citizens safer in the future.

Have a look at this profile of Vila’s work in this important field. It’s easy to see its relevance for cops and combat soldiers, but his findings apply to all of us who might one day find ourselves in harm’s way. See for yourself why sleep is so important to your overall mental and physical conditioning and what happens when you don’t get enough.

Good Gun News for a Change

2011-11-21T09:42:00.008-07:00

by Claire Wolfe

 Those of us who’ve been around the gun-rights movement for a while tend to think in terms of bad news. We remember how the Brady bill could have been defeated in the Senate — but was resurrected and passed in a late-night collusion between a handful of powerful R and Ds. We remember the glee of the anti-gunners when they imposed the so-called “assault weapons” ban.  

During the height of the efforts to win back some of our gun rights, I worked for seven years with Aaron Zelman of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. I admired Aaron hugely and am glad to see his work going on even after his death. But if you want to develop a real paranoia about government intentions and guns, spend seven years steeped in the knowledge that “gun control” is a setup for genocide.  

So I have to admit that, even when things began to turn around, I was still suspicious. When one anti-gun politician after another went down to defeat, I was inclined to say, “Well, you still can’t trust the rest.”

  Heller and McDonald? Okaaaay. Those were pretty amazing, really. But look at all those loopholes the Supremes left!  

The quiet little movement for shall-issue concealed carry permits left me unmoved even as state after state — after state! — liberalized its carry laws. I am not a permit person. I would no more ask government permission to carry a gun than I would ask government permission to exercise free speech or practice religion. So me? I saw all that legalism as a backdoor way for governments to know and control who the gunfolk are. (And there are plenty of horror stories about cops and concealed-carry permits.)

  I didn’t really start believing things had turned around until a few states did something I would have said was impossible.  

For years, we hardcore gun-rights types had genuflected to the one state in the union that simply kept its nose out of the business of those who wanted to bear arms. “Vermont carry,” we called it. Yes, little quirky, odd-ball Vermont had no permits. In Vermont you could carry a gun openly or in your pocket or under your armpit or inside your boot — or wherever you wanted to carry it — and the state government would mind its own business.

  But we would cast our eyes toward Vermont and sigh longingly. Surely in this day of more and more government control over our lives, no state would ever go that way again.

  And then Alaska did. And Arizona. And Wyoming.

  Granted, we’re still far from the day when California or New York does such a thing (can you even imagine?). But it’s still pretty amazing.  

And now that even I am willing to admit that the heroic activists of our side have done an amazing job of declaring and spreading our rights, the good news seems to come from everywhere. Sometimes it’s a small thing, sometimes big. But we are freaking winning.  

For instance, here’s what I’ve collected from the news just within the last two weeks and without really trying:

A sheriff urges citizens to arm themselves.  
A Gallup poll shows public support for “gun control” is lower than ever.  
In Washington (the other Washington), the state court of appeals says that Seattle’s ban on guns in parks is illegal.  
And on November 1 a new law went into effect making Wisconsin the 41st “right-to-carry” state.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a national right-to-carry bill. If it becomes law, people with a permit from one state would automatically be allowed to carry in any other state where concealed carry is legal.
Not to mention that the Obama administration, and particularly Attorney General Eric Holder, is still being made to squirm like caught caterpillars over its sneaky attempts to justify more anti-gun legislation.

It’s a lovely sight to see.

  Can we ever say we’ve won the battle for our rights? Probably not. Even now, terrified hoplophobes are still predicting blood in the streets, believing that every encounter with an armed person is one wrong move from turning into the gunfight at the OK Corral. We’ll always have to keep a vigilant eye on the collection of control freaks and pants-wetting cowards who want us disarmed.  

But in the gun-rights fight, its glorious to be winning for a change.   

Claire Wolfe is the author of the Paladin books The Bad Attitude Guide to Good Citizenship, Freedom Outlaw’s Handbook, and I Am Not a Number, and a contributor to The Paladin Book of Dangerously Fun Stuff and Tough Times Survival Guide, Vol. 2.

Shooting Through Windshields

2011-11-17T06:15:00.006-07:00

by Paul Kirchner

I recently took a course developed by Craig “Southnarc” Douglas, Vehicle Combatives and Shooting Tactics (VCAST), in which we shot from in and around several working junkers that were purchased for the purpose. On the last day of the class, we fired through the glass of the windshield and side windows at targets. In doing so, I learned that some of my preconceptions were incorrect.

The sharp slope of the windshield would have suggested to me that a bullet fired from the inside would be deflected downward. In fact, the opposite is the case—it is deflected markedly upward. When you fire at a target ten feet in front of the car, the point of impact (POI) may be a foot and a half above the point of aim (POA)—potentially a complete miss. This deflection is more extreme with ball ammunition than semi-wadcutters or hollowpoints, and more extreme with lighter bullets than heavier ones. The same dynamic applies when someone outside the car fires into it through the windshield—the bullet veers down, rather than up, making it more likely that the car’s occupant will be hit.

Southnarc advises firing with your muzzle as close as possible to the windshield without touching it, and trying to fire subsequent shots through the hole opened by the first.

The laminated glass of the windshield stayed together despite numerous shots fired through it, though the spiderwebbing greatly reduced visibility.

We also shot through the side windows of the cars. At the shot, the safety glass disintegrated instantly with most of the fragments collapsing inside the vehicle. For this reason, it is advisable to set yourself back in the seat before firing. (Good eye and ear protection is a must, of course.)

Paul Kirchner is the author of Bowie Knife Fights, Fighters, and Fighting Techniques; The Deadliest Men; More of the Deadliest Men Who Ever Lived; Jim Cirillo’s Tales of the Stakeout Squad; and Dueling with the Sword and Pistol. He also contributed to The Paladin Book of Dangerously Fun Stuff and did the illustrations for the revised edition of Jeff Cooper’s Principles of Personal Defense.

Catching Up with R.P. Newman

2011-11-15T08:59:00.006-07:00

R.P. Newman is the author of the recently released Guerrillas in the Mist: Expanded & Updated Edition. He is a retired U.S. Marine, who is currently working in counterinsurgency in his fifth war zone (one conventional; four asymmetric) as a private military contractor. He has taken time out of his busy schedule to talk about his new book and the current challenges facing America in a world reeling from conflict and change.    

Paladin Press: Since the release of Guerrillas in the Mist earlier this year, time and time again the headlines in the news have sent me back to your book to reread some of your prognostications or somewhat controversial descriptions of what’s really going on in various countries around the world I hadn’t read elsewhere. I have been amazed at how many times you were right. To name just a few: the nexus between Somalia and Minneapolis, how the predictions of democracy sweeping the Mideast as a result of the “Arab spring” were premature at best and more likely wishful thinking, how American negotiations with Pakistan would result in more American casualties in Afghanistan, how successful Iran’s weapons-smuggling operations into Iraq really are. Did it surprise you how quickly some of these were corroborated?   

R.P. Newman: No. I’ve been very successful in predicting intelligence realms for many years and, frankly, I would have been disappointed had these warnings, predictions, and assessments not been accurate. I do feel bad when I issue extremely explicit warnings about imminent attacks and the organization that owns the target does not react appropriately, which on more than one occasion has resulted in a successful attack, in some cases with total target destruction and great loss of life.    

PP: Can you discuss a few of these and tell us which ones you think are the most significant?

  RPN: The so-called “Arab Spring,” which so many self-described authorities or experts claim is the best thing since the Colt Model 1911, and how the Pakistani government is directly involved in so many acts of terror, come to mind straightaway, as does the Mexican narco-terrorist insurgency and how it is going to continue to ramp up in dramatic fashion. All three of those will have dire consequences for America unless the American people turn off Dancing with the Stars, wake up, and smell the carnage.     

PP: I know you have spent a lot of time working in Iraq among other places, like Pakistan and Africa. How will the U.S. withdrawal of all military troops from Iraq affect security contractors there?   

RPN: With Iran right next door and the Obama administration now admitting how serious a situation that represents, security will be an ongoing issue in Iraq, and most Iraqis understand that. The Iraqis suffered horribly under Saddam, as they have at the hands of Iran’s terrorist government on various levels. Iraqis deserve their hard-won freedom, and security contractors are just one part of the equation. Iraqi soldiers and police are attacked daily; many are my friends. They have true grit.  

 PP: Is this the right move? Is Iraq stable enough to withstand aggression from Iran? Given your firsthand knowledge of the situation in Iraq, what are your predictions for the future of that nation? What about Afghanistan?   

RPN: No, President Obama made the wrong move, and he knows it, which is why he tried to keep U.S. forces in Iraq past 31 December 2011. The world needs to assist Iraq against the Iranian threat, not just America, but most nations have no interest in lending a hand to the Iraqis. Iraq’s future is up in the air right now because of this lack of support from other nations. I have many friends there, Iraqi friends, who understand all this. Insofar as Afghanistan goes, America has told the enemy when we will retreat from there, too, and Pakistan and Iran will both step in to fill that void. Only a fool tells his enemy when he will quit the field.  

 PP: On page 300 of the book, you discussed Iran’s advanced weapons smuggling ops into Iraq, which was later confirmed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in a CNN article. You must be pleased to have this confirmed by such a reliable source?   

RPN: It is always nice to have one’s assessments confirmed by an unimpeachable source like the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He owes me now. Again.    

PP: A large part of Guerrillas in the Mist concerned the Mexican narco-insurgency on the southern border of the United States. I’ve read a number of incidents since then of more attacks in Mexico, and not just in the border towns, where we’ve come to expect such violence. In fact, just a few days ago there was a shoot-out between federales and cartels in Cabo San Lucas, one of the most popular destinations in Mexico for American tourists. Did this shock you? What does this foretell for Mexico and the United States? 

 RPN: Sadly, it did not shock me. I’ve been warning of that for at least three years now, although some people who present themselves as experts on TV stated this would never happen. Funny how they have all gone silent now. Mexico will continue its descent into the abyss. For the United States, this means more crime driven by the narco-terrorist cartels. Count on it. And some of these crimes will be stunning.  

 PP: One of the revelations in Guerrillas, at least for me, was that the Mexican cartels were operating in Honduras and a spike in crime could be expected there. We saw that come true in early November in a BBC story about drug violence in Central America. Is the narco-terrorism spreading to other Latin American countries? What should the role of the United States be to halt this in our hemisphere?   

RPN: Mexico might take Honduras and Guatemala with it, which could be followed by Nicaragua and maybe even Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, and El Salvador. However, there are things being done in some of those countries to try to counter this trend. Time will tell. I am especially concerned for Costa Rica, which has no military. If Costa Rica does not get some very intelligent and capable counterinsurgency and counterterrorism contractors down there soon, well . . . The United States’ role should be one of aggressive and dynamic leadership, but that is not going to happen under the current administration. Sad.    

PP: What’s happened since the publication of Guerrillas that you wish you could have fit into it?   

RPN: Timing of events in Egypt and Libya meant I could not fully explore what they mean. I warned many, many people about the unintended—but fully predictable—consequences of supporting those revolutions; that what followed Mubarak and Ghadafi could, and likely would, be worse. I warned that a military junta in Egypt would never tolerate a new constitution that could control them, and I warned of the deadly spread of weapons from Libya to other countries and regions and the terrorists therein. I warned of the rise of Islamic terrorism again in Libya and Egypt. All this has come to pass and will continue to grow.

   PP: What do you see playing out in Libya now that Ghadafi is dead?     

RPN: An unelected junta now controls Libya rather than a single dictator. The self-appointed government there has direct terrorist links and there’s even a bona fide terrorist on the Council. Grad rockets from Libya have just shown up in Gaza and there are between 10,000 and 20,000 shoulder-fired SAMs missing. The tribes and factions are now warring against each other, as I warned. We’ll be paying the price for our stupidity and negligence in Libya for decades to come.     

PP: What actions should we be looking for on the horizon? Any more predictions you want to share? We can follow up again in a few months to see what your batting average is on these.
   

RPN: Watch for more lone wolf and other terrorists in the United States, Yemen, and Pakistan to get worse, as well as Libya and Egypt, Mexico and Central America to get even uglier, and actions against Iran unless an internal change there is brought about. In Nigeria, Boko Haram will become more deadly. In Somalia, piracy and terrorism will press on, and no one will do anything effective about it.

The Groin: Hit It More Than Once

2011-11-10T07:27:00.003-07:00

by Loren W. Christensen

TV programs to which people send their home videos seem to have an abundance of clips showing males getting nailed in the cookies by croquet mallets, golf balls, running dogs, and a thousand other things, and it never fails to get a big laugh from the studio audience when the recipient crumples to the ground.

A groin kick is often the bread-and-butter technique in women’s self-defense classes. Frighteningly (at least from the male standpoint), female students seem to take to this technique with exuberant zeal. I’ve even seen women wear buttons that read: “Did I mention the kick in the groin you'll get if you touch me?”

But is a groin kick really the equivalent to Spock’s Vulcan nerve pinch? In a word: no. My educated guess is that there are thousands of home videos that depict people getting zapped between the legs in which they didn’t react at all. Of course, those clips aren’t sent to the studios because there would be no point. So they air only those that show a reaction from the victim.

War stories about kicks to the groin that ended a fight or made a would-be attacker hobble off tell of those times when the kick worked. Few people tell stories about how their groin kicks failed to garner a reaction.

Cookie-kicked people frequently drop to their knees in training, but that doesn’t happen as often in the street. That’s because there is an entirely different psychological and physical dynamic working in a real situation. The attacker is usually excited, angry, giddy, exhilarated, depressed, racially motivated, revenge hungry, so on. These are powerful “drugs” that can alter how he reacts to pain—which includes not reacting at all.

As a cop, I saw people not react to being shot multiple times, stabbed, beaten with a hammer, run over by a vehicle, and a host of other travesties that people do to each other. When a man continues to fight after his ear has been severed, when a man continues to fight when a bullet has shattered his spine, and when a woman continues to fight after she’s been shot five times in the skull — yes, five times — the effects of a kick to the groin can pale in comparison.

Sometimes a groin attack works, but not immediately. Two weeks before I retired from the Portland Police Department, I arrested a man in the precinct lobby. He was a big, weight-trained man who wasn’t about to go without a fight. For five minutes, we thrashed about the lobby bouncing off counters, falling over benches, and crashing into walls. At one point, I applied a wristlock on the man so hard that he yelped and leaped into the air, unintentionally kneeing me in the groin on his way up. I knew I had been hit hard, but I didn’t feel it that much. I eventually got him handcuffed and lodged into a holding room.

It wasn’t until I shut the heavy door, locked it, and leaned against a table to catch my breath that the pain and nausea hit me full force. The knee to the groin had an effect but not until almost 10 minutes later. During the course of the struggle, my adrenaline was pumping hard and my mental focus was on getting the strong man under control. The knee to the groin wasn’t enough to stop me, even to slow me. It did a few minutes later, but at the moment of impact—when you want your technique to work — it didn’t do the job.

Okay, enough with the negatives.

Making It Work

Since the human body is unreliable as to how it will respond to any technique, it’s in your best interest to never count on a groin technique, whether it’s a kick, punch, rip, or crush to do the job. It’s when you expect a result—you hesitate—that you can get into trouble. In other words, never kick an attacker in the groin and then stand back expecting him to crumple.

Simply put, a confrontation has a beginning and an end, which might last two seconds, 10 seconds, 60 seconds, or five minutes. What occurs between the beginning and the end determines the outcome of the confrontation. It’s in your best interest, therefore, to fill that time with your attacks. If you pause to see how you’re doing, you give the attacker an opportunity to apply his techniques. So don’t do that. Never execute one attack to the groin and stop. Instead attack, attack, attack . . .

Consider these options when attacking the groin.

Do attack the groin multiple times until he falls, backs away, or weakens enough for you to flee.

Do attack the groin two or three times and then attack with other techniques, such as hammer strikes to his neck or claws to his eyes.

Do attack as in the last bullet, and when he raises his hands to ward off your high attacks, attack low to his groin again.

Do attack the groin and if he does fall to the ground (after the first blow or after the third or fourth), lock him up with a hold, or flee.

Never stop to admire your work. Keep attacking until the person is no longer a threat or until you have an opportunity to get away.

Loren Christensen is the author of two dozen Paladin books and videos, including Fighting Dirty, Fighting in the Clinch (with Mark Mireles), and The Brutal Art of Ripping, Poking, and Pressing Vital Targets. Loren was a military policeman in Saigon during the Vietnam War and retired from the Portland, Oregon, Police Department after more than two decades of service. He can be contacted through his website at www.lwcbooks.com.

Expect Nothing

2011-11-03T06:04:00.005-06:00

by Dave Spaulding

I spoke with a street cop today who almost died in an attack. He is experienced and skilled, being state-certified in firearms, defensive tactics, and OC instruction. I have had him in my classes, and he knows what he is doing. During a stop for a routine traffic violation, the citizen became incensed at being detained and attacked in what the officer called a “raging bull state,” against which the officer’s OC and ASP baton had no effect. The suspect tried to take the officer’s service pistol, all the while telling him that he was going to kill him, before a group of citizens intervened and helped restrain the crazed man. The officer told me that none of his skills worked and everything he believed in was a lie.

Unfortunately, this officer's story is not a new one . . . at least not to me.

I have long questioned the practice of spraying students with OC or hitting them with a Taser during training, as it gives them an unrealistic expectation of what the tool can do. Students in training are not filled with a chemical cocktail of cortisol and epinephrine that can turn off any pain signals to the brain temporarily. They feel the full effects of the given tool and think their opponent will too. Expect nothing. It is well documented that people can be shot through vital organs, such as the heart, and still be mobile for 20 to 40 seconds — what has been called “ambulation after death” — causing havoc and death before they finally succumb. The human organism might not be hard to kill, but it is certainly hard to stop quickly.

No matter what skills you decide to incorporate into your skill set, often referred to as your “toolbox,” understand they may not work quite as well as they did on the range or in the dojo against a partner who was a bit more willing to comply than an aggressive attacker. As a matter of fact, do not count on any technique to work . . . expect nothing . . . and plan to move to a contingency technique or skill instantly. Shooting rounds, swinging a baton, or throwing a punch and expecting instant incapacitation is likely to meet with failure. Train hard; stay on guard; and shoot, punch, kick, or bite your opponent until he or she thinks it’s time to stop. All you can do is help them arrive at that conclusion.

Dave Spaulding is a retired lieutenant from the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Dayton, Ohio, where he worked in all facets of law enforcement, including SWAT, training, crime-scene investigation, undercover operations, and violent crime investigations. He is a graduate of most of the better-known shooting schools and the author of more than 1,000 articles in firearm and law enforcement publications. He is the author of the two best-selling books Defensive Living and Handgun Combatives, and has been featured in Ruger’s Tactical Tips at www.ruger.com.

Praise for Jim Arvanitis’ Battlefield Pankration Set

2011-11-02T10:36:00.010-06:00

Jim Arvanitis, who was inducted into the Martial Arts History Museum’s Hall of Fame in 2010, continues to garner excellent reviews for his recently released Battlefield Pankration book and DVD set. Below are a couple of reviews by professionals who know the practical value of the information in real-life situations.

 “As a corrections officer in a facility of over 2,100 inmates daily, and currently working in our mental health unit, I can testify that the Battlefield Pankration book and DVD is chock-full of good stuff to know. Thank you, Jim. I truly appreciate Battlefield Pankration.”

—Leo Napoli, Corrections Officer

The following 5-star rating appeared on Amazon.com from Joseph Truncale, a well-known martial artist with black belts in Shotokan karate, judo, and jujitsu.

“Anyone who has been involved in the martial arts for more than twenty years should have heard of Jim Arvanitis. He is the first martial artist who investigated his Greek warrior arts and came out with ‘Pankration.’ I read his previous material on this combat art, which dealt with the history of the sport aspects of Pankration. Since there were no written manuals on the specifics of this Greek art, he combined many of the known recorded combat systems to create his own version of ‘Pankration.’  

“This book, as well as the companion DVD, focuses on the hardcore, personal self-defense aspects of this art, which is called ‘pammachon.’ This is the battlefield art and includes only those techniques that will take an enemy out in a life and death combat situation.  

“This is a large (8 1/2 x 11) formatted, 260-page volume that teaches the basics of this street combat art. It is comprehensive in length. There are three parts to this manual. Chapters 1 and 2 cover the foundation, martial arts, and self-defense and the way of the warrior. This is the shortest section.

  “The chapters in the second part of this text deal with the basics, such as tactical readiness and combat motion, upper body weapons, lower body weapons, striking theory and targets, stand-up tactical striking, stand-up grappling techniques, stand-up defenses, and counters against grabs and holds and ground fighting.

“The third part of this volume focuses on countermeasures against armed assaults. Chapter 11 covers edged weapon defenses: unarmed. Chapter 12 deals with edged weapon defenses: armed. Firearms defenses are shown in Chapter 13, and the last chapter deals with neutralizing impact weapons.  

“In conclusion, this book and DVD will be of value to anyone who is into the martial arts, practical combatives, and those interested in a comprehensive self-defense system.” 
—Joseph J. Truncale, author of
Karate Combatives: Reality-Based Karate for the Street

In addition to the Battlefield Pankration set, Jim Arvanitis is the author of the Paladin book Pankration, and was featured in the Paladin video Secrets of Pankration.

Halloween Zombie Tips

2011-10-27T08:36:00.005-06:00

by F. Kim O’Neill

For children, Halloween ranks right up there with Christmas as the best time of year. For the informed adult concerned about the coming Zombie Apocalypse, Halloween can be a definite gut check. It doesn’t mean, however, that you have to dread it entirely; costumes, free candy, and parties are celebrations of life and a thumbing-of-the-nose at grim death. As such, you should have fun. Take the kids out trick or treating. Throw a party. Dress up as Batman. Just keep a few things in mind that will maximize your personal security.

A Supernatural Zombie Apocalypse is more likely at this time of year than any other. Halloween is when the veil between life and death is at its thinnest, making it easier for unquiet spirits to cross over from Purgatory to the land of the living.

Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things: Stay away from graveyards at all costs. A dead body buried in unhallowed ground can be an attractive vessel for ghosts seeking a return to life (or unlife, as it were). It may be traditional to hold parties at cemeteries during Halloween, but as an enlightened student of zombie combat, you know that the best way to avoid being killed by the undead is to not be where there are going to be large numbers of them.
The Craft: Stay away from practitioners of the occult, and don’t dabble in it yourself this one time. Just like you wouldn’t play with matches near a gas station, getting out the Ouija board to see if you can contact a random spirit from the Great Beyond on Halloween is a terrifically bad idea.

To most of us, Halloween means dressing up as someone or something else. The continuing popularity of zombies in modern American culture means that there are going to be many people shuffling about outside at night looking like hungry undead. One of the worst things you could possibly do is shoot an innocent living person because he made the unfortunate choice of having a really good costume. So it’s up to you to make sure you can tell the difference between a zombie and a person dressed up as a zombie.

The Scent of Blood: Because any true zombies active at this time of year are most likely Supernatural Zombies, they’re probably going to be more rotten, and hence smell a lot worse than a fresher Viral Zombie. Putrefaction has a scent all its own, and the vast majority of zombie poseurs, even the most hard-core, won’t go the extra mile of smearing rotting meat on their bodies to complete the costume.
The Naked and the Dead: Clothing and funeral cerements tend to rot in the grave, and the effort of breaking through a coffin and digging out from six feet of earth tends to tear burial garments pretty significantly. It’s extremely unlikely that someone will shuffle around town with his private parts exposed to the wind as part of his zombie costume (though you can’t entirely rule that out).
Body Parts: It’s an easy thing to apply white, green, red, and gray splotches of makeup on your face, dress up in carefully torn clothing, limp around, make pitiful moaning noises, and call it a zombie costume. But you can’t convincingly fake a truly skeletal hand with missing flesh over moving, bony digits.

The most important thing is to make absolutely, 100 percent certain of your target before shooting. That smelly, grunting, topless woman might be an Occupy Wall Street protestor, not an actual undead creature. Don’t shoot until you know beyond a shadow of doubt that the zombie in your sights is a true monster. If necessary, call out verbal commands. Even the most “in-character” zombie actor will fill his trousers and stop approaching at the sight of a drawn gun and a proper command to freeze.

Just take behavior and appearance in aggregate before deciding to act on a perceived threat. What’s unacceptable the other 364 days out of the year can be the norm on Halloween. Use common sense. Real zombies don’t ring doorbells looking for candy: they’ll try to break the door down. Just keep an eye out, make sure your children are safe, and have a good time this year. I can’t speak to the specifics, but I’m quite certain that next year you’ll have more pressing concerns than buying the economy bag of Snickers or Clark bars for the neighborhood kids.

K. Kim O’Neill is the author of the Paladin book The Ultimate Guide to Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse, which is a great source of zombie survival tips for the other 364 days a year. And the good news is that his book and other Halloween-related titles on sale through November 1. Check out the sale items here.

One Rifleman (or Woman) at a Time

2011-10-20T06:13:00.007-06:00

I really hate to mention it here in this realm of derring-do and expertise in all things martial.

But I’m a lousy rifle shot.

Picture it: I’m a guerrilla fighter. My comrades are counting on my sniping skills to take out a key enemy position. I aim, breathe, squeeze the trigger — and take out a cow in a barn 12 degrees to the left, alerting the enemy, losing the battle, and depriving my fellow fighters of milk they need for survival.

Fortunately, no one is likely ever to be dumb enough to rely on my sniping skills.

Still, one recent Saturday I found myself, rifle in hand, at a nearby farm in the company of 20 women and girls.

We were there to attend a LadySeed, the women-only version of an Appleseed marksmanship clinic. Project Appleseed, as you may know, is an effort to turn Americans back into expert shooters “one rifleman at a time.” Its events are put on by the wonderfully named Revolutionary War Veterans Association and are staffed entirely by volunteers.

It’s not just about shooting. Each Appleseed also features an extended history lesson focused on April 19, 1775.

But mostly it’s shooting.

A blog post is too short to cover much about the events. The quickest and best thing to say is this is valuable training for anyone — man, woman, or child — who wants to buff up on rifle skills and do it with excellent help and in good company. And if there’s an Appleseed near me
in the uber-boonies, there’ll probably be one near you at some time or another. Schedules are listed on the organization’s site.

Appleseed is not ideal for someone who has never fired a gun. Still, the woman next to me on the firing line was a newbie. She began the day unable to hit the paper. By the time we dragged our tired selves home, she was punching impressive holes.

The friend who came with me and I quickly realized we had handicapped ourselves by not bringing proper equipment. She had a bolt action with a single five-round magazine, and I had a tube-fed Savage that was my brother’s Cub Scout gun back when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

A semiauto .22 with two or more mags and a sling is really a must to get the most out of an Appleseed.

Turns out there’s a good equipment list linked right from the front page of the Project Appleseed website. But since we came to the class sign-up via a different route, we never saw it and couldn’t find one. It was our fault for not digging deeper. But it would have been nice had the organizers ensured that every attendee had such a list.

That’s a nit-pick. There are many, many more positive things to say. For the sake of brevity, I’ll focus on one: the excellent volunteer staff. The instructors in our case were all women — and could easily have been professional trainers.

Appleseed got started just five years ago with roughly two dozen clinics. This year, according to our instructors, it’s putting on close to 1,000. Even the New York Times took notice — although predictably the writer put the scariest possible slant on things.

Did my friend and I emerge as better shooters? Hard to say. Most people in the class did — and that was just on the first day. For a variety of reasons, we decided to skip the Sunday session. Both of us felt we’d have made more progress had we brought semiautos.

But there’s always another Appleseed. And maybe someday I’ll be good enough not to pot that cow.

Claire Wolfe is the author of the Paladin books The Bad Attitude Guide to Good Citizenship, Freedom Outlaw’s Handbook, and I Am Not a Number.

U.S. Troops Deployed to Uganda

2011-10-17T10:17:00.007-06:00

The Obama administration announced on Friday that the United States would be sending 100 U.S. military “advisors” to Uganda and the Central African region to assist the forces there who are pursuing rebel leader Joseph Kony and other top commanders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Kony and his lieutenants in 2005.

Those who have read the chapter on the Congo in Paladin’s newly released Guerrillas in the Mist: Expanded and Updated by R.P. Newman will be familiar with Kony and the LRA. Newman, who provides private security services in hot spots around the globe, spent time in 2010 in the Congo training Congolese troops who were in pursuit of the murderous Kony and his henchmen. We asked Newman for his reaction to President Obama’s deployment of U.S. troops in Central Africa, and this is how he responded:

“I am pleased to see U.S. special operations forces operating in Uganda with the goal of capturing or killing Kony and hopefully crushing the LRA after all these years of horrific carnage. The United Nations’ hit team failed a while back (Guatemalan specops guys) and other attempts by other organizations have failed to kill or otherwise bring Kony to justice. The Congolese troops my team trained in 2010 want to see this guy dead, for he has killed a great many innocent Congolese and enslaved many others, and if they can be of assistance to the American operators, all the better; my guys know that jungle like the back of their hands.   

“It is missions like this and murderous animals like Joseph Kony and the LRA that make the updated and expanded (10 new chapters, loads of action photos) Guerrillas in the Mist required reading for anyone interested or involved in how the war on terror is really being fought.”

Be Prepared: Boy Scout or Terrorist?

2011-10-13T06:20:00.005-06:00

by Anonymous

In spite of the fact they do enjoy a Congressional charter, we’ve always been a fan of the Boy Scouts. We like the self-defining virtues they enumerate in the Boy Scout Law: “Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.”

And the overriding virtue as defined in the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared! (Exclamation original.)

Ahah! Gotcha, you little terrorist bastards! “Be Prepared!” “Be Prepared?” How dare you, you [sputter, sputter] subversive little creeps. We should have known you were wannabe terrorists when you said it was good to be “reverent.” And now our suspicions are confirmed: you have been observed and duly reported as having bought waterproof match containers, flashlights and [gasp] MREs, purchased with cash from your last fundraiser. PLUS yo’ Mamma dresses you funny—further reason for suspicion—and at that baked-goods sale we personally observed one among you who had bright stains on his clothes and, frankly, was emitting strange odors.

In the continuum of government by Alan Funt and Lewis Carroll, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), part of the U.S. Department of Justice, evidently as part of a Communities Against Terrorism initiative, are circulating a flyer entitled Potential Indicators of Terrorist Activities Related to Military Surplus Stores.

To be fair, at the bottom of this flyer in illegible 6-point type is the disclaimer:

“Each indicator listed above is, by itself, lawful conduct or behavior and may also constitute the exercise of rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. In addition there may be a wholly innocent explanation [not “innocent reason”? Why should Lucy have some ’splainin’ to do?] for conduct or behavior that appears suspicious in nature [see below for what are considered indicators of suspect behavior; we think whoever wrote this needs to get out of the house more often . . .] For this reason, no single indicator should be the sole basis for law enforcement action. The totality of behavioral indicators and other relevant circumstances should be evaluated when considering any law enforcement response or action.”

Further, the closing paragraph to the document says: “Some of the activities, taken individually, could be innocent [it follows, then, that some “indicators” listed below, taken individually, could not be innocent . . .] and must be examined by law enforcement professionals . . .”

We usually hold law enforcement professionals in good regard, but what gives us pause here is that this sophomoric document itself was prepared by law enforcement professionals, “compiled from a review of terrorist events over several years.” There is no indication given why all the suspicious goods/activities mentioned are believed to potentially have sprung from “military surplus stores,” as the items specified are also stocked in big box stores and major sporting goods chains—and many are at grocery and corner hardware stores.

Now, we’re not trying to take over from Andy Rooney, but here are annotated excerpts under the following header: “What Should I Consider Suspicious?”

People or Groups Who:

Insist on paying with cash. [Tut, tut, tut: don’t rob the sugar bowl to buy that flashlight, or there’ll be a knock on the door . . .]
Alter their appearance from visit to visit (shaving beard, changing hair color, style of dress, etc.). [But, these are all things the wife has been nagging me to do for years.]
Have missing hand/fingers, chemical burns, strange odors or bright colored stains on clothing. [We’re four for four on that one, too . . . Guess the schmuck who wrote this never worked around machinery.]
Possess little knowledge of intended purchase items. [Umm, so just why does every retail item from a collar stay to a pocket calculator come with an instruction manual? For some time now, we have sensed a guvvermint plot to rid all retail establishments of clerks who could knowledgeably answer questions about a prospective purchase, is this why? To weed out the terrorists among us?]
Make bulk purchases of items to include:

Weatherproofed ammunition or match containers. [The heck wit’ you, Jeffrey, buy your own damn Tupperware. I’m not going to jail because you’re too stingy to make the trip into town.]
Meals Ready to Eat. [Shop the sales, stock up, and go to jail? Can I still buy a whole case of Dinty Moore Beef Stew at Costco? Oh, that’s right, that’d make me not only a terror suspect but a “hoarder” as well.]
Night vision devices; night flashlights; gas masks. [“Night flashlights”? Huh? Does that mean there is a “day flashlight”? I’ll bet those are cheap, because they don’t need batteries and bulbs. No gas masks? But you said my fellow suspects may have strange odors.]
High-capacity magazines. [We are bashful about quoting the law to “law enforcement professionals,” especially on the federal level, but that law mercifully sunsetted, dontchaknow . . .]
Bipods or tripods for rifles. [We’re still trying to envision somebody making a bulk purchase of rifle tripods. Is there a war on antelope nobody told us about? Most we’ve seen were adapted camera tripods—are photo shops monitored too?]

“It is important to remember that just because someone’s speech, actions, beliefs, appearance, or way of life is different, it does not mean that he or she is suspicious.”

But if some nogoodnik comes in and asks for a quote on several night flashlights, you are advised to “require valid ID from all new customers, keep records of purchases, . . . ask questions and listen to and observe their responses, . . . make notes of suspicious statements, people, and/or vehicles . . .”

Ahhh, yasss: a snitch in time, saves nine. Sprechen sie Deutsch?

This was written by a Paladin author who prefers to remain anonymous to protect what’s left of his privacy. We can assure you that he is no terrorist, though he almost certainly has more than one of the items on the “guvvermint” list. He may or may not have been a Boy Scout in a previous life, but he does adhere to its motto: Be Prepared. And so does Paladin.