For the past couple years, I’ve taught a self defense class at a summer camp at a local university. \u00a0It’s one of those academic camps that could be considered “summer school for smart kids.”<\/p>\n
As I was getting ready for class last week, one of the other instructors (I believe he was teaching iPhone photography) was sitting in a chair outside his classroom waiting for the door to be unlocked. \u00a0He casually asked me “so, does that stuff work as well as a gun at a distance?” \u00a0(as he makes “chop socky” moves with his hands) \u00a0I returned admitting that I have yet to figure out how to throw a rock at 1200fps. \u00a0We ended up talking about the prices of ammo, and lamenting that the days of truly cheap .22 are behind us. \u00a0I was kind of hoping that that would be the end of it.<\/p>\n
Sadly, this week, he continued to make comments about it. \u00a0At one point, he basically straight up stated that he didn’t need to know anything, because he had a gun. \u00a0I asked him how confident he was in deploying the gun if the bad guy was already a foot or two away, or if the bad guy had already grabbed him. \u00a0He didn’t really have a good answer for that. \u00a0I also pointed out that we were currently on a college campus in TN, where carrying a gun is a felony. \u00a0Again, no good answer.<\/p>\n
I’ve run into this attitude before, and it always annoys the heck out of me. \u00a0Just as there are anti-gunners that treat guns as a magical talisman of death, there are gun owners out there that treat their carry piece as a magical talisman of protection. \u00a0Sorry, but it’s just a tool. \u00a0Don’t get me wrong, it’s a rather good tool, but it should be one among many in your tool bag.<\/p>\n
If you carry a gun for protection, I would recommend adding some form of open hand defense to your training. \u00a0There are martial arts that don’t require you to be in excellent shape. \u00a0In fact, the ones that are probably the most immediately practical for self defense typically don’t involve a lot of running\/jumping\/etc. \u00a0And if you don’t, that’s your option, but don’t scoff at those of us that do. \u00a0Honestly, it’s up there with those that scoff at you for being paranoid and wanting to carry a gun.<\/p>\n
That reminds me… it’s been too long since I’ve been to a gun class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the past couple years, I’ve taught a self defense class at a summer camp at a local university. \u00a0It’s one of those academic camps that could be considered “summer school for smart kids.” As I was getting ready for class last week, one of the other instructors (I believe he was teaching iPhone photography) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}