For most of my adult life, I was a commercial insurance broker. I counseled business owners and their management about their business risks. I negotiated the transfer of the risks which they did not want or afford to keep, to an insurer and then I suggested appropriate risk management techniques to implement for those risks which they chose to keep.
As a firearms trainer, I really do risk management assessment for individuals. I will teach you how to protect yourself and your loved ones from unexpected threats that you may encounter with the appropriate means to extract yourself from the situation or how to stop a threat using lethal force if necessary. The common sense skills that you have always used to get yourself out of danger remain very important, but they may only go so far against someone who is threatening your life. A gun never solves a problem but, it may be an important and the most effective tool for you to have available to stop a threat against your life. The day has arrived when the bad guy’s are not the only one’s who are armed anymore. I have taught hundreds of citizens in
I would like to be the first person to tell you that it is not cool to carry a gun!
Some time ago, I decided I should support those people and organizations who fought to restore my rights to protect myself. I joined Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance (GOCRA) /Conceal Carry Reform Now (CCRN) and became a member of the leadership team. GOCRA members were instrumental in passing the Minnesota Citizens Personal Protection Act (MCPPA) in 2003. I was active in re-passing the MCPPA again in the Spring of 2005, which we did in a record five weeks time. Now we must keep our friends in the Minnesota Legislature or the DFL will do all they can if given a chance to repeal the MCPPA. Recently, I became the Executive Director of GOCRA and wish to broaden our supporters all over the state. If every Minnesota gun owner supported GOCRA, it seems to me that only the people we supported should be elected and only the bills we support should become law. It is very important to adopt a Minnesota Right to Keep and Carry Arms Constitutional Amendment. You can visit www.mngocra.net if you are interested in learning more. Please excuse the website as it is about to be redesigned.
I have also testified before the Minnesota legislature in May of 2005 and before the Wisconsin legislature. In October of 2005, I held a permit to carry class for the legislature in the Wisconsin Capitol. Mr. Phil Brinkman's story about that historic class is found on my "news" page. I am the AACFI Wisconsin State Director and am working with legislative leaders in both the Senate and Assembly to help enact the Wisconsin Personal Protection Act. This law will overturn the 133 year prohibition for lawful citizens to carry a concealed gun for their personal protection. It is clear that our success depends primarily upon a change in strategy in Wisconsin. This is not the best place to share that however.
I am an AACFI Certified Basic Handgun Instructor and Certified
The AACFI basic handgun class is about six hours long, plus range time. This class is for anyone who needs to understand the fundamental workings of a handgun including: safe handling of a firearm, how they work, ammunition, firearms safety rules, how to clean and safely store a handgun, and some handgun history. Students will also have an opportunity to familiarize themselves by shooting both a revolver and an autoloading handgun at the range. Each student will receive the book Handgun Safety & Handling Basics as an important part of your training. Parents with pre-teen children may bring them to class for free (no materials provided) and parents must accompany all students who are under the age of eighteen.
My AACFI MN Permit to Carry class is about six hours long, plus range time. This class is for those who are more familiar with handguns or firearms and want to apply for their
The
My goal is to make your firearms training accessible, current, interesting and fun. I begin with my own training to be a knowledgeable instructor, using the most current materials, a multi-media presentation and personally coaching your shooting experience. All learning activities are conducted in a safe and comfortable environment.
The Permit to Carry course is really a self defense class and I encourage all you guy's to bring the important lady's in your life with you to class.
We all want to think we are safe. I suppose you are until you have reason to believe differently. I'll bet that either you or someone you know has been a victim of a violent attack.
It seems the nightly news regularly reports about someone who was injured or attacked. It’s always someone else. It is easy to become complacent about violent crimes, after all, what are the odds it will happen to you or your family? The only crime rate that really means anything at all, is the one that is personal to each one of us. We expect that statistic to remain at zero.
Let me tell you just how close my family came to being a crime statistic.
When my youngest son was about two years old, he went shopping with his mom to a large department store in downtown Minneapolis. The elevator from the parking ramp opened into the store where a short distance away was a cookie counter. He waited just a couple feet away as she made a purchase and when she turned around to give him his cookie, she saw our son being dragged out the door by a predator. She yelled for store security to stop him and she ran from the store and proceeded to chase the man with our son down the street. Somehow she finally stopped him and managed to grab our son away from him. All this happened in what most people would expect is a safe location in downtown Minneapolis in broad daylight. We came within just seconds of loosing our child.
You probably would have heard about our loosing our son on the nightly news and you would still feel safe going downtown and even taking your family shopping in the same store, because it happened to my family and not to yours.
Well folks, bad guy's and predators are living in many of our communities. They may be living near you, where you work or where your children go to school or play, or where you shop. They are free to roam. We also know that once people become predators, they won't change their ways. Some prefer kids, some prefer women, some prefer men and some like to mix and match. They are wired differently than you and I. What are you prepared to do if one of them was dragging your child down the street by the arm? Do you really think you are safer today than twenty some years ago when my son was two?
I think we need more sheepdogs.
ON SHEEP, WOLVES, AND SHEEPDOGS
By Lt.Col. (ret.) Dave Grossman, Army Ranger, psychology professor, author of "On Killing" and the upcoming "On Combat".
"Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always, even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for?" - William J. Bennett - in a lecture to the
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One
Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.
Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.
I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful. For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.
"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.
"Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf."
If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed
Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.
But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.
The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.
Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."
Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.
The students, the victims, at
Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how
Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones.
Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in
There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog--the warrior--but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population.
There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in
Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs.
Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of
There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. - Edmund Burke
Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.
If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.
For example, many officers carry their weapons in church. They are well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt holsters tucked into the small of their backs. Anytime you go to some form of religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual in your place of worship, until the wolf appears to massacre you and your loved ones.
I was training a group of police officers in
Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for "heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids' school did not work. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them.
Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks himself, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if your loved ones were attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?"
It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up.
Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you are not physically prepared: you didn't bring your gun, you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by your fear, helplessness and horror at your moment of truth.
Gavin de Becker puts it like this in 'Fear Less', his superb post-9/11 book, which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to terms with our current world situation: "...denial can be seductive, but it has an insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it isn't so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all the more unsettling."
Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level.
And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes.
If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7, for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself..."Baa."
This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other.
Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in
[Note: This essay is an except from Grossman's new book "On Combat", due out in September 2004.]
I hope we get a chance to meet in person in a class soon. Just click on my "class schedule" button to find a class which works for your schedule, complete the information and you will be registered.
If you have any questions, please call me at 612.388.2403 to discuss them.