Trading Destinies:

Corpulent, petulant, puffy cheeked and pig-eyed. You’ve seen them wandering the shopping malls grazing in small herds, shuffling along duck-footed with pants down around their crotches. The males of the species converse in snorts and grunts of a half language half nightmare of what language used to be. After the tragedy of 9-11 I made a personal vow to recognize the sacredness of all life including these replicants of humanity. I cannot do it! I admit that I am too weak and too small spirited. Let me explain.

Headed back to the motel one day after work I saw the furry body of a gray squirrel lying dead in the road. It caused me to question what divine purpose was served by the death of this small creature. Like myself, it was simply searching for food along this remote stretch of Texas highway. A few hundred yards later I swung into a local “Whataburger” and ordered a chicken sandwich. Across from me sat one of these Mall creatures. He was a fine specimen too, with pudgy knees and fat, pink, hairless legs protruding from his baggy shorts. Seated there with his un-tucked shirt tails hanging down, belly fat-roll protruding out, I could only imagine how proud some parent must be. He was chatting up a couple of young girls, entertaining them with his blinding intellect, while simultaneously stuffing three french fries into his mouth and talking very loudly on his cell phone.

Then I thought back to the finely shaped, compact body of the dead squirrel, graceful and neatly formed. Comparing the Mall rodent seated across from me, and the squirrel lying flattened in the road, I couldn’t help but wonder, God forgive me, but if there is to be a New World Order, wouldn’t that world be a better place if a change of destinies could somehow be arranged?

Coming up next is a review of one of the best knife fighting books I have read in a long time and a review of a new training knife.

Coming Soon?

Tired of punching holes in paper?

Keep checking back for our next class offering and learn how to use that pistol to defend your life.

AGOGE Training

Basic Defensive Pistol Course

Well my daughter Gwynne (the head of White Shadow Security), and her boyfriend Michael Barker (founder of AGOGE Training), hosted their first pistol training class right here in our hometown. Unfortunately the weather was really shitty. We had two days of rain and freezing rain leading up to the class and the morning of, the weather broke cold, foggy, and icy. We started class at 8:30 with a review of grips, stances, safety, etc. since everyone there was reasonably experienced we went out for the range portion pretty quick.

The range conditions were still in the 30s and foggy as hell. The ground was slick with ice and puddles of water everywhere. First off we practiced the proper draw and presentation of the firearm using dry-firing. I found this especially educational despite having shot pistols for over 40 years. For me, their method of drawing and acquiring the sights was a new way of running a gun. Once learned it makes for a quicker and more solid delivery of the weapon to the target. The rationale is that the quicker you get the pistol out of the holster, the more time you have to get the sights aligned and squeeze off the shot. Thus speed and accuracy both improve. All training was performed from a concealed carry.

Personally I went from barely shooting on the paper at low left, to fairly reliable head-shots and center of mass hits by the end of the day. In addition I was in better overall control of the pistol and recoil. Jason (tall guy in the photo with Michael instructing) was shooting two well aimed shots from the draw in about 2 seconds by the day’s end. His progress was very impressive! My basic skills still needed more work so rather than shooting against the clock I worked on smoothing out what I had learned with coaching from Gwynne. My Kimber 45 ACP ran fine all day despite using, what turned out to be, dirty shooting ammo from Lawman. Everyone else was shooting 9mm Glocks. I tried Gwynne's Glock and just don't even like the way it feels in my hand. We did walking and shooting, trotting and shooting, turning and shooting, multiple targets, hostage targets, moving targets on a cable, etc. It was a full 6 hours of shooting time and about 250 rounds down range for each of us. We shot from traditional prone and fetal positions in the mud and water, kneeling and of course off-hand. Most of the shooting was from 12-17 yards.

It was a terrific class despite the cold and damp. All of us had wet bottoms from the prone shooting and were pretty grimy from all of the mud and gunpowder residue. Every one of us came away satisfied that we were drawing and shooting better than we ever had before, with improved accuracy and speed. Kudos to Gwynne and Mike for all of the experience they shared with us. If you want to know more about AGOGE Training or White Shadow Security email me at ghdave2@hotmail.com