Gun Wisdom, course 101

From the Cop and Soldier side:  I know many of you have heard some of these before...but worth repeating if you're in this sort of business...

Subject: gun wisdom

Those not armed are easy to slaughter

Words of wisdom for those who use firearms for defense.

"The handgun would not be my choice of weapon if I knew I was going to a fight....I'd choose a rifle, a shotgun, an RPG or an atomic bomb  instead."

"The two most important rules in a gunfight are: always cheat and always win."

"Every time I teach a class, I discover I don't know something." ( so true!)

"Don't forget, incoming fire has the right of way."

If the bad guy is in range, so are YOU.

"Make my attacker advance through a wall of bullets. I may get killed with my own gun, but he's gonna have to beat me to death with it, cause it's going to be empty."

"If you're not shootin', you should be loadin'. If you're not loadin, you should be movin', if you're not movin', someone's gonna cut your head off and put it on a stick."

"When you reload in low light encounters, don't put your flashlight in your back pocket... If you light yourself up, you'll look like an angel or the tooth fairy...and you're gonna be one of 'em pretty soon."

"Do something. It may be wrong, but do something."

Plan A- M4 Carbine.  Plan B- .45 Auto

"Shoot what's available, as long as it's available, until something else becomes available."

"If you carry a gun, people will call you paranoid. That's ridiculous. If I have a gun, what in the hell do I have to be paranoid for."

"Don't shoot fast, shoot good."

"You can say 'stop' or 'alto' or use any other word you think will work but I've found that a large bore muzzle pointed at someone's head is pretty much the universal language."

"You have the rest of your life to solve your problems. How long you live depends on how well you do it."

"You cannot save the planet. You may be able to save yourself and your family."

The purpose of fighting is to Win!

There is no possible victory in defense. The sword is more important than the shield, and skill is more important than either.


The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental.

1. Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, He'll just shoot you.

2. If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.

3 I carry a gun cause a cop is too heavy.

4. When seconds count, the cops are just minutes away.

5. A reporter did a human-interest piece on the Texas Rangers. The reporter recognized the Colt Model 1911 the Ranger was carrying and asked him 'Why do you carry a 45?' The Ranger responded, 'Because they don't make a 46.' (I've been asked this quesiton also- CI Roller)
 
6. An armed man will kill an unarmed man with monotonous regularity.

7. The old sheriff was attending an awards dinner when a lady commented on his wearing his sidearm. 'Sheriff, I see you have your pistol. Are you expecting trouble?' 'No ma'am. If I were expecting trouble, I would have brought my rifle.'


8. Beware the man who only has one gun. He probably knows how to use it!

'The true Soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because He loves what is behind him.' -G. K. Chesterton

A people that values its privileges above its principles will soon lose both.

'Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.'~ Thomas Jefferson

"A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely

overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy."--Samuel Adams

Fast misses are just about as useless as being slow.  Rounds hitting close might make the enemy shit his pants, but he can still shoot.  Smooth is fast.  Hitting first is better than shooting just fast.  CI Roller Dude

Make a good plan.  Make a better BACK UP PLAN, because Murphy is everywhere.  (CI Roller Dude)

Fifty Cal Shoot!

CI Roller Dude "gettin' some"

From the Soldier Side:  One day in 1999, I was the NCOIC of the Fifty Caliber Machine Gun range. When we arrived at Camp Roberts, CA....I asked the supply sergeant how many rounds and how many guns we were going to sign for. 

Four guns.  Each gun comes with 2 barrels. 
16,000 rounds of ammo. 
Do the math. 
4,000 rounds per machine gun. 
To maintain a steady shoot, you are supposed to swap out barrels every 200 rounds.  Each time you change the barrel, you MUST check the head space.  That's 20 barrel changes per gun. 

That was a good day of training.  We got premission to actually fire the guns from the tops of our "Tracks".  Normally that range would only allow you to fire the guns from the tri-pods. However, I had come up with a safety plan that was approved by the head range dude.

Let me tell you...there is nothing like shooting a Browning M2 HB 50 Cal Machine Gun. 
We ended the range at 2300 hours (11 PM for you civilians).  We had expended all rounds.  However, we kind of wasted 7 out of 8 barrels. 

That training came in really handy years later when we went to Iraq.  Train like you fight.  Sweat a lot in training so you bleed little in war.  Etc.

The good old days...Combat Engineers

From the Soldier side:  I was going through a bunch of old film pictures today...trying to clean out clutter and crap.  I ran across some of my pictures from my Combat Engineer days. 
The first picture was when I was a Spec 4 (E4) in Combat Engineer School.  This was one of the days were were blowing shit up with TNT. 
The TNT that the National Guard got to use in 1989, was only left over from the Korean War...so we had to double the blasting caps to make sure it blew up.  The rust on the case etc made some of the other students worried, so there were only a few of us who kept volunteering to blow up charges all day.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!!! a few pounds of TNT, 1950's vintage!

Then in the early 1990's, we used to go to Fort Ord, CA to use the weapons ranges.  This weekend we'd started out with getting all the ammo belts ready for the machine gun range.  That was the first time I was put in charge of a machine gun range.  I loved it! 

Yep, that is a 1911A1 .45 auto in the holster.

Each course of fire required a specific number of bullets on the belt.  They never show this part in the movies.

POLICE CUTS and stupid waste of resources....

From the Cop side: Some of my stories are things I’ve discussed with my Best Friend in a conversation. Today we somehow got onto the topic of law enforcement responding to really stupid stuff.


I think what a lot of good citizens don’t understand is that right now in California as well as most of the other states, we are facing some of the biggest cuts to government since the depression.

Citizens have to understand that when things get cut for a government agency that has things like police and fire services, that those emergency services will have to be cut to. What can good citizens do to help? Lots of things. So many things people do everyday that lead to an emergency response, where as if the citizen had been more careful, things would have been fine. There are always going to be “accidents”, but as we’re trained, for every traffic collision, there is a human at fault 99.99999 percent of the time. Yep. That’s true. In every single auto collision I have ever responded to in 32 years, the cause was one or more drivers, pedestrians, or other forms of humans, had violated one or more sections of our Vehicle Code. Usually unsafe speed for conditions. Many were DUI, and most were HUA.

But, where I used to work, I think some of the citizens there should have been given an award for stupid calls to the police (many on Nine friggen one one.) For example…the nut job lady who in one week had called our department 57 times. Each time she had some kind of complaint about one or more of her neighbors. Over a period of several years, she had called the PD over 350 times…where she’d left her name…and hundreds of more times where she didn’t want to give her name, but the dispatcher could recognize the dumbass’s voice.

One quiet Sunday, I was working the day shift out of patrol. (that was supposed to sound like Dragnet)…when the whiner called. Up to that day, I had somehow never been sent to a problem where she was the “reporting party” (RP). It was early, like about 7:30ish AM. I had not even had a chance to stop and pick up my morning coffee (note: if you call the cops before they’ve had coffee, be careful.)

I responded with a smile and “how can I help you mam” none the less…. What a bitch. I got to her front door and knocked…she answered with “make them stop that hammering!!!”

I didn’t hear any hammering, but I kept smiling and asked: “what hammering?” (I dropped the mam as soon as she showed her true self…and bitch.) …

She yelled: “can’t you hear it? There…did you hear that?”

I thought I heard a slight bang noise, but it was not very loud and sounded like it might have come from the house behind hers and up a hill. I drove up to investigate (that time of the morning on a Sunday, the drunks from the night before had not started to wake up yet, so it was slow.)

I found the offender. The neighbor’s pine tree was dropping pine cones on the wooden deck…at odd times. No crime, nothing I could do about it.

SO, I go back down to the whinerbitch and explain the noise is pine cones falling on the deck.

She told me to “Make it stop!!!”

I told her that I couldn’t make it stop unless they issued me a chain saw. She started yelling. I said “Have a nice day” and got into my patrol car and drove to the coffee shop.

We need to stop sending police officers to stupid calls like that. That’ll save the tax payers a lot of money.

The funny thing is, the city I live in, which is 25 miles from where I work....is all the times I've ever had to call the local cops, they almost always told me it'd be an hour wait.  Most of the time I'd go outside and take care of the problem myself..then call them back and say "never mind, I took care of it."  They don't respond to traffic accidents unless there are injuries or drunk drivers....they are too busy taking care of more important stuff with very few cops. 

The above story is where I used to work.  On an average day, I'd have a sergeant, 2 coporals/ detectives, 2 captains, and other admin pukes sitting in the office while only one or two of us cops were actually doing anything.  Another way to save money---cut the damn deskjockies! 


God I’m glad I can retire soon…. ONE ADAM 12, repond to the crazy lady complaining about pine cones falling.... respond code 3!!! 

Weapon of Choice?

From the Cop side:  One of the media pukes said that the Glock pistol is the "weapon of choice" for the bad guys in this country.  Wow.  As long as they keep shooting like they see in the movies and on TV, I actually have little fear of then actually hitting what they are aiming at. 
But, then...some after market company came up with something to help the street pukes shoot better.  We need to ban these kind of sights before it's too late!!! 

(by the way, this is a JOKE)

Someday the media will actually do some research before they start making sh-- up.  The most common pistol in American Law Enforcement is the Glock .40 caliber.

Things Private Snuffy did in Iraq

If you or anybody you know is getting deployed, here's some useful things Private Snuffy did when we were in Iraq to help pass the time.~ CI Roller Dude




14 Things Private Snuffy Taught Me in Iraq!

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Humvee With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing vehicles.... See If They Slow Down.

2. In the PX, Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice!

3. Every Time your boss ask You To Do Something, ask If They Want Fries with that?"

4. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker in the TOC For 3 Weeks . Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.

5. In the PX, In the Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write ' For Marijuana.

6. Skip down the hall Rather Than Walk and see how many looks you get.

7. Order a Diet Water whenever you go to eat in the Mess Hall, with a serious face.

8. While walking around Sergeant Majors, whistel tunes from Disney movies.

9. While watching AFN TV, Sing Along At The Opera

10. Five Days before it’s time to rotate home, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend The Party Because You have a headache.

11. In the PX , When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream 'I Won! I Won!'

12. When Leaving the Mess Hall, Start Running towards the Parking lot, Yelling 'Run For Your Lives! They're Loose!'

13. Tell Your fellow soldiers, Over Dinner, 'Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.'

And The Final Way To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity


14. PICK UP A BOX OF CONDOMS In the PX, GO TO THE COUNTER AND ASK WHERE THE FITTING ROOM IS.

Leadership by motto...and don't attend the training....

From the Soldier and Cop side: The funny thing about having been a soldier and a cop for so many years is that there are so many things that are the same in both jobs. Both jobs have had some excitement. Both jobs have required long days in bad environments. Both jobs have allowed me to work with some really good people and some great leaders. And both jobs have also forced me to work with some really suckass leaders.

There are lots of qualities in a good leader. One good quality is that they know what they are doing and can show others how to do it. One of the funniest things I noticed about some of the really bad leaders is that they would try to come up with a motto, slogan or even take a quote from an actually good leader who was a historical figure.

The Army is great at mottos. Every company I was ever in had a company motto. When I was in “West” Berlin, I was in C Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry.

Our company was called “Charlie Cobras”. And our Battalion was “Second to None” (stolen from the 2nd Infantry Division.)

We changed it, depending on how much beer we’d consumed over the weekend to “Charlie Snakes, ssssssssssssssssssssss. Second to None, First to Run.” Or, “Second to some.”
Check the police cars in your area and see what motto they have on the sides of the patrol cars.  Then ask the cop: "What's that motto mean?"  (say it with a smile so you don't upset them)

Anyway, you get the idea and I’m sure many vets reading this will have something to add.

The other thing I’ve seen some leaders do is show up late or miss the training on the latest and greatest thing. Of course they are very busy people and they are the boss, so they must already know all…right? Here’s a few real life examples of dumbass leaders who missed the training and screwed up…but shifted the blame:

1.) Large local law enforcement agency near where I work. An admin type shows up on a critical situation and decides that he needs to take a Remington 870 shotgun from a patrol car to point around towards the bad guy who was armed. The Remington 870 comes from the factory able to hold 4 rounds of 12 gauge ammo in the magazine. However, a brilliant range master had modified all their shotguns with extended magazines to hold 7 rounds. (this was in the 1980s’)

The law enforcement admin puke had racked a round into the chamber…the critical incident was resolved without gun fire…until the admin puke went to clear the shotgun. Instead of using the magazine release and removing the rounds the proper way, he cycled the slide. He counted 4 rounds, then instead of checking the chamber, he pulled the trigger and got a very loud BANG!!! Of course it wasn’t his fault…it was blamed on the extended magazine and they quickly removed all the extensions because they were deemed to be UNSAFE!

2.) Where I used to work…I was training all the officers, detectives and sergeants on the new M-4 Carbine (short AR-15) for patrol. The first part of the training I went over how to use the tactical slings. Then I went over the Red Dot sights. Of course one of the patrol sergeants was late and missed half the training. When he tried to use the tactical sling, he got all tangled up and said it was “unsafe.” Later that night, he tried to “zero” the M4 in the patrol sergeant’s car. He had no idea what he was doing and when I checked that weapon a few days later, I found that it was off about 3 meters from a 25 meter target. This would have missed a man sized target at only 25 meters! This “problem” was blamed on the fancy sights, not the dumbass sergeant. I had to explain to the patrol captain why we spent all that money on the fancy red dot sights if they were so bad. How do you politely explain that the sergeant missed the training and had no idea what he was doing? Well, I never get points for being polite.

Leaders must get the same training or even more training than those they lead. They must know the equipment being used and not be quick to blame the equipment so they don’t look bad if they screw up. When I went to law enforcement instructors training, I had to first demonstrate that I knew how to do the thing we were going to teach…then I learned how to teach it. I like that concept.  (when I went to firearms instructors schools, the first day we had to qualify.  If we didn't meet the standard, we went home and didn't become a teacher.) 

Reloads...

From the Soldier side: In the last few months, I’ve been motivated to start writing a book on Leadership. The kind of leadership I’m talking about is based on my experiences as an Army NCO for over 20 years and a Police Officer/ Sergeant/Detective/Trainer etc for over 30 years.


If you’re the type of leader who is a bureaucrat and a politician, then you won’t want to read my book…as it will absolutely be of no use to you. However, if you be the type of leader or future leader who is about getting the job done properly and all, then my book may be useful to you.

Believe it or not, there are some basics that the Army has taught me, the police training has taught me and I’ve assimilated from the Marines, Navy and others I’ve worked with.

Leaders MUST be able to work well with others. A good leader knows when somebody else knows more about something than they do and lets the more knowledgeable person take lead when needed.

When NCOs work for Officers (yes, we work for the officer, not the other way around) we are supposed to take their guidance etc and make it happen. We must always show respect and never act like we’re better than the officer. New officers with no experience in a specific area, should be able to rely on the NCOs to help train them. However, when either the NCO or Officer is too arrogant to listen, they are doomed to failure.

I have seen both arrogant NCOs and arrogant officer cause a mission to fail.

Use cover...keep your weapons fed! (this is the CI Roller dude in Fallujah, w/o face blacked out)

I ‘ve also been going through some of my old e-mails. For those of you who know me, Sergeant Grumpy (his blog is over on the side) and I went to Bosnia with our Guard unit. When Grump’ returned, the civilian company he worked for had moved out of California. So, he didn’t get to go to Iraq with us…but He did get to go later with another unit.

I can’t remember if he asked me for advice, or if I just volunteered it for him, but I sent him some tips that helped us. This is boring old weapons training stuff, so some of my readers may not find it useful...those going into harms way...pay attention!


Grumpy,


I don't know if you got any decent weapons training before your deployment. I know we were ran through shooting courses, but they didn't give us a lot of training other than "there's targets, shoot them"




Here's one tip I taught my guys. Some of them actually used this in gun fights:

Shooters, you can never practice too much!

1. Tactical Reload


The concept is don't let your weapon run out of ammo then try to reload, but put a full mag in when you are behind cover.


If you are in a gun fight, you should be shooting from cover. If you have to move from one cover to another, and say you've fired most of your magazine, well pull the used magazine out, stuff it in a pocket and put a full magazine in before you leave cover. This way you have less chance of running out of ammo while exposed... and you can fire whilst moving.

 When you get to your next position of cover, you can keep shooting, but consider putting anther full magazine in before you move again. (tactical reload) The concept is never move into the open without a full or almost full magazine.


2. Rapid reloads.


Set up your extra magazines so you can get them with your support hand (if you're right handed, your support hand is your left). Have the spare mags set so you can grab them and shove them into the magazine well of your weapon without having to shift the hold.


To make a Rapid Reload... used when the tactical reload didn't happen... as soon as you realize your weapon is empty, hit the magazine release button and let the mag drop free. while that's happening, you should be grabbing the fresh mag. Shove it into the magazine well with a slap, then hit the bolt release or slide release and start pulling the trigger. If you practice, you can reload a pistol or rifle in 2 seconds or less. Pracice it without looking at the weapon and practice it while walking fast or running.


Let me know if this shit helps and I'll send you more ...
Stay safe and make it home so we can sit around the VFW and bullshit.

Useful Tips...

From both the Soldier and Cop side:  I was going through some old e-mails again.  This batch was some e-mails I sent to a very good friend of mine...Sergeant Grumpy.  Grumpy and I went to Bosnia together....and upon his return, the civilain company he worked for had moved out of California.  So, Grumpy didn't get the joy of going to Iraq with us in 2004...but since he remained in the Army National Guard, he got to go later with another unit...and very good unit. 

I was re-reading some of the e-mails we'd sent to each other.  He asked me a few times for my advice on things... and I'll post of of those later.  But, I learned a lot from Grumpy. He's a very good person and soldier and it was his blog that got me started in blogging.  (Most people who know me in real life would assume I lack the basic skills required to do this......good for my Op-Sec.) 

One thing I did learn from Sergeant Grumpy...that can be used by those in this duty M.O.S. in the military and will also help those in Law Enforcement. 
What do you do when the captured insurgent or the suspect you've arrested won't talk?

Watch this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xksxo0x4uQI