Texan vs. Pitbull

The following story is a another good example of why it is a good idea to carry a firearm with you at all times.

From the Star Telegram:

65-year-old man strangles pit bull during attack

CONROE, Texas - A 65-year-old retired truck driver who was attacked by a vicious pit bulldog during a neighborhood walk choked the dog to death as he defended himself.

Yes, you did read that correctly, a 65 year old man strangled an attacking pit bull.

I turned to face him, and when I saw it was pit bull, I knew I was in trouble," Pardue said. "I put my hands up and I hollered at him. He immediately jumped to my throat."

Pardue shielded his body by grabbing the dog's head and ears, but the dog shook loose and started biting his right hand. Pardue kneed the dog in the ribs, spurring it to let go of his hand, and then grabbed the dog by its thick collar.

Pardue said he then dragged the dog to his house while maintaining a firm grip on its neck. His wife called police from the house. When the police arrived, Pardue was on the ground with the dog and still holding onto the collar.

Police said Pardue's grip was so tight that he strangled the dog. Pardue said he didn't know the dog was dead until it was unresponsive when police tried to move it.

Now that is one old Texan I would hate to cross.

"If not for the collar, I don't know how I would have ever been able to wrestle him down," said Pardue, who weighs 200 pounds. "The dog was about 80 pounds and very vicious. It was hard to believe the viciousness in which he attacked me, but I was able to contain him."

Mr. Pardue, you did good.

You read about dog attacks fairly often these days. I do not know if the numbers are increasing, or if these are just the type of story the media likes to jump on. I do know that many attacks by larger dogs do not end quite as favorably as this one did. My little brother got his throat ripped open by an Australian Shepard when we were kids and you hear about other serious injury or death by dogs on a pretty regular basis. Your best defence against a dog attack is not a squirt bottle, a stick, or your boots, it's 230 grains of jacketed hollow points.

Woman clubs lion, saves life of husband

A wife's act of bravery saves her husband from a mountain lion attack in California.

From the Denver Post:

By Lisa Leff

Woman clubs lion, saves life of husband

San Francisco - Wildlife officials on Thursday credited a woman with saving her husband's life by clubbing a mountain lion that attacked him while the couple were hiking in a California state park.

Jim and Nell Hamm, who will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary next month, were hiking in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park when the lion pounced.

"He didn't scream. It was a different, horrible plea for help, and I turned around, and by then the cat had wrestled Jim to the ground," Nell Hamm said in an interview from the hospital where her husband was recovering from a torn scalp, puncture wounds and other injuries...

...Although the Hamms are experienced hikers, neither had seen a mountain lion before Jim Hamm was mauled, his wife said. Nell Hamm said she grabbed a 4-inch- wide log and beat the animal with it, but it would not release its hold on her husband's head.

"Jim was talking to me all through this, and he said, 'I've got a pen in my pocket and get the pen and jab him in the eye,"' she said. "So I got the pen and tried to put it in his eye, but it didn't want to go in as easy as I thought it would."

When the pen bent and became useless, Nell Hamm went back to using the log. The lion eventually let go and, with blood on its snout, stood staring at the woman. She screamed and waved the log until the animal walked away.

"She saved his life, there is no doubt about it," said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the Department of Fish and Game

Another example of bravery and how a combat mindset can save a life.

Mrs. Hamm has some good back country advice:

Nell Hamm warned people never to hike in the backcountry alone.

I would add "...and unarmed".

Oh wait, I forgot, we are talking about California.

From the California State Parks website:

LOADED FIREARMS AND HUNTING are not allowed in units of the State Parks System. Possession of loaded firearms or air rifles is prohibited.

So there you have it, in California you are not only prohibited from protecting yourself from goblins and other evil creatures of the two legged sort, you are prohibited from protecting yourself from more natural violent creatures.

I first saw this mentioned over at The War on Guns.

Store Clerk With Claws

Another Goblin that got a little bit more than he expected when he set out to rob someone who he thought was weak and defenseless. This store clerk had claws, and he may have gotten more than he expected, but no less than he deserved.

In the video, the announcer states that this was the first time she has fired a gun. She did a darn good job for someone just using instincts to protect herself.

This video shows us a couple of things. First is that a revolver is a very good weapon to have, even someone who has never fired a handgun can be effective with it. Second is that under stress, and without training, folks shoot handguns one handed.

The ownership of the firearm was not brought out in the video. If it belongs to the store owner, then the owner should have provided training for the employees. As I wrote in my previous post, if you are going to have a firearm, you are responsible for becoming proficient in the safe handling and use of that firearm.

I found this video on Shooting The Messenger.

Gun blazing, he held his ground

From The Star Telegram, one man's story from Dec. 7, 1941:

FORT WORTH -- Sixty-five years ago today, the history books record a great American loss.

Close to 200 parked airplanes burned, 18 mighty ships damaged or destroyed, more than 2,400 dead, a feeling of national invincibility evaporated. It was the attack on Pearl Harbor and the beginning of U.S. involvement in World War II.

But battles are not just won or lost at the strategic level. At the level where finger meets trigger and boot meets dirt, wars are fought by men, and from that level on Dec. 7, 1941, Ralph C. Riddle scored his own, admittedly small, victory.

The article goes into the history of how Master Sergeant Riddle joined first the Army Calvary, then transferred to the Army Air Force.

His first assignment that autumn of '41 was in Hawaii. They moved him around the islands a few times until he landed in late November at Wheeler Field, where the Army Air Forces kept fighter squadrons.

Riddle was a military policeman who just happened to be pretty handy with large-caliber machine guns.

"At Fort Bliss, the top 10 gunners got $10 extra a month," he said. "I ruint my ears doing it, but I done it."

A bomb that dropped on a hangar next to Riddle's barracks served as his wake-up call on the morning of Dec. 7. Everyone spilled out of the barracks, holding helmets and gas masks. People started running for cover, crawling under buildings.

Over the din, Riddle could hear his sergeant.

"I was more scared of the provost sergeant than I was of the Japs," he said.

The sergeant wanted to know who could operate the .50-caliber gun on top of the building. Riddle said he could.

The only volunteer to go up on top of the building with Riddle, in plain sight of the Japanese bombers and fighters, was a soldier who had been released from the brig during the attack. His job was to crank the water cooler to keep the gun cool and to feed the ammunition.

"All you could hear was this drone of planes. You couldn't see nothing because of the smoke," he said. "I wouldn't have known a Jap plane if I'd seen it. I was 21 years old. Fresh off the farm."

You will have to go here to find out what happened on the top of that building and how Private First Class Riddle got promoted to sargent and earned the Silver Star.

Thank a Veteran

To all of our veterans.. Past, Present and Future; Thank you and God bless!

Not all lawyers are spineless wimps

There are probably pretty close to as many lawyer jokes out there as blonde jokes. I'll bet you think twice about telling a lawyer joke to this Texas lawyer though. Last week the news reported on a man who had crashed in a ravine and was rescued two days later. It was reported that he was pretty well banged up and it took him two days to crawl out of the ravine. The Star Telegram spoke with this man today and here is his awesome story:

When Jerry Wood finally awoke, he was in the back seat of his mangled car at the bottom of a brushy ravine.

A stick, 3 feet long and as thick as his pinkie, was lodged in the bottom of his throat.

"I began to try and pull on it and get it out," Wood recalled, his blue eyes shiny and moist. "When I realized I could not dislodge it, that is when I began to panic."

Wood leaned forward and pulled out the pocketknife he kept in his console. Short of breath, he desperately tried to cut the stick. When that didn't work, the 49-year-old defense attorney did the unimaginable.

"I stuck the knife in my throat underneath the stick and was dislodging it," Wood said. "Eventually, the stick came out and the knife went in. A lot of blood came out all over everywhere.

"At that point, I thought that was the end. I thought I had cut my throat, slashed my throat. ... I sat there in the car and bled quite a bit. ... After a few minutes, I was actually still breathing and exhaling through the hole I had made in my throat."...

OK, so this is not a post about firearms or freedom. But it is an interesting story about one mans decision to do what needed to be done to survive. How many people would still be at the bottom of that ravine with a stick in their throat, waiting for someone to rescue them? Read the whole article here.

Jeff Cooper

Jeff Cooper

May 10, 1920 - September 25, 2006

I never had the opportunity to meet Colonel Cooper in person, but he has taught me much. My small skills in The Modern Technique of the Pistol were gained from reading his commentary and from second and third hand instruction from those he has taught in person. If you have happened to stumble upon this page and do not know who Jeff Cooper was, here is a brief biography:

If you don't know who Jeff Cooper is you are obviously not a shooter. For those who may have come in late or are new to the shooting sports, here is a little bit about him.

Born John Dean Cooper on May 10, 1920, and known to his friends as "Jeff," he is a former Marine Lt. Colonel who served in WWII and Korea, history professor and an ongoing student of history, philosopher, adventurer, author, and shottist. Jeff is recognized as the father of what is commonly referred to as "The Modern Techniques of Shooting." The modern technique deals with "practical" shooting--that is the use of firearms in their intended roles as tools for personal protection and hunting rather than just instruments of recreation.

Jeff makes no claim as to his inventing anything novel. Rather he recognized and codified the useful ideas and techniques of many different individuals spanning many years, Many of these older ideas had been forgotten in the rush to "improve" things. Combining and modifying them through observation of unrestricted competition and personal testing, he gradually developed "The Modern Technique." While his principal contributions have been in the field of defensive pistolcraft, he has also been a major (if not the major) contributor to practical riflecraft and defensive shotgunning. Many people have taken the theories he developed and now either claim that they invented them or fail to at least give him credit when they teach them. However, the fact remains that it was Jeff who started it all and whose ideas have held up to the test of time.

In addition, since ideas are useless unless taught to others, Jeff then developed new teaching techniques to impart these skills to people in the most efficient manner possible. In 1975 he founded the American Pistol Institute whose overriding purpose was to teach weaponcraft to law-abiding citizens and law enforcement personnel.

In Yavapai did Uncle Jeff
A stately shooting range decree,
Where senators and belted earls,
And cooks and cops and working girls,
Could study weaponry

As API began to teach the rifle and shotgun as well as the pistol, the name was hanged to Gunsite which Jeff ran until mid 1992 when it was sold to a new owner who pretty much destroyed the school's reputation to Jeff's dismay. He was not associated with the Gunsite Training Center that existed from that date until October 1999. The original Gunsite under Jeff has come to be known as "orange" Gunsite while the circa '92 - 99 school is generally referred to as "gray" Gunsite, due to a change in the school's colors by that management.

There were many people who felt that the things that made Gunsite under Jeff a very special experience were missing, never to be attained again.

As one graduate so aptly put it:

"Another analogy, if you will: In Winchester Cathedral in SE England rests the Round Table. One can read the legends, one can follow the code of chivalry, one can practice skill at arms. But one cannot sit at that table ever again."

However, the school has changed owners again and it is now known as Gunsite Academy. The new owners involved Jeff in the school again and things are looking up at Gunsite. The new management has restored the former status and integrity to the school and from all reports they have succeeded handsomely.

Jeff is also the founder of the International Practical Shooting Confederation, a member of the NRA Board of Directors, and Editor-at-large for Guns & Ammo magazine. He has taught defensive pistolcraft in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, South Africa, Southwest Africa, and Rhodesia. Jeff is the recipient of the 1995 Outstanding American handgunner award. He is the author of many thought-provoking, insightful, and well-written books and articles on many subjects besides just shooting. In February of 2001 Jeff received an award from the Saint Gabriel Possenti Society, honoring his contributions to handgunning. (St.Possenti is the patron saint of shooters--particularly handgunners)

Rest in Peace Colonel, you made this world a better, and safer place to be.

The above bio was taken from Fr. Frogs Pad.

Jeff Cooper's Commentaries can be found here.