Today was the first of the three days of this prestigious seminar.\u00a0 All of us, of course, were discussing the incident and its misplaced aftershocks.\u00a0 My day began taking a long-range pistol class taught by my colleague Marty Hayes and his assistant, Belle McCormack from the Firearms Academy of Seattle.<\/a>\u00a0 In their introduction to the class, they pointed out that the interdiction of a mass murderer might require distance shooting even if the rescuer only had a pistol. The shooting curriculum put pressure on all of us pulling the triggers to get precision hits under stress.<\/p>\n I also took a class on training to the gun owner\u2019s specific needs from Jack Feldman, Ph.D, and Martin Topper, a well-known psychologist who moonlights as a gun magazine writer.\u00a0 For anyone buying into the anti-gun meme that \u201cno one needs a defensive firearm that can hold more than ten cartridges,\u201d both pointed out the fact that home invasions these days tend to involve multiple perpetrators, who are sometimes wearing body armor. (One of the other attendees told me of a case in his bailiwick that involved eight <\/em>armed home intruders.)\u00a0 Being the actors who initiate the assault, the home invaders can be expected to make their violent entry with multiple guns per offender and all the ammo they wish to carry.\u00a0 The reactor, the home defender, by contrast is likely to have only the number of rounds in the gun he or she barely had time to get to.\u00a0 Do the math\u2026<\/p>\n As grim as the topics at TacCon are, there is some sport to it. Host Tom Givens includes a combat handgun competition called The Polite Society Match. The name derives from a Robert Heinlein quote popularized by Col. Jeff Cooper, USMC Retired: \u201cAn armed society is a polite society.\u201d<\/p>\n TacCon draws some serious shooters.\u00a0 To preserve suspense, the hosts don\u2019t post the scores as soon as they are recorded, but I can tell you a couple of things. First, the Evil Princess, who has twice been high woman at this event in the past shooting against some of the top females in the country and beating most of the men, is only two points down from perfect. Second, the quality of shooting here is so high that just after the first day, several perfect scores on the fixed-time speed shooting event have been recorded.\u00a0 Good news (for me, anyway), I\u2019m one of them.\u00a0 Bad news: the competing field includes world-class champion shooters like Gabe White and Ernest Langdon.\u00a0 In the shootoff for the title, my chances are about like a snowball in hell\u2026but at least I\u2019ll go down shooting. We\u2019ll know the results Sunday night, but I won\u2019t have time to blog on it for a few days because on Sunday I have to race to the Little Rock airport so I can get to St. Louis on time to chair the Panel Of Experts on Deadly Force and Firearms Training for the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers seminar.<\/p>\n Oh, and one more thing: one trainer scheduled to teach at TacCon couldn\u2019t make it. He is a veteran street cop, and a master instructor in both the gun and hand to hand combat.\u00a0 Scuttlebutt is, his department had an officer-involved shooting and even though he apparently wasn\u2019t the cop who pulled the trigger, his name came into it.\u00a0 The trolls \u2013 haters of cops, haters of armed citizens, haters of those with the courage to defend themselves \u2013 got hold of his home address and the address of the gym he owns as a sideline, and published it.\u00a0 Death threats to him, his family, and his students have reportedly resulted.\u00a0 Understandably, he is staying home in a protective role.<\/p>\n I know this man. A note to the trolls stalking him and those within the mantle of his protection: if you actually are<\/em> stupid enough to send your punk puppets after him and them \u2026 send the ones you don\u2019t need back.<\/p>\n In the current climate, the hatred of the weak toward the strong seems to grow day by day.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Psychologist Martin Topper…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n …and retired psychology professor Jack Feldman discuss how to tailor priorities of practice and training to the individual’s lifestyle.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The firing line takes a look at their distant steel targets on the FAS long range pistol course.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2018-03-16-13.10.12.jpg\")
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