Don Gwinn

I've never been attacked by anyone who would have been deterred by a yardstick. Sorry, I know what you meant. Replace it with "sword" and you might have a point. Not for most people, though. Most have the same kind of mythical awe for a gun as a killing demon as some here display. Read that again. Why is what the gun was "made for" more important than what it can be used to do in the real world? Are we discussing theoretical design or are we discussing the use of the weapon in the real world? Besides, who told you that a gun is not made for wounding an opponent? Whoever it was, he didn't know history too well. One of the reasons the FBI clung to lead SWC bullets for so long is that they thought they were bone-breakers and could be used to disable people who were not stopped by, say blood loss. Wrong. You CAN strike with a gun. You CAN shoot for the femur or the pelvic girdle, and some people advocate this. It's not that you can't do so, it's that you'd be a fool to use a gun in this manner in a fight serious enough to require a gun. Do sword instructors teach that in a fight serious enough to require the use of a sword one should strike with the flat in order not to hurt one's opponent? If I didn't think I was justified in hurting or killing my opponent I wouldn't have drawn a sword or gun in the first place. I don't fight for fun. Honestly, I'd like to know who taught you this nonsense. It sounds like someone who read a magazine article about point shooting and didn't understand any of it. Next, I'd like you to remember that you speak for yourself. I practice aimed fire and I know at least two people who do the same and have used the flash sight picture in combat. (and won.) It's all a matter of training. Many people DO just point the gun and jerk the trigger, but many people don't punch correctly in a real fight, either. That's why we train. Why? What magic process did they go through so that THEY have control of themselves, but you and I are spray-and-pray idiots who can't use a gun properly? And what is it that justifies hiding behind a police officer who has to risk his life to do what you are not willing to do for yourself? I'd like you to visit a friend of mine. http://www.madogre.com Tell him you're a friend of Don Gwinn's and you're curious about his experiences under fire. Tell him what you told me and see what he says. He served in the Army and was actually once shot with a .45 acp. He also worked as a bail enforcement ("bounty hunter") after he got out. He has since promised his wife he will never be a professional gunslinger again and now does mild-mannered computer work, but he's seen the elephant.

I've seen the article. Simply an amazing shot, and if you haven't tried at a "mere" 1,000 meters you probably don't realize just how impossible that shot was. Even so, it was apparently not a lucky shot; that team had been making extremely long shots very consistently. Those sniper teams will be awarded, I think, the Bronze Star once the Canadian government gets their paperwork out of the way. They have some policy about giving their awards first, which is understandable. As Smiley says, pulling a trigger may not be a martial art. However, shooting and HITTING, esp. in real life where movement, cover, malfunction clearances and reloads come into the equation, it's definitely a physical art in the same vein as most others. Similarly, a soccer mom doing Tae Bo at the mall is not practicing a martial art--just throwing punches. Punching and hitting someone, with power, while moving, and while defending and evading. . . . that's definitely a martial art. If you think shooting is just pulling a trigger, GO TO THE RANGE! Really! You will have fun. You will enjoy yourself. And even if you're not going to carry a gun yourself, you will be a better martial artist if you understand that a gun-wielding attacker cannot just jerk a trigger and win. It's a lot more than that, and just like if he punched you, if you can disrupt what he has to do then he'll miss.

What is a jo?

Yeah, but a lot of these guys are training in three or four arts at once, and others have trained in four or five at different times throughout the years. The only one I know anything about is TKD, but I had a lot of fun this morning with a Kajukenbo student. He helped two or three of us with hand strikes, elbows, knees, throws and some groundfighting. All the things we don't get to practice much in TKD. It seems that TKD has these things, but you only practice them once a week. Kajukenbo seems like a lot of fun. Something to think about once I'm in shape and getting good at TKD.

I'm pretty sure I can take David Carradine. I've got two weeks of TKD and I just finished a Kajukenbo workout. That should be plenty as long as I can keep him from using his famous Slow Motion Fist.

Eye of Tiger. . . "lighten up, Francis." Everyone knows D&D players are not devil worshippers. They're nerds. Seriously, I never played it. I had a traumatic experience when I was 11 years old. It was supposed to be an honor; I took the SAT test and my score qualified me to apply to IMSA, the Illinois Math and Science Academy. Now, this was a residential high school for geniuses near Chicago. Supposed to be a great honor to attend. However, they didn't have American football and as the night went on they seemed to be spending too much time talking about how suicides were down that year. That was enough for me. No cars, no football, and the curriculum didn't seem that awe-inspiring to me. Anyway, we all had roommates for the night. Mine was a freak by the name of Simon. Simon's hobby was to create weird fantasy puzzles and stare at someone like a freak as the poor kid tried to tell him he didn't want to play. Simon and the other "guides" decided it would be fun to show us Dungeons and Dragons. So they played. Until three in the morning. And they insisted that we watch. We were not to leave the room, and we were not to read or talk. Just watch the fascinating pageant of triumph and disgrace that is Dungeons and Dragons. If you'd lived through it, you wouldn't play it either.

I shall strive for harmony with all things. If Europeans are so harmonious and casual, why do they seem to be taking every opportunity to cut America off at the knees on this forum? I realize we're the biggest target, but it doesn't seem very harmonious to me.

8th Grade history, English and computer teacher. I've coached basketball, baseball and scholastic bowl. I also do some freelance writing on the side, but truth be told, I'm lucky to make a profit for the year at this point. It's picking up, but it's not a living. I also make knives on the side as a hobby. I don't have the skills yet to make a living at it, but getting better. I have a backlog of orders for the first time now. One day I'd like to make my living totally from writing and metalsmithing. Then I'll never have to hold a real job again. As Heinlein said about writing as a career, the money is uneven but ". . . . it beats working for a living."

ZR440 is absolutely right. It was the Marines who hit the cable on the lift in Italy. 50 people is a gross exaggeration, but I don't remember the exact number killed. It was horrible.

Oh, no! He's an "enemy combatant." We know this because John Ashcroft says it's so. Pay close attention: We are holding him with no access to a lawyer. He was held for a month before they even admitted having him, probably either to bolster the Feebs' image or because someone was about to leak it. He has been charged with nothing. We are able to do this because he was engaged in a plot to explode a dirty bomb in the U.S. We know this because he has bad connections and has visited websites which discuss how to do this (if you're wondering, no, that would not stand up in court. Not even close.) How do we know this? We assume it, and thus begin again at the start of the circle.

Well, that's up to you guys. But I wouldn't want to walk around London without a gun, much less enforce the law. All respect to the bobbies.

Exactly. Attitudes and beliefs are exactly what cause people to do things like this. Not the availability of guns. Switchblades were never a big problem in the U.S. Much like full-auto machine guns and subguns and the much-maligned Tec-9, they were featured in a lot of movies because they looked sinister, and people reacted. The year that switchblades were banned in Illinois, there had been one death involving the use of one. What does it matter what type of weapon was "kicking around?" A Tec-9 is no different from that 1911 dad had except that it's way too big and heavy for what it is, it fires an inferior cartridge, it's unreliable and it looks ugly or sinister. That's all. They're both semi-automatic handguns. To tell the truth, Tec-9's are junk anyway. But assuming you got the perfect Tec-9, meaning it will fire at least the entire magazine without a jam, there is nothing you can name that makes it "better" or "more dangerous" than a surplus 1911. Have you ever even fired a Tec-9 or an AB-10?

Well, I don't find it funny. Yes, it was a bad double standard. However, it ended 135 years ago. Racism continues, of course, but let's have the first person who can claim to come from a nation that doesn't have a deep racism problem step up and throw the first stone. Have you Brits licked the National Front and all their Paki-bashing buddies yet? You Canadians--has Ernst Zundel packed up and closed down the Zundelsite? Surely he has, I mean, you passed all those anti-free-speech laws, and we all know that more laws and regulations solve problems. It was Brits who brought slavery to the U.S. before it was the U.S., and British common law at the time emphasized freedom more than almost any other system then in existence. As a matter of fact, if you read the Declaration of Independence carefully, you'll notice that it's basically a list of violations committed by the King against British legal and social traditions of personal freedom and self-determination. The only reason the Brits didn't bring slavery to Canada in the same strength was that the economy in Canada wasn't based on a system that required slave labor the way the cotton industry in the South was. At the time, most people considered "man" and "negro" to be two different things. "Man" referred to a white man. To say that all men had freedom while black men were in chains was not inconsistent to their way of thinking. Those who saw it that way considered themselves too few in number. I always find it funny when Brits make fun of the U.S. and try to act superior because they ended slavery before we did. All that means is that the economic incentive for slavery didn't exist in Britain as it did in the American South. Don't believe me? If it was a moral crusade, why did Britain throw its lot in with the South during the Civil War? Because they needed the cotton to keep their economy going. They were willing to buy cotton picked by slaves and snuck past Union blockades in order to keep their mills running; if they'd been able to do so by keeping slaves, they'd have done it.

Well, you're entitled to your opinion and I'm glad it works for you. I don't know nearly as much about unarmed combat as you do. But I wasn't questioning the effectiveness of your art in tying arms into pretzels. I just wonder about the insistence in Aikido on deep concern and care that your attacker not be harmed if you can help it. I almost studied Aikido and probably will in the future. I have nothing against the art, but I have a hard time believing Ueshiba was infallible. However, I think I misunderstood your statement. I thought you were saying that Bon and Northern Ogre's attitudes were the reason Ueshiba decided Jujutsu wasn't right, and I happen to agree with them.

I'm not mad at you, I just don't think what you said makes sense. You could be my best friend, but if you say something silly I'll let you know. Now, you've already begun to back off your position, so clearly you know it wasn't exactly sensible. Yesterday you said a gun can only be used to kill. Today you said only to deter or kill. Well, deterring an attacker is about as far from killing as you'll ever get, seeing as how a deterred attacker leaves of his own volition and is not harmed in any way. And again, there are at least 1.5 million defensive uses of a firearm (defined as uses which prevent the commission of a crime) each year in America, and the vast majority of those are performed by deterring an attacker without firing a shot. So again, all theories aside, in the real world we know for a fact that guns are far more likely to be used in a non-lethal, purely defensive way. Yet you insist on the opposite. I just want to see the evidence, that's all. A gun does not HAVE an intention. It's a gun. It doesn't intend to do anything, including killing. It CAN be used to kill, just like any other weapon you can name. It's easier to kill with a gun than many other weapons, but that also means it's easier to deter with it, which means it's easier to defend yourself with a gun without harming the attacker than it would be with, say, a stick or a knife. You're going to have to define what you mean by defend. I keep telling you that guns ARE used to defend, millions of times annually, and you keep telling me it's impossible. What does defend mean to you? I would say that to defend is to block, stop, or evade an attack. Again, I'm not mad at you, but I can't let you throw out untrue assertions with no evidence. It's assumptions like yours that make people cringe in fear at the sight of inanimate objects and call for more laws to further infringe on my right to defend myself.

If you don't know that shooting is an art, you can't have tried it in any serious fashion.

Lord forgive me for the heresy which I am about to utter, but. . . . has it occurred to you that Ueshiba might have been . . . . well . . . . wrong?

Smiley, I've thought about it and it's nonsense. Can you even attempt to explain how it's possible that a gun can only be used for attack when the best estimates are that Americans alone use guns for defense at least 1.5 million times each and every year, the vast majority without firing a shot (thus no one gets a scratch, much less dies.) Also, the majority of people shot do not die. The majority of gunshot wounds are survived. Not only CAN guns be used for defense, they quite often are. And not only CAN guns be used for other purposes than "to kill someone," but in the vast majority of cases they are. Also, whoever taught you that guns are not much use at close range had not tested the theory. Guns are exceedingly useful weapons at most ranges, which is what makes them so useful. They are more versatile than most other weapon types. Dafabe, Are you high or something? Guns are evil? Are toothpicks and scented candles evil, or are they good? How did these inanimate objects acquire souls and wills? I own several firearms and not one has ever escaped to go on a killing spree. They do exactly what I make them do, the same as all my other tools. I shoot at targets, so they shoot at targets. I don't hurt people, so neither do they. If you were just indulging in a rhetorical flourish, that's fine, but if a firearm has ever talked to you, threatened you, etc, you might want to talk to a professional. CKStudent, LOL. For a moment I was trying to figure out where you lived with no firearms laws. Closest I could think of was Vermont. Then I remembered you live in the UK and realized what you must have meant. Bottom Line. If you train in martial arts in order to learn to fight, if that's any part of your reasoning, and you ignore firearms, you are willfully throwing away a very valuable facet of your study. If your government is too oppressive to trust the peasants with arms, I guess you're stuck, but you Americans have no excuse.

Clint Smith says the rules of a gunfight are: 1. Always cheat; and 2. Always win. Thus, cheating DOES exist. And it is GOOD.

Legionnaire was actually the best thing Van Damme was ever in--I was honestly surprised at the quality of the movie. Much better than his normal fare where you're on the FF button half the time. Van Damme is a very good athlete, not much of an actor, but his biggest handicap is the constant repetition of the same role in the same plot. I actually liked Warriors of Virtue. Lethal Weapon? Can't stand it. Constantly preaching about those awful gun nuts and mythical "cop killer bullets" that shoot through bulldozer blades, but the hero is running around shoving guns in tourists' faces for laughs. Vin Diesel has a long road to travel in order to atone for The Fast and the Furious. King of the Stupid movies. Plus his character was a pansy, which never helps.

Bitseach, guns were a LOT more "casually available" years ago when school shootings were unheard of, and they were common in schools back then too. My grandpa took a rifle to school. They used to stand them in the corners of classrooms so they could hunt rabbits and squirrel on the way home. My father's first handgun was a WWI-era M1911 .45. He bought it at the Tru-Value Hardware store uptown. He was 13 years old. No background check, no FOID card, no age limits, no waiting period and it cost $15 (considered cheap and abundant back then; those guns are $1000 collectors' items today when you can find one.) The fool sold it a few years later for $50. But he feels positively good about that compared to the '59 Corvette with a built 327 that he sold when he married mom. Poor guy can't go to a car show without getting a little misty. The point is, if the availability of guns had anything to do with school shootings, they would have been common 50 years ago and tapered off over the last five decades as we made it harder and harder and harder to get a gun.

Interesting. I've always been told by people from the UK that the government has the right to step in and stop publication of things they consider "state secrets" without much explanation of what that means. That would not be allowed in the U.S. Also, as I hear it, you have several laws pertaining to "hate speech" not unlike those in Canada, which allow you to be prosecuted if you say or publish things which are found to be hurtful to a given ethnic group. Now, I don't like that kind of speech any more than the next guy, but it is a basic tenet of American philosophy that it's not free speech if only popular speech is protected. There's nothing you can say or publish in the U.S. that can get you punished by the government as long as it's true. Can you say that about the UK? "Self-censorship" is an oxymoron. If a person restrains himself for whatever reason, free speech is no compromised. It's his choice. If he is forced to do so, that is censorship.

For me? The footwork. This is TKD we're talking about, by the way. I like the deceptive angling and sliding.

Are you sure they didn't mean "double stick" as in fighting with two sticks, one in each hand? A lot of Filipino arts like Escrimas and Arnis teach this. I have no idea what a double-sided stick would be!

Here's one. Actually, Ian's mom, signed in as "LawMom," posted this one for all of us to enjoy: Stories LawDog DOESN'T tell... Thanksgiving Day, 1994. Bubba (name changed to protect the...you get the idea) Green heads out to the Oasis Bar north of town. He's feeling a little rambunctious, and proceeds to down large quantities of his favorite libation. So goes the evening until Bubba winds up dancing on top of one of the pool tables. Now Bubba is (I'm not kidding) six feet, nine inches tall. And he's not what one would call svelte. Matter-of-fact, the town doctor swears that when Mrs. Green delivered Bubba, they heard the scream in Abilene. Big old boy. The owner of the Oasis, having gone through similar situations in the past, feeds four quarters into the jukebox and punches up "The Yellow Rose of Texas." Bubba, as was his wont, climbs down off the pool table, removes his hat and stands to attention while the song played. Normally, at this point, Bubba would be eased out the door into a pickup bed or trailer, driven home and poured onto his front porch. Normally. Bubba, who is weaving a bit towards the end of the song, glances around and sees a young cowpoke who has neglected to remove his chapeau during Bubba's song. Bubba heroically restrains himself until "The Yellow Rose of Texas" winds down, then reaches over and throws the cowboy *through* the wall of the bar. An older cowboy peers through the gaping hole in the wall and sighs, "Goldurnit, Bubba. That was muh top hand." The bartender says a Nasty Word, dives for the phone and hits the speedial for 911 as the other cowboys from that ranch, obeying West Texas feudal law, pile onto Bubba. Pandemonium ensues. Into the fray steps one LawDog. He sizes up the free-for-all and, in a move that generated gossip for nigh-on six months, he jerks a mop bucket from behind the bar and empties it onto the mighty struggle in the center of the room. Sudden shocked silence. Without a word, the lawman grabs Bubba by one ear and drags him out of the bar. Once outside, the minion of the law proceeds to chastize Bubba in fine, rolling language, threatening Bubba with God, Jesus, Mary and all the saints. According to a witness, the scene looked for all the world, "Like a fire-and-brimstone prarie dog preachin' the Gospel to a Brahma bull." The the lawman got nasty: He invoked Bubba's Mama. Spoke of the shame that Bubba was bringing down on that goodly lady. At length. Using them three dollar words. Had Bubba in tears by the time he was done. Which was probably not the best idea the 'Dog ever had, because Bubba, being totally undone by the thought of the horror he was bringing unto his Mama, felt he had to proceed directly to the old homestead and beg forgiveness from his Mama. To which LawDog responds that Bubba is "going to jail, and that's that." Over the car sails LawDog. Never even touched paint. Hell of a throw on Bubba's part. Set a new World Record in Cop Tossing. 'Dog stands up, brushes the dust off his jeans, stalks back around the front of the cruiser, reaches waaaaa-aaaaaaay up, pokes Bubba in the chest and snarls, "Don't make me hurt you, Bubba." Bubba's second try at Cop Tossing beat the first by several feet, even clearing the lightbar on this go. Only this time, 'Dog bounces back over the hood of the car with a five battery flashlight and a can of mace. Bubba goes to jail, but it takes LawDog about 10 or 15 minutes to get the job done. And during that 15 minutes, the local DPS trooper was having hysterics on the hood of his shamu car. Each time he calmed down enough to give 'Dog a hand, he'd whisper, "Don't make me hurt you, Bubba" and start whooping with laughter again. LawDog swears that he didn't say those words, by the way.