Thursday, May 06, 2010

How many of the Four Rules can you break at once?

A Hamilton, OH police officer (ED: Oops! Misread story.) resident broke two and put a bullet through his groin. Maybe he was practicing Position Sul!

No word on how this will affect his contribution to future generations of bad gun handlers.



(H/T to Unc.)

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Maybe" he was practicing position Sul? Maybe? Most assuredly.

Gun's only got one job and that's to shoot, get the thing away from you.

Shootin' Buddy

Anonymous said...

Too cheap to pay for his vasectomy? Couldn't wait for Obama care?

Nice to post his name for all to see. If it was a Disney production, was it in Technicolor?

wv - cenultip - (you can't make this up) - to reduce your tip either by or with a centimeter. Wonder if he used a .40?

B said...

Was he in fact a cop?

The article isn't clear on that, and in most jurisdictions, you have to be 21 to be an officer.

Tam said...

""Maybe" he was practicing position Sul? Maybe? Most assuredly."

He could have been holstering up in appendix carry, 'cause it's all fast and tactical.

Tam said...

Mr B.,

You're totally right; I misread a paragraph.

(Although it's sad that when I heard "shot self" my mind had no trouble auto-filling "police officer" :( )

B said...

(Although it's sad that when I heard "shot self" my mind had no trouble auto-filling "police officer" :( )

Yes, but I might have made the same mistake.

Sad, but true.

pax said...

Done right, there's nothing wrong with position sul.

Or with appendix carry.

WV: disbrick. As in, disbrick will break datwindow.

Old NFO said...

LOL Gene pool meet Chlorine- Chlorine meet Gene pool...

Anonymous said...

"Done right, there's nothing wrong with position sul."

Well, you do look really cool in the gun rags, all ninjy and stuff.

Problem is, let's say you are a 20 year old male reading that nonsense and screwing around in your garage, you hold your hands in Position Cool and THEN you crouch down in the ninjy stance, the pistol is now pointing at your sensitive parts.

"Or with appendix carry."

Unless you sit down or drive your car and then the muzzle of your pistol in covering that nice juicy blood river in your leg.

I know Position Cool and appendix carry are all the rage but that does not mean they are not dangerous.

The gun has one job and that's to shoot, keep the firebox away from you.

Shootin' Buddy

BobG said...

Maybe he was a believer in Mexican carry and got a little careless with his fingers.

Anonymous said...

Could be. That gun writer for SWAT, Steve Malloy, shot himself dead like that.



Ninjy cool Mexican carry--very tacticle.

Shootin' Buddy

Myles said...

So, carrying on your hip or in the small of your back is no longer "cool" anymore? I must be getting old. I remember when small of the back carry was all the rage.

pax said...

Shootin' Buddy,

It's not about looking cool. It's about getting the job done.

Position Sul enables a person to efficiently move through her home with gun in hand while maintaining the smallest possible "circle of safety" for the muzzle while moving. That's important in the real world, where you may (and probably will) be moving around your own family members. Sul also help prevent the gun from leading you around the corner while moving; in Sul, you much more naturally lead with the eyeball rather than the firearm. Again, note my earlier, "Done right..."

As for appendix carry, again, it's not about looking cool. It's about getting the job done.

There is no reasonable way for an hourglass-shaped person to carry concealed on the hip. The only way for someone with radical female curves to carry on the hip is with an offset holster, but with an offset holster you might as well just slap a giant neon sign on that puppy: "LOOK!! GUN HERE!" Behind the hip is even worse; since you have gut rather than hips and caboose, you'll have to trust me on this one, but behind the hip works well only for people who're shaped like bullfrogs or celery sticks.

Go ahead and sneer about "Gun Skul Cool" all you want (yeah, that makes you look all grownup and reasonable and stuff), but I live in the real world -- not in the fantasy world you visit six times a year on vacation. Further, there isn't a single real-life carry method that doesn't allow the firearm to point in "dangerous" directions while the gun is holstered. Not one. Your favored Gun Skul Guru is lying to you if he's telling you otherwise.

Again, anyone can manage Gun Skul Chic on vacation, but back in the real world you have to stick with reality. In the real world, holstered muzzles point at precious things all the freaking time, and you don't bat an eye about that. More thoughts about muzzles and holsters on my own website at http://www.corneredcat.com/Holster/holster4rules.aspx (Sorry for the gratuitous link, Tamara -- 'twas that, or pen a novel for SB.)

One more thing, SB. About those testosterone-laden 20 idiot year olds you reference so lovingly: if you threw out everything THOSE guys could and do misuse, you wouldn't own any firearms at all.

KJ

Anonymous said...

And how many family members was young numbnuts moving around? He wasn't he screwing around emulating what he saw in the gun rags and set himself on fire.

Position Cool is dangerous as it is overutilized and overpromoted in order to carve a niche in the charge of the 300.

Cool was done for a particular circumstance and now people want to be different so they us it for everything. Now apparently in clearing corners for goodness sake! An answer in search of a question.

Your pistol while holstered should not cover any part of your body while you move or sit (you can check it with a dowel rod) so as to avoid setting yourself on fire (especially during one handed reloads, but can happen with that ninjy speed re-holstering nonsense).

Pointing guns at yourself is becoming accepted practice in the gun culture as it looks "cool" and "different". We need to stop this nonsense so others are not hurt and I care not if others think that safety is fantasy.

Shootin' Buddy

Tam said...

Myles,

"So, carrying on your hip or in the small of your back is no longer "cool" anymore? I must be getting old. I remember when small of the back carry was all the rage."

I remember when running around with one's finger on the trigger in a Half-Sabrina was all the rage, too.

I'm not necessarily worried about "cool", however.

If the sear nose were to break on the 1911 holstered IWB behind the point of my hip, I would at worst get a superficial "racing stripe" on my right butt cheek.

Tam said...

Pax,

"Go ahead and sneer about "Gun Skul Cool" all you want (yeah, that makes you look all grownup and reasonable and stuff), but I live in the real world -- not in the fantasy world you visit six times a year on vacation."

I was unaware that carrying a gun ever day only counted as the "real world" when done west of of the Snohomish. ;)

Look, as I understand it (and I could be wrong) "Position Sul" as originally taught did not involve pointing the gun at yourself. Now everybody with 20 acres and a berm has invented their own version of "Position Sul©®™", the latest of which ("Concealed Sul", or whatever it's called,) involves using one's off hand to cover the slide and pull it towards one in order to make sure that one is muzzling one's self real good. Sorry. If I'm attending a gun school and the instructor tells me to POINT MY OWN GUN AT MYSELF, I'm leaving and not asking for a refund.

If I'm gonna get shot, I'm gonna make somebody work for it; I'm sure as heck not going to do it for them.

Anonymous said...

I attended The Mid Winter Tactical Conference were the gentleman who is credited with coming up with Position Sul was a speaker.

As I remember he was sick and tired of having MP5's pointed at his back when making entries. He had lot's of pictures of SAS pointing weapons at each other.

He taught it to LEO's in Brazil were they tended to be a bit reckless with their gun handling.

He them mentioned it had morphed into all things silly. It was an entry position for a team of breachers, no more, no less.

Gerry

pax said...

Look, as I understand it (and I could be wrong) "Position Sul" as originally taught did not involve pointing the gun at yourself.

And it still does not.

Again, for those who missed my point the first two times around, "Done right, there's nothing wrong with position Sul."

The fact that it is sometimes performed stupidly by stupid people doing stupid stuff stupidly does not mean that there is no place in the world for this perfectly useable and useful skill. Done right, there's nothing wrong with the skill.

Similarly, SB, unless you never walk upstairs with people behind you, never hang out on the upper floors of a multiple-storey building, never bend over to grab a sack of groceries out of the back of a car, or never even adjust your clothing to be sure it hangs below the holstered gun, you DO point that holstered gun at your body all the freaking time. And you accept this without batting an eye.

The risk is "human hand + gun," not "trigger-covered gun riding in secure holster."

One more time just to be clear for the viewing gallery: I'm all about safety. Often get slammed online for obsessive insistence on safety, even. So I'm not saying "Don't be safe." I'm saying, "Don't live in denial."

No matter what you are carrying or how you're carrying it, YOUR holster allows the muzzle to point at yourself and at innocent others all the freaking time. So you'd better make sure that your carry system is well designed to protect the trigger and hold the gun securely in place. And before you place your firearm into the holster or haul it back out of the holster, get your brain engaged and your finger where it belongs.

Tam said...

It makes me cry when mommy and daddy fight.

Anonymous said...

"you DO point that holstered gun at your body all the freaking time."

I most assuredly DO NOT. At no time and in no position are the muzzles of my pistols covering parts of me. My holster is a component of my pistol and I do not point guns at myself.

Sul, and its tacticool variants, allows the pistol to be too easily pointed at what to me are important parts. This you should not do no matter what one reads in the gun rags.

Appendix carry allows the weapon to be pointed at oneself if the person is seated, walking and a greater potential of sweeping oneself by using the holster to reload one handed.

Sul may be handy if you are a ninjy, in particular a picanha-chomping ninjy. I am not a ninjy, never was, never will be and have extremely limited need for the tacticool crap.

I object to dangerous gunhandling being foisted on a naive gun owning population in order to distinguish the foisters as "progressive" or ninjy from the charge of the 300.

As numbnuts showed us by nearly bleeding out on his garage floor, the young are watching and emulating this nonsense.

Shootin' Buddy

og said...

One of the advantages to being fat, is that a hipworn OWB is pretty much always pointed at the floor about 15" to your right. I like that carry just because no matter what position I get into, the muzzle is covering something other than me. Oh, when i sit down, it may be pointed at a bit of bulgy ass fat, but the bulk of my.... bulk, these days, has dunlopped over my belt and is nowhere near my muzzle. it may not be tactical and kewl, but I can't bring myself to point even a rubber band at my wedding tackle.

"As numbnuts showed us by nearly bleeding out on his garage floor, the young are watching and emulating this nonsense."

Hopefully learning from someone else's experience, too.

pax said...

og,

Yes, that's a nice little benefit for bullfrog-shaped people.

All the same, unless you live on the ground floor, never ever go upstairs with people behind you, never bend over to get something out of the car with people behind you, never adjust the hem of your cover garment, never allow a youngster to hug you ... (the list goes on, but I won't) ... then you DO allow the muzzle of the gun to point all sorts of unwholesome directions while you're carrying it. All the time. And it doesn't bother you.

og said...

"All the same,..(snip)..all sorts of unwholesome directions "

I just got home from work and holstered up, (Work in Mordor, nuff said) and put the laser in the muzzle, and then did all the things you describe, and never once pointed the muzzle in any unsavory direction. So, I'd take that bet.

Sure, it's possible that someone come up and stand in the line of fire, but I can't make a situation happen where the muzzle is inadvertently pointed at someone.
Maybe, on the second floor of a two story home, ok, but i live on a crawl. Frankly, the most dangerous my carry gun ever is, is when I'm un-or-reholstering it. I've always been very muzzle concious, because.... well, just because. I'm the guy on the range always yelling "Muzzle!!!"

Anonymous said...

Pow! Right in the pi-what? Sorry.

Jim

pax said...

I'm the guy on the range always yelling "Muzzle!!!"

Yup, me too.

Thankfully, once the firearm is safely ensconced in a secure holster which covers the trigger and trigger guard, we can relax.

(Funny the direction the discussion went. The idjit-oaf who shot himself probably had neither a holster nor a preferred "ready" position...)

Drang said...

<I was unaware that carrying a gun ever day only counted as the "real world" when done west of of the Snohomish.
So that's two of us here in The Real World...

Anonymous said...

Obviously the guy was undertaking the jūdan or Double Delta portion of his Elite Operator Training. For the uninitiated this involves intense training to become fully bulletproof. Next time he should start with start with a smaller caliber and work his way up.

DJ said...

"...detectives are continuing to investigate the shooting, which 'appears' to be accidental."

"Appears?" Do people EVER shoot themselves in the junk on purpose?

Never mind, I don't want to know. Hell, there's probably a whole series of websites on the subject...