So, I've been finishing up a second read-through of
Straight Talk on Armed Defense: What the Experts Want You to Know, and I'm still impressed at what a useful compendium Mas Ayoob has put together here.
Mas wrote a book back in the Eighties,
The Truth About Self Protection, that was a wide-ranging overview on the topic. Rather than a gun-fondling manual comparing foot-pounds and magazine capacities, it was full of practical lifestyle advice, from mindset tips to comparisons of deadbolt brands. (I mean, there was some gun stuff, too, but it wasn't the majority of the book.)
I asked him a couple years ago why he hadn't written an updated version, and he allowed as how putting together the research on such disparate topics and cramming into even a chubby 400+ page paperback to meet a promised deadline was an experience he wouldn't wish on anyone again. However, he suggested that I look into this newer book, as it was something of a spiritual successor to the old work. Best of all, he had corralle...er, talked some subject matter experts into submitting chapters on their fields of expertise.
Having shelled out my own hard-earned coin to learn from some of these folks, I can attest to the worth of the material.
John Hearne has turned the study of performance under pressure into an avocation. His presentation on the topic at Tac-Con or Paul-E-Palooza now stretches to an eight-hour lecture, and none of it dull. Basically John was curious as to why some people seem to just go to pieces under stress while others execute basic skills with mechanical precision, and the research he's uncovered on the topic of "overlearning", the importance of recency, and other factors is fascinating stuff.
The chapter he contributed, "Inside the Defender's Head", is a great intro to his findings.
Craig Douglas of Shivworks should need no introduction. His chapter, "The Criminal Assault Paradigm" is more or less extracted from a part of the lecture portion of his 2.5-day ECQC curriculum. It dives into the "how criminal assaults happen", and the key elements that are almost universal among them. (Hint: They rarely involve a stationary criminal squared up to you 21 feet away, yelling "Hey, throw your wallet over here!" followed by an electronic "BEEEEP!".)
Another contributor whose material I can't laud enough is William Aprill of
Aprill Risk Consulting. At this point I've sat through...let me check my chart...some twenty hours or so of his various lectures. At the most recent class I attended, I was so sure I'd heard the material before that I cockily didn't bring pen and paper...and found myself frantically taking five pages of notes via the touchscreen keyboard on my iPad.
You'll find some of that material in the chapter he contributed: "Violent Actors/Violent Acts: A Conceptual and Practical Overview".
Mas himself contributed a chapter entitled "The Armed Lifestyle", which touches on a lot of territory, both legal and practical, that people don't consider when they apply for that toter's permit and decide to go strapped in their day-to-day life.
The chapter on "Finding Relevant Training" was written by
Tom Givens, a dude who has provided more than his fair share of such. In it, he offers some thoughts on what to look for in the background of your prospective firearms trainer as well as their course curriculum and judging its suitability for your day-to-day needs.
One of the most interesting chapters is by "Spencer Blue", a dude I've met but who's contributing pseudonymously out of necessity. Having spent time as a major crimes detective for a large urban agency, he's built up a tremendous case file of incidents where armed citizens resisted violent criminals. Best of all, he's filtered out the obvious criminal-on-criminal, domestic violence, gang-related incidents and other obviously targeted incidents to give a look at the actual outcomes of random street crimes and what worked and what didn't when citizens resisted.
The book is definitely worth the asking price, especially when you consider how much it would cost to get the material delivered to you as separate power point presentations.
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