If you are not familiar with “The Tactical Professor“, you should be. Claude Werner is a longtime firearms trainer and thinker in our field. I have never met him but we have lots of friends in common. Unfortunately, my only interaction with him has been to argue about his mouse gun beliefs many years ago. Be that as it may, it is hard to argue with his thought process when it comes to gun stuff. I recently bought an e-book from him, Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make and the Decisions That Led Up to Them. It should be mandatory reading for anyone who wants to own a gun responsibly, including law enforcement and military folks.
It basically takes all of the pitfalls that serious gun guys learn to avoid over many years of study and training and puts it into a very easy-to-read format. While none of the examples given was a surprise to me, I was incredibly gratified to read his thoughts on self-defense law. For my entire adult life I have taught that “I was in fear for my life”, is not a defense or justification for using deadly force. I still hear that answer every year from law enforcement guys who should know better.
Another issue Claude brought up that is near and dear to me is that of issuing a challenge before shooting. Yes, there are some limited circumstances where maybe a challenge is the wrong thing to do, but in the vast majority of cases, Issue a Challenge! It may very well prevent you from killing or crippling an innocent person or family member. Using good tactics should allow you the ability to issue that challenge in almost every instance.
I was at a force-on-force training recently where a scenario led to a plainclothes police officer being shot the majority of the time. Without Monday morning quarterbacking it, had people used their available cover better and not out run their headlights, a challenge could have been issued that may have prevented killing that off-duty cop. Of course there was more to that scenario than I am covering, but the point is, we all have to do what we can to prevent a friendly fire incident. A challenge can go a long way in that instance, and I have never regretted issuing a challenge in real life. I would rather get shot than shoot the wrong person. You may feel differently about it, but my sleep is rough enough as it is.
Claude talks about that issue, as well as many more, ranging from deadly force law to accidents. He also nicely covers another one of my pet peeves, leaving guns in vehicles. You may disagree with some of his thoughts but I urge you to read them and then seriously think about any issue that you think he is wrong on. There was nothing in his book that I could find even the slightest issue to disagree with. Well, there was one. Claude should print the book instead of only having the e-book option. I would buy a box and give it out to friends and students.
SLG, when I try to order Claude’s book, Serious Mistakes…, it goes to a Japanese website. Got another link?
That’s pretty funny, lol. I just tried and it also took me to a Japanese site. As does the second link down the page. The third link took me to where I needed to be. If that one doesn’t work for you, then I am out of ideas, but lets see how it goes.