Think of all the physical skills you have learned over the span of your life to this point (hammering nails, throwing a baseball/football, doing tricks on a skateboard, shooting a bow, etc.) If you were to try to perform those skills after not doing them for a while, you’d find you have deteriorated in your ability to perform as you did when you actively focused on it (people call it being rusty). Even walking away from certain physical skills for a week will cause your brain to start overwriting these physical skills with others that you are CURRENTLY using. Your shooting skills work very much the same, and I dare say they are more vulnerable to being overwritten due to how precise your movements must be and how isolated the skills are from your normal day to day activities. On top of that, each platform (rifle, pistol, shotgun, revolver, muzzle loader) is going to require specific and unique physical coordination. Most people will struggle to maintain proficiency with multiple shooting platforms, let alone master a single one.

If you take your shooting skills seriously, you will test your shooting skills periodically in order to see where you stand. The best way to do this is through what the industry calls “drills”. I personally call them “tests” because that is exactly what they are. Take a moment and look up what “drills” are so we can all be on the same page prior to beginning. So let us start out by making it clear that tests are meant to expose what you learned and drills are meant to help you learn a specific thing/skill. For this article, I am going to cover how to do pistol drills so you can test yourself with confidence.

For civilians, EDC pistol selection can be one of the biggest and most trivial decisions we can make in our limited scope of tactical life planning. Selecting an EDC pistol should be done using tactical thinking not unlike Executive Protection Agents planning a trip. This means you have the opportunity to assess the situation, make a plan(s), and select the right tool(s) for the job based on YOUR intel, YOUR area, YOUR threats, YOUR laws, etc. Basing your selection off what someone else has is not only lazy but can also result in buyers remorse(Been there, done it, got several T-shirts), so don't do it. The process I am going to share can also help you figure out what kind of training you should focus on with your smartly selected  EDC pistol, but that will be an article for another time.

​The shotgun has served hero and villain, soldier and civilian alike for generations. Today, most people will take a semi auto rifle (AR15 style) over a shotgun due to recoil, range, and perceived ease of use. If Americans had to fight as partisans, they would prefer the use of a rifle over any other weapon for kinetic combat. However, I think that many of these people are missing a few of the utilities a shotgun can have that a semi auto rifle is going to lack. Though the shotgun is not really going to be a handy tool for everyone, I think it warrants a closer look at where it can fit in the partisan’s toolbox.

The events of the last decade have sparked a growing interest in preparedness against everything from common crime to tyrannical government action. America is undoubtedly crumbling as the Roman Empire did, and there is a fear that people are going to be alone and have to fend for themselves. On the other hand, there are those out there that believe in and are promoting the Minuteman concept. The idea is to “Be Ready” at a moment’s notice to throw on your war belt and assemble into an irregular defense force of sorts. Feel free to leave a comment and your input.