​After recently participating in both HEAT 1 & 2, I feel like I am qualified enough to give Max Velocity Tactical a semi-thorough look-through to inform you on the training opportunities they offer. They currently have 6 regularly scheduled class subjects, to include an Alumni get together in Texas each year, which I will attend, if able.

​Self-defense is a broad subject that many of my fellow gun geeks have distilled down to the act of shooting an attacker. Based on my training and experience, there is a whole lot more to defense than pulling a trigger. In fact, defense goes well beyond learning ‘Gun-Fu’. There are stages leading up to the attack that you can see, countermeasures that can be taken, contingencies you can/should train for, and even methods in which you should conduct yourself before/after the critical incident, in the eyes of the law. The greatest flaw in mainstream firearms training is they are only preparing you for pulling the trigger, even in “self-defense” classes. This merely reinforces the myopic ideology that defense revolves around the trigger. I get that instructors will pander to the mainstream to keep their business alive, but I feel that classes can at least be enhanced or modified to include the reality of defense. But in the meantime, let me fill you in on a few things to munch on in your mind.

​Firearms skills is the only physical skill that I know of that is sold as something that can be taught in an 8-hour class. By the end of the day, depending on your learning ability, you will be shooting relatively well or even better than you thought you could. However, after 24 hours, a majority of that end-of-day performance will have vanished. Why? Because that is just how the human brain operates when it is exposed to a new physical skill. Sorry, but you will not just be able to shake off the rust in 10 years just because you took a particular class with someone who made you feel good about yourself for $300. My aim in this article is to expose you to the complexity of learning how to shoot. Even getting to the point of being ‘good enough’ will be trivial and difficult.

​I spent 5 years and change in the Marine Corps infantry. I was wounded in Afghanistan and was stabilized before being medically retired at the ripe old age of 23. My military experience gave me incredible experience and exposure (though limited for sure) to how a battalion is run and how it fights. More than that, I got to see the small & large picture of serving during a time of war and experienced its benefits and shortfalls. In this article, I am merely going to describe my analysis from 50,000ft (so to speak) of what it is like to serve in the military. This is not going to be fully detailed, but should hit the wavetops of how it affects the psychological state of a US citizen as they serve in our volunteer military (during my time, anyways). Just remember this is my isolated experience being condensed down to be honest and comparable for someone unexposed to military life. I cannot speak for current Marines or even other branches.

When most people encounter any amount of endured suffering, they talk themselves into quitting. Getting people to commit to something as simple as a workout schedule or consistently maintain a specific diet is virtually impossible, even if it is for their benefit. This is why people who make it through selections (Special Forces/SWAT) and tough schools (Ranger School) are so few in number. I believe that each of these organizations and schools can teach us how to suffer well and perform at our best.

“He is best that is trained in the severest school” 
-Thucydides ​

New Zealand is a small country and yet their SAS regiment has to maintain the capabilities and lethality of their larger commonwealth SAS peers in Australia and Britain, to the point of seamless integration on joint operations. For this reason, I have been greatly inspired by the NZSAS, specifically their selection and training, for its high demands for constant performance. Though the NZSAS is closely modelled operationally off the British counterpart, their selections are different. Joe Hotai, who went through both the NZ (10 days + 9 Months) and Australian (3 weeks + 16 Months) SAS selections, NZSAS was much harder. All the information I am about to share is generalized for the sake of brevity, but there is more detail on msigwarrior.com or YouTube. 

In a fighting force, recon teams have the power to drive operational and even strategic decisions through supplying accurate and timely intel to commanders. In rare cases, conventional recon elements take action against the enemy with permission/orders from higher, though it is very rare. I believe that having recon elements capable of filling more roles than just snooping and pooping is the most efficient way to operate. Though, there are scholars out there that feel that  recon is and should be a very myopic specialty. I think there is enough evidence to support the fact that multi-purpose recon elements is the best way to go. The Marines are a perfect example with their Recon Battalions being Special Operations Capable, IMHO.

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.