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5 days ago | 
shootingillustrated.com | Jim Wilson
Fine-motor skills are all of those little functions that we do on a daily, even hourly, basis with our fingers and hands. Tying our shoes, buttoning our shirts, typing on the computer are all fine-motor skills. For the defensive shooter, fine-motor skills are also involved in loading the gun, executing the proper trigger press and clearing malfunctions.
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1 week ago | 
shootingillustrated.com | Jim Wilson
Here we stand on the square range, just about ready to run another drill. We’ve had time to get a drink of water, load magazines, and check our gear. We know which targets to shoot at and they are right there in front of us. We have time to get into a good shooting stance. We even know how many shots to fire at the targets. We know all of this because our shooting instructor has carefully prepared us.
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2 weeks ago | 
shootingillustrated.com | Jim Wilson
You’ve seen posts reminding you that you are your own first responder. I have more than occasionally pointed out that you are responsible for your own safety, but I fear that too many fail to realize how quickly things can go bad. Consider this: the Tombstone streetfight near the OK Corral (October 26, 1881) left three men dead and two others wounded. All of that occurred in approximately 30 seconds, with some 30 shots being fired.
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2 weeks ago | 
shootingillustrated.com | Jim Wilson
He was driving through town late in the evening when two cars tried to block him in at an intersection. As the occupants jumped out and headed his way, he strongly suspected that he was about to be the victim of a carjacking. Instead of trying to fight it out with multiple attackers, he quickly devised a plan. Driving over the curb, he quickly drove down the empty sidewalk, got back on the street and left the carjackers behind him.
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1 month ago | 
shootingillustrated.com | Jim Wilson
Not long ago, I went to an area gun show and, of course, took a couple of guns to trade. At the safety table were two middle-age deputy sheriffs, nice guys. I handed one a double-action Smith & Wesson revolver and gave the other a double-action Colt revolver. The first deputy held the gun and just stared at it; he clearly didn’t know how to open it. I told him to push forward on that little button right there. He did, and the second deputy started pushing forward on the cylinder release on the Colt.
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1 month ago | 
shootingillustrated.com | Jim Wilson
The vast majority of potential threats that we perceive turn out to be no threat at all. So how do we determine of it is a threat or not? Well, since most situations occur under poor light conditions it might be a good idea to light it up for a closer look. One solution that has become popular is to attach tactical lights to the firearm. The problem with that is that we have now pointed a loaded gun at a person who is probably not a threat at all.
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1 month ago | 
shootingillustrated.com | Jim Wilson
When we think about our personal defense, it may be that we spend too much time considering just which gun to carry, which ammo to use and exactly how to carry it. While all of that is certainly worthy of consideration and study, there might be other things that are just as important or even more important. Here are three other areas that the concerned citizen needs to give thought to. I firmly believe that the greatest defensive tool is awareness.
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1 month ago | 
shootingillustrated.com | Jim Wilson
Whenever we handle firearms, safety should be our main concern. Whenever I teach classes, one of the first things I tell the students is that they are all range safety officers. And, as much as I hate clichés, I tell them, “If you see something, say something.” Based upon my experience, I believe that there are two major causes of negligent discharges: lack of attention, and lack of knowledge. Anytime we handle a firearm we ought to focus our full attention on handling it safely.
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1 month ago | 
shootingillustrated.com | Jim Wilson
When I was a kid just about every country home had what we called a “kitchen-door gun.” That was an old .22 rifle or maybe a single-shot .410. It was used to dispatch unwanted critters from the porch or yard. Poisonous snakes would be a good example. Of course, the kitchen-door gun occasionally came into play when dealing with even more dangerous, and bigger, critters. In today’s society, having a long gun safely stored near your external doors is really a good idea.
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2 months ago | 
shootingillustrated.com | Jim Wilson
Recently, I was remembering an old lawman that I used to know who spent years keeping the peace down on the border. He carried a Colt single-action revolver in .38/40, loaded with five cartridges and the hammer down on the empty cylinder for safety. When I asked him about having only five cartridges in a handgun that was slow to reload, he said that if you put five 180-grain slugs where they needed to go, you could reload at your leisure.
