Good Stuff

By John Brown

Guns are great, but if you’re relying on them for self-defense, you have to know that they aren’t

magical. They won’t help you in all the situations you may encounter. So what do you do in the many situations where you can’t employ a gun?

I have a friend in Arizona who is a big conceal carry guy. He carries his gun almost all the time, practices at the range consistently, lives and breathes it. He went out one night to get gas. He figured he’d zip out to the station and back. He didn’t carry his gun.

He was pumping his gas when a large, aggressive male came at him. This was not someone he’d exchanged words with. It was some dude that just showed up out of the night. We don’t know if the guy was high or what. But we do know he was looking to do violence.

Luckily, my friend maneuvered himself so he kept the pumps and other obstacles between him and the guy until he could get to safety, and the guy ran off.

You might be thinking the lesson of that encounter is to always carry a gun.

That is not the lesson.

There are hundreds of scenarios where you might be carrying and don’t have the time or ability to draw your weapon. What do you do then?

Tim Larkin has been training on the use of violence for more than 20 years. He’s conducted training with our military special operations forces, corporate security, law enforcement, and private citizens. He’s taken all of that knowledge and study of real-world violence and written a book that contains the principles of what to do when your life is at stake and you need to use the tool of violence.

What he presents is not some form of martial arts. It's not a set of moves. It's about the real world use of violence, how to determine when to employ it, what your goal is, and how to approach it.

We hope to never have a violent encounter in our lives. Many of us don’t. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be ready for it. It’s like insurance. We don’t expect to crash our cars, get cancer, or be disabled. Most of us go through life without having our house burn down. But we buy insurance to make sure we are prepared in case such events occur.

It’s the same with violence.

And I haven’t come across a better book on how to prepare yourself to use violence. I've been to Larkin’s live training, and it was unlike any self-defense training I've seen or been involved with. It was an eye-opener. If you are interested in self-defense, do yourself a favor and read this book.