I think the extra pull on a DA trigger mostly affects subsequent shots (if you're not used to it) as the subsequent pulls are lighter and throw off your timing.
I'd also say that in a combat situation, your adrenaline is going to affect your trigger pull more than the DA action - again, if you're not trained to handle it. Either because you pull the trigger too hard or because your shaking arm affects your accuracy more than the DA effect.
Also, the reaction of an untrained person should be mostly irrelevant if your first shot is on target. And if you're using the weapon properly, you're firing the second and any subsequent shots very quickly after the first, so he doesn't have time to flinch or go for cover. If he's ready to fire, and you fire first, it may indeed cause him to freeze for a second, but you can't rely on that as a tactic since 1) you don't know who you're facing, and 2) he may simply not react that way.
And if you're talking about the defender, he'd better not be flinching or running for cover if he intends to use his weapon at all. If he has time for that, he doesn't need instinct shooting, he has time to use aimed fire.
And another point of Earp's advice was to keep your cool and deal with the situation - which is standard advice from any martial arts expert. Anyone who can't isn't going to benefit much from either instinct shooting or aimed fire. But to get that way demands training.
Because you find it easy to hallucinate opinions that are baseless?
I've coded in RPG II (God, what a nightmare that was!), COBOL, xBASE, SQR, Perl, C, C++, PL/SQL and probably some I've forgotten about. Oh, yeah, and shell scripts.
I don't claim to be a professional programmer in modern languages at the moment. But I do claim to be able to reason logically enough to know: 1) that unchecked buffers are security holes - not to mention reliability holes. 2) when I've created an unchecked buffer.
It doesn't take any great skill to do this.
Or to whine about people who point this out.
If you are a so-called "professional programmer" who does not check for buffer overflow problems when he codes, then you, sir, are an incompetent buffoon.
What was ill-mannered about my wanting women? It's the truth. I know, women aren't interested in truth, but there it is. Which is why I try NOT to pretend.
You could read an old book on relationships called "Pairing" by Dr. George Bach. Came out in the 60's or 70's IIRC. Had to do with being "real" in talking to people to avoid the misunderstandings that wreck relationships or prevent them from starting in the first place. Really good book.
"Pretending to be offended" is not the way to go.
Which leads me to suspect you really aren't a girl. The other poster was right - show me a picture. Prove the picture is of you.
This reminds of a quote from Andrea Corr of the rock group The Corrs. She said when she was voted the sexiest woman in rock that she hoped that didn't mean the voters wanted to sleep with her.
Parse that statement.
I was wondering if her older brother and two sisters had explained this whole boy-girl thing to her as she was growing up.
"If you try any and all of the above sequentially with Linux (just getting accelerated OpenGL drivers installed can be a pain in the ass), I can almost guarantee that you'll get a crash or require a reboot (or at least your X server will lock up and require killing) after a little while (that is, if you can get all the equivalent applications to run at all)"
Bullshit.
Like the earlier poster said, stop talking about Linux if you have no clue.
Claiming that no one uses anything but the command line on Linux is nonsense. This isn't ten years ago.
Yeah - and power management is still a problem for Windows 2000 and XP, just like it was in 98.
I recently had a client who had shutdown problems. I researched it on the Net and MS Knowledgebase - still a LONG list of issues with power management and shutdown on 2000 and XP.
I routinely turn ALL that stuff off when dealing with clients with shutdown or restart issues.
Leave the machine ON. Reboot when it goes unstable. Do not use screen savers.
"Personally I use 2k at work and XP at home (for my Windows machines) and I can?t remember a crash for either. "
I have the opposite situation - 2000 at home, XP at work. The work machine is shut off every day and only used for three to five hours.
While I have not seen a crash at work (yet), I HAVE seen 2000 blow up - once when some stupid third-party software screwed with the Registry, once when Windows 2000 itself apparently screwed the Registry (both required reinstalls), and just the other day 2000 just went straight to black screen from something (I forget what it was - as usual, I think it was during surfing the Web but I don't think it was spyware - more likely some JavaScript or Java that went bonkers, or some screwup in the IP stack.)
My conclusion: Windows is STILL not stable, no matter what anyone says.
You could be right about the relative importance of the end users vis-a-vis 2000/NT vrs. XP, however.
OTOH, it could also be that 2000 and NT are used at work more than at home - as in your case - so they are managed better. In other words, it might not be so much that home users are clueless (although they are), but that the other OS's are managed by limited installations of third party software (locked down) and continually refreshed by network admins.
Since home users and office workers both are clueless, I'd say it was more the management of the systems than the users which explains the difference. If used at home, 2000 and NT would probably have higher instability rates, approaching XP's.
Well, to strip away the religious fanatics on both sides, you have to kill the Zionists like Sharon.
Or haven't you ever read any of the Zionists like Ben Gurion going back to the nineteenth century?
It's an eye-opener if you think Muslims are the only terrorists. Or didn't you hear that Begin bombed a British hotel in the 1940's, killing civilians? Somehow I fail to see the difference between that and bombing a hotel in Iraq today. Other than that the Iraqis actually do live there, of course.
WARNING! All of these addresses lead directly to the pornographic image described above.
The website is available from at least six other locations, all of which are still up: http://hick.org/goat/ also http://198.247.175.96/goat/ http://retropay.com/g oatse/goatse.cx/ http://web.archive.org/web/20030 623201150/http://g oatse.cx/ http://synflood.at/mirrors/goatse.cx/ http://www.goatse.org/mirror/
These sites have the same contents as Goatse.cx before it went down.
Another mirror, apparently from an older version of the site, is available at http://goat.cx/ The GNAA states that it operates that site [1]. http://goatse.cc/ and http://notyet.goatse.cc are the same except for the two links in the "Receiver" section. (Johnnyversace.com)http://johnnyversace.com) and Boards.ie are linked to instead of Urinal Poop and Dolphin Sex.) http://www.rokbom.com, which is a "front page" for a personal website (http://rokbom.com/index.php, linked by an additional "Rokbom" link). The receiver page lacks the "merchandise" string that the current version has, suggesting that the front is a mirror of an older version of goatse. The modified contrib section has the text "A small request: SUP XXX JASON IS THE RECEIVER" in addition to other content, and the text "Our first Christmas present: A collage from the people at holyzoo.com! Thank you!" is present, unlike in the current version of Goatse; the image is on both sites, however. http://www.goatse.ca, which only has the "Receiver" section. Instead of Dolphinsex and Urinal Poop, the text "Fight Censorship!" is below hello.jpg. http://www.lagnet.co.za, which only has hello.jpg and the text "I SUBSCRIBED TO TELKOM'S ADSL AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO ME!!!"
External links
http://goatse.cx/ - Leads to the notice of the domain suspension. http://www.supa-gangstaz.tk - Redirect to goat.cx that also spawns numerous popups with hello.jpg. http://hick.org/goat/index-orig.html - The Goatse page at a new location. WARNING - This leads to the picture described above. http://www.hick.org/goat/mail.html - "Feedback" subsection with reader email selections. This page does not contain pornographic images. http://www.hick.org/goat/contrib/gap.zip and http://www.exet.nu/html/bildarkiv/goatse.shtml - Links to gap.zip http://www.hick.org/goat/loopback.jpg - The loopback.jpg picture. WARNING - This leads to pornographic material http://www.hick.org/goat/contrib/hello.m pg - The hello.mpg movie. WARNING - This leads to pornographic material http://www.roflmao.com/hatejob - A redirect to Goat.cx http://www.stileproject.com/ - located the complete image set. WARNING! This site contains pornographic and potentially offensive materials. http://www.fc-uk.org.uk/goatse/index.h tml - A satirical fictional interview with Bob Goatse. http://www.bmezine.com/news/people/A20210/plp56/ - Another interview, this one with a French man who some have claimed to be the Goatse Man. WARNING! This page contains pornographic material similar to that at Goatse.cx. http://mjt.nysv.org/ - has a goatse tribute section. http://sam.zoy.org/fun/goatse/ - has a comprehensive goatse tribute section with many well-known (and many lesser-known) photoshoppings of the images from the site http://adult.pornparks.com/rosebutt/kirk/001/index.htm - Photographs of a man named Kirk Johnson, who some claim to be the Goatse man. WARNING! This page contains pornographic material similar to that at Goatse.cx. http://www.detroithardcore.com/lensman.jpg - Kirk Johnson's "Lensman" photograph. The image is also on the detroithardcore.com main page. See the official complaint (PDF) by an individual named Rhonda Clarke [2] , the official note (PDF) to the domain's registrant and the current state of the
There's a difference between tear gas and pepper spray.
As far as I know, very few people can function with a full dose of pepper spray in the face. It physically swells the blood vessels in the eyes so you CANNOT see anything.
Here's a description of the effects by an officer who tested it:
"The officer in front of me was then hit with the pepper spray. The fumes of the pepper spray alone were enough for me to close and my eyes and cough uncontrollably! Anxiety rose as I knew it was my turn to face the pepper spray.
I then stepped forward and the instructor asked me " are you ready"? I of course said yes with some hesitation. Instructor then pointed the pepper spray at my face. The pepper spray stream then hit my eyes. It then felt as if two red hot pieces of steel where grinding into my eyes. My face felt as if someone was blowing a red hot cutting torch into my face. I then fell to the ground just like all the others and started to rub my eyes even though I knew better not too. The heat from the pepper spray was overwhelming I could not resist trying to rub it off of my face.
The pepper spray caused my eyes to shut very quickly. The only way I could open them was by prying them opened with my fingers. Everything that we had been taught about pepper spray had turned out to be true. And everything that are instructor had told us that we would do even though we knew not to do it we still did. Pepper spray turned out to be more than I have bargained for."
I'd say that was pretty effective stuff - much more effective than mace or tear gas. I was exposed to tear gas in the Army and I agree it is not totally incapacitating. The other gas I was exposed to in Army CBW training was much more effective, but even so I could still see somewhat to run away from it. Pepper spray just drops you to the ground quickly.
Of course, it also depends on the concentration. Cannisters are sold with concentrations from 1% to 10% (the latter is supposed to be used only on bears and other large animals - which is what it was designed for in the first place - protecting Forest Rangers in National Parks.) Obviously the higher the concentration, the better. And as I suggested, use a large cannister type, not the little pen devices that run out and don't have any range.
In a home burglary situation, you should have your firearm out and ready to aim and fire as you search the house (leaving out the preference to not do that at all, since it is far better to let the house be burglarized than to confront the burglar and risk a shootout.) If however, we are dealing with a home INVASION, the same applies as far as keeping the weapon ready to aim and fire.
Instinct shooting is primarily for short-range gunfights under the old FBI maxim: three yards, three shots, three seconds. In other words, where you have no warning of an imminent gunfight. If you have warning, aimed fire is preferable. Instinct shooting works best for getting your gun out FAST and still be able to hit the target before he can fire. If the gun is already out, bringing it up to a proper aiming position and sight picture is nearly as fast - provided you have enough practice to be able to do that within a second or two at most.
Fortunately, as I mentioned in another post, most criminals are really lousy shots and have no concept of firearm training, either. That's why you see these morons in the movies holding the gun tilted sideways... I spoke with various criminals in Federal prison on firearms on occasion, and only a few of them have a clue about anything like relative stopping power and almost none have a clue about the Weaver stance or anything like that.
Shotguns are not good for the home, although they are good for estate defense (like outdoors or a farm). In the home, the long arm is harder to maneuver than the pistol. While there is less chance of over-penetration of projectiles endangering neighbors using bird shot than there is with pistol ammo, the tactical issue must take precedence, I think. If you are concerned enough about coming upon an armed home invader at close range to advocate instinct shooting, a shotgun is not the right weapon for the encounter.
I'm inclined, however, to agree with you to some extent that the average homeowner is not going to take the time to become proficient with whatever weapon he chooses. However, this merely means he's likely to screw up no matter what he uses. It really doesn't change the correctness of the tactics that he SHOULD be using or whether he should be practicing to at least some degree. Just buying a gun and throwing it in a drawer is not a good move. Such a person confronting someone who is a career criminal and who is used to firearms is going to be at a potentially disastrous disadvantage.
Knives are equally a bad suggestion. Knives require even more skill than guns to be effective, especially when confronting someone who has used them in the past. Criminals frequently have some experience with knives, especially if they've been in the joint where "shank" carry is almost a requirement.
Evan Marshall, an Illinois State Police officer who is considered one of the country's top combat handgunning experts, once said his worst nightmare is to be caught in an elevator with an expert knife fighter (probably someone trained in the Filipino arts which emphasize the stick and the knife). He opined that he would probably win the fight, but he'd lose an arm doing it. There, he'd HAVE to use instinct shooting, I would guess, since the assailant would be right on top of him.
I'd say the best home defense weapon for someone with no skill is one very large cannister of pepper spray (large so they don't run out before they hit the guy, and long-range so they don't have to get any closer than ten or twenty feet - the length of a room.) Someone hit with pepper spray is definitely out of action as far as any other weapon is concerned (unless he starts spraying the room with bullets while he can't see - which is unlikely since pepper spray is really bad news.)
Like the butler in Tomb Raider, owning a set of Threat Level III or IIIa body armor in the bedroom might be a good idea, too.
As for my lack of current shooting, first, I can't afford a firearm at the moment. More important, I'm an ex-Federal felon and
However, the fact that you live in an area with little violent crime does not necessarily mean you should give up a self-defense firearm.
Just because the statistics are in your favor doesn't mean squat in security terms.
A gun provides additional security for those scenarios where the odds turn against you.
Personal security is one area where relying on the odds is not a good idea unless you have no choice.
North Dakotans may not blame low crime on the presence of guns, but they aren't going to give them up either - not as long as drunken Indians wander the streets at night (I lived in Rapid City, South Dakota for six months or so back in the late seventies.)
My father was an NRA instructor and we had a fifty-foot four-point firing range on our property while I was growing up.
I've read enough on the instinct shooting vrs. aimed fire debate by the experts to know what the consensus is. Aimed fire and practice gets the nod, but instinct shooting is also a valuable skill.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the extra pull on a DA trigger mostly affects subsequent shots (if you're not used to it) as the subsequent pulls are lighter and throw off your timing.
I'd also say that in a combat situation, your adrenaline is going to affect your trigger pull more than the DA action - again, if you're not trained to handle it. Either because you pull the trigger too hard or because your shaking arm affects your accuracy more than the DA effect.
Also, the reaction of an untrained person should be mostly irrelevant if your first shot is on target. And if you're using the weapon properly, you're firing the second and any subsequent shots very quickly after the first, so he doesn't have time to flinch or go for cover. If he's ready to fire, and you fire first, it may indeed cause him to freeze for a second, but you can't rely on that as a tactic since 1) you don't know who you're facing, and 2) he may simply not react that way.
And if you're talking about the defender, he'd better not be flinching or running for cover if he intends to use his weapon at all. If he has time for that, he doesn't need instinct shooting, he has time to use aimed fire.
And another point of Earp's advice was to keep your cool and deal with the situation - which is standard advice from any martial arts expert. Anyone who can't isn't going to benefit much from either instinct shooting or aimed fire. But to get that way demands training.
"why do I get the impression"
Because you find it easy to hallucinate opinions that are baseless?
I've coded in RPG II (God, what a nightmare that was!), COBOL, xBASE, SQR, Perl, C, C++, PL/SQL and probably some I've forgotten about. Oh, yeah, and shell scripts.
I don't claim to be a professional programmer in modern languages at the moment. But I do claim to be able to reason logically enough to know:
1) that unchecked buffers are security holes - not to mention reliability holes.
2) when I've created an unchecked buffer.
It doesn't take any great skill to do this.
Or to whine about people who point this out.
If you are a so-called "professional programmer" who does not check for buffer overflow problems when he codes, then you, sir, are an incompetent buffoon.
Have a nice day.
"Oh wait -- they HAVE improved."
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Really? DOS would sit there all day NOT listening for the next worm to come down the pike.
Windows XP? Gimme a break.
And wait until Longhorn comes out with several million more lines of code full of buffer overflows and what not.
That's another thing!
I have NEVER been able to fake being a "normal person!"
Also, as Robert Anton Wilson says, "The average person is what nobody quite is."
I can, however, be nice some of the time and cosmic evil some other part of the time.
I just haven't decided the proper percentages yet.
But the older I get, the more I lean to the "cosmic evil" side.
Just seems to pay off more.
What was ill-mannered about my wanting women? It's the truth. I know, women aren't interested in truth, but there it is. Which is why I try NOT to pretend.
You could read an old book on relationships called "Pairing" by Dr. George Bach. Came out in the 60's or 70's IIRC. Had to do with being "real" in talking to people to avoid the misunderstandings that wreck relationships or prevent them from starting in the first place. Really good book.
"Pretending to be offended" is not the way to go.
Which leads me to suspect you really aren't a girl. The other poster was right - show me a picture. Prove the picture is of you.
This reminds of a quote from Andrea Corr of the rock group The Corrs. She said when she was voted the sexiest woman in rock that she hoped that didn't mean the voters wanted to sleep with her.
Parse that statement.
I was wondering if her older brother and two sisters had explained this whole boy-girl thing to her as she was growing up.
Well, Hillary's not black or an atheist, but I think she could get the lesbian vote.
I'm not sure about the female qualification, though.
"What was running the on the WinME box?"
WinME.
That's why it crashed.
"How about focussing the energy spent bashing windows into making linux useable?"
How about MS spending $37 billion on making Windows stable and secure instead of a one-time stock prop scheme?
"If you try any and all of the above sequentially with Linux (just getting accelerated OpenGL drivers installed can be a pain in the ass), I can almost guarantee that you'll get a crash or require a reboot (or at least your X server will lock up and require killing) after a little while (that is, if you can get all the equivalent applications to run at all)"
Bullshit.
Like the earlier poster said, stop talking about Linux if you have no clue.
Claiming that no one uses anything but the command line on Linux is nonsense. This isn't ten years ago.
Yeah - and power management is still a problem for Windows 2000 and XP, just like it was in 98.
I recently had a client who had shutdown problems. I researched it on the Net and MS Knowledgebase - still a LONG list of issues with power management and shutdown on 2000 and XP.
I routinely turn ALL that stuff off when dealing with clients with shutdown or restart issues.
Leave the machine ON. Reboot when it goes unstable. Do not use screen savers.
"Personally I use 2k at work and XP at home (for my Windows machines) and I can?t remember a crash for either. "
I have the opposite situation - 2000 at home, XP at work. The work machine is shut off every day and only used for three to five hours.
While I have not seen a crash at work (yet), I HAVE seen 2000 blow up - once when some stupid third-party software screwed with the Registry, once when Windows 2000 itself apparently screwed the Registry (both required reinstalls), and just the other day 2000 just went straight to black screen from something (I forget what it was - as usual, I think it was during surfing the Web but I don't think it was spyware - more likely some JavaScript or Java that went bonkers, or some screwup in the IP stack.)
My conclusion: Windows is STILL not stable, no matter what anyone says.
You could be right about the relative importance of the end users vis-a-vis 2000/NT vrs. XP, however.
OTOH, it could also be that 2000 and NT are used at work more than at home - as in your case - so they are managed better. In other words, it might not be so much that home users are clueless (although they are), but that the other OS's are managed by limited installations of third party software (locked down) and continually refreshed by network admins.
Since home users and office workers both are clueless, I'd say it was more the management of the systems than the users which explains the difference. If used at home, 2000 and NT would probably have higher instability rates, approaching XP's.
"Sun's PATENT-PENDING "adaptive endian-ness" technology, which is unique to ZFS..."
*I* need women.
/.'ers.
As do most
Are there any women even READING this stuff, let alone posting?
Between Iraq and the anthrax case, I'd say that's a pretty good prediction.
who don't check buffers?
/. nerdboys will come out from under their rocks and proclaim, "Programming is hard! We can't check for our mistakes!"
How many years has it been now that buffer overflows are recognized as a major security problem?
How many years will it be before someone writes fucking code to go through a program and check for unchecked buffers?
How many years will it be before people are not allowed to put code in a system unless it is checked for unchecked buffers?
I mean, gimme a break here.
Now I suppose all the
Bullshit. You KNOW when you're using a buffer. You KNOW you're supposed to check it. So fucking CHECK IT!
Here's the bottom line: These coders are incompetent buffoons. Period.
Morons.
Well, to strip away the religious fanatics on both sides, you have to kill the Zionists like Sharon.
Or haven't you ever read any of the Zionists like Ben Gurion going back to the nineteenth century?
It's an eye-opener if you think Muslims are the only terrorists. Or didn't you hear that Begin bombed a British hotel in the 1940's, killing civilians? Somehow I fail to see the difference between that and bombing a hotel in Iraq today. Other than that the Iraqis actually do live there, of course.
So since he is in the "core" business, he should allow at least eight people to cut four "threads" of hair per second.
Should make for a fast, if unusual, cut.
I foresee a new method of cutting hair in those hair shops that have multiple stylists. All of them work on one customer, but it's done in seconds.
No - to goatse.cx!
.
/plp56/ - Another interview, this one with a French man who some have claimed to be the Goatse Man. WARNING! This page contains pornographic material similar to that at Goatse.cx. /index .htm - Photographs of a man named Kirk Johnson, who some claim to be the Goatse man. WARNING! This page contains pornographic material similar to that at Goatse.cx. .jpg - Kirk Johnson's "Lensman" photograph. The image is also on the detroithardcore.com main page.
Here you go!
From Wikipedia:
WARNING! All of these addresses lead directly to the pornographic image described above.
The website is available from at least six other locations, all of which are still up:
http://hick.org/goat/ also http://198.247.175.96/goat/
http://retropay.com/g oatse/goatse.cx/
http://web.archive.org/web/20030 623201150/http://g oatse.cx/
http://synflood.at/mirrors/goatse.cx/
http://www.goatse.org/mirror/
These sites have the same contents as Goatse.cx before it went down.
Another mirror, apparently from an older version of the site, is available at http://goat.cx/ The GNAA states that it operates that site [1]
http://goatse.cc/ and http://notyet.goatse.cc are the same except for the two links in the "Receiver" section. (Johnnyversace.com)http://johnnyversace.com) and Boards.ie are linked to instead of Urinal Poop and Dolphin Sex.)
http://www.rokbom.com, which is a "front page" for a personal website (http://rokbom.com/index.php, linked by an additional "Rokbom" link). The receiver page lacks the "merchandise" string that the current version has, suggesting that the front is a mirror of an older version of goatse. The modified contrib section has the text "A small request: SUP XXX JASON IS THE RECEIVER" in addition to other content, and the text "Our first Christmas present: A collage from the people at holyzoo.com! Thank you!" is present, unlike in the current version of Goatse; the image is on both sites, however.
http://www.goatse.ca, which only has the "Receiver" section. Instead of Dolphinsex and Urinal Poop, the text "Fight Censorship!" is below hello.jpg.
http://www.lagnet.co.za, which only has hello.jpg and the text "I SUBSCRIBED TO TELKOM'S ADSL AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO ME!!!"
External links
http://goatse.cx/ - Leads to the notice of the domain suspension.
http://www.supa-gangstaz.tk - Redirect to goat.cx that also spawns numerous popups with hello.jpg.
http://hick.org/goat/index-orig.html - The Goatse page at a new location. WARNING - This leads to the picture described above.
http://www.hick.org/goat/mail.html - "Feedback" subsection with reader email selections. This page does not contain pornographic images.
http://www.hick.org/goat/contrib/gap.zip and http://www.exet.nu/html/bildarkiv/goatse.shtml - Links to gap.zip
http://www.hick.org/goat/loopback.jpg - The loopback.jpg picture. WARNING - This leads to pornographic material
http://www.hick.org/goat/contrib/hello.m pg - The hello.mpg movie. WARNING - This leads to pornographic material
http://www.roflmao.com/hatejob - A redirect to Goat.cx
http://www.stileproject.com/ - located the complete image set. WARNING! This site contains pornographic and potentially offensive materials.
http://www.fc-uk.org.uk/goatse/index.h tml - A satirical fictional interview with Bob Goatse.
http://www.bmezine.com/news/people/A20210
http://mjt.nysv.org/ - has a goatse tribute section.
http://sam.zoy.org/fun/goatse/ - has a comprehensive goatse tribute section with many well-known (and many lesser-known) photoshoppings of the images from the site
http://adult.pornparks.com/rosebutt/kirk/001
http://www.detroithardcore.com/lensman
See the official complaint (PDF) by an individual named Rhonda Clarke [2] , the official note (PDF) to the domain's registrant and the current state of the
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Do ya think Time did that deliberately?
Somebody in the graphics department with a sense of humor?
A sense of humor at Time Magazine? What am I thinking?
"this little experiment called mankind is now over, it has failed miserably."
We Transhumans agree.
Unfortunately for you humans, there is no afterlife.
Unless of course we decide to run an emulation of you at some distant future date - and why would we be crazy enough to do that? Once is enough.
There's a difference between tear gas and pepper spray.
As far as I know, very few people can function with a full dose of pepper spray in the face. It physically swells the blood vessels in the eyes so you CANNOT see anything.
Here's a description of the effects by an officer who tested it:
"The officer in front of me was then hit with the pepper spray. The fumes of the pepper spray alone were enough for me to close and my eyes and cough uncontrollably! Anxiety rose as I knew it was my turn to face the pepper spray.
I then stepped forward and the instructor asked me " are you ready"? I of course said yes with some hesitation. Instructor then pointed the pepper spray at my face. The pepper spray stream then hit my eyes. It then felt as if two red hot pieces of steel where grinding into my eyes. My face felt as if someone was blowing a red hot cutting torch into my face. I then fell to the ground just like all the others and started to rub my eyes even though I knew better not too. The heat from the pepper spray was overwhelming I could not resist trying to rub it off of my face.
The pepper spray caused my eyes to shut very quickly. The only way I could open them was by prying them opened with my fingers. Everything that we had been taught about pepper spray had turned out to be true. And everything that are instructor had told us that we would do even though we knew not to do it we still did. Pepper spray turned out to be more than I have bargained for."
I'd say that was pretty effective stuff - much more effective than mace or tear gas. I was exposed to tear gas in the Army and I agree it is not totally incapacitating. The other gas I was exposed to in Army CBW training was much more effective, but even so I could still see somewhat to run away from it. Pepper spray just drops you to the ground quickly.
Of course, it also depends on the concentration. Cannisters are sold with concentrations from 1% to 10% (the latter is supposed to be used only on bears and other large animals - which is what it was designed for in the first place - protecting Forest Rangers in National Parks.) Obviously the higher the concentration, the better. And as I suggested, use a large cannister type, not the little pen devices that run out and don't have any range.
I doubt that would work for a Federal offense.
If it was strictly a state offense, I'd try it.
In a home burglary situation, you should have your firearm out and ready to aim and fire as you search the house (leaving out the preference to not do that at all, since it is far better to let the house be burglarized than to confront the burglar and risk a shootout.) If however, we are dealing with a home INVASION, the same applies as far as keeping the weapon ready to aim and fire.
Instinct shooting is primarily for short-range gunfights under the old FBI maxim: three yards, three shots, three seconds. In other words, where you have no warning of an imminent gunfight. If you have warning, aimed fire is preferable. Instinct shooting works best for getting your gun out FAST and still be able to hit the target before he can fire. If the gun is already out, bringing it up to a proper aiming position and sight picture is nearly as fast - provided you have enough practice to be able to do that within a second or two at most.
Fortunately, as I mentioned in another post, most criminals are really lousy shots and have no concept of firearm training, either. That's why you see these morons in the movies holding the gun tilted sideways... I spoke with various criminals in Federal prison on firearms on occasion, and only a few of them have a clue about anything like relative stopping power and almost none have a clue about the Weaver stance or anything like that.
Shotguns are not good for the home, although they are good for estate defense (like outdoors or a farm). In the home, the long arm is harder to maneuver than the pistol. While there is less chance of over-penetration of projectiles endangering neighbors using bird shot than there is with pistol ammo, the tactical issue must take precedence, I think. If you are concerned enough about coming upon an armed home invader at close range to advocate instinct shooting, a shotgun is not the right weapon for the encounter.
I'm inclined, however, to agree with you to some extent that the average homeowner is not going to take the time to become proficient with whatever weapon he chooses. However, this merely means he's likely to screw up no matter what he uses. It really doesn't change the correctness of the tactics that he SHOULD be using or whether he should be practicing to at least some degree. Just buying a gun and throwing it in a drawer is not a good move. Such a person confronting someone who is a career criminal and who is used to firearms is going to be at a potentially disastrous disadvantage.
Knives are equally a bad suggestion. Knives require even more skill than guns to be effective, especially when confronting someone who has used them in the past. Criminals frequently have some experience with knives, especially if they've been in the joint where "shank" carry is almost a requirement.
Evan Marshall, an Illinois State Police officer who is considered one of the country's top combat handgunning experts, once said his worst nightmare is to be caught in an elevator with an expert knife fighter (probably someone trained in the Filipino arts which emphasize the stick and the knife). He opined that he would probably win the fight, but he'd lose an arm doing it. There, he'd HAVE to use instinct shooting, I would guess, since the assailant would be right on top of him.
I'd say the best home defense weapon for someone with no skill is one very large cannister of pepper spray (large so they don't run out before they hit the guy, and long-range so they don't have to get any closer than ten or twenty feet - the length of a room.) Someone hit with pepper spray is definitely out of action as far as any other weapon is concerned (unless he starts spraying the room with bullets while he can't see - which is unlikely since pepper spray is really bad news.)
Like the butler in Tomb Raider, owning a set of Threat Level III or IIIa body armor in the bedroom might be a good idea, too.
As for my lack of current shooting, first, I can't afford a firearm at the moment. More important, I'm an ex-Federal felon and
However, the fact that you live in an area with little violent crime does not necessarily mean you should give up a self-defense firearm.
Just because the statistics are in your favor doesn't mean squat in security terms.
A gun provides additional security for those scenarios where the odds turn against you.
Personal security is one area where relying on the odds is not a good idea unless you have no choice.
North Dakotans may not blame low crime on the presence of guns, but they aren't going to give them up either - not as long as drunken Indians wander the streets at night (I lived in Rapid City, South Dakota for six months or so back in the late seventies.)
I personally don't shoot at all.
My father was an NRA instructor and we had a fifty-foot four-point firing range on our property while I was growing up.
I've read enough on the instinct shooting vrs. aimed fire debate by the experts to know what the consensus is. Aimed fire and practice gets the nod, but instinct shooting is also a valuable skill.