Tag Archives: chl

Membership is great, your CHL or CCW is better.

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There are many great organizations promoting and protecting our Second Amendment rights. From nation-wide groups such as the National Rifle Association, to state groups such as Ohio Rifle and Pistol Association, Buckeye Firearms Association and Ohio Carry for us in Ohio, to your local rod and gun club. They all do important work and being a member of any or all is a good idea. They all also show a collective support of firearms and our rights. The strength in numbers they offer is solid. The problem is, not everyone can afford, or has a desire to financially support so many organizations. Their having good solid numbers is important, but at the end of the day, well, you’ve joined a club. 

I have the opinion that there is something that each of us can do that shows a more sincere and dedicated commitment to protecting and supporting our rights.  Get your concealed carry permit. I understand every argument people have against this. No, we shouldn’t have to pay for permission to exercise our rights. No, you may not have any desire to carry a gun, or even own a handgun. I understand that some are concerned that it gives a solid link to you owning guns. What is often overlooked is the direct benefit it does to the cause of protecting your and my right to own firearms. 

In most cases, getting your CCW/CHL involves taking some training and submitting to background checks  voluntarily. You also pay for the fee of the license and, eventually, its renewal. Many benefits are gained from this. Individually  you have become a certified “good guy.” In many states, having your chl replaces the need for your NICS instant check at the time of purchase of a firearm because your valid CHL shows you’ve already done this and it’s on good standing. The collective benefits are even more substantial. Every license is recorded, counted, and reported, not by a club or lobby organization, but by the issuing government. There exists, at all times, a finite and exact count of the number of permits and the percentage of the population that has them. It’s not arbitrary, estimated, or arguable. X number of people have a valid permit. You or I can look up that number, as can the media, as can your elected officials. The higher that number, the more attention to it that has to be paid. 

The gist of it is this. Having your CCW/CHL shows a level of commitment to firearms ownership that is stronger than being a member of EVERY 2A supporting organization in the country. We gain the advantage of the very people who may consider firearms ownership a fringe or odd thing having their own data tell them that we are here, we are willing to commit the resources to get a permit, and the likelihood is that we also vote.  Sometimes the best way to beat a system is to use the system to beat itself. 

Please consider getting your CCW/CHL, even if you never plan to carry a firearm a day of your life. You bolster the numbers of people who are pro 2A in a way that cannot be matched by any club or lobby. And that benefit is priceless. 

Another article written for a defunct FB page, originally published September 11, 2015.

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Membership is great, your CHL or CCW is better. by Jerod J. Husvar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Jack of Heatrts

You don’t know Jack about CCW. And neither do I.

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Jack of HeatrtsI’ve wanted to formulate a post/article on CCW for quite some time now.  Let’s start from some common ground.  You don’t know jack.  And neither do I.  We each may know some strong points, but we’ll never know everything.  Before you can start this, we have to agree on that.  I am not an instructor.  I do not want to be.

I am going to approach this from the perspective of someone who is a lifelong shooter, has worked in positions in which I was required to carry, and have carried, legally, different times in my life.  I will soon have my Ohio CHL and will carry all the time.  I want to convey that I absolutely believe every person has a God-given right to carry a gun and to protect himself or herself with it.  But you weren’t born using a fork and spoon, just like you weren’t born with a gun in your hand.  You have to learn.

In Ohio, we have a training requirement to carry a concealed handgun.  Until March 23rd, 2015 it involved 10 hours of classroom instruction and 2 hours of range instruction.  After March 23rd, 2015, that drops to 6 hours of classroom and 2 hours of range instruction.  These courses are NOT designed to teach you to be a self-defense shooter.  They are designed for you to be exposed to a minimum level of instruction in firearms and the laws about them, as well as for you to demonstrate safe handling of a firearm.  In 8 hours.  I want you to think back to when you took Driver’s Education.  For me that involved a 9-week course at my school after school, 2 hours each day and then an additional 80 hours of behind the wheel instruction, as well as having to pass the Ohio Driver’s License written exam.  And after all that?  I didn’t know jack about real world driving.  And neither did you.  So where am I going with that?  Right, wrong, or indifferent, to qualify to carry a handgun concealed in Ohio, you get 8 hours of instructor-led training, and then you are allowed to carry a device that, when properly used, is harmless, unless it needs to be otherwise, in which case, it is deadly.  Many people seem to baulk at paying, on average, $100 for this education.  Many people seem to feel it is also all that you need to be a good steward of concealed carry.  And baulk at paying $12.50/hr. (after 3/23/15) to get it.  In my mind, to have a professional instructor, that’s a good value.  Will a $45 class be just as good?  I don’t know.  I didn’t take one.  I do know that at the end of my course I knew who Jack was.  But we’d still never met.

So how did you get to where you could feed your face without needing a bib?  You practiced.  A lot.  HUNDREDS UPON HUNDREDS of times.  Being skilled with a firearm is the same thing.  Very few people are actually instinctive shooters by nature.  I’ve met three in my life and I’m married to one of them.  What does that mean?  Well, they are really freaking good at hitting a target.  I’m pretty good.  But shooting was ANYTHING but instinctive to me.  I learned to shoot the hard way.  I did it, a lot.  This is what most people need to do.  A very sad statistic involves many law enforcement officers.  They, on average, discharge their service weapon for training and qualification a total of 100 rounds a year.  Have you ever been to the range where a police officer was shooting?  How did they do?  I’ve seen some pretty good shots, but they were folks for whom shooting was a hobby and not just a potential job function, and I have seen some who were… Not so good.

If you want to be very good, and a good steward of CCW, you need to have a solid fundamental skill set in shooting in general.  That means pointing your firearm down range and safely firing rounds onto a target the size of the human center of mass and at least having every round on that area from a reasonable distance, 30’ being a good mark, doing it at 50’ is even better.  Think of an 8.5×11 sheet of paper.  That should be your ballpark 101.  Next, be able to do the same thing, rapid fire to the capacity of your weapon. When you can do that consistently, you then need to start doing the same thing from your holster.  Every round needs to hit that paper.  Any round that doesn’t just killed the thing in the world you hold most dear.  Sounds dramatic?  Well, a stray round killing someone else, is.  Once you’re comfortable and competent drawing and firing from your carry holster, doing so should become an integral part of your shooting practice, if you can find a facility that allows it.  If not, try to find one that will.  You should also try to practice at different ranges from point black back to 50’ if you can.  How much should you practice?  As much as it takes for you to be able to consistently put those rounds into that piece of paper from 7’, 14’, 21’ and 30’ is a good BASELINE.  Realistically, if you’re capable, getting involved in a hobby-level shooting sport that involves learning to shoot while moving, from cover and concealment, and at varied ranges is going to serve you well.  You should also be able to do this from your non-dominant hand.

Earlier I mentioned your carry holster.  I have seen dozens, maybe hundreds, of cases of people waiting to find the cheap solution to a holster.  If you are going to carry a gun the holster you use needs to be one of a quality manufacture, that is absolutely comfortable for you to have on your body no less than 18 hours per day.  If it doesn’t fit those criteria it is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.  It needs to retain its shape, protect your weapon and be comfortable and durable.  You are probably going to go through several until you find the exact right one, but I will tell you this, you’re probably not going to buy it at Wal-Mart.  You are buying a (bra/jock strap) you should feel comfortable and willing to PUT ON AND WEAR EVERY DAY ALL DAY.  It needs to be as close to your definition of perfect feeling as you can get, NO MATTER THE COST.

Opinions vary all across the board as to carry weapons, calibers and ammunition.  The FBI Ballistic Test Protocol (http://greent.com/40Page/general/fbitest.htm) sets a quantifiable standard for the effectiveness of ammunition.  In my opinion, for a general carry weapon, if the round in question will NOT pass this protocol then it is not suitable for carry.  There are some very specific exceptions, and they are rare and I’m not going into that here.  The FBI Ballistic Test Protocol is the guide I, and most others, use, to make sure their ammo will deliver a wound capable of inflicting damage that should be capable of delivering a mortal wound with ideal placement.  No one should rely on one shot stopping anyone, it, generally doesn’t happen.  You also should proof the ammo to work reliable in your firearm.  That means you’re going to be firing enough rounds of your chosen ammo through your firearm to be certain that it will feed, fire and function under varied conditions.  Slow fire, rapid fire, full magazine, partial magazine (or cylinder.) And this should be done through your carry gun that you have fire enough rounds through to also be comfortable that it will function reliably.  Some schools of thought recommend that you fire no less than 500 rounds though your carry gun before you ever carry it.  That’s something you’re going to have to decide, but it’s NOT a bad idea.  As to what gun you should Nope.  Not going there.  Too much emotional attachment.  If it won’t fire 500 rounds in a row without a failure it is probably not a good choice.  Period.

I want to come back around to what carrying a gun is fundamentally about, and that is shooting.  IN order to be a good shooter you have to shoot.  It all comes back to the old joke of “how do you get to Carnegie Hall?  Practice. Practice. Practice.”  The fundamental ability to shoot well will be developed by practicing.  Practicing with your carry weapon, from your carry holster also achieves a training element of building muscle memory.  You will learn your failure points, and you will develop muscle memory that will come from doing the activity over and over and over.  When it comes down to the time when you actually have to draw your weapon and fire the person who has practiced this often will be orders of magnitude faster, and more accurate, than someone who does not.  The person you may have to fire on is someone who intends to kill you, and you can bet your bottom dollar, THEY HAVE PRACTICED.  And they WILL KILL YOU if given the chance.  They do not care about bystanders!  They do not care about missed shots!  They do not care about the baby in your arms!  They are intent on making sure you get dead, so that they do not get dead, and they can escape.

The final element that is essential to being a good firearm carrier is that of training.  There are people who make it their life’s work to become as absolutely versed on carrying firearms, shooting them, drawing them from holsters, shooting under circumstances you’ve never considered.  They are in the business of attempting to convey knowledge they have gained from their own training, from experience, and from practice.  Your CCW class is an introduction to get you to a bare minimum qualification level.  Every bit of training you can get beyond that, that you can afford, and you should afford, is going to get you a small step closer to knowing Jack.  The money you spend will help you to develop good habits, think about scenarios and situations you have not considered, and have a professional instructor work with you to help you overcome short falls that we ALL have.  Even if you can only take one class a year you will be LIGHT YEARS ahead of someone who only ever did the bare minimum.  You know the bare minimum type; we’ve all worked with them, right?  And be a good consumer of instructors.  An educated one.  There are a lot of mall ninjas and paper tigers out there.  And then you’ve got the guys that are really good and know their stuff.  Talk to people who have taken classes from them.  Make sure you’re making an investment and not just being entertained.

At the end of the day you are taking on a responsibility to safely and skillfully be in possession of a deadly weapon with the ability and understanding that you can and will only use it with absolutely the best skills at your disposal under circumstances that warrant it.  Every round you fire, every class you take, every video you watch, and every book you read is a tool in your belt and gets you closer to knowing Jack.  Who knows Jack?  In my mind it would be the person who has lived and breathed under immediate and imminent threat of their life every single day, and possibly has experienced it.  You probably don’t want to be Jack, but you want to develop as close to a skill set as he has as possible.

Again, I’m not a professional, not an instructor, and freely admit I don’t know Jack.  But I hope that reading this helps someone to get closer to it

On CCW firearms…

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MouseGun_Group_DSCN1475

I was recently involved in a conversation on a discussion forum at my friend Adam Litke’s Facebook page for his company, Shield and a Sword Academy.  I felt that the information was worth sharing with others because I managed to give a short, succinct, detailed answer that quite a few people found informative.

Carry guns are totally a compromise.  I’m somewhat old school. Function over form, as much power as you can manage, and figure out how to tuck it away if you have to.

The average person, however, is much more driven by easy of conceal-ability and price. There’s a different mindset between “gun guys” and a person who just wants to be able to protect themselves. Another thing to consider is that a lot of people think you need to arm yourself to “go to war” in order to carry. In my mind, a carry gun is most often a “last stand” weapon and should be adequate to meet the ‘rule of 3’s.’ (The average self defense scenario happens in less than 3 seconds, at 3 feet away with 3 shots fired.)

My personal preference, due to the fact that I can’t wear restrictive clothing or anything that puts long-term pressure against my body, is for either a Walther PPK/s or my wife’s J-frame Smith and Wesson 642 Airlite .38 special. For a last stand, .380 or .38 special is more than adequate. Even .32 ACP will suffice from me to you in a close fight, given the right ammo. If I were to absolutely KNOW I was going into a situation where I has a huge probability of having to defend myself, my Para p13.45 .45 ACP would be on my person loaded with Golden Saber’s or HST’s.

There are so many factors in carry weapons to consider, function, features, price, power, but the only one that matters to begin with is this… Is it a hassle to carry it to the point that someone will think about making a compromise and NOT carrying it? If it is, it’s the wrong weapon for that weapon. A .22 mouse gun you’re comfortable sticking in your pocket EVERY TIME you walk out the door is worth more than a $2500 Kimber 1911 that someone lets sit because they have to go through gyrations to conceal it.

At the end of the day I feel it’s important to educate people on the best option, encourage them in any way we can to seek out the best options for them, and then support them and teach them how to use what they decide to carry. The gun you have is worth 1000 of the one you don’t.