AUTHOR’S NOTE: I wrote this article about 15 years ago. It seems appropriate to republish given recent events. In July we saw Elisjsha Dicken stop an active shooter in a mall. Prior to that we saw an armed member of a church stop a shooter with well placed shots. Historically speaking, active shooters stopped by…
In recent weeks, with active shooter events having occurred at a mall, a church and as children got off a school bus, I’ve seen some postings in various online forums from civilians who hold concealed carry permits asking, “How should we react to this?” The question they are asking, in general, is what they should…
…Age Just recently, as many readers know, I’ve renewed my focus on my health. I am not participating in any type of fad diet, nor using any diet “program.” I’m not paying into CrossFit, Isometrix, Tone-ex, yada yada. I’m using that ancient and under-appreciated method that has been proven over millennia: I’m eating cleaner and…
This morning I saw a quote that said, “Even bad days have an expiration date of 24 hours.” The editor in me wondered if a time limit was a date and then I realized I was missing the point. The point is that even bad days have a limit to them; they only last a…
Some years back when I was responsible for fleet maintenance for my police agency, we kept track of the service life of our patrol vehicles by how many miles they had on them. Another agency I knew of tracked the service life of their patrol vehicles according to service hours. We scheduled maintenance according to…
“It’ll be just like shooting fish in a barrel.” We here that phrase used all the time. It’s just a figure of speech. What does it mean? Something will be easy to do. Why is shooting fish in a barrel easy? Because you have a “target rich environment.” For you folks who have never been…
The one thing we can all count on is change. It’s the only constant in life. Every day… something is going to change. We have no choice, if we’re going to live successful lives, but to adapt to the change and keep on. This is perhaps not as evident anywhere else as it is in…
Nine days ago – as I type this – a single gunman went into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and shot 31 people. He killed 17 and wounded 14 others. Unlike so many other active shooters, he didn’t commit suicide but was arrested. He was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder….
As I stood amongst some peers last week, bragging without shame about my children, one of the fellows kindly listening to me made the following statement: “The hope of our country is in our children, and if we don’t drastically change the societal message they’re getting, our future looks dim.” My very first reaction was to absolutely…
How many times have you been out in public some place – it could be the mall, a city street, a restaurant – and you see those folks who are so busy looking at their cell phones that they are completely oblivious to what’s going on around them? How many times have you seen someone…
Just recently on Facebook I saw a meme that was a joke. In essence it said, “Shoot for the stars because even if you only make it to the moon… you’ll still be thousands of miles away from me with your motivational BS.” I had to laugh and share it with my friends. I wondered…