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Thread: Tactical training for the CCW holder

  1. #191
    Site Supporter rob_s's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alpha Sierra View Post
    You ain't kidding. I spent a few days in Chicago out by Ohare a few weeks ago. One night I took the blue line to meet my niece further into the city. As I stood at the platform I lost count of the people that I could have cold cocked, sucker punched, pushed onto the tracks, or ripped their purses/murses with near impunity.

    Virtually everyone had their head up their collective asses either daydreaming with earbuds in or engrossed in some trivial bullshit on their phone.
    Quote Originally Posted by Guinnessman View Post
    The subway in Chicago (well actually all of Chicago) is one of the last places I would bury my head in my phone and try to ignore the world around me. Most people around town are oblivious to their surroundings and are in their own utopia. Then again insert (Big name city here) and the same is true for those cities as well.
    Quote Originally Posted by misanthropist View Post
    Yeah, while I am not especially prone to the whole "big cities are dens of vice and violence" thing, when I have spent time in places like Chicago or New York, my preference is to keep my back to a platform wall. And I'll only check my phone if I have someone there to keep their eyes open.

    I'm lucky in that I'm usually traveling with my wife, who is pretty switched on.

    Although maybe it's worth considering that the reason a lot of people are buried in their phones is that they've taken the train thousands of times without ever seeing a violent crime. .

    I'll admit that in my own city, I can be pretty lax about security when taking the train. I don't do outrageously stupid stuff but I'm not remotely worried about getting mugged. I'd have to see a group of half-drunk guys in their mid-twenties coming from a sports bar on UFC night for me to worry.

    Granted, this is Canada and I'm a big guy. But mainly I've just never seen a violent crime on our train system. And my wife, who commutes by train every day, has only felt nervous twice. And neither time amounted to anything. And of the guys I work with who commute by train, nobody has a single good story involving actual danger.

    So conceivably the people who are buried in their phones are just experienced commuters.

    Sent from my SGH-I317M using Tapatalk
    FWIW, my post wasn't so much about the fact that it's an urban area (it's actually pretty much the up-scaliest of the urban areas around here) but just that I get to see a volume of people doing stupid shit from my perch. Other amusing things include watching people try to parallel park, and the occasional skateboarder getting harassed by segway cops.

  2. #192
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    Aug 2013
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    Quote Originally Posted by HopetonBrown View Post
    I respectfully disagree. Between San Jose and Sacramento these instructors have been in Northern California in the past 18 months. It's a bit of an "all star" cast, really....
    I've been at some of those classes you cite, and I'll be at more like them in the future.

    But those places that you consider north are south for me. They're anywhere from five to seven hours drive from here. Now I'm there once a month at least for work, and even if I wasn't obviously I'm willing to go there to get training with the right people, and maybe a lot more distance than that for the right opportunity. Most people won't, though. How do we entice the average CCW'er to go to the training if they're in one of those 500 mile gaps between major urban centers that aren't uncommon in the west? Or alternatively, and maybe more practically, how do we encourage the local instructor to step up his/her game?

  3. #193
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    Quote Originally Posted by Guinnessman View Post
    The subway in Chicago (well actually all of Chicago) is one of the last places I would bury my head in my phone and try to ignore the world around me. Most people around town are oblivious to their surroundings and are in their own utopia. Then again insert (Big name city here) and the same is true for those cities as well.
    A lot depends when you ride the subway, and which one. I spent 15 years doing the daily commute to downtown Chicago on the Red Line, and it's a great place to people watch.

    A few general observations:

    Rush hour on the north and northwest side lines (red, blue, brown) is largely harried commuters. That's when iPods and phones and lack of awareness really abound. They assume it's safety in numbers, and a lot of them are kids fresh out of a great plains Big 10 university with very little urban experience. However I've personally helped break up two pickpocket incidents on crowded Chicago rush hour trains, and in both cases 98% of the riders never knew anything happened even though I'm pretty sure one of the perps left with a cracked rib.

    Early morning, before 6:30 am, there are lots of factory workers headed for the early shift on not yet very crowded trains. Lots of older immigrants with poor English, and a lot of them catch a nap on the ride. I guess it probably feels pretty safe relative to wherever they came from.

    Later weeknights, 10:00 pm when I often used to ride home after work, marathon training, and a cooldown at the gym and then dinner downtown, it's still largely urban professional types but not crowded and generally people are much more aware. Not sure I ever saw very many people buried in books or phones later in the evening, the wildlife is coming out by then and it's in general a more motivated and aware batch of people staying downtown that late, supplemented by retail workers getting off at 9:00 who also tend to be more aware.

    Weekends it's back to blissful oblivion with lots of suburban folks in town.

    I'll always remember a 20-something year old friend from small-city Oregon who moved to Chicago for a while, the first day he rode downtown with me on the Red Line he was trying to say hi to total strangers and getting stared at like some kind of space alien. I had to kick him at least three times and point out some bottom feeder staring at the wallet sticking out of his pocket or the camera over his shoulder. Two months later and with a little guidance he was a hardened city boy and he never had any trouble.

    Ah yes, I miss the big city. Occasionally, and for a little while.

  4. #194
    Gray Hobbyist Wondering Beard's Avatar
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    Aah, the Chicago subway...

    Nope, I don't regret leaving at all.

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