I share your doubts, and I don’t follow him or care what he has to say about anything. I do try not to underestimate people, because it can cost dearly.
Let’s face it: If you can a) follow the Rule of Stupids, b) pay attention to what’s around you, c) sprint very fast, and d) protect your head and stuff takedowns, you’re way ahead of the gun nut who is swathed in 4XL body armor and has an MP5k under each arm (and another strapped to his oxygen bottle).
Let’s also not forget that some people literally can’t sprint very fast, protect their heads, or stuff takedowns. And some other people are obliged to go to stupid places at stupid times. That’s where the good ole 2A comes in real handy.
At the Luby's Massacre, IIRC - two elderly women at elderly women speed walked out when the shooting started and made it. You do what you can.
Cloud Yeller of the Boomer Age
In my observation and experience, 90% of the time it does not make a bit of difference if you have the latest, coolest gun, or RDO. That said, I will still take them and use them, as it may give me an advantage, and I may be in a situation where I need to slow down for just a literal second and take a truly precise shot within a small window of opportunity. There have been times where I wish I would have had the equipment I have available to me now. Plus my eyes don't see a front sight like the used to.
Most the time, it is what you do, and when you do it that matters. I will give an example.
Years back, I was sitting at my desk pretending to be interested in typing a report. A call went out of a bank robbery in progress. That sounded better than the report I was writing. My partner and I suited up and went. Long story short, there are two bad guys. One gets taken down in a parking lot. The other we locate in a house. He gets called out, very non compliant. Extremely large native American guy.
Everyone is behind cover (he had robbed the bank with a sawed off shotgun). Various people are screaming "Don't move, put your hands up, do the hokie pokie". All the usual.
It is getting met with "Go fornicate in a solo fashion!"
It is going nowhere, so I run at the guy rifle up yelling. When I do, my partner does too. I grab him by the arm and go to take him down. Nothing happens. For a second I wonder if my partner is pulling the other way. I Look. Nope, he is just that big.
Then I see his pony tail.
Grab the pony tail and drive it into the ground. Put my gun on him from there, and all of the sudden we are surrounded by cops.
Bad guys looks up and says" Dick move Bro".
***sidebar below****
Anyway, the point is that it is not the gear that gets things done, it is you. YOU deciding to act is what will cause you to win or lose. You can have all the cool guy stuff in the world, and be as trendy as you want, but if you hesitate, or are not fully committed to the fight, it really does not matter one bit. You have to be willing. The rest is just stuff.
****sidebar****
I don't know much about fighting, so I always followed two simple rules.
1. Where the head goes, the body follows.
and
2. You can't fight if you can't breath.
Those two seemed to work quite well. Not PC today, but they worked for me.
Turning anything into an idol is generally unhealthy and unproductive. Worse yet when the subject matter is an industry dealing with life and death stuff. For example: A gun component. A particular technique. A cult of personality instructor. A specific manufacturer... We see this stuff all the time. It's just idol worship.
A moderate approach is so much healthier in almost all things, except maybe something like firearm safety principles. Red dots are great and a serious enabler when used properly. Irons work just fine too and are generally 70-90% cheaper, or free if the stock sights are metal and sufficient for you.
I suspect most of us have a mix of red dots and irons. Personally, I think irons-only on some guns is perfectly reasonable. For example, needing to outfit 10x of the same gun (let's be honest, who here only has one or two pistols?! ). I don't look forward to that bill with $50-100 irons x10, let alone $500+.
Administrator for PatRogers.org
The RDS was the gun messiah to me! Due to an eye condition, I have to wear contact lenses that affords zero accommodation. My optometrist asked me if I want to see far or close. I have to readers if I want to see the sights but I can't see the target. Now I am planning to put dots on all of my handguns.
In medicine, I am all about learning what is new and potentially better. You grow as a physician and it will benefit your patients. I see a lot of doctors who resist learning new things and are stuck in the past. They are Amish. I think Jeff Cooper and now Hackathorn are probably Amish. They used to be innovators but once they stopped innovating, they stop stopped growing and became dogmatic.
By the way, I think John is a black belt in Kempo...so he can probably kick my ass fat or not. Hell, when I first met Cecil Burch I though he looked like a bartender. I didn't know who is was or what he was capable of. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Unless I wear glasses, a RDS is a giant blob for me. I'm also a former karateka....very little about a black belt in Kenpo impresses me.
As for dogma...John is the one being dogmatic about red dot sights. I knew a bunch of docs who were all about those vitamin C studies for treating sepsis patients only to realize the latest really wasn't really the greatest.
Red dots probably are the future....just not for all of us, and broad sweeping generalizations only serve to make one seem narrow minded
Glenn - your not car Amish unless you borrowed that Honda from an Englisher and returned with an empty fuel tank after charging all your neighbors $25.00 for rides to town to go grocery shopping at WalMart.
Best car I ever had was my old 1991 Ford Escort. I beat that thing like a rented mule for over 176,000 miles. 1 clutch, 1 set of struts, a couple of timing belts and probably a dozen or so sets of front brake pads. I got rid of it because it's body was beat to death from hail and an accident - which pretty much paid for the vehicle. Everyone should have a disposable car at one point in their life, it's fun.
Adding nothing to the conversation since 2015....