All posts by Michael

No, it’s not your everyday Home Inspector License bill. In typical Illinois snake politics fashion, gun control has been rammed through under the guise of an amendment to the Home Inspector License bill HB0562. While law-abiding citizens wait well over a YEAR for their FOID cards, just to get the government’s permission to purchase and/or possess firearms and ammunition, lawmakers decided to come up with a list of new infringements. You know, because they can’t even keep up with the current ones.  While I throw up due to my disgust of this state and its constant violations of the Second Amendment, let’s take a look at what is in this bill. These bullet points are taken from the bill itself, my comments excluded.

1. Implement a system to share information with Federal, State, or local law enforcement agencies, including offices of the State’s Attorneys and the Offices of the Attorney General to capture a report of persons whose FOIDs have been revoked or suspended

2. Eliminates private transfer/sales of firearms.
   • Requires any person who receives any firearm, stun gun, or taser from a person that is not an FFL dealer to submit the record of transfer within 10 days of the transfer.
     1. No longer required to personally keep transfer documents but the FFL must keep the record for 20 years.
     2. Oh yeah, and they will charge you no more that $25 for this documentation.
   • Starting Jan 1st, 2024 anyone who is not an FFL dealer, before buying/selling/transferring a firearm, must contact the ISP with the FOID information and complete a search of criminal history records, FBI records, NICS, and Department of Human Services relating to mental health and developmental disabilities to obtain felony conviction information or hospitalization information which would disqualify someone from owning a firearm or getting a FOID.

3. Gives the option to submit fingerprints for your FOID (not mandatory that I can see so far)

4. Provides that your FOID card cannot expire during the term of your CCL

5. Allows the ISP to deny an application or revoke a FOID if the ISP discovers the applicant or person had at the time of application or currently has a civil no contact order or a stalking no contact order.
6. If a person has a FOID and CCL and becomes subject to suspension or revocation under the CCL Act, but is otherwise eligible to have a FOID, the ISP shall ensure the FOID status is not impacted (Riiiiiiiiiiiight)

7. Creates expanded rulemaking authority for the ISP concerning the FOID and CCL Acts. (WTF so we are giving the ISP power over making law now!? This currently works out really great with the ATF and firearm owners!)

8. ISP will monitor relevant State and Federal databases for firearms prohibitors and correlate those records with CCL holders

As always, be safe, be comfortable, be confident!

Going to the range is not nearly enough to prepare you for a deadly encounter. You need a way to test your marksmanship and decision making skills in a stressful environment. Qualifications are a great way to test your skills with some timed pressure. It may even be a good idea to persuade your favorite instructor to come out with you and document your success. I hear instructors can be persuaded with ammo and magazines, I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

With so many different qualifications out there, where should you start? Personally, I think it would be a good test of skill to see how you hold up to your local police department’s qualification. It is always a good eye opener to see what kind marksmanship expectations we place on our law enforcement officers. If you find this a little easy, do not be surprised, as some departments do not have high requirements for regular firearm training. You may be interested in stepping it up a bit and look into some of the military qualifications.

I will list a few of the qualifiers below as downloadable .pdf files. Most of the individuals I train are concealed carry holders so I recommend all drills be done from the concealed position. If anything is off with these qualifiers please feel free to message me so I can correct them. As always, be safe, be comfortable, be confident!

I took a 2 day rifle class last year and of course, learned a lot about how to live and work with my rifle. Something I always look forward to in a training course is the information and stories that the instructors will share to help get their point across. One of the instructors was telling a story about a relative that happened to be present during a large mass shooting. One of the biggest regrets he had was not taking the opportunity to train this relative with emergency medical knowledge so that she could go forward and save as many lives as possible. Keep that last sentence in mind as we continue.

I see a lot of people purchasing firearms and ammunition right now out of fear of what might happen. When asking them why, I will hear examples of the riots, civil unrest, general availability or non-availability of firearms and ammunition, amongst other reasons. Now, all of these reasons are valid of course. Given the current climate, you can cite almost every large metropolitan city as your source. But, there is an overall underlying theme with these reasons that we really need to place the focus on. So I will say this. Don’t train out of fear but train out of love.

You might be saying, “what kind of hippie crap is that!?”. But hear me out. For me, my training motivations have changed dramatically over the years. From defense of myself, to defense of myself and my wife, to defense of myself and my family. Yes, I enjoy shooting, so taking classes is an enjoyable experience. But my motivations are rooted in love. I love my family so much that I am willing to sacrifice my time and money to learn the most effective skills possible to defend their lives.

I took this another step. I became so comfortable and confident with these skills that I wanted to teach them out. I wanted to expand that love I have for my family to others. To help provide them with the skills and confidence to protect the ones they love. I may not be able to be there when bad shit happens to you, but I can do my best to share out these skills I’ve learned so you can use them and pass them on to others to use as well. I can tell you the feelings I would have if something happened to a friend that has been putting off their Concealed Carry class for months, or the family member that just doesn’t take me up on my offer to teach them how to throw a tourniquet on. So all I can do is offer. I will put the knowledge out there and it is up to you to pick it up. Do not put yourself in that position of regret. Learn everything you can so you can be in a useful position if the need arises.

That is why I say, don’t train out of fear but train out of love. Whatever your reason may be for learning or teaching, embrace that shit. Always keep it in the back of your mind. When you are out running drills in below 0 weather, remember why you are there. Remember what rides on it. Stay safe, be comfortable, be confident!

If the past years of panic buying have taught us anything it’s that ammo is one of the first things to go. People see the writing on the wall and start buying up everything they can find. Most will sit on this and never use it. Leaving those of us that train leery of spending our precious metals. Unless of course we have prepared accordingly.

So what can we do to keep our skills fresh and not spend any ammunition? We can dry fire. If you have not been doing this already, dry firing is an EXCELLENT way to keep your skills up to date without actually shooting. The idea here is to take the skills that you obtained through training and use them without live ammunition. Write down what you want to focus on each session, shooting with both eyes open, strong hand only, support hand only, trigger reset, something specific.

You may have heard that dry firing is bad for your firearm. While this may be true for certain older model, rimfire, and 1911 firearms, almost all of your modern day striker fired pistols are fine to dry fire. I like to get a set of snap caps for all my calibers. These are used as training tools and aid in my dry fire drills. I am 100% confident in my daily carry firearm’s ability to dry fire without issue.

So here is how you get started. Find a location in your home that would be considered a safe direction if something bad were to happen. Meaning you don’t clear your firearm correctly and put a round through your wall. I like to use the foundation wall in my basement as my safe direction. Take ALL the live ammunition out of your firearm and remove it from the room. I like to hang my target up on the wall and practice my drills. I suggest working on drawing from the holster, move and present the firearm, and pull the trigger on your target in a safe direction. From here you would navigate to any specifics you wanted to focus on. I like to go through the same drills I would in a live fire session.

This is a great way to work out kinks in your setup or try new things. Change up the position where you carry. Find out what works and what doesn’t. Use different clothing. Try your summer clothes, winter clothes, or maybe a heavy coat. Have you ever practiced drawing your firearm from inside your vehicle? You could park in the garage but this may be an issue for some who don’t have a safe direction there. You could always grab a chair and bring it to your designated safe location. This is a great way to safely workout the mechanics of drawing from inside your vehicle.

Dry firing is a great way for everyone to become more familiar with their firearm. This is something that everyone should be doing. From your everyday carrier, your weekend target shooter, to your seasoned police officer.

I hope you all have a great day. Be safe, be comfortable, be confident!

Now that we have the food and water taken care of let’s take a look at another crucial aspect of preparedness, defending yourselves and loved ones. In my great commie state of Illinois we have this thing called a FOID (Firearm Owners Identification) card. This is required to possess or purchase firearms and ammunition. If you don’t live in this state you might be thinking, “that is insane”, and you would be correct. But that is a topic for another day. Long before the times of this virus and civil unrest, if we spoke about firearms I probably asked you if you have your FOID. I would then go forth to suggest you get it and we go shooting. Previous to all this chaos getting your FOID card was a pain in the ass, but you usually received it in a somewhat timely manner. Even if you didn’t plan on buying a firearm I still suggested that you get your FOID and Concealed Carry cards.

Now let’s fast forward to today. Unless you have been living in total isolation you are aware of the events that have happened and what continue to happen. A declared pandemic and civil unrest is a really bad time to start trying to stock up on firearms and ammunition. Just like we saw with the food supplies, firearms have dried up and prices have increased a good amount. Ammunition is nowhere to be found unless you really work hard and prices for that have just about tripled. Now, all of a sudden you want to make friends with the guy that orders his bulk ammo supply for the year, or in case something happens…like ammo becoming extinct. FOID card delays are all over the place. Some people are waiting 90 days, some MUCH longer than that. You know what that means? They are unable to legally purchase firearms or ammunition. They have literally been handicapped to legally acquire the means to defend their lives. Renewals for FOID and Concealed Carry cards have been placed on the backburner and a note has been sent out that it is ok until they are able to catch up. Issues with presenting expired FOID cards to buy anything still present themselves despite the notes. At this point if you have not obtained your FOID and Concealed Carry you are at the mercy of the state to legally purchase items to defend yourself. That is something you may want to remember for the rest of your life.

Let’s move on here. These are a few basics that I suggest having to defend yourselves and your loved ones. First off, I suggest getting yourself a reliable full size pistol. I am not going to go into great detail right now, just stay away from the cheap shit and stick with major name brands. Glock, M&P, Canik, and Ruger are all good manufactures to look at.

Spare magazines are a must. Use the food model we discussed in the last post and just started grabbing a few magazines here and there. If you find a good deal on something, buy a bunch.

You are going to need a holster for this pistol. An outside or inside the waistband holster will do. Again, I’m not going to get into specifics as I will do an entire write up on gear at some point. Just make sure it’s some type of hard kydex plastic that covers the trigger and is designed for your specific model. Do not get these soft one size fits all holsters. They suck and they are not safe.

You are going to want to get yourself a long gun. My recommendation is an AR (which stands for Armalite, not Assault Rifle) style platform chambered in 5.56 or .223 wylde. This is the most common long gun in the United States. If it came down to needing to borrow and share magazines, the chances of you finding someone with the same format is very high. Another benefit is that this firearm is very easy to shoot. Each member of your family will be able to manipulate this with little trouble. A sling is necessary, this is not an option. You will need multiple magazines as well. I tend to favor the Magpul 30 round variety. If you are unable to afford or find an AR platform rifle, I would look for a pistol caliber carbine or shotgun. This in no way substitutes a rifle but it is better than a pistol.

You will obviously need ammunition to go with your firearms. At this point, if you do not have ammo, you will need to pick up whatever you can find. This means you will more than likely be buying a box or two when you find it. Which was a good practice prior to all this chaos. Buying in bulk has always been my recommended way to go. You will usually get the best deal this way and picking up 1000 rounds at the beginning of the year will have you set for your training season or the current situation we have found ourselves in. Bulk orders at this time are rare. The handful I have found sell out in under 1 second, that is not an exaggeration. 1000 rounds per functional firearm is an excellent goal. I don’t mean the firearms you have sitting collecting dust, although you should have ammo for each of your firearms. Right now I am talking about the firearms you would use to defend yourself and your family.

None of this will matter much if you don’t train. Going out and spending $3,000 on firearms and ammunition won’t do you any good if you don’t know how to use them. Find some training. With how scarce ammo is now you may be hesitant to take a class. Save the ammo up and take the class! You will learn skills that you can take with you and pass on for the rest of your life. It is worth it!

So after you acquire the firearms, ammunition, and training where does that leave you? A plan or multiple plans need to be developed. I would suggest starting with your home. Set up a defense plan similar to an emergency response plan for a fire or tornado. Where will you go? Where will your family go? Who will call 911? Who will render medical aid if needed? This is something you should talk about with your family. Once you have a function home plan in place you can start thinking about your block/neighborhood. Talk to friends and neighbors about what you would do in the case of violent crimes and no police response. How will you communicate with each other quickly if the need comes? What are each of your neighbors strengths? If you haven’t done so already, it is time to start building your local community.

Think this is all ridiculous and over the top? Take a look at any of the multiple examples of riots and civil unrest we have seen over the past few years. When those towns were burning to the ground what was the response time of police for something like a home invasion a few miles down the road? There wasn’t one! It is best that you start to learn that when bad shit is happening, no one is coming to save you. You are your own first responder.

Be comfortable, be confident, and stay safe!