2013 PDN Training Tour: Update #3

All right. Today's Personal Defense Network training tour update comes to you from an airport. Now, normally you see me standing in front of the PDN truck, or standing out on the range somewhere but this week is especially busy for the tour and I'm actually bouncing around six days in a row where I'm not spending a full 24 hours in any one state. First, it was New Jersey and New York, and then it was New Jersey and Florida, then it was Florida and New York, and then it was New York and Alabama, and now I'm here in Alabama, where I just finished taping some TV segments for one of our PDN tour sponsors, Crossbreed Holsters, and I'm flying back up to New York to do a class. Now, as many of you know, I went ahead and took all of the guns, ammunition and magazines out of the Personal Defense Network training tour truck so that I could go up in to teach classes in New Jersey, in New York and coming up, we're going to cross through Massachusetts and Connecticut and go up and do the NE Shooters Summit in New Hampshire. So of course we don't want to violate the laws and we're traveling, we can't have certain tools and we have to follow the rules when we're in certain areas. So that's something I want to talk about a little bit. You know, here I am in the airport, I am traveling with carry-on baggage only So I have no knives, no overt impact weapons, no firearms obviously, I don't have any of the things a lot of people cling to as their safety talismans. Reality is that personal offense is a mindset, personal offense is a lot bigger than just the tool that you carry, certainly a lot bigger than just firearms so keep that in mind. Head over to http://personaldefensenetwork.com. Take a look at some of the videos we have on mindset, awareness, on some other tactics and techniques you can use that have nothing to do with a firearm to defend yourself, and of course the other tools including the improvised tools you might be able to use in a worst case scenario. Now because I was up in New Jersey and I was getting ready to go to New York, I didn't have anything that was considered contraband or illegal or banned in the vehicle so I was actually able to sneak into New York city, go up into Manhattan, meet some friends, who were there for an anti-terrorism symposium, people from the medical community, people from the law enforcement community, the military community, caught up with a bunch of good friends there and got some cool photo ops with the PDN tour truck as well and then Matt DeVito jumped in the truck and took it up to New York where I met him after a quick stop at another one of our PDN tour sponsors, Gander Mountain Academy, down in Florida for their Concealed Carry Expo where we started a course yesterday. Now, a lot of people have said, oh, we're not going to New York, we're not going to sell it to New York. We're not going to do business with New York because of the laws up there. Well, let me tell you something. There's still a lot of gun owners up there who are fighting for their rights and I support them. They actually came out in droves for this class, it's the the largest class that I've had in upstate New York and I've taught there four or five different times. This particular course is two days of pistol, one day of rifle hosted by Allstar Tactical and as I said, Matt DeVito from Down Range Firearms Training and I, are team-teaching it so he's actually covering it today. I'm obviously about to get on a plane, fly back up there and finish that three day class out with him tomorrow and then we'll head up into New England. Now, one of the things I want you to listen to here is, oh, some words from a police officer who recently came through a Combat Focus Shooting course in West Virginia. Now, he put himself through this course. He wanted to get some trainings in the private sector. As everyone knows, I've worked with military at the highest level, I've worked with law enforcement, some of the largest agencies in the country and local cops, people just like you're going to hear from. It's really important to understand why the public sector comes to the private sector for training and why it's important, especially for a lot of police officers who these agencies are under budget crunches right now, to be able to go out and put themselves through training and get the opportunity to train right next to civilians from the private sector. What's important here is not only are they gonna get the good training that they can use to protect themselves and their communities but also it encourages a strong tie between the pro-Second Amendment police officers and the Second Amendment community. So if you stand on line in class and have a police officer standing next to you, don't be surprised and let the conspiracy theories go. He's not there to spy on us. He's there to check out what's going on, get some training he can use himself, take back to his agency, hopefully make some new shooting friends. Take advantage of the opportunity to interact with law enforcement in a positive way, especially around firearms whenever you get the chance. So add on over to http://personaloffencenetwork.com, check out the latest videos and articles and hopefully I'll be seeing you on the tour later as we continue up into New England and then turn back around, go to the Midwest and head west finishing up, of course, out the Firearms Academy, Seattle, in July. Okay. Why I came out for these two days to take this class, amongst Sergeant asking me to come down here, we've been taking multiple classes throughout the years for training, for firearms training, and we've been taking the information back to our department, teaching our guys, our full-time guys and our part-time guys. When a new class comes up, I like to take it if we can get the money to do it and the time to do it and the Chief's okay with it. This class itself truly impressed me. I liked the fact that it constantly drives you to think outside of the box and move to something bigger and better and what I could take from this back to my guys is invaluable. I can't wait to take this to my guys and try and help them change their ways from being locked into that in the four corners and get them moving to a little bit more safer, a little bit more dangerous of a shooter and an officer.