Every year, the Evil Princess and I make a pilgrimage to the Rangemaster Tactical Conference conceived and hosted by defensive shooting guru Tom Givens. This year, once again, was a feast of top-level training. Imagine a Whitman’s Sampler of two to four hours each from leaders in their field…and the field isn’t just combat small arms. Of late they’ve been held in Texas at the excellent Dallas Pistol Club facility.

Many years ago, flying out to the first one, I found myself on the plane with Andy Stanford (who was there this year, giving an excellent lecture on the history of this sort of training.) He made a wise observation: “Tac-Con is to armed citizens what ILEETA is to police.”  Like the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, the Tactical Conference takes a holistic approach that encompasses adult education theory applied to the job at hand (witness John Hearne’s excellent annual presentation on that), tactics (this year John Farnam’s interactive range work, master instructor Ed Monk speaking on how to handle getting caught up in a riot, and LouAnn Hamblin’s live-fire course on confronting active killers, among other programs), hand-to-hand fighting with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu master Cecil Burch and the legendary Southnarc, Craig Douglas and Chuck Haggard among others, and aftermath legal management taught by Andrew Branca, Karl Rehn, and myself. And live-fire shooting with more top instructors than I have space to name here.

John Farnam encapsulated the experience at his website, here. You can learn more about this conference at Tom and Lynn Givens’ website, www.rangemaster.com, and also learn about Givens’ own superb training.

If you are serious about armed self-defense, Tac-Con is not to be missed. I heard no hint of disappointment of any kind from any of this year’s 400 or so attendees. Keep an eye on the Rangemaster website for the announcement of next year’s Tac-Con in Dallas, and sign up quickly: this year the student roster filled within three days of announcement.

  • Ed Monk taught about surviving riots and protests.
  • Chuck Haggard discusses one handed shooting.
  • Andy Stanford discusses his research into the evolution of firearms training in preparation of his upcoming book.
  • Karl Rehn discusses his expert witness work.
  • Lou Ann Hamblin discussed understanding and teaching the female shooter.
  • Mas presented disparity of force in relation to the cases he worked on lately.
  • Caleb Causey updated us on the latest in EDC medical gear
  • Tim Kelly coaches his assistant Zach into recommended stance.
  • John Hearne taught about crime and criminals.
Andy Stanford is back at TacCon and singing his signature song.

Or watch video here.

9 COMMENTS

  1. Sounds like a great event.

    I would welcome Mas’s take on the trial & conviction of Sgt. Perry in Austin. Without knowing the details it seems like justified self defense. Were there actions by Perry before/during/after the incident that contributed to his conviction? What kind of job did his attorneys/experts do? If you use a gun to defend yourself in a city with a Soros DA are you just SOL?

    • There was a solid case of self-defense there. Unfortunately, the defendant’s poorly chosen social media comments beforehand hurt him badly, as did his inconsistent account of the incident and its prelude. The governor seems inclined to issue a pardon. We shall see.

    • IANAL, but Andrew Branca already gave his run-down. BLUF: The conviction seems legally sound.

      There may have been a solid case for self-defense, but if so his legal team did a poor job of presenting it. Video evidence was poor quality at best and inconclusive, so it was largely a case of “he said, they said”, with several witnesses saying the rifle-wielding protester never pointed his rifle at Sgt. Perry, and Perry himself NOT testifying in his own defense to directly tell his side of the story.

      That plus his social media postings prior to driving in/around the riot — which he likely knew was going to happen and went in armed anyway, whereas a reasonable person would avoid the area — made it look to the jury like he was looking for trouble. That goes against the “innocence” necessary for a successful claim of self-defense.

      We’ll see what happens.

      • Archer,

        Thanks for including that link. What Andrew Branca writes is very interesting. The comments below the article are also very interesting. This is a difficult case to determine.

      • As always, Branca’s analysis is impressive. I couldn’t get much of anything out of the videos unlike the Rittenhouse case. As to the picture with the rifle, it looks to me like classic low ready which is designed to be able to snap the rifle up. However, my experience is with ARs, not AKs. ARs have light recoil so I am not sure if the same procedure applies.

        Hard to tell from the analysis but it seems to me that the defense should have attacked the credibility of the witnesses, them being fellow rioters and all. Rittenhouse had some witnesses that were not part of the riot.

        As Branca says, he is a lawyer and gives a legal interpretation. But the legal system is broken.

  2. This morning I called Buffalo (“The Chairman”) Bob at the local Howdy Doody Shooting Range and asked why Howdy’s “privileged” range shooters so often try to dodge range rules and sneak non-member friends into the range to shoot for free, drive pickups downrange to change targets, carry trap guns around with fingers on triggers and have accidents, try to sneak in at 3 in the morning ostensibly to use the sanitary facilities, and other dubious stuff. Buffalo Bob: “Like Chairman Mao, we believe that ‘everything under Heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent.’” Please remember that Howdy is just the front dummy and encourage Buffalo Bob and members to attend a Tactical Conference ASAP. T Y.

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