I wrote a post a while back titled ‘In Extremis’ about a potential mass shooting near where I lived at the time that thankfully never came to fruition.
A person rarely knows when Death will come knocking on their door, so we must be prepared for when it does. Those people in the restaurant never thought they’d be going to their last meal. Thanks to the forethought of those armed defenders, and their willingness to do violence in defense of others, none of them did. They all lived to eat overpriced burgers and specialty pizzas another day.
An incident like that happened in Idaho a few days ago, as I’m very sure all of you have seen by now. A slackjawwed faggot emotionally immature person decided to spend the last part of his wasted life ending the lives of innocent people, with the intent of ending his own as soon as police arrived. Thankfully, he was interrupted by an armed citizen. The “Good guy with a gun” that the legacy media has been intent on erasing from our minds for the last 5 or so decades.
Actually there were 2 men that responded. We will discuss both of them. [editor’s note, 8-9-26: There were 5 citizens who responded in some capacity during the event, not 2.]
The first and the one I’m going to focus on is Jordan Salinas.
Jordan is a daily CCW-carrier and runs the Poverty Operator YouTube channel (LOL). Jordan was apparently coming back from horseback riding and grabbing some In-N-Out on his way home when gunfire erupted. Jordan did the thing lots of people claim they’d do if that situation ever arises: he ran towards the gunfire. He produced his firearm and engaged the shooter. The current narrative says that he missed his shots and scored no hits, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that gets corrected later as misinformation [editor’s note, 8-9-26: The distance from Jordan to the murderer was 90 yards, no easy shot by anyone]. Hell, even if it is true, the man was engaging a rifle-toting assailant with a pistol. I don’t blame him for not having the tightest groups in that scenario. His accuracy under fire is so irrelevant to the story, and even to the outcome. Jordan engaged the shooter, distracting him from continuing his attack on the public at large, and convinced the barely-human scum that it was time to take his own life.
In no uncertain terms, Jordan put his own life in danger to protect the lives of strangers he has never and will never meet, and saved an untold number of them. He is a hero, there is no other word for it. When that incredibly rare but terrible situation happened, he did the hard thing and saved people’s lives. He was armed, he knew how to use it, and most importantly, he was willing to accept the risk involved with using it. He drove the shooter away from victims, who then took his own life.
Now, a lot of people would have called him a Tactical Timmy or a Sheepdog Shane or some other derogatory term for a guy who takes carrying a gun “too far”. And usually they’d have a point. Jordan used a supressed FN Five seveN (in 5.7×28), an incredibly unconventional carry piece. And with a can, too! How many people do you know that EDC a suppressed weapon? I don’t know any. If anyone said that they wanted to put a can on their EDC, I personally would have have called them unrealistic. Some might even go so far as to say carrying a 5.7 pistol with a can(!) to be the epitome of LARPing, yet here is a guy doing exactly that. Wild.
It is all LARPing… until it isn’t. One day that might be you. Getting some fast food on the way home on a Saturday. Getting groceries. Walking into a movie theater, or a bakery, or a doctor’s office. Do you carry everywhere? As often as you can? Do you practice regularly? Jordan’s YT channel is full of him doing drills in the desert. Pistol shots, rifle/pistol transitions, moving while shooting, training with a mask, all kinds of stuff that isn’t standard EDC/CCW fodder. Most people in the gun space would call it LARPing, he’s playing a SEAL, he’s pretending to be an operator, he’s just a grown man playing army man in the backyard with guns. Well, maybe. Maybe not. I mean, what are the odds of needing to engage an opponent at distance who has a rifle and all you have is a pistol? What are the odds of being the victim of a carjacking gang? What are the odds of having 5-6 guys break into your home in the middle of the night? It’s all LARPing… until it isn’t.
The second person who responded to the Idaho shooter is one Austin Scott James, an Idaho police officer who was there off-duty with his wife. He also engaged the shooter, and caught a round in the arm. The story is that she put a tourniquet on him and got him to the local ER where he either has or is expected to make a full recovery.
My initial impulse is to downplay Mr. James’ contribution because he is already a cop, but I’m not going to. He was off-duty and had no duty to engage the shooter, but he did anyway. He took a bullet for those same anonymous bystanders that Salinas was trying to save, and helped convince the shooter to end his attack and life ahead of schedule, again saving countless more people in the process.
Let’s not forget about Mrs. James’ actions, either. She had the wherewithal and knowledge to get and effectively use a tourniquet on her husband and drive him to the ER. She probably saved his life with her actions. She needs to be remembered and regarded as a hero as well.
Takeaways From This Scenario:
- Train with your EDC. Yeah, we can joke about Jordan hitting 0-for-6, but the fact of the matter is that he was confident and competent enough with his EDC to literally save the lives of those around him. Same goes for Austin James. He also was prepared to do what must be done when the time arose.
- Make sure your family, or the people you are around often, are also at least familiar with how to use life-saving equipment. In this case it was a TQ, but don’t forget about other tools as well. Does you wife/gf know how to use a TQ? How about a fire extinguisher? The Heimlich maneuver? CPR? There’s a lot more danger out there than can be solved with bullets, so be prepared.
- Finally, and perhaps most importantly, have the balls to act. Bystander Effect is a hell of a thing, one that people fall into so easily. Resist it. Know what it is, know that you are not immune to it, and know that you may need to be the first person who does something.
How to Prepare:
If you want to be better at pistol shooting, I cannot recommend Pistol as your Primary highly enough. It is an incredible work by Gino Monica and Jake Wetuski, and it goes over how to select a gun, how to train, how to test your skills, how to think about it in the broader context of your life, and so much more. It’s an incredible work and it’s very well written. You can listen to my interview with the authors and you can buy it on Amazon.
If you want to work on your mindset, I have to recommend Do Not be a Pedestrian by SecondStoic, a long time friend of the blog.
Stay ready.
-S_S
Additional Information
It is now Aug 9 and this post is a few days old, and I’ve already gathered enough new info on this topic to warrant an addendum. The below video starts at the relevant point:
Pro-Gun Millennial 