Massad Ayoob's Blog, page 8

AVOIDING MISTAKEN IDENTITY SHOOTINGS

If you’ve taken one of my classes or read enough of my articles, you know how emphatically I remind people that someone they perceive to be a stranger in their home might, in any number of scenarios, be an innocent party with every right to be there. Please read this article, brought to my attention […]

HERE’S A (HOPEFULLY RARE) SELF-SERVING BLOG ENTRY

A kind reader recently reminded me of something Professor David Yamane had written a while ago. Allow me to return the compliment. Professor Yamane and his Gun Culture 2.0 blog and book have done a tremendous service to the truth of the polarized “gun debate.” A self-identified liberal and sociology professor, his “Sociology of the […]

GUN DIGEST 2025

Ah, Gun Digest. When I was a boy I couldn’t afford to buy it out of my allowance – it was the price of a book, since after all, it was a book – but thankfully, the library in the city where I lived since age nine bought it every year. I had to read […]

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

All of us on the Backwoods Home magazine team wish a very merry Christmas to you and yours. Over the years, it has become a tradition in this space to ask our readers what guns or firearms-related gifts they received or gave for the holidays. This includes memorable Christmases past. My own single most memorable […]

SINGLE ACTION REVOLVERS: THEY AIN’T JUST “RETRO”

The single action revolver has been obsolete for most practical purposes for well over a century, yet you still find them on display in gun shops today. It ain’t just about “retro” or cosplaying at a cowboy action shooting match.  Ruger’s inexpensive but very functional little .22 caliber Wrangler single action has been a regular […]

THE VALUE OF RELAXED ALERTNESS

My friend Greg Ellifretz recently reminded me of this article I wrote a decade ago. I think it’s still valid. Notice the photos. There’s no reason to be casting your eyes downward to your smartphone when you can just hold it up in front of your face and retain your scan of what’s around you […]

WHEN ARMED CITIZENS INTERVENE IN MASS MURDERS

This is absolutely worth half an hour of your time: A panel of emergency services experts, not hostile to the armed citizen concept, discuss the  issues when armed Good Guys or Gals engage homicidal criminals.

TRIGGER PULL WEIGHT ON SELF-DEFENSE PISTOLS

In the world of gun enthusiasts, a lot of people conflate “good trigger pull” with “light trigger pull.” On disciplined firing lines in matches where you may be shooting at tiny bulls-eyes a long distance away, the two may go together. However, in defensive firearms a too-light trigger pull can be a recipe for disaster. […]

WHEN BAD GUYS GRAB GOOD GUYS’ GUNS

I’ve been studying disarming and its corollary science, preventing the disarm, since I was quite young.  Master instructor Jim Lindell certified me in his method of handgun retention, known variously as the Lindell Method, the National Law Enforcement Training Center Method, and the Kansas City method, in the late 1970s. He certified me as an […]

THE MISUNDERSTOOD MATTER OF BULLET OVERPENETRATION

In Detroit recently, a perpetrator opened fire among innocents and an armed citizen with a concealed carry permit shot him in the head, killing him and stopping the threat. Unfortunately, that same rescuing bullet went through the gunman’s head and struck an innocent bystander, who was apparently trying to help, in his head. That innocent […]