The Ayoob files: An urban gunfighter - The lessons of Lance Thomas

[Firefly]

Not up on what second chance is. You do know he has been a reserve police officer for a long time, probably still is and has been an academy instructor and consultant for decades right?

Not sure exactly what he did, with what kind of vest or why it was wrong.

Second Chance makes ballistic vests.
People who get listed as a "save" have been victims of gunfire.

Not saying he is wrong on legal matters but just wearing your vest in a wreck is kinda lame.

It's like...okay this may sound kinda dickish but...

you got a hardcore LRRP who was in the 'Nam and lived in the jungle, became a mild warlord, walked trails barefoot and had a well worn and used CAR-15 and he goes to a bar and this other dude says "I was in 'Nam too"

"Oh really? Which parts? I killed and impregnated hundreds near Laos"

"I worked at the staffing corps and taught policy, but I was in 'Nam, maaaan. If it hadnt been for the A/C I would have died."

o_o....
-_-....

Yeah...they have something in common sortbof but not really

[Five_Point_Five_Six]

I envision Mas with a 2005 flip phone calling 411 asking for "Lance Thomas from L.A" and having no luck.

[SteyrAUG]

Second Chance makes ballistic vests.
People who get listed as a "save" have been victims of gunfire.

Not saying he is wrong on legal matters but just wearing your vest in a wreck is kinda lame.

It's like...okay this may sound kinda dickish but...

you got a hardcore LRRP who was in the 'Nam and lived in the jungle, became a mild warlord, walked trails barefoot and had a well worn and used CAR-15 and he goes to a bar and this other dude says "I was in 'Nam too"

"Oh really? Which parts? I killed and impregnated hundreds near Laos"

"I worked at the staffing corps and taught policy, but I was in 'Nam, maaaan. If it hadnt been for the A/C I would have died."

o_o....
-_-....

Yeah...they have something in common sortbof but not really

Ok, so I actually do know what Second Chance is. I lived about a mile from them.

So what was the deal, he was in a car wreck and happened to be wearing a vest? Or did he put one on because it changed the LEO/ EMT response somehow? Not understanding what the issue is related to wearing a ballistic vest, especially as it relates to a traffic accident.

Or is it simply that by wearing a vest during a traffic accident he went on some list maintained by SC as surviving gunfire due to the vest? If it is the latter, yeah pretty lame but also who cares. It makes him look bad and only harms his credibility. I don't think it takes away from his knowledge base but it presents itself as petty.

To me it's like this.

Knows some shit > Still insecure.

[Firefly]

It's the latter.

Second Chance employed him for a time and he used a little skeeviness to be enumerated among legit saves from gunfire. Anybody unaware of his case would assume he took a bullet.

Ayoob, minus color commentary, does err on the side of jurisprudence and does research uses of deadly force.

Fact. Undeniable. No one can take that from him.

but....he still gets his name out anyway he can. He names stuff after himself, latched on with anyone who would get his name out(gun mags, Spyderco, Sabre Defence), and while he isnt a loudmouth or wrong he comes across as a bit holier than thou.

I am agnostic towards him. Don't hate him. Don't love him. He's not wrong but...
some of his stuff like the whole Second Chance spiel makes me a little bleh.

And he speaks towards generalities like gospel. Every locality is different. In this day and age; any shooting that goes to trial is a roll of the dice.

if it goes to trial. If you have it clean enough where a DA says "nolle Prosce" and by statute no civil action can be taken; your legal concerns end there.

If you are going to a GJ....better call Saul.

[Diamondback]

I envision Mas with a 2005 flip phone calling 411 asking for "Lance Thomas from L.A" and having no luck.

Dude, don't knock flip-phones... I miss mine, and my big ol' honkin' Qualcomm brick it replaced. At least THEY, unlike this "smartphone" POS I'm stuck with now, knew their place rather than trying to be smarter than the operator...

[SteyrAUG]

It's the latter.

Second Chance employed him for a time and he used a little skeeviness to be enumerated among legit saves from gunfire. Anybody unaware of his case would assume he took a bullet.

Ayoob, minus color commentary, does err on the side of jurisprudence and does research uses of deadly force.

Fact. Undeniable. No one can take that from him.

but....he still gets his name out anyway he can. He names stuff after himself, latched on with anyone who would get his name out(gun mags, Spyderco, Sabre Defence), and while he isnt a loudmouth or wrong he comes across as a bit holier than thou.

I am agnostic towards him. Don't hate him. Don't love him. He's not wrong but...
some of his stuff like the whole Second Chance spiel makes me a little bleh.

And he speaks towards generalities like gospel. Every locality is different. In this day and age; any shooting that goes to trial is a roll of the dice.

if it goes to trial. If you have it clean enough where a DA says "nolle Prosce" and by statute no civil action can be taken; your legal concerns end there.

If you are going to a GJ....better call Saul.

Ok, so the "saved" thing was kinda gay. Perhaps in his mind he believed he was helping promote the product by being another "official saved" person. If this was religion complete strangers would congratulate him.

As for attaching his name to products, that's sort of how the endorsement game works and it works both ways. Both spokesperson and product are hoping to increase revenue from the association. Ayoob is selling books, training programs and expert legal status. If he's the "firearms expert" at the trial of John Public who had a defensive shooting at the local Subway, it helps that when you google the experts name all kinds of "creds and bonafides" pop up like affiliation with anything law enforcement, legit defensive gear and whatever. You and I know the "saved" qualification was laughable, but a prosecutor might respect it and give the "legal expert" some deference.

But when your name and your opinion are out there, eventually somebody will decide you suck. I can remember people talking about how Cooper was an old fuddy duddy blowhard whose devotion to the 1911 was antiquated and quaint and if he ever took a Frontsight class he'd know to ditch it for a wondernine like a Glock. They didn't seem to understand their entire IDPA and three gun matches were pretty much invented by Cooper with IPSC and modern handgun techniques.

The only thing that generation knew about him was his "random thoughts" in Coopers Corner at the end of Guns and Ammo.

Similarly it's been long enough that nobody remembers what Ayoob did or that fact that he pretty much wrote the CCW bible with "In The Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection." And when compared to other experts like Gabe Suarez and Sonny Paluska who did some astonishing negligent / criminal things, Ayoob seems like a canonized saint of the Church of Cooper.

[Firefly]

I'm not saying Ayoob hasn't made positive contributions. He really did fill a much needed niche of his era.

I was just citing one minor niggle. In the 80s and 90s, he did forward a lot of CCW positivity and he did promote positive police behavior. Note that I said, he always errs on the side of jurisprudence. That is a good thing.

But when we start talking about Yeager, Suarez, That Red Scorpion wannabe russian dude, and all the youtube people....

well....you can miss me with that.

I do think Cooper would not be impressed with how PC and gamey IPSC has become.

Same even with PPC.
They want it to be 'Precision Pistol Competition'

Negative, Ghostrider

It will always be Police Pistol Combat to me.

[SteyrAUG]

I'm not saying Ayoob hasn't made positive contributions. He really did fill a much needed niche of his era.

I was just citing one minor niggle. In the 80s and 90s, he did forward a lot of CCW positivity and he did promote positive police behavior. Note that I said, he always errs on the side of jurisprudence. That is a good thing.

But when we start talking about Yeager, Suarez, That Red Scorpion wannabe russian dude, and all the youtube people....

well....you can miss me with that.

I do think Cooper would not be impressed with how PC and gamey IPSC has become.

Same even with PPC.
They want it to be 'Precision Pistol Competition'

Negative, Ghostrider

It will always be Police Pistol Combat to me.

If it didn't come across, I was mostly noting we are in agreement and on the same page. I just went into lengthy discourse on how these things usually happen. To me Ayoob, Kokalis, Hackathorn, Weaver and Cooper will always be the firearm gods.

I'm more interested in in Hackathorns ideas regarding practical applications of the S&W combat magnum than I am about the latest write up of the Kriss .45 in SWAT magazine. I was never "all in" on the Cooper "Ranch Rifle" concept and would generally prefer an AR-15 carbine, but I also didn't have a ranch and I knew enough to know even though I felt differently, he still knew more about both weapon systems than I did.

[Averageman]

I had a neighbor who was a retired Cop. He was a great guy, taught me to reload, showed me how to run a trap line, but the coolest thing he ever did was give me a five foot stack of old "Guns and Ammo" magazines.
Reading those magazines and I read every one of them gave me a lot of input from guys like Jeff Cooper and Massad Ayoob. Cooper's writings had a quality and directness that was far different than Ayoob's. Mind you now, all of these magazines were from the early seventies, Cooper seemed more centered on Self defense and Ayoob reported mostly on Police shootings. Cooper was all about the 1911, Ayoob seemed to be a rather early proponent of the hi-cap 9mm's.
Both were a great influence on my selection of handguns, but Cooper was by far my favorite. Ayoob really seemed almost fanatically concerned about the legal aspects and I believe he was a "for hire expert" if you needed someone to back up your self defense shootings legalities.
I think each of them had their time and now the writings of both of them are aged and perhaps not as relevant as the once were. I have books by each of them.

I have to say ironically I was telling someone about this story last weekend, pretty amazing stuff.

[Ed L.]

Why does anyone hate Ayoob? I knew of him back in the 70s when he was a writer for Black Belt and I attended LFI more than once. Besides Cooper and Weaver, he was one of the most important proponents of personal self defense.

Given all the Yeagertards out there and shenanigans of Suarez, people like Ayoob should be seen as a minor deity.

I took two classes with Ayoob--LFI 1 & 2, in the late 1980s. The classes were great and at that time he was cutting edge. He was very engaging and entertaining. Like him or hate him he really was a pioneer in bringing an emphasis to legalities and the legal aftermath to the firearms training world. But there are many teachers who have far surpassed him in terms of teaching shooting skills and imparting street experience.

It is late at night, so I will briefly explain why some people have issues with him.

For the last few years for the lecture portion of his courses dealing with lethal force, Ayoob plays long videos of his lectures. He does a question and answer session after the videos. He tries to sell this as something he does for repeatablity--so that it can be played to a jury that shows exactly what you were taught. He may believe this, but I think it is lazy. If I am paying for a class with a person, I want that person to be presenting the lectures himself as opposed to watching a series of long videos.

Many law enforcement people regard Ayoob as a "hobby cop," someone who was a reserve "lieutenant" in a rural VT department that had less than 10 officers. They think he has greatly puffed up his experience and don't think he can talk authoritatively about policing the way he does. I have encountered many BTDT guys who really dislike him. These are people with police and military experience.

In reading some of his articles from his column in American Handgunner titled The Ayoob files, I notice that he sometimes exaggerates, embellishes, or leaves out key facts that make it more understandable why the person got in legal trouble. I have picked this up from my own knowledge and research. Some of his articles draw conclusions while leaving out important facts. I look at this and it makes me question his credibility in other articles where I don't have access to the information.

Some times he goes overboard on lawyer proofing. At one time, back when revolvers were more commonly carried, he was recommending that people have them modified to fire double-action only. That way if they shot someone in self defense an attorney could not accuse them of cocking the gun and having it accidentally go off. Think about this. In a situation where you are asserting that you shot someone in self defense Ayoob is worried that a lawyer is going to try to claim that your shooting was an accident and not self-defense as you claim.

He bases it on the Alvarez shooting, a situation in the early 1980s where a cop in Miami was holding someone at gunpoint and the person made a move toward a gun that they had concealed and the cop shot them in the head with his revolver. It wound up going to trial. Ayoob wrote articles about this and pointed out that an expert witness for the prosecution tried to claim that the officer had the revolver cocked when it wasn't. The expert witness said something along the lines of, "In my experience revolvers that are cocked go off more easily so I believe that the officer had the revolver cocked which was negligent.

The reason that the other side was trying to establish negligence is because the defendant in this case, Miami Officer Luis Alvarez, initially claimed that the shooting was accidental, which was a key factor in this case which brought into focus questions about what type of modifications Alvarez might have done to his gun, or other factors that could lead to a negligent discharge.

Ayoob has also said some absurd things, or perhaps repeated things he heard without critically considering their plausibility. I have an old tape of his titled, Knife, counterknife, from the 1980s. In it he asserts that the big three or four motorcycle gangs had a joint knife fighting school. Police were unable to infiltrate it because in order to get in you had to be a made member, and committed a major crime in the presence of other members.

Consider this, gangs who will attack members of rival gangs on site have a joint knife-fighting school. Okay, I will give him this one, because at one time I used to believe some stupid things also.