I'm reading a number of tactical handgun defence books right now...tomorrow I'm taking a CCW course in Platte City. I've noted that firearms/self-defence authors tend to be comically opinionated, egotistical, and entirely dismissive of any views other than their own. However, they still have a lot of good points, and I tend to take all of their advice with a grain of salt and use what I can. No use becoming an acolyte of some particular instructor (although I've found myself generally in accord with Gabriel Suarez) and then dismiss the valuable teachings of other instructors. Sometimes unfortunately I get very mixed information...one teacher recommends the Harries technique for holding a handgun and flashlight, another dismisses it offhand as a foolish technique taught by inexperienced organizations (without clarification of its purported flaws).

The books can be humorous in their frankness though...an example is from the current book I'm reading (name and author escape my memory): "Chapter Eleven: Shooting Into Vehicles and Shooting From Vehicles". As horrible as that sounds, it did contain some very useful pieces of information that are better to know beforehand than to learn the hard way (in one of those God-forbid type scenarios).

While the quote down below (attributed on the net as being from Mark Twain, but I've not seen that substantiated) retains the much-sought-after position of My Current Favourite Quote, here's another good (if a bit sad) quote:

"Shoot straight, you bastards, don't make a mess of it!" - Leftenant Harry Morant, calling out a final request to his firing squad before shuffling off this mortal coil and joining the choir invisible.