I debated weather to respond to this or not, and what to say if I did respond.
I’ve just decided to clarify my position.
OK so first this is a response to a comment by somebody who claims to be a friend of Lynn Thompson and Cold Steel knives. Go read his response, its well written and quite frank.
So let’s clarify a few things. First up I got a LOT of flack about about my observations of Lynn and his physical condition. I do not know Lynn Thompson, and have never met him. Everything I make are just observations from his promotional videos. I have no way to confirm or disprove what this gentleman says. I’ll defer to better judgement and concede the point, but I will note that I’m not alone in my observations, true or not.
As for some of the techniques I took issue of he directed me to Lynn’s blog with some responses.
I’m not going to get into details, as I’d be exceeding my skill level, but I’ll say that in the video Lynn quotes the Jeff Cooper Four Rules of Gun Safety, and then disregards rule 4 in his “Shooting rounds into the dirt”, and “ripping Fire” through a mocked-up building. They are dangerous, and I cannot advise anybody to practice or put these techniques into use. I find techniques like this, to be vastly more responsible and safety-oriented for a similar concept.
As for techniques for “States of Lawlessness”, personally I’d rather conserve EVERY round I have with me, and attempt to get every shot fired into the vital zone of a target…or not shoot at all. Even in a riot the laws apply (tho sadly only after the fact) and discharging a weapon in somebody’s direction is some grade of Assault whether the shots are hits or misses, and whether the misses are intentional or not.
Living and working in the Boston Area I have some very real concerns about such an event, given the issues, and construction of the Big Dig tunnel. That being said, if you are stuck in a riot or a total collapse of society, unless you can fortify a building or bunker and hunker-down with multiple long-arms, and enough people to keep an active sentry, your survival in such a situation will be more a factor of dumb luck than anything else.
OK last are some comments that I think were taken the wrong way. (and frankly I don’t blame them, as the above clarifications are made mostly because I probably came off more dickish than I deserve)
First up, I’ll say I don’t own any Cold Steel products, but I have several close friends who keep Cold Steel blades handy, and I’ve handled several products, and have seen large portions of their catalog in my travels. There are cheap knives, and there are quality knives, and Cold Steel is most certainly the latter.
Besides their product quality, I really like their business model. They make many functional reproduction weapons, and further updates of “Classic” designs like their Recon Tanto:
And they make a bunch of weapons that are really cool and outrageous, but never to an extent that the blade loses functionality at least in some capacity.
As for me laughing at the videos here’s a good example:
These demonstrations show the quality and durability of the blades….but also they’re just fun and outrageous. The same can be said about Lynn point-shooting melons and water-bottles with big-game rifles. Its silly and fun, and that’s what I take them as. I have not, and would not laugh at the Cold Steel products…with the exception of the above DVD series. Cold Steel just exudes quality, and I don’t think the DVD series is up to that standard from what I’ve seen.
So I guess I should close with an apology. I probably came off as a bit more catty than was fair. Certainly I would say that Cold Steel and Lynn Thompson are good people, and our ally’s in the battle of safety and personal freedom. They make cool knives, and knives designed for self defense as well as utility, and Mr. Thompson and his company are strong supporters of our second amendment rights. I still don’t think this video series appears to be up for their standards, and some things I’ve seen are ill advised, but some of my comments were unsupported observations that were likely unfair.
If my comments got me Persona Non-Grata status with Cold Steel, that would be unfortunate, but not unfair. Hopefully that isn’t the case.
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I understand where you are coming from with this, but making quality products (which they do, I have some good Cold Steel stuff) doesn’t excuse using the status that comes with that to make irresponsible “training” videos. That “ripping fire” stuff is flat-out dangerous and irresponsible. That’s how thugs kill little kids and it’s called drive-by shootings. With respect comes responsibility. If it was framed as a parody or silly video then I wouldn’t care, but it was not and that’s dangerous.
Well it looks like you got EXACTLY the point I was making. Hopefully the guys at Cold Steel read it the same way.
Cold Steel makes very high-quality and utilitarian knives and blades. Cold Steel is known for quality. This video is NOT quality, and is NOT responsible.
Lynn was wise enough to quote the 4 rules….but not wise enough to blatantly violate rule #4 several times. And indeed that DOES get people killed. Also even in the middle of an all-out LA-style riot there are still good guys and bad guys, and if you’re just “ripping fire” you have no idea who those bullets will hit.
I’m not commenting on this after just seeing clips, either. I’ve read the responses from them regarding the particular clips in question and they still don’t pony up. The shooting the dirt still makes no sense and the ripping fire is still irresponsible. If you’re in some kind of Mad Max scenario where you are in that much trouble, you should be getting the eff out of Dodge, not charging at a structure filled with unknown quantities and filling it full of lead.
As I said before, if things are THAT bad that you can somehow justify throwing the rules of law and safety to the wind (hint, that’s almost never) the only thing that’s going to keep you alive is dumb luck or VERY solid fortifications.
whatever pistol tricks and skills you have likely won’t amount to much in the end.
Weerd,
Great follow up. I took you to task about the physical conditioning and agree your response was a little harsh.
One of the things I thought of later (but didn’t come back and say because I didn’t want to keep the argument going) was — it was a filmed video; I wonder how many takes he had to do in order to get the shot? Wouldn’t you be a little winded if you did the same maneuver over and over again? Could that be a reason?
I also agree with the commenter about the sensitive mic.
I like Cold Steel products. Many friends some of whom have been in the thick of things for decades prefer their products. That is one heck of an endorsement for me.
While I like their products, I agree their videos can be a little over the top. I like them because they are over the top and not the same dull boring vids we often see.
Yep, I totally deserve to eat crow on the weight/physical condition side.
I’ve heard similar endorsements of people who need a knife in life-or-death situations chose Cold Steel (among other quality brands).
I actually have ZERO issue with their blade promotional videos. Their products are offered at a competitive price, but also they are NOT cheap. Its nice to see that your defensive/survival knife can cut a hanging rope and/or decapitate a pig or slash through the bones and muscle on a rib-rack, and still maintain a quality edge.
That being said Cold Steel is not selling Kukri knives as a new way to butcher meat, cutting meat is just showing the blade quality. The gun video is showing actual practices for shooting, and some of these practices are irresponsible or down right dangerous. I must draw a line there.