Back when they passed it, one of my graduates in Virginia called me to share his misery. He asked, “Mas, how would YOU feel if they passed a ‘one-gun-a-month’ law in the free state where YOU live?!?”

I replied, “Hell, I’d find the money somehow…”

He was not amused.

I don’t blame him. He was right and I was wrong. Arbitrary restrictions on productive members of society are nothing to joke about.

I don’t care how many firearms responsible, law abiding citizens own.  I care that evil people don’t have access to them.  And, more important, I care that evil people be put away where they don’t have access to INNOCENT VICTIMS…and that their potential victims have the wherewithal to fight back against the evil, and prevail.

This good news from The Old Dominion is the latest in a compelling history of victories for gun owners’ civil rights over recent years.  At the time they enacted “one gun a month” in Virginia, there were several states where there was no provision at law for a law-abiding citizen to carry a concealed handgun in public to protect themselves and their loved ones. Now, in 2012, just one of those remains: Illinois, which came surprisingly close to getting shall-issue concealed carry last year, and hasn’t given up yet.

We’re winning, state by state, but we can’t become complacent. The Presidential election looms…and it ain’t lookin’ good for gun owners.

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An American of Greek descent, Jim was quite the street brawler in his younger days, and his quest for dominance there led him into the formal martial arts. He studied them both widely and deeply, and also rediscovered Pankration, the ancient Greek “all powers” fighting art that encompassed grappling, striking, and even biting. Some theorize that Karate developed in Asia from Pankration brought by the soldiers of Alexander the Great. Jim single-handedly revived Pankration in modern times, in my opinion, and now it’s much the rage among mixed martial arts practitioners. It is significant that Jim achieved that feat in the 1970s and ‘80s when most martial artists didn’t “mix.”

Arvanitis has recently completed some new projects, two books and two training DVDs.  From Black Belt Books (www.blackbeltmag.com) comes the volume martial artists will want to read, “The First Mixed Martial Art: Pankration From Myths to Modern Times.” It’s a fascinating study of the history and the philosophy of the art.  The best “video accompaniment” to this Arvanitis book is probably Jim’s 350-minute, 2006 video from Paladin Press (www.paladin-press.com), which graphically explains and demonstrates the vast repertoire of Pankration techniques. The video’s title is “Secrets of Pankration.”

But for the average person concerned with self-defense, as well as the dedicated martial artist, we have “Battlefield Pankration” in both book and video form, from Paladin. This book is subtitled “Lethal Personal Combat for the Street,” and the reader should take the title seriously. While there are some takedowns and other techniques that could restrain an attacker without physically harming him, Jim often goes on the assumption that you could be in a fight where you face fatal, crippling, or disfiguring injury if you don’t render the opponent wholly incapable of attack. The book shows you how to crack skulls, break necks, and empty eye sockets.

Jim’s hallmark since I’ve known him has been an extremely deep understanding of human kinesiology.  He excels in teaching how to generate power, whether it’s peeling off an attacker who has you down and is strangling you, or delivering your own punch or kick with bone-breaking, organ-crushing force.

Most self-defense books will say something like “gouge his eyes out” or “hit him here as hard as you can,” and will leave the advice at that. In “Battlefield Pankration,” Jim teaches everything from exactly how to perform that eye-gouging to precisely how to set your body to throw a punch or kick with your full weight behind it that will have a good chance of ending the fight.

In a world rife with phony self-defense instructors, I can say with some authority that Jim Arvanitis is One of the Real Ones…and, among those, one of the very best.  I definitely recommend all four of the above works to martial artists and legitimate self-defense instructors, and the “Battlefield Pankration” book and video both to those experts and to ordinary citizens who want to learn more about surviving when someone tries to take their life, and they have only bare hands with which to fight back.

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It seems than an anti-gun group has called for a boycott of Starbucks on this coming Valentine’s Day, February 14.  As Dave explains, many of us in the gun movement will be buying something at Starbucks on that day, just to make sure that Starbucks has a profitable holiday despite being boycotted by the antis.

No one put it better than Mike Crenshaw at the respected firearms forum found at www.thehighroad.org. A moderator who posts there as “hso,” Mike sent the following message to Starbucks headquarters: “I’ve just heard that there’s a planned boycott on Feb. 14 by anti-Second Amendment groups attempting to punish Starbucks for their decision to follow state and local law instead of changing company policy on law abiding customers carrying firearms legally. While I’m an occasional customer I’ll make a point of doing my share to offset any business Starbucks may lose due to this proposed boycott. I’ll see to it that my family and I are in Starbucks at least once on Feb. 14.Thank you for not caving in to the radical beliefs of a small vocal group of marginalized extremists.”  The discussion thread can be found at http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=639239 .

Crenshaw, Workman, and the rest. This Valentine’s Day, I’m gonna drive my sweetie the twenty-some miles to the nearest Starbucks and scarf up a Yuppie coffee, or a hot chocolate, or a boutique muffin, or whatever. It’s about showing solidarity with an entity that stood up against an attack on our freedoms. And sending a positive thank-you email to Starbucks – thanks for that idea, Mr. Crenshaw! – makes huge sense.

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