OK, Whats the beef with Ayoob?

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Muscles McGee - Ayoob is Lebanese by ancestry.

What sort of name is yours?

Giz

[This message has been edited by Gizmo99 (edited February 18, 2000).]
 
Two weeks ago, I and seventy-four others
attended the LFI-1 "Judicious Use of
Deadly Force" seminar. It was twenty
hours over two days.
I've just completed transcribing my notes,
so the course is fresh in my memory.

Without a doubt, it was worth every
moment and every penny of the three-hundred
dollar cost.

Each of the several attorneys in the class
said they had learned more from Ayoob than
they did in law school about lethal force
and its use. Each of the several l.e.o.s
said the same in reference to their
police academy experiences.

As a long time broadcaster, I tend to be
sensitive to the way people communicate.
Massad Ayoob's communication skills are
to be envied. He is articulate, prepared,
and a pleasure to listen to.

I could not find fault with much of what
he taught.

[This message has been edited by Sport (edited February 18, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Sport (edited February 18, 2000).]
 
Massad Ayoob is the name of an American citizen who stands up for the RKBA.

Even if he didn't stand up for the RKBA, it is still the name of an American.

Anyone who asks that kind of question better rethink what he stands for.

About Ayoob - I took LFI-1. It was well worth it as a course. There are other dimensions to Ayoob but I cannot fault the educational presentation.

Since I'm a reasonably cynical and bright guy I know there is debate about methods and tactics among trainers. I listen to all and evaluate what they say. I believe no one because of their "authority".

I learn from most. Until there is a true science of gunfightingology, that's all you can do.
 
Glenn, very well said.

------------------
"If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance."
-- Samuel Johnson
 
I will be taking LFI-1 with a friend five days from now in Miami. It will be the full forty hour class. I'll post my observations and opinions soon after.

As a CCW licensee I repect and appreciate Ayoob for publishing material that helps me prepare myself for the possibility of a shooting enconter and the consequences of that same encounter. I decided to take LFI over several other possibilities because the course offers more than just markmanship. Only forty percent of the class is spent on the range. The rest of the time is spent learning the legal, moral, and ethical aspects of justifiable deadly force. Ayoob offers a unique product from what I can see. No other class that I am aware of concentrates on these issues. I want to be able to protect myslef and my family without being imprisoned or financially destroyed by civil suits. That means knowing exactly what, when, and why to take action. I will need to take the correct action and then be able to articulately defend those actions. His class just seems like good training for a battle in the court that follows the battle in the street.
 
BigG, I hear what you're saying. But it doesn't make sense. If you decide that normal=right, then in the years Askins lived it was right to defend yourself from criminals but in the year 2000 it is "right" to act as scared as possible and cooperate with them. After all, that's the "normal" response. Racism is not right and the will of the majority cannot make it so. I don't understand why pointing this out means I'm somehow an enemy of Col. Askins. And what about shooting a fleeing man in the back? Was that normal in Col. Askins' day, and if so, how does that make it right?
And this will really offend some people, but if I knew a guy who was a very good and experienced fighter but who showed signs of really enjoying killing people, along with a lack of any remorse for the death of either enemy or comrade, I wouldn't want to be around when he was really drunk either. Sounds to me like Ayoob called a spade a spade. Maybe that was in poor taste so soon after the man's death but it doesn' amount to character assassination in my book. I don't know enough about gunfighting to evaluate Ayoob's theories in that area; I'll leave that to others.

In Muscles' defense (don't hear that from me much) I think he's making a small joke. IIRC Muscles was the one who was so outraged that another poster used what he considered black dialect to depict thugs on the handgun forums awhile back. Not a very good joke, probably, but I don't think he's an earnest racist.
 
His 2nd Chance save is regarding an auto wreck. The blunt trauma protection it provided may very well have saved him from being a fatality.
The one thing I've adopted and retained is his method of revlover reloading. A lot more positive IMO. I've yet to see anyone else using it on the range, though. Then again, don't see many wheel guns there either. A lot of his stuff is overly complicated, but overall, I feel that most of his input is positve. We all know that we must weed out and test what works for US, as individuals.
Since when does our occupations before LE matter? Most of had jobs or even careers before entering policing. Some of us may or may not be proud of them, but so what?
 
I've heard him called "Ayoob the Boob" more than a few times.

I've read his articles for many years, don't always agree with what he's saying. He seems to flip-flop too much.
Thing that turned me off the most was a few years back I read a quote from him where he basically was advocating to turning a right (2nd) into a privilege,, he was all for licensing handgun owners in exchange for a national CCW.

As far as I'm concerned, he's just another gun rag writer. Sometimes entertaining and informative and sometimes not.
 
I've had 200+ hours of training under Ayoob. The several thousand dollars I spent in the process were entirely worthwhile.

There are people who just dislike him. As some wag said "20-50% of people will dislike you; no particular reason, they'll just dislike you." Ayoob-bashing sessions have popped up periodically on the Internet for years; I've often challenged people to back up their criticisms, only to be met with resounding silence (in most cases; only one response was serious and detailed, and amounted to a reasonable difference in opinion between professionals).

Most criticisms of Ayoob fall into three categories:

1. Misinformation or taking comments out of context. Ayoob writes a LOT; sometimes a comment must be examined in the context of other writings to make sense.

2. Despising the successful. Ayoob (again) writes a LOT, gets paid for it, and runs a fairly profitable high-profile school. Best I can tell, some people either just suffer from Ayoob overload (multiple articles in every other magazine on the shelf), or are jealous that he's getting the success and the jealous ones aren't.

3. "Not one of us." Professional gunmen (cops, soldiers, bodyguards, etc.) certainly have far more first-hand experience with the subject than Ayoob has. This is countered by Ayoob's diligent study of thosands of incidents and court cases, plus gobs of experimentation. As someone put it, "you don't practice lethal-force self-defense by killing lots of people." Some people (I am NOT dissing their experiences in saying this) have indeed killed multiple people and know the experience first-hand; while a tremendous (and tragic) learning experience, one or two or six experiences does not necessarily make one an expert. Ayoob makes a concerted effort to learn as much from the first-hand experiences of others as possible.

Now on to some particular comments in this thread.

I've read Ayoob's articles over the years and he comes off quite often as know-it-all and pompous, wherein it looks like he disrespects the intelligence of his readers.

It's hard for ANYONE to study a subject that long and write that much without sounding pompus to someone. In person, he is far from pompus; instead he is quite humble, commenting that he doesn't know all the answers. (Being humble does NOT mean saying "I don't know" when you DO know.)

My major beef is his "buzzword" of the day

Buzzwords sell magazines. People want buzzwords, he provides them. Question is whether there is something actually wrong with what he writes.

and constant attempts to bring TARGET shooting to self-defense shooting

He starts with targets, and works up to increasingly more realistic scenarios. Yes, it takes multiple courses to reach the latter; there's only so much he can cram into one course (and he crams a lot).

and his total lack of real world police experience.

"Total lack" is overstating it. While he doesn't have much first-hand experience, he solicits information about such experiences from many. Such research is not necessarily invalid.

He also fails to name names on cases and incidents for verification

Have you asked him? He DOES name names frequently in the classes, and sometimes in writings. Most people don't actually care about such details so he doesn't give such details to most audiences. If you ask, he'll tell you.

and fails to mention the cases he has lost or been creamed in.

Again, have you asked him? He HAS mentioned such losses to his students.

Someone in this thread asked you the same thing...will you answer?

He also fails to come to the Internet to face critics

I have discussed this with him. As he is largely computer illiterate (spends most of his time on guns, as he should), he has neither the affinity to the technology nor the time & resources to spend any significant time on-line. Even if it were easy for him, it would be an absolute waste of his time to try to follow the many vast forums and respond to every snivlling twit who takes his comments out of context, or even to find those few real worthwhile criticisms. I spend and hour or two each day with just one or two gun forums, neglecting the dozen or so others that I'd love to track.

Ayoob simply doesn't have the time to peruse some 2000+ messages per day to respond to petty criticisms. If you have a real complaint, WRITE HIM a worthwhile letter, and give us both the query and the response.

Massad basically did a character assassination on the late Col. Charles Askins

Can you back up that claim? The only thing you wrote later was Mas said something like "Askins was a fun person to drink with, but I wouldn't want to get drunk with him" which is hardly "character assasination". As far as the racism charge, it is valid to condemn something of something that was normal but still morally wrong.

One problem with Ayoob is his magazine articles on the FBI "Miami Massacre'

I haven't seen anything that shows him actually wrong, outside a professional difference of opinion/interpretation of a chaotic incident.

A number of LEOs I know did not like Ayoob's theories on gunfighting, post shooting trauma, tactics etc., because Ayoob had never been in a gunfight.

He's talked to a lot of cops about such experiences. He compiles and relays that information. Are you suggesting that those with the experiences lied about them?

Since Ayoob lists himself as a "Second Chance Save" in a recent article it seems that he was recently shot at.

It has been repeatedly made clear that the incident involved a car crash, and that the vest prevented the steering column from going thru his chest. If you don't accept it as valid, then you'll have to take up the matter with Second Chance because _they_ consider it a valid save.

What the hell kind of name is Massad Ayoob ?

Mas is of Arabic descent. It's quite crude to insult someone purely based on their name, Mr. MusclesMcGee. If you were trying to make a joke, it was a very poor one.

(Relevant "joke":
Michaiel Gorbachev, Suddam Hussein, and Mumuar Gadaffi all met and agreed that George Bush has a funny name.)

---

Yikes. That was a lot, and I've written much more on the subject (go do a DejaNews search on "donath" and "ayoob" for more).

Final comment: Nearly all the people who criticize Ayoob have never actually taken a class from him, i.e. have never met him and spent significant face time with him. That should tell you something.
 
I also took Ayoob's class "Judicious Use of Deadly Force" a couple weeks ago. (Greetings to all here who were also there! I was the guy who did the Dirty Harry quote in the mike :D )

I've had professional firearms trainings from a few instructors who all gained my respect in one way or another. In the wise words (paraphrased) of some of them,
-the student evaluates how useful the instructor is after he completes some courses in question. This is almost the only way to know for sure how good/bad someone is.
-Nobody is perfect. After you get some training and have your own critical analysis of your needs, you shouldn't agree with any instructor 100%. On the flip side, everyone has something to offer.

Another armed citizen with a wide range of training experience highly recommended the JUDF class to me. This guy is someone who's praise doesn't come easily, so the high marks he gave caught my attention.

With that in mind, this JUDF was the best class I ever took concerning everything BUT the shooting in a threat management situation. A lot of the class wasn't particularly new to me, as I've been reading Ayoob books and articles since 1980.

I had a lot of Ayoob criticisms by others fresh in my mind from internet surfing and recognized quickly that many have misquoted him regarding some issues such as Post-Whatsitcalled-Trauma.

One of the high points of the class was the guest speaker, who was the "star" (if you can call it that) of one of his "Ayoob Files" who told us all about his event and the aftermath. We gave him a standing ovation after he finished. (Disclaimer: I don't believe every JUDF class has this opportunity)

Did I agree with Ayoob 100%? NO.
Did I learn a lot? YES. A lot of stuff covered in class is stuff he'll never cover in print because he has no control over who has access to his publicized info.
Did I get my money's worth? YES
Would I recommend it to my friends? YES
Would I take it again sometime? YES.

JUDF was an excellent complement to my previous training.

Hope someone found this helpful.

Edmund
 
This has been an interesting thread. I must admit that I, too, have beheld Ayoob with a little disdain, and cannot really point to why, exactly. I have to give the guy credit for being quite a writer, and Gawd knows he's unafraid about going out on a limb.

He's a good read, and you can usually get up a good discussion over one of his articles if you bring it up amongst 3 or 4 other gun-afficianados. I wouldn't be surprised if, deep down, the man's name is the source of many people's unwillingness to lend him credibility.

L.P.
 
Cases I've been creamed and lost on? You bet.
Had one of a woman charged with leaving a loaded gun within reach of a minor child. Interesting that the two kids were not in the house when police found a loaded gun in a closet on an upper shelf. Prosecution showed a picture of the closet.
We rebuilt the closet for a court display and had both children try to move the chair they claimed could be used to reach the guns. It was on carpet and neither kid could move the chair on the carpet. Thus no access. We claimed the gun was NOT within reach or access to the children, AND proved it by using the prosecutions claims to show they could NOT get at it and the prosecution had no other claims of ladders etc., to show the children could access the guns. We were very comfortable with the presentation. Our best work we thought.
The jury found her guilty. The jury claimed the kids could have gotten someone else to get the gun for them. I have NO clue how to combat that logic.
Nobody wins them all. You learn more from your errors than you do your wins.
Also being "computer illiterate" is a piss poor EXCUSE for not being on the internet. I'm 55 and learned.
Sounds like the EXCUSES abound as usual.
And if a "story" is just that say so. When you claim ANY legal case it is PUBLIC and you can attach a name.
A person can go get the transcript and read it if they desire. THAT is how a real expert does it.
 
<<What the hell kind of name is Massad Ayoob ?>>

The best kind.

The Lebanese kind. :D

Right back at'cha, Habibi!

duck hunt (my real name is cool like Ayoob's)
50% Lebanese, 100% Proud!

------------------
*quack*
 
Someone you don't know personally speaks his mind about something. Take that information, analyze it for yourself and your situation, and learn what you can from it. Ayoob doesn't write a how-to, for dummies book to be blindly followed by an automaton.

I for one am thankful for the information I have obtained by reading his books and watching his videos. I am new to this firearm culture, and I have spent a lot of resources on learning about it. I have found Ayoob's materials to cover the largest area of topics, and to answer many of the questions I had, and, more importantly, answer questions I had not thought of.

How about some people post some author's and specific materials that they recommend?
 
I couldn't tell whether the name was an acronym, assumed (like a guru or martial artist), or middle eastern. Even my Lebanese friend said it was unusual, go figure.

Me, I'm a Russian-Mexican-JewXCountry yokel. Go figure. I'm about as Irish as a Pound sterling.

Likewise I don't understand where people get off talking about "being american" ???? I didn't ask where he lives, or where he's from. Just curious about the name. In light of that, would his advice be unsound if he wasn't American ? Or is that just as assinine as the presumptous responses

[This message has been edited by MusclesMcGee (edited February 18, 2000).]
 
He's pretty smart and interesting, and I generally take his advice, but I don't enthusiasticly endorse him because I've seen him quoted as stating he believes citizens ought to be required to pass a gun training/proficiency test before being able to own a gun, or something similar - he thinks if you haven't had his training course, you really don't know what the hell you're doing.

Muscles, I agree. I think the rebuffs to your question were out of line. I for one could tell from your statement that you just meant you wanted to know the origin of the name. That is the only question you asked from a literal reading of your question. Any inferences of racism or something similar are just that - and not fair ones, IMO.

[This message has been edited by Futo Inu (edited February 18, 2000).]
 
I went to New Hampshire back in 1993 to take the LFI 1 course. I went to Gunsite for API 250 about 6 months prior. Were to courses similar?........not at all. Both were excellent in their own way. Gunsite was about hitting you target and surviving the fight. LFI was more about surviving after the fight......the court room fight.

One interesting thing I did notice at Gunsite..... a female student used the "F" word on day 1 at the range and the Col. heard her. What a scowl came on his face! He then shook his head and said "I guess times are changing"
On the other hand, Ayoob cusses constantly. It does'nt matter if women are in the class or not, he uses the S,D,F,MF,GD,& SOB words all the time.
 
PlusP, have you been published for pay in any mass-circulation gun magazines or written any books published for purchase?

Just curious...
 
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