Download This Issue - US Concealed Carry
Download This Issue - US Concealed Carry
Download This Issue - US Concealed Carry
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
CCM PROFILE<br />
Josh Benson shoots with his left<br />
hand only, steadied somewhat by<br />
the atrophied lifting muscles in<br />
his right arm.<br />
PHOTO BY OLEG VOLK • A-HUMAN-RIGHT.COM<br />
Joshu<br />
The most remarkable thing about Joshua Benson is the words he doesn’t say.<br />
In a world full of whiny emo-boys and<br />
latte-sipping cowards, a man who<br />
never utters the words “I can’t” and<br />
who never asks for a drop of sympathy<br />
is a refreshing change.<br />
I met Josh for the first time last spring<br />
at the Firearms Academy of Seattle,<br />
during the last course Jim Cirillo ever<br />
taught. Cirillo’s class was a two-day<br />
adventure into close quarters shooting<br />
techniques, including alternative sighting<br />
methods and shooting from downed<br />
positions. Josh wheeled himself in on<br />
the first day of class, taking the far righthand<br />
end of the line so that his crossdraw<br />
holster and unusual one-handed<br />
reload would not cause his muzzle to<br />
cross any of the other students. <strong>This</strong><br />
class was designed for intermediate to<br />
accomplished shooters, not at all for beginners,<br />
and I confess that I wondered if<br />
the young man in the chair was going to<br />
be able to keep up—a worry that seems<br />
downright laughable in retrospect.<br />
Josh, it turned out, was no beginner:<br />
he is a certified handgun instructor<br />
through Tom Givens’ Rangemaster<br />
firearms training school in Memphis,<br />
TN. Now 25 years old, he’s taken dozens<br />
of professional training classes in the<br />
three years he’s been shooting defensive<br />
handguns. And he takes his personal<br />
defense very seriously, carrying a concealed<br />
firearm every day.<br />
The physical challenges that Josh<br />
faces are a bit out of the ordinary. An<br />
encounter with vaccine-induced poliomyelitis<br />
as an infant left him with<br />
no function in either leg, roughly five<br />
percent function in his right arm (very<br />
little in his right hand), and only about<br />
eighty percent function in his left arm<br />
and hand. While most shooters struggle<br />
to get shots on paper using both hands<br />
in a stable stance, Josh nails the target<br />
while holding the gun with his left hand<br />
only, steadied somewhat by the lifting<br />
muscles in his right arm.<br />
“<strong>This</strong> kid just impresses the hell out<br />
of me,” says Massad Ayoob, who taught<br />
from left to right: Tom Givens, Josh<br />
Benson, John Farnam, John Hearne.<br />
Josh’s LFI-1 and LFI-2 classes in 2007.<br />
“At LFI, we’ve had students in a chair<br />
before. We’ve had one-armed students<br />
before. But Josh is the first one-armed<br />
guy in a chair we’ve ever had. He taught<br />
us all some things.” Like many firearms<br />
classes, LFI-2 is physically demanding in<br />
a lot of ways. Josh, working one-handed<br />
from his wheelchair, kept up with this<br />
demanding class just fine. He successfully<br />
completed the LFI Qualification<br />
shoot at double speed, which included<br />
getting all his reloads well under time.<br />
“I can reload an auto-pistol in about<br />
four to six seconds,” Josh explains. “I<br />
recently have shaved off about two seconds<br />
by going straight to a backup gun,<br />
the New York reload.”<br />
Although Josh sometimes carries a<br />
snub-nosed revolver as a backup, his<br />
regular carry is a semi-auto. He considered,<br />
but ultimately rejected, making<br />
his primary carry gun a revolver—the<br />
gun type perhaps most commonly recommended<br />
for people with physical<br />
18<br />
<strong>US</strong>CONCEALEDCARRY.COM n CONCEALED CARRY MAGAZINE n JULY 2008