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Jason Falconer, above left

Jason Falconer is the armed citizen who stopped the mass stabbing in the Crossroads Center Mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on Saturday. Falconer is a competitive shooter, firearms instructor and CEO of Tactical Advantage.

From tacticaladvantagemn.com:

Jason Falconer is President/Owner of Tactical Advantage Firearms Training, Inc. which has been operating since 2003. Tactical Advantage currently concentrates on firearms training for individuals in a group or private setting, including permit to carry training in MN. Jason has also created advanced and customized classes for individuals who desire more advanced safety training. His business has grown primarily through student referrals, and Jason takes pride in providing the best training options available in Central MN.
Continued education and training has been a personal interest of Jason’s, as he believes each of us has something to learn no matter our level of expertise in our area of discipline. As a result, he has attended some of the best firearms training schools in the United States. His goal is to teach individuals the mindset, knowledge and skills needed to be successful with firearms in order to secure their personal safety or that of their family, at home or in public. As a training professional, he continuously researches and develops new curriculum and training methods to make the training experience for his students the best they can get.
Since 2008, Jason has been assisting Ted Boran with St. Cloud State University skills training in the disciplines of decision shooting and dynamic entry. He intends to utilize this experience to further develop curriculum to instruct law enforcement professionals and qualified civilians the benefits of reality based training. Jason believes that although civilian and law enforcement students can obtain great firearms training from various sources, they are missing a key component in their personal safety training without going through reality based training.
Jason also has a law enforcement background and is the former Police Chief of the Albany Police Department. Jason also serves as the department’s firearms instructor, and has created POST Board approved firearms training curriculum.  He currently serves as a part-time officer with the City of Albany.

As a consulting member of S.M.E.A.C., Jason specializes in consulting in reality-based firearms, law enforcement and personal security training.   www.smeac.org

Jason started offering training with the passage of the shall issue concealed carry law, the Minnesota Personal Protection Act, in 2003. He taught for 10 years before acquiring property and establishing his own range. In short, Jason is a dedicated member of the gun culture. He’s a part time member of the Avon Police Department.

It’s not unusual for police firearms instructors to maintain a part time position in the local police department, especially if the department is small. The Avon PD has three full time officers and five part time officers.

 

Having a proficient firearms trainer on staff, even part time, offers significant advantages to both the department and the instructor. The instructor can maintain their LEOSA status, allowing for carry anywhere in United States territory (even in malls the prohibit concealed carry). The department is able to keep its officers qualified and conduct training with minimal additional expense. I do not know if that is the situation with Jason, but Tactical Advantage offers the annual LEOSA  training necessary for retired officers to maintain LEOSA credentials.

Falconer has been keeping a low profile since Saturday. I hope we’ll get the chance to hear what happened from his perspective soon. Until then, hats off to Jason Falconer.

©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
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52 COMMENTS

  1. Good for him. Armed citizen stops bad guy before he can do more damage. But ask the libs and this never happens, right?

    And you are correct about the PD firearms instructor. I work for a dept. of 600 officers and we only have 1 full time firearms instructor, the range master. The remaining 25 of us or so instruct part time, five or six days a month maybe, in addition to whatever our regular duties are.

    I am lucky to work/teach at a department that takes firearms training very seriously. I received better rifle and pistol marksmanship training in the department than I did as an 11B in the army.

      • Yep. The MSM — in the few articles that did mention how Mr. Stabby McStabberson was stopped — referred to an off-duty police officer, not a concealed-carrying citizen. I dunno about local news, they might have had more details and/or accuracy.

      • THIS. I’m wondering if Obama and Senator Klobuchar would be as effusive with their praise of the “heroic actions” of the Good Guy With A Gun if he wasn’t a Good Guy With A Gun AND A Badge.
        This is not to take away from Falconer’s actions in any way. He clearly performed well and I’d hope to be as effective in the same situation. I was just hoping like crazy it was a MN Permit To Carry holder who ignored the meaningless signs on the doors to the mall…

    • Or not.

      Seems the guy can take care of himself. Might be good to get rid of a few more terrorists.

      Wouldn’t want the cops stepping in to save the bad guy and give him free medical care and food for life.

      • Everyone has to sleep sometime. Terrorists know this.

        Which is why, BTW, I keep telling people concerned for their home security to Get A Real Dog. Real Dogs[tm] don’t sleep much when you’re sleeping. Our flock guardian would be half-awake to awake at night, and sleep during the day when I was up. Bred for over 1,000 years to know his job, didn’t have to teach him a thing.

        • My Pyrs are this way. And I appreciate it. Except for when there is a coyote or any other predator within the distance of their senses, because then they bark all night long.

        • Dogs, motion lights, security video camera, home alarm system, and 2 speed safes in the bedroom. Plus “Beware of Dog” and alarm signs.

  2. Cheers to Jason Falconer. Perhaps the most visible and clear example of a CCW holder stopping a terrorist. I only wish he didn’t (or the next guy doesn’t) have a law enforcement background. Anti’s will say, “well, he was a cop, he’s special.”

    Now let’s see how vocal he is about what he did, and what the MSM actually runs about him.

    • Well, he is special in that he’s permitted to carry in a “gun free zone”. Maybe we all need to go out an become reserve officers in our local PDs? /jk

      • Why are you kidding? I think the local sheriffs should charge citizens $1 annually to train at the law enforcement range and then be deputized and receive a $1 yearly income. For that, you get all the privileges that a LEO gets when it comes to conceal carry off duty.
        I am actually surprised that there are not more “property rights” advocates on here complaining that Falconer was trespassing. Every time I admit to carrying in GFZs I get a shit storm of criticism from the “Libertarian” wankers.

        • As I keep pointing out, the “libertarians” give only lip service to RKBA issues. They’re all about dope, buttsecks and tax evasion – that’s it. Property rights come before self-defense rights as a natural outgrowth of their epistemology.

        • Makes sense. My wife once told me she was Libertarian. I told her that they do not want to reverse Roe v Wade. She changed her mind quickly without any further discussion.

      • You kid but there was a small town in Mid-Michigan that got in trouble for having too many constables, I think the town had about 170 ccw and 107 of those had the Law Enforcement special ccw.

      • “Well, he is special in that he’s permitted to carry in a “gun free zone” Not necessarily. The mall is private property, and he wasn’t officially on duty. The sign said NO GUNS. Maybe he just doesn’t read so well. Thank goodness.

        • I’ve noticed at my local mall in Memphis that the entrances to the mall are posted, but the entrances to the anchor stores (Sears, Macy’s, etc.) are not. Further, last time I looked, the portal from the store into the mall proper are not posted either. I always enter through Sears, so no problem.

  3. The anti’s will say “look, the terrorist only stabbed 8 people and no one died! If he had a firearm, it would have been a massacre”. They will also say the CCW hero was a cop, therefore it validates their message that the police will always be there to protect us.

    But, despite that, great job by Mr Falconer, I think that he saved a lot of lives by doing what he did!

    • Not too long ago a knife wielding man killed 15 people in Japan. So a knife wielding person can do some serious killing if no armed citizens are around to stop it.

      • And the fact that Mr. Falconer is a reserve also doesn’t mean anything, but the anti’s will use whatever they can get their hands on to spins something they don’t like into something they can stomach.

        Also, Falconer is an awesome surname.

    • “The anti’s will say…”

      Not “will.” It’s already happened. Chris Hayes has already social media-ed “good thing it was bombs, not guns”, with MSNBC doubling-down after the push-back.

      And the articles I’ve seen elsewhere on this incident all begin with: “Off Duty Cop…”

  4. Meanwhile the MSM is only calling him an ‘off-duty cop’.

    Reinforcing their narrative that only law-enforcement has the training and skills to be allowed to be armed in public.

  5. Local news reports indicate that “shooting to stop the threat” didn’t work, and that the stabber got up and resumed the attack twice.

    Mozambique Drill, people.

  6. Love how the news highlighted him as an “off-duty police officer,” and likely failed to mention the rest. “See, only cops should have guns!”

  7. Jason Falconer,

    On behalf of my family and myself, whom have shopped at the Cross Roads shopping center for Years,
    Thank you,
    Thank you,
    Thank you!
    WE consider you a Guardian Angel no matter what anyone else says.

  8. From several online “soruces”: St. Cloud, MN Mayor David Kleis, “Kleis said the end of the attack and the final confrontation could be seen on video from the Macy’s store. Describing the video, which did not have audio, Kleis said the suspect clearly had a knife in hand, and lunged at Falconer, who fired at him. The suspect fell, then got back up three times before the fatal shot.” Holy crap!!!. What kind of pea shooter was this guy using or what kind of drug was the s#it head stabber on?

    • If the perp was on stimulants to boost his BP, he could have gotten back up from anything but a CNS shot. Or if he was just plain determined, which he could have been. After all, he’s thinking about all those doe-eyed honeys he’s going to be servicing in the afterlife, and he’s thinking he’s gotta put on a really good exit scene in order to get the last couple of virgins in paradise into his afterlife harem.

      If you really want someone to stay down, you’re going to have to suffer the legal heat after you’re caught on camera putting a couple into his head as he’s on the ground from the first shot. Lawyers are going to argue that you executed the perp in this case, and they’d be right.

      The problem with lawyers is that they confuse the law for justice. In this case, after the perp has stabbed eight people, justice requires he be put down like a rabid dog. Lawyers, however, never want to talk about justice unless it comes at a great financial expenditure of billable hours, and that’s the situation we have here. If you’re well-versed in the law, and you’d like to avoid being prosecuted by a politically correct DA, you’re going to be playing whack-a-mole, as Mr. Falconer did here.

      • My hat’s off to Mr. Falconer for having the cojones to confront and stop the attacker in the first place but I hope that he is now reconsidering his choice of EDC gun and ammo. If it turns out he was using a 9mm or larger caliber with good ammo, then I will have to reconsider my EDC gun and ammo choice.

        • Why? I imagine he hit center mass. Handgun bullets of any caliber, particularly pistol rounds are not going to incapacitate every person they strike center mass. It takes a few minutes to bleed out. Meanwhile, the person can continue to fight or run.
          Let’s presume Mr. Falconer used .40 S&W. What are you going to reconsider?

  9. Why are so many people intent on disarming their fellow citizens, so if a cop isn’t around they just have to keep getting killed?

    I don’t get it.

    • You really have to spend time around them to understand their mindset. I could wax philosophical on this point, but I have other things to do today, including working on guns and getting paid for same.

      The upshot is that many of the most ardent in their wish that we disarm ourselves are politically connected, and are able to perceive the police as their own private security force, or they’re able to afford their own security forces. These are the cynical SOB’s who know how the world works, and they’re going to use their wealth and position to secure themselves. The rest of us can go screw ourselves.

      Then there’s the useful emotional idiot cohort of the unilateral disarmament groups; these are most often females, with a minority of feminized males. These are people who simply don’t understand how the laws of the jungle actually work. I find that there are lots of women who simply don’t understand how the mindset of criminals works because they’ve always lived sheltered lives, from the time they were Daddy’s Little Princess to when they’re all grown up and now spewing the pablum they learned from other coddled people in colleges. It’s really quite sad or infuriating to be around these people, because it is so very obvious that they live in a world of make-believe, and they’re going to be very deeply upset and mentally scarred if or when reality intrudes in its typically harsh and unforgiving way. They just fail to understand that criminals don’t obey laws – any laws – that stand in the way of their commission of a crime. It doesn’t matter whether they’re running a stoplight, robbing a bank or shooting a teller in the commission of said robbery. They want money, banks are where there’s lots of money, ergo they’re going to take money out of the bank.

      One such woman of my acquaintance when I lived in the LA area could not believe how quickly thieves broke into her house. She had a home alarm system. She had a door with shiny locks on it. She had taken all the steps she thought necessary, but she refused to put her valuables (much of which was very high-end jewelry) into a real safe that was bolted down. I was one of several men telling her that thieves work on a time table, and if the haul is available in X minutes, and they reckon police response is X+n minutes, where ‘n > 0’, they consider it a good target. She just refused to understand that a grown-ass man can kick in a door, even with a deadbolt on it. Refused to consider that men are, in fact, that strong. Refused to believe that her locking oak jewelry cabinet was child’s play for a grown man with a screwdriver or pinch bar. Refused to believe that her home alarm system would be ignored – because there were so many damn auto and residential alarms going off all the time, hers was just one more of all that were ignored.

      Well, she learned the hard way, and was deeply traumatized by the break-in. About a year after that, she came to me, seeking advice on getting a gun. A complete 180 on her worldview had happened as she realized just how far detached from reality so much of this specious advice and security marketing is. Last I knew, she was pretty adamant about RKBA, and now owns several handguns. When I knew her, she was a damn good shot – but she was always PO’ed that getting dirty with ‘the gun people’ was necessary to become good. This last part was because she was a high-upkeep sort of female, and there was no way I could convince her that some manly men liked the smell of #9 (Hoppes) better than #5 (Chanel). Being seen wearing flat shoes, jeans and flannel to a shooting range? The horror, the horror…

  10. Finally, someone took Bill Clinton’s advice. Thankfully Mr. Falconer wasn’t armed. Who knows how many innocent bystanders he would have shot. Probably more than the knife wielder wounded. Also, the police would have mistaken him for the perp and shot him.

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