Street Smarts, Firearms, And Personal Security : Jim Grover's Guide To Staying Alive And Avoiding Crime In The Real World

I re-read the book since and really received more benefit the second time. I think with books like this and others like Strong On Defense and Tom Patire's Personal Protection Handbook their is enough quality material for people to read and become more vigilante in their way of life.

Great Book!


Detailed information on personal security   October 9, 2003
 19 out of 19 found this review helpful

I have mixed feelings about books that are comprised of articles published in magazines before. The main reason is that those articles seldom are detailed enough, because of lenght constraints placed on magazine columns. In addition, the chapters in these books are usually arranged in illogical manner, where stuff about a specific topic is dispersed thorouhg the book. This book avoids those pitfalls, however, and at the same time utilizes the main advantage of magazine column -approach: The book covers a wide variety of topics, in easily approached small portions.

While this book is comprised of articles published mainly in Guns & Ammo -magazine in years 1992 - 1999, the subjects of the columns are so tightly defined, that the shortness of the chapters is not a problem. Grover gets his point across in the pages devoted to a specific subject. There is also lots of details and examples on certain situations. In addition, the columns are arranged in sections by the subject, so you can easily find all the info on specific subject without having to flip through the whole book.

Although the word "firearms" is mentioned in the title of the book, the emphasis is not in surviving an armed encounter. The book covers the field of personal security very broadly, beginning from the security of your home, and ending to wounded shooter tactics. In fact, the book could well have been published in two parts, one concentrating on crime prevention, and the second on combatives. Therefore, this book should interest also those people who are not into guns, and are not interested in getting one for personal safety.

The crime prevention part of the book is exellent. It seems that while there are some books on the market on this subject, for some reason more books concentrate on combatives, than preventing these dangerous situations altogether. Perhaps this is the reason why I felt that the second half of the book was not as good as the first half. The book would have been better, if the magazine columns would have been edited somewhat to get rid of "in this month's column we concentrate on..." -type stuff. And there is some repetition also, which is a bit annoying in book form.

All things concidered, I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in raising their personal level of security.


Okay, I'm impressed!   March 14, 2003
 8 out of 11 found this review helpful

Some names stand out among the others in different areas of expertise... In the personal security and shooting worlds, "Jim Grover" is one such name! One can always find Mr. Grover's name in such popular places as his column in Guns and Ammo or Handguns magazines. Mr. Grover specializes in teaching you how to stay alive and avoid crime in the "real world". He's so successful because his techniques WORK.

In today's computer driven world, anyone can write a book, and even make it look good. Anyone can rehash older techniques and try to convince the reader that a small twist in an old idea can make it the "ultimate" fighting style. Lord save us from these people, cause we surely won't be able to save ourselves on the mean streets after reading that tripe. That's why it's important to note that Jim Grover's styles are PROVEN to work! To those of us "in the know" it's easy to tell that Jim knows his business and every detail associated with it!

Hard hitting, no nonsense, straight facts make this book an excellent and dependable read. He deals with not only Home and street security and topics, but also for travel abroad. I was impresed that Jim covers child protection in detail, that's an important "peace of mind" for those of us who are Parents struggling to keep our kids safe in a world that sometimes seems insane! You can look, but you won't find a better book on the subject of Personal Security!