I'm 23 and I feel that while Massad Ayoob has some dated opinions and teachings, he still has quite some useful information to share.
I don't like his opinion on dropping the slide on an empty chamber. I also don't like his opinion on downgrading to a different firearm because "the jury will be more likely to convict someone using an AR-15!" I do think some of his seminars from LFI and his self-defense books are chock-full of good info.
Ken Hackathorn is the one I really don't like. His being against red dot sights and weapon-mounted lights just really doesn't sit well with me. I just find him to be stuck in the 1990s. Some of the logic he uses is very similar to the logic that anti-gunners use.
ETA that I don't get the "Massad Ayoob has no experience! He's just some auxiliary cop in rural New Hampshire that does it for the creds!" I don't see a point there when a lot of what he teaches on self-defense law is backed-up by "experienced professionals."
He's right about the dropping the hammer on a empty chamber when it is a $5k bespoken 1911. My beater Colt 1991A1 Series 80 that I paid $250 for.... that's sometimes used to level out the dining room table and as a chew toy for the dog.
As for using an AR-15 for self-defense and the jury thing. He's talking in a generalized manner and he's not wrong. It all depends on the trial venue. If it was in my area, using an AR wouldn't bat an eye nor would I be tried if it was the self-defense in my own home. I live in a fairly pro-gun county with fairly strong state self-defense laws, including castle doctrine and stand your ground. Plus, it is a single-family residence with concrete block construction for my exterior walls.
Now, if I lived in the Bronx in an apartment. Things are different there and I would choose a different firearm. Each legal jurisdiction has its own quirks and oddities. He's trying to create a generalized educational product that works with the averages of our society. Plus, his experience in seeing how prosecutors and juries actually work in the real world too. Which, form my own personal experience as a cop, seeing it first hand. The courts do not operate on logic alone. Emotion is a huge tool used to pull at the heart strings of the jurors.
A well versed and experienced prosecutor very much will try to paint the plaintiff as a blood-thirsty killer who used excessive force. Heck, the upcoming FL Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Jason Pizzo is a former Broward County State Attorney. Broward County is where Parkland happened. And he's the ranking Democrat in the Florida Senate.
Last year, during debate for permitless concealed-only carry. He directly asked me if using an automatic weapon to defend my family was excessive. I told him no, I said bad guys travel in packs. That as a cop, I carried such firearms for the specific reasoning that superior firepower balances a lone party facing a larger superior force. He went quiet. But in Broward County, FL; just a question like that is common and it is used in the courts by prosecutors to paint the plaintiffs as being excessive. And the local pool that a jury is pulled from thinks the same way since they elect people like Sen. Pizzo into office.
As for Ken Hackathorn, he's stuck in the olden ways and is kind of a curmudgeon. It is what it is. When I reach his age, I'll probably say something to the effect of using hand-free drones armed with phasers and FLIR is worthless and only a tricked out GLOCK 17 with a RDS and a WML is the way to go. And all the kids will laugh at me and tell me to go back into my retirement pod and watch reruns of Miami Vice.
