I born in Nissa in 1950. My Papa was the revolutionary Roberto Amico. I went live in England in the 60s. Come back to Italy, in 80s, then went to Yugoslavia during Civil War to be arms dealer. I founder Sicilia-Serbo Armi Srl, Sicilijanac Srpski Oružje d.o.o and and Sicilski Slovenski Orožje d.o.o. in 1990 to export arms from former Republic Yugoslavia. 2010 very exciting year for me I make new arms company Stidda Armi Srl in Italy, Stidda Oružje d.o.o in Serbia and Stidda Orožje d.o.o in Slovenia work with my nephew and Roberto, (my former bodyguard), who named for my Papa, and niece Stefania, who named for my Mama. They own successful sports and arms company, Amico Sport Srl, which have many subsidiary companies. Family very important to me.
My personal life. I spent some time in jail, nothing serious, and the magistrate rule my conviction no good for illegal procedure. I get lucky and have very good lawyeressa, my niece Stefania. Now I’m legitimate arms dealer, no criminal.
I collector rare guns and maistru (master) of duellu cô cuteddu sicilianu (the art Sicilian knife duel), which save my life many times. My Papa teach me to use a knife and a gun. I own two of them good attack dogs my nephew train, a cane corso and dogo argentino. I like my boat, scuba diving, shooting and hunting. I hunt wolf, hog, deer fox, and barbary apes but more I like to hunt big game, lion, tiger, leopard, jaguar, elephant, rhino, buffalo, bear, crocodile and shark. Italy have Great White Shark.
I’m single guy and live with my sister Maria. I Roman Catholic and my sister Lucia is a nun, she’s always breaking my cugghiuni to go to Church but I don’t have enough years left to confess all my sins. I stay in shape, my niece Amica, who is married my nephew Rob is my physical trainer. Most of all things I like dating sexy girls in their 20s and 30s and having much fun.
The place we’re often at our most vulnerable is the place that we often feel safest: our home. We are all potentially at risk from attack or robbery from an intruder in our home. Actually this is a lot more common than people think. Few girls seem to realise that they are more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted by an intruder in her home, than by a stranger in the street, a car park or an elevator. Lots of other girls I talk to think they’re perfectly safe as long as they’ve got good locks on the doors and the guys tend to be even more blasé about home security. Apart from the fact that locked doors and windows aren’t much of an obstacle for most burglars. It’s unrealistic to think that we will lock every door and window. I know I don’t. I work from home a lot and when it’s a hot day, I’ll open up the balcony doors and my bedroom window for air, and I’ll often go on to my roof top. How hard would it be for an intruder to break into my house when I’m alone? Not very.
So what can we do about home defence?
If you’re going to keep weapons for home defence, they need to be kept ready to use and where they’re immediately accessible. Each of us has 3 handguns. I have a Beretta Px4 storm, Beretta Px4 storm subcompact and Beretta 21 A Bobcat; Amica has a Glock 17, Glock 26, and Beretta Px4 storm subcompact; and Rob has Beretta Px4 storm SD, Beretta Px4 storm compact and Beretta 3032 Tomcat. So if Rob and Amica take their firearms to the range and leave me in the house alone (they do that they’re mean ) I’m down to 3 handguns. I keep my Beretta Px4 storm in a fixed place, where I know it will be if I need it and walk about with either the the Beretta Px4 storm subcompact or Beretta 21 A Bobcat.
Why do I do that? Because I might be on the roof or balcony, in my bedroom, taking a shower or relaxing in the bath when someone breaks in, and the intruder might be between me and my main handgun. So carrying a firearm or keeping one with me within reaching distance just makes sense. It’s no more difficult than carrying a mobile phone.
Rob and Amica do the same, although they usually both carry 2 handguns and several knives. Amica has 2 shotguns, 4 tactical folding knives and a decorative knuckle duster in her collection of weapons, and Rob has 3 shotguns, 14 tactical folding knives, 11 combat knives, 5 traditional Italian fighting knives, 3 machetes, 5 sticks, 4 maces,1 stun baton, and Christ knows what else in his weapon collection. But it never hurts to be prepared. We’ve also got a big mastino napoletano who guards the house at night.
One of Rob’s shotguns the Franchi SPAS-15 is designated for house protection, and never leaves the house unless he leaves his Benelli M4 Super 90 at home as a substitute. Why do we need a combat shotgun if we’ve got handguns? Good question, a shotgun has more stopping power and is hard to miss with even in the dark.
But where we’re most vulnerable is the the first point of entry into our homes: the front door. How many people get attacked on their doorstep or in their house by someone they’ve pissed off, like the angry ex-boyfriend or neighbour? I never answer the door to strangers when I’m home alone, and I’ll know if it’s a stranger because I have a concealed CCTV camera and an intercom at the door. But we’re also vulnerable to attack entering our homes. Rapists will often try to force their way into the house when a girl has just opened the door.
Having trained and used attacks dogs, I rate them as one of the best forms of self-defence. An attack dog will take on multiple attackers, armed attackers and other dogs. It can be trained to give chase or to stay close and to defend its master and to fight in a pack or on its own. It can also be trained to take down attackers armed with guns or knives, but a decent attack dog is more than a ferocious weapon that will rip a person apart on command: they can also be trained release the victim on command.
For those who don’t know the difference between an attack dog and a guard dog, an attack dog is specifically trained to attack humans and a guard dog isn’t, although a guard dog on a chain or rope will attack anything within biting distance that it doesn’t think should be within biting distance. There’s a debate as to whether training a guard dog to attack humans makes it more dangerous or not. Some people argue that an attack dog is less dangerous because it can be taught to pin their victims and a guard dog can’t but I don’t really go along with that, you can teach a dog to maim or kill but you can’t teach them not to maim or kill. An attack dog is what it is — a weapon – it can’t be a family pet.
No dog should be left alone with small children because the only dogs that don’t bite are the ones with no teeth. Attack dog should never be given free roam of the house or allowed to eat in the same room that humans do, and most breeds of attack dog need a male handler. Women shouldn’t handle any dog they can’t physically control, let alone an attack dog.
My three favourite breeds of attack dog are the Cane Corso, Mastino Napoletano and Rottweiler. I’ve used all three breeds when I was working as a bodyguard, they all formidable dogs. Until you’ve seen an attack dog in real combat you can’t really appreciate just how effective they are but hopefully the videos on this blog give some idea of how capable they are.
I currently own two Cani Corso, sometimes called Branchiero Siciliano, and have trained several, who I’ve used in combat. In my opinion they’re the best attack dog breed (see above): they have the perfect balance of muscle, agility, strength, stamina and endurance, and they’re also highly intelligent, fearless, and have a great temperament — they were also bred specifically as a bodyguard dog and are descended from the legendary Roman Canis Pugnax (dog of war).
My second favourite is the Mastino Napoletano, also a direct descendent of the Canis Pugnax. I just bought a Mastino puppy, when he’s fully grown, he’ll be in excess of 70kg of raw power. Although the Mastino is not as agile or as athletic as the cane corso, they’re equally fearless, have incredible pain tolerance, and are natural attack dogs. They also rarely bark — they’re silent assassins.
My third choice of attack dog is the Rottweiler, another awesome but often underrated breed of dog. Rottweiler’s have courage, strength, size and a great temperaments. They’re also another highly trainable dog, who respond well to commands. I’ve owned and trained a couple and used to have one work on the door with me. They great judges of character.
The Dogo Canario has all the physical attributes to be a great attack dog and a lot of people rate them, they big, powerful, fast and agile, and they’re a fearless breed with excellent fighting instinct, but they can be quite hard to control. With an expirenced handler they make a very capable attack dog.
The Fila Brasileiro is banned in the UK for being a member of a proscribed terrorist organisation. But when they’re not starting revolutions or being subversives, they make damn fine attack dogs. Again difficult to control because they very protective and notoriously aggressive to stranger.
The German Shepherd is probably the most famous police attack dog. They’re fast, athletic, pack animal, with good stamina and they pretty easy to train but to be honest they’re not a very good attack dog, of the main attack dog breeds, it’s the one I’d fear least. It’s can knock you down but if you see it coming it can be thrown about like a rag dog. It just doesn’t have the weight or strength. t’s not the power of the bite, it’s the power of the dog that matters. As a breed they’ve got an aggressive temperament. The Malinois, one of the four Belgium Shepherd dog breeds, is favoured by some police forces because it has a better temperament than the German Shepherd and it’s smaller. But the Dutch Shepherd is better in my opinion. It has a great temperament and although it’s smaller than the German Shepherd, it’s more agile and athletic, and makes more of an impact with its jump attack.
In my opinion none of these shepherd dogs have enough size or strength to be truly effective. They can bring a man down but on the fround they can be easily out wrestled and lets face it, the average geezer could beat one to death with his fist.
Some people train Pit Bulls to be attack dogs — I wouldn’t recommend it because it goes against the grain. They were bred to be fighting dogs and not show aggression to humans. If they’re trained to attack humans they can be hard to call off and unpredictable. The breed is responsible for most of the fatal dog attacks on humans in America. The other reason I don’t think they make a particularly good attack dog is although they’re muscular, agile, and have great power to weight ratio, they’re small by attack dog standards. That said, Pit Bulls are still capable of knocking a man to the floor and savaging him while he’s down.
As a personal defence weapon, attack dogs are brillant and they also have the added benefit of being legal to walk around with, unlike most other weapons, which is always a plus.
If you’re being threatened by a dog, the standard advice from various national kennel clubs is to avoid eye contact, remain still, with your arms crossed over your chest or hands in your pockets and hope for the best, which is fine if the dog doesn’t attack you, but not so clever if it bites your groin, face or throat. The problem with advice like this is that it assumes that a dog is unlikely to attack a human, which is complete bullshit. Most recorded dog attacks on humans were unprovoked. The reason for the massive increase is that more people are buying dogs for protection and either can’t control them or are using them as weapons.
If you were attacked by a Chihuahua or Yorkshire Terrier, you would kick into the middle of next week. So when we’re talking about dog attacks, we’re talking about defences against a dog like an American Pit Bull, Rottweiler, Tosa, Presa Canario, Fila Brasileiro, Dogo Argentino, Dogue de Bordeaux, Mastino Napoletan, Cane Corso, English Mastiff, Bullmastiff, Dobermann Pinscher, Bull Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Anatolian Shepherd, German Shepherd or Dutch Shepherd — a dog who could maim or kill an adult, and might even be a trained attack dog deliberately set on you.
Most dog attacks don’t result in the victim being horrifically scared, maimed or killed, so unarmed defence against a dog is possible but some breeds are easier to deal with than others because of their size but having said that all the above dogs are potentionally lethal, and especially dangerous if they’re trained attack dogs. The best defence is to shoot it before it attacks you and if someone threatens you with a dog, shoot it dead before he gets the chance to let it off the leash. The next best thing to a gun is a decent dog.
But when I’m unarmed and threatened by a dog, I don’t stand square on, offering up my balls, throat and face: I stand side on, my left side facing the dog, so my thigh is protecting my Jacobs. I hold my left fist down by my left hip, and my right fist against my left cheek cover my face and throat with my head on my shoulder.
The dog will get hold of my left arm, but better my arm than my bollocks, face or throat, and when he’s got my arm his mouth’s busy. I’ll let him pull me to the ground because he’ll keep ripping chunks out of me until he does and he’ll do less damage to my arm if I don’t struggle but when I go to ground, I’ll wrap my right arm around his body — not his neck or he’ll attack my right arm — then I’ll drive my chest into him and pin him to the floor (cross body pin), keeping my arm in his mouth and hold him down with my chest. I’ll carefully slip my right arm behind it’s neck and strangle it. I’ve only ever done this with Kevlar forearm guards, so the pain on the forearm wasn’t all that.
I’ve never fought against more than one dog at one time so I can’t really offer much advice, but I don’t think there is much you can do if you’re unarmed. All I can suggest (and this ain’t great) is to roll up into a tight ball with your fist on your ears, so the dog can only bite the back of your head, neck, arms, legs and back. But you’ve got to stop yourself from getting turned over, which won’t be easy, I’m very confident that my two dogs could turn over anyone.
) I’m down to 3 handguns. I keep my Beretta Px4 storm in a fixed place, where I know it will be if I need it and walk about with either the the Beretta Px4 storm subcompact or Beretta 21 A Bobcat.
