Posted on 08/24/2008 9:29:35 AM PDT by B4Ranch
The author stresses the value of marches and how they train you for impending attackers. While I agree I also disagree. He minimizes dry firing which I rate very highly because it gives you a chance to do things that a range will never permit.
Marksmanship skills are not the only issue in security with a sidearm. Situational awareness is a large slice of the pie. Being able to feel if you are in a tight place on comes from practice.
Is everyone watching you walk through the mall or down the street? Ask yourself WHY do all these people give a damn what I am doing. Are they looking at me because I am the only woman or am I an older man they view as a victim. The odds are that you won't be attacked from the front which means that you will have to draw and make a half turn.
Sorry but a 180 is against every range law that I know of. That's where dry firing with an empty sidearm comes in. Dry firing is where you practice technique. Many ways to do this. Fall to the ground and rotate as you are dropping. Turn and fire or strike rearward with an elbow as you turn. These can only be practiced off the range. Sorry, the liability is just too high for a range operator to bare.
Not many ranges will tolerate you firing in full darkness. You can and should practice changing magazines, drawing, trigger control, clearing jams, etc., at home in total (100%) darkness. Doing it while you are light blinded is an excellent practice.
Take a drive out in the countryside on a cloudy evening and locate a remote area where you can fire off a magazine or two so you understand exactly how blinding the muzzle flash is on your sidearm. It'll make you want to start saving for some Crimson Laser sights.
If you are entered into a match and you're competitive like me, you'll want to win it so you won't be using your everyday accessories. Put the everyday magazine and holsters off to the side and use the competition ones because every second counts. You don't want to be unsnapping the mag pouch if it's not in the rulebook that you must. Unless you use your everyday gear at the match I don't feel that you are practicing real world situations.
Ladies, dry firing at home is where you get to practice drawing to your hearts content. Put on an old blouse that won't break your heart if it gets torn. Use that purse holster until you are so smooth with it that you don't believe it.
Always fire twice if you draw your weapon from a concealed holster. In the real world if the threat is there to make you draw then that threat must be sufficient to also make you fire.
One more thing about dry firing, it's free! So there's no reason why you should do it at least twice a week, is there?
Levels 1-5 are hack amateur.
Special Forces troops only eliminate threats that refuse to surrender quietly and peacefully. If making noise or refusing to surrender endangers the mission, then the threat will be removed.
'A mans got to know his limitations'...
LFOD...
Great advice about practicing turning and firing : )
I don’t know much, but the biggest problem that I see isn’t firing the gun, it is situational awareness. If anyone is within 20 feet of me, I simply don’t have enough time to get the gun out, much less fire it.
A gun is just a tool and not the primary self defense tool at that.
Special Forces are a different breed, Andy.
Punk came out of the store and pointed a 45 auto at me. I reached back into the car and drew my brother's 44 mag. Drilled him once right side chest high. I was aiming dead center at 25 feet. The "miss" shook me up until I took the gun to the range and found out it was out of adjustment.
In general I agree with your remarks but I have also seen guys who were very good on the range absolutely melt under pressure.
A very good friend of mine on his third tour in VN was point walking a dike in a rice paddy- he was considered the best shooter in the squad. A Charlie stood up about 30 feet from him (theory was he was taking a BR break) they both pointed their weapons at each other and emptied them. My friend is around because he was faster on the reload. At a unit reunion I called BS on him and his Top was there and said no it was all true he was the next guy in line.
I would recommend that anyone who carries go to Thunder Ranch or Cooper's place for a week long training and that if you have ANY doubt that you could shoot someone do not carry.
Lastly a little know fact is that many bad guys practice shooting ALOT!!! More than the average citizen would believe.
Very good info, and it contains MANY useful concepts. However, I offer one important caution. Highly trained and experienced professionals and hobbiests tend to get this mindset that without tons of training and practice, a person will be a useless trembling waste, unable to defend theirself or a loved one. The problem is that its simply not true. Every day we hear about the mom, the elderly person, the clerk at the market,,etc, that save the day with a handgun they otherwise rarely touch. When you get down to it, if you have the strength and hand & eye coordination to use a blow drier, you can handle a pistol sucessfully. I wonder how many people read articles like this and then, too intimidated at being level 1 or 2, or so strapped financially that a trip to thunder ranch is unobtanium, don’t later have a gun with them, precisely when they really wish they did? When its for real, the bang and blast just aren’t hardly even noticeable.
If you buy a revolver, take a basic course or make a few range trips, you will amaze yourself years later when you can still use it. Last, enthusiastic shooters tend to prepare for Armageddon, or Friday the 13th part VII.
While there’s not a single thing wrong with this, in the real world, most people will be facing a bully or coward who never expected ANY resistance. And even though they would easily be overwhelmed by a band of nazi al-queda frogmen in nomex operator-suits, brandishing Kimbers with flashlights, these moms, regular guys in their 40’s who were in the army 20 years ago, and octenogerians will continue scaring off and successfully shooting bad guys just as they always have. Dear beginner,,,just remember the first and the *main* rule of gunfighting. “Have a gun”.
Armed citizens, regardless of training levels are rarely defeated or disarmed as the anti-gun crowd tells you is likely. And excessive requirements for training are the tool of Sarah Brady, designed to scare away beginners and to increase expense for the others. OK,,now that you have my opinion, i’d advise you to go back and read his post again carefully,,*and take heed*, because despite my post,,he’s still as right as I am. I mean it. He correctly mentioned number 5’s might have just been lucky,,,all you might need is to just have ONE idea of his to sink in to get you through.
Not every body need to train to that level to defend themselves from criminal. Lots of criminal's are taken care of my people who load their guns and only pick it up to use it when needed.
Is that a tenth of a second from a holster highly unlikely.
Or is that a tenth of a second when sights are already on target. Or how many tenths of seconds are you talking about.
Training and practice is a good thing the more the better but to say one needs to be the world best isn't real. Most people do not have ready access to a range nor the time to do it.
Should they do more yes will they most likely not. It is real easy for gun people to get down on non gun people for not shooting enough. Would I like most every body who carries to train more yes I believe it is a good idea.
Am I going to stop people who only shoot once a year or less from being able to defend themselves no.
So whats the answer Train help others train take classes past the info on ect. Become an instructor helps others learn and take them out shooting.
WERD, Rhino.
In a gunfight, you must HAVE A GUN. All else is secondary.
A willingness to kill without hesitation has historically been the key to winning mortal combat. That is generally far more important than actual skill, but yes it can’t hurt to be prepared, and the more skilled the better.
I really suggest that you don’t just go off in the country to what you think is an empty spot and start firing off rounds. If its private property, you might find that its not as empty as you think. Worse, you might get return fire. Cattlemen and farmers aren’t keen on having people shoot around their livestock.
My wife carried a 38 snub reluctantly, and even fired at least 50 shots thru it on a “level 2” range. She always said she was sure she could never shoot anyone anyway. Then one night when i was gone to Kuwait during the Gulf war 90/91, someone followed her through several turns in a lonely area,,and unprovoked, he suddenly made his move and blocked her car in and exited agressively. She said she *instantly* realized her life was far more important than the concept of “never shooting anyone”. It still irritates her when i tease her about how fast her liberal ideas vanished. She’s still here.
Where do hunters fit? It seems that the writer has forgot to include lots of stuff. He has made it too long to be interesting and too incomplete to be of use.
I respectfully disagree. Most of the time, from “victim” surveys, the mere presence of the firearm is enough to defuse the situation. If you wait so long that you must fire immediately upon drawing your firearm, you have probably waited too long. Police *do not* always fire when they draw their weapon.
Spot on. The world is full of violent amateurs. (I think Murphy said something to this effect). Unless you're going force-on-force with a squad of enemy infantry, your opponent is just a two-bit thug. One who almost certainly spends less time at the range, cleaning his weapon, or otherwise preparing for his life being on the line. He's resorted to violence because life's other options have proven too taxing, and his application of violence, while enthusiastic, will also be amateurish.
The one time in my life an enemy got a completely free shot at me, he missed a <150m shot at the unguarded back of a stationary target. Likely because his sights were closer to his bellybutton than his eyes when he pulled the trigger.
That's inexcusably incompetent for an allegedly trained anti-crusader combatant, rolling the dice against Team Infidel, but hardly uncommon.
Even with training and experience, most thugs are idiots. That's why they're thugs. Their inability to make sound decisions puts them at a strong disadvantage against an aggressive opponent that acts rationally. Grandma doesn't have to be hard as woodpecker lips, 300+ on her PT test, and at the range every Sunday after church to put steel on a half-wit criminal. She just needs a gun where she can get at it, and the sense to do it at the right time.
On a macro scale, that's what society needs; brave amateurs who will fight back. On a micro scale, sure, you-the-individual want to be as ready as possible to defend your own life, and the life of others. But be real. Most Americans aren't going to spring for a few weeks at Blackwater learning combat rifle and pistol, though. We should be happy if most able bodied Americans just owned a gun, were willing to use it, and practiced adequate weapons handling and safety.
the fact is that criminal hearts driven by evil, already have 'gotten over' the instinctive hurdles o do greivous violence on their victims, putting the good samaritan at a dis advantage from the gitgo...
its an exponential complication when they practice marksmanship and the good guys trust their machismo to get-r-done...
I dont practice as much as Id like or should, but I constantly work on the mental barriers/prep to help obtain the initiative...that can be done anywhere at anytime...
Right on target, no pun intended. That willingness to kill without hesitation was what made the Old West's top gunmen like Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, and John Wesley Hardin so deadly.
Macho bull-shit post
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