While you make it quite a drama, large numbers of armed normal people find it -not at all- to be the way you describe. Extraneous BS becomes filtered out. You can only process so much input. Important gets in, crap is filtered out.
Once you know he is the armed robber, and has a gun, thats the big strokes. You may have trouble later even remembering what he said, or what his gun looked like.
This is because those things simply do-not-matter in THAT instant.
It then becomes very easy to do what you have done at the range, and squeeze off an effective shot.
Also, your 12 gauge shotgun recoil may feel like a kids BB gun. Your 357 may barely pop. A before, those noises and mior kicks are extraneous and will be filtered out.
Training the way you suggest is not needed. A shootout is much more akin to imagining a kid darts out in front of you chasing a ball. You brake and swerve before you think about it. The event is -long over- before all the melodramatic fear responses you describe kick in. You seem to think it’s some almost mystical, impossible thing to do well.
I don’t fully blame you, because people like to associate successfully using a gun as a skill that only the descendants of Wyatt Earp or a SEAL have any hope of doing.
According to the myth, you have to have nerves of steel, the confidence of a Topgun pilot, the training of an astronaut, and a law degree to ever use a gun to defend yourself.
The problem is 80 year olds who often do it. What about the 12 year old girl who just did it?
I fully realize it’s probably impossible to convince you. You are certain that it’s an adrenaline filled, vomit inducing, ultimate fear ride. So thats what it will be for you. But in reality, if you have the strength and fine motor skills to operate a blow drier, if you can cope with stress such that you can drive a car,, you can indeed do well in a shootout.
I am not kidding you, driving ANY freeway in the Bay Area or LA is far more stress than you will ever have in a gunfight. Are you reduced to ineffective jelly then? Most people can get through it fine.
I’m answering you to reassure those who might read your words, and think you have any idea how it really is.
This is one of my favorite videos. Earlier this year a 65 year old Jewelry Store owner...
A few weeks earlier a patron at a Florida Gaming Parlor (or whatever they’re called now) unloading on some thugs who were planning on robbing everyone.
Hi DesertRhino,
I read your post, I wouldn’t say its impossible to convince me, I am, unlike many people, open to having my mind changed, if the evidence convinces me. I can understand the point about becoming ‘tunnel visioned’ and more focused in a crisis, I’ve felt it happen, but I’ve never had to use it, so I suppose I don’t know whether it would have worked or not. I have noticed however, that under periods of less than life-threatening stress in an unaccustomed situation, my performance level has decreased in a training situation, its those sorts of situations where I have felt that if I had to use a gun, my aim would have been pretty rubbish.