Why don’t people train?
Owning a handgun doesn’t make you armed any more than owning a guitar makes you a musician.
–Jeff Cooper
Of all the things Jeff Cooper said, the above saying has become the most prevalent mantra within the firearms training community. It has been memed in many ways. The latest I saw was ‘Without training, you are just pretending.’ The original saying and its various memes allude to the need for gun owners to be trained, ‘regulated’ in the sense of the Second Amendment, in order to be able to effectively use their weapons for personal protection. Why, then, don’t more gunowners pursue training beyond the bare legal minimum, where required?
First of all, let’s confront the validity of the statement itself. We should note that there are quite a few capable musicians and singers who are self-trained. With regard to firearms, the firearms training industry has really only existed since the mid-1970s, when Jeff Cooper founded the American Pistol Institute at Gunsite. Before then, even many police officers didn’t receive much in the way of training. There were virtually no venues available for formal training for Private Citizens, other than the Boy Scouts or Camp Perry. Does this mean that in the 200 years of US history preceding the foundation of API, the American people were ‘unarmed?’ Of course not. Americans have a rich history of shooting predatory no-goods without a moment’s hesitation, even before the foundation of the Republic.
On an almost daily basis, we read and circulate reports of Armed Private Citizens defending themselves, their families, and their neighbors with firearms. The vast majority of these incidents are successfully solved by people who have not one bit of formal training. What this means is we trainers can’t have our cake and eat it, too. Every time we celebrate a successful defense, and rightfully so, we essentially invalidate Cooper’s saying.
What are the reasons a gunowner might cite for not taking training, assuming it’s available, which is a separate issue? There are any number of reasons, such as:
- Time
- Expense
- Accessibility
- Scheduling
- Lack of motivation
- Lack of incentive
- Lack of understanding
Time and expense should be discussed together because they are both personal resource constraints. The time demands on most people are extensive, especially in a single parent family. Similarly, money is tight for the majority of Americans. The question “How much is your life worth?,” another popular meme in the training community, is moot when the rent is due tomorrow and your kids want to eat.
Accessibility and scheduling are another pair of related issues. According to the US Census, 80.7 percent of Americans live in urban areas. Where are most training facilities? Out in the boonies, in what the Census describes as ‘rural areas.’ While there is some instruction that goes on at indoor ranges, my experience is that it is best described as ‘familiarization’ rather than training. This is a huge disconnect. The location of training facilities is a factor that impacts the time issue I previous mentioned. If a person has to budget several additional hours or days, just for travel purposes, that becomes yet another resource constraint.
To its credit, the NRA Training Division is trying to address this issue through the use of a ‘Blended Training Model’ of both online and in-person training. The result among the NRA Instructor community has been mostly anger and serious pushback. Much of the dissension is based on pure economics. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that.
With regard to scheduling, when do trainers tend to schedule training mostly? I submit that we schedule when it’s convenient for us, not for the students. That’s one reason I have gone exclusively to short evening classes and one day only weekend classes. Asking people to spend both days of a weekend, out in the sticks, is simply an unreasonable demand on their time.
Lack of motivation, incentive, and understanding are allied factors, as well. About them I will say we in the community simply haven’t made a good case for what we teach and why we teach it. This is especially true in light of the regular reports of people who successfully defend themselves and their families without any training. Although we trainers spend a certain amount of time talking about what we teach, we still haven’t made a good overall business case for “What is the value of training?” Until we do, folks just aren’t going to come. I think the training community might benefit from some Dale Carnegie training for itself.
Rangemaster 2015 Tactical Conference (II)
Continuing on about the Rangemaster 2015 Tactical Conference held annually in the Memphis area, I would like to cover the high points of some sessions I attended.
John Hearne’s Performance Under Fire presentation was so packed with information that it’s hard to take it all in. He does a fine job of refuting the pseudo-science that pervades the personal protection training community. His research is thorough, up to date, and can document fully what he says. An aspect of his approach I like is the way he tracks the original science to see if it has subsequently been refuted. John is one of the few people in the community besides myself who has any clue about how to do research. Here’s a clue; taking information from a firearms or martial arts trainer at face value is not a valid approach. I found numerous points in his presentation quite useful.
He stated that there are actually 21 documentable ‘flinch responses,’ most of which do not involve throwing one’s hands up in the air. So if there are a variety of responses, how do you know which one you will exhibit and is it going to be the same one every time? Years ago, Ken Hackathorn told me to watch surveillance video of convenience store robberies to see how many people threw their hands up in the air when they were startled. The answer is ‘not many.’
One of my personal pet peeves is the continuing blathering about Hick’s Law in the community. John made the point that Hick’s Law was largely discredited in the scientific community decades ago. For those unfamiliar, Hick’s Law states that the more options you have, the longer it will take to make a decision, by a square of the number of choices. The original study was sort of iffy anyway and subsequent research has shown that it’s only true in the absence of any familiarity with the task and absent any practice on the decision making.
The subsequent power law of practice states that the more practice you have at making the decision, the faster you get at making it. There’s some question as to whether the practice/speed relationship is logarithmic or exponential but there’s no question about the validity of the power law. Think about it in terms of when you are driving. When you see the brake lights of the car in front of you come on, there’s no conscious decision making about whether you’re going to hit the gas or the brake, unless you’re a 15 year old student driver.
An important point John made was about the career time of when law enforcement officers were feloniously assaulted. The average time was about eight years. I believe John referenced this from the 2006 FBI study Violent Encounters, A Study of Felonious Assaults on Our Nation’s Law Enforcement Officers, but I don’t recall for sure. This was important to me because it highlighted the factor of complacency in Negative Outcomes.
Although I lack the rigorous methodology that the FBI used, it’s my feeling this is also a factor in Negative Outcomes by Armed Private Citizens. Complacency can be a killer. We see it every day at gun ranges, gun shops, and shooting clubs. Complacency is why some people have one year of experience 20 times instead of 20 years of experience and is closely related to the “I know it all” syndrome. We have all had to deal with ‘know-it-alls’ and ‘spring-butts’ and never like it. It’s up to us individually to make sure we don’t fall into the trap and challenge others who have.
Just to show that John can put his money where his mouth is, he won the High Lawman and Second Place overall in the shooting contest.
Photo courtesy of Tiffany Johnson
I’ll have more about the Conference next time.
Lowlight dryfire practice
- At night, have a flashlight next to your gun.
- Pick them both up at the same time and identify the person before making the shoot decision
- Flashlight usage implies the need for one handed shooting
- Competing probabilities are in favor of it being a family member
- Thinking the light is a ‘lead magnet’ is a problem
I emphasized very strongly about the need for keeping a flashlight next to your ‘nightstand gun’ during my Negative Outcomes presentation at the Rangemaster 2015 Tactical Conference. Although I practice dryfire with a flashlight regularly, it occurred to me that I don’t have a structured regimen for doing so. Tonight, I thought I would work on that a bit.
At first, I started doing my 12 shot drill on my dryfire range with the flashlight. I used the left column to practice with the Harries technique as my ‘outside’ technique. For a general search and ‘inside’ technique, I used the right side column. I just did it this way due to habit because that’s similar to the way I shoot the drill livefire.
By ‘outside,’ I mean the flashlight is outside both my body and the pistol. ‘Inside’ means the flashlight is inside of the gun and toward my body. It’s necessary to have both an inside and outside technique so that you can use the light on either side of a piece of cover or concealment. For a right hander, the outside technique is used when using the light around the right side of cover and the inside technique is used around the left side. Left handers reverse that.
It occurred to me that I could use the same setup I use for the Air Marshal Tactical Pistol Course. I’ve modified that target setup slightly so I get more traverse on the multiple target strings. My setup also allows me to use both inside and outside techniques because of the arrangement of my apartment.
I started the Harries practice with the light pointing toward the target but the pistol down at low ready. Even when we’re identifying a target, we don’t want to muzzle them until the shoot decision is made. Then I practiced bringing the pistol up on target while keeping the light pointed at the target. At first, I did this in the hallway, just to get my mechanical movement correct.
For the cheek practice, once again, I started with the light pointing toward the target but the pistol down at low ready. Since I use the cheek technique as a general search technique, this means I’m going to be shooting one handed, if the shoot decision is made. I like the cheek technique as a general search technique because it allows me to use the light as an impact tool, if necessary. Because there is a possibility during a general search, I would be in a hallway when shooting started, I incorporated turning off the light after the shot and taking a sidestep. But, there’s not much maneuver room in a hallway, so don’t think this is some magic potion that prevents getting shot.
Once I was satisfied I had the mechanicals down pat, I moved to positions of cover, both left side and right side. I practiced on both sides, making sure I didn’t splash the light off the wall and into my face.
Note that in the photographs I took, I was using a flash or the regular lighting for clarity. When practicing, the place was completely dark. Also note that the camera wasn’t positioned exactly where the target was, so I look more exposed than I actually was.
I’m glad I developed this as a more formal program. I’ll be doing it at least once a week from now on as part of my 1000 days of dryfire.
Rangemaster 2015 Tactical Conference (I)
The Rangemaster 2015 Tactical Conference is over and I am processing the things I observed and learned from it. The Conference has a long history, dating back to the early days of IDPA in 1998, when it was a sanctioned IDPA indoor Championship. Over the years, it has evolved into the foremost tactical training conference for private citizens in the United States. It is held annually, early in the year, in the Memphis area. The venue for the 2015 Conference was the Memphis Police Training Academy, a truly fine and modern facility.
This year, three dozen of the top personal protection trainers in the country, many of whom are referred to as “T-Rexes,” came together to present or conduct training blocks of two to six hours over a period of three days. The agenda has grown so large that it’s not possible to take in all the training that is available, since sometimes five blocks are going on simultaneously. Some of the training is classroom lecture, some is hands-on with sterile weapons, and some is livefire. There is also a shooting match, for those who choose to participate.
There were a wide variety of topics, ranging from psychology and communications to contact based skills to firearms manipulation. I was able to attend nine sessions.
- Yes, I Shoot Like a Girl, Would You Like a Lesson?
- Surviving Lethal Encounters
- The Law of Self-Defense
- Practical Small Knife Principles
- Performance Under Fire
- Rehabilitating the Experienced Shooter
- The Training/Reality Mismatch
- Kneeling Positions and Combining Them with the Use of Cover
- Women’s Holsters and Accessories
In addition, I was able to make two classroom presentations.
- Tactical Communications for Couples, with my co-presenter Linda Hoopes, President of the Resilience Alliance.
- Negative Outcomes of Firearms Ownership
Upon my return, several people have asked me what my most significant takeaways were. As usual, I learned a great deal, so it’s difficult to say what were the most significant, but here are a few that stand out in my mind, in no particular order.
- A conversation with a mentor of mine, John Farnam, elicited from both of us the experience that when approached for help in a parking lot, it’s almost always a scam or criminal ambush. Fellow trainer Melody Lauer pointed out that there are a few legitimate exceptions, but John and I both feel they are the exception rather than the rule. This indicates that a default response should be formed to immediately and firmly decline the invitation to be a victim and then rapidly vacate the area. Exceptions to that rule should be based on specific articulable reasons and conscious decision-making, rather than by default.
- The T-Rexes are constantly working along the path to excellence. That path includes attitude, skills development, tactics, and a host of other areas. Recognizing that there is an element of chance in every encounter, we work hard on stacking the deck in our favor. ‘Doing the work’ means training regularly and practicing on a daily basis. ‘Good enough’ is never good enough for us. That’s probably why we’re regarded as T-Rexes.
- There is an enormous amount of erroneous, misapplied, or misinterpreted information floating around in the broad firearms and personal protection community. This is especially true in relation to prioritization, legal issues, and skills development.
- The community has a lot to learn about integrating women into it. There was a record turnout of female attendees and women trainers at the Conference this year, my co-presenter being one. Conversations with them, as well as the presentations, were highly enlightening. Many male paradigms either don’t apply at all or don’t work particularly well when used by women. My own presentation was an eye-opener to me in that regard. The Women’s Holsters and Accessories presentation, which was presented by a woman, gave several good examples. A pet peeve expressed by several T-Rexes is men who have women shoot excessively powerful firearms and then laugh when they fail. Our universal attitude is along the lines of the desire to give such jerks a knee lift in the crotch followed by a crack in the jaw and then laugh when they fall down writhing in pain.
I have several pages of notes but those jump out at me. Undoubtedly, more will occur to me as I reflect on the event. I will have more thoughts on specific topics in the near future. There is a photo gallery of the Conference training blocks available on the Rangemaster website.
Sight misalignment, speed, and accuracy
While I was teaching a private lesson last week, my student was struggling with improving his times, while maintaining an acceptable degree of accuracy. I could tell by the size of his groups, which were quite small, relative to the speed he was going, there was a fundamental that he didn’t understand. The front sight does not have to be perfectly aligned in the notch to produce good hits. So, I had him do a drill to demonstrate the acceptable degree of sight misalignment that will still result in hits on target.
The drill is to fire the pistol with the front sight on the target but with the rear notch deliberately misaligned. It is conducted in four parts consisting of two shots each.
- Front sight half way above the top of the rear notch,
- Front sight lowered so that its top edge is half way down in the rear notch,
- Front sight pushed to the right so that its right edge is touching the side of the rear notch, and
- Front sight pushed to the left so that its right edge is touching the side of the rear notch
This is the diagram I drew to show him what it should look like.
The front sight is aligned correctly on the target with the misalignment done to the rear sight. I prefer to use a dot as the target to get the most graphic result. In this case, I used a 1 ¾ dot. There’s no magic to that number; it just happens to be the size of the template I had.
I had him shoot the drill at seven yards. This was the result. His group measured about four inches at that distance. For many people, trigger manipulation issues will have a greater effect on their accuracy than will sight alignment.
Once he understood that he didn’t need a perfect sight picture, the speed of his shooting picked up and his accuracy remained well within acceptable limits. As long as the front sight is close to the center of the target, a certain degree of misalignment will still produce a good hit. Not worrying about getting a perfect sight picture will result in a noticeable increase in speed.
Incidentally, this drill is a part of the NRA Personal Protection In The Home Course. Experienced shooters like my student usually think they have nothing to learn from NRA Courses. Often, this is a misconception on their part. [Thanks to those who pointed out that I had misremembered the NRA Course the drill is part of.]
Bad habits
My friend, Paul Carlson, posted a link about the new Taurus TCP with wings on Facebook. ETA: this is not Paul handling the gun but rather him commenting on another website.
I withhold comment on the viability of the wings, but the Jose Canseco “shoot your finger off’ hold used in the photos is unforgivable for someone who is supposed to be a firearms semi-professional. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Oh, but that’s OK because “it’s not loaded.”
No, it’s not OK. That’s how we get into sloppy habits that bite us in the ass.
http://www.guns.com/2015/01/14/former-cop-suing-gun-shop-after-he-accidentally-shoots-himself-video/
Maybe I’m becoming obsessed with ‘negative outcomes,’ but I see a lot of bad gunhandling by people who should know better. Don’t get into habits that can come back to haunt you under a different set of circumstances.
Keeping dryfire interesting
How much you last practiced isn’t as important as when you last practiced.
One of the Facebook groups I’m a member of is called 1000 Days of Dryfire Challenge. It’s a group whose members have committed to doing my ‘1000 consecutive days of dryfire’ concept. What I found the first time I did the 1000 days was that regularly devising new regimens and switching them around was important to keep the program interesting and avoiding boredom with doing a single regimen all the time.
A regimen I’ve been doing the past few days is a dryfire version of the Federal Air Marshal Tactical Pistol Course. The target I made is a reduced scale triple QIT printed on 11×17 paper at FedEx Office. It’s scaled for 2.5 yards. What I do is print the image from a flash drive on 11×17 paper at FedEx office and set the copier to ‘resize to fit page.’ Resizing is one of the menu options when printing from a flash drive. Feel free to download the image and try it yourself.
The spacing isn’t quite wide enough on a single piece of paper but nothing is perfect. I punched a hole in the paper at the measured middle point so I can hang it on a picture hanger in the wall. Regular paper tends to sag when hung on the wall, so I stapled it to a piece of cardstock.
I’m using my SCCY pistol because it’s DAO with second strike capability so I can pull the trigger on almost all the shots. The only one I have to fudge is the final stage because it involves two strings starting with a slide lock reload. I start those strings with the slide locked back, so the first shot is a dead trigger.
Since the TPC is based on Par times, like most police courses, I set the par times on one of my CED 6000 timers. It’s a great training timer, which isn’t made any more, unfortunately. The CED has an option for multiple strings of par time, which makes it easy to set up the multiple string stages. Like most timers, it only sets par times to one tenth of a second, so I round the times down, e.g., 1.65 becomes 1.6 seconds.
Federal Air Marshal Tactical Pistol Course (TPC)
| Drill | Starting Position | Seconds Allowed | Total Rounds |
| One Round (twice). | Concealed Holster | 1.65 (3.30 total) | 2 |
| Double Tap (twice) | Low Ready | 1.35 (2.70 total) | 4 |
| Rhythm; fire 6 rounds at one target; no more than 0.6 between each shot. | Low Ready | 3.00 | 6 |
| One Shot, speed reload, one shot (twice). | Low Ready | 3.25 (6.50 total) | 4 |
| One Round each at two targets 3 yards apart (twice). (Use the outer targets. I go left to right for one string and right to left for the other.) | Low Ready | 1.65 (3.30 total) | 4 |
| 180 degree pivot. One round each at 3 targets (twice). Turn left, then right. | Concealed Holster | 3.50 (7.00 total) | 6 |
| One Round, slide locks back; drop to one knee; reload; fire one round (twice). | Low Ready | 4.00 (8.00 total) | 4 |
QUALIFICATION:
- TIME: Cannot exceed total time for each Drill. Example: Drill #1 – 1st time 1.70 seconds, 2nd time 1.55 seconds; Total = 3.25 seconds = Go. Must achieve a “GO” on each Drill.
- ACCURACY: Target is FBI “QIT” (bottle). Total rounds fired is 30. Point value that hit the inside bottle = 5. Point value touching line or outside bottle = 2. Maximum possible score = 150. Minimum qualifying score = 135.
All stages must equal “GO” to qualify.
This is a fun course that only takes a few minutes to do but tests a number of skills and is fun, at least for me.
Identify before you shoot
The house alarm sounded and the wife shot her husband through a closed bedroom door thinking he was an intruder, according to Fayetteville police.
http://whnt.com/2015/01/09/soldier-shot-while-trying-to-surprise-wife-with-breakfast/
Obviously, that was a ‘negative outcome.’ Therein lays the problem with simply having a gun without doing any scenario training with it. My research has brought me to the point where I am less concerned with the marksmanship aspects of personal protection than I am with 1) proper gunhandling and 2) appropriate decision-making. Those two items are almost completely absent from most gunowners’ repertoire.
There are a competing set of probabilities we have to consider in a home defense situation. If you have anyone else living in your home, the most likely probability is that the 3 a.m. bump you hear or shadow you see is, in fact, a member of your household. For sake of argument, let’s put that probability at nearly 100%. There is, however, a competing probability that it is an intruder. That probability is much lower, somewhat above 0%, depending on where you live. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that the burglary rate in the US was 27.6 victimizations per 1,000 households in 2011, or 2.76%, so let’s round it up to 3%. Assuming it’s an either/or situation, which it’s not, that would make the likelihood of encountering a family member, rounded, at 97%. Graphically, this is what those competing probabilities look like.
Looking at it this way makes a very strong case for why we have to positively identify before we shoot. It is 32 times more likely that the sound or shadow is a member of the household than it is an intruder. Las Vegas would really like those odds. If we’re going to be the slightest bit responsible, we have to look at ALL the possibilities, not just the ones that scare us the most. Shooting through the door without doing any kind of identification is just plain wrong.
Verbalization is so important in personal protection scenarios. And it’s something very few people practice on the range, or any other time, for that matter. I’ve had female clients tell me “I can’t say that.” Well, you better learn to say something. At home, the verbalization doesn’t have to be complicated. “Who’s there?” will probably suffice. You do have to be able to talk with a gun in your hand, though. Once again, hearing “Honey, it’s me” should immediately trigger a stand-down response on our part.
Stand-down is another thing that’s uncommon for people to practice but really important when you look at the probabilities. In a home defense encounter, ‘Stand-down’ should most likely mean immediately physically placing the gun down and moving away from it to avoid unpleasant after-effects of a startle response. Having to do so brings up those proper gunhandling and muzzle direction issues again.
This also bears on the issue of ‘training for the worst possible case.’ A serious definitional issue has now arisen in my mind regarding that concept. Is ‘the worst possible case’ having a dangerous armed intruder in your house or shooting and killing a family member by mistake? I don’t have an answer for that question but it has now become a relevant issue for me, as it should be for you, too.
The Aftermath – you’re not in it just by yourself
That’s both good and bad. Your family will be intimately involved in the aftermath of any shooting you are in. They will probably support you but they will also suffer just as much as you do. What I call ‘The Myth of the Lone Gunman‘ is about as far from reality as it can be.
Following last weekend’s MAG20 course, taught by Massad Ayoob, that I hosted here in Atlanta, Armed American Radio broadcast its weekly show from the host facility. A surprise call-in came from George Zimmerman. His comments were heartfelt, sobering, and bear listening to by anyone who is armed. They are something to consider in your decision about whether a shooting is absolutely necessary.
Laser sights
I have seen too many people forget the basics and rely on finding the laser dot instead of looking down the sights on pistols. They became much slower with the laser.
So began a Facebook thread in a closed group of ‘operators.’ There’s an antinomy, a form of paradox, in this sort of discussions that I always find interesting.
The paradox arises from the often parroted statement that most armed encounters take place at night or in low light. This premise is less than provable, but let’s accept it at face value for purposes of discussion.
Now, let’s follow up that premise with dismissal of a sighting system because ‘it doesn’t work’ during periods when gunfights are LESS LIKELY to take place.
In this particular FB thread, I will put myself in the category of ‘highly trained,’ since that’s what their membership group supposedly consists of. Years ago, it didn’t take me long to figure out that there were things I could do with a laser on a pistol that I simply couldn’t do without them. That held true even during the day, unless I was on a brightly sunlit ‘square range,’ which is so often said to be a poor and ‘non-realistic’ training environment. In any indoor environment, there is no issue with ‘finding the laser dot,’ even in a well lit room in daylight.
Note visible laser dot.
Once we get into the realm of low light, where the popular mantra says the majority of gunfights occur, most of us will agree that iron sights are fairly useless. We’re largely reduced to point shooting because the sights can’t be seen.
I wondered about the difference between iron sights and lasers during low light. I think of the time frame between sundown and End of Civil Twilight (dusk) as low light. The US Naval Observatory provides specific definitions of these and states
Some outdoor activities may be conducted without artificial illumination during these intervals, and it is useful to have some means to set limits beyond which a certain activity should be assisted by artificial lighting.
Target Acquisition and, to a lesser extent, Target Identification, is still possible during that period. However, between sundown and dusk, night sights aren’t really visible (not bright enough) and neither are the irons (luminous efficacy of the eye’s cones is insufficient).
To establish a quantitative measure for that difference, I chose several parts of the Handgun Testing Program at the elite Rogers Shooting School. The targets were more visible than they show in the video but I couldn’t see the irons. I proceeded to shoot the tests with a laser equipped Beretta. Having taught at Rogers for five years, I’m fairly confident in saying that, without the laser, I would have made the all the body hits (7) and around half of the hits on the number 1 head plate (8) for a score of 15 out of 69 targets. My score with the laser was four missed targets for a score of 65 out of 69.
There’s a reason I have a laser on my house gun.
The issue of parroting something that was heard without questioning, analyzing, or testing is a separate topic that the training community has yet to address adequately. That’s for another time, though.
tacticalprofessor 
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