The Tactical Professor’s Pistol Practice Program
Why a Practice Program and not a training program?
I created the Pistol Practice Program (PPP) to fill a need for many gunowners. Most gunowners are self-taught and generally are not familiar with a structured approach to skill development. There is a great deal of information available now on how to shoot a pistol. However, there is much less information available on how to practice firearms skills over a period of time to achieve greater confidence and proficiency. As Aristotle said:
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
My goal was to create a program that would get gunowners into the habit of shooting well. I created a step by step approach tailored to the needs of the casual shooter but challenging enough to satisfy the enthusiast. Designed as a series of range sessions, you can practice at your own pace as your schedule permits.
In the case of those who have attended training, your instructor probably said that a firearms class only provides a foundation of skills. To maintain those skills and improve, people who own pistols need to practice after training. Having a program also makes shooting more fun because the shooter develops a sense of accomplishment from the practice. This program is not concerned with what particular technique the shooter uses. Over time and by working the PPP, shooters will determine what works best for them.
The vast majority of gunowners only have access to indoor or public ranges where the type of practice they can do is rather restricted. The PPP takes that constraint into account and presents drills that are indoor range friendly and yet relevant to skill development. The livefire range sessions are then supplemented by dryfire sessions that can be done safely at home. Doing so allows you to develop skills that usually cannot be practiced at an indoor range. How to practice at home safely is thoroughly explained.
The PPP is available on CD. Its contents are mobile device friendly so you can copy the drills to your smartphone or tablet. If your device can access a PDF reader, you can easily take the exact drills to the range with you without having to lug along a book or write down the contents of a DVD. You can also put the dryfire audio sessions on your device for maximum convenience.
Those who are teaching a friend or loved one how to shoot a pistol will find the PPP provides a solid structure for their time at the range. For those who have attended a training class, the PPP provides a way to maintain and build the skills they learned in class. Law enforcement officers can use the PPP to keep your shooting skills tuned up in between qualifications and make qualifications less stressful. Put whatever practice ammo you receive from the department to good use instead of frustrating yourself by shooting the qual course over and over.
Contents of the PPP
- A Program Guide to get you started
- A Log Sheet to keep track of your progress
- 12 Primary Livefire Sessions (50 rounds and Indoor range friendly)
- 12 Secondary Livefire Sessions (50 rounds) for those who want more practice activity each time at the range
- 12 Structured scenarios designed to emphasize and train the interactive aspects of personal protection
- 6 audio guided Dryfire sessions (less than five minutes each)
- Tip sheets on firearms safety, interacting with law enforcement, common mistakes, etc.
I have drawn on a wide range of training experience, from teaching NRA Basic Pistol classes to my time as the Chief Instructor of the elite Rogers Shooting School, to create this Program. There is no doubt in my mind that shooters at all levels of skill and experience can benefit from it.
The PPP CD is available on my webstore. At $19.95, it’s about the cost of one box of centerfire ammo. Bonus: the first 100 orders will receive a Rogers Tap-Rack-Training aid, a $5.00 value, at no charge.
Make the first shot count
This is an article I wrote for beginning shooters on the National Shooting Sports Foundation First Shots blog. That doesn’t mean experienced shooters can’t benefit from it, as well.
The shot that is missed most often in pistol shooting is the very first shot of a string of fire. One of the best ways to correct this is to make first shots the majority of your practice.
For this drill, take any large target at your range and turn it over. Make six dots about 3 inches in diameter on it, spaced roughly evenly apart. If your range carries the bright orange Tar-dots, those are ideal but a magic marker works fine, too. You will also need a magic marker for later in the drill. This drill consists of 48 rounds total. Many people will find that 5 yards is a good place to start. It’s deceptively challenging.
- Starting with pistol aimed at the bottom of target, fire 1 shot on upper left dot. Return to the bottom of target. Decock, if your pistol has a decocker. Repeat five more times for a total of six shots. Starting position for each shot is aimed at the base of the target and you will fire only one shot each time.
- Starting with pistol at a compressed ready, fire 1 shot on upper right dot. Return to compressed ready each time. Decock after every shot, if your pistol has a decocker. Repeat five more times for a total of six shots. Starting position for each shot is compressed ready.
- Starting with pistol aimed at bottom of target, fire 1 shot on middle left dot, then one shot on middle right dot. Return to bottom of target. Decock, if your pistol has a decocker. Repeat twice more for a total of three shots on each dot. Starting position for each string is aimed at the base of the target.
- Starting with pistol aimed at bottom of target, fire 1 shot on middle right dot, then one shot on middle left dot. You are moving in the opposite direction from String 3. Return to bottom of target. Decock, if your pistol has a decocker. Repeat twice more for a total of three shots on each dot. Start position each time is aimed at the base of the target.
- Starting with pistol at compressed ready, fire 1 shot on bottom left dot, then one shot on bottom right dot. Return to compressed ready. Decock, if your pistol has a decocker. Repeat twice more for a total of three shots on each dot. Starting position for each string is compressed ready.
- Starting with pistol at compressed ready, fire 1 shot on bottom right dot, then one shot on bottom left dot. You are moving in the opposite direction from String 5. Return to compressed ready. Decock, if your pistol has a decocker. Repeat twice more for a total of three shots on each dot. Starting position for each string is compressed ready.
- Mark all the hits on your target with a magic marker.
- On the dot where you had the least hits, i.e., your group was the largest/worst, fire six individual aimed shots, resting between each shot.
- On the next worst dot, fire a six shot slow fire group as one string of fire. That concludes the drill.
You will find that your marksmanship improves much faster when you concentrate on your first shot and you can tell where each shot goes.
Here is a PDF of the drill you can take to the range on your SmartPhone.
Law Enforcement Officers Killed Audio CD
Annually, the FBI publishes the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted report. A key part of this report is the written Summaries of the circumstances surrounding the death of each Officer Feloniously Killed.The FBI provides a concise account of the individual incidents where an Officer(s) was killed.
One of the things I have been unhappy about when training LEOs is finding out how few read the Summaries. I ask every LEO class how many have read LEOKA and almost all the hands go up. But when I ask how many have read the Summaries, almost all the hands go down. While the tabular data in LEOKA is interesting, the Summaries give much more insight into the circumstances of how Officer deaths occur and provide context on how to avoid becoming a victim Officer.
In order to make these Summaries more accessible to the Law Enforcement community, I’ve recorded the 2013 Summaries as audio narratives on an audio CD. Each Summary is narrated individually for your listening convenience. In addition, audio narratives of a number Officer killings not reported by the FBI are included. For supervisors, playing a few of the Summaries at roll call could be a sobering way to put your Officers in the right state mind for their shift. For individual Officers, listening to a few of them on the way to work may help you get mentally tuned up.
The LEOKA Narrative audio CD can be purchased on my webstore. There’s also a link at the top of my blog.
Lessons from the Pine Ridge Shootout
On June 26, 1975, FBI Special Agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler were murdered on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. While attempting to serve a Federal arrest warrant, a massive gunbattle ensued. The Agents’ cars were hit with 125 bullets and they were severely wounded early on in the gunfight. Eventually, they were overwhelmed and executed.
Details and the sequence of events of the shootout are available in my article on The Tactical Wire.
Be wary of driving or walking into an ambush. The situation the Agents faced in this case was referred to as a ‘firesac’ in Soviet military doctrine. This is an ambush that occurs from multiple simultaneous directions. Initially, they encountered a blocking position. Then, they began to take fire from multiple angles. The only way to escape a situation like that is to retreat as quickly as possible. Retreating is a tactic we don’t practice much but we should.
Look at the pictures of the Agents’ cars. Vehicles are bullet magnets. When rifles are involved, most parts of a vehicle are as bulletproof as a piece of toilet paper. If you’re being shot at while in a vehicle and you can’t drive out of the kill zone, your best bet is probably to get away from it. In a firesac, even if your vehicle is armored, there are no safe angles.
Agent Williams’ car
If you have someone with you, be prepared to drag them away from the car because they may no longer be mobile. Practice this ahead of time because it’s not easy. Wearing flip-flops will make it all the more difficult. Some of my friends weigh 100 pounds more than I do; it’s going to be work for me to move them. Without a decent pair of shoes on, it’s probably not going to happen.
We like to think that reinforcements, aka ‘The Cavalry,’ are always going to be available and quickly. That’s just not always true. At Pine Ridge, approximately five hours passed before the Agents could be reached. This was due to the suppressive fire encountered by the incoming reinforcements. The Agents were long dead before they could be helped. Be mentally prepared for the fact you may have to extricate yourself and anyone with you without any help. You’re not doomed until you give up. Then you’re doomed for sure.
The concept of ‘fight your way to your rifle’ is of dubious worth in actuality. Saying that is probably heresy but it’s true. Once the shooting starts, if all that’s within arm’s reach is a handgun, most likely the handgun is what you will use until the conclusion of the encounter. If you think a fight is coming, better get the long gun out before the first gunshots sound and before you are seen. Notice Coler’s trunk, as soon as you open that trunk, you have targeted yourself. The same thing happened to Gordon McNeil in The Miami Massacre 11 years after Pine Ridge.
Agent Coler’s car trunk
The probability of being stuck with a handgun means that practicing exclusively at zero to seven yards with your sidearm may not be all the practice that you should do. At least know where your pistol hits at extended ranges. Learn to use the prone position with a pistol and practice shooting at 50 yards if you have the facility. A prone target is also a difficult target to hit, even with a rifle. Most indoor ranges are 25 yards, at least practice with a few shots at that distance occasionally.
Williams’ wrapping Coler’s nearly severed arm in an attempt to stop the bleeding underscores the need for medical training such as I took this past weekend from Dark Angel Medical. The nearest law enforcement support to Williams and Coler was 12 minutes away. Any kind of advanced medical care was much further than that. Even if the Agents hadn’t been executed, Agent Coler most likely would have died from a wound generating that much blood loss. Conversely, if the shooters had broken off the attack, had Williams been able to get an effective tourniquet on Coler, he might have lived.
Agent Williams was also wounded. You need to know how to stop your own blood loss. The bad news is you might need to do it one handed, which kind of sucks the first time you try it. Being bloody makes it even harder. It’s another skill you don’t want to have learn On The Job.
The further we are away from a medical facility, the greater our need for the ability to perform self-aid. We need not only the equipment but the knowledge of how to use it. Military personnel on duty will usually have organic medical support; law enforcement and Private Citizens, probably not. The support you are likely to have is in your head and in the med kit you have with you.
Personal medical kit
Don’t expect people who have fired many magazines of ammunition at you to cut you the slightest bit of slack. If they come for you, they’re coming to finish you off, not to stop your bleeding. If nothing else, play possum and set up an ambush of your own. If all you have is a handgun, wait until they get in range and take someone with you.
That means you have to know what your personal effective range with your weapon is. If you’ve been wounded, assume it’s half or less of what you can usually do on a good day. The good news is that the coup de grâce is usually delivered at close range, so you still might get an opportunity. You’ll probably only have one chance though, so make it good and don’t muck it up.
Closing with the enemy
Soulis had planned to shoot through the back window if Palmer drew a weapon, but for reasons he still doesn’t fully understand, he moved forward and to his right, stopping alongside the passenger door, not more than two feet from the window. Instantly, he realized he’d made a grievous blunder.
Officer Down: The Peter Soulis Incident One of Brian McKenna’s excellent analyses.
Unconsciously closing with an adversary is something I have seen many times in Force on Force. The response was so uniform and so prevalent that it is one of the few things I feel sanguine in saying the probability of people doing it borders on 100%. We need to train ourselves rigorously to hold position or to retreat unless there is a valid purpose for closing. Closing with an enemy needs to always be a conscious decision, never an unconscious one.
When I was an infantryman, the stated mission of the Infantry was to “Close with and destroy the enemy by means of fire and maneuver.” Infantry units consist of numerous men, who are capable of mutually supporting each other with automatic weapons fire and explosive munitions. Private Citizens rarely have those resources available and law enforcement officers generally don’t. Our desired outcome and tactics have to be different.
It’s very common to see in news reports where Armed Citizens have pursued criminals after the criminal has broken off from the crime. Pursuit is fraught with hazards, both legal and tactical. Dependent on the laws of the particular State, pursuing a robber or attacker could result in losing the ‘mantle of innocence.’ This could result in charges being brought against the original victim. It also could put you in a position leading to becoming the victim of a mistaken identity shooting by a responding police officer. Keep in mind that although you know the victim/aggressor roles of the parties involved, the police have to sort that out upon arrival and it’s not always easy.
One of my students was involved in a shooting during the course of an invasion of his home. Despite the fact that he is an excellent marksman, he closed with the invader and the final shot was fired at contact distance. Closing with the enemy causes the defender to give up distance, which favors the marksman, and barriers/cover, which favor whomever is behind them, at least temporarily.
At home or in your place of business, decide ahead of time where your Limits of Advance are located. This is probably no further than your front door, perhaps even further in. The stairwell in your home or the counter in your store may be as far as it is advisable to go.
Palmer flinched as two more rounds hit center mass, and then started backpedaling toward the Toyota. He was still holding his gun, but never raised it to fire.
After reaching the car, Palmer dove over the trunk and dropped out of sight. Soulis paused, and then cautiously started forward again.
Outside the home, pick a spot, preferably something tangible. Then stick to your decision unless a good reason to change it arises. Keep in mind that all cover is temporary until it is defeated by fire and/or maneuver. If there is imminent danger of the cover being defeated, then move. That’s a conscious decision.
You don’t have to make a terrain diagram but making your decisions ahead of time helps you pick better decisions in the moment.
Limit of Advance
Common sense
Isn’t it just common sense to ensure you know what you’re shooting at?
That question was posted on my Claude Werner, Researcher and Analyst page.
It’s an important question that we need to put in perspective.
Not intending to be pejorative but there is no such thing as ‘common sense.’ What we refer to as ‘common sense’ is actually learned behavior based on our past experience.
For instance, as adults, we consider it ‘common sense’ to not stick our hand in a fire. When we were three years old, we didn’t know it would hurt and probably found it out the hard way.
Similarly, we as gun people would consider it ‘common sense’ to not look down the bore of a firearm. If you gave a pistol to an Australian Aborigine, one of the first things they would do is look down the bore because in their worldview, knowing what’s in a hole is really important. Even Al Gore did it when he was searching for the Internet in Viet Nam. That was before he realized he had to invent it.
Al Gore looks down bore.
Ninety-nine percent of what most people know about firearms usage they learned from TV and the movies. In those media, there is never any ambiguity about the shoot/no shoot decision. As a result, when people get placed in a real set of circumstances, they do indeed default to their ‘training,’ which is the media programming. So they tend to make mistakes and shoot, even if it’s not appropriate. I once bemoaned to a colleague that my Threat Management classes didn’t sell. His response was “Nobody buys a gun with the idea that they’re not going to use it.” His comment put it in perspective for me.
The Importance of Target Identification
Deputies found a 32-year-old man who said that he and his wife were sleeping when they heard a noise in the kitchen.
The husband took his handgun and walked in the kitchen area, where he shot the victim.
After the shooting the husband recognized the victim as his younger teenage brother.
Man shoots, kills brother thinking he was burglarizing home
Yet another tragic example of why I stress target identification so much. These situations are absolutely preventable. As I’ve said before, if you live with anyone else, my analysis is that there is a 97 percent probability that the ‘bump in the night’ is a member of your own household. With those kinds of numbers, gunowners cannot take the risk of shooting someone at home without establishing a positive ID.
This kind of situation is a further example of why I say we have to be very cautious of what we take of from our training, and even more so, what we read. Much of the good training available is conducted by former law enforcement or military personnel. Just as much as any of us, they are subject to unconscious biases resulting from their experiences and training. Since most reading now is done on the Internet, you have to assume everything you read is wrong because most of it IS wrong.
Responding with a firearm to a noise at night in the home absolutely requires that you visually verify your target before shooting. You probably will need a flashlight for that. And stealth is not your friend, it is your enemy. Therein lies a major divergence from the law enforcement officer or soldier, to whom stealth is an ally. The notions that ‘the light draws fire’ or that criminals will wait in ambush for you if they hear you coming are nonsensical. Those are bad paradigms for us to insert in our thinking. If your background is such that having assassins waiting in ambush for you in your own home is a concern, you need to work on some serious hardening of access points to your home.
If you keep a gun at home, put a flashlight next to your gun; no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Next time you go to the range, take the flashlight with you. Instead of just blasting 50 holes in a silhouette, shoot two shots at the silhouette 25 times. Sequence is very important in how you do this.
- Have your gun in your shooting hand and your flashlight in your support hand. The gun is not pointing at the target and the light is off.
- Before each two shot string, say out loud “Who’s there?”
- Wait to listen for an answer. If you go to the range with someone, have them stand behind you and sometimes respond with “it’s me, Daddy” or something similar.
- If they say that, immediately put your gun down on the bench and abort that sequence.
- Then illuminate the target without pointing the gun at it.
- Finally, bring the gun up and fire the two shots.
One of the things you will find when using this sequence is that the worthwhile two handed shooting techniques don’t work well for it. Harries is both clumsy and dangerous to assume when you already have the light on the target and are keeping it illuminated while presenting the pistol. The Rogers/Surefire technique takes some time and manipulation skill to assume. What you will discover is that only the Cheek Technique or the FBI Technique work well in this context.
That means you have to learn to:
- Speak while holding your gun.
- Abort the shooting sequence if there is not a threat.
- Do a dissimilar task with the other hand, i.e., orient the flashlight and work the switch, while keeping your gun off target and your finger off the trigger.
- Shoot with one hand only while continuing to perform the dissimilar task.
- Manipulate the safety or decocker of your weapon with one hand while holding something in the other.
For the final 5 repetitions (10 rounds), put up a clean silhouette target and shoot the LAPD Retired Officer Course (10 rounds at seven yards). Measure how well you do. You’re going to find it’s a lot harder than you think.
That sequence is obviously rather involved; practice it before you have to do it for real or you’ll forget to do it or get it wrong. Forgetting to do it is what leads to tragedies.
Structured practice (Part II)
Part I of this series focused on Dryfire Practice. Now let’s focus on livefire practice, especially for those who are new to pistol shooting. To learn, maintain, and improve physical skills, we have to practice them regularly. We also need a plan for how we are going to practice. In that regard, shooting a gun is no different from learning to throw or hit a ball.
The problem many people have is that when they go to the range to practice, they have no plan and use no structure. At least a motivated police officer has the course required for periodic qualification as a structure for practice. Competitive shooters have courses of fire, either for Classification purposes or something that was appealing in a match. Few Private Citizens have either of these, which is why the most common ‘practice’ is blasting 50 holes in a silhouette at 5 yards. Shooting a bunch of holes in a silhouette gives familiarity with recoil and muzzle blast but not much else. Something further is needed to develop skill.
A very good starting point for new shooters is the NRA’s Marksmanship Qualification Program, which is really a marksmanship development program. This is a self-paced and self-administered program that the NRA has made available for decades. There are a number of different courses of fire available within the Program. The one I recommend for those who have just purchased a pistol for personal protection is Defensive Pistol I. DPI is designed to improve skills that contribute to a successful home defense.
Defensive Pistol I includes tasks such as:
- Hit a target to an accuracy standard
- Shoot within time limits
- Pick the loaded gun up from a bench and then engage the target
- Pick up and load an unloaded gun
- Move to a position of cover
- Shoot from behind cover
- Issue a verbal challenge
- Reload
Courtesy of NRA Training Division
Something I really like about Defensive Pistol I and II is that the accuracy standard is 100%, not a fraction thereof. The allowable area and time limits are generous but you have to make every shot count. As I mention periodically, every bullet you fire in an urban area that doesn’t hit your target is heading for a busload of nuns and orphans being followed by a limousine full of personal injury lawyers on a conference call with the District Attorney. We have to get used to the idea that the only safe backstop for our bullets is the criminal’s body, period.
The target area specified for the NRA program is the 8 ring of the NRA D-1 (Bianchi Tombstone) or equivalent. The 8 ring of the D-1 is 12 inches in diameter. The shooter must place five shots in the 12 inch circle at 7 yards within a time limit of 15 seconds. Many shooters I talk to think this is a very simple marksmanship task. The reality is that because of the 100% standard it’s not as easy as people think. In order to meet the standard for the first level (Pro-Marksman) of the program, the task has to be done four times. Therein lies the rub. I have run over 100 people through the program and only about 10% have passed on the first attempt. What happens is that on one or two runs, one shot will not hit the 12 inch circle. Sorry, you didn’t make it.
The good news is that the four runs don’t have to be done consecutively. If you mess up a run, just shoot another until you have four that meet the standard. My experience has been that 10 percent of shooters can do it in four runs, another 40% will make it in five runs, another 40% will make it in six runs, and the final 10% need a lot of coaching to get through it.
While the Tombstone target isn’t available at all ranges, the allowance for an ‘equivalent’ means you can make a template of the 8 ring and apply it to whatever target is available. Just take your template and a marker with you to the range. I cut mine in half and then taped the halves together with duct tape so it folds and fits easily in my range bag.
Once you get to the range, outline the template on your target and you’re ready to go. Be sure to take some kind of tape or marker with you so you can mark each run. Marking each run is how you learn to shoot well. As a general rule, I mark my targets after no more than 10 shots. When doing this program, you should mark your target after each string of fire, i.e., each five shots.
A new shooter can structure their practice sessions in many ways. What’s important is to plan what you do before you go to the range so you don’t waste your time and resources. The NRA program appeals to me because it’s already made up, it contains relevant skills, and it’s workable at most indoor ranges.
There are also awards available from the NRA for participating in the program. NRA membership is not necessary to participate. The NRA Marksmanship Qualification Program Booklet explains the entire program in detail. It is available for download from the NRA Training Division’s website.
Summer Special on DVDs
The warm weather is here and I know a lot of folks are going to start carrying snub revolvers for the summer. I love snubs and have spent years learning how to run them well. As far as I know, I’m the only person to ever have won six Sanctioned IDPA Championships with a snub.
At the same time, I acknowledge they’re not the easiest guns in the world to shoot. That’s why I made two DVDs about the best techniques for using snubs and getting the most performance out of them.
To kick off the Summer, I’m offering both DVDs together as a package at a discounted price. Also included is a free bonus CD with two dryfire practice regimens and a reduced scale practice target to help you keep your skills up.
You can get the package on my webstore.
You can tell from the music (DJ Siamey) on this one that I’m a Trance music kind of guy.
Securing pistols in cars
“The 3-year-old located a handgun that was in the vehicle and discharged a round which resulted in the striking of the 1-year-old,” said Sarasota Sheriff’s Office Lt. Vince Mayer.
This morning, yet another Negative Outcome was brought to my attention. In this incident, a young boy gained unauthorized access to his mother’s pistol, which was unsecured in her car, and accidentally shot his little sister. I use the term ‘accidentally’ because from the little boy’s perspective, it was utterly accidental. In the broader context, it was a training and doctrine failure. Fortunately, her injuries are not life threatening, but I bet they will be life changing for all involved.
Informally, a number of people in our community are starting to include an addition to the cardinal Four Rules of Safe Gunhandling. ‘Rule 5’ tends to be worded something like “In addition to the Four Rules of Safe Gunhandling, always store weapons where they are not accessible to unauthorized persons.” It’s about time we break with tradition and make Rule 5 a formal part of our doctrine.
I don’t know if her pistol was in her purse, in the glove box, or somewhere else in the car. Whichever was the case is irrelevant. The little boy got hold of it and touched off a round. It’s inexcusable and irresponsible. More than getting stolen, I consider this kind of occurrence to be the major downside of off body carry. And when I say ‘off body carry,’ I’m not just talking about purses and briefcases.
The incident demonstrates yet another reason I am totally opposed to glove box carry, console carry, door pocket carry, etc. that are commonly used in vehicles These foolish methods people use to secure pistols almost always result from having a pistol that’s too big to carry on them or with them consistently. It’s a downside of the ‘carry enough gun’ doctrine espoused by the training community.
In that sense, I think the community needs to take some responsibility for recommending equipment that simply doesn’t fit into the totality of our students’ lifestyles. With regard to understanding the lifestyles of normal people, our ‘square range’ mentality is complete.
Many trainers tend to view their students in the military or law enforcement model where the students are molded into something new and different, as a result of the training. Sorry folks, that’s just not the case. What we’re doing is the equivalent of teaching people how to paint, not turning them into painters. Sometimes, it seems to me that the training community’s approach to ‘walk a mile in someone else’s moccasins’ turns into ‘put a load of buckshot into someone, then take their moccasins and walk off in them.’
When I first started writing this post, I had in mind talking about lockboxes for securing pistols in cars, which I still think is a necessary idea. But, as I began writing, I realized I was on the wrong track. In this case, trying to secure the pistol in a lockbox would most likely have entailed repeated instances during the trip of gunhandling in the car to secure the pistol. That’s dangerous and unrealistic. The less we handle guns in vehicles, the better. It’s a target rich environment with too much potential for a Negative Outcome.
As the number of people who carry guns continues to increase, we trainers are going to have to focus more on ‘Living with Guns,’ as John Farnam put it years ago, rather than just ‘shooting guns.’ Shooting guns is fun and provides immediate gratification; we can see when our students get it. Teaching people about Living with Guns provides no gratification whatsoever because it happens after they leave our class. Are we performers or teachers?
Let’s consider a variant of my question “What’s the ‘worst possible case’?” Is it encountering a really determined criminal who soaks up whole magazines of bullets or having a family member accidentally shoot another family member? I’d really like to hear a definitive answer to that question.
Living with Guns is the tedious drudgery of the armed lifestyle that we, both trainers and gunowners, tend to ignore. It’s easy to focus on marksmanship, ballistics, legalistics, and equipment because those things are obvious and we’re reminded of them regularly. The hard part will be re-directing our attention toward the less obvious but just as important lifestyle aspects. That change in focus needs to happen quickly if we really want to consider ourselves responsible.
Perhaps a criterion we need to add to our selection list when talking about purchasing a pistol is something like “How convenient is it for this purchaser to carry, and secure, this particular pistol 18/7?” If it fails that criterion, that might be a deal breaker.
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