Thread: How much do you practice?
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Old 01-16-2017, 11:42 AM
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BE Mike BE Mike is offline
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Originally Posted by sigp220.45 View Post
I qualified 4 times a year for 25 years. In between I shot for fun.

Now I'm retired. I shoot for fun about once a week.

I'm pretty sure I could still shoot a sassy bandit if I needed to.

I was on a fugitive task force with a bunch of New Orleans PD guys. They were all fairly/barely competent shots who had no interest in shooting other than they had to qualify to be on the task force. I'm sure a lot of non-cops could outshoot them at the range.

They had all killed people in straight-up gunfights. Every one of them, and most more than once. Not shooting at cars or fleeing felons. Good old "you've got a gun, I've got a gun" gunfights. They went into possible fights with their guns in their hands, not their holsters. They didn't need to do 1,000 "presentations" to build muscle memory. They knew people, and they knew when to shoot them. I would rather face trouble with them than someone who spent all of their spare time at the range and all of their disposable income on ammo.

I agree people should practice until they feel comfortable with their chosen gun, but there is marksmanship and there is gunfighting. I'm sticking with the gunfighters.
These "gunfighters" had a background of firearms training and regular qualifications, I'm assuming, as well as, real world experience. I would think that their skill level would be way above the average Joe. The real world experience tests one's willingness to use deadly force and how to resort to their training under extreme duress. Most police officers and civilians never are tested as to that (fortunately). I do believe that having one's gun in one's hand is the "fastest draw". I think marksmanship is important to learn and being able to smoothly present one's firearm. Many after action reports of police officers who survive a shootout point out that seeing the sights to some degree was what ended the fight in the officer's favor. Tactics is important for the military and police, but is pretty much a waste for civilians, as are extensive reload drills, etc.
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