Wait...five in five is fast?

Yes and no.

For one thing, anyone deluding themselves into thinking they're "prepared" is seriously mistaken.

For another, the ability to deliver deliberate, accurate fire is a test of fundamentals. If you can't execute the fundamentals of pistol shooting with precision at the leisurely pace of NRA Rapid Fire, you're going to find it damned hard to execute them decently at speed. Lots of serious and successful action pistol shooters cross-train NRA Bullseye. You don't see Bullseye HMs cross-training IDPA.

Pro-tip: you will not be attacked by an IPSC silhouette. People do not have A- and B-zones. A hit somewhere in the box is not "just as good" as a hit directly to the Very Important Things.

People often make the mistake of thinking that training has to somehow simulate a defensive shooting encounter. That sort of mentality is small-minded and foolish. What you should be doing is developing a skill set, and that means doing many different things--some of which aren't even shooting.

" Luck is infatuated with the efficient," says the Persian proverb.

Best,
Rick

The fact of the matter is that many, if not most, police officers aren't serious about firearms training and are not trained to the point of being proficient enough to hit an intended target at close distances. Many, if not most, civilians who carry are even less proficient, because they don't train at all. Most of the people in these two groups never learn the basics of marksmanship.

Statistically less than 1% of those that have a CCW license ever take another formal training class after they pass the required course. According to Massad Ayoob. I’m guessing that less than 1% of CCW holders ever have a gunfight. I’m also guessing that a small percentage of CCW holders actually carry religiously. Which is probably a positive if they never practice, train, or carry......

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SWCA 3255 SWHF 615

As Col. Cooper once put it: ' 6" at 50 yards is adequate for pedestrians.

In my state, I'd say most people that got their CHP never intended to carry when they got it. Different cities and towns within the state have different, sometime conflicting ordinances related to registering, purchasing, possessing, transporting and selling handguns. Having a CHP puts you under a single set of state statutes that preempts all the different (sometimes ridiculous) city laws. Makes ownership much easier.

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Vegan by proxy.

As usual, much of the discussion seems focused on protracted ranged gunfighting. Does that ever actually happen in civilian self-defense? I've come across maybe a couple of incidents that kind of fit that description, but otherwise it's always close, fast and resolved quickly. If anyone has complied a long list(or even more than a handful) of civilian "shoot-outs", I'd love to see it.

Don't drive on the Eisenhower or I-57 after dark. How many of us train to return fire from a moving vehicle (not advisable), or better, take evasive action at 60 MPH?

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I need ammo, not a ride.

Far too many people use this mindset as an excuse to not do the hard thing and learn the fundamentals of marksmanship. Jerking the trigger, even at close range will either get you a miss (perhaps endangering others) or a hit that won't stop the threat. I doubt that there is a place that documents and scrutinizes shootouts of civilians; certainly nowhere like police incidents.

Let's be real, in the civilian world, unless one is involved in criminal activity, there's not going to be a running gunfight. That's fantasy.

The reality is, that any altercation will be very close, physical, over in seconds and in two or three shots.

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Thread Killer.

There are numerous stats available on civilian incidents and I've shared them numerous times on this forum, plus there are countless individual news reports and video footage available of individual cases. Active self-protection has put out a ton on YouTube. Running gun battles in the streets is not something that would likely be ignored. I learned the fundamentals of shooting as a kid and I don't see learning acceptable defensive marksmanship as being all that difficult to attain. What is relatively difficult and usually completely dismissed by most gun guys is learning the desirable self-defense skills that are most likely to be useful for civilian self-defense and they will use every excuse in the book to avoid more involved intensive training.

In terms of shooting and "jerking the trigger", this video is spot on IMO...

Some perspective from Grant Cunningham regarding “defensive shooting experts”.... There are no defensive shooting experts. - www.GrantCunningham.com www.GrantCunningham.com

I absolutely agree that trigger control tops all fundamentals. I'm not sure what you mean by self-defense skills in a gun fight. Are you talking about tactics? Learning marksmanship to the point that one can hit a mark under duress, is primary. Learning to draw the handgun, reload, etc. comes after learning the basics. Any good training beats no training. The problem comes when folks try to teach themselves how to defend themselves with a handgun before getting an understanding of what needs to be accomplished and the proper road to get there. Learning from a good instructor can streamline the process.

Fun things in a list:

(1) That's a nice strawman you got there.

(2) "Generalist skillset". That means focusing on neither 50-yard X-rings, nor shoot-fast. It means developing many different skills, and being able to do many things well, from marksmanship, to movement, to physical fitness.

(3) Bandying statistics about the "average" deadly force encounter doesn't do you a ton of good when Skeeter hops out of his pickup with a damn 10/22 from 25 yards out. Hence the whole point of being able to do many things well than mastering just one or two. No, you won't be the best at any given thing, but you'll very rarely be caught completely flat-footed. Hell, frequently attempting new things by itself is good practice.

(3a) None of us live in an "average" sort of place. Where I am, Skeeter and his 10/22 are a hell of a lot more commonplace than what I'm guessing is the "average" attempted murderer. I friggin' know Skeeter.

(4) I've sat around and watched not-new shooters miss 2'x3' targets just five yards away. A blind guy in North Dakota literally did better.

(5) Most people don't take expensive roll-on-the-ground classes because they can't afford the time or money. Deadly force encounters are still rare, and dropping what for a lot of folks would be 2% of their family's annual income on a single weekend for themselves is, frankly, as selfish as it sounds. Now, you can either sit around deriding them for not being "hardcore enough", or you can admit that a $40 pair of running shoes and a 1-mile jog every other day will probably "prepare" them for a roll-on-the-ground fight far more than getting their out-of-shape butt kicked for one weekend. Do your damn cardio.

Mister X will be along shortly to defend his POV, but pretty sure his from his postings, his position it that "fight" is the root word of gunfight, that gunfights are mostly entangled affairs, and knowing how to fight (self defense skill) is more important than gun handling skills. The gun is just one tool in the toolbox. I think there's some merit to that idea, but I don't think it's as universal as he seems to.

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Vegan by proxy.

If armed, self-defense skills would include being able to quickly and efficiently access the weapon when moving, in contact with assailants or even on the ground and then be capable of being able to use and retain it under the same circumstances. Standalone unarmed skills as well as integrated with using the firearm are very important as well.

Being physically fit, strong and mobile is something that is infinitely useful in the context of self-defense as is deescalation and avoidance skills, an understanding of situational awareness(what to actually look for) and the tactics and strategies that actually apply to civilian self-defense.

Most armed civilian encounters that I'm aware of where shots are fired by the defender aren't actually entangled, but they are almost always at very close and there is frequently some contact(intentional or inadvertent) made. However, most people don't carry a gun, have no real training or skulls and are simply victims and there is also the possibility that some victims were carrying, but unable to access their weapon.

I can find pretty much endless video footage of multiple unarmed assailents(BLM, inner city kids, Antifa types etc.)attacking individuals, but hardly any where a gun was produced by the victims. If more people carried and had some basic close-quarter skills, I think the number of documented contact and entangled shootings would go up very dramatically. Keep in mind when looking at stats or available incidents, untrained people or those with average skills at best are generally involved, so a lot of what you see won't apply to a highly skilled, well trained individual. For example, what normally happens in most unarmed streetfight or bar fights wouldn't necessarily apply to the UFC heavyweight champion since his ability differs so greatly from the average individual. The same would apply to someone well trained in full spectrum self-defense skills.

When considering civilian self-defense in general, incidents do involve contact when you look at it as a whole including fistfights, physical assaults, rape, all contact weapon(knives, bludgeons), attacks. In terms of the attacker being armed with a gun, armed robbery, muggings, carjacking and rape are the most likely threats and they will occur at very close distances since the criminal wants something from you. Initial compliance or an unarmed response may be better than immediately going for your gun.

What I don't see with any regularity outside of two rival gangs engaging each other or miltary/police incidents is anything that resembles a protracted, ranged gunfight with two parties shooting it out with each other whether in the open or utilizing cover. Although exceedingly unlikely, if someone just started randomly shooting at me from distance in a parking lot or in the mall, I for sure am not going to stand there and draw my weapon and return fire. The most important ability would be the physical ability to move and extricate myself from the scene completely rather than engage. But, maybe your physically impaired and can't run very well. Well, luckily the odds of someone just randomly targeting you and shooting at you from long range or being involved in some type of active-shooter scenario is astronomically rare. So much so that I don't hardly give it much thought despite it being a popular topic on gun forums.

The bottom line is that if you're overweight, out of shape, have no training other than standing in a static stance shooting non-moving paper targets at the range, then I don't think you are very well prepared to defend yourself against the most likely threats you face no matter how accurately you are at putting rounds on target at the range. The only place I see traditional marksmanship possibly being of much benefit would be in certain home defense scenarios, but even then I think it a much better idea to avoid engaging at all or for as long as possible by putting as many barriers between you and the intruders to buy time with any eventual forced shooting subsequently being conducted at very short range. I also wouldn't rule out fleeing the home as the best response in some instances. If ambushed, then we're back to those close-quarter skills again.

Everyone has a finite amount of time, energy and resources, so it makes sense to me to allocate the majority of my training time toward preparing what’s most likely. Pretty much everything is possible, but not everything is probable. And keep in mind, everyone has different abilities and limitations, so approaches will differ from person to person.

What I train for is a close range encounter with a short time frame. I shoot while moving and I utilize accurate unsighted fire. I live in a very small town out in the boonies and I don't go to the dazzling big cities that often, so it is unlikely that I will use my skills in a social encounter. I hope and pray that I never have to.

So, while I still practice pure marksmanship, I recognize that 25- and 50-yard bullseye shooting with very generous time allowances, has limited application to self defense. Please note what I said: 'limited', not 'none'. It can't hurt, in any event.

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Let's be careful out there

" Look son, being a good shot, being quick with a pistol, that don't do no harm, but it don't mean much next to being cool-headed. A man who will keep his head and not get rattled under fire, like as not, he'll kill ya. It ain't so easy to shoot a man anyhow, especially if the son-of-a-bitch is shootin' back at you." Gene Hackman as Little Bill Daggett in Unforgiven

Unfortunately most of us cannot train to be a ninja. Many of us are older and/or have physical limitations. That leaves us pretty much with a gun for protection. It looks like you pretty much discount trigger control, which is the most valuable marksmanship skill. I firmly disagree. In many instances, especially during home invasions, the victim seems to often break free to retrieve a firearm, thus ending the attack.

But Little Bill ended up dead!

Did you watch the video I shared in post #62?

So, you're saying home invasions often involve a physical struggle requiring H2H fighting, breaking free and scrambling to get to a firearm?

Being older or having a handicap makes you more likely to be targeted by criminals, because you are more vulnerable and easier prey. You have to prepare accordingly with consideration of your limitations, even if it's just understanding the dynamics and running through what you could do visualizing your options. No ninja training required. Just saying you're going to rely on the gun isn't realistic since you won't always have time, distance and ample warning. Even people in wheelchairs who carry a gun can learn situational awareness and some basic H2H skills like at least learning how to shield their head(cover up)against strikes or recover and position themselves to access and use their firearm if knocked from their wheelchair.

When I find myself in places like large parking lots and parking garages, I crank my 'spidey sense' way up and walk with my hand in my pistol pocket.

I am so full of Xarelto that my blood is thinner than jailhouse soup. Any serious flesh wound could put me in the express lane.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

The other factor is surviving a gunfight is knowing when to run.

There's no shame in running.

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Thread Killer.

Let me ask this: You have been in a fight and you have wounded your foe. He is still alive.

Do you finish him off if the objective is shooting to kill? Is it OK to administer a coup de grace?

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Let's be careful out there

Gerhard1-I don’t know what CB3 will say. That will be interesting. But if your assailant is no longer a threat, a final shot to “finish him off” could be considered a homicide if he dies. I’m guessing you feel the same.

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SWCA 3255 SWHF 615

Doing it wrong.

There are too many varibles to give advice. Gun fight implies both parties are armed. If somebody is waving a gun around that is a direct threat. You have to decide if you want to take the chance the guy won't shoot you in whatever situation you are in or can you extract yourself without shooting.
What is at stake? money, car it may be better to let them have it. Right or wrong shooting is going to cost you. To protect life is a different story and
with today's punks they shoot people just for the rep they get with their crowd. It's your choice to shoot or take the chance you are going to be shot just for grins,

The firefights I was in worked out better when the other guys kept missing. Also there is a significant difference between being shot at and shot.

And he was building a house!

Quite so; I would feel that way.

BTW, a minor quibble. If I kill my foe and it is ruled justifiable, that is still a homicide, since homicide is defined as the killing of a human being by another human.

If a coup de grace is administered, that would be murder or at the very least, manslaughter. I presume from your handle and the badge that you are LE, and you know this, but not everyone does. There is an exception and I'm not certain that is valid in the US. Do you know what it is?

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Let's be careful out there

Read everything written by Col. Jeff Cooper and then slip the battle dogs and emulate the actions of the tiger.

Great quote :

Winston Churchill : " Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result " .

IIRC he was a WWI vet.

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I like Ike.

Gerhard1-Exactly correct. They are all homicides but categorically different as in, negligent, justified, etc. I was LE a long time ago, but the handle has stuck. Sorry, I’m not sure I know of an exception.

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SWCA 3255 SWHF 615

I was responding to the latest posting. On one hand you seem to support marksmanship and on the other you discount it. I would think that protecting one's head comes readily to most people without training. The defensive injuries on victims of attack would seem to prove that out. I certainly agree that aged and handicapped folks are prime targets for attacks. We should always be situationally aware and take actions to remove ourselves or attract attention when the red flags are up. We should also have our homes hardened and security systems in place. My biggest problem is that you direct your philosophy of training toward young, physically able folks when most of us aren't. From your posts, I gather that you are physically fit, well-versed in the martial arts, as well as, highly skilled with weapons. That's great!

I believe that is an accurate statement.

ME TOO!!!! Larry

I don't put much value on what many people refer to as marksmanship(relatively slow, longer range controlled accurate target shooting) in the context of armed civilian self-defense and based on your post and since you used the term "jerking the trigger", I assume that's probably what you meant. My priority is being able to make hits quickly at close-range(focusing on contact out to about 7 yards)and I agree with most of what's stated in the Rob Leathem video on how best to go about accomplishing it, which is contrary to a lot of what I see recommended.

A startle-flinch response and reflexively bringing the hands up to block, cover or push away threats is instinctive, but that doesn't mean people automatically do it in the most effective way or efficiently at all.

In terms of self-defense preparedness, few would disagree being young and strong is obviously better than old and weak, but pretty much everyone can make improvements in their fitness, mobility and overall health which will be a benefit regardless. I've worked with people in wheelchairs, those with developmental disabilities as well as the elderly and limitations must be accepted, understood and will direct suitable training and appropriate responses.

In some countries it is the coup de grace that is sometimes administered in an execution by firing squad.

There now, don't you feel better and wiser for having that totally useless bit of knowledge?

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Let's be careful out there

I think the issue here is avoiding the "shoot to wound" thinking that I've seen with my own kids. "Can't I just shoot (perp) in the leg?

No, Honey, you'll likely miss. Shoot center of mass.

Quite different from applying a coup de grace to an assailant that's already down (not a threat).

Threat/no threat is the point in that decision tree, not killed/alive. IMO.

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SWCA #3356, SWHF#611

In the end it didn't help Ned Kelly much.

Attached Images

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Expect the unexpected

Faster than a speeding bullet? Just leave that to Superman.

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Expect the unexpected

Ned Kelly was hung, and his head popped off when they hung him.
Granted, if I’m going out to buy a sandwich, I’ll probably not have body armor, but if I’m going to a gunfight, given my druthers, I will be wearing body armor. and a helmet. and a rifle. And some other guys on my side.

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Halfway and one more step

Because you're still focused on training simulating the real world in some way, instead of developing skills. That any class could simulate the future is borderline laughable. What is this, tarot card reading? They know I'm going to get carjacked by a guy with a knife at 1:48PM in July (cuz lol, I've never seen one of these hokey classes get done at night, heaven forbid).

Think of it this way--if you can't make decent shots when you have (allegedly) all this extra time, how in the hell do you think you're going to do it when you don't? Learn how to pull the trigger. It's not hard.

Literally, I think if you can't break 220 or 230, a pistol might as well be the surface of the moon to you. 220 points is "hitting the paper most of the time". I did better in my first match. And you don't magically get any better by dancing around with ants in your pants and touching your belly button to the target.

You don't execute a "defensive" pull of the trigger any different than a precision one. If you want to learn how to shoot well and fast, you first have to learn to shoot well.

Like, for starters, if you think the "generous time allowances" of bullseye are remotely relevant to you actually shooting, you're wrong. A Slow Fire trigger pull takes no longer than 1.5-2 seconds, max. That's all it takes to hit a 10-ring the size of a quarter, one-handed, at 50 feet (or 3 inches at 50 yards, if you're just not good enough to hack it indoors). Taking longer does not--again, magically--make you any more accurate. It actually makes you less accurate. Learn to freakin' shoot.

To be clear, there's some rolling-on-the-ground classes I would take, I just feel like spending my time and money on other stuff.

EDIT: And, of course, if you're already a reasonably precise shot, then it's time to start fixing other gaping holes in your skillset. Like, you require an appointment book to get your gun out in time.

I keep using that word, skillset. Almost like it's some individualized hierarchy of things you need to do to suck less!

He was hanged! Hung he may have been, the coroner would have been in a position to see.

Is it 'Hung' or 'Hanged'? | Merriam-Webster

Personally I’d rather be hung than hanged....

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SWCA 3255 SWHF 615

Two points in response: one is that great precision is not necessary in a fight. What I strive for is accuracy. The goal, assuming that you can't avoid the fight altogether, is to put your adversary out of action as fast as you can.

Accuracy and precision are not the same thing. If your goal is precision, you strive to make the smallest group possible within, say, a 6" target. If the goal is combat accuracy, then a hit anywhere in the 6" target is acceptable. As an aside, hits that are close together (precision) might only damage the same area on the target, while shots that are more widely dispersed could do more damage and put the foe out of action earlier.

The second point is that in a self defense encounter, you are not likely to have time to form a perfect sight picture on the enemy's chest. In fact, I train for an encounter that is going to be at very close range and both the bad guy and myself are going to be moving. What's more, there might not be time to use my sights so a great deal of my training is going to be and does involve un-sighted fire.

While I have never been in a gunfight, (and I sincerely hope I never am!) I understand that they usually occur suddenly, at very close range, with extremely limited time intervals and both parties moving. Under these conditions great precision is almost impossible, and the best you can realistically hope for is combat accuracy.

While precise shooting is not a bad skill to have, I question its' usefulness to the defensive shooter.

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Let's be careful out there

I agree with your line of thinking, which some people just don't get because they have never trained to perfect marksmanship fundamentals. We are not saying that focusing on precision shooting will make one a gunfighter. What we are saying is that the skills learned, like trigger control and sight alignment make a good foundation upon which to build. Other skills, like drawing, shooting from cover, shooting with the weak hand, loading magazines in the pistol, moving, etc. can be added. The skills learned in precision shooting are modified in combat type shooting to include more rapid trigger manipulation and flash sight alignment when necessary. The run and gun folks don't understand the fundamentals learned in precision (bullseye shooting) unless they have practiced them, therefore they take a us vs. them stance. Here's a shocker, Rob Leatham shoots bullseye pistol matches! It doesn't look like that is holding him back!

You're not looking to achieve what I'd call precision. You're learning precision so that you can apply that to shooting faster and more or less accurately. The target and distance requirements of a discipline like bullseye magnify errors that you'd miss shooting for an A-zone--the most common one being failing to have an uninterrupted, linear increase in trigger pressure. There's nothing written that says you can't do exactly that four or five times in a second.

I know of one gunfight involving a Master-class bullseye shooter. Dude managed what I recall was a KFC, which was robbed by some guy with a S&W .38. Anyways, the robber decides to shoot Bullseye Dude from a range of 3-5 yards. Robber Guy gets off three shots, manages to hit our hero in the shooting arm with the first one, pegs a bag of flour with the second.

Bullseye Dude, armed with some no-name *** .380 or .32 or some damn thing, and wounded in the arm while getting his gun up, gets six shots off. Shots #1-#4 hit Robber Guy square in the chest, but fail to reach his heart because of a bundle of rolled quarters he's clutching while firing. But they blow apart the change, and shot #5 goes to the same exact place, this time penetrating. Shot #6 hits the door as Robber Guy slams it trying to run out of the store. He makes it about a hundred yards before he realizes he's dead.

Couple things here.

The first is that, at a certain point, you don't really use your sights in Bullseye like a lot of people would assume. For one thing, the sights never stop moving. For another, they cover a much larger area than I actually want to hit. I get asked a lot how I "aim" for the 10-ring, when I really don't--it's .9 inches at 50 feet, nobody holds that good. Most of the time, I can't even really see any of the scoring rings. So "aiming" is really "Are the sights wobbling over the big black circle, and is that wobble more or less centered?". Everything else, the difference between a 6 and a 10, is trigger. Okay, maybe a little is mystic stuff like "arm tension" and "shot process", but doing nothing but trigger and not interrupting the wobble will get you 100% 8-10s.

Literally, I will sometimes make a joke that "So-and-so still thinks the bullet's gonna go where the dot is". Bullet doesn't go where the dot is, bullet goes where the dot's gonna be, so unless you can see the future and react in milliseconds, trying to aim 10s might as well be reading tea leaves or rabbit entrails or sumsuch.

The other is that, if you're not using your sights--and here I would say, train to try and use your sights, and also train without them because you'll probably just be pointing and shooting cuz some dude is trying to kill you--all you really have to hit the target with is pointing and trigger. Okay, pointing is natural-enough if you picked a gun that fits you, the trigger is what gets you because you've no feedback to see how badly you messed up your pointing with a janky trigger pull.

Two related stories. The first is when I finished building my match gun, I hustled off to shoot it without checking my red dot's battery. It was dead, but I still really wanted to shoot, so I shot with just a tube and no dot. First string was 5 in the 4.5" black, 4 in the 10-ring, all at 50 feet, from little more than pointing and trigger. I think I shot a box of ammo like that with maybe 2 or 3 hits in the white. You can do a lot with just pointing and trigger.

Second is, one day I decided to try the ol' no-sights shootin'. I loaded up my G26, pointed it at the target one-handed (the gun wasn't even close to aligned with my head), and took five quick shots. Again, all five in the black, 4.5", 7 yards. Never did anything remotely like that before. Only contributing factors, near as I can see, are that the G26 really fits me well, and BE. I still do it, from time to time, for grins. Same skills translated over to pouring ammo through a G34 MOS.

But really, I think it's all water under the bridge, because:

*Everyone knows they're already God's gift to handgunnin', no need to practice nothin'
*Most people that commence to social shootin' have never trained or practiced anything, and yet I'd say way more people survive than don't

I'm just wondering if it is okay to enjoy handguns, especially N-frames, without caring or wondering about gunfights, self-defense, home defense, or other unlikely events?

Sure, but you probably won't find that in a forum where the specific topic is "Concealed Carry & Self Defense."

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Vegan by proxy.