My #1 concern for those who CC:

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

"There is a tremendous difference between shooting methods that work well when you're simply trying to put holes in the target and those that work well when the target is trying to put holes in you. Failing to understand this difference is a mistake that will get you killed if you ever have to use your handgun in a real armed confrontation." - Col. Rex Applegate

Any thoughts?

[mwrguy]

1. Proof that Concealed Carry permit holders live in a dream world

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

2. It seems...

...you've missed the point but thanks.

[Control-Z]

4. Perfect example. (nt)

[bobclark86]

5. A perfect example...

of why one needs training. I'm surprised NY doesn't require training.

[Control-Z]

6. That so didn't go right over your head

like you were hoping I'd believe. If you insist it really has, then go back and watch the video again. Maybe you have trouble comprehending. It may take more than twice with you.

Or at least admit you're a gunner who will always side with the nuts.

[Glaug-Eldare]

16. That video is garbage. Not worth watching.

I've seen it before, so I can tell you a few of the ways that the producers ensured that the subjects would fail their test:

1. The producers briefly train them in marksmanship only (no draw drills) with exposed holsters and properly fitting clothes, with appropriate eyewear, while testing them with holsters hidden in bulky clothing and vision obscured by masks.

1b. Not to mention that the producers would never dream of training the subjects to use a method of carry (like cross draw) that is easier to use when seated than strong-side hip carry.

2. They are trained by instructors with the intention of having them reach the producers' pre-established result (failure).

3. They are tested against a professional marksman who knows in advance who and where the armed subject is sitting.

[Straw Man]

17. A dream world?

Like the one in which people go through life wearing soccer goalie gloves and welder's helmets? The one in which an active shooter automatically knows who in a room full of people is carrying a concealed weapon?

I've seen that "experiment" video many times. It is such an appallingly obvious set-up that the network "news" organization that foisted it upon the public should be ashamed. Their credibility is now on a par with "Real Housewives of Orange County."

And it spite of all the handicaps, the second trainee, the woman, scored a disabling and potentially fatal shot on the shooter's thigh, in the vicinity of the femoral artery. She "lost her life" in the process, but she would have lost it anyway in that scenario.

[Oneka]

25. Isn't that the same dreamworld where trucks explode on contact?

http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/LIE/nbc.html

I wonder what it will take to get devout anti-gun zealots, to awaken from thier dreamstates.

[armueller2001]

13. What about all those stories

where the concealed carrier actually does stop an attack?

[rrneck]

18. Well let's see.

Disadvantages for the students.

Unfamiliar equipment.
Improper equipment (bad belt to hold holster)
Tight shirt over firearm making it difficult to access the weapon.
Lack of training with cover garment.
Active shooter is a firearms instructor.
Scenario is designed to give maximum element of surprise to active shooter.

This video proves that when the event it tilted heavily in favor of the active shooter, the active shooter will win. It proves nothing beyond the need to push an agenda.

[ManiacJoe]

24. You seem to have posted a link to the wrong old video.

However, the one you did link to does show that players will often lose when the game is rigged against them.

[sarisataka]

3. Col. Applegate has wise words

Target shooting is good and valuable practice. It allows you to train the fundamentals until they are second nature. It is a good measure of your skills at their best. And if you are a great target shooter, able to hit the X ring 10/0 at fifty yards and you think you are a gun fighter you need to lock the gun up and get some pepper spray.

Combat shooting is sweat, pounding heart rate, tunnel vision, time dilation, moving targets and sensory overload. If you stand in place, focusing on your front sight you will be dead before you can even consider your natural respiratory pause... You need to MOVE and TAKE COVER and IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET and the OTHER TARGETS and the NO SHOOT BYSTANDERS and READY YOUR GUN and ENGAGE THE PRIMARY THREAT and DISENGAGE THAT DAMN SAFETY and ENGAGE THE PRIMARY THREAT and wonder WHY ARE YOU NOT IN COVER YET and about one hundred other things. Once you have all of that sorted out you can move onto the next half second...

Target shooting will give the mechanical skills that might see you alive at the end of a gun fight. It is the mental preparation, fortitude and above all will to fight and win that will give you the chance to use those skills.

Your concern is valid. Too many who carry think the magic hunk of metal on their hip will make all of the bad things go away. Fortunately very few will find out how wrong they are.

[PorridgeGun]

8. lol

Good lord, if that isn't the most overwrought, hand wringing attempt at describing what shooting for real might be like its certainly close.

I was a lifeguard in my early 20's. The first person I saved dove from a board into the deep end and didn't come up again. I don't even remember the incident clearly until I had the guy on the side of the pool because I did exactly what I'd been drilled to do so many times in training without needing to think about anything.

That is what its really like, at least when you've had adequate training in CQB shooting. "Do, don't think."

And no, target shooting will not "give you the mechanical skills.." it will give you the wrong mechanical skills. The weaver stance, firm grip, smooth trigger pull.. no milking.. forget it. Convulsive grip to the point where the gun is shaking, pistol locked to the middle of your body in one of 3 or 4 well practice firing positions.. (hip, midsection, isosocles, and one hand extended).. looking over the sights rather than at them when in the isosocles and tracking targets with your body etc.

"It is the mental preparation, fortitude and above all will to fight and win that will give you the chance to use those skills."

Decided to double down and go from mere fantasy to dangerous nonsense, eh? The first thing to go when the adrenaline hits are fine motor skills, the crap you practiced at the range, and any notions of higher values.

Gimme your average, healthy 15 year old girl, 2000-3000 rounds, 3 weeks, and a decent .22 semi, and I'll produce someone who can out-shoot several cops at once with the thing, and make it look easy. No exaggeration.

One of the scenario's on the course I took involved being "detained" by 3-4 firearms officers playing the role of enemy soldiers/MP's. By the end we were "killing" the first 2 before the third had a chance to get their weapon into firing position. We had the additional handicap of having to draw our weapons from a concealed carry holster.

What makes it possible is the extraordinary self confidence and central nervous system efficiency gained by long training hours, not a bunch of "values" drivel.

[sarisataka]

14. That is what I was trying to get across

is that there is no way your conscious thought can keep up; it must be done without thinking. The range practice will be there, you will be pointing at your target with something like sight alignment/sight picture- you just won't think about it. I assume you will teach said 15 year old girl something about shooting over those three weeks. Without some form of marksmanship training a person will just fire wildly and would miss the proverbial barn if they stood inside it.

As for values drivel... I would suggest Grossman's book On Killing. He goes in depth studying the phenomenon of soldiers in battle who do not fire at an enemy of do so intentionally ineffectively. Along with fight or flight there are the reactions of freeze and submit. Training can only do so much in this area. You can train a person to have all of those skills to take on an armed mob but if they really are not mentally prepared they will not come through in an actual fight.
There is no good predictor of this. Some people with no training will fight like a cornered rat, others with years of training will stand in place unable to act in the face of actual incoming rounds.

[AtheistCrusader]

21. Your post is twice as long, and says pretty much the same thing as the 'overwrought' post above...

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

10. I think there are a number of...

...magic thinkers on both sides of the RKBA discussion.

[sarisataka]

15. There is a large belief in magic

some believe in the good in every person and that when you tell the robber/rapist/murderer that you do not believe in guns or violence they will turn and walk away, admiring your principle. The reality is it will likely lead to high aggression levels.

I have met some who outright say "I carry to scare off a criminal; I would never actually shoot someone." I try to convince them to stop carrying.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

19. re: "I have met some...

...who outright say "I carry to scare off a criminal; I would never actually shoot someone." I try to convince them to stop carrying."

An excellent idea.

[AtheistCrusader]

22. Then add in a malfunction drill... Oops you tripped trying to get into concealment...

By the way, that's concealment not cover... get small... etc.

[PorridgeGun]

7. Yeah..

I'm a veteran and have taken CQB and close protection pistol courses run by descendants of W. E. Fairbairn (came up with instinctive combat shooting for the SAS/SOE in WWII) & Rex Applegate. That sort of shooting isn't terribly difficult to learn, but the curve is steep because what is learned must be repeated again and again until the movements are hard wired.

Shoot to Live and Kill or Get Killed, the manuals written by Applegate and Fairbairn, are available as .pdf's. There are also video's on Youtube made around that time, and one can quite easily put oneself through a course of instruction in that sort of shooting.

Applegates thoughts should make you far more concerned about police officers than CCW holders, though. A couple of SAS officers wrote an internal memo that ended up (after a considerable amount of editing) being released anonymously as a newspaper op-ed over here. It detailed their concerns about the ineptitude of the police "SWAT" type teams they were training. The main complaint was that the lack of a rigorous selection process meant you could teach them this or that, but when the ammo was live and the adrenaline pumping all the finer points went to shit and they ended up shooting up everything in sight more often than not.

Sound familiar?

American police are even more spectacularly incompetent, as shown recently by the hysterical reactions to Dorner and the pathetic excuse making for shooting up civvies afterwards. "But but.. they were under STRESS!! They're HEROES!! WWWAHHHHH!!" What a pathetic shambles.

Seriously, you've got a bunch of rank amateurs over there running around playing Seal 6 dress-up, talking about "war on this.. war on that".. until someone has the temerity to shoot back... in which case they go to bits and reveal themselves for the toy soldiers they really are.

I'll take my chances with the CCW'ers.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

11. re: "Applegates thoughts should make you far more concerned about police officers than CCW holders"

Believe me, they do. IIRC the FBI has determined that LEOs shoot the wrong person much more often than private citizens do.

thanks

[AtheistCrusader]

23. True story.

Here in Seattle, a teenager stole a patrol car.

While responding to the incident, two actual SPD officers spotted each other at the same time, and each though the other was the teenager. (There was a firearm in the stolen patrol car, so this was a high pucker factor call)

Both dismount, and engage each other. 31 rounds discharged.


Nobody hit a fuckin' thing.

[ileus]

9. You have to train the way you fight.

punching holes is for the whole family to enjoy, even my 9yo son can target shoot with my 45. Does he practice tactical reloads, or clearing jams? No...

As we're walking around the parking lot of Target does he access those around him? No.

Does he practice double taps? No.

Does he practice engaging multiple targets quickly? Not so much...


Keeping all your rounds in the 10 ring at 7-10 yards is just one aspect of CC. There's so much more to CC than just punching a hole in a target.

We need to start a Tactics and Taining thread where we can share our knowledge and tips for concerned citizens that carry.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

12. Exactly

Such a thread would be a great read but I have little experience to contribute.
Maybe you could start such a thread in your spare time.

[Starboard Tack]

20. "concerned citizens that carry" - You get the prize for "Oxymoron of the Day"

Man, you truly crack me up. I sometimes wonder if you're for real. Regardless, your posts are hilarious.