Much firearms training in the United States, including law enforcement and the military, misses the mark. It focuses too much on marksmanship and not on fighting with a gun. If you are seeking firearms training, you must be discerning in your choice.
Let's start with some assumptions. A gun fight is combat; stopping your adversary means being willing to kill him.
a. You will not rise to the occasion; you will descend to your level of training.
b. The best gun is the one you have when you need one.
c. Your gun must work as intended every time, but it won't.
d. Law and policy don't matter until it's over.
Over the years, our society, led by the mentally unhinged left, has tried to sanitize reality to make it less 'offensive', more palatable, and politically correct. We now avoid terms such as 'kill' and 'shoot' replacing them with terms such as 'incapacitate' and 'engage' as though this will somehow change the reality. Recognize reality; ignore it at your peril. Be knowledgeable of what will come after so as to avoid the traps set by the anti-your gun left. More on this later.
A gunfight is a fight. Of course, the number and type of weapons, the location, the conditions, and the number and type of people involved will differ, but you are in a fight, a fight for your life and this will more than likely involve killing other human beings. There are no rules save one, you win, you live; and there are no givens or absolutes. The best way to avoid a gunfight is not be there. The best way not to be there is good situational awareness of your surroundings. You must prioritize your own training and recognize the most important part is training for the actual gunfight, everything else is supportive to that. Practically, winning a gunfight will involve proficiency in the following, although it will not guarantee victory:
i. Recognize the threat and act.
The typical training. You stand in a fixed position, on-line facing a stationary target you have already identified as the one you are to shoot, and you wait to be told when to shoot.
The reality. The bad guy will surprise you. He will be moving. You may not even know he is there. You will never be fast enough to react quicker than the adversary already acting, action versus reaction. You will look at and identify the threat before you decide to draw your weapon and act. All this gives him more time to kill you.
The training you need. You must always train for the threat surprising you. Even when expecting it, laying in ambush for example, the first shots still startle! This means cover is more important than drawing your weapon faster than The Ringo Kid. Train moving to cover first, easy to set up safely and within most range rules, by starting behind the firing line and moving forward to cover (barricade) before you draw your weapon. It also means you must know the difference between cover and concealment and be able to identify cover rapidly. Cover will protect you from bullets, concealment will not. Cover can also be concealment, but concealment is never cover. Know the difference and train yourself to look at something and quickly decide if it would stop bullets. Some examples of cover are solid brick or concrete walls, solid earth such as berms or banks, thick tree trunks at the base. Some examples of concealment are car doors, internal walls, horse troughs and tipped over tables. None of which, despite your Hollywood training, will not stop even small bullets.
ii. Shoot until he goes down and is not moving, then look for other threats.
The typical training. You fire a prescribed number of rounds, normally set so as to not use too much ammunition, stop and then repeat. All the while standing in the same spot. You then holster or worse, unload and holster on command, walk calmly forward, chatting with your neighbor and check your target.
The reality. The human body can take a massive amount of trauma damage and still function. An assailant can suffer an ultimately fatal wound and still kill you. Michael Lee Platt was shot at least five times, including an ultimately fatal wound, at the beginning of the infamous Miami FBI shootout in 1986. After which, he still managed to kill two FBI agents and wound three others! To cause an involuntary cessation of action, you must interrupt the central nervous system or reduce the circulating blood rapidly and significantly. Or put more bluntly, you need to cut his spinal cord at some point or bleed him out as quickly as you can. Both extremely difficult to do with a small piece of metal nine millimeters in diameter! So, just because you hit him doesn't mean it's over and one shot almost never does it. The other side of the coin is also true. Just because you get shot, doesn't mean you're out of the fight. Keep fighting to live.
The training you need. On the range, move before you start shooting and shoot courses of fire that do not have a prescribed number of rounds. Wherever possible, use targets which can be controlled to fall on command and vary the number of shots fired before the target falls. If you do not have targets which can fall and you are with someone, have them call out "HE'S DOWN" as the signal to stop and vary it with the number of rounds fired. Keep shooting until you hear the call. Put up 'no shoot targets' to force you to search for and identify your threat and start with your back to them (or blindfolded) so you cannot game it. Reload and search for additional threats from cover. Check yourself for wounds, many people shot in a gunfight don't realize they've been hit until much later. Do not condition yourself to shoot, holster, shoot, holster as this will get you killed. A 1987 siege in Escondido, CA ended when an assailant, dressed in the same military camouflage, charged a SWAT team sitting outside, killing one. A K9 handler drew his weapon and shot two rounds into the assailant but, because of conditioning, holstered his weapon and then had to draw it again to continue shooting the assailant until he went down.
iii. You must be able to work your gun and keep it working under extreme stress.
The typical training. Most firearms courses will introduce you to the way your gun works. This is nice to know but not as important as knowing how to work your gun. These courses, especially the short eight-hour variety, will also only introduce you to the vitally important drills of reloading and fixing your gun under the extreme stress of combat. They spend next to no time at all on the repetitive drilling of reloading and immediate action/malfunction which is required to become even moderately proficient in a fight. An eight-hour course should breakdown with one hour introduction and safety, three hours of repetitive drills, three hours live fire on a range and one hour review and wrap up. And this is not nearly enough!
The reality. Everything in a gunfight will happen very fast and most will be very close. Most gunfights in a non-military setting will be over in seconds. There will be little time to think, process and deliberate. You must have the motor skills, built by repetition, to react immediately to what is happening, including fixing or reloading your gun. Murphy's law will apply, and your gun will fail you. It may get jammed or it may run out of bullets just when you need it the most and you must fix it fast. Some guns may be more prone to jamming than others and some guns have greater magazine capacity (more bullets before you need to reload), do the research on what's best for you.
The training you need. You must spend time in dry fire training (gun training with no live shooting) to increase your chances of winning and surviving. Practice, practice, practice; you don't get to play a musical instrument well after eight hours! You must put yourself under stress. Use time and force yourself to do things faster, but make sure you are doing them right. A bad motor skill can be worse than no motor skill. Train after physical exertion, it's a lot different trying to shoot someone while out of breath. Remember the great scene in the movie Glory where a new recruit is impressing everyone with his accuracy? Colonel Shaw comes along and starts making him reload faster and faster, then he shoots his pistol behind him, and the recruit goes to pieces. The difference between the range and combat.
A few final words about the aftermath of a gunfight, a subject almost never addressed in firearms training. Just as you must not assume it's over if you hit him, you must understand it's not over when the shooting stops. The aftermath is sometimes more stressful than the incident and will certainly last longer. What you did in two or three seconds, at night, fearing for your life or a loved one will be dissected, examined, reviewed again and then judged in the cold light of day by people taking as much time as they want. Worse, many of these people have never been in any type of confrontation, worse still, many already see you as the bad guy because of their politics. Not everyone will see it the way you did or do. Winning the aftermath requires preparation too and you must consider the following.
The typical training. None; many firearms instructors shy away from this area because of its legal ramifications. Some training establishments offer separate training conducted by lawyers and this can be worthwhile. Law enforcement agencies cover this area as part of their use of force policy training, which often includes the rights of the officer involved.
The reality. The immediate aftermath of a any violent confrontation can be an emotional rollercoaster and is fraught with dangers of a different kind that many have never considered. On scene, you may have to deal with angry on-lookers or family members of the individual you have shot. Responding police officers will point their guns at you and, if you make the wrong move, they could shoot you. You will be confused, angry and scared and it will be hard to think. Today, the incident, or part of it, will more than likely be on someone's cell phone video. Later, you will face criticism from even your friends and neighbors, and you will be investigated by the police and possibly the media.
The training you need. Prepare yourself for it as you have prepared for the actual gunfight. While still on the scene, protect yourself from further threats but remember, the police are on their way and responding police officers will not know who the bad guy is and who is not. Do not present any kind of threat to them and comply with every order immediately. If you have called 911, give the operator your description and tell them you are armed. DO NOT TALK TO ANYONE! Not the police, the media or bystanders. When the police arrive, give them your personal identification information, you will have to surrender your weapon and do what they tell you but, DO NOT TALK TO THEM! Politely tell them you understand they have a job to do but, you do not wish to make any statements until you have legal representation. Any competent lawyer would tell you the same. This is very difficult in traumatic circumstances; you will naturally want to talk and get people to understand what happened. Additionally, do not give the police consent to search your property. They know, outside of protective sweeps, there is still a warrant requirement in these situations. Get a lawyer straight away, preferably one who specializes in these types of cases and insurance, such as Carry Guard, will help to prevent you losing your shirt fighting any future legal battles.
If you are one of the millions of new American gun owners who bought their gun because of concern for the path society is on, this article will give you somethings to think about. Not all firearms training teaches how to fight with a gun, so spend your money wisely in choosing training and consider the additional issues covered above. We want you to remain standing tall after a gunfight!