crebralfix
member
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2004
- Messages
- 1,356
What IPSC shooters and Jerry Miculek do on the range is not gun fighting. They're engaged in sport...and that's just fine.
Since people often miss stuff in forums: Miculek's record is a neat feat and (probably) the product of many thousands of hours of practice. However, my point here is that people tend to associate such range feats with fighting skill. I'm arguing against that association, rather than the feat itself.
I find the following far more impressive:
One thug distracts the citizen while another flanks him
The distracting thug won't comply with the citizen's commands
Now it's on! No time to deploy a weapon.
Full force pummeling
The citizen did an excellent job of staying on his feet and getting the thugs off him. Jerry Miculek, while an awesome sport shooter, won't be able to use his shooting skills in a common street encounter such as this. The combination of skills required for this includes a high level of physical strength, simultaneous monologue engaging the thugs while moving to maintain situational awareness, hand to hand techniques and gun skills. Shooting and reloading skills are not enough.
And, in case you're wondering, this scenario went really, really fast. There is no way a reload of anything would have occurred during the action.
The distance in the final photo between gray shirt thug and the citizen is about six to eight feet. Even if the fight had continued (thugs ran away), those thugs were well within striking distance of the citizen. As we know, shooting gray shirt may not end the fight since terminal ballistics on handguns are weak. The thug could survive long enough to inflict a mortal wound with a knife or other weapon.
If you think you can get your gun out, you're deluding yourself. I personally experienced "gun glued in holster" syndrome several times and I'm pretty damned fast...there's something about the brain getting overwhelmed while getting pummeled, attempting to defend and move that throws even the simplest plan all out of whack.
Note the position of the citizen's weapon. It was pointed at gray shirt's center of mass and would have hit the cardiac triangle. Had he shot, it would have been a sub 1 second shot.
I just don't have a gamer's mentality when it comes to this stuff. After watching several IPSC matches and participating in some IDPA, I came to the conclusion that the skills reinforced by these competitions are incompatible with serious training for fighting. Range tricks, while impressive, don't apply to fighting.
Since people often miss stuff in forums: Miculek's record is a neat feat and (probably) the product of many thousands of hours of practice. However, my point here is that people tend to associate such range feats with fighting skill. I'm arguing against that association, rather than the feat itself.
I find the following far more impressive:
One thug distracts the citizen while another flanks him
The distracting thug won't comply with the citizen's commands
Now it's on! No time to deploy a weapon.
Full force pummeling
The citizen did an excellent job of staying on his feet and getting the thugs off him. Jerry Miculek, while an awesome sport shooter, won't be able to use his shooting skills in a common street encounter such as this. The combination of skills required for this includes a high level of physical strength, simultaneous monologue engaging the thugs while moving to maintain situational awareness, hand to hand techniques and gun skills. Shooting and reloading skills are not enough.
And, in case you're wondering, this scenario went really, really fast. There is no way a reload of anything would have occurred during the action.
The distance in the final photo between gray shirt thug and the citizen is about six to eight feet. Even if the fight had continued (thugs ran away), those thugs were well within striking distance of the citizen. As we know, shooting gray shirt may not end the fight since terminal ballistics on handguns are weak. The thug could survive long enough to inflict a mortal wound with a knife or other weapon.
If you think you can get your gun out, you're deluding yourself. I personally experienced "gun glued in holster" syndrome several times and I'm pretty damned fast...there's something about the brain getting overwhelmed while getting pummeled, attempting to defend and move that throws even the simplest plan all out of whack.
Note the position of the citizen's weapon. It was pointed at gray shirt's center of mass and would have hit the cardiac triangle. Had he shot, it would have been a sub 1 second shot.
I just don't have a gamer's mentality when it comes to this stuff. After watching several IPSC matches and participating in some IDPA, I came to the conclusion that the skills reinforced by these competitions are incompatible with serious training for fighting. Range tricks, while impressive, don't apply to fighting.
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