"Going Shooting" vs Defensive Training

Go to an indoor range and watch the shooters. Most will likely be shooting at 7 yards (police and military handgun training was traditionally done at that distance more than seventy years ago--it had nothing to do with the Tueller drill).

Most will probably be shooting rather slowly and deliberately, with perhaps a one second interval between shots.

The shooters will undoubtedly be concentrating primarily on group size.

That's what I started doing when I stared carrying in 2008. It was little different from what I had done fifty-plus years earlier, except that silhouette targets with scoring areas replaced the old NRA bulls-eye targets.

The gun club brought in some trainers from the Texas Defensive Shooting Association to put on a defensive shooting class. Service-size semi-autos were required, along with OWB holsters.

We shot one bulls-eye target. Then we moved to steel torso targets, three in a row. We were told to shoot at the tree targets as rapidly as we could, while hitting them consistently. They took audio video, and told us to do it again. And again. And again. For the better part of the first day, we did that over and aver again. The goal was to increase rapidity of fire and hit rate. After eight hundred to a thousand rounds each, most of the new students had registered 30+ percentage improvements in each measure.

I had never dreamed of shooting so rapidly. I did not understand the reason, at first. I had never thought about the fact that a fit attacker can cover five yards in one second, and I was not aware that the realities of handgun wounding meant that one might need, say, 2 to 5 hits to stop him.

They went on to add in shooting while moving forward, sideways, and backward.

At the end of the day, I considered myself trained. But these drills still involved shooting at a target in a location which that we already, knew, just like shooting at the target range.

Some time after that, I attended a two-day course with a nationally known defensive shooting trainer. After some excellent classroom lecture sessions, we went out the range.

The range consisted of earthen backstops on three sides. After some preliminary drills to instill the concept of reaching a balance of speed and precision, the real training started.

The student would walk around within the berms, turning in different directions. The instructor would call out something to describe which one of a number of targets represented a threat. Directions and distances varied greatly. Most were well under seven yards away,

The student would look around, determine which target represented the threat, trn toward it, draw while moving off line, and shoot. Sometimes a second target would be called out immediately.

Now, I really considered myself trained.

But--the targets were stationary, and they did not shoot back. And any shoot/no-shoot training was weak at best.

For the last of these, a laser training facility with appropriate scenarios can help a lot.. For moving targets that shoot back, Force on force training with Simunitions or with Airsoft guns can help a lot. I have not done that, because I am no longer sufficiently fit.

The second class described above was useful not only for the shooting, but in what it taught about threats materializing rom different angles. I haven't walked past an alley opening, a dumpster, a parked truck, or a guy standing on the corner with quite the same mindset since that time.

I hope this proves helpful.

 

Survive if you can defeat/stop the attacker, die or be injured if you cannot. Same as in any actual FORCE on FORCE event. Reality doesn't give you a break because you have physical limitations.

When you get in a jam, you do what you can to get out of it--maybe you fail, maybe you succeed. If you succeed, maybe you are injured or suffer some other sort of medical event if you are overstressed by the incident. But you take that and deal with it the best you can after the fact because there was no other option at the time.

On the other hand, Intentionally putting yourself into an optional situation that carries a significant risk of injury or life-threatening medical event (e.g. physically vigorous training for someone who has serious medical limitations) doesn't make sense. You train the best way you can without putting yourself at significant risk. Since the goal of self-defense is to preserve wellbeing and life, it doesn't make sense to go beyond what's prudent from a risk standpoint during training and each person should do the best they can in terms of assessing their own physical limitations when choosing training.

 

Another thought:

I pointed out that except for FoF training, traditional defensive shooting training falls short in some areas;

• The threats do not move
• The threats do not shoot back
• Shoot/no-shoot decision training is weak; that can be addressed in laser training facilities

There's one other thing that deserves some really serious thought: Every shooting facility hat allows the use of live ammunition requires effective backstops. There are no purpose-built backstops around the gas pumps or between your driveway and the front porch, but it is extremely important that we not endanger innocent people behind the threat, or in front of the threats for that matter.

I once stepped into a situation in which a store robbery was about to happen. My location relative to that of the perp and the intended victims put me in jeopardy and dictated intervention if the robbery were to happen.

I looked around, evaluated the physical backstops in the building, and observed who among the customers could move where. I moved to take into account all of those things. My movement the would be robber to bolt out of the store.

Shortly after that happened, I read an account by Kathy Jackson about an outdoor situation in which she had to draw. She said "my immediate thought was 'backstop'...".

this is something we have to handle according to circumstance. I'm not sure how to train for it, except mentally.

 

I never said you did. Just as I assumed you accurately assessed your abilities and went ahead with FoF training after working with the instructor to deal with your limitations, I also assumed that the other poster accurately assessed their abilities and decided not to go forward.

If, instead of assuming you both accurately assessed your abilities, I assume that one of you was not accurate in their assessments, to which one should I give the benefit of the doubt? Or should I assume that neither one of you can accurately assess your abilities?

 

One does not want to practice anything that looks like running toward a target, or from one target to another. There may be a few rare real-world situations in which that might be appropriate, but in most, it could undermine a lawful defense of self defense. Good defensive traininf should encourage getting away from the threat.

Same issue.

We want to train for defensive tactics only.

 

Ok.

1. If that's your recommended approach, you should have taken it instead of assuming the OP wasn't accurately assessing his handicaps and responding without asking for an explanation.

2. I'm not going to assume that everyone is happy to explain their handicaps. Not everyone enjoys, or is willing to discuss their physical shortcomings, and even those who are may have little or no interest in justifying their limitations to others or the nonsense that can lead to. e.g.:
Bob: "I have 3 compressed disks and a bad knee which severely limit what I can do physically."
One-Upper Frank: "Oh yeah, well, I have 5 compressed disks and the excruciating pain makes me scream aloud in agony 24 hrs a day even after taking 10 fentanyls--also, both my hips and one knee are missing so much cartilage I'm now 6 inches shorter on one side and 3" shorter on the other. In spite of that, I still load 16 tons of #9 coal every day and run a marathon every other Tuesday! What's the matter with you? Slacker!"

 

Nope.

Consider the lawful objective. We may not make it immediately necessary to employ deadly force.

 

Our justification for using deadly force extends to defending against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm--one that is happening or is just about to happen. The window of imminence opens and closes and may open again.

If we have to run to a place where we can shoot at someone, the threat is not imminent, though it might have been earlier.

Our objective is not to "take out" the bad guy.

There are a few exceptions, such as defending a family member.

We may not employ deadly force because a fight had commenced. We may not do so because someone has shot at us, though he is a bad guy. We may not employ deadly force because a man who has shot at us may be inclined to do it again.

We don't follow those rules in paintball. If we have good instructors, we won't be allowed to do those things in FoF exercises.

 

It is very true indeed.

Okay, but--once again, the objective is to defend against an imminent threat--not to "end the threat".

It the threat is still imminent, that's one thing. There may be circumstances in which a man who has threatened with a firearm and who appears to no longer be attacking may well still pose an imminent threat. For example, a suspect who is retreating with his firearm could easily turn very rapidly and shoot again. Shooting would likely be justified. Were he armed with a contact weapon, that would be a different story.

But if a man waves a gun at me or shoots at me and then heads away and may be around a building, I have no business going to "get him". The window of imminence has closed, even though he is still armed. The immediate danger to me has passed. What he might to later is speculative.

That is the problem with comparing competition with defensive shooting. The competitor will try to score hits on the target, but the "reasonable person" will avoid further danger.