Has your handgun training set you up to be killed?

[West Texas]

INteresting article...kinda long, but makes some valid points!

Handgun Training Problem

 

[Bullseye Shooter]

Another interesting read is American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill President Truman – and The Shoot-out That Stopped It by Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge, Jr. It shows the difference in training, at the time, between the Secret Service and the guys who tried to kill Truman. And it also shows how the press hushed up what really happened.

 

[West Texas]

Another interesting read is American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill President Truman – and The Shoot-out That Stopped It by Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge, Jr. It shows the difference in training, at the time, between the Secret Service and the guys who tried to kill Truman. And it also shows how the press hushed up what really happened.

I'll have to get that book...looks like a great story!

 

[TimberWolf7.62]

The article disparages "learn to shoot using the sights, and then advance on to point shooting" (not an exact quote) but that is what I think should be done. Same as learning how to do something right, then work on doing it fast.

You can practice point shooting at home by closing your eyes and drawing your weapon, then open your eyes and you should be pointing at your intended target. For a real situation/live fire practice, hold your pistol as normal but raise your head a little so that you are not looking through the sights (and therefore have a wider field of view to see enemies/targets) but you still know closely where the muzzle is pointed.

 

[Dcav]

Perhaps a better title would be "Does your lack of handgun training set you up to be killed" interesting article though. Will give it a re-read when I get home.

 

[matefrio]

My first round of IDPA was a real eye opener to shooting and moving. Static target shooting doesn't prepair you for much more than load\unload\mag change etc under controlled conditions.

 

[SIG_Fiend]

The inverse question can be posed. Have point shooting advocates set you up to be killed? I will say this much, point shooting has a place, but IMO it exists almost solely at contact distance where you are unable to draw to full extension for fear of a weapon grab. Other than that, use your sights. It's all how you train. While I personally feel that point shooting is yet another tool to add to the tool box, I personally have a serious distrust of many of those pushing it as far too often I've seen it pushed on people that don't even have a good handle on the fundamentals of iron sight usage, proper trigger pull, proper grip, etc. If people don't have a good handle on those things, it really doesn't matter how they aim as they will still be all over the place. Oh yeah, and the whole premise that if you can point your finger than that is enough to be accurate, it's BS. Your finger does not have 2 points of reference to be aligned, so that theory is incorrect.

To give you all a great example of why point shooting is of no benefit unless the fundamentals of firearm manipulation are mastered, I'll tell you about several different beginners I've helped out. One lady had a serious trigger yank and recoil anticipation issue (breaking the wrists down before breaking the shot). Believe it or not, at 3 YARDS (yes 3 yards, you read that right) she missed all 15 rounds from a G19 on a B27 target. I'm talking not a single hit on paper, and she actually did that twice! Another guy, a bit more experienced, but still a beginner, had similar issues. At 7yds, he could not get a single shot on paper most of the time. I have actually had people before shooting the rental AR and AK that could not get rounds on a B27 target at 15yds and 25yds. All of these people, once we worked on the fundamentals of trigger pull, grip, sight alignment, sight focus, they improved drastically. You know what helped them a lot? Learning to use the front sight as their gas pedal. The front sight and it's relationship to the target tells you a lot. It is a clear indicator of what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong, and when used properly and when exercising the fundamentals properly, you can call your shots because you will know precisely where that front sight was when you broke the shot. The problem with point shooting is consistency. I will continue to believe that people advocating point shooting past contact distance engagements (maybe ~0-3yds, maybe 5yds or so) are doing a disservice to everyone.

You know what though, people could just bypass this issue entirely and just cheat by using a red dot. I think with a modern, ruggedized, miniature red dot, that would be the ideal way and certainly more consistently accurate than point shooting.

My words don't matter as much as this guy's:

 

[West Texas]

...

You know what though, people could just bypass this issue entirely and just cheat by using a red dot. I think with a modern, ruggedized, miniature red dot, that would be the ideal way and certainly more consistently accurate than point shooting....

For night defense I don't know what I ever depended on before! Great points, and another tool is always important...but NOTHING beats knowing your weapon, how it feels and reacts and how it all finds in relation to the postion to your hand, and that only comes from practise, and practising the RIGHT way!