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Old October 18, 2010, 10:46 AM   #26
kraigwy
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What I've noticed is that the better a shooter is, the more aware they are of their own deficiencies and areas they need to improve. It's poor shooters who are universally assured that they don't need to improve. (Of course, there are scientific studies explaining why this is true....)

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Old October 18, 2010, 11:28 AM   #27
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Good post Pax!


I think if you're going to carry to protect yourself, then shoot good enough to do just that. If you're going to carry for the well being of other innocents, train for that.

I have always feared something-what if my family is held hostage in front of me; can I make the shot, and not hit my loved ones? I can shoot pretty well with my handgun, but rather than hitting center mass on a B-27, I will have to make a head or shoudler shot, AND not hit a loved one.

Something I need to work on, definitely.
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Old October 18, 2010, 12:20 PM   #28
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The state has no interest in ensuring that you are well-prepared to save your own life or the lives of people you love, so the state minimum requirements don't do much toward that end.
The state's interest in training requirements is generally due to pressure from opposition to concealed-carry legislation. In many states, carry legislation was a hot-button issue, and legislators were under a great deal of pressure from both sides. A training requirement, whether or not it was fair or effective, was a way to appease opposition. I doubt that a concern for public safety was the foremost factor in most cases.

For example, in Florida, a hunting license qualifies. Acquiring a hunting license doesn't make one prepared to carry a handgun for self-defense. In the end, it's just another hoop people have to clear before getting a permit.

Now, when I was coming up in the 1990's, the idea of civilian carry was taken very seriously. It was assumed to be a huge responsibility, and one was expected to be quite proficient and practice often.

Nowadays, I talk to people who just bought their first gun last week. They've shot it once, if at all, and the sum total of their training involves shooting at beer cans with their neighbor, and what they gleaned from the internet. That truly worries me.

It seems tempting to say, "well, there should be state-mandated training before someone screws it up for all of us." However, I've been to a few state-mandated classes across the country, and the quality has ranged from mildly helpful to downright dreadful.

What's the solution? We are. Tamara and Pax nailed it. We need to be mentoring among ourselves. We need to be willing to give our time and energy where possible.
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Old October 18, 2010, 12:48 PM   #29
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Read the NRA armed citizen accounts. Over and over again "untrained" citizens protect hearth and home. Some times coming to the aid of others. Training in my opinion is highly overrated. Mostly touted by those who want to sell one a class.
There are numerous problems with using reports from the Armed Citizen to determine the value of training:

1. These reports are not random, they are specifically selected by the NRA. Ever read an Armed Citizen where the citizen dies in his home bleeding while the bad guys run away with all of his stuff? That happens in real life; but never happens in the Armed Citizen.

2. The Armed Citizen rarely, if ever, even comments on the level of firearms training a person has. On the rare occasions when there is some evidence of training, it doesn't quantify it.

Relying on the Armed Citizen as your primary evidence that training is overrated is faulty logic.

Having had some Force-on-Force training, my experience was that firearms training was a tremendous benefit. It freed my brain up to think about tactics instead of worrying about whether I was executing the basics of marksmanship correctly. To the extent that my firearms handling was instinctive (and not all of it was), it was a great help. It also showed me that being able to shoot and handle a firearm well was just the first step on a long road. Fighting with a firearm is a whole different ballgame from IPSC/IDPA style shooting.
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Old October 18, 2010, 01:08 PM   #30
Glenn E. Meyer
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But Pax, all internet shooters only have 'good' or 'justified' shoots!

Great work, BTW.
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Old October 18, 2010, 01:09 PM   #31
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Training is as only good as the trainer. I've seen far too many "training classes" where it's the guy or gal from the local gun shop that know far less about firearms than most of the people in the class. Our local gun club is famous for clueless "certified trainers". Working in or even owning a gun shop doesn't make you an "expert" on firearms or firearm usage.

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Old October 18, 2010, 01:31 PM   #32
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Training is as only good as the trainer.
I agree.

Many guns are junk, too.

Be an informed consumer.
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Old October 18, 2010, 01:52 PM   #33
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Originally Posted by pax
I live in a very conservative area, and sentiment around here strongly hopes the jury refuses to convict. Perhaps he'll be acquitted.

But it's a close thing, and by no means a certain one. And you'd never hear about the consequences to the homeowner if you'd only read the initial reports which made the national news.
And if he is fortunate enough to be acquitted, few will appreciate just how heavy the consequences will be even then. Job loss, huge bills, bankruptcy, loss of friends, community backlash, nightmares - all of these can and have happened to people who were acquitted by the jury.

Quality training can not only help you survive the event itself; it can better prepare you for the aftermath as well.
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Old October 18, 2010, 01:55 PM   #34
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I'm still struggling to understand the gist of pax's original post. In it I see...
  • State-mandated training is useless. The state shouldn't be involved.
  • The state doesn't care about you, only about the people you might shoot.
  • The state keeps poor women from being able to protect themselves (not sure why poor men would be excluded).
  • Accident rates don't go up when untrained people carry, so why should the state bother to regulate it?
I also see...
  • Untrained people shouldn't carry, your gun can't possibly do you any good.
  • Unmarried unattached people don't need much if any training.
  • Family people should be able to shoot a kidnapper without harming their baby held in the arms of the kidnapper.
  • If you care about people and might act to defend someone else then you need more than basic training.
  • If you are going to be shooting at a potential mass murderer in a crowd then you need LOTS of training.
  • If you're too stupid to get training then you deserve to be self-eliminated.
Regardless of whether these statements are valid when evaluated one at a time, I don't see a coherent thread running through them. What's the point?
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Old October 18, 2010, 02:08 PM   #35
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Two reasons people are anti-training (perhaps not coincidentally, this is also why people are anti- competing in organized shooting sports):

1) "It costs too much." Somebody has fifteen guns, a motorcycle, a PS3 with plenty of games hooked to his flat-panel TeeWee (not to mention the PS2 and PlayStation in the attic), and who knows how many other toys, and a $200-$400 handgun training course "costs too much". Hey, Skippy, how 'bout selling that Taurus Raging Judge you were bragging about buying last week and using the proceeds to get yourself taught how to use one of the fourteen other guns you already had? (And maybe sell one of those and take an MSF class for your motorcyclin' while you're at it.) The problem is, people can't point at new mental furniture and say to their friends "Look what I just bought!"

2) People can't shoot, but think they can. At the range, nobody is really watching them shoot and, face it, everybody else at the range is awful, too. But if they go to a class or enter a match, it will get proved officially: "Joe/Jane Averageshooter: First Loser". It takes humility to learn and lose. Humble people don't boast on their adequacy. So most people go and buy another gun instead, because when they open the box on that gun, it won't look up at them and say "You stink!"; it'll say "You just bought the official pistol of SWATSEAL Team 37 1/2! Congratulations!"
Thank you, Tamara. While being very topical, accurate and lucid, it also caused me to snort my beverage onto my keyboard.

My day is brighter as a result, and it will be brighter yet once I clean the keyboard off.
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Old October 18, 2010, 03:21 PM   #36
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I for one want to see more state training, by this I mean a class where you sit and the instructor informa you just exactly what the permit allows and is meant for. Then they go to a range to see if the permit applicant can actually hit a target at 7 yards. The rest is up to the permit applicant.

The important part is the classroom instructions. Permit holders should be at least informed as to what they can legally do with the firearm. To make a person have to take an advanced and expensive class just for SD, well that is just wrong in my mind.

Know the laws, know when to use, know how to hit the target.

Most important know how to dial 911 and when.
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Old October 18, 2010, 03:46 PM   #37
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There is some missing of Pax's point and one that I've been toying with.

I see two commonly proposed uses of the SD gun.

1. You versus the mugger.

2. You in an high intensity critical incident. A Columbine or Mumbai.

In the former, you probably do OK with just the permit class. Most are deterrent uses anyway. I would still train but if you are the untrained William Tell with nerves of steel - good for you. Note I will sue you if you screw up, like the dudes who 'shot' me in training because they screwed up.

In the second, if you put forth explicitly that you want to be ready for such - you probably need more training. You need to handle stress, you need to hit the target under extreme stress. You need not to get in the way of the first responders. You need not shoot an innocent.

May the untrained aid - perhaps - but my view is that if you especially toot the horn of the 2nd scenario - you have a responsibility to have some competence in such.

I would not like to see someone with no training, whip out a Taurus Judge from the back of a classroom and launch some SD expanding pattern of shot and discs at a significant distance.

I would prefer that they could make a more precise shot or know when not to try it.

I would prefer that if a critical incident occurs, you might have the sense to defend your location competently, rather than run commando like into the hall. Running into the first responders might be interesting for you. I would prefer you have some stress innoculation so that if you see some poor international student in unfamilar garb (we have lots of such), you don't just open fire. Data suggests such might happen. Police train for such.

If you get my drift, I don't worry that much about you in your house. If we had significant numbers of armed folks in high density environments, I think they have the moral responsibility not to do extra damage - if they say they are going to enter the tray.

Yep, we can all make head shots across a long distance and never fail.
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Old October 18, 2010, 03:48 PM   #38
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Read the NRA armed citizen accounts. Over and over again "untrained" citizens protect hearth and home. Some times coming to the aid of others. Training in my opinion is highly overrated.
Protecting your home is one thing. Carrying a gun in public is another. Training is not overrated. This doesn't mean that you have to pay thousands of dollars to attend a name-brand training course. You don't. But, I can assure you that unless you've been taught certain types of defensive moves and defensive shooting, and if you haven't practiced them, you simply won't be prepared for most forms of attacks.

Bad guys train. They practice. You don't think they simply go out to their local gun shop buy a gun and then decide to stick it in your chest at an ATM machine with no training, do you?

I understand completely what PAX is saying and I agree with her. If you've never trained, but carry a gun, you have no idea how long it takes you to draw your weapon, what your effective range is, or even when to draw your weapon. If someone is holding a gun to you at close to point blank range (mid chest, mid back) - are you going to attempt to draw your own gun and shoot the guy??? Better think again.

What would you do if three armed thugs enter into a Wendy's as you are sitting down eating? I have a pocket holster - learned that drawing while seated is quite difficult and time consuming. There are lots of things you can learn when someone else is playing the bad guy pointing a gun at you. You learn just how long a second really is when you are under stress- it's HUGE! Training helps you know your limitations, know your equiptment's limitations and teaches you how to work around those limitations for effective defesne.

Also, training with paint-ball guns or tricked out 1911's is not the same thing as training with the gun you generaly carry. I pocket carry a DOA pistol - my reaction times are significantly more than someone who carries a single action only in a clip-type holster. I have second/third strike capability - SAO need to clear the "jam". However, I sacrifice quickness for this - someone else can get off 3 shots to my one.

You can't ever have too much GOOD training.

IMHO, real training is critical for folks who carry in public.
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Old October 18, 2010, 03:58 PM   #39
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Originally Posted by Skans
I pocket carry a DOA pistol -
Best. Gun Forum. Freudian Slip. EVAR.
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Old October 18, 2010, 04:06 PM   #40
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What would you do if three armed thugs enter into a Wendy's as you are sitting down eating?
My family and I were sitting in a pizza parlor the other night (in a fairly rough area with a double-door front entrance and an open floor plan) and discussed this very thing. After we sat down, I considered our self defense options with some dissatisfaction about the odds given where we sat. We discussed what to do if someone came in the door with a gun to demand money from the register, which was right up front behind the counter. I didn't really see a good course of protective action, we were sitting in a pretty vulnerable spot near the front and I concluded that it would take at least a few seconds to get my wife and daughter moved away from the table and headed toward the restrooms in back (at least we scouted out their location). I think the next time we go there we will sit in a more protected spot.
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Old October 18, 2010, 04:15 PM   #41
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Originally Posted by spacecoast
My family and I were sitting in a pizza parlor the other night (in a fairly rough area with a double-door front entrance and an open floor plan) and discussed this very thing. After we sat down, I considered our self defense options with some dissatisfaction about the odds given where we sat. We discussed what to do if someone came in the door with a gun to demand money from the register...
Jeebus, do these people not deliver?
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Old October 18, 2010, 04:28 PM   #42
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I'm all for training,,,

I want to state that right off the bat.

But I am vehemently against making training a requirement for gun ownership.

It's not because I don't think it is valuable and/or desirable,,,
I'm against a requirement because it is all to often used as a tool to restrict ownership.

<RANT>

Pro-gunners will say training requirements make the gun toting populace more safe in their community,,,
And I can not argue with that on it's face value.

But Anti-gunners will just smile and say this is one more spurious roadblock we can put between people and gun ownership.

These types of laws always start with the best of good intentions,,,
But our legal system is not based on the intent of the law,,,
It is based on the letter of the law.

In our Supreme Court rulings they all know in their hearts what the Framers meant when they wrote "shall not be infringed".

But our system doesn't care what the framers of any law meant,,,
It supports "letter of the law" interpretations that have no connection to the original intent.

So if you open the tent flap and let the camel's nose of "reasonable" training requirement into your tent,,,
It will not be long before the anti-gunners use this as a precedent to set more restrictive requirements for ownership.

Then you see a system in where the moneyed elite can afford handguns,,,
But they have successfully kept the "rabble" from owning one.

</RANT>

This is not something you/we want to see happen.

Or maybe some of us gun owners do want it to happen,,,
I hear plenty of that talk at my rifle & pistol club every time we have a general meeting.

There is always some elite snob who wants to raise the rates for our range,,,
"Best way to keep the riff-raff out".

.



.
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Old October 18, 2010, 04:35 PM   #43
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Originally Posted by Tom Servo
The state's interest in training requirements is generally due to pressure from opposition to concealed-carry legislation. In many states, carry legislation was a hot-button issue, and legislators were under a great deal of pressure from both sides. A training requirement, whether or not it was fair or effective, was a way to appease opposition....
And that is the very real world political dimension of the question. And I wonder sometimes whether some people don't have a reaction against training because state training requirements are largely politically motivated, as Tom suggests.

Nonetheless, whether required or not, getting good training is the wise and responsible thing to do. Whether or not government requires it is irrelevant to this discussion. We should require it of ourselves.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Servo
...What's the solution? We are. Tamara and Pax nailed it. We need to be mentoring among ourselves. We need to be willing to give our time and energy where possible.
Well said.
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Old October 18, 2010, 04:42 PM   #44
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Aaron, we acknowledge that training as a requirement as a political dimension as a tool to restrict gun ownership.

That's not the issue as I see it. The issue for me is that you have the moral responsibility not to do harm through incompetence when you act in an environment that contains more people than you!

That's the current issue.

Yes, training may be good for you - but I don't give a crap if you screw up and get killed by yourself.

But if you talk the critical incident sheepdog line, as many do, then you'd better stand up.
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Old October 18, 2010, 04:57 PM   #45
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I pocket carry a DOA pistol -

Best. Gun Forum. Freudian Slip. EVAR.

Oh, Tamara, I do deserve a good ribbing for that one!!!!

P.S. admittedly, having a double action only pistol in a pocket holster...in your pocket is not the ideal way to carry. Problem is that I generaly wear slacks, belt and a tucked-in shirt. I can't just rely on a shirt for cover - and I don't want something as involved as a shoulder holster.
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Old October 18, 2010, 05:37 PM   #46
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Originally Posted by pax
What I've noticed is that the better a shooter is, the more aware they are of their own deficiencies and areas they need to improve. It's poor shooters who are universally assured that they don't need to improve. (Of course, there are scientific studies explaining why this is true....)
First off, thank you for linking that study, as it is nice to have actual confirmation of a personal belief I've held for some time now. You're also correct; it has been my limited experience in competition shooting that the more experienced and skilled the shooter is, the more aware of their mistakes and areas in which they need improvement.

I think Tam cut right to the heart of the argument with her second statement - people don't like being categorically proven that they can't shoot very well. It is much easier on the ego to just blast a shotgun into the berm at shot range with your friends, or shoot mediocre groups at 25 feet at the range than it is to go to a class or a match and actually have strangers see you shoot.
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Old October 19, 2010, 05:41 AM   #47
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I tend to agree that make a training requirement a prerequisite to firearms ownership is a sort of trap. You either have a right to own a firearm or you don't, unlike hunting, which is more of a privilege and for which a training class is now required in some places. Of course you don't need a firearm to hunt.

To put a different angle on this question, however, how many of you ever took a driver's training class for "advanced driving" after you were twenty years old? Truck drivers do, I presume, and my brother-in-law did because he worked for a federal agency but I never did.

I keep thinking of past gun writers. Few ever mentioned training at all. Keith mentioned getting hints from "an old gunfighter, the real thing." But none of them went to any sort of gun handling class, except perhaps for those in the Border Patrol, many of whom seemed to have been gun writers. And I think Chic Gaylord said something about the subject. In any case it seems to be more of current thing.
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Old October 19, 2010, 08:14 AM   #48
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Hello Glenn,,,

Quote:
But if you talk the critical incident sheepdog line, as many do, then you'd better stand up.
I have absolutely no idea what you were trying to say here.

.
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Old October 19, 2010, 08:30 AM   #49
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To put a different angle on this question, however, how many of you ever took a driver's training class for "advanced driving" after you were twenty years old?
Driving is something that most people do every day. After 10, 20, or maybe even 30 years of driving we attain a certain degree of expertise simply from experience.

How many times a month does the average gun owner fire a weapon....for how long and how many rounds? I'd bet the answer to that is somewhere around 1 hour of range time 2-3 times a year. How many times a week does the most experienced of us shoot our weapons (fondling and oogling don't count)? Now, compare that to driving.
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Old October 19, 2010, 08:33 AM   #50
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Glenn:

I can agree with you that;

“…if you talk the critical incident sheepdog line, as many do…”

Then:

“…you have the moral responsibility not to do harm through incompetence…”

Otherwise, not so much.

A lot of us (myself, for the most part, included) don’t fancy ourselves to be sheepdogs, but will, nevertheless, do whatever we can to prevent some innocent child from being harmed.

As important an issue, however, is the distinct possibility that if someone is immediately threatening, for example, to execute some restaurant employee then I and my loved ones may well be next and I’m likely to take the shot on that account alone.

In which case, I submit that I neither have the moral obligation to be nor will I take the time to review whether I’m well enough trained to defend myself and mine.

None of which precludes that I will continue to maintain as high a level of competence as I can manage.

Best,

Will
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