October 18, 2010, 10:46 AM | #26 | |
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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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October 18, 2010, 12:20 PM | #28 | |
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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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October 18, 2010, 12:48 PM | #29 | |
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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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October 18, 2010, 01:08 PM | #30 |
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But Pax, all internet shooters only have 'good' or 'justified' shoots!
Great work, BTW.
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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.
Last edited by jtb1967; October 18, 2010 at 01:44 PM. |
October 18, 2010, 01:31 PM | #32 | |
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October 18, 2010, 01:52 PM | #33 | |
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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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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...
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October 18, 2010, 02:08 PM | #35 | |
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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. |
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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October 18, 2010, 03:48 PM | #38 | |
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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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October 18, 2010, 03:58 PM | #39 | |
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October 18, 2010, 04:06 PM | #40 | |
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October 18, 2010, 04:15 PM | #41 | |
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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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October 18, 2010, 04:35 PM | #43 | ||
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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:
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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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October 18, 2010, 04:57 PM | #45 | |
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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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October 18, 2010, 05:37 PM | #46 | |
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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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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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October 19, 2010, 08:14 AM | #48 | |
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Hello Glenn,,,
Quote:
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October 19, 2010, 08:30 AM | #49 | |
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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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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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