Don't Get Training

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by AZAK

...because one was spending that time elsewhere (possibly with firearm training in part?), to be actively involved with one's children's education and upbringing might have some culpability in their prison sentence. "It all started because my Daddy was too busy to come to the school play..."...

I suspect a lot of folks have managed to schedule their training around their kids' school plays. But it never ceases to amaze me the ingenuity some people who carry/keep a gun for defense can show in concocting rationalizations for not getting some firearms training.

[psyfly]

",,,may not screw up..."

'May' being the operative word here.

A major problem is that we will never be able to know how much training is enough training. No matter how talented we are, how skilled we are, how well trained we are, bad things can happen.

So, we train as often as we can and as much as we can and still lead normal lives, I think.

For me, the problem of whether to interject deadly force into a crowded environment (given sufficient threat) comes down to:

I will almost certainly risk the possibility of an unintended injury (using everything I’ve learned and trained to avoid injuring an innocent) rather than face the certainty of how I will feel if I do nothing.

Best,

Will

[markj]

But you can't know ahead of time what's going to happen and what protecting yourself and your family will require you to do.

No, but you can try to avoid confrontations.

Where do you suggest we go that is perfectly safe? School, church, government building, nursery, computer store, day care center? All these places are the sites of shootings and murders. Cemeteries are pretty safe I think.

And how will training improve this? I stated the training I have had, I would not expect anyone else to need this in any normal SD situation.

The bg will wait till a person comes along and trip his trap, no amount of training will help you if someone has a gun leveled at you.

Best bet is know the areas and stay out of bad places.

My list of bad places:
any Mall
large assemblies of folks
big citys (Omaha is border but I stay out as much as I can, people shooting each other daily here)

good places:
local eat um up places. we have several in our small town
local store, everyone knows everyone
feed store (steers gotta eat)
local gas station see local store


plenty of places to do my business without having to worry over who is going to try to take my stuff.

A person will do better if they know what is going on around them, be aware.

[KLRANGL]

Well here's a question I don't know the answer to:
If you do get all this training, and still manage to hurt an innocent for some reason, will that training help or hurt in your defense?

"Look at all that training he has, he must have done everything in his power to save that innocent from being hurt."
or
"Look at all that training he has, he should have been able to do better under the circumstances."

[Skans]

When I seek out additional firearms training, it is not so that I can better comply with the laws, or protect myself from lawsuits if I were (regretably) to ever shoot an inocent while being attacked.

My singular goal is to learn how to better survive an assault. There may be some side benefits from training, like getting better at making sure you don't shoot inocents, but is that what any of us are really looking for when we decide to spend money on real training. Honestly, that's not what I'm looking for. I simply want to learn and practice repeatedly successful techniques for dealing with different scenarios of being under attack by thugs. I want to better my reaction times. I want to learn whether my equipment will work for me in a stress situation or not. I want to learn my own limitations and the limitations of my equipment. I want to know my effective range and better it if I can. The more "real life" the training can simulate, the better as far as I'm concerned.

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by markj

...you can try to avoid confrontations...

Of course you can, and any intelligent person would. But if one could be assured of being 100% effective at avoiding confrontations, no one would have any use for a gun. People have guns for those very rare emergencies they couldn't otherwise avoid. And I guess that since studies show that private citizens successfully use guns defensively several million times a year, such emergencies do occur.

Originally Posted by markj

...I stated the training I have had, I would not expect anyone else to need this in any normal SD situation....

What's a "normal self defense situation"? How can anyone know that the emergency that will happen to him, if it does, will be a "normal self defense situation"?

Originally Posted by markj

...Best bet is know the areas and stay out of bad places....

Don't bad things ever happen in good places? Seems to me we've read about violent attacks at churches, local stores, gas stations, restaurants (Luby's Cafeteria, for example).

Originally Posted by markj

...plenty of places to do my business without having to worry over who is going to try to take my stuff...

Criminals often go to take stuff from places there is lots of good stuff to take. Such places tend to be nice neighborhoods where folks have money and expensive things, nice store that have nice things to take and that have customers who have money and nice things to take.

Originally Posted by KLRANGL

...If you do get all this training, and still manage to hurt an innocent for some reason, will that training help or hurt in your defense?...

On balance, I think it should help. By getting training you've demonstrated that you're a conscientious citizen who recognizes and appreciates the significant responsibility that comes with having a gun.

Sure, you may have to deal with the claim that with your training you should be held to higher standard and have been able to avoid the bad result. But one possible response would be along the lines of, "But even with training what happened was the best that could have been accomplished under the circumstances."

And as a lawyer, I'd rather deal with attacks on my client because of his training than attacks on him because of his lack of training.

[Conn. Trooper]

I am all for training. Every time I need a reminder I just go to the closest public range and watch people shoot. Scary. And thats just shooting, not carrying, getting the gun out and into action, clearing failures, reloading, etc.

Maybe you can hit a gnat at 100 yards, but can you get your gun out in a reasonable amount of time? Clear a failure? Reload? While under pressure?

My wife has much better marksmanship than I do, sadly. She can put one bullet after the other through the same hole all day long. But she has absolutely zero situational awareness ( thats not a joke, she pays almost no attention to the world around her, unless a horse is around ), can not get the gun out in time to do any good, refuses to carry a gun ( thats why I keep you around hon, every time I bring it up). And I bought her a brand new Sig 232 that she will not carry, and she shoots better than I do.

Every time I go to a public range I see guys ( its always guys, sorry ladies) that have a $3000 custom 1911 that they can't shoot, can't take apart to clean, and never carry. Then complain about the cost of training. Sell one high dollar gun and you can pay for top notch training. I went to Blackwater and stayed there for 3 days on my dime, $1000 bucks for everything. Is that a lot of money, yes. Is it worth it? Yep.

[smince]

You can't afford not to train

[mordis]

My issue with getting training is that the nearest course for me is 1500 miles away, cosisting of frontsight and gunsite institutes. Even with the free course certificate that you can get for frontsight i still have to spend over
$1k for travel, shipping my guns and ammo and hoping to god they get there be fore i do, and room and board. There is simply nothing closer, except maybe Us firearms training center in Louisville Kentucky, and i have no idea how good they are.

So what do people in my position do, when there is nothing reasonable close to them for training opportunities??

[NRAhab]

Mordis, where are you located? If Kentucky is close, I can guarantee that there are trainers closer than Gunsite and Front Sight.

[Skans]

So what do people in my position do, when there is nothing reasonable close to them for training opportunities??

You can train on your own to some degree. But, it really is important to find someone who is well trained at teaching solid defensive techniques, both with and without firearms. The guy who I train with is more about teaching how to defend against any attack, the thought being that your firearm is just one tool - in some scenarios you use it and in others you don't. I really like his methods.

Perhaps you can find someone locally who is skilled at teaching various fighting techniques who is also skilled at teaching combat handgun techniques. I know, probably not that easy to do. I guess I'm just lucky - I happen to have a good friend who is an excelent instructor. I'd probably have to pick some multi-day course and spend the big bucks. I should probably do that anyway - it would be interesting to see how what I've learned stacks up to what is taught in one of those courses.

[azredhawk44]

mordis, I went to my local gun club and found lots of training opportunities. Defensive pistol, tactical pistol, defensive shotgun, defensive carbine, many levels of the classes for progressive skill levels.

Each course was $100 to $300, depending on time and curriculum. Each was offered either on weeknights, or weekends.

That's excellent value.

But, hey: I could always save that $300 and buy another Judge.

[mordis]

Nrahab, i live in Ft. Wayne Indiana. To my knowldge none of the shooting leages here, have any tacticle pistol courses. They have lots of rifle and shotgun classes for the hunters but unless things have changed in the last few years, i havnt seen any personal protection classes anywere in my area.

Ill do a bing search tonight and see if i can find any.

[ATW525]

My issue with getting training is that the nearest course for me is 1500 miles away, cosisting of frontsight and gunsite institutes. Even with the free course certificate that you can get for frontsight i still have to spend over
$1k for travel, shipping my guns and ammo and hoping to god they get there be fore i do, and room and board. There is simply nothing closer, except maybe Us firearms training center in Louisville Kentucky, and i have no idea how good they are.

So what do people in my position do, when there is nothing reasonable close to them for training opportunities??

While I feel your pain, as there's nothing close enough to me to not require lodging, I'm having a hard time believing there's nothing within 1500 miles of you. I will admit, though, that a lack of local options definitely keeps me from taking additional training.

[smince]

Look at the Training Schools List at the top of this forum.

I know for a fact that Suarez International has instructors in many states and they travel often offering classes:

http://www.suarezinternationalstore....chesterin.aspx

[mordis]

ATW525 I agree with you that there must be training options localy but they just arnt advertising or making there name known to average citizens. Maybe i just neeed to look harder, but google and bing searches just come up empty for me.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I googled Indiana Firearms training and a bunch of things appeared. Indianapolis and Fort Wayne.

There's also a forum: http://ingunowners.com/forums/

They have training subsection.

[mordis]

Glenn, I must have horrid bing skills, but i did manage to find a few really close buy. There is even one in my home town but the guy is a attorney, and has been a NRA instructor for a long time. Should a lack of police/military dissaude me from taking courses from him? Here is his website http://www.iftnra.com/index.html Im not sure how to make this a Link but his is with in a few miles of me...

[Tamara]

Originally Posted by markj

good places:
local eat um up places. we have several in our small town

So Luby's Cafeteria in Kileen, TX would be a "good place", then?

[NickW]

I have a moral obligation to every single one of those people in those cars, in that store that I will be trained to the best of my ability so that should I have needed to shoot my attacker, I wouldn't have unnecessarily endangered their lives with my incompetence.

That's it period!

When I was in the Biz training DOD types I was shocked at how little training was retained from one six month qual to the next by some, but then again they were required to carry, Gawd what a strange complicated world we live in. Any Whoo, if you are going to walk out the door with a weapon on your person then you must have a modicum degree of training and that training should be vetted by a test; yes, If you are not tested then it does not count, at least in my book.

[Tamara]

mordis,

If you are in Indiana, you are local to one of the best gold mines of training opportunities in the US.

Sherrif Ken Campbell of Boone County is an adjunct instructor at Gunsite and hosts some of the best trainers in the country, including Louis Awerbuck and Pat Rogers, at the BCSD range. Drop him an email and he'll put you on his mailing list. Maybe I'll see you at an Awerbuck course next year?

[mordis]

Do i get ahold of him through the sheriffs office website, or does he have his own website??

Edit found it and will contact him, That is so cool.. Tho my other question, regarding the NRA training in Fort Wayne that i posted in a link earlier. Is that training school worth a look or should i move on?

[AZAK]

At this juncture I am unsure of exactly what the point of this thread is.

Has anyone stated that they are vehemently opposed to the idea that training can be beneficial?

Earlier on there was some protest concerning the idea of state or federal imposed mandates masked as back door gun control. Which was dismissed by a moderator as "off topic"/not the point.

Given that we are in the Tactics and Training forum, are we to understand that we are morally obligated to receive higher levels of training as we enter into higher population densities? (This seems to be the closest that I can get to wrapping my brain around this thread.)

fiddletown states:

But it never ceases to amaze me the ingenuity some people who carry/keep a gun for defense can show in concocting rationalizations for not getting some firearms training.

And later states:

And I guess that since studies show that private citizens successfully use guns defensively several million times a year, such emergencies do occur.

And pax states in the OP:

As long as we can point to valid experiences that show that neither accidents nor crime rates go up when untrained people exercise their right to carry guns (and we can! over and over and over again)

While in a gun shop earlier this month, a clerk there told me that in Anchorage over 19,000 Ruger LCPs have been sold. (I realize that this is "second hand" information.) However, if this is even close to accurate:
261,446 total men, women, and children in Anchorage divided by 19,000=between every 11 or 12 people (including children) one would have a LCP. (Of course, some may not live in Anchorage who purchased them there, but then again children can not buy a LCP; just for fun, call it a wash.) And this does not include any other type of firearm.

Regardless of the accuracy of the numbers, I have not noted "scores" of headlines proclaiming the numbers of innocents gunned down mistakenly in Anchorage by untrained, albeit well intentioned, private citizens attempting to stop someone else's aggressions.

I, for one, am happy that Alaska is a "gun friendly" state. I am happy to help out "newcomers", as well as "know-it-alls". I have received training, and taken additional training, and shoot on a regular basis. (Because I enjoy it.)

So, do I worry about "grandma" with her LCP in her purse at the grocery store? No. Am I going to say that she, or her son, or her granddaughter are morally responsible to attend training and perhaps further training in firearms before going to the grocery store armed. No. I am personally happy that more folks are interested in participating in one of their rights.

Can all of them benefit from such training. Yes. Are they morally obligated across the board to obtain such training? No. Each individual may choose to, or not to, acquire training, and even additional training, and still we have more people exercising their rights - stopping violence- and according to the OP not creating additional problems; as a whole.

[bikerbill]

This is an excellent discussion, and it was started by an excellent and well-thought-out argument.

In Texas, no formal training is required to receive a CHL. You do have to demonstrate you can fire a handgun, but that's about it. When the issue of required training is raised, I picture my original CHL class. One of the members was a woman who came to class with a new j-frame she had admittedly just purchased and never fired. She failed the first shooting go-round; with the help of the instructor, she passed the second time around.

Did she desperately need training? Hell, yes. Picturing her walking the street with a concealed weapon and no idea how to use it is scary to me. Should the state require training? I'm torn; I hate government intrusion in any part of my life. I've taken four professionally taught courses since I got my CHL; I'd take more if I could afford them on my retirement budget. But does the state owe me and other citizens the right to protection from the above woman, armed and with not a clue about how to use the lethal tool the state says she can conceal and use in dire straits? I think they do; if you issue a license to do something, those who receive it should be able to do what they're licensed to do safely. If your doctor received a license to practice after demonstrating he could clean and bandage a scratch, would you feel ok going to him for treatment? Do you feel safe with my classmate on the loose with a handgun she may never have fired after receiving the license?

Good questions; I don't have the answers. But I do remember exactly what she looked like, and if I see her, I'm heading in the other direction -- fast.

[BlueTrain]

Private citizens use guns to defend themselves several million times a year? That work out to an average of 100,000 times a year per state (including Alaska), if we assume "several million" is five million, for the sake of discussion. Or over 13,000 times a day.

Are these believable statistics?