Having been in the business for a very long time, I can tell you that most defensive firearms instructors will disagree on something.
How many firearms instructors does it take to change a light bulb? I’d say about 25. One to change the bulb, and a couple dozen others to stand around saying, “My technique would have worked better for that!”
This comes from GALEFI, the Georgia Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors, and the name on its byline is one William G. Dunno if I’ve met with William G. or not, but I can tell you I agree with most everything in this article. Big thanks to our friend Greg Ellifretz for passing it along:
Great article! I guess the reason we have so many disagreements about gunfighting is because there is so little gunfighting in America. Plus, there are just way too many variables.
Contrast gunfighting with deer hunting. There are plenty of deer hunters with decades of experience. When it comes to variables, Mas can point to gunfights where a man dies from a .22 LR wound, and gunfights where a man survives being shot by buckshot and a slug.
I live in an area that has little violent crime. I am more afraid of the legal system than I am of criminals. People in free states don’t have that problem. So, their mileage varies.
None of those “free states” have more than a couple of democrats.
Few things are more cringe-inducing (and, I suppose, potentially entertaining) than observing a newly minted Instrukter who scraped together enough money to attend a couple classes and then talked the local gun store into letting him hang a flyer to teach classes to the masses.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is very real in the gun space.
What an excellent and humorous article from William G.
Of course I don’t agree with ‘everything’ he said! (Tongue in cheek). Years ago, a wise pastor taught me when listening to “Eat the hay, and spit out the straw”
That’s good stuff. Going into the keeper file. The popular idea that a “firm” but accomodating grip with thumbs forward is the way to go has never been a starter for me. And the exemplar drill during MAG40 drives the point home: hanging into the gun tightly, thumbs locked down has very little derogatory impact point, even when gripping hard enough to shake the sight picture. Trigger control shows its worthy head once again when someone else is tripping the switch. Not to mention, it’s YOUR gun. Hang onto it like you mean it, at all costs and at all times. Great article!
Hey,
Is that guy wearing a SKIRT and NO bra???????????????
Never call a Scotsman’s kilt a “skirt,” at least not to his face…laddie.
HAHAHAHAHAHA, thank you for the clarification. #;)
Do a search on tactical kilts and you will get a ton of vendors. However, I will stick with long pants. YMMV.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GITHUUE/ref=twister_B00ZTSFJ4U?th=1
I know the kilted gentleman, a very good instructor in Texas. When asked what he has under his kilt, he will reply, “My shoes!”
Good article, and I also read a couple of other articles on that blog, which were very good as well.
The one-line takeaway I got was that just like no two guns are exactly the same, and no two shooters’ hands are exactly the same, there is no one-size-fits-all technique that works equally well for everyone.
I did enjoy his nod to the hyperbole* (“If you don’t do it THIS way, you’ll DIE in the streetz!”), and I’ll note that no matter how often I go out or how often I carry a defensive firearm or how many training classes I’ve taken, if I ever “DIE in the streetz”, it’s statistically far more likely to be from a heart attack or drunk driver … in which case my trigger technique is unlikely to affect much in either direction. 😀
Does that mean I shouldn’t keep training? Not at all, because it’s worth it in the unlikely event a violent attack ever does happen; just like a fire extinguisher, if you ever need it, you will REALLY need it RIGHT NOW, so it’s worth having.
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* – Such hyperbole is not limited to firearm instructors, either. I knew a guy who ran a martial arts school — primarily Tae Kwon Do, with his own flair — who said much the same things: “If you get attacked and you haven’t trained my system, you will die.” I did train with him some (he was the only instructor available through the community college at the time 😉 ), and he had a few decent techniques … very handy, if your goal is scoring points in tournaments against other Tae Kwon Do guys. In a real fight, eh, not so much.
The position of the handgun for reloading is the same thing I’ve been using with the AR platform for decades. If you’ve got a strength problem, put the butt on your bicep to help hold the rifle up.
Some of the cracks about competition shooters-where they agonize over 0.00X seconds-are right on. Every once in awhile I’d get a normally decent shooter whose targets were simply awful. After a little investigation I started asking those guys who’s videos they’d been watching. Then I’d note that the method didn’t seem to be working for them.
Yet another opinion about trigger jerking, and holding the gun tight enough that it doesn’t matter.
It seems to me that jerking the trigger is less likely to ruin your defense than flinching before the shot breaks. Why is there so much less talk about that? You’ll likely be shooting without ear protection, maybe even without eyeglasses, aiming at a human being — I suspect that flinching rather than trigger jerking is probably the reason so many cops in real gunfights missed the target completely at point blank range.
The solution is to choose a gun with a good trigger — either trigger that moves with smoothly increasing resistance until the trigger suddenly breaks, or a trigger that doesn’t move at all until the trigger suddenly breaks.
Separate topic. Mom’s Demand Action is having a coffee and bagel discussion about “safe storage” in a local Reform temple, and will be handing out trigger locks. (This is Tennessee.)
I would love to go and hand out manuscripts of Massad’s classic _Gun-Proof Your Children_ — or at least flyers showing where it can be purchased.
It seems to be out of print, with Amazon selling only used editions at collector prices. Suggestions? Is there a publisher of new ones for which I can hand out a page with an ad and URL? If it is truly out-of-print, might I have a URL to a free PDF so that I can print copies to hand out?
Frank S Silbermann,
So, Moms Demand Action saw what happened to Israelis on October 7th, 2023. I hope they want Jews to be armed AND safe. I am suspicious of them, and I see this is happening in a Reform temple, not an Orthodox or Conservative temple.
Jews are a tiny group of people who are surrounded by enemies, wherever they go. I am on their side. My saying goes like this, “To every Jew, a 7.62.”
More advice that I like to go by: It was in the shoot-’em-up “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” “you gonna shoot, shoot, don”t talk!” Not that exceptions never obtain.
After some reflection, his comments upon ready positions have some points, but you can find grounds to criticize any ready position. I’ve found that good ready positions can be very situation dependent. Freeing the head to move allows a much faster and unobstructed view of your surroundings. A quick pivot and driving the gun to shooting position is much faster that swinging a gun in firing position to engage a threat. Hint: if you watch gymnasts and ice skaters, when the want to rotate quickly, they draw the limbs of the body in and then extend them when they get where they want to be. Plus, you have the weight of the gun out there.
A SAS training specialist made the point that once the areas of responsibility have been sorted out, your attention should be on the most likely threat point in your area. But, you should still be aware of the rest of your area. The muzzle should be situated to allow the fastest response in that area while not blocking observation.
Dang. Now I have to rewrite all my lesson plans.
(Just kidding)
Everything William G. said is common sense, which makes it invaluable, as “sense” isn’t common anymore.
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