Recently saw this on YouTube, from a grandmaster competition shooter who is also in law enforcement.
I agree with him. I’ve said for years that while a shooting match is not a gunfight, a gunfight most certainly is a shooting match. Competition experience makes shooting under pressure the norm. Wyatt Earp competed in the informal matches in the cow towns before the OK Corral and the “vengeance ride.” FBI’s most famous gunfighter, Jelly Bryce, got into police work in the first place after a senior policeman saw him perform spectacularly at a pistol match and offered him a job. Col. Charles Askins, Jr., a contemporary of Bryce, won the national pistol championship in the mid-1930s and left a trail of dead bad guys as a Border Patrolman before, and of dead German soldiers thereafter in WWII. The two most successful gunfighters on the NYPD Stakeout Squad, Bill Allard and Jim Cirillo, both competed successfully at the national level.
AMEN! Learning how to run the gun without thinking about it and dealing with the-to borrow the phrase-compressed times of competition while still getting good shot placement are basic skill enhancement. Along with safe muzzle direction under stress.
Actually, for public/private LE, the NRA holds Tactical Police Competition matches. The courses of fire are somewhat more realistic than many others. Duty guns, not space guns, much more real world oriented. There will still be “gamers” but don’t get discouraged. You can get more information, find and borrow some courses of fire (if you’re not LE) from: https://lecompetitions.nra.org/tactical-police-competition/past-courses-of-fire/
If you’re new to competition, don’t get discouraged, there’s a learning curve to everything. You might want to start of with something a bit less driven. Most clubs are happy to help newbies.
BTW, in the video I was wondering what the heck a couple of those guns were until I realized they had optical sights.
Regular training and competition are important factors in maintaining proficiency with a handgun. I’ve found that shot placement for my first few magazines or cylinders varies in relation to how long it’s been since my last session. I’ve had friends come to shoot on my home range that struggled to even hit the target at 7 yards yet still feel confident that things will work out well in a life or death situation. Go figure.
Sure beats benchrest (except for sighting-in, of course).
I searched for Schall Shooting Solutions and nothing comes up.
Where are ranges/shools (for non-LEO) that offer this kind of training platform?
Chris, go to idpa.com for International Defensive Pistol Association matches near you. IDPA is “the concealed carry sport.” Most matches will have an indoctrination session for new shooters. Google will get you to tactical/defensive shooting schools near you. The classes I and my staff teach around the country can be found at http://massadayoobgroup.com.
WHILE I HAVE NEVER SHOT ANY KIND OF MATCH, I CERTAINLY WOULD LIKE TO TRY. MY BASIC MOTIVATION WOULD NEVER TO ACTUALLY COMPETE WITH ANYONE BUT MYSELF. HERE IN AZ, IF I HAPPEN TO COMPETE AGAINST ROB LATHAM OR OLD GEEZERS LIKE MYSELF, AT LEAST I WILL BETTER UNDERSTAND MY REACTIONS AND SKILL SETS UNDER STRESS, AND I BELIEVE THIS IS INVALUEABLE. PLUS IT WOULD BE COOL TO WATCH ROB SHOOT LIVE.
Competition is fine for refining skills. Some of which you may or msy not use professionally.
But….I recently saw a post of a competition shooter who trains and such on a static flat range extolling the possibilities of engaging targets/threats as a “CCW hero” to 100 yds with a pistol and RMR.
That is a recipe for disaster and liability, especially in a crowded venue or parking lot with people and vehicles, outside of your control, entering your shooting lane / field of fire.
Add to that most people in public ARE NOT paying ANY attention to their surroundings. Instead finger diddling their phones and kids that arent being minded running into traffic, vehicles entering parking lanes and so forth, and any one of them can enter your field of fire in an instant, NOBODY has the right to engage targets/ threats at those distances in ANY circumstances in the public realm.
Anyone else remember tht well known shooting in a large mall in the midwest, where the perp had killed some already, Joe Citizen entered the fray and “liquidated” him from a VERY long range for this type of incident. Can’t remember the numbers but most folks I know cant even hit at that range static and slow.
apparently the hero knew his gun and his skill level and was completely confident of success, then believed it was “worth the risk” to take him out at that range. That one worked.
But I’ve read of NYC coppers trying to hit a murderer loose on the street missed him but hit nine innocents on the street before, if memory serves, a “citizen” figured out what was going on and hit the murderer when opportunity presented.
Eli Dicken. 40 yards at the start.
His lawyers description of the encounter:
https://www.wthr.com/article/news/special-reports/greenwood-mall-mass-shooting/heres-what-we-know-about-eli-dicken-and-his-heroic-actions-during-greenwood-park-mall-shooting-elisjsha-indiana-gun-training/531-e87d01cd-23be-4b60-98c3-f9eab49e6202
Someone, perhaps Mas has noted that NYC has no civilian gun culture because of the gun control laws meaning that police only have their training to depend on. While that has gotten better, it still leaves much to be desired.
Desert Warrior,
I agree with you 98%. But if someone practices shooting at 100 yards, they should be able to make a head shot on a hostage-taker, who is holding a victim at, say, 20 yards.
In the real world, the problem posed by scenario you posit is WAY different than the one on the range with paper targets.
I agree. We develop our skills to get proficient at long range, so that shorter-range shots in critical situations are that much easier to pull off with nobody but the perp getting holes in him. See also the Eli Dicken example mentioned above.
Let me make a point here. What you get out of competition depends upon why you’re doing it. Which will drive how you do things. There are those who are chasing trophies, and the things they’ll do will be different from your choices. The Range Safety Officers (the person operating the timer and watching you) get accustomed to behavior that may not be relevant to the real world problem presented by the stage. Shooting on the move is an example. The real world problem is getting good hits while minimizing your exposure. NOT scoring maximum points in minimum time.
I’ve nursed a suspicion for quite awhile that I was purposely put in a particular squad in my last TPC match. There were several first timers there from the same agency and afterward, some were most discouraged by the attitudes of 2 or 3 “gamers”. I thought they’d handled themselves very well and told them so. I encouraged them to ignore the jackasses you’ll run into and continue to learn.
Mas told us that repeatedly in every course of his! I agree wholeheartedly that ANY kind of pressure is good. I remember “back in the day”…… that he’d use the Nova stun gun on us, then we had to turn and fire at a target!
good post! MAG training is a great way to start, Mas travels extensively to do this and at his age, ya better get onboard soon. IDPA will allow you to shoot on the move, find cover, shoot from a VARIETY of positions. Two-gun and three-gun are a lot of work, but at the end of the day, worth learning the weaknesses and strengths of your personal skill set. the MAG course will help you develop MIND SET…
Mas, for many years while a LEO I shot competitively with a bndd/DEA agent. He was involved in at least 3 deadly confrontations and survived. The other guys didn’t. He would frankly state it was because he practiced under the “stress” of “competition”. When you don’t have time to think you’ll fall back on what you’ve practiced.
Obviously it is a personal choice. Some people just do not like competition of any kind. They prefer to shoot with friends or alone informally. I used to enjoy it… many years ago. It was for folks with LIMITED time and money for practice and occasional competition. You would win this month, and maybe I would win next month. All of us can see those days are long gone. Friendly competition has been turned into a ruthless crusade. Some of these guys are shooting fifty two weekends a year, three times during the week, and in between sitting at a reloading bench. Took the friendliness and enjoyment right out of it. I am glad that others can enjoy it. On that note, let us be aware that there are 35,000 USPSA members and 25 000 IDPA members out of 110 million gun owners. I am still alive at 62 without being a grand master. Served my country in the Army from age 17 to 60, active, reserve, and Guard. Sorry for the soap box.
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