"Going Shooting" vs Defensive Training

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

As Jeff Cooper put it, "Owning a firearm no more makes you a shooter than owning a violin makes you a musician."
I firmly believe that defensive shooting requires good to excellent marksmanship skills, I did not learn to shoot a handgun until I practiced Bullseye with a 22, Charlie Askins was a pistol champion, as was Bill Jordan, others I'm sure. in a gunfight you can win with your shots spaced fairly widely but they still have to be on target.

 

[Tinker-S]

Eh, I don't know if it's ego. Perhaps in some cases, sure.

My take is that most gun-owners, gun-carriers, shooters simply do not truly believe that "their lives will depend on" their shooting skills.

Remember that phrase we used to have posted in our team rooms and on our challenge coins?: "Would you train harder today if you knew you were going to be in the fight of your life tomorrow?" Most folks, including a lot of "gun folks" never adopt that mindset. We can preach the need for training 'til the cows come home, but at the end of the day, few avail themselves of training.

Many are content just having the firearm, some know that a huge percentage of defensive gun uses each year in this nation are successfully achieved by many with absolutely zero training, maybe some who were forced to take a class to obtain a carry license.

For me, my ticket was discovering that I loved training (fortunately, fairly early in my military career I had some fun fairly high-speed courses) and that I loved seeing my skill level improve as well as the competition aspect.

So I think a big key is, starting new shooters off, first making the actual shooting fun, then introducing the concepts of defensive shooting. I sent my wife and daughters to a well-known firearms academy and they loved it (the school actually has classes for women, taught be women). Unless one is in the military, law enforcement or otherwise works or lives daily in an environment where hey carry firearms as a tool of their job and are forced to train -- not just "go shooting," most people will never feel the compulsion to obtain training. But, if they're introduced to quality training early, have a good experience and see that it can be productive and fun, they'll spread the gospel.


Of course, the sad reality is that quality training requires substantial blocks of time and can be prohibitively expensive. But, we all have priorities.

Vacation in Cancun at an all-inclusive resort or a week at Gunsite or Thunder Ranch?

Vacation in Cancun at an all-inclusive resort. No questions asked!

 

[Corpral_Agarn]

All the more reason for folks to get into competitive shooting. Here me out.

Not everyone has access to combative training courses. Competitive shooting options are almost everywhere.

Are they the same thing? Absolutely not. Will getting involved with comp events make you an overall better gun handler/shooter? Most likely if you put in the effort.


Folks should seek out both and do whatever is available to them, preferably both.

It's a lot easier to teach tactics and train people who can already shoot.

To many times class time gets bogged down by having to review the basics of shooting

 

[Kleanbore]

It's a lot easier to teach tactics and train people who can already shoot.

You can say that again.

 

[scaatylobo]

Eh, I don't know if it's ego. Perhaps in some cases, sure.

My take is that most gun-owners, gun-carriers, shooters simply do not truly believe that "their lives will depend on" their shooting skills.

Remember that phrase we used to have posted in our team rooms and on our challenge coins?: "Would you train harder today if you knew you were going to be in the fight of your life tomorrow?" Most folks, including a lot of "gun folks" never adopt that mindset. We can preach the need for training 'til the cows come home, but at the end of the day, few avail themselves of training.

Many are content just having the firearm, some know that a huge percentage of defensive gun uses each year in this nation are successfully achieved by many with absolutely zero training, maybe some who were forced to take a class to obtain a carry license.

For me, my ticket was discovering that I loved training (fortunately, fairly early in my military career I had some fun fairly high-speed courses) and that I loved seeing my skill level improve as well as the competition aspect.

So I think a big key is, starting new shooters off, first making the actual shooting fun, then introducing the concepts of defensive shooting. I sent my wife and daughters to a well-known firearms academy and they loved it (the school actually has classes for women, taught be women). Unless one is in the military, law enforcement or otherwise works or lives daily in an environment where hey carry firearms as a tool of their job and are forced to train -- not just "go shooting," most people will never feel the compulsion to obtain training. But, if they're introduced to quality training early, have a good experience and see that it can be productive and fun, they'll spread the gospel.

Of course, the sad reality is that quality training requires substantial blocks of time and can be prohibitively expensive. But, we all have priorities.

Vacation in Cancun at an all-inclusive resort or a week at Gunsite or Thunder Ranch?

The inability to show what you know and own is THE biggest reason I have seen among those who will not compete or train.

Your results may differ,I go with my decades as a trainer and a officer who had to FORCE too many to even shoot a qual.

 

[shafter]

I've seen it in law enforcement over and over again. The majority don't want to train. Even when the ammo is free and they are being paid overtime to be at the range they still would rather not go. The same goes for free mat time at BJJ. Hardly anyone shows up.

It's like the saying goes. There are no victims, only volunteers.

 

[Varminterror]

Eh, I don't know if it's ego. Perhaps in some cases, sure.

Regarding why many gun owners don’t compete: It’s a sizable portion which are demotivated by potential impact to their pride, their ego.

I help run a reborn group on FB for beginners in PRS and NRL competition which was over 50,000 people before we got nuked by Zuckerberg and had to restart (now back to a couple thousand). I posted a poll a few months before FB closed us, asking “Why aren’t you competing?” and received a few thousand responses.

**Pausing here to clarify: there were over 50,000 members in a PRS Competition for Beginners group, while the PRS claims only 6,000 participating shooters at any time, and only around 500 pro-series members, with about as many more as regional series members, AND independent study of match data shows there are actually only around 1500 shooters which actually shoot PRS matches at any level during each season… so only 1500-6000 out of 50,000 supposedly interested beginner competitors in our group, hence why I asked the question - “why are you not competing?”

Among provided reasons included and added in the poll, far most common was, “I don’t know how and don’t want to embarrass myself,” with the most common sentiment, with the SECOND most common response being “I don’t have a rifle capable of the sport,” —> and I asked a few hundred of those respondents, “what is stopping you from getting a rifle?” to which a majority responded, “I wouldn’t be able to shoot it well enough if I DID.” which circled us back to the other most common response.

Some folks did respond that they didn’t have anywhere near them to compete, and myself and others helped a couple hundred people across the country find PRS/NRL matches within reasonable driving distances (distances which all of us competing have to drive).

Sure, there were a lot of “It’s too expensive,” and we DID connect some of those folks with NRL22 matches and Production Class options.

But the by far majority of responses, over a thousand out of the poll of a handful more thousand, were that people knew they didn’t have the skills/knowledge, and didn’t want to take the risk of underperforming in their first outings…

**Side note: many folks did mention they HAD tried one match, and realized how far behind their skills OR their rifle was from what was needed (what they deemed to be needed), and they didn’t come back. I heard a Modern Day Sniper podcast about a year later in which a guest host discussed data from PRS matches which showed that - on average - shooters will shoot only one PRS match, at either level, and never come back. One new shooter I spoke with after a “PRS train up day” I helped host said it this way: “when I left the house this morning, I thought I had an accurate rifle and I thought I knew how to shoot, but this afternoon, I know I was wrong.” It took a lot to get him to sign up for a match after that.

 

[Old Dog]

I've seen it in law enforcement over and over again. The majority don't want to train. Even when the ammo is free and they are being paid overtime to be at the range they still would rather not go.

Yeah, officers who called in sick on range days got no respect from me. But this is why some of us gravitated towards tactical teams and instructor positions -- because we wanted to shoot as much as the department would let us. The people that sleep-walked through DTs and CTs got no respect either (one would've though with the advent of dash-cam and body-cam evidence,these folks would be embarrassed, but no). It's like the old TV show "Cops" which most of us thought of as 30 minutes of really bad handcuffing.

I think some of us are looking at this from the perspective that somehow shooting should be viewed as special, and different from any other recreational activity. Because for the most part, most gun owners, and even gun-carriers, look at shooting purely as a recreational activity. There's a huge segment of the population that doesn't like the thought of competition.

But all this is like any other form of recreation or sports games. Circling back to my original point, even many gun owners and self-described RKBA supporters do not really believe that their life will ever depend on their shooting skills. Even though they may know intellectually that training and/or competition would help them increase their skill level, they see no need.

Not everyone looks for competition or ever develops a taste for any form of competition. I picked up a new tennis partner not long ago and he was surprised I wanted to play actual sets and keep score. Heck, after I played high school and a little college ball, I kept competing, playing intramural and inter-service sports in the military, and have continued playing rec league softball and flag football into my senior years. But not everyone is wired that way.