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Starting a new argument! Timers, Competition, and Cover...
bkoenig:
--- Quote from: kozball on August 26, 2013, 01:16:21 PM ---
Then again, ( my pet peeve ) I would like to see some of the MANY firearms owners get off their backsides and do something, anything. Training would be good. Lots of choices to get lots of different results. Swallow your pride and hide your inhibitions, everyone started sometime. I would rather see someone try a Steel Challenge or USPSA / IPDA and do poorly than do nothing. The results actually mean nothing except for what you make them to be.
These are just my opinions, not fact. ;D
--- End quote ---
Very good point. I know a lot of gun owners but not many shooters. While true tactical/self defense training is obviously going to be best in a self defense scenario, a guy who goes out and shoots USPSA or IDPA once a month is going to be light years ahead of someone whose pistol sits in the safe 364 days a year. Competition may not be the best training, but it's way better than NO training.
Besides, competition is just plain FUN.
wallace11bravo:
--- Quote from: bkoenig on August 26, 2013, 03:41:16 PM --- Competition may not be the best training, but it's way better than NO training.
--- End quote ---
100% agree.
JTH:
--- Quote from: wallace11bravo on August 26, 2013, 02:24:09 PM ---One thing I'll note, Thomas is 100% correct about me seeing shooting as a combat act, to wit:
--- End quote ---
This is one of the things I liked about John's seminar, actually. I wasn't in the military, so that particular mindset and the principles it therefore requires are different from both my experience set, and my knowledge set. (I've read quite a bit about it, but my knowledge of those situations is completely theoretical.) I'm planning on taking more of John's stuff, to expand my knowledge base.
--- Quote ---I really can't knock any off-the-street civilian for not being into the whole "practical/tactical" side of rifle/carbine shooting. If all you want to do with your AR is game or hunt, go for it. I cannot fault you, because:
You probably don't carry around your AR on a daily basis, and the chances of needing to defend oneself with deadly force are so miniscule to begin with, that the chances of your AR even being practically accessible in a more common civilian-self-defense situation is about like winning the lottery... without ever buying a ticket.
--- End quote ---
Nice. :)
And agreed. Some people plan on using a carbine for their in-home defense. For me---that isn't the choice I make. Nothing wrong with people choosing it, it just happens to not be for me for a number of reasons that may not be relevant for anyone else.
That being said, I DO have a set of choices that does include using a carbine for home defense--but it is in a case where a number of highly improbable things occur, which make its use a lot more streamlined. However, in those cases it is a lot more like combat than self-defense. Which leads to....
--- Quote ---True, there are a few incidents, within my lifetime, where having combat skills with an AR may have been useful for your off-the-street civilians. The LA riots, Hurricane Katrina, or if your rifle/carbine is part of your home defense plan (a whole other bucket of worms I don't care to knock over right now). If that is what you are oriented towards, or you are law enforcement, security, or military, then I have training a bit more focused for you. Or if you just find it fun to learn another perspective on tactics and shooting, come on out.
--- End quote ---
Yep. I'm still thinking that next year (when we get this figured out, schedule-wise) at least one seminar we give should be a combined skillbuilder where we work carbine/handgun home defense scenarios. I obviously won't be teaching the carbine part. :)
--- Quote ---Another thing I'll note, and I tell officers this and they generally agree. Most LE officers that teach a patrol rifle course are predominantly teaching shooting and tactics that are adapted from pistol shooting and tactics for your everyday patrol officer, which are not that unlike civilian SD techniques.
My personal opinion, if you are LE (or security, or whatever), and something has happened that has caused you to take your AR out of the rack in your cruiser or armory or whatever, that event (in and of itself) has introduced, at the very least, a semi-permissive environment. Your mindset needs to change along with that environmental change. (ALOT more to this, but I don't care to write a book right now)
--- End quote ---
...I'll be interested to read it when you do. I personally would agree that the change in weapon (from what is effectively a defensive weapon to an offensive weapon) effectively means that a significant change in effective rules of engagement (due to the situation) has occurred---which means that I would expect that the mindset really should go from "defense/LEO" to "combat/threat interdiction"---and thus that thinking of it in terms of "defense" similar to citizen self-defense is actually detrimental to LEO health, as they won't necessarily make the correct choices.
I may be wrong about that, of course. Hm. I may need to think about that more.
Mudinyeri:
I'm glad you brought up the NASCAR driver scenario as, much like the hunting/trap scenario, I also have personal experience with walking off of a race track and driving home. I used to race auto cross. Guess where the cops like to set up at the end of the day? Yup, you guessed it ... just a few blocks away from the track. Racers would leave the track at the end of the day all amped up from racing and carry forward those same habits onto the street. Speeding tickets and reckless driving citations usually ensued.
Likewise, successful trap shooters are on the bird immediately after it appears. They shoot it before it gets more than a few feet from the trap house. Shooting a pheasant or a quail like that results in nothing more than red mist. Yes, I grew up hunting game birds. I tried trap, assuming it would help me warm up for the hunting season. Bad assumption! After my first competition, one of the old-timers took me aside and said, "You're a pheasant hunter, aren't you?" I was less of a question and more of an accusation. I said, "Yes, how did you know?" He replied, "You're letting the birds get away. That's fine when you don't want to fill a pheasant full of lead, but you need to get on these birds as soon as you see them." I shot trap the rest of the season and then proceeded to blow the living daylights out of my first few pheasants and quail when hunting season opened. My muscle memory was trained to get on them as soon as I saw them ... wing flap, shotgun mount, bang. I didn't let them get far enough away. Worthless meat if there was any left.
I was talking about people who practice only competition shooting - not those who practice both - but I think the basic premise of "do one thing if you want to do it well" holds. Sure many of the basics are the same between competitive shooting and defensive shooting. However, no one is exceptional at anything if they're only doing the basics. It's the little things that separate the winner from the also-ran. If I'm competing against someone who does nothing but practice competitive shooting and I spend part of my practice time shooting defensively ... is there anyone who would argue (talent being relatively the same) that the individual who practices their competitive discipline all the time won't be the better competitor?
JTH:
--- Quote from: Mudinyeri on August 26, 2013, 04:18:10 PM ---I'm glad you brought up the NASCAR driver scenario as, much like the hunting/trap scenario, I also have personal experience with walking off of a race track and driving home. I used to race auto cross. Guess where the cops like to set up at the end of the day? Yup, you guessed it ... just a few blocks away from the track. Racers would leave the track at the end of the day all amped up from racing and carry forward those same habits onto the street. Speeding tickets and reckless driving citations usually ensued.
--- End quote ---
That doesn't surprise me in the slightest. :) However---there is a significant difference between driving in a way that is against the law, and driving BADLY. Being amped up (for any reason) makes you want to drive fast. (Well, most people do, at least.) After action movies (seriously, this is true) people tend to drive faster and more recklessly. Similarly when listening to loud angry music.
Did it mean that they lost the ability to drive on city streets within the law? No, they just didn't WANT to do so. Different cognitive event here.
--- Quote ---Likewise, successful trap shooters are on the bird immediately after it appears. They shoot it before it gets more than a few feet from the trap house. Shooting a pheasant or a quail like that results in nothing more than red mist. Yes, I grew up hunting game birds. I tried trap, assuming it would help me warm up for the hunting season. Bad assumption! After my first competition, one of the old-timers took me aside and said, "You're a pheasant hunter, aren't you?" I was less of a question and more of an accusation. I said, "Yes, how did you know?" He replied, "You're letting the birds get away. That's fine when you don't want to fill a pheasant full of lead, but you need to get on these birds as soon as you see them." I shot trap the rest of the season and then proceeded to blow the living daylights out of my first few pheasants and quail when hunting season opened. My muscle memory was trained to get on them as soon as I saw them ... wing flap, shotgun mount, bang. I didn't let them get far enough away. Worthless meat if there was any left.
--- End quote ---
That makes sense---which also answers my followup question, which was "did you practice the hunting skills also" to which the answer is apparently no.
I completely agree that if you only train a certain way, then that is how you are going to shoot.
--- Quote ---I was talking about people who practice only competition shooting - not those who practice both - but I think the basic premise of "do one thing if you want to do it well" holds.
--- End quote ---
Yes, but---we don't limit ourselves to just one hobby. Or one "thing" that we do. Sure, if you want to be world-class at something, you need to devote all of your time to it. But almost none of us are going to make that particular choice. As such, I don't understand why there seems to be this assumption that shooters (of any type) can't practice more than one area of shooting. People shoot rifle, shotgun, and pistol, right? How is this significantly different from shooting two different aspects of pistolwork?
--- Quote ---Sure many of the basics are the same between competitive shooting and defensive shooting. However, no one is exceptional at anything if they're only doing the basics. It's the little things that separate the winner from the also-ran. If I'm competing against someone who does nothing but practice competitive shooting and I spend part of my practice time shooting defensively ... is there anyone who would argue (talent being relatively the same) that the individual who practices their competitive discipline all the time won't be the better competitor?
--- End quote ---
Depends on what part of "shooting defensively" you are talking about, really. And how "exceptional" you need to be. I shoot USPSA, and I'm classified as a Master. For local matches, I suppose that makes me "exceptional" (though it certainly doesn't on a regional or national scale). And yet, I don't have any problem practicing defensive skills, too. As I'm currently the only Master-class shooter in the Production division with a home address in Nebraska, I'm thinking that means that other people may not be spending the practice time on competition that I am---and yet, I have time to practice my defensive skills, too. (And that isn't my only hobby, by any means, so it isn't like my life revolves around shooting a pistol.)
So truthfully, unless someone is trying to be a national contender, I just don't see any sort of need for a pistol shooter to focus exclusively on competition shooting. (Particularly since competition shooting hones direct shooting skills--which means that for citizen-type self-defense, there is only a fairly small set of self-defense skills that are needed for practice in addition in terms of pistol skills.)
I'm waiting for someone else to chime in with the "in a similar fashion, wouldn't the person who studied defensive shooting in addition to competition shooting be expected to do better than the competition-only shooter in a defensive situation?"
....and my answer to that would ALSO be "it depends." If you research defensive gun uses (DGUs) you find that many of them, from the defender's perspective, required two things, and two things only: 1) get the gun out, and 2) shoot on target repeatedly. If that was what was required, I'd expect things to be about the same, assuming similar skill levels.
Now, if it was against a gang armed with guns when taking cover and such was needed, then the defensive guy is going to have an edge. Obviously.
However---I guess I still don't see why there seems to be this idea that "competition shooters" (who have not practiced defensive skills) should be considered as "bad at defensive shooting" as if they are somehow worse than anyone else who has not practiced defensive skills---particularly since in a large percentage of cases, 1) having a gun, 2) getting the gun out fast, and 3) getting shots on target fast is often all that is necessary from a technique point of view---and competition shooters do that all the time.
And many competition shooters ALSO practice defensive skills, which makes the contention even less sensible.
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