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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
