Defensive Pistol Practice and Training
June 30th, 2005 by Syd
Some basic understandings:
- Pistols are inherently difficult to use effectively.
- Some people are born with talent and good instincts, but no one is born with fighting skill.
- Pistolcraft is a perishable skill.
- You fight like you train.
Training. Training. Training. Be honest with yourself for a minute. No one else is listening. If you were called upon to defend yourself, your family, right now, would your skills and equipment be up to the task? I suppose that the really dedicated warrior type would have to give a “Yes, but…” kind of answer, knowing that he had done everything he could do to prepare himself, and yet he would know that complacency could be deadly. For most of us, the answer would probably be something more along the lines of, “Well, I need to get out to the range…”
If one’s only exposure to the art of combat pistolcraft is from the gun mags and the Internet, it would be easy to get the impression that defensive pistol is matter of buying the latest and greatest pistol and stoking it with Brand XYZ Super Death Ray ammunition. And yet, if you happen to meet a real master gunfighter, you are likely to find that the gun is missing some finish from many thousands of draws and it is on its third barrel. The ammo may turn out to be some boring generic stuff that always works and he was able to get a really good deal on ten cases. The most important feature of the gun will be that it goes bang every time the trigger is pulled. It probably won’t be a new gun and it probably wasn’t the featured beauty spread in American Handgunner last month.
The masters practice a lot. They work on the fine points. They compare ideas with other experts. They study the craft and the dynamics of fights. But mostly, they send a lot of rounds downrange. They don’t just shoot a lot. They move while they’re shooting. They practice using cover and shooting from weird angles and positions. They practice malfunction recovery and reloads. Those who have actually “seen the balloon go up” will place heavy emphasis on not getting shot.
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