Firearms Training

Most gun writers and firearms instructors try to distill gunfighting down to absolutes; black and white. “If your opponent does A, then you do B.” “If you’re facing tactical situation X, then you should apply solution Y.” Man oh man, if it were only that simple! Gunfighting, like life itself, is riddled with complexities and contains many, many shades of gray.

Understand, there is only one absolute in gunfighting: Avoid the gunfight if you possibly can! After that, there are no rules. And even if there were, the bad guy wouldn’t follow them anyway. It will be up to you to quickly interpret what your adversary is doing, decide what your options are, calculate how much time you have, and implement your chosen solution. In other words, you will be forced to think on your feet. There is no “Rule Book” available for you to memorize.

Let me give you an example of how absolutes don’t hold up. A number of years ago, I attended a tactical handgun course being taught by a then-popular instructor. When discussing house-clearing tactics, one of the absolute rules he professed was “Always maximize your distance from the bad guy.” I could certainly understand that, after all, distance favors the trained shooter. Most bad guys are very poor shooters, so maximizing your distance gives you the edge. When I entered the shoot house, the very first target was a hostage situation. The distance was maybe 12 yards and the light was quite dim inside the house. The proper solution to a hostage situation is obviously a perfect headshot to the hostage taker. However, this was not going to be an easy shot. The target was pretty far away in a low-light environment. To guarantee the shot, I closed the distance on the target until I was maybe seven yards away. I then delivered a perfect head shot…and I was quite proud of myself! The instructor was less impressed. In fact, he chewed my posterior for not “maximizing my distance.” My decision to close the distance was definitely the correct one under the circumstances, and I cordially explained my rationale. However, the instructor wouldn’t budge from his rigid thinking and was adamant that I’d made a mistake. I decided right then and there that Front Sight would never embrace such a “boot camp mentality.”

Another category where absolutes don’t hold up is shot placement. Most everyone agrees that with a handgun, the best “Plan A” is to shoot your adversary twice in the chest, or thoracic cavity. The idea here is that the thoracic cavity is large, and thus, relatively easy to hit. While there are certainly no guarantees, delivering two quick rounds to the chest is fairly likely to stop the fight. However, some instructors suggest that a pair to the chest is always the proper solution. Rubbish! What if your adversary is clearly wearing body armor? What if he has taken your family member hostage? What if he grabs you from behind, has a knife to your throat, and all you can see are his legs? What if you are facing multiple adversaries and have limited ammunition? What if you already delivered two rounds to the chest and it didn’t work? All of these “what if” scenarios would require a solution other than the prescribed two rounds to the thoracic cavity. Blindly adhering to such “absolutes” can get you killed.

Here is another example of how absolutes don’t hold up in the real world. Some handgun aficionados proclaim that .45 ACP is absolutely, positively, better than 9mm at stopping a fight. Well then, I guess that settles the debate that has raged on for 100 years! Hold on…not so fast. No handgun round will reliably stop the bad guy. If you want an “absolute” about handgun stopping power, here it is: Use a handgun to fight your way to a rifle or shotgun!

There are many factors in addition to caliber to consider when selecting a handgun. For example, what if you have small hands and the .45 feels literally like you are grabbing a telephone pole? What if you are somewhat recoil sensitive and the .45 intimidates you? What if you don’t typically carry a spare magazine and you want the maximum number of rounds in your gun (some guns hold twice the number of 9mm rounds as compared to .45). Frankly, I too would rather shoot the bad guy with .45 ACP over 9mm if I had a choice, simply because the bullet is a little bigger. But under these circumstances, wouldn’t it be smarter to have a 9mm handgun which fits your hands well, is comfortable to use, and carries lots of ammo? Confidence and bullet placement are far more important than bullet diameter.

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need “absolutes” in your firearms training. Instead, you need flexibility, and lots of tools at your disposal. Gunfighting is chaotic, scary stuff. At Front Sight we teach you how to avoid the gunfight if you possibly can. If it simply cannot be avoided, then you will prevail because, by training at Front Sight, you will have lots of tools and confidence in your arsenal.