Tap - Rack - Bang! (Immediate Action)

I'm a mean teacher.

(Clarification:  I teach an "Introduction to USPSA" class.  I never know what level of expertise has been achieved by my students until we start shooting in the "Live Fire" segment of the class.)

Last weekend I had three students attending the "Safety" class ... where we also teach gun-handling, fast.accurate shooting, competition techniques and Range Etiquette.

We start the Live Fire portion of the class with the simplest possible exercise, which is designed to familiarize the student with the Range Commands, and their expected responses.  They are asked to respond appropriately to the following standard Range Commands:

• Make Ready
• Are you ready?
• Stand By ...
• [after 1-3 seconds, Range officer's timer goes BEEP!]
• If you are finished, unload and show clear
• If clear, hammer down and holster
• The range is clear

Pretty simple, huh?

You would be amazed by the number of failures can occur during that simple exercise, when only ONE shot is required.

______________________

While the given reason for this very simple exercise is to "... familiarize the shooter with the Range Commands, and the Appropriate Responses ..." the real reason is to evaluate the ability of the shooter to demonstrate appropriate gun-handling skills, including the ability to perform "Immediate Action" drills in the (not very) unlikely event that Something Goes Wrong,

While it doesn't happen in every class, often at least one student fails to completely seat his magazine into his pistol.  When the buzzer goes off, the student pulls the trigger and instead of the gun goes .

When Something Goes Wrong ...

... IPSC/USPSA rules forbid "Coaching", so both the RO (Range Officer) and other people in the bay are forbidden to offer advice to the Shooter.  In practice, the Range Officer might offer advice to a New Shooter in order to facilitate the competitor experience.  Well, When Things Go Wrong we already know that this new shooter is not going to win the stage, and in a Club Match the RO might lean forward and say something like:  "Tap, Rack, Bang!"

But in a class, we learn by our own mistakes, and by the mistakes of others.  I'm a mean teacher; as long as the situation does not lead to an unsafe situation, I'm perfectly happy allowing to student to process the cause/effect relationship at his/her own speed.

Eventually, the student will turn to the RO with a questioning look in his/her eyes.  IF the muzzle is still pointed in a safe direction, the appropriate response is:  "It's your gun, and the clock is still running".

After all these years, I'm still able to keep a straight face when I say that.  Because, my focus is on the gun, and when I see that slight sliver of sunlight between the base of the magazine and the base of the grip, I KNOW that the magazine has not locked into place, and the initial 'load' has not moved the first round into the firing chamber.

When new shooter are required to "solve unexpected problems in class", they learn from their own decision-making process (whatever it may be) more than if the Instructor had been "helpful" and had "offered suggestions".  

In this course of instruction, the most important lessons are Safety, Independence, and Judgement.

SAFETY: if you can't run 'n gun without endangering yourself and others, it's best to discover that for yourself, before you ever try to compete.  As I've said before, 60% of the people who take this class never actually attempt to compete.

INDEPENDENCE:  When students attempt their first match, they need to be completely invested in the concept that: "It's your gun, your match, your stage, your problem.  Solve it."  If they get the impression that the RO will help them out when they get into trouble (as long as Safety Issues are not involved), they will never become Competitors.

JUDGEMENT:  People "running and gunning" MUST be safe.  This is an intuitive quality.  IPSC/USPSA competition is predicated on the proposition that participants can resolve problems in a safe manner, every time, every day.  Those who have not made mistakes (and had them pointed out to them) are not aware of their deficiencies.  Those who cannot learn from their mistakes should not compete, for they are a danger to themselves and to others.

Those who have not made mistakes ... probably will, sometime.  They need to know how to respond to made-mistakes, and if they can't learn from themselves, they can learn from others.

In this case, many (most?) students of the gun are not already with the "Tap/Rack/Bang" process of responding to a "Failure To Function" Event.  It's the most common kind of failure, and it's invariably related to the Shooter's failure ... not a Gun Failure.

Rather than be confused and non-plussed, the shooter/competitor needs to first understand that the problem is caused by his failure, and then to execute the most common drill to resolve a shooting problem:

1. TAP the bottom of the magazine, to ensure that it is firmly seated and locked .. actually, the action is more forceful than the term suggests; the shooter should SLAM his off-hand palm-heel against the base of the magazine to ensure that the magazine is seated and LOCKED!
2. RACK the slide to seat the next (first?) round in the Magazine into the chamber;
3. BANG!  Pull the trigger, fire the round!  Usually, this will ensure that the competitor is back in the game, engaging targets successfully (depending on is Accuracy) with a minimum of wasted time.

After all .. we're not on the range to waste time are we?  Or to wonder what went wrong?