You're So Lame, I Bet You Think This Song is About You

Shooting yourself by accident | tacticalprofessor:

If IDPA and USPSA Production Class do nothing else other than to train people to draw their gun without putting their support hand on the holster, that’s a great contribution to the shooting community. For those who say IDPA isn’t training, I would counter that it’s excellent training in safe gunhandling. There’s nothing like getting disqualified for a safety violation to make the point that someone’s gunhandling needs work.

H/T: Cornered Cat
  ... who says "Putting a loaded gun into a holster is the single most dangerous thing anyone ever does in a professinal firearms training class."


I do agree with both Cornered Cat and Tactical Professor.

Both IDPA and IPSC/USPSA are great training grounds for pistol competitive shooters.
(Also, 3-gun, Multi-Gun, and various other forms of competitive "actiion" shooting.)

I have no qualms about this statement, except that it doesn't go far enough:

After 30+ years of competitve shooting, both as a competitor and as a Chief Range Officer, I've seen more experienced competitors endanger themselves during the draw, than while holstering their pistols.

That's Anxiety.  It's not training, nor necessity.



I Feel The Need .... The Need For Speed!

I  cannot speak for IDPA, for when I read their rules and came across the "Failure To Do Right" rule I decided that it was not for me.  But for IPSC (Free-Style IDPA) it's my considered opinion that most experienced shooters suffer less from angst than from over-confidence.  (Or hubris ... take your pick.)

You may recall that in Major League Baseball, during the World Series, Regie Jackson always seemed best at striking out and dropping the ball in Right Field?  (But when he was at bat .. if he didn't strike out he hit a home run!)

Like Regie Jackson, World-Class shooters tend to push the bounds of safety to the limits.  More-so, those who are only "good" but not yet "excellent".

And so, unfortunately, Major-League Competitors in pistol (and 3-gun, etc) competition tend to push themselves more than might seem reasonable, and so egregious safety violations may be incurred.

Some times they get away with it, because they are That Good!
Some times, they screw up and get kicket out of the Game.  (And rightly so.)


It's not just those who have already established themselves as major playors; there are a lot of talented wanna-be's who go for more speed than they are yet experienced enough to  perform consistantly ... reliably .. safely.

The Emphasis Is On The Draw!
One way to make a good stage-time become "excellent" is to get that first shot on the target.  The way to do that is to (obviously) get the pistol out of the holster and into the gun-hand,.  Draw/first-shot times of 3 seconds are safe but unacceptable.

I once undertook an experiment, with a target at 5 meters, to get a first-shot A-zone hit starting from the "Surrender" position.  I finally managed a 0.89 second A-hit after 15 minutes of trying, and the only way I could do that was by using only one hand; a sub-one-second hit at any distance seemed impossible to me, because I was not bothering to achieve a sight picture.  At that speed, I could only rely on "point-shooting" skills.

For me, if I can get an A-zone hit on the draw within 2.5 seconds, I need to be mighty close to the target and the sight picture is only 'the middle of the brown parts''.  Competent shooters strive for a faster time and more consistant accuracy.

Which is why the time between the start-buzzer and the first shot is so critical; if you can meet that criteria, all the rest of the stage is merely pushing proven performance.  You've already convinced yourself that you can get a good hit on your first shot, and your confidence soars when your mind's eye tells you that you got a good First Shot.

And that's why I've seen more highly experienced shooters crash and burn (often during the first stage in a major match), bcause they are pushing themselves too hard to start the match with an exemplary First Stage.

During a National Match in 2003, three Master or Grand Master shooters DQ'd in Oregon on the first shot of the first stage.  And yes, that was because of Brain Farts on the draw.  They were drawing too hard.

So ... the draw is where the pressure is during a stress-filled competition venue.

But does that nulify the proposition proposed by Cornered Cat and Tactical Professor?

No, not necessarily.

Not saying that people who find themselves in stressful situations lose their 'safe gun-handling skills', because they do.  Whethere in Self-Defence or Competitive Situations, your carefully developed skills turn to carp, without worning or reason.

It just happens.

COMPETITION / SELF-DEFENSIVE STRESS:
The thing about IDPA and IPSC is that it provides some experience for the average shooter to practice gun-handling skills under pressure: the pressure of competition and time-oriented scoring systems.  Hopefully, in the even of a self-defensive situation those skills will come into play and the defensive shooter will just allow resident skill sets to take over, after the cognizant quarter of the mind has determined that a lethal response is appropriate and required.


This doesn't quite compensate for the "Frightened .. Hell No, I'm Scared To Death!" aspect of defensive situations, but it at least prepares the participant to slide into the "take the conscious brain out of this, let the reflexes take over after the decision to shoot has been resolved by cognitive functionality'.

What The Heck Does This Have To Do With Drawing Or Holstering?

See ... here's the thing.

When you have to resort to your conscious mind to guide your actions in a stressful situation, then you have to think about every step of the process.  And that's just wrong .. all this drawing and holstering business is something that you should not have to think about.  It's a "body" function, and your conscious mind should have no larger part than to say:  "Okay, time to do this.  Let me know when you're ready for the next thing, and in the mean time I'll take a short nap.  Okay?"

That's not just shooting.  It's also 'holstering' and 'drawing'.Administrivia, right?  But it's just as liable to 'fatal error" as the actual shooting stuff.

Bottom line?  Practice this stuff.  Allow it to become autonomic.Then go on to using your conscious mind to figure out how to best resolve The Shooting Problem .. be it Competitive or "Life Threatening".

If you don't have time to do this practice thingie, or if you just aren't really interested in developing these skill sets,  then just sell your pistol to someone who will work to develop the skills which make the gun usefule, and the person a useful member of society.  And you can go back to being a protected lamb who does not appreciate the dogs which protect you.

You know, like the Garland Shootings thingie.