Run and shoot? Or just shoot? (It's a GAME, Folks!)

Run and shoot? Or just shoot? | The View From North Central Idaho:

Frequently at USPSA matches there are stages that can be shot many different ways. It’s a thinking game almost as much as a shooting game. What is the best way to shoot this stage? And the best way frequently depends on the shooter too

I've been enjoying Joe Huffman's continuing story of his "Introduction to USPSA Competition", because so many of the issues he describes are typical of competitors ... both new to the sport and those who have been around a while and are just thinking about how they could be more competitive.

In his latest contribution, Joe brings up one issue (1: how to be competitive using your own personal skill set) and a comment on the article brings up another issue (2: whether the techniques we learn in competition would be counter-indicated in a Defensive situation).

I'd like to use this opportunity to address both issues ... and especially point out that they are individual and not at all related:



l:)  "Run and Shoot?  Or just Shoot?"

As Joe has already learned, the 'best way' to resolve a "Shooting Problem" is to use your own personal  skill set to your best advantage.  That suggests that it's not only a matter of skills and experience, but also equipment and physicality. Assuming that the question is "is it better to (a) shoot at targets from a distance and save time by not moving; or to (b) run quickly to a closer distance and save time (and increase accuracy) by narrowing the MOA needed to contain hits withing the A-zone?"

Let's look at these in reverse order:

If you are young, agile and fleet-of foot, and if you are not confident of your ability to successfully and accurately engage targets from a distance, it might be better to aggressively charge the targets and then quickly engage them from the near distance. This takes advantage of fleetness-of-foot, and reduces the disadvantages of equipment and skill set.

If you are older* (less fleet of foot, less agile), it might be advantageous for YOU to engage the targets carefully and accurately from a longer distance.

* (Note that Open Division competitors often choose this latter technique because their electronic red-dot sights (and compensated barrels) give them an accuracy advantage at distance, and the compensated barrels also give them an advantage at close targets.  These competitors are most often older competitors who have the life-advantage of being able to afford more expensive competitive equipment, and at the same time are those who (like me) find that their visual acuity is not quite what it use to be .. nor are their legs and their breath control.  In a word, they tend to compete in OPEN Division simply because they are not as competitive physically as they once were, but they have the experience to understand the physical adjustments which allow them to be competitive mentally.

2:) (from comments):  "... what if the “targets” were shooting at you as you ran toward them over open ground? what do the “utilities” become in that situation.?"

I laughed when I read that comment.  It rejuvenates the old "IPSC WILL GET YOU KILLED" controversy, which emphasizes that the skill-sets which make one 'competitive' in IPSC competition are not conducive to real-life Defense Strategies.

And that is absolutely correct.

In IPSC competition, you stand out in the open and blaze away at cardboard targets without concern that those targets might be shooting back at you.

Please allow me to inflict my decades-old mantra once again:

It's a GAME, folks!

We are not teaching people to shoot at people.  

We are shooting at cardboard and steel targets.

IPSC/USPSA is not intended to teach defensive shooting techniques.  It's sole purpose is to provide a venue where people can shoot pistols as a GAME .. an entirely "sporting purpose".

Incidentally we teach, reinforce and encourage safe gun-handling techniques  We allow people to drill in, and become intrinsically competent in, the mind-set which allows us to "run-and-gun" because those techniques (including moving, and engaging targets, with a loaded firearm with the safety off) are competitive.

Those skill sets may or may not be applicable to 'defensive' usage, but that's not the primary consideration.

It's just a game, folks.