Truly good? A good start is to choose wisely

Guns Magazine, Oct, 2008 by Clint Smith

While teaching on an almost daily basis, clients often ask me what practice can they do to get better? This is a good question generally asked by people with the best of intentions. It could be a somewhat loaded question based on the fact much of the end result rests on how much effort is put forward on their part to achieve the end result.

I believe shooting is a perishable skill and, no matter how hard you work at it, ultimately in the end eyesight changes, age or injuries will alter skill levels even for the best of the best. All this said, a very good level of defensive skills could be acquired and maintained with some effort on the part of the willing shooter ready to work at it.

So, like most things in life, you gain mental and physical skills appropriate to how much effort you are willing to put into it. However, competent instruction only helps if it is relevant to your purpose for having and maintaining a firearm skill.

Thinking and training beyond the firearm, the acquisition and practice of personal awareness and personal tactical skills in reality are probably as important or maybe more important as the gun itself at the end of the day.

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What Gun?

Getting the correct weapon for you might be the first step. Be guarded and don't buy something purely on the basis of comfort or size. These are of course considerations, but they are by no means the only considerations you need to think of. Be careful not to buy a certain type of gun because someone else has one. Possession of a certain firearm type on their part doesn't mean they made a competent choice, so duplicating their choice may be also be mistake on your part.

Also I think it is important to remember your weapon choice only needs to work for you and to help you save your life or the lives of your family.

I recently had a young person tell me my choice of the 1911 was a bad thing because "it is an old gun." That of course could be true, then again, I have grown up and old with the 1911 and for me it has served very well in the past and continues to do so today. Are 1911s for everyone? I doubt it. Then again, I don't think a basket of polymer pistols would serve me personally any better. One additional point (of many in this area), is most of us buy guns with the concept of personal defense on the street, but in reality, the likelihood of us using a defensive tool at home is just as likely ... maybe even more so than on the street.

What Technique?

Probably which or what technique you use to shoot with will be based on many changing factors with a few being your age, personal physical fitness, personal shooting experience, the environment you are forced to work in, whether or not your eye glasses got knocked off when the fight started, whether or not you are injured and so on. Some things will always be important like fundamentals, but they may, too, also be affected simply by the fact of where they are being applied environmentally.

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Fighting Fundamentals

Get a good grip on the handgun and two hands are better than one. Remember to choke up on the recoil shoulder and work to hold the handgun so the barrel or slide is aligned with or an extension of your forearm.

Stance is important as it provides the stable platform for the act of firing. The shot fired is usually good or bad and whether or not it is good or bad is often affected by the platform the shot comes from.

Sights are always an arguable point for some people, but not for me. I always look for or at the sights as best as I can in the environment I am in and applying the gun to. If the range is just beyond arms length I doubt time will allow me to see--nor will I need to see--a perfect 50-yard sight picture. As the range increases the attention to the sights becomes more critical. This is a simple area for me to address.

Most people address the threat as, "It's so close I can't miss," I address the issue when the threat is so close as, "I'd better not miss." More shots have been fired and missed at close range--like the length of a car or across a room--than have ever hit the intended target.

Trigger

The trigger and trigger control or manipulation is probably the only part of shooting we can truly control and maintain over the years. This is a good thing as the contact with the trigger is our last physical contact or control over the projectile before it leaves the handgun. Always practice to manipulate the trigger correctly.

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Food For ...?

Then, to be truly good is to have the ability and willingness to try every shooting technique and to shoot and use every weapons system you can get access to. After trying techniques other than your personal favorites, ones you should then select are the ones that work best for you. Your selection will then be based on actually trying other things rather than just shoving your nose skyward if it is not what you normally do. It goes almost without saying people might select what they do based on past personal life experiences, but in the same breath we need to recognize not everyone's past life experiences are the same. The fact is, most people do not have any life experience using a firearm for personal protection.