Training training training!

[stonewall1350]

I just want to say that as a responsible firearm owners we need to advocate safety, which we do for the most part, but also get information out there to those buying weapons. If you own a shop that sells firearms you might want to put up fliers for instruction for new owners. If you are a martial arts instructor and gun owner and know students buying...let them know about safety. I think we all need to do our part in teaching safety. I know that the box has a manual, but who reads those things? And what do they teach you about real life? The last thing we want is a required government sponsored safety test(oh wait?) to buy weapons.

So I think we need to start looking at expansion from NRA magazines advocating safety to the REAL world where people don't actually know how to safely handle a firearm. I have never seen an ad for responsible firearm's handling on ESPN, Spike, FOX(let's face it...they are the only news program that would have it lol), or non-hunting channels. Why not? Our biggest mistake has been to let the world think we are ALL incompetent morons who just strap a gun to our hips and run around shooting ourselves. After all you don't hear our side of the story on the news. Just about the idiot who didn't know how to handle a firearm who looked down the barrel when he pulled the trigger.

 

[sgtmac_46]

I'm an LEO that also teaches civilian CCW classes and more advanced firearms training. We get indepth not only in to the basics of range safety, but issues such as low-light engagements, ambiguous threats, shoot/no-shoot situations, etc.

I've noticed that many firearms instructors neglect a large cross section of issues involving real life confrontations, preferring to focus on what they feel they understand, i.e. shooting. Many martial artists tend to focus entirely on the physical skills without dealing with some of the more lethal issues involving weapons.

In order to teach folks who don't have a background it's important to understand that a firearm is not an end unto itself, but a tool in a much larger and more complex tool box of skills that require an aware mind to utilize effectively and safely.

 

[jks9199]

There are two separate elements to practical firearms training. The first is marksmanship: stance, grip, sight picture, sight alignment, and so on. The mechanics of shooting, in other words. The second is the tactical side: shooting on the move, threat assessment, weapon retention, and the rest.

I think that you can actually make a real comparison with martial arts training: kata vs. applications, or the purely art side against functional martial arts. both have a place. Both are valid -- depending on what you want.

But the thing that's scary is when you have someone teaching "defensive firearms" that never moves out of basic range drills, and spends all their emphasis on developing perfect marksmanship, and never addressing legal issues or shoot/don't shoot decision making.

I'm also a fan of requiring basic firearms safety instruction (and self defense... but that's off-topic) at an early (grade school) age. Something seems askew when we teach kids sex ed, but not fundamental safety about firearms -- despite how many guns are available in our society.

 

[stonewall1350]

There are two separate elements to practical firearms training. The first is marksmanship: stance, grip, sight picture, sight alignment, and so on. The mechanics of shooting, in other words. The second is the tactical side: shooting on the move, threat assessment, weapon retention, and the rest.

I think that you can actually make a real comparison with martial arts training: kata vs. applications, or the purely art side against functional martial arts. both have a place. Both are valid -- depending on what you want.

But the thing that's scary is when you have someone teaching "defensive firearms" that never moves out of basic range drills, and spends all their emphasis on developing perfect marksmanship, and never addressing legal issues or shoot/don't shoot decision making.

I'm also a fan of requiring basic firearms safety instruction (and self defense... but that's off-topic) at an early (grade school) age. Something seems askew when we teach kids sex ed, but not fundamental safety about firearms -- despite how many guns are available in our society.

You werent off topic at all. That is what I am talking about with firearms safety. Maybe I should have specified. We just had a random shooting in Gainesville and I saw another one on TV. We a firearm owners need to advocate for our side BEYOND gun magazines and websites that have a firearms section. I ALWAYS talk about safety when I am talking guns to a new person. I HATE going to shops and stuff and seeing the poor handling of weapons as well. It makes me cringe. We REALLY need to get advice out there on how to handle firearms properly...and I mean the BASICS. Why? Because nobody knows the basics. And getting the basics out there might also quell the fear in the huddling mass of naive idiots out there who think a gun is a LIVE beast lurking in the dark waiting to pounce on them, instead of an inanimate object waiting for a HUMAN to enable its mechanical action.