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JTarrou  1yr ago (text post)   4226 thread views

I'm a "gun guy", AMA

A couple people had expressed interest in this topic, and I have a bit of extra time for a couple days, so here goes:

Bona fides: I am a former infantry NCO and sniper, hunter, competitive shooter, reloader, hobby gunsmith, sometimes firearms trainer and currently work in a gun shop, mostly on the paperwork/compliance side. Back in the day, was a qualified expert with every standard small arm in the US inventory circa 2003 (M2, 4, 9, 16, 19, 249, 240B, 21, 24, 82 etc.), and today hang around the 75th percentile of USPSA classifications. I've shot Cap-and-Ball, Trap and Sporting Clays badly; Bullseye and PRS somewhat better and IDPA/USPSA/UML/Two-gun with some local success. Been active in the 2A community since the mid-90s, got my first instructor cert in high school, and have held a CPL for almost twenty years now.

I certainly don't claim to be an expert in every aspect of firearms, there's huge areas that escape my knowledge base, but if you've got questions I'll do my best to answer.

Technical questions

Gun control proposals for feasibility

Industry

Training

Wacky opinions

General geekery

Some competition links (not my own) just for the interested.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=U5IhsWamaLY&t=173

https://youtube.com/watch?v=93nEEINflXE

https://youtube.com/watch?v=utcky0zq10E

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xVh4CjbgK7s

https://youtube.com/watch?v=0IK2RUxVq3A

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I've no idea what the answer to your question is in general and I'd also be very curious to hear it. But as a digression,

1000 hours of practice shooting in the range

cover

It depends on the details of that 1000 hours and on what they've been learning ("on the job", I'm guessing?) for 50-100, but in this scenario it's not impossible that the gangsters are better trained.

"The element reported as the single most important factor in the officer's survival during an armed confrontation was cover. Because of this determination, use of cover is included in firing line exercises and is stressed by the firearms instructors. As has been pointed out, in a stress situation an officer is likely to react as he was trained to react.

There is almost always some type of cover available but it may not be recognized as such without training."

If you're twice as good a shot, but their instincts make them give you much less than half the target sizes to shoot at, they might be getting the first hits in.

It's tempting to think "I wouldn't do anything as dumb as ignoring cover in a real fight, just because I never take cover at the range", but adrenaline doesn't make you smarter at making decisions, it just makes you access your trained decisions faster. The Station Nightclub Fire bouncer wouldn't let anyone through the backstage exit because it was supposed to be an absolute rule that that was for the band only. Agents trained to holster their gun in between each shot at the range would find themselves automatically holstering their guns in the middle of firefights. The craziest story I've heard is that some disarmament drills disallow directly passing weapons back and forth when repeating a drill, because after being thoroughly inadvertently trained in how to "disarm the attacker, then pass the knife back for another go", that was what someone did in an actual attack.

The craziest story I've heard is that some disarmament drills disallow directly passing weapons back and forth when repeating a drill, because after being thoroughly inadvertently trained in how to "disarm the attacker, then pass the knife back for another go", that was what someone did in an actual attack.

Yup. My old dojo taught us not to hand weapons back during drills for exactly this reason.

Muscle memory is a hell of a thing. Another (possibly apocryphal) story we were told is of a police officer who was gunned down during a shootout because adrenaline kicked in and he started picking up spent shell casings, exactly as they'd been made to do at the range.

heard that one as well, and I'd like to believe it's one of those myths that just gets passed around. Unpleasantly plausible, given the consequences.

The craziest story I've heard is that some disarmament drills disallow directly passing weapons back and forth when repeating a drill, because after being thoroughly inadvertently trained in how to "disarm the attacker, then pass the knife back for another go", that was what someone did in an actual attack.

Seems very plausible. My old MMA gym prohibited helping your sparring partner get up after knocking them down in training after during an actual competition a member threw an opponent to the mat then reflexively bent over and reached out a hand to help him up. The opponent took advantage of it and ended up winning.

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