I was talking to a newbie about armed self-defense the other day. He looked me straight in the eye and said “I’m not going to practice shooting my gun.” Just like that. His refusal to gain and maintain proficiency with his self-defense firearm opened him to attack from gun guys and gun grabbers, who both believe armed citizens should know how to use their gun. (The difference being that the gun grabbers want to prevent people from carrying until they demonstrate their prowess, after they take a government-approved course, and maybe even then.) Let’s get real. How many Concealed Carry Weapons (CCW) permit holders practice? Practice or not, how many of them can shoot a five-inch group at five yards? Add a life-threatening situation and you can cut that estimate by, say, 80 percent. Unless . . .
You instruct the self-defense shooter to run up to the bad guy and pull the trigger. Makes sense right? The closer you get, the less important technique becomes. One hand, two hands, Weaver stance, point shooting, one shot, empty the gun, whatever. When your life is in imminent danger, and imminence is imminent, there are no points for style.
As my wife says, hesitation kills. If you’re going to run away, run away. If you’re going to use your gun to stop a threat, commit. As Adam Deciccio says, the key to successful self-defense is speed, surprise and violence of action. Running up to the BG and shooting him or her meets all three criteria.
Although the po-po are keeping this on the down-low, “active shooter” training is now moving towards “contact shots.” As in muzzle against the head. The technique (if that’s what you want to call it) increases lethality and limits collateral damage. If it’s good enough for our paramilitary police, it’s good enough for you.
Unless the perp has a knife. Then you got trouble. It’s not for nothing that Jimmy Hoffa lived by the rule “charge a gun, run from a knife.” Still, a man’s gotta do—even if that man has no training or marksmanship skills.
Question: would an untrained shooter told to run up to a bad guy be less likely to survive an armed encounter than a range warrior/paper tiger? Or more?