Real Teaching
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Tom Givens "Carry your gun!"
Carry Your Darned Gun!
Rangemaster students’ success rate (at least on events I know about) is 61/0/2 for 63 incidents. That’s 61 clear victories, zero losses and 2 forfeits. The two forfeits were people who died as a result of not being armed on The Big Day. Both were killed in separate street robberies. Essentially, both were executed for the contents of their pockets. They were not able to defend themselves because they chose not to be armed that day. They made a poor choice.
Of the 61 students who won, only 3 were injured, and all recovered from those injuries. They did not know they would need a gun that day, but they chose to be armed, anyway. Based on my interviews with the winners, I believe the two MOST important factors are:
1. Having your damn gun on you when the event occurs, and
2. Being willing to use it to save your life.
Everything else-- gun model, caliber, ammo choice and Yes, even amount of training, seems to be a distant third after these primary two. Three of the shooters in our group were trained to our instructor level, four or five more to what I would call competency, and the rest had only had an eight hour carry permit course.
One of the things we stress at ALL training levels is the need to actually carry the gun daily, as one simply cannot make an appointment for an emergency. An emergency, in this context, is a sudden, unforeseen crisis in which one’s life is in immediate mortal danger. The key words are “sudden, unforeseen”, so making carrying a handgun a daily routine assures that it will be there when needed. I believe that because we stress this heavily, our students tend to be armed, and thus win when attacked.
I believe a big factor is the Bad Guy’s training, education and life experience. Most BG’s go through their entire careers without ever running into an armed citizen on the street. Only about 4% of the US population has some kind of carry permit, and I’d bet less than 1% of them actually carry on a routine, daily basis. So, when a Bad Guy confronts a citizen who is actually armed and produces his weapon, the resulting mental lag time for the Bad Guy allows even an untrained or minimally trained defender a golden opportunity. The one who starts the fight has an enormous advantage. In this context, the BG started the incident, but the student starts the fight.
This is not to say that more advanced training is not desirable. Several of my students have been in rather difficult extreme cases and still won. Fortunately, they had training beyond a permit course.
Rangemaster – Self-defense and firearms training for the real world http://www.rangemaster.com
http://www.rangemaster.com
Rangemaster students’ success rate (at least on events I know about) is 61/0/2 for 63 incidents. That’s 61 clear victories, zero losses and 2 forfeits. The two forfeits were people who died as a result of not being armed on The Big Day. Both were killed in separate street robberies. Essentially, both were executed for the contents of their pockets. They were not able to defend themselves because they chose not to be armed that day. They made a poor choice.
Of the 61 students who won, only 3 were injured, and all recovered from those injuries. They did not know they would need a gun that day, but they chose to be armed, anyway. Based on my interviews with the winners, I believe the two MOST important factors are:
1. Having your damn gun on you when the event occurs, and
2. Being willing to use it to save your life.
Everything else-- gun model, caliber, ammo choice and Yes, even amount of training, seems to be a distant third after these primary two. Three of the shooters in our group were trained to our instructor level, four or five more to what I would call competency, and the rest had only had an eight hour carry permit course.
One of the things we stress at ALL training levels is the need to actually carry the gun daily, as one simply cannot make an appointment for an emergency. An emergency, in this context, is a sudden, unforeseen crisis in which one’s life is in immediate mortal danger. The key words are “sudden, unforeseen”, so making carrying a handgun a daily routine assures that it will be there when needed. I believe that because we stress this heavily, our students tend to be armed, and thus win when attacked.
I believe a big factor is the Bad Guy’s training, education and life experience. Most BG’s go through their entire careers without ever running into an armed citizen on the street. Only about 4% of the US population has some kind of carry permit, and I’d bet less than 1% of them actually carry on a routine, daily basis. So, when a Bad Guy confronts a citizen who is actually armed and produces his weapon, the resulting mental lag time for the Bad Guy allows even an untrained or minimally trained defender a golden opportunity. The one who starts the fight has an enormous advantage. In this context, the BG started the incident, but the student starts the fight.
This is not to say that more advanced training is not desirable. Several of my students have been in rather difficult extreme cases and still won. Fortunately, they had training beyond a permit course.
Rangemaster – Self-defense and firearms training for the real world http://www.rangemaster.com
http://www.rangemaster.com
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