Do you ever practice drawing and *not* firing during training?

[Chris17404]

Hi all,

I haven't been to very many pistol training classes, but I have been to a few. One aspect of training for real-life scenarios that I think may be lacking in today's training classes is drawing your pistol and *not* firing immediately. This includes keeping your trigger finger outside the trigger guard, waiting for some later indication to shoot, and then shooting. In a real-life scenario, there very well may be a need to not fire immediately, such as innocent bystanders in your line of fire, etc. and decisions need to be made.

This is something I always try to incorporate into my range time. With so many people focused on speed, split times, and shooting immediately upon drawing your gun, I wonder if you're doing yourself a disservice if you ever need to deploy your gun for real.

Here's something to try. Pick any shooting drill you like to do at the range. On the first "beep", draw and don't fire. Keep your finger out of the trigger guard and aimed at the threat. Then on a subsequent "beep" (the time delay should vary), commence normal firing of the drill. Then compare your times between shooting it the "normal" way and the "delayed firing" way. How do they differ?

I'm interested in hearing others' thoughts on this.

Chris

[Magsz]

Good question although ive got to say that ive never accidentally fired my gun after drawing.

Every time the trigger is pulled it is intentionally done.

[Chris17404]

My question wasn't about ways to avoid accidental discharges. It was about practicing the decision-making process involved in deciding when to shoot.

[NCPatrolAR]

Hi all,

I haven't been to very many pistol training classes, but I have been to a few. One aspect of training for real-life scenarios that I think may be lacking in today's training classes is drawing your pistol and *not* firing immediately. This includes keeping your trigger finger outside the trigger guard, waiting for some later indication to shoot, and then shooting. In a real-life scenario, there very well may be a need to not fire immediately, such as innocent bystanders in your line of fire, etc. and decisions need to be made.

This is something I always try to incorporate into my range time. With so many people focused on speed, split times, and shooting immediately upon drawing your gun, I wonder if you're doing yourself a disservice if you ever need to deploy your gun for real.

Here's something to try. Pick any shooting drill you like to do at the range. On the first "beep", draw and don't fire. Keep your finger out of the trigger guard and aimed at the threat. Then on a subsequent "beep" (the time delay should vary), commence normal firing of the drill. Then compare your times between shooting it the "normal" way and the "delayed firing" way. How do they differ?

I'm interested in hearing others' thoughts on this.

Chris

A better thing to do is to issue verbal commands while you aren't shooting instead of just standing there. I've dine this type of work at my department and with Bill Jeans and Jeff Gonzalez

[ToddG]

Judgmental exercises are very important, but there's no connection between working on things like a fast draw or fast splits and lack of judgment. They're two completely separate issues.

If someone is trying to get his pistol out right now to engage a threat as quickly as he can, then he's already identified the threat and made the decision to shoot. Because speed is of the essence in that situation, we practice to do that quickly.

There are plenty of simple drills to get people thinking about judgmental shooting and such drills can serve a purpose for inflicting a certain amount of stress on the student. Short of force-on-force scenarios using live human role players or at least a FATS-like video system, however, they're all extremely artificial and do little if anything to train actual target identification skills. A static target, even a photorealistic one, either IS or ISN'T a threat... there is no need to watch the target and evaluate it as it moves, reaches into its pockets, etc.

It's very similar to what you see in competitive shooting events. Folks rarely shoot no-shoot/non-threat targets in USPSA or IPSC purposely due to identification failures. Hits on no-shoots are almost always due to marksmanship failures.

As for the drill you're describing, why am I drawing the gun and pointing it at something that I haven't decided to shoot yet? The idea of spending time on the firing range practicing "not shooting" doesn't seem like a good expenditure of resources.

[Chris17404]

A better thing to do is to issue verbal commands while you aren't shooting instead of just standing there. I've dine this type of work at my department and with Bill Jeans and Jeff Gonzalez

Very good suggestion, sir. Verbal commands is definitely a skill I lack. I've foudn this out during FOF training.

Chris

[NCPatrolAR]

I feel not shooting each time you draw as a good use of training time. While it isn't as benifical as having true shoot/no shoot targets or FoF; it puts thE thought in a person's mind that situations can change in a split second from a shoot scenerio to a no shoot. I applaud people that look to incorporate stuff like this into their range practice

[RPD03]

Although there will be times when you draw your side arm and do not have to shoot, I believe that target id and being able to articulate/justify your use of force is paramount. We train using a variety of shoot/no shoot, force on force and video simulators in an effort to subject our guys to as many different situations as possible. Some of which will dictate drawing, challenging and taking appropriate action.

[John_Wayne777]

Hi all,

I haven't been to very many pistol training classes, but I have been to a few. One aspect of training for real-life scenarios that I think may be lacking in today's training classes is drawing your pistol and *not* firing immediately. This includes keeping your trigger finger outside the trigger guard, waiting for some later indication to shoot, and then shooting. In a real-life scenario, there very well may be a need to not fire immediately, such as innocent bystanders in your line of fire, etc. and decisions need to be made.

You have to carefully consider the context. While law enforcement officers may pre-emptively draw a firearm, generally when an average joe slaps leather he is doing so because he has already made the decision to shoot.

Think about it: If you are out and about in your daily life, what stimulus would prompt you to actually go for your gun? The most likely stimulus is someone who presents you with a direct and immediate threat.

What is the proper response to a direct and immediate threat of death or great bodily harm? Shoot the ****er.

When do you make the decision to shoot the ****er? More than likely before you even have your weapon out of the holster.

Even in a law enforcement context the majority of incidents where officers actually have to fire their weapons to stop a threat happen by surprise while the officer's weapon is still in the holster. When you are receiving incoming fire it will be highly desirable to be pulling the weapon to facilitate the process of putting rounds into the vital organs of the threat as quickly as humanly possible.

The circumstances you are facing milisecond to milisecond will dictate the appropriate response, and the conditions under which you are facing the threat play a large role as well. Do you react exactly the same way to a guy trying to hold you up at an ATM as you would to say an active shooter in a crowded mall?

It's difficult in personal practice (or even professional training) to model the enormous variability that exists in real life.

This is something I always try to incorporate into my range time. With so many people focused on speed, split times, and shooting immediately upon drawing your gun, I wonder if you're doing yourself a disservice if you ever need to deploy your gun for real.

No, they are not.

We are not talking about a Pavlovian response where people are in danger of pulling the trigger every time they take the weapon out of the holster. That's fruity as hell.

The circumstances will tell you what you need to do. When confronted with a threat you will be constantly evaluating whether or not you need to shoot the ****er to survive this. That assessment process happens continually from the time you first notice the threat until the time when you can determine with absolute certainty that the danger has passed. It's nearly impossible to truly simulate this on the square range.

When you examine real life shootings you often see that people are overly hesitant to use lethal force even when authorized by law or policy. So rather than being concerned that people are conditioning themselves to be too quick on the trigger, a number of real life incidents seem to indicate that the much larger danger is being too slow on the trigger.

[Magsz]

My question wasn't about ways to avoid accidental discharges. It was about practicing the decision-making process involved in deciding when to shoot.

My apologies, i think there is a bit of miscommunication going on here. Refer to ToddG's post in regards to what i was alluding to.