Basic Firearms Training for a New Shooter

All right you've probably heard me talk about how the defensive shooting skills that are actually needed and that are actually used regularly for people to defend themselves in real dynamic, critical incidents, really aren't all that high level. As shooters, as gun enthusiasts, we get really obsessed over incredible marksmanship and impossible shots and really getting the most control over the gun and being the best shooters we can be. But the fact is, a lot of people really aren't that interested in shooting. They just want to have a firearm for personal defense. It's not their hobby, it's not their passion, or maybe they just haven't started yet. Now I've got Mitch here with me. Mitch is the production assistant on today's shoot. Mitch has really no idea what's about to happen. Mitch, how much handgun shooting have you done? None. Okay. How much defensive training have you done? None. Yesterday, we were doing some lecture work, talking about concepts surrounding defensive firearms training. So you at least have that much ahead of the game, right? Yes. So, Mitch is someone who hasn't done a lot of shooting, he's done some shotgun shooting. We did talk about that. And about 10 minutes ago, I said, "Hey, sign a waiver, put the mic on, "and let's get out here and see what's gonna happen." Because I think it's important that we understand how quickly and how easily, people can get started with the fundamental skills of defensive shooting. Now, what I've got set up here is a man size target. It's a typical competition type target, cardboard target. If I step this off, one, two, three, four, this is something like 10 to 12, maybe 15 feet at the most. 86% of defensive shooting situations occur, between the distances of nine and 15 feet, according to the data collected by Tom Givens. He's done a DVD for us called "Lessons From The Street". He gives a presentation of that same name. He has a large body of evidence that this is the kind of distance that people will need to shoot when they defend themselves. And I believe that teaching people to shoot intuitively at this distance is relatively simple. So here's the simple thing. These two guns are loaded, Mitch. I want you to step up right about here. I'm gonna be standing right here beside you. I'm gonna hand you a loaded gun. When I hand you that loaded gun, I want you to get a good, comfortable grip on it, and make sure that you keep your finger away from this triggery part. All right, you're just gonna kind of hold the gun in this manner up high, so there's no gap behind the gun. On this side, you're gonna have a big open gap. You want to keep that thumb high, and you're gonna put that hand right into it and your thumbs won't be crossed. Pretty simple. All right? I want you to go ahead and put your glasses on. I'm gonna put my glasses on. And I'm gonna go ahead and hand you that gun. All right. Good deal. How old are you, Mitch? 17. All right, perfect. Luckily your dad's on the crew, so he helped with that waiver, right? Go ahead and raise that thumb, put that hand in there, and pull the gun back to your chest and keep it level. Keep it down below the top of that barn we've got set up back there. Now, here's the idea. I want you to get into kind of an athletic position, bend your knees a little bit. Lean forward at the waist. Get your shoulders in front of your hips. Focus on that bad guy. Imagine that that was a bad gut across the bedroom. Guy kicked your front door and you have access to a firearm somewhere in your house, four, five years from now you buy your own handgun, you've got your handgun staged for personal defense. Maybe you're carrying it, you've gotten it to the ready position. Both eyes open focused on that target, I want you to extend the gun out in your line of sight fully. I want you to touch the trigger, and I want you to keep your eyes focused on the center of that target, and slowly, smoothly, press that trigger. Perfect. Come back in, finger off the trigger. So shot went a little higher than we'd like but obviously it was a hit on the target. So think about keeping that gun planed out level in front of you. Focus on the center chest area of the target, drive the gun out, extend, touch and slowly, smoothly, press. Cool. Come back in. I'm gonna give you one command. I'm gonna say "Up", when I say "Up", I want you to drive the gun out just like you did, touch the trigger and smoothly press. Up! Good. Come back in. Let's do that a little faster. Up! Good. Now you can see that time you went a little bit faster, your finger stayed on the trigger. Remember, anytime you come back you want to keep that finger off the trigger. Make sure that gun is settled and your shoulders are locked in. Go ahead and square off a little bit. Well, we'll start refining this a little bit pretty early in the learning process. So now you're gonna be squared off, drive that gun out there, make sure it's settled, make sure your arms are fully extended, your shoulders are engaged. Keep both eyes open focused on those couple of holes that you've got in the center of the chest, then touch and smoothly press the trigger. Up! Good. Come back in. And now let's go at faster again, but faster with that much control. So good athletic engagement. Make sure you close at the hips and lock those shoulders out. Uncross those thumbs. Up! Perfect. Now I want you to fire two shots. So you're gonna fire a shot, the gun's gonna bounce, fire a follow-up shot. Up! Okay, now three shots. Up! Okay, now we saw the gun started to climb a little bit. So don't start going too fast. Make sure you keep that gun locked down. Pause just half a heartbeat between shots and let that gun settle. Up! Okay, good. Again, it started to flop up. Make sure you keep that weight forward. Keep that shoulder forward. Keep that gun level between shots. Give me four shots this time. Up! Okay, now reload the gun. All right. I kind of set you up for failure there for a second. Do you have any idea how to reload the gun? I do not. Okay, you know there's a button on there somewhere, right? There you go. So, and the reason I did that really wasn't to embarrass you at all in the video. The point I wanted to make for everybody at home is legitimately, those were the first... I don't even know, 12, 15 shots that Mitch has ever fired out of a semi-automatic defensive handgun. Now it's the first time that he's done this and let's walk over and take a look at the target. We walk up here, your first shot... Now, what we don't want to do is say, "Oh, you got a headshot on your first shot" because we know the intention was to hit here. First shot went a little high, centered up though, that was good. Everything was cool there. The next shot went where we wanted it. Several of the next shots went we wanted it. When we started doing multiple shots, right? You can pull your glasses off now. The shots started climbing a little bit higher but still, if you hit a bad guy here in the chest, that's not bad, right? Under the conditions of a dynamic critical incident, if anything, you're more likely to more athletically lock out and be under more control of that gun than you are here where there's a little bit of nervousness and still a little bit of slow presentation. So overwhelming. What do we get? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 shots were in that gun. 15 rounds were in the gun. 15 shots are on the target. Two of 'em are higher than we wanted, but again, in the real fight, those lucky high shots might've done more damage. And then everything else, there's two of them that are outside of what we would normally consider our high centered chest. So we've got 11 out of 15 shots, first shots he's ever fired. No reference to the sights, no mechanical anything, just good, natural neutral stance. In fact, I even let you stand a little bit staggered 'cause that's how you were standing. You might be standing staggered, even though we recommend more of a squared-off stance. Now we know that you fired 15 rounds out of that semi-automatic gun. Let's go back over here and try something else. Put those glasses on. And now we're gonna give you a new gun. One thing I see a lot is people will get a new gun and all of a sudden they got to go back to zero. They give them a new gun, well, the gun works exactly the same way. And if it kind of fits your hand, if you know how to press a trigger and do follow up with managing recoil and all that kind of stuff, giving you a new gun that's a slightly different size, slightly different shape, really shouldn't make that much of a difference. Go ahead and keep that trigger finger up where it belongs. Raise that thumb, get that good two-handed grip, square yourself off. Pull that gun back in, lean forward at the waist, square it off, and when I say, "Up," I just want you to drive that gun out and take two shots into the chest. Make sure the gun is level when you have it out in front of you, and make sure it gets back to level before that second shot fires. Up! Good. Come back in and let's do it again. Two more shots. Up! Good. This pointing is a little bit higher than that other gun, so plane it out just a little bit lower and give me three shots. Up! And now we go, we hit slide lock. Cool, come back in and I'll take that gun. Excellent. I'll put that down. You can pull those glasses off. And again, every single one of those shots is inside of our high centered chest area. People tend to make a big deal out of shooting skill, when it comes to defensive shooting skill. Absolutely, we need to be able to control the gun. Absolutely, we need to be able to put the bullets where we want 'em. But the kind of skills that we're talking about can be gained very efficiently. Going through a training program is still absolutely necessary. You can't come out here and shoot 20 rounds and think you own the skills. But, when you go through that training program, it shouldn't be worrying about taking hours and hours and hours just to hit the high centered chest. Hours and hours and hours just to get the mechanics of grip and body position down. Those things should happen very easily. Do that seem mechanically very hard or athletically very difficult? Not at all. All right. So that's what we're looking for is, is the simple acquisition of defensive shooting skills, and then taking a course that actually challenges you to do that under stress, to integrate lateral movement, to reload immediately when you hit slide lock, to get the gun smoothly out of your holster and present it to a defensive position, to start integrating all of the other things, processing information, recognizing targets, varying your strings of fire, dealing with malfunctions, all of the things that could be difficult. Because honestly, defensive firearm shooting, shouldn't be all that hard. And if we look at the empirical evidence, the geometry problem, the distance and the size of targets, make it well within reach of any able-bodied person who can control that defensive firearm. Excellent. Thank you, Mitch. Thank you. Be sure to check out the Personal Defense Network for more important tips, just like that one.