Vehicle Drawing and Shooting

Here's is another important video from the Personal Defense Network Once we've decided how you are gonna carry our firearm inside of the vehicle, of course we wanna practice deploying that firearm from that method of carry. Now, if we decided that it's not worth it to change anything from the way we normally carry a firearm, we don't spend that much time in the car, we're gonna carry it at that five o'clock position or the four o'clock position outside the waistband, just like we normally would with a jacket or consuming garment in a public space. We wanna practice deploying that firearm from inside the vehicle. So we know what it's going to be like. We have some muscle memory. If you will, we have a rut in the road that lets us know how to do it efficiently. We practiced it. And of course, there's no reason to practice with a live fire firearm. We can do this with a plastic gun. We could do this with an unloaded firearm, or we could go to the range and actually do this live fire. For now, we've got an unloaded firearm. We're just going to go through the motions. Let's assume that I was trapped inside of a stopping aYrea parking lot, whatever it was, I couldn't move my vehicle. My vehicle has been disabled, whatever the situation is. And I recognize that I have a threat just outside of my passenger door. Maybe it's someone coming towards the car or maybe it's somebody banging on the window, with some kind of a weapon, a stick, a crowbar, a tire iron something where they're trying to hurt me. At this point, I've recognized that I may need my firearm or I do need my firearm, carrying in that four o'clock or five o'clock position. A, isn't very comfortable. And B, isn't very convenient when I actually have to reach down now, push my body up out of the seat, get around the seatbelt in this case, disengage a thumb break and then tilt the firearm up and forward actually away from the direction that I wanna go. First I want the gun pointed this direction towards the bad guy but I've got a candidate this way, pointing it backwards getting the firearm out, past my body and then coming in close again, parallel with my thigh is how I like to cross the body that way I'm not covering myself, orient towards the threat and in this case, shoot from a retention position. Now, what do I need to do with my offhand while this was going on? Obviously, I need to keep it out of the way. I need to keep it below the line of travel of the muzzle as I come across my body and certainly below and out of the way as I put that magazine well tucked in against my body, my firing hand thumb tucked in against my body and then touch press. This is going to keep the slide away from my body, keep the firearm oriented in that general direction to get that combat accurate hit on the person who's attacking me from the driver's side. At this point, we're probably not gonna reholster especially if we're carrying that four or five o'clock position. I'm gonna stay in the ready position. I'm gonna get rid of my seatbelt and then I'm going to exit the vehicle. Or maybe now the situation has changed and I'm able to drive away. I may need to put the firearm into my weak hand keep it in the ready position while I drive again being careful ensure to stay outside of the range of that muzzle Keep the muzzle up above my thighs can get parallel with my thighs so that I'm not covering myself with a firearm during a dynamic critical incident. Deploying from the four or five o'clock position, maybe great, easy comfortable on the range and walking around but it's not the smoothest, and not the fastest when we're in a seated position inside of a car. One of the most convenient ways to present while seated inside of a vehicle was obviously going to be from a cross draw holster. And we've looked at the way the cross draw holster works. I've actually got one on now. If I were to recognize a threat outside of this car maybe the door was open and I was getting out getting ready to leave the vehicle or of course, if the door was closed and I were trapped again, couldn't move from the vehicle, recognized a threat. I would reach down to the firearm, of course, releasing the strap releasing any retention device at this point pulling the firearm up and keeping my off hand up above the muzzle, above where I believe the muzzle to be as I come up into that ready position. And then that good shooting position magazine well tucked against my body, strong hand thumb tucked against my body and then touch press to defend myself from someone coming in from that driver's side. Now, if the threat were over on the passenger side or maybe even inside the vehicle, maybe out in front of me that presentation would be even simpler because I wouldn't have to worry as much about this arm. I would simply come up against my body parallel with the thigh, into the ready position. At this point, I could defend myself from in front. I could take the firearm, continue to cross and extend touch press out towards the passenger side also, understanding that the threat could come from anywhere inside the vehicle, anywhere around the vehicle. If you're trapped inside the vehicle and need to use your firearm. When you practice presentations from a holster, regardless of where you carry on your body or in the car you want to make sure that you think about not only defending yourself from that driver's side door, but also from out in front and to the right if necessary, maybe even to the rear in some extreme circumstances where you're gonna actually have to come up out of the seat you may need to release that seatbelt also you're not gonna want to get anything tangled up in there as you start to move so think about how to stay inside the vehicle, release that seatbelt get it past your body and now you can turn around and maneuver inside the vehicle. Now, as you can see, I've put on a concealment garment because this time I've actually gone away from waist carry and put on a shoulder holster. Now, the fact is when you're sitting inside of a vehicle and you're carrying on your waist, you probably unless you're worried about concealing from people inside of the vehicle not gonna worry as much about being concealed. Now, again, local laws regulations your personal preference may still come into play. But the fact is people driving by or walking by your vehicle, aren't likely to see a firearm when it's on your waist or ankle holster, pocket holster or inside of a fanny pack off body carry even a holster put in a hardpoint that's out of the way underneath the dash next to the seat. But when you were in that shoulder holster even if they don't see the firearm itself they're very likely to see the straps that are coming up over your shoulder when you're sitting inside of the vehicle. And of course they can see in through the windshield or in through the side doors at that configuration. You may not want people to know you're carrying so this is going to be more viable if you're wearing a concealment garment if it's 90 degrees out you don't have air conditioning shoulder holster probably isn't gonna be the best option for you. But in case it is, you want to think about how to deploy and it's going to be very much like the cross draw holster. At this point, we're going to recognize a threat. We're going to reach across underneath of our arm. Notice that the seatbelt is still on. I've got a seatbelt coming across my chest here and the seatbelt coming across my waist. I'm actually reaching between those two areas of seatbelt to securely grab the firearm, release the retention device which in this case is a thumb brake. Pull the firearm up, keeping the firearm oriented between my body and my arm and then turning it so that I am again, parallel with my thigh. As I orient towards the front, maybe keep it oriented towards the driver's side or come all the way across and go again to that passenger side, to go out that window. Regardless of where your threat is, again, we need to be able to present 360 degrees from that shoulder holster while seated. The shoulder holster is a very comfortable option. Not quite as convenient as the cross draw holster down on the hip to draw from, but very convenient as long as you're comfortable with the concealment garment inside the vehicle, seated with all the weight of that firearm resting on your shoulders instead of down by your hip. In some cars, this is going to be the most comfortable way to carry. Of course, you still need to practice to make it an efficient way to present your firearm. Let's take a look at one of the off body carry options, the fanny pack. In this case, we've taken the fanny pack and we've actually secured it to the seat simply by throwing the strap up around the headrest. We know that this isn't going to go very far. We know where the firearms located now. It's not exactly concealed. It wouldn't be convenient if we had a passenger with us but for a quick and easy way to secure a firearm off our body inside of a vehicle this is going to work as well as just about anything else. If we had a situation where we needed to deploy the firearm we could reach over with our strong hand only pull open the fanny pack at this point here where it's designed to be broken open. Again, this is set up for a left-handed deployment which means we're going to have to move our firing hand in behind the firearm. As we pull it out, come up to our ready position either engage threat to the strong side, in front of ourselves, in front of the vehicle or off to the weak side. Again, crossing our body parallel to the thighs. It's always tucking in getting into our retention shooting position. Now, if we had both hands available to us we obviously could then come across, open the fanny pack with our weak hand, grab the firearm this way come across again, avoiding covering our body. This might be a more convenient way to engage a threat. If we've practiced shooting manipulating our firearm with our weak hand If we're over here on the strong side of our body and we were coming across to get the firearm, from this fanny pack position from a position on the seat or even a hardpoint that might be mounted elsewhere inside the vehicle. Practicing again is gonna be very important. Think about whether or not this is a viable option or if some small change to this is a viable option for you and practice deploying whenever you have off body carry inside of a vehicle with both the strong hand and the weak hand as long as your shooting skills are up to par with that weak hand at the close range, as you can expect when you need to defend yourself inside your vehicle. Check out more videos just like this one at the Personal Defense Network.