“Before we proceed, let’s clear up a couple of definitions.” said Ken Hackathorn, masterclass small arms and tactics instructor, to a class of a dozen or so gathered for a hybrid pistol/rifle class.
A shooting is when one party has a gun. A gunfight is when all parties involved have guns.
Ken went on to explain.
We hear the statistics about how the average shooting is three rounds, takes place at three yards, and it is over in three seconds. While that might be true for a shooting, where the average number of rounds fired is three, that’s not a gunfight. The average number of rounds fired in a gunfight is whatever was in the gun when the fight started.
What are We Training For?
I mention Hackathorn’s admonition because we at SOTGU were recently challenged regarding the practical distance for self-defense shooting. The assertion was that any training drills beyond the established 21-foot limit were impractical and unrealistic. The person making that claim quoted the old “3 shots, 3 yards, 3 seconds” adage. The person in question, who shall remain mercifully nameless, commented that they didn’t need “to take training to hit a man-sized target at three yards.”
To be fair, that person could very likely hit a stationary cardboard silhouette target from three yards with his feet planted. So, there’s that. Nonetheless, that’s not a gunfight scenario, that is a shooting scenario.
When it comes to serious training, we need to conduct rehearsals via various drills that will support the skills and tactics that we hope to employ when we’re faced with the gravest extreme of a deadly force attack. Quoting stats for shootings doesn’t have much benefit when we need to be preparing to survive and win gunfights.
Training for Gunfights, not Shootings
Now that we’ve set the table as far as definitions go and established our goal, we need to consider what truly happens in gunfights. Thanks to the massive amount of surveillance and body camera footage available, we don’t really have to guess much.
Moving
In nearly ninety-percent of gunfights, both the attacker and the defender are moving. If one of the two parties in the gunfight stops moving and isn’t behind cover, that party tends to get shot. Watch just about any body cam footage of a sudden, unexpected attack on a police officer and the first thing they do, instinctively, is move their feet to get off the “X” or out of the kill zone. Naturally, that’s a good instinct.
Knowing that we’ll want to be getting out of the immediate kill zone by moving, we need to engage in training and practice that requires us to move while shooting or shoot while moving. No, we don’t have beginning shooters move and shoot during the first hour of the first day, but we can’t, with good conscience, conduct all of our shooting drills flat-footed, as though our feet are in cement as John Farnam likes to say.
What do we know? We know that shooters who stand perfectly still get nice tight groups on paper and cardboard. People feel good when their shot groups are tight. They don’t feel good when they don’t have those tight groups, therefore they won’t make themselves move.
This, of course, is the conundrum. We know that moving and shooting is an important skill, but that skill takes concerted effort to develop. Therefore, most people will engage in static, non-moving shooting drills because that is where they feel comfortable. This is where organized training comes into play and an instructor makes you do what you’re not comfortable doing.
Distance
Most gunfights start up close and personal, but not all. We have ample historical evidence that the good guy with a gun needs to shoot a bad guy at distances beyond 21 feet. Eli Dicken, the man who saved countless lives during a spree killing at a mall in Indiana had to start shooting from 40 yards. Dicken scored two hits at that distance, four hits from 20 yards, and the last two from 25 feet away.
Dave Spaulding once advised a class in which I was a participant that “distance always favors skill.” He continued, “Any moron can shoot you from five feet away. If you have genuine skill, distance is your friend.”
For that reason, we train our students from contact distance out to twenty-five yards or so. The ability to put rounds reliably on a man-sized target at such distances builds a genuine confidence in the shooter. Confidence in your abilities isn’t something you can fake and it’s not something that magically happens when bullets are flying.
Cover Drills
A fundamental tactic of surviving gunfights is simple, but often overlooked. If you realize you’re in a gunfight and you’re not behind cover, your feet need to be moving. We move our feet until we’re behind cover and then we use that cover to immediately put effective rounds on target. If no cover is available, we don’t stop moving our feet until the threat is over.
Nonetheless, all cover is temporary. We don’t set up residence behind cover. Cover offers us a tactical advantage to put rounds on target, but the bad guy isn’t just going to stand still and let you shoot him or her. They’re going to try to move and circumnavigate the cover you’re using. Therefore, we need to be constantly thinking, where is my next cover?
After we have instructed students in how to properly use cover, we move on to bounding cover drills where students engage, move to another form of cover and engage again. No, this isn’t the first half of day one training, we build on previous drills. We need the student to get comfortable moving and shooting, shooting from cover and then moving to other cover. Cover is also a great place to top off an empty or partially empty gun.
Rampage Killers Want a Shooting, Not a Gunfight
The sad reality of our world is that there are evil human animals who want to kill innocent people as an expression of their angst and hatred. A lesson that we should have all learned by now is that rampage killers are not looking for a gunfight, they want a mass shooting. This is why somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety-five percent of rampage killing attacks take place in “gun free zones.” They want carnage, they don’t want armed resistance.
History has shown, and it just repeated itself in Twin Falls, Idaho, that when confronted with armed resistance, the rampage killer will stop trying to murder the innocent and turn their attention to the armed resistance, thus saving innocent lives.
Here’s the full video.
This is Jordan Salinas — the legend who actually did something while other people sat there filming.
Jumped out, engaged the In-N-Out shooter, forced him back, then stayed to help a wounded employee.
No camera.
No hesitation.
Just action.Real ones… pic.twitter.com/KxEH9RD4NV
— Emanuel Quiñones (@EQuinones6310) August 2, 2026
When a gunfight is brought to a rampage killer, they will usually attempt to get away and then, when faced with no other choice but to shoot it out, they frequently turn their guns on themselves. While that isn’t a guarantee, forcing an armed killer to fight as opposed to gunning down helpless innocents, is clearly the preferred outcome.
For our part, as responsible armed citizens, the duty we have is not just to carry guns, but to be prepared for the realities of armed conflict through serious training. Now, as always, your responsibility to be ready for the fight never ends.
Paul G. Markel is a combat decorated United States Marine veteran. He is also the founder of Student of the Gun University and has been teaching Small Arms & Tactics to military personnel, police officers, and citizens for over three decades.
The Twin Falls, Idaho, In-N-Out incident killer was ~30 yards away when the hero defender first engaged him.
Correction for my above post: The distance varied as the killer was moving around the area a lot. At one point it was a ~30 yard engagement around the time Salinas started engaging him.
If you are not at least stepping to the right or left, as you shoot in a narrow gun range facility. You are wrong. As the Idaho defender video displays. The good guy is moving and shooting at the same time.
I would like to know was this good guy using a “Miami vice” shoulder holster rig??? In order to carry a 13 inch long handgun. Well, the question has now been settled. Yes you can EDC a suppressor equiped sidearm.
Also was he open carrying it? Or wearing a cover garment. Like a vest.
If so, it was not, one of those so called “shoot me first” vest types.
“I would like to know was this good guy using a “Miami vice” shoulder holster rig???”
In a video he did with, I think, the same pistol-supressor he had a shoulder holster rig and the gun was a 5.7×28 FN Five-seveN with suppressor, and indicated on his page that’s his carry gun set-up. In the video it looks like he had a shirt over his T-shirt so that’s probably his ‘concealed’ outfit for the shoulder holster set up. But maybe he will give some details at some point.
Also.
No optic. No “TV set” box on the top of his sidearm. He is just using the old fashion iron sites.
Now let the calibers wars begin. Again. I remember when the “experts” said it’s 45acp and nothing else.
‘Idaho Shoots Back’: In-N-Out Citizen Hero Refused to Be a Victim a Second Time.
“Jordan Salinas has now witnessed two mass shootings in his 35 years on this earth. The Kimberly, Idaho, resident felt like a victim at the first one. He shot back at the second one.
Salinas was sitting in the drive-thru at the Twin Falls In-N-Out on Saturday when he saw customers fleeing the restaurant and assumed there was a fire in the building. He and his girlfriend were heading out for an afternoon of horseback riding and were just stopping momentarily to grab a bite to eat.
Then he heard the unmistakable ‘pop-pop-pop’ of gunfire and knew he had to act.
…
‘Salinas reached for his shoulder holster and drew an FN Five-Seven — a semi-automatic pistol with a suppressor fixed to the barrel,’ and, despite protests from his girlfriend, ran towards the trouble and enacted the response framework he had practiced so many times before.
Observe. Orient. Decide. Act.
Observe. Salinas ran from the car, gun drawn. Video posted to social media shows a man slinking behind In-N-Out signs and shrubs, seeking out the source of the gunfire.
Orient. Hidden from view, he established sight lines. He reminded himself to stay disciplined on the trigger. Soon, he saw a man, who police later identified as 24-year-old Chad Williams, standing by the drive-through window. He watched as Williams lifted a rifle to his shoulder and fired toward cars.
Decide. ‘OK,’ Salinas thought. ‘This is the guy.’
Act. He leveled his pistol with both hands, and fired.
…
The crazed gunman shooting up the In-N-Out parking lot ‘did not like it when bullets started firing both ways,’ Salinas said. It turns out another customer, an off-duty police officer who was inside the restaurant when the shots broke out, had joined Salinas in returning the gunfire.
…
Salinas himself seems to be downplaying his actions, saying simply, ‘There’s a task that needs to be done, and we’re the ones who need to do it.’
…”
ht* tps://redstate.com/terichristoph/2026/08/03/touching-reason-hero-citizen-who-shot-back-at-idaho-gunman-learned-to-shoot-n2205116
I love this piece. What you ought to talk about is fear, fighting the urge to flee and controlled aggressiveness needed to put down the bad guys.
As a Navy helicopter pilot who flew combat missions in Vietnam, the Tanker Wars of the 180s and Desert Shield/Storm, it’s a lot different when the bullets are going both ways.
Averages are meaningless if your DGU is not an average encounter. While it is true that most encounters tend to be within 7 yards, that may go out the window if you are up against an active shooter like Eli Dicken or Jordan Salinas.
And here is a thing about practicing at 20 yards or more – if you are accurate at 20 or 25 yards, you will be even more accurate at 10 yards or 7 yards. 😁
Remember everyone. You are shooting to stop the threat. This good guy most likely missed. Or he only wounded the shooter. Remember rule #4?
And this good guy has the resources to train more than most people. I look forward to reading the investigation report. So I can adjust my training accordingly.
Successfully distracting a bad guy is definitely a really big win.
Sheepdog!!!
The Twin Falls defender, if he had done that in some blue states then he would be in jail right now and they would be prosecuting him wanting to send him to prison because he used as gun.
For example, New York: New York Penal Law Article 35 justifies physical force when an individual reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent an attack. However, the state enforces a duty to retreat before using deadly force, except when defending oneself inside a home under the Castle Doctrine.
In New York, the guy would have had a duty to retreat and the state does not have stand-your-ground laws like other states. In the blue anti-gun commie state of New York an anti-gun prosecutor would have used this to prosecute him.
He couldn’t have his silencer in most blue states, either.
In MA or CA, his pistol would have to be on the approved roster. Etc, etc, etc.
When gunshots rang out at a Twin Falls In-N-Out, this Idaho man shot back [the Salinas interview with the Idaho Statesman]
”
…
Williams, Salinas said, seemed shocked. He was taking fire from two people: Salinas and an off-duty policeman, a customer at In-N-Out, who returned fire, too, according to Twin Falls County Sheriff Jack Johnson. The return fire drove the shooter from the drive-through, toward an open parking lot at the city’s visitor center.
Williams later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said Sunday. ‘These people are true heroes in our community,’ Johnson said of the two men who returned fire. ‘They diverted the shooter and without a doubt saved many lives.’
Salinas’ part in the shootout took two or three minutes, Salinas said. As Williams retreated, sirens shrieked down Blue Lakes. When police spilled into the plaza, Salinas stood down and let them go to work.
‘My part,’ he thought, ‘is done.’
…”
ht* tps://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article316743551.html
[note: The “Williams, Salinas said, seemed shocked.” part… this is not an uncommon reaction when mass-shooters encounter an ordinary armed citizen firing at them or even showing up prepared to resist them. They expect police to be armed so its not a shock to them, but when that armed citizen starts firing at them this is something they do not expect to happen because the odds of encountering an armed citizen that just happens to randomly be at some public place at the time they have chosen for their heinous act, or in a ‘gun free zone’, are much lower than encountering an armed police officer who is there specifically for them. So it shocks these monsters when they encounter that random armed citizen firing at them who just happens to randomly be at their heinous act chosen location at their chosen time.]
ht* tps://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article316743551.html
Thank you, thank you, thank you for using the more accurate “rampage killer” instead of the Lame Stream Media term “active shooter”!
I honestly don’t care if every police department uses “active shooter”. It insults ordinary firearms users.
Any IDPA stage starts with “shooter ready?” Why? Because the competitors are shooters, not spree killers (my favorite).