Many years ago, when I first got my concealed carry permit, my instructor told me that only one in three of the students were going to take what we were learning in class and apply it to our lives. Only one in three of the twelve students in the class were going to make it a habit to carry a defensive pistol with them wherever and whenever it was possible.
Two things have happened since then. Arizona has enacted constitutional carry and as a result, attendance in entry-level firearms training classes has plummeted, and if anything, I think my teacher may have been an optimist.
Greg Ellifritz is one of the sharpest minds in the firearms training world, and his blog is a must-read for anyone seriously committed to armed self-defense. His experience as a peace officer in Ohio suggests that only ten to twenty percent of people who have a concealed carry permit actually had a pistol with them, and that their firearm was usually stashed in their vehicle rather than carried on their person. The training that those people went through was useless because the one thing they needed to make it effective — their pistol — wasn’t within arm’s reach.
Concealed carry is a martial art: It has its roots in the demands of the common people to protect themselves from crime they see all around them and deciding to do something about it. Those are the exact same roots as karate, kung fu and many other martial arts styles.
However, unlike almost every other martial art out there, concealed carry is a weapons-based system. It requires a firearm in order to be useful. No firearm, no effect on the bad guy.
Time after time, I have attended a class where almost all the students arrived without a loaded, ready-to-use firearm on their person. I understand the need to respect range rules regarding loaded guns, but instructors such as Tom Givens and others not only encourage their students to show up to class ready for a fight, they almost demand it.
Taking a class in order to master the fundamentals of grip, stance, sights and trigger is great, and more people need to do it. People should not only learn these skills, but master them so they can be used on-demand when everything is on the line.
The knowledge you gain in class is only useful if you have a firearm with you when you need to apply those skills. Otherwise, you’re basically a vegetarian learning how to cook a steak: You’re just gaining knowledge you are never going to use.
Report after report, many examples shown here and at ttag, show us that folks with no training can and do protect themselves and their loved ones from hostile folks on the regular.
The armed good guy is not facing Hans Gruber. All joe citizen needs is training enough to safely handle his firearm during his day to day. Anything more than that is just supporting the training industry.
To use a driving analogy: There are folks with Ten Years of Experience, and there are folks with ONE DAY of experience for ten years.
Yes, some of these people manage to fend off an attack, but it’s largely by luck and lack of serious intent.
A comment I take to heart is: I don’t train for the “average” aggressor. I train for the motivated Violent Criminal who made the wrong Victim Assessment.
There is firearms training – and – training for using firearms – the two are not always the same. The latter is desired, the former is performative-entertainment.
I noticed the same thing when I was making traffic stops as a trooper with people who had concealed carry permits back when my state was “shall issue”. It has since become constitutional carry. Often the driver would feel the need to show me their permit. I would ask them if they had a gun with them or in their vehicle and most of the time they would tell me they did not. I always found that to be somewhat puzzling. I guess they were trying to make the point that they were generally law abiding citizens.😁
Truly good observations all around. I have worked as a firearms instructor and learned that while a number of students would train to demonstrate proficiency, some would discover during their first “shoot house” experience that they could not fire on a paper target that had a photo of a bad guy on it – they were a terror on the range with bullseye targets but froze when they encountered a human target simulation. They had not adopted the proper mind set to effectively deal with the very type of problems which had motivated them to attend a training course in the first place – they discovered that they were not fighters.
GREAT read and spot on
Retired LEO and RO,this is true for the vast majority of retirees that I know.
Hope they dont FAFO.
Beginning shooters arriving for class with loaded firearms before receiving instructions is one of the most stupid things I have ever heard. They are accidents waiting to happen. This is especially so now with constitutional carry and unrestricted open carry.
As I understand from a relative and his wife who got concealed carry permits in one of the few counties that allowed it at the time, Kern County in CA. for the shooting portion of the instruction course the candidates for a CCP had to undergo, they didn’t even have to get any rounds on the paper. All they had to do was shoot ten (I believe) rounds from their firearm and that satisfied the requirements for shooting to qualify for a CCP.
They fired at a paper target ten feet away but didn’t have to hit it. That begs the question of where the rounds went if they didn’t even get them on the paper.
Sort of reminds me of a shooting by the LAPD where numerous officers fired over 100 rounds at a perp seated in a pickup truck and only scored one hit on his hand out of 100 attempts. Besides peppering his truck, they hit numerous buildings and other vehicles in the neighborhood.
Reminds me of a cop who was in my print shop buying some printing for the sheriff’s department and he got to talking about an M-1 carbine someone had gifted him and how much fun it was to shoot but that the ammo was so expensive he didn’t shoot it much. I suggested he get Firearms News (as it was called at that time) and look for bulk surplus M-1 carbine ammo, that he could buy 500 rounds at a fairly reasonable cost per round. H replied hat he would never use up 500 rounds as he really wasn’t into guns as he stood there with a 9mm semi-automatic on his side as part of his equipment as a law enforcement officer.
I thought to myself that he was probably one of the guys who fired 100 rounds and only hit the perp once. I also believed that he only went to the range when mandated to do so by the sheriff’s department rules and only fired the required minimum. I really wanted to ask him to give me the M-1 carbine and I would make sure it got worked out regularly and 500 rounds would be nothing. I would burn them up in a couple of months — maybe less the first couple of times out.
The Florida qualification is “show competency with a firearm,” which is interpreted as sending one round down range. That’s it.
On the one hand, no other Constitutional right requires a competency test, so why do even that, but if I’m called into court to testify that I taught a student how to shoot, I want to say I did more than just have them fire a round into the berm.
Iam 71. I carry 24/7 even inside the apt. I worked the streets in the younger days, saw the truth the media do not want anyone to know.
I’m one of the 30%. I carry a firearm everywhere I go; even to places I think or am told I won’t need it because I am aware of Murphy’s Law. The time I forget it or decide I don’t need it is when I would wished I had it with me.
In my personal experience, this is true, but I can’t figure out WHY..
examy: Female realtors show homes to strangers that just walk in. No ID, no logout saying what homes they’re showing, basic info. They have a permit – gun’s in their desk! WHY? These are smart people so why not carry the dang pistol?