THE NAKED EMPEROR

The Emperor's New Clothes

• There is a children's story about a vain emperor who always had to have the most fashionable clothes. It got so ridiculous that some con men convinced him that they had sold him the latest style when he was actually wearing nothing. His courtiers and subjects were afraid to tell him the truth, so they went along with the scam, but when he went on parade to show off his latest attire, a small child, naive to the concept of flattery, blurted out, "What new clothes? The emperor is naked!"
• This page began as an irreverent extension of this site's common sense page. It initially dealt with specific issues in the defensive firearms community which I felt did not reflect common sense. My more recent comments seem to be of a more positive nature. I'm not sure if this is because I am mellowing with age or because I let all my subscriptions to gun magazines run out a few years ago.
• More than any other page on this site, this page is probably the one which can best serve as a forum for those visitors who would like to alert me to violations of common sense, on my part or on the part of other instructors or writers in this field.
• While I have no hesitation about updating any of these pages if I become aware of an error or a more useful point of view on the subject, this page, in particular, is definitely a work in progress. Don't hesitate to share your comments.
• Because this page is something of a loose collection of brief articles, I have placed an index with links below:

• I have no problem with using a "cold range" for the opening session of beginners' classes. ("Cold range" means that the guns are unloaded until the shooters are on the line and given a command to load and fire a specific number of rounds, then show clear when done firing.) Once people learn to manipulate the gun, however, I feel that they are being deprived of valuable training if they cannot wear the gun on the range in the same manner that they would wear it on the street.
• I taught for several years with Lethal Force Institute, a school which runs cold ranges and advocates things like the tactical use of a high ready position (handgun pointed upward, about 45 degrees), which it will not permit on its own ranges for safety reasons!
• In January of 1993 I met Bert DuVernay, who became Director of the Smith & Wesson Academy, until S&W was purchased by Saf-T-Hammer. Bert endeared himself to me with a single statement: "If we can't teach people how to do something safely on the range, it's not safe for them to do it on the street."
• I found Bert and his colleagues at the academy to be quite consistent in this regard. One point of which they made me aware is the safety violation of searching with the muzzle of the gun. This is a clear violation of Rule Two.
• People usually get taught to violate this basic rule in two ways:
  1. Scanning with the gun as a "third eye" while breaking tunnel vision after engaging a threat.
  2. Coupling the gun with the flashlight in some manner while searching with a flashlight (or gun-mounted light).
• Two major risks are posed by these techniques:
  1. Firing unintentionally if startled by what you find while searching.
  2. Crossing someone like a police officer responding to a "shots fired" call, who may shoot you in response to perceiving you as a threat.
  Some of my police students have disagreed with the latter because they only envision scenarios in uniform, but an off-duty officer looks just like any other armed citizen.
• If you're concerned with alternatives to the techniques I have just maligned, contact me by e-mail and I'll discuss some possibilities.

• My friend, Ralph Mroz, was kind enough to furnish me with a copy of his video, Extreme Close-Quarters Shooting, produced by Paladin Press. The video is appropriately subtitled A Critical Analysis of Contact-Distance Shooting Tactics.
• This video is well worth the purchase price for its thought provocation. It analyzes eight techniques being taught at the time that the video was produced. It does not offer magical solutions to a complex problem.
• Before viewing the video I already realized several things:
  • Most handgun engagements occur at close ranges, typically at one or two arm's lengths.
  • Real assailants don't stand still like paper targets on the range.
  • Draws of 1.5 seconds or less, accomplished on the range when one knows in advance that a draw is the indicated response to the anticipated signal, are hard to duplicate on the street.
  • At one or two arm's lengths even a one-second draw is not fast enough.
  • The fact that you put a round into someone does not guarantee that their attack will cease instantly.
  • The one time that I have had to draw a firearm on an assaultive human being, I had to use my non-gun hand to check the elbow of his knife hand.
• Ralph and I have a few differences of interpretation (big surprise with a humble guy like me!) but none of them are fundamental. We both believe that there is not one simple answer to this set of problems.
• One point which struck me while watching Ralph shoot with the various techniques was the fact that most of his rounds struck the upper abdominal area. Actually, if a high-velocity round strikes the liver, it can produce very rapid incapacitation. Nonetheless, if a shot to the pelvis significantly impairs mobility, it may actually be the most useful one at close range.
• I now teach my students to aim for the pelvic area for the first shot. I start my Concealed Weapon Permit students on the one-yard line, side-stepping while executing a palm strike with the non-gun hand and shouting "stop!" and drawing and firing at the pelvis from a one-handed protected-gun position.
• Ralph and I are in complete agreement that training only with the gun is not sufficient to deal with the most likely threats to one's physical well being.

• Like most shooters, I was taught to shoot a handgun standing still, lining up the sights and striving to work the trigger smoothly. After all, that's the way to shoot small groups on paper targets. As time went by I learned things like shooting from unconventional positions, shooting while moving and even how to shoot using just the silhouette of the handgun as a visual index.
• As I began to develop as a firearms instructor I learned to teach the same way as I had been taught. I also learned that most gunfights occur at relatively close ranges and that it is difficult for most people under life-threatening stress to hit with a handgun beyond seven yards.
• In June 1997 I renewed a childhood acquaintance with the late Col. Rex Applegate. The ensuing relationship challenged me to re-examine what I had been taught and how I was teaching - Applegate was the American dean of point shooting. As I have said elsewhere, I still believe in aimed fire as the primary technique but I have steadily been upgrading my estimation of the other methods as secondary techniques.
• When police officers are killed with handguns, it usually occurs at relatively close range, typically within one or two arm's lengths. At these distances the first person to point the gun and get off a shot usually gets the first critical hit. The statistics demonstrating this have been used to argue for point shooting and the integration of martial arts of with close-quarters shooting techniques. There is merit to this argument.
• On the other hand, police officers do not lose all their gunfights. Traditional firearms instructors teach that time and distance favor the trained operator. When police officers can engage at the longer ranges, where they have spent most of their firearms training time, they may enjoy the advantage over those who haven't invested the time in aimed fire training. This is particularly true if they have been able to take cover.
• Most shooting ranges are set up for shooting at aimed-fire distances. Most shooters enjoy the satisfaction of measurable results from the complex psychomotor task of aimed fire. The longer the range, the greater the satisfaction. Aimed fire has a definite place in the repertoire of defensive shooters; good tactics can give you the opportunity to use those skills.
• The other side of the coin is that the greatest likelihood is that when we become victims of life-threatening attacks they will occur at close range. This is as true for the police officer who has to "work in the hole" as it is for the armed citizen who must keep his or her firearm concealed until there is legal justification for its use.
• Few coin collectors would buy a precious coin only for one side. Don't spend all your training time on the "fun" stuff that produces small groups. Make sure that you also include the stuff which is more likely to save your bacon.

• ...is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." I have no idea if Abraham Maslow had self-defense in mind when he uttered or wrote those words, but they certainly are applicable.
• While a great many Americans have found that simply producing a firearm can quickly resolve a conflict, there are three potential problems with relying strictly on that "hammer":
  1. If the conflict does not involve a deadly threat, drawing a firearm may earn you a conviction for aggravated assault.
  2. If you are attacked by a determined assailant, at close range, you may not have the time to draw the firearm.
  3. If you are attacked when you don't have a firearm, you may not have any reliable alternative available.
• A few years ago, when I lived a few hundred miles from my current home, I was amazed to learn that a friend who runs the gun shop in that town was referring students to my CWP courses with the advice, "Forget all that kung-fu gunfighting Steve teaches and concentrate on the legal stuff." What was particularly surprising about that advice is that I knew that the man who was dispensing it had once survived an attack by grabbing and deflecting the muzzle of an AK-47, giving him the time to draw and fire his pistol. Since not everyone is as strong as he is, I try to teach some techniques that will accomplish the same end.
• All of this was recently brought into sharper focus for me when I read Ralph Mroz's book Tactical Defensive Training for Real-Life Encounters, published by Paladin Press. While Ralph and I don't always come to identical conclusions, we tend to follow similar analytical thought proceses.
• I'm not sure why this book is subtitled Practical Self-Preservation for Law Enforcement. While not every private citizen who reads it may have the level of physical fitness to follow through on all of Ralph's suggestions and implications, I can't believe that most private citizens who are concerned with self-defense won't find it worth reading.
• Section 1 is entitled "Self-Defense in Context." It puts self-defense in the perspective of the rest of our lives, including health maintenance. It also correctly points out the relatively limited utility of weapons, absent the empty-hand skills to survive long enough to deploy them.
• Section 2 is entitled "Self-Defense Software: The Mental Stuff." While Ralph and I have different views on the role of the color-code concept, I can't fault anyone who emphasizes the priority of software over hardware.
• Section 3 is entitled "Edged Weapons." It offers a refreshingly practical view of this area of self-defense.
• Section 4 is entitled "Firearms." I was amused to find a chapter entitled "The Revolver as a Superior Weapon." I can recall a phone call from Ralph, several years back, inquiring why I still carried revolvers!
• In short, this book is now the second on the list of recommended readings in my CWP course syllabus. (Modestly, I have listed my own book first.)

• Once cops started training on silhouette targets instead of bullseye targets they were taught to aim for "center of mass." On most police silhouette targets the center of the body's mass, where one scores the highest points, is right around the stomach, in the upper abdomen. The rationale for this was most likely because a shot aimed at the center of mass has the greatest chance of staying on the silhouette if it strays from its point of aim.
• As time went by silhouette targets were developed which placed "center of mass" up in the chest, where the heart and the major vessels are located. Anatomically this makes more sense than shooting for the stomach but, as many hunters can attest, a large mammal may function for about 15 seconds after the heart is destroyed.
• Many instructors advocate head shots, usually as a secondary aiming point. There are a few problems with head shots:
  1. The head is a very mobile target. It is instinctive to swing it away from a perceived threat, making it particularly difficult to hit in actual combat.
  2. While a shot anywhere in the head of a paper target looks pretty good, there's a large amount of the head which does not include essential parts of the central nervous system.
  3. The essential parts of the central nervous system are encased in heavy bone. Bullets which meet the skull at less than a perpendicular angle may not penetrate it, particularly if they have a rounded surface in their profile. Thus, even if one has the skill to hit the correct area of the head under stress, the shot may still not accomplish its purpose.
• Massad Ayoob advocates using the pelvis as a secondary aiming point and specifies three circumstances when one should aim there:
  1. When shots to the chest area have failed to produce any result;
  2. When the threat is with a contact weapon and one's firearm launches a projectile with enough energy to break the pelvis;
  3. Whenever one holds an assailant at gunpoint, to ensure visibility of the assailant's hands.
• Many of the point shooting advocates, from Fairbairn and Sykes to Bill Jordan, have advocated shooting your assailant in the belly. Jordan phrased it in terms of shooting in the vicinity of the belt buckle. Recently, John Farnam, a fervent advocate of aimed fire, has argued for aiming at the navel.
• John's basic argument is that if you are aiming for the upper chest and the assailant ducks, you lose your sight picture. If you aim no higher than the navel, you'll still be able to see where the assailant is and score an initial hit. After that follow-up shots moving up into the chest should be relatively easy.
• I find merit in John's argument. I am even more persuaded by John's argument than those of the point shooters. If you're shooting with your gun around the level of your own navel, your shot is likely to be "adynamic." Unless you overcome the assailant's nervous system the shot may not have an immediate effect. If the gun is up around eye level, the shot to the navel is likely to angle down into the pelvis. If the pelvis is damaged the assailant's mobility may be compromised.
• Consider that in most jurisdictions a citizen cannot legally draw or even expose a concealed firearm until the justification actually exists to fire it at the assailant. This means that most encounters will occur at close enough ranges where limiting the assailant's mobility is likely to be your first priority, particularly if you are trying to move out of the path of the threat.
• Using the pelvis as the initial aiming point makes a lot of sense to me. This maximizes your visibility of the threat. If the assailant's mobility is your biggest concern you can place additional shots in the pelvis. If the assailant is armed with a firearm you can place additional shots in the chest. Arguably, if you're using a double-action handgun, you could even track the gun up the torso while rolling back the trigger.
• By the way, the second item on John's page linked above has a great deal of merit as well. It deals with moving and shooting, another topic near and dear to me.

• In mid-2005 the International Association of Chiefs of Police issued a two-part "training key" on recognizing and dealing with suicide bombers. In the second part the author recommends, "If lethal force is justifed or authorized, aim for the head."
• This advice does not seem inconsistent with the evolving law-enforcement doctrine on dealing with "active shooters" - suspects who are in the process of directing gunfire at innocent victims. Does this mean that handgun training should now emphasize head shots?
• Returning to the IACP training key, the author goes on to say, "...An accurately placed head shot will terminate the bomber before he or she can take action to detonate the explosive device and will not accidentally set off the device. A fragmenting, high-velocity shot from a firearm such as an AR-15 at any of the above mentioned areas is ideal for immediately terminating the threat. When using lethal force, remember to fire from cover to avoid the effects of a potential explosion."
• Aside from the issue of the possible use of a "deadman switch," which would allow the bomb to detonate as soon as the bomber releases a switch, the more detailed parameters are a far cry from attempting a head shot with a pistol, in the open.
• While I believe that an armed private citizen, in the US, today, is more likely to confront an active shooter than a suicide bomber with a body-borne explosive device, I will continue the discussion in the former context because the following quotations are excerpted from an article that specifically discussed the IACP training keys.
• From Tom Aveni: "But I've trained thousands of cops, and I don't think most have the skill to deliver a head shot from a distance, especially with a handgun, which may be the only weapon immediately available in an unexpected encounter."
• Aveni continues: "The human skull is a fortified pillbox, mounted on a swivel, the neck. The head can move up and down and side-to-side freely and quickly when a threat is perceived."
• Indeed, according to Executive Director Dr. Bill Lewinski, the Force Science Research Center has documented that an unrestrained subject can move his head sideways 6 to 10 inches in as little as 1/10th of a second - "faster than a rifle bullet can travel 200 yards and faster than any officer could possibly react."
• Aveni continues: "Consequently, with a handgun, the most reliable means of effecting the recommended nasal-cavity shots, ear-canal shots or brain-stem shots is with the subject literally pinned down and immobilized by the officer. So much for 'stand-off distances!'"
• Jeff Chudwin is a former prosecutor, chief of police in Olympia Fields IL and president of the Illinois Tactical Officers Association. Paraphrasing Chudwin, it's well established that the handgun is not the preferred weapon in a gunfight, especially if head shots are required. Emergency room doctors have estimated to Chudwin that handgun rounds to the head are "effective" (i.e., immediately incapacitating) only about half the time, "due to lack of penetration to the cranial vault. There must be an immediate shutdown of the central nervous system, and the only means of achieving this with equipment available to police is through the destruction of the brain."
• In June 2005, I was privileged to hear a speech by Sergeant Marcus Young, of the Ukiah (CA) Police Department. Sergeant Young, despite injuries that disabled his dominant arm, prevailed in a gunfight with an ex-con and member of a violent white supremacist prison group. Of note, Young killed his assailant, who was attempting to access the rifle in Young's patrol vehicle, after Young had been shot in the head by one of five rounds fired at him by his assailant. Ironically, Young's first round struck a glancing blow to the assailant's head but the assailant was killed by Young's second round, which entered his buttock and traversed most of the length of his torso.
• Are there times that I would aim for the head with a handgun? Yes, most likely at close range, when an assailant was attacking a third party and would not be in a position to see me prepare for the rescue shot, and I had a clear background for such a shot. I still question the doctrine of so many schools that teach "two to the chest, one to the head."

• Ever since I have been teaching courses of my own design, I have emphasized initial shots to the pelvis, when tactically feasible. For many years, this has been based primarily on the concept that, at close range, a shot that impairs mobility is likely to be of greater value than a shot to the chest, which simply initiates a process of exsanguination (bleeding out) that could take as long as 15 seconds to affect the assailant's ability to function.
• A certain amount of my confidence in making this recommendation had been based on a report from Jim Cirillo that every felon who was shot in the pelvic area by members of the short-lived NYPD Stakeout Unit fell to the ground.
• In May 2007 I was finally able to attend a presentation on Tactical Anatomy, by James Williams, M.D., at the Annual Training Conference of the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors. Dr. Williams' presentation validated my recommendation of using the pelvis as a primary aiming point but added an important caveat.
• Dr. Williams specifies that it is the lateral pelvis that should be targeted, particularly with a handgun. The lateral pelvis is the area between the edge of the sacrum (the set of fused spinal vertebrae that form the central, rear portion of the pelvic frame) and the hip joint. This area can be envisioned as a triangle which encloses the bone structure that is most vulnerable to damage from a handgun bullet, compromising the assailant's ability to remain standing or mobile.
  
  
  
• Further, this area also contains large blood vessels and nerves, which actually offer a larger target than that offered by the heart and the "major vessels" in the upper chest. Thus, a shot in this lateral pelvic area is also likely to initiate a process of exsanguination.
• In response to my question, Dr. Williams stated that he feels that it would take the added balllistic power of a long gun to provide a measure of reliability to a shot to the sacrum. However, I would add that a handgun shot that does strike the sacrum, while not ideal, may still be diverted into one of those large blood vessels or nerves.

• In the years that this website has been up and that I have been posting at Packing.org, there have only been a few issues that have prompted expressions of disagreement or demands for explanation. One has been my advocacy of holsters that allow one-handed reholstering without the need to look at the holster in the process.
• This is a concept that I learned early on from Massad Ayoob and one with which I agree wholeheartedly. If you are not wearing a recognizable uniform and have a gun in your hand, you have a good chance of getting shot by police officers responding to a call involving shots fired or a crime that warrants an armed response.
• I can recall two specific incidents that have occurred in the time since I was taught this concept. One involved a Torrance, California, homeowner who walked downstairs with a gun in hand when officers entered his home in response to a report of a burglary in progress. The other involved a young, off-duty Providence, Rhode Island, police officer who ran across a street with an unholstered handgun to aid some on-duty officers. Neither one will talk about the incident - both were fatally shot by the officers they surprised.
• If you have attained immediate control of a threatening situation, whether by shooting the assailant or placing him at a position of disadvantage, try to get some degree of cover (or at least concealment) and, as soon as it is safe to do so, reholster, retaining your grasp of the holstered gun. The difference in time between drawing with your hand already on the gun and coming up from a low-ready position is minuscule. However, if you hear sirens or other indications that police have arrived, you can safely raise your hands (as high as they can reach) so that you will not be perceived as a threat by the responding officers.
• Any carry system that requires two hands to get the gun into the holster places you at risk for crossing the non-gun hand in the process. Remember that Rule Two tells you not to let the muzzle cross anything that you are not prepared to shoot.

• My friend Andy Stanford once published an article entitled "Evolution of a Shooting Stance." In it he describes how he has transitioned from shooting from a Weaver "stance" to shooting from Ron Avery's version of an isosceles "stance."
• I put the word "stance" in quotation marks because I associate stance with a static position of the lower body. Most differences among shooting styles have more to do with arm position than with leg position. Andy's concept of stance appears to include details of finger and thumb placement. Andy is not a bad person because his semantics differ from mine; I will soon explain why I distinguish between upper and lower body positions.
• For whatever disagreements I may have with Massad Ayoob, I still credit him with teaching me that it is important to be able to shoot from more than one position. Bad things do not usually happen to good people on flat, square shooting ranges with stationary targets which don't shoot back.
• Darrell Mulroy, for example, compiled an extensive collection of photos and videos of real-life shooting incidents. One point that he made, on the basis of his studies, is that one does not usually see classic range "stances" in dynamic situations, particularly in the true sense of foot position.
• Darrell was also one of many students of combat who believed that a handgun-armed victim of a life-threatening attack will focus on the attacker, not the front sight. I have friends who have prevailed in gunfights. Some say that they used their sights and some say that they did not. I don't believe that either group has lied to me. I do believe that when things happen up close and quickly even the best trained gunfighter may fire without waiting to acquire the sights.
• Like Andy, I too have been trained to shoot "the one true way" at different times in my life. Like Andy's, my views have undergone evolution. I have long believed that different techniques work better for different people - that's why different techniques have evolved. The biggest challenge to my thinking about shooting handguns came when the late Rex Applegate pushed me to seriously examine point shooting. As a result I now lean toward shooting positions that have a good chance of working whether one focuses on the sights or on the threat.
• Because of this I favor positions which don't require leaning the head to one side, which don't absolutely require a specific foot position and which don't inhibit rapid movement. I believe that it is useful to be able to shoot with more than one arm position because that allows you to shoot under different circumstances. In particular I believe that the role of the wrist is a crucial one. I believe that if the handgun fits your hand so that that the gun points straight forward when the arm is brought to the body's midline it will make little difference if the gun is grasped in one hand or two or if the arms are bent or flexed.
• As in the traditional martial arts, I believe that true evolution of one's shooting position involves increasing freedom from fixed positions.

• At this point I can't recall if I first learned of John Farnam in Combat Handguns magazine or some sort of periodic book about handguns, which listed him as one of the "Big Four" instructors in the US for combat handgunning. In either case, it was in the early 80's and I took note of some of the ground-breaking material that he taught.
• I read John's The Street Smart Gun Book a few years later but did not actually meet him until January 1993, when I took a two-hour block of instruction from him at the annual seminar of the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers. John invited me to attend his next law-enforcement course in the Los Angeles area, where I lived at the time. Over the next year or so, I twice scheduled time off from my day job for that course, only to have it canceled each time, when LAPD was placed on tactical alerts.
• By the time that I became aware that John had a periodic schedule of courses in the L.A. area, my weekend time was pretty well committed to teaching at the now-defunct Defensive Combat Academy.
• John is fairly well known for his vigorous advocacy of a high-thumbs version of the Weaver shooting position, so I have long associated the term "Farnam Method" with that technique. While I had lost interest in learning that technique, over time I came to appreciate more and more the contributions John makes to the mental side of armed self-defense.
• As years went by I learned that John has an e-mail list by which he shares "quips, comments and lessons learned" and asked to be included. I forward a significant number of those mailings to my own e-mail list every Sunday.
• When I learned that he had written The Farnam Method of Defensive Handgunning, I paid no heed because I assumed that it dealt mainly with his distinctive technique of the pistol. However, in the May 2006 issue of Combat Handguns, Massad Ayoob used his column as a sort of tandem review of the second edition of John's book on the handgun and of my own book. This prompted me to purchase a copy of the latest edition of John's book.
• While John and I teach some different approaches to handling and shooting handguns, we have some very similar views on the other material that makes up approximately the first half of his book. There is certainly some overlap between his book and mine but, in many cases, John goes into much greater detail. This is a book I heartily recommend and one that I would consider "must reading" for anyone serious about using a firearm in self-defense, who does not yet have documented training from a school that emphasizes the legal and tactical aspects of doing so. It turns out the The Farnam Method of Defensive Handgunning involves a lot more than John's style of operating the firearm.

• Mike Rayburn,an adjunct instructor with Smith & Wesson Academy, has made some pretty bold statements about trigger control:
  
  
  • "Thousands of articles and reams of paper have been wasted on the fallacy of trigger control and how allegedly important it is to shooting skills. Numerous “shooting gurus” have gone on record as stating that trigger control is the number one problem when it comes to shooting a handgun."
  • "That’s a bunch of hogwash! Trigger control may be important to target shooting skills, but not to the type of shooting we do as law enforcement officers. As police officers we are combat shooters, or at least we better be. If your department is still one, of unfortunately many, that still practices target shooting skills for combat on the street, then maybe trigger control is a concern of yours. But even then, it’s not the number one problem when it comes to shooting a handgun."
  
  
• Jeff Cooper referred to himself as "The Guru." a title I have never claimed for myself. I may not be the smartest bear in Jellystone Park but I think I'm smarter than the average bear and I will will have to stick with the "numerous gurus" on this issue.
• Without questioning Rayburn's motivation. I will simply address what I believe to be the fallacy in his reasoning:
  
  
  1. Rayburn states, "The leading problem is anticipating the recoil of the firearm, resulting in a pre-ignition push, or PIP." In fact, post-ignition push also diverts the bullet from its intended point of impact.
  2. More importantly, trigger control and avoiding anticipation of the shot are two components of the same continuum, not distinct elements. People do not anticipate the shot until they initiate the pressure on the trigger, whether for a single-action press or a double-action "roll."
  3. Whether by intent or by poor analysis, I suspect that Rayburn has too closely associated the target-shooting concept of "surprise break" with the entire process of triger control. I view the surprise break as a stage in training and a training tool similar to those of calling the shot and resetting the trigger.
  
  
• Many instructors speak of the stages of competence. A student acquiring a new skill is conscious of his incomptence. During the acqusition process, the student develops conscious competence; he can exceute the skill if he thinks about the process. When the student has truly acquired the skill, he is unconsciously competent - he no longer needs to think about the process he is executing.
• Training aids, such as the surprise break, calling the shot and resetting the trigger, are conscious processes during the stage of conscious competence. Once the basic skills are acquired, these individual processes all merge into the single process of firing the shot.
• Under combat condtions one may only use a very coarse sight picture or even rely on some sort of unsighted index on the intended target (point shooting). The crucial component of placing the shot where the muzzle is pointed remains accomplishing the trigger stroke without significantly distrubing the alignment of the muzzle, whether the component of not jerking the muzzle off line as the pressure on the trigger is developed or of not pressing the muzzle off line in anticipation of recoil.

Hand Strength and Handguns

• A few years ago I spent thirty dollars on the Paladin Press reprint of Chick Gaylord's Handgunner's Guide. Aside from a historical appreciation of the design origins of most modern concealment holsters, the most useful thing I got for my thirty dollars was the following paragraph:

  Developing an extremely fast draw is hard physical work. Any additional strength you can develop in your fingers, wrist and lower arm is a distinct advantage in double-action quick draw. I have been told that every one of the old-time western gunfighters who were considered to be terribly dangerous had one thing in common - all had extremely powerful wrists and hands. I myself found that by regular use of a spring grip exerciser I was able to whittle about one-tenth of a second off my draw.

• The late Bill Jordan, a shooter so phenomenal that he could consistently hit aspirin tablets while point-shooting, is reported to have traveled with a set of dumbbells so that he could maintain his exercise regimen even while away from home.
• A great deal of recoil control can be accomplished by relaxation - relaxing at the ankles, the knees and the pelvis, so that the shoulders are a few inches forward of the pelvis and the knees are slightly forward of the ankles. However, non-muscular shooters tend to throw their shoulders back, to counterbalance the weight of the gun. Throwing the shoulders back gives the gun's recoil the leverage to upset your sense of balance, inducing anticipation of the next shot, which then sends your shot low and to your non-dominant side.
• Rather than a spring grip exerciser, I prefer a home-made device that uses a piece of dowel, a length of cord and a weight of your choice. Take a 12" length of 1 1/4" inch dowel, like is used in closets for hanger bars. Drill a 1/4" hole through the dowel at the six-inch mark. Take about five or six feet of blind cord or clothesline and thread it through the hole, then tie a large enough knot on each end so that it cannot pull back out of the hole. Tie something like a book, a brick or a plastic bottle filled with water on one end of the rope, adjusting the length so that the weight barely clears the floor when you hold the dowel in your hands with your arms extended horizontally.
• Roll the dowel in your hands by alternately opening and closing your grip with each hand. Raise and lower the weight in each direction of travel. As a minimum, raise and lower the weight in each direction once a day. This will not only develop your carpal flexors (the muscles on the insides of your forearms) and your carpal extensors (the muscles on the outsides of your forearms), holding the device away from your body will also develop your anterior deltoids (the muscles that raise your outstretched arms). This increased deltoid strength will allow you to support your handgun without having to throw your shoulders back. Select the weight that barely allows you to accomplish your desired number of repetitions but start off with a fairly light one.

This is the petite student mentioned in the discussion of resetting triggers. While she does not use her dowel-and-weight device consistently, by relaxing onto the gun, she is back on target before the ejected case has reached the peak of its arc.	This is an example of a dowel-and-weight device. In this case the weight is a brick that weighs about three pounds. The student on the left uses a one-pint water bottle. ("A pint's a pound, the world around.") The same weight is not right for everyone.

• Curls with dumbbells are good for long-gun shooters. Keeping your biceps well toned will help you support your rifle or shotgun without having those muscles cramp.

RETURN TO INDEX

• I celebrated the demise of the federal ban on cosmetically impaired firearms by purchasing a new receiver, now equipped with an adjustable stock, for the carbine variant of the AR-15 that I use as my bedside gun.
• Jeff Cahill, illustrator of my book, is involved in the design and manufacture aftermarket “furniture” for military small arms.
• I had already planned on using Jeff’s TangoDown "Battlegrip" pistol grip on the reconfigured carbine. This is an ergonomically improved pistol grip that incorporates a water-resistant compartment for the storage of spare batteries. It’s very popular with SEAL’s and other special operators, who bolt lots of energy-gobbling electronic devices onto their M4’s.
• Since Jeff’s Arizona CWP was coming up for renewal, he headed to my place for the requisite renewal training, accompanied by a bundle of samples of his wares. These included a vertical foregrip. I was skeptical of the vertical foregrip because my long gun training has always emphasized using the support hand to support the forend, not to grip it.
• As Jeff started explaining the advantages of the vertical foregrip I realized that it could be used without applying gripping pressure, which might influence the point of impact. Jeff also pointed out that it allows the user to support more weight, without putting as much torque on the wrist and arm of the support hand as occurs when the forend rests on the palm of the support hand.
• The TangoDown vertical foregrip is equipped with a pocket to hold the pressure switch for a weapon-mounted light. Fortuitously, I opted for SureFire's M951XM07 light, which can be operated with the pressure pad or the end-cap button. It turns out that the pressure pad switch is not my choice for this particualr rig.
• Being a fiim believer both in equipment being operable in either hand (or from either shoulder) and in consistency of technique, I found that I prefer to use the index finger of the support hand on the end-cap button of the light, which gives me the same mode of operation whether the gun is mounted on the right or the left shoulder.
• I see a definite role for the pressure-pad switch on (a) a visible light that is either mounted too far from the grip or on a different plane, preventing use of the end-cap button or (b) a device that does not emit a visible (or audible) sign if the pressure pad is pressed inadvertently.
• The foregrip also contains a watertight compartment, which can be used for additional spare batteries. Since I already use the compartment in the pistol grip for spare batteries, I may end up using the second compartment for spare parts for the gun. (A more recent addition of a VLTOR modular stock has given me two more cylindrical storage compartments on the gun, expanding the latter option.)
• When I mounted the foregrip, which required the installation of a couple of Under Foregrip Integrated Rails from GG&G (one for the foregrip, one for the SureFire light), I was surprised to find that the foregrip was more comfortable farther forward on the lower handguard than I would otherwise place my support hand. Jeff had forewarned me that the vertical foregrip does facilitate the support of more weight. I also found that I am most comfortable using the vertical foregrip with my index finger extended, which also positions it just right for using the end-cap switch on the light.
• (The advent of TangoDown's PR-4 single-point sling mount has given me a practical means to affix a sling in a manner particularly friendly to ambidextrous use.)

This is not an "assault rifle." It is a home-defense carbine.

The Perfect Grip Angle of the 1911?

• It is fashionable in some circles to credit the genius of John Moses Browning with designing a perfect grip angle for the Colt 1911 pistol. Browning was certainly a genius of firearm design, but take a look at the very square grip angle of his Military Model of 1905, which was the first of his .45 ACP designs submitted to the Army.
• It was not until his fourth effort in this series, the Model of 1910 that the "perfect" grip angle appeared. No doubt there had been some feedback from the Army on this point.

Military Model of 1905	Model of 1910

• At that no one seemed to consider the grip angle perfect; there was a long chain of complaints from users that the 1911 tended to point too low, as compared to most revolvers, which were perceived as pointing naturally.
• From my reading, the "perfection" of the grip angle of the 1911 was recognized only when people began to shoot from the two-handed Weaver position, with the arm holding the gun slightly flexed at the elbow.
• The late Rex Applegate gave me a lengthy discourse on the role of grip angle in his interpretation of quick, reactive shooting. He stated that the Luger had the perfect grip angle, that the Glock is the best of the current autoloaders and that revolvers generally point more naturally than autoloaders.
• Regardless of whether you intend to train in "point shooting" in any of its incarnations, the experience of the law enforcement community is that a large proportion of shootings go down one-handed, even if the officer has only trained in two-handed fire.
• My point in all this is that it might be worth evaluating the ergonomics of the handgun that you select (if you have the luxury to make your own selection) from its ease of use in one hand, as well as in two.
• The fact that the 1911 is well suited ergonomically to one of your buddies and the Glock to another will probably have no specific effect on how either gun functions in your hands. I generally do well with a Smith & Wesson Centennial revolver but that doesn't mean that I recommend one for everyone.

It's a Gunsite Thing ...

• My California teaching partner, Peter Samish, and I were privileged to have several officers who are instructors for their own departments take courses at our school. This is not a boast. These instructors were in a position to recommend our courses to their troops so if they perceived that something we taught might not be tactically sound, they usually pointed it out. This resulted in several improvements in our curriculum.
• By the same token, this sort of collegial relationship also exposed us to aspects of training conducted by others, particularly when those they train showed up on our range and seemed to be doing something in a sub-optimal manner.
• In these cases, Pete and I usually discussed the problem we perceived and I found myself increasingly commenting, "Yeah, it's a Gunsite thing."
• This doesn't mean that Gunsite was or is a poor source of training. However, it does seem to be a doctrinaire one. I question some of Gunsite's doctrines.
• One of the "Gunsite things" I question is the emphasis on shooting "pairs." Also known as "double-tapping," this doctrine would have you put two rounds on each threat target before addressing any other threats.
• I see two major problems with training this way:
  1. If your first shot neutralized the threat, your second shot may land you in an awkward situation legally.
  2. If there is more than one threat present, the time you take making the second shot on the first threat(s) you engage may allow another one of the threats to shoot you.
  While you may argue that the first example is theoretical in that if you get off the second shot quickly enough you honestly may not have the time to see that the threat was already neutralized, the second example is from an actual case of an IPSC-shooting cop in Texas who was killed by the third bad guy while he was in the process of double-tapping the first two.
• Kiss off Gunsite as a source of training? Not necessarily. Use the ruler of common sense about which parts of their training to retain and which parts to discard. My personal index of suspicion is always higher with someone who tells me that there is one correct way to do things.

One of my very good friends, who is proud to bear the mark of the raven, recognized himself in this article. One of his comments was, "It always amazes me that people who've never been there are the quickest to criticize the place."

I must respond as I did to the judge many years ago, when I was cited for fishing without a license: "Guilty with an explanation ..."

I have never attended Orange Gunsite or Grey Gunsite, but to borrow a phrase from Massad Ayoob, trainers have an oil stain effect. This means that if you train someone who believes that there is merit in what you teach, your training effect will spread like the stain of something oily that you get on your clothes.

This has certainly been the case with Gunsite. Countless trainers in the industry and in agencies around the world very obviously bear the mark of the raven. It has been my contact with several of these trainers as well as the writings of Gunsite staffers and graduates which gave me the presumption to post this article.

"From our reading it seems to us that too little of the doctrine and technique of weaponcraft is being broadcast. I see pictures of people doing it all wrong in the magazines, and correspondents continue to ask me questions to which any competent shooter should have the answer. An example is the number of people who endeavor to shoot isosceles and then complain because they do not have enough power in their wrists. So then they ask if they should go to a minor caliber or a muzzle brake.

"'Why didn't somebody tell me that?' they ask. Either they have never been to school or they have been to the wrong school. Excellence in any activity is something that is not usually sought unless there is a direct financial reward for excellence. Except for big-time athletics there is no financial reward for excellence in technique.

"There is also the matter of ignorance. A great many shooters simply do not know that there is a better way to do things, and many of these people presume to teach. Well at least there are a lot of Orange Gunsite people out there who do know the right way, and I hope they live long enough to spread the word."

- Jeff Cooper, Jeff Cooper's Commentaries, vol. 7, no. 8, Jul 1999

"Having spent a week last June at Gunsite with Cooper, I'm puzzled by your comment on double taps on multiple bad guys. I thought we were taught to get a round in the closest (or most dangerous) to the farthest target ASAP, double tapping the last one and then putting the 2nd round into the others, closest to farthest, or as threat dictated. Then evaluate... Perhaps I didn't get it correctly. This is commonly called spreadfire in our local IDPA groups."

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