The firearms skills you need to survive a gunfight are developed through realistic, relevant, frequent repetition — in short, the habituation of good practices through training. Unfortunately, habituation can be a treacherous S.O.B.
“Bad practices can easily slip into your routine — or even be taught by some instructors. And they can become ingrained as habits through repetition without you consciously realizing it,” warns veteran firearms trainer Kevin Davis. “If they’re not corrected, these performance faults may prevent you from responding at your best when your life is on the line.”
In a presentation to instructors at an ILEETA conference, Davis referred to these lurking shortcomings as “training scars.” In a recent follow-up with Police1, he identified six of the most common.
Take a quick self-inventory. Are these firearms pitfalls waiting to sabotage you?
1.) Inefficient Draw
Some trainers and officers introduce unnecessary steps into the drawing and presentation of a sidearm, thereby delaying getting on target, Davis says. One example is bringing the pistol from the holster to a low-ready position before raising it to a shooting level in a confrontation.
“An intermediate step like that should not be part of the draw stroke because it does not orient the weapon toward the target,” Davis explains. “For maximum speed, you should be able to fire at your adversary as soon as your pistol clears the holster. Anything that inhibits that is a training scar.”
Davis advocates a “smooth, continuous, efficient 4-count” draw:
• First, grip your holstered pistol with your middle and ring fingers and your thumb, with your index finger extended along the frame.
• Bring the gun straight up out of the holster until the muzzle clears, then rotate the weapon up to point at your target and lock your wrist — “rock and lock,” Davis terms it.
• “Your support hand should be indexed at center chest,” Davis says, “where it can be used for a palm-heel strike or to block a physical move by the suspect, if necessary. Your two hands meet at your sternum in a two-hand hold, with your pistol pointed at the threat. Index your forearms on your floating ribs at your sides.”
• Distance permitting, raise your pistol to your line of sight, under your dominant eye, and push out toward the target to a full extension — the most accurate shooting position.
“All this is a smooth, fast, flowing movement that allows you to shoot — and hit — at any point in the draw stroke,” Davis says. “Of course, like other aspects of firearms mastery, it needs to be heavily practiced so it becomes an automatic motor program that runs without conscious thought — and without the deviations of training scars. Any extra steps diminish efficiency and add time.”
2.) Planted Stance
Trainers who are dominated by a “qualification mentality” and the protocol of traditional range shooting can instill a dangerous scar by prohibiting movement during firearms instruction, Davis says. Officers often reinforce this fault in practice.
“If you’ve never learned or don’t practice moving as a part of reacting to a threat, you’re likely to stand stock still in a gunfight, or perhaps duck at best, since you won’t surpass the level of your training under intense stress,” he explains.
“It’s a mistake to develop field practices out of a qualification mode. To be static in a gunfight is to be a bullet magnet. Controlled, lateral movement can be a lifesaver. It can get you off the line of attack, create mobility so you’re a harder target, and ideally get you to protective cover where you’re in a better position to bring the attack to a positive conclusion.”
3.) Narrow Awareness
Rigid range training and practice also tend to discourage “full environmental awareness,” Davis says. “On the street, you need to exercise a 360-degree consciousness, before and immediately after a confrontation, because a threat may arise from any angle. But if you’re habituated to recognizing and firing at stationary targets only directly in front of you, your skill at noticing and responding to other threats will be compromised.
“You need experience with threats from multiple angles to learn to break tunnel vision. And a token ‘fence-painting’ — just moving your muzzle back and forth a little bit off the perpendicular — doesn’t cut it. In effect, that type of highly restricted ‘scanning’ after shooting is just another training scar.”
4.) Instructor Dependence
In training, did your firearms instructor encourage you to be overly dependent on him or her? “This might range from having to raise your hand when you have a mechanical malfunction instead of being responsible for clearing it yourself to providing all the answers to tactical problems,” Davis explains.
“Relying on an instructor to always tell you what and when is dangerous because it’s not how adults learn best. Adults learn by screwing up and then figuring out how to do it better by trying again. They want a sense of volition, of controlling their learning process.
“In police training, we should be developing problem-solvers, people who can make quick decisions in realistic circumstances and act effectively. This doesn’t happen unless training exercises are allowed to go south and get straightened out by the trainees themselves, within reasonable confines of personal safety.”
Davis also raises another troublesome aspect of instructor dependence. “Does an instructor teach a technique he likes because he can make it work, or because students can make it work?” he asks.
“Sometimes techniques are taught that are not realistic for some officers. Then in a shit storm an officer tries to get the technique to work because he has ‘learned’ it and doesn’t have a viable alternative, and gets stuck in a hopeless loop of life-threatening inability.”
5.) Premature Reholstering
Reholstering too soon typically links to relaxing too soon, Davis believes. Again, it’s usually a training scar born of range habits and a qualification mind-set.
“Once they fire, officers often come down to a low-ready position and then quickly reholster,” he says. “They don’t look around, they don’t check the ammunition status of the pistol. They just shove the gun back in. Some even reholster to reload, which is highly undesirable unless you’re forced to do it in a crisis because of a wounded hand.
“Reluctantly reholster. Having your gun out and ready to use is your best protection against a new threat or an old one that isn’t finished yet. You don’t want to put your gun away until you’re confident that it’s safe to do so, and that needs to be a conscious decision not a reflexive action.”
6.) Lack of Intensity
“Not every training experience has to involve 100 percent speed and power,” Davis says, “but you should bring the right mind-set to training every time. Even shooting paper targets, to get maximum benefit you need to regard the target as if it’s an assailant trying to kill you, instead of thinking you’re just punching holes in paper. Bring intensity to the experience.
“If you ‘train’ only in nonstressful situations that require no decision-making under pressure, your lack of mental intensity can come back to haunt you. If your department doesn’t provide meaningful firearms training, take the responsibility to seek it out and learn from it on your own. There are many opportunities out there for healing the training scars that could defeat you and implanting the skills you need to stay alive.”
Kevin Davis consults with agencies throughout the country on firearms, use of force, and other training issues. He can be reached at: trainerKevinDavis@gmail.com or through his website: www.advancedtacticalconcepts.com.
