Late last month I received some interesting information from Corporal Jack Boyles of the Burlington (N.C.) Police Department that I thought would be good to pass along here.
During a recent trip to a local gun show, Cpl. Boyles discovered a new type of concealed carry method that he called “a very real threat to law enforcement.”
“Although intended for protection,” Boyles wrote, “in the wrong hands this might give the bad guy an advantage over law enforcement.”
The Ghost Holster
Boyles sent several photos along with his email, several of which are below (please be advised: the Glock model 22 .40 caliber in these photos is UNLOADED).
Basically, this is a “fanny pack” worn beneath the shirt, making it very difficult to pick up visually. You’ll see that with the so-called Ghost Holster, “The visual give away clues that we as LEOs depend on might be overlooked due to the way this system works,” Boyles correctly points out.
Furthermore, the trigger finger simply slips into the trigger guard by just pressing the stretchy fabric of the holster — such as it is, because I really wouldn’t personally term this thing a holster — and point-shoot from right there. A subject doesn’t have to actually draw the weapon to get shots off.
For a variety of reasons I personally would never choose this for concealed carry. First and foremost, I have a pretty awesome inside the waistband holster already, and I’ve practiced about 2,000 draws with it. The other reason is that I have a young son who loves me very much, and I don’t want him coming up to hug me and get his little fingers into the trigger guard and accidentally squeezing off a round.
No, I will leave this thing for the bad guys.
Train to Win
This brings me to today’s other tip. We already know that bad guys and good guys carry their firearms differently. We good guys use holsters. Bad guys use anything and everything else, up to and including the hood on their “hoodies.”
Similarly, don’t assume that the bad guys are training in the same firearms tactics you are. They are not working a perfect five-point draw, and they probably don’t much care about the difference between a Weaver and an Isosceles stance.
They may or may not even know what “Getting off the X” even means, much less practice it.
Quick aside: At ILEETA 2012, I had occasion to videotape some tactical tips with my friend and Police1 colleague Dan Marcou. I played “bad guy” and every time we’d start to “roll” on one particular drill, I’d just instinctively move laterally as I drew my “red gun.” It took us at least four “takes” for me to remember stand there like a statue and draw. The final video will probably be pretty amusing, but I digress...
Bad guys started using the one-handed grip known as “The Israeli” because they thought it looked cool, but the fact is those Israelis were onto something. If you’re going to shoot one handed, particularly strong-side one-handed in a quick punch-out motion, that’s pretty much the most natural — and possibly fastest — way in which your arm, wrist, and fist will fly into sight picture.
The bad guys train all right. There is — or at least there once was... I haven’t heard about this place in a while — an “abandoned” warehouse over in Oakland where one would be able to find thousands of rounds of expended brass on practically a weekly basis (apparently bad guys aren’t reloaders!).
During my attendance at the Force Science Institute two-day seminar earlier this year, I saw several inmates interviewed about how much they practice gunfighting. Their answers were quite enlightening. Some of them trained DAILY, for example.
Don’t look at the square range as “target practice.” My good friend and Police1 Columnist Ken Hardesty and I spend a wee bit of time together on the range, and something he says really resonates with me. Well, it’s more something he doesn’t say. He won’t use the words “fast” or “speed” in training. He uses the word “aggression” instead.
Sure, I practice marksmanship skills. Sure, I’ll shoot for tight groups with concentrated trigger control. Sure, I’ll occasionally get into a friendly “Top Shot” type competition with a friend.
But I never do that with humanoid targets. Ever.
On the range, I don’t see a paper humanoid. I see someone who has just done something heinously life threatening to someone I care about, or they’re about to try to do something heinously life threatening to me. I consequently have the appropriate level of aggression to deal with that type of issue, and I work to resolve that problem in as close to a real-world mindset as I can achieve on a square range.
I’ve never been in a gunfight, and I know full well and good that there’s nothing even close to it on a practice range. I’m merely saying that it’s a disservice to yourself and your loved ones to just go out there and goof off like it’s “just target practice.”
Train to WIN!
