RULE 3 – Keep your finger OFF the trigger until your sights are on the target.
This would seem as straightforward a gun rule as one could imagine. Since the way to make a gun fire is to pull the trigger, if you don’t want to shoot something, don’t touch the trigger.
Sadly, even a casual search of news reports and videos on Youtube show this to be the most violated safety rule of all.*
“But Rooster,” you say, “we see it all the time. What about when someone drops a gun, and it goes off?” After all, in movies or on TV, if you drop a gun, it goes off. If you drop a machine gun, it fires until the clip magazine is exhausted.
Every.
Time.
Fortunately, that image is a load of steaming dung, straight from my old horse Bo.
The design of modern guns has advanced to the point where the only way to get them to fire is to pull the trigger. They won’t fire if you drop them, or hit them, or kick them. They don’t “go off.”
Yes, you will read in news reports that a dropped gun fired – Google it yourself – but when you read those reports, you find one of two things present. First, the gun involved is some kind of older gun, like a derringer or Colt SAA. Yes, older guns like the Colt Single Action Army will fire if the hammer is struck from the outside. Even some older 1911’s will fire, unless the firing pin has been replaced with a lighter version.
The second possibility is the person involved is lying or has no idea what they are talking about. That”s because the trigger was pulled. Period.
++++
It follows then that the way to prevent guns from firing except when you want them to fire is not to pull the trigger. For the shooter, this means keeping your finger off the trigger until you are sure the gun is pointed at what you wish to shoot.
Now, since positive reinforcement is much better at altering behavior than negative reinforcement, let’s turn that around.
RULE 3 – When the gun is aimed at the intended target, then it’s safe to put your finger on the trigger.
Until then, put your finger on the frame alongside the trigger. For instance, find a spot like the front of the trigger guard, or the slide lock, as a tactile reference, like this:
Or, you can find other tactile references. Then, train yourself to use them.
What about resting your finger lightly on the trigger, like Jack Bauer, until you’re ready to shoot?
Sadly, when we humans are startled, we experience a flinch reflex, and we will pull the trigger. And the gun will fire. (And we will tell the newspaper reporter “The gun just went off.” And they will know we are lying. And they will print it any way.)
So, train yourself to keep your finger off the trigger, and index your finger somewhere else. And practice it.
And, for heaven’s sake, ignore the people in the movies or on TV.
* tied with Rule 1 and Rule 2.
Neal Boortz is a conservative talk show host in Atlanta. I’ve been listening to him for a long time. A long, long time.
One of Neal’s disclaimers for his show is that you should never take him for his word, without first confirming it first through your own investigation. In today’s internet world, that’s not hard to do, and it follows that this rule should be followed for just about anything you encounter.
Case in point, from Infowars and about a zillion other web sources:
National Weather Service Follows DHS In Huge Ammo Purchase
Hollow point bullets designed to cause maximum organ damage
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Tuesday, August 14, 2012Why would the National Weather Service need to purchase large quantities of powerful ammo? That’s the question many are asking after the federal agency followed in the footsteps of the Department of Homeland Security in putting out a solicitation for 46,000 rounds of hollow point bullets.
Yes, good question, indeed. Why would they?
So, I did some looking on my own. First, I read the solicitation as it appears on the Federal purchasing web site. Here’s what I read:
Inside Delivery to locations below:
NED:
8,000 rounds to: Ross Lane DOC, NOAA, NMFS, OLE, NED 130 Oak Street, Suite 5, Ellsworth, ME, 04605
First, I thought about calling Ross Lane and asking him what was up. I’d be willing to bet Paul Joseph Johnson didn’t.
But, Instead, I put the address listed into Google Maps. Well, well.
First, it looks like this is a brand new building, as it was under construction at the time the Google Street View car went by. But, it also looks like this office is a shared government office, including the National Marine Fisheries (always usefull in putting down domestic insurrection) and the US Customs Service.
I would be willing to bet that the 200 paper targets and 8,000 rounds of ammunition are for practice by ICE agents. Not for the Weather Service. Conspiracy solved.
So, why does the government buy things under the National Weather Service name? Beats me. My guess is the Customs Service needed ammo, put in their request, and somebody sent it to the Commerce Department (makes sense?), and when they entered the delivery address into Skynet, it used the largest agency at that address to deliver it to.
Of course, it’s also possible that they did it to get a good laugh out of the conspiracy fans, which, if it were true, would actually make me feel a little better about our government.
This is the second in my series of posts about practicing for competition. It is intended to lay out what a competitive shooter (me) can do to build muscle memory and improve pistol shooting. I should say by way of disclaimer that this isn’t a primer on practice for self defense – that will come in a later series. But a lot of the skills we will practice here will be useful for self defense, so this is where I start.
In competitive pistol shooting, seconds count. I’ve watched a lot of shooters at all levels, and one thing that separates the top shooters from the others is the time it takes to get the first shot off.
There are two parts to this – drawing the gun, and making the first shot. For some sports that start at a ready position not in the holster, like GSSF or Ruger Rimfire, this is distilled to the latter part.
I’m not going to go through the parts of the draw stroke, because a lot of people better than me have covered this in a lot better detail than I could. I suggest going to Youtube or Google and searching for “draw from holster” or similar.
BEGIN PRACTICE
Remember the mnemonic SPAR – Safety, Purpose, Action, Reflection. In this case, the purpose of the session will be to hone getting the pistol from rest to a first shot in the fastest time possible.
DRAWING FROM THE HOLSTER
To practice this, don your normal holster rig, and, if you’re practicing for IDPA, your normal cover garment. As with before, make sure your gun is unloaded, and all ammunition is removed from the room. This is especially vital if you will be practicing with magazines.
Starting with your hands in the desired initial position (relaxed or surrender) start out by drawing very slowly and intentionally, pressing out, and getting a good sight alignment. Press the trigger, and make sure the sights stay aligned. Concentrate on getting all the parts of the draw perfect. Speed is not the issue at this point.
Slowly increase speed until you are perfectly drawing as fast as you can. Then slow that back to 3/4 speed for most of the session.
Perform this with as many different hand positions as you can think of. Work on these with both hands, and with your strong hand and weak hand alone. Remember, you will see this in a stage, as well as a classifier or qualifier.
STARTING WITH THE GUN SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN THE HOLSTER
Many USPSA stages start with the gun unloaded on a table or somewhere other than in the holster. So it make sense to practice this. I usually practice it several ways:
STARTING WITH THE GUN AT READY
I devote the most practice to this, because this move is the most versatile. Think about it – starting with the gun at ready, I press out to the target, aim, and fire. This is what happens at the start of a GSSF stage and a Ruger Rimfire stage, but it’s also what happens every time I move from one shooting position to another in USPSA or IDPA.
This is where I have cut out the most wasted time, and I’ll share with you how. Watch a lot of shooters and you will see this: from ready, they press the gun out, bring it up to eye level, overshoot, bring it back down, overshoot, bring it back up, get the sights in alignment, and shoot.
What you see if the gun going out, then up, then bobbing up and down a few times until it stops. Then, they take aim, and fire.
What I learned to do is to bring the gun up to eye level as I press it forward. When it gets to eye level, I am still pressing out, and I am aligning the sights. Once the arms are extended, the sights are aligned, and I fire. Using a shot timer, I can go from ready to a first shot on target in less than a second. The key is to start aiming as the gun goes forward, and when the sights are on the target, fire.
As before, work on these with both hands, strong hand and weak hand.
PUT IT TOGETHER
Once you are comfortable with all these parts, put together a practice session, based on your upcoming competition. Here’s an example:
Again, there are countless permutations, and you can customize them to the matches you are shooting, and to the areas of your game you know need improvement.
REFLECTION
Now, as you put away your gun and holster, make note of what went well in your practice session. I like to keep a journal, and keep track of the drills I’ve worked on. When I find I have trouble with one, I can track my improvement, and make sure it gets fixed.
Next time: Sight Alignment and Trigger Control
Fill Yer Hands 