Are We Training For The Right Thing? (Part Two)

Rich Grassi has an interesting article in The Tactical Wire, talking about what real-world timing looks like in an armed violent encounter. He talks about the old adage “There’s no timer in a gunfight” and shows that no, there isn’t Hit Factor scoring for a stage, and your splits don’t really matter. The timer that is actually there is what the bad guy is capable of doing, and how fast he/she/it is capable of doing it. Drawing on a gun pointed right at you? Probably a bad idea. Drawing when the bad guy is looking around and making sure nobody is watching? Might not be a bad idea. 

“If the attacker, with gun pointing at the victim, looks away to the point that the defender is (in the very short term) looking into the attacker’s ear, there is about 1.5 seconds for the defender to get that first hit, drawing from concealment.”

Let’s pause for a second to think about the real-world implications of this. By the numbers, if we go to our gun sooner, not faster, we have an excellent chance of not needing ANY of this. However, if we are unfortunate enough to be that one in three, we may have a 1.5 second window of opportunity to act. Again, by the numbers, we will be facing a single opponent who is intent on transactional, not expressive violence. This means that they will be close enough to conduct a transaction with us, usually six feet or less. 

I like the 5×5 Drill. I agree with Greg Ellifritz and others who believe that it is a “GED” level of defensive pistol skill. However, I’m beginning to think that adding in something with a shorter distance and a shorter time frame would also be a good idea. Maybe something like the first stage of the new FDLE Qual, where you have six seconds to get off six rounds from retention, starting at three feet.