Can We Get Serious Here?

What separates a serious practitioner of the martial art of concealed carry (or someone who has fully embraced the concealed carry lifestyle) from the casual gun owner?

I saw this question on social media recently, and my answer was, “A serious shooter will find a range where they can practice movement, timed drills and drawing from a holster, rather than just go to an indoor “bowling alley” range and blast holes in paper.”

Doing this indicates three things:

1. You understand that defensive shooting is a balance of time and information. How much time is required to make the shot versus how my information you need from your sights in order to make the shot. The only effective way to learn this on a range where you can use a shot timer.
2. You understand that getting the gun into play quickly and efficiently is vital to success in an armed encounter. Yes, in theory, you can accomplish this via a combination of dry practice at home and live practice on an indoor range, but in reality, it requires you to put the pieces together and do it all at once.
3. Most importantly, you understand that improvement only occurs after repeated, demoralizing failure. People fail all the time on an indoor range, but only a few make the commitment (or rather, see the value) in making an effort to fix those mistakes.

Is going to an indoor range and spending an hour turning money into noise a good thing? Absolutely. The people who do that are absolutely vital in keeping our Second Amendment rights. But it’s the people who understand that they don’t have to settle on b being a mediocre (at best) shot who take it to next level and find a way to insure success in a lethal force encounter.