I saw an article this morning from Jim Wilson on Shooting Illustrated about bad habits competition shooting teaches a shooter. I know Sheriff Wilson, I’ve shot with him on multiple occasions and have a tremendous amount of respect for him. He was one of the writers I looked up as an example when I was breaking in to this business.
However, in this instance I have to disagree with him, because I think it’s high time we put a bullet in the head of the “competition will get you killed in a gunfight” argument. If you go to an IDPA match, a USPSA match, a Steel Challenge match, no one there will tell you that we’re trying to teach tactics. Competition shooting is about 1 thing – problem solving with a gun in your hand. Making blanket statements like “USPSA teaches you to do X, and X will always get you killed” ignores the dynamic nature of a gunfight. Competition shooting forces you to get fast, accurate hits on a target under pressure.
Please understand, I’m not saying for a moment that shooting USPSA will make you a warrior or a tactical ninja, because it won’t. But it will make you a better shooter, and ultimately the root skill in a gunfight is the ability to get fast, accurate hits on a target. If you can’t run the gun, everything else is just window dressing. I think it’s high time we put an end to this discussion, because the “tactical” guys can learn a lot from the competition guys, and the competition guys can learn a lot from the tactical guys.
Editor’s Note: Despite being a dedicated competition shooter, Caleb has attended classes focused on the defensive use of the pistol and recommends that style of class highly for shooters interested in learning about defensive tactics and engagement.
Caleb, is that double kill shot technique practiced in competition? If so sign me up!!
I tried to find the most ridiculous picture I had in recent memory to hopefully illustrate the ridiculous nature of this conversation.
Next year for SHOT pack a few outlandish photo props to prepare some stock photo’s for posts of this nature. Maybe a Ghillie suit in a parking lot or comically over-sized tactical gear.
You can always make a competition for the most mall ninja/Hilarious photo’s from SHOT or competitions.
If Tebowing is still cool, I’m going to do that.
It’s Bradying now.
Distill that down, and it works out to, “I disagree because I disagree.” Uh… ok. He actually gave a list of specific habits that competition teaches that are sub-optimal in combat. You have addressed exactly zero of them.
I actually agree with you here, but c’mon, you can do better.
The point I’m trying to make is that the “competition is going to get your killed” conversation largely consists of a straw man. No one that shoots competition is saying it’s going to make your tactically awesome. Saying that “reloading in the open while moving is always bad” or that “charging bad guys is always bad” ignores that a gunfight is a dynamic event and that “tactics” should be used to give you an advantage in whatever situation you’re in. Sometimes closing the distance is the best tactic, and if your gun runs out of bullets in the open, I sure as hell want to reload it as fast as possible.
The fact that gunfights are “dynamic events” doesn’t make these habits any better. That’s an irrelevancy.
Here’s the real argument: He’s absolutely right. However. In a gunfight, not all skills are equal. Most defensive gun uses don’t involve firing shots. Most that do only involve firing a handful of shots, with very little movement, and no reloading. Competition teaches the skills you’re going to use first: overcoming stress enough to get your gun out and get a few shots on target. After that, yes, you may screw up. But you’re already ahead of the game, and ahead of 99.9% of the population.
Now, if you’re doing executive protection in South America, or you’re being pursued by a whole clan of ninjas, competition is probably not your best option. But if that’s your lifestyle, you probably live at Gunsite already, and don’t have time for competition. For the vast majority of people, local competition is a convenient way to get the skills that are most useful, at the cost of a few sub-optimal habits that probably won’t come into play anyhow.
Nice post Jason. I very much agree and couldn’t have worded it better myself.
Sorry for the long reply on this one.
I think that the article could be taken primarily as a warning to shooters that while competition is a great tool for pushing you towards greater accuracy and speed (I mean, who wants to take on Dave Sevigny or Rob Leatham in a gunfight? Anyone?) that it should never be taken for granted as good followup practice to a defensive handgun class. Not only is that not a straw man argument, but it’s pretty darned similar to what you said.
Severity of the arguments is really the only place to quibble. I don’t think you’d disagree with the statements that “charging bad guys is rarely a good idea” or that “if you have any choice whatsoever you should always reload your gun behind cover.” Yet these are strikingly similar to the statements you dismissed as straw man arguments, which themselves weren’t even quite what Sheriff Wilson had said. For instance, he never even said anything about charging, just that bouncing to and from cover was bad. In fact, he specifically said “reload, then run,” not “run to cover, then reload.”
If I recall correctly, you said yourself recently (to paraphrase) ‘if you have to concoct a detailed, specific combat setting to justify a maneuver then the maneuver probably isn’t worth spending much time practicing.’ (The archives don’t like me today, apparently, so you get my poor recollection instead of details.) The situations where charging or running from cover to reload on the move seem relatively obscure and specific to me, at least from a defensive handgun perspective. Maybe I’m not thinking of something obvious?
Perhaps I don’t understand your argument, though. It seems like saying,”no one [says that common techniques in IDPA are] going to make you tactically awesome” and “saying [that common techniques in IDPA] is always bad ignores that a gunfight is a dynamic event and that [these common techniques in IDPA] should be used to give you an advantage in whatever situation you’re in” is at best an unclear way to make your point, and at worst nearly contradicting yourself. Will the techniques that won’t make you tactically awesome become magically tactically awesome in most gunfights? I think it’s dubious. I think at a minimum, though, they’re going to make you a faster, more accurate shot, which is at least a decent advantage.
tl;dnr: I don’t think you actually disagree with Sheriff Wilson. I think you just misunderstood.
Agreed.
I don’t disagree that there are some tactically unsound habits you can get into in competitive shooting – even some of IDPA’s doctrine which is supposed to be tactical.
However, I’ll put the gunfight survival chances of anyone who shoots any action pistol sport regularly much higher than someone who puts a box a year downrange at a static target from the bench. Even if they take a good defensive class every year.
You can learn tactics, you have to practice skills.
I find the argument “competition will get you killed” quite tiresome myself. I have taken numerous “tactical” classes. I could run the gun fairly well afterward but it wasn’t untl I started shooting regular IDPA matches that my shooting really started to improve. I see “competition” and “tactical training” as complementary to one another. Anyone that can’t recognize that without getting red faced and argumentative immediately gets discounted in my mind.
I was an Army combat veteran who always qualified as an expert with pistol or rifle and was confident in my shooting abilities. When I started competition shooting I realized that I still had much to learn and am still learning. Competition shooting has given me an edge if I ever need to defend myself.
Competition shooting is a place to practice your weapon manipulation. If you view anything you are doing as “tactical” (besides tactical reloads trolololo), you are dumb.
Really dumb.
However, any who discounts competition shooting because it isn’t tactical is even more dumb. Many of the most HSLD SWAT OPERATORS in my area are also GM level USPSA competitors. Why? Because maybe the ability to hit multiple targets in a stressful environment is a useful skill to have?
I don’t see where Wilson says anything about habits developed in competitive shooting getting anyone “killed”. On the other hand, he doesn’t really support his statement that they get you “hurt”, either.
Competition is incomparable for a couple things: piling on the stress and andrenaline, and testing your equipment, and your manipulation thererof. Anyone that has played high school sports, or been in the military, or worked in a stressful job does not find a guy yelling at you in a tactical class to be particularly stressful.
But 50-100 people waiting on you, watching and critiqueing, a buzzer in your ear – that’s stressful.
IPDA rules are lame though, totally agreed. Though the scenarios can be really fun and a bit silly. I prefer USPSA for the higher round count and bigger adrenaline rush. My recent addiction is Steel Challenge, which is a very pure and simple game.
I’ll leave you with an anecdote – the 2nd time I shot a USPSA match, at Norco, I turned to the very helpful large Filipino man who was helping me through the match (aside: there are tons of Filipino-Americans shooting USPSA in SoCal, a few in particular are some of the most patient and friendly ambassadors of the sport).
So I says to this big Filipino dude, “All the tactical classes I took, they told me that competition won’t help in a gun fight, but I see how fast and how skilled these guys are, and I think that’s BS.”
So he says to me, in a big deep voice, “Oh yeah, this will help, I’ve seen lots of gunfights.”
To that I say, “Where? Are you a cop?”
To that he says, “Phillipines.”
To put it simply, I see way too many active duty spec war guys and security contractors at the local matches to give much weight to any claim that shooting competitions will get you killed.
The other thing that is never mentioned is that IDPA is also affordable practice as well. It pushes someone outside their comfort areas and puts them in a situation that they might have not thought about. I think people mistake that as “tactical” instead of just being situational. Tactics and technique are good, but they do not cover situations well.Those classes may simulate some degree of stress but they are more about how the instructor would react than the student. IDPA is about how someone would react in that situation as opposed to how they should react. That and shooting rapid fire is badass!
If bad tactics resulting from too much focus on competition can get you killed in a fight, how did Charles Askins (bullseye champion and Border Patrol agent) and Jim Cirillo (NYPD cop and PPC champion) survive all the gunfights they were in during their careers?
About 20 years ago a local shooter and Austin PD officer saved a little girl’s life, making a head shot on a hostage-taking, knife-wielding mental patient who broke into a day care and took the girl hostage. Officer “A” fired one round, through a window, with a Glock 9mm. He was a dedicated local Steel Challenge competitor, regularly trading the #1 and #2 slots on match day with me. Privately he told me that shooting steel (where “one shot, one plate” wins) gave him the skill and confidence to make that life-saving shot.
Aside from the Newhall incident, which was a failure of law enforcement training, not competition, I can’t find an example of an incident where the primary cause of someone’s failure under fire was a direct result of duplicating match day ‘tactics’.
Those that are unfamiliar with Charles Askins, Jim Cirillo and the Newhall incident are encouraged to look them up. All 3 are important in the history of gunfighting.
(NOTE: There’s an article about this subject in the current “Blue Press” as well.)
I agree with your overall statement, but have to take issue with you on one statement:
“If you go to an IDPA match, a USPSA match, a Steel Challenge match, no one there will tell you that we’re trying to teach tactics.”
In my experience, there are always a group of guys at IDPA events who try to talk about IDPA being “training for the real world.”
I realize you said “tactics” and not “training,” but a lot of people equate them in their minds.
When you distill the argument for action shooting games being good for people who carry guns for professional or personal reason (and I’m pro-action shooting sports), it basically is that trigger time is trigger time, and trigger time where there’s induced stress is more valuable than trigger time where there is not. Trigger time where you have to deal with stoppages, magazine changes, footwork, etc. is all valuable.
Where I have problems with people at IDPA matches is when they insinuate that shooting an IDPA match is on a level remotely approaching getting instruction from someone like Rob Pincus.
Defensive training courses are, by definition, “training.” IDPA is a game. Both are valuable, only one has real training value. The other is good for experiential learning (again, dealing with reloads and stoppages on the clock inducing stress).
Most of the crux of the argument from people like Sheriff Wilson and the guy who wrote the “Blue Press” article (he’s a retired Army Colonel, IIRC) is that IDPA can instill a poor mindset. The biggest things I can point to where I agree with those authors are the use of “cover” and “tactical priority” in IDPA.
The problem with the way ROs generally view “cover” and the associated penalties is that anything used as a prop that obscures your line of sight from the target is “cover.” If I’m in a gunfight in my house, I don’t mistake my sofa for cover. It’s concealment, nothing more. Yet, the procedural call you’ll get is “cover” if you don’t crouch behind the sofa.
Now, those who view IDPA as training (not experiential learning), will say “See, IDPA is much more badass training because they require you to take COVER before returning fire or reloading.” I happen to agree with detractors that it can be a bad habit to get into to crouch behind something to reload or return fire when it may limit your mobility or ability to see your threat–especially when it has questionable ability to protect you from being hit by the bad guy’s gunfire.
My own real-world training has led me to understand the utility in effective fire providing you much better cover than a stationary object in some situations, which is something IDPA won’t even consider. Hence the jibe from IDPA shooters on USPSA allowing you to shoot from a door (that fatal funnel) without using the walls and jambs as “cover.” Which they’re not.
My issue with “tactical priority” is that, presented with an array of targets laterally dispersed at varying distances, I’m not going to shoot at a target on my extreme right then swing over to my extreme left then swing over to the next extreme on the right solely because of their proximity to me. I will deal with the closest hottest threat first, but then would probably deal with the next target in the line if it’s not more than about 10 yards away–depending on the scenario. The next nearest guy may not be your most immediate threat, it depends on what’s happening and how well you’re dealing with it. I may shoot the guy closest and the guy next to him before swinging on the next closest guy because I feel like I have enough time to eliminate two threats quickly before moving to the next closer threat. Then again, I may not.
I guess my perspective falls somewhere in the middle. I realize there’s a lot of value in shooting games. You learn to do the elements of things required in a gunfight under stress quickly and repeatably. Just don’t expect it to give you training value at the end of the day. But, you’re right–it won’t get you killed, either.
And your ability to draw and throw a good controlled pair onto a threat in the real world, honed by shooting USPSA matches, might just save your life.
Not sure how much credence to put in this number, but one report (http://mikelong.hubpages.com/hub/Paint-and-Spray-Increasing-US-Indebtedness-One-Magazine-of-Ammunition-at-a-Time) claims that our soldiers shoot 900,000 shots per kill. Either that’s a lot of practice (say 899,999 shots) or lousy marksmanship. I have shot with a bunch of USAMU guys at Bullseye matches and those guys know how to shoot (typically, at least 95% which I can do on my best day and they do routinely).
I have heard similar reports of poor marksmanship (under fire, at least) regarding the police. One example was the number of shots the NYC police shot among some 12 policemen (as I remember) and wounded the suspect (innocent, as I remember). This (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/weekinreview/09baker.html?pagewanted=all) article from the NY Times reports police marksmanship of 17 to 40%.
One wonders whether policemen who practice competitive target shooting are more accurate in a live-fire situation? I suspect so!
Part of the soldier thing is tactics. Modern infantry tactics call for a lot of suppressing fire, which has the object of keeping the enemy from fighting back rather than killing him. This allows an assault team to seize the objective. Those tactics don’t exactly enhance marksmanship. But that debate has been going on for 250 years or so.
I suspect that having someone shooting at you — unlike competition targets — might encourage the useful instinct to find cover.
Many competitions do define items as “cover” that are actually barely concealment. That’s an important distinction that should be addressed in training.
But if you understand what the gun games can and can’t teach you, and find appropriate training to fill the gaps, there’s no downside to improving your basic shooting skills in competitions.
Thumbs up for having the balls to disagree with someone you think of as a role model. Perhaps you could write an article about the upside of competition, and what kind of good habits it can instill for the more practically oriented handgunner? I can think of a half dozen or so off the top of my head.
I agree with you for the most part. Competition won’t get you killed in a gunfight. However, I would add that you should be careful about developing bad habits stemming from the competition. For example: when your target is dropped do you still scan the area and behind you for additional threats? Or do you just re-holster, high-5 your buddy and walk away? I can think of some other bad habits it would be easy to aquire, but won’t mention them here. Also I should mention that my viewpoint is from the military/combat arms mindset. Civillians may see it totally different.
In a nutshell: as long as your core fundamentals are not compromised I think competition can have a positive effect on a military or “tactical” shooter.
I don’t think all the negative points need to be addressed if the argument can be made that the benefits far outweigh the negatives which I feel they do. Don’t ignore the negatives, the artifacts and such and recognize them for what they are. The fact remains that someone who practices and shoots in varied invironments in a competition setting will almost always be more prepared for actual “combat” than someone who doesn’t, short of engaging in regular combat and letting the school of hard knocks train you.
In any martial art the safety of participants will always necessitate that changes are made from actual combat. I think few who wait for actual combat before gaining shooting expirence will live long enough to benefit. Some trade offs must be accepted.
To what are we comparing IDPA and USPSA? Is competition better than doing nothing? Yes. Is the ability to place the bullet on target a valuable skill? Yes. Are the games better than attending a Gunsite class? No.
Ken,
The article doesn’t say, except for a brief mention of a conversation Sheriff Wilson had with Il Ling New of Gunsite about shooting matches tactically, as opposed to gaming them.
I thought this paragraph was interesting:
“In fairness, the International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) made every effort to stay practical and tactical with its competition. Founded in 1996, IDPA puts emphasis on using handguns, holsters and ammo desirable for street use against an actual criminal threat. Its courses of fire are designed to be as realistic as possible, and IDPA continues to resist pressure from those who would turn this defensive training aid into just another form of target shooting.”
I disagree.
If that were true, there wouldn’t be a power floor for ammo–they would mandate use of factory-loaded defensive ammo. Who carries nothing but FMJ in their gun for every day carry? I don’t. I don’t know many who do. Most carry some sort of defensive round, not ball.
If that were true, they wouldn’t mandate saving partially-loaded magazines. If I’m reloading a partially-loaded magazine at any time but during a lull in a gunfight (and that’s a big “if,” because I’d hope a gunfight doesn’t last that long), it’s because there’s something wrong with either the magazine, the ammo, or both. I’m not going to save it if it has malfunctioned. I would only save it if I were behind cover and I had the opportunity to reload. I would also generally only reload at the end of the gunfight (my carry gun is an XD45), because I don’t want to have a gun where I don’t know how much ammo is in it.
If that were true, there wouldn’t be a restriction on the number of rounds you can load in a magazine. I don’t know anyone who loads a magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds with only 10 rounds (or 8 rounds for CDP–I shoot my XD45 in CDP and I should be able to fill the magazine; it’s not my fault if someone shows up with a 1911). Yes, I realize not all states allow use of magazines holding more than 10 rounds. Again, that’s gaming, because I don’t live in one of those states. Their problem, not mine.
If that were true, IDPA rules would allow for crossdraw or appendix carry, to accommodate those who carry that way.
It’s still valuable, but IDPA is still a game. It’s not tactical.
Competition gives you what you put into it. Nothing more and nothing less. If you want to get bad habits, you can. But you don’t have to.
The usual examples of bad habits “taught” are: reloading in the open, firing pairs on everything, and using gear one would not carry. Yet, nobody makes you reload in the open, or shoot pairs all the time, or shoot a gun you’d never carry. People choose to do so. You can reload behind “cover” if there is any to use (there isn’t always cover in real life either), you can shoot 16 rounds into each target if you choose, and you can shoot a J-frame if you want. You may not win, but that’s the choice you make. If you go to win, no, you probably won’t help your self defense skills as much as you could. Even then, you get gun manipulation practice.
I started shooting IPSC in 1997, but quit after a couple of years because it “wasn’t relevant” as so many like to say. After a few years off, I realized nobody made me shoot a racegun and reload in the open. I started going again, and using my carry gun, shooting from concealment, using cover, etc.
Going to the matches, whether shooting them my way or the usual way, did me a lot more good than sitting home complaining about what was “wrong” with them.
No, it’s it’s not training, but it helps me see if I’m doing what I learned in training. There is often the temptation to shoot a stage/scenario the “fast way” instead of the “tactically sound way”, and I find that helpful. If I choose the tactically sound way, and do it without thinking about it while under the competition influence of wanting to score better, I am as happy as if I won the match. That shows me the training/practice is paying off. If I take a shortcut to shave a fraction of a second off, but expose myself to more risk, I’m screwing up.
I don’t get that “test” shooting at home.
Actually, I think they still teach the Weaver stance at Gunsite. So yeah, I will stick with my well ingrained isosceles stance muscle memory at IDPA/USPSA/Steel Challenge matches, and save the money that would have been blown on a Gunsite class for other things like targets and ammo. A friend and fellow shooter who had been deployed to Iraq as a Blackwater contractor put the training angle of IDPA to me this way. Think of IDPA as a simulator, much the same way an airliner pilot gets flight simulator time. What IDPA or other the match venues teach you is your limitations. If you ever do encounter a real life scenario, in a split second you can think back to stage 3 of the Carolina Cup that was like an attempted car jacking. “I drew, fired 6 shots all on target, on 3 bad guy targets in less than 4 seconds. I can handle this, with confidence.” and not PANIC! As we all know, a man has got to know his limitations.
Nobody said that the “tacti-billy’s” can’t shoot steel challenge with a cover garment on. Nobody said that these same tacti-blly’s can’t pie around corners at USPSA matches. If these same tacti-billy’s might feel embarassed for those kind of actions, or can’t handle the heckling, they should just MTFU, or stay home. I would hate to have some bad guy trample all over their delicate sensitivities during a real world encounter.
When I learned that Ben Stoeger was going to become a cop, and he wrote openly about the cold shoulder he got out at the police range, I sent him an email to ask him to email me back one of these days if he is ever taught a tactic for gunfighting. Going on at least a year now, probably two, I still haven’t heard anything from Ben.
I think the two dirty secrets none of these tacti-billy gunwriters talk about are: 1. their egos can’t handle having their asses handed to them at a match. 2. they are in it for the easy money to teach naive gun noobs some basic gun handling skills. If their prospective students get better via IDPA/USPSA/Steel Challenge, then that is a whole bunch of money they just lost out on. okay, maybe 3. they don’t want to be revealed for the frauds that they are, basically, they talk the talk, but can’t walk walk.
I think IDPA is great place to practice gun handling and techniques but I think taking classes is the best place for new shooters to learn them. Too often I see new shooters starting to compete or just spending time at the range trying to figure it out themselves. They waste ammo time and money doing things by trial and error. The biggest jumps in skill sets I’ve seen in novice/mm shooters are after they took a bit of advice and took a class from one of the better local schools in my area, Insights and Firearms Academy of Seattle. Schools are not schemes to make money but usually a good place to learn the techniques and tactics that could really benefit you if that gun was needed for anything other than a game. They are often places full of experts and people with a real passion for shooting. Competition is a place to refine the basics and to have fun.