Originally Posted by
Tom Givens
Frozentundra mentioned an anecdote of mine and asked for clarification, so here it is.
The first time I attended the NTI in Harrisburg, PA, was probably 15 years ago. For those who may not be familiar with it the National Tactical Invitational was a five-day annual event. There were live fire stages on various ranges and in several shoot-houses. The highlight of the event, however, was for each attendee to spend four hours, either all morning or all afternoon in The Village. This was a multi-acre fenced in area with stand alone buildings. They were set up to resemble office areas, and other commercial locations. There were dozens of trained role players in the village. Each attendee would be given a series of tasks to perform, such as "take these papers to your attorney", "get this check cashed at the bank", "pick up your prescription at the pharmacy", and "turn in your rental car". This required you to move throughout the village and interact with the role players who simulated the staff and other customers of these various businesses. As with real-life most were benign and simply doing their own thing. At some point, however, you might run into a predator and have to deal with them.
My first trip I was unaware of the details. I did not know that prior to entry into The Village, the attendees were physically searched and all equipment taken from them . Once they were verified clear of all weapons, they were issued a snubby modified to only accept marking cartriges and given a handful of Sims rounds. Since I did not know this in advance, I did not have a holster for the snubby they issued me. So, I put it in my right front pants pocket.
At that time, 15 years ago, I had been wearing a pistol on my right hip on the belt at about 4 o'clock for 29 years, everyday, all day. I had had extensive training and I had completed 25 years in various law enforcement jobs all wearing a gun in that same place. I had drawn a gun from that carry placement a number of times for real, both in uniform and in concealed carry. Maybe an hour to an hour and a half into The Village I was in an encounter in which I decided it was time to shoot. I swept my Concealed Carry Clothiers tropic vest cleanly and swiftly out of the way and closed my right hand grasp around a big handful of air. Oh shit! I then slid my hand into my pants pocket and got a good grip on the snubby, clearing my pocket just as a Sims round hit me squarely over the left lung.
I knew intellectually that I put a snubby in my pocket an hour and a half earlier . Under stress however, I reverted to programming and reached where my service pistol OUGHT TO BE.
Replaying this event in my mind later, I became convinced that I would have reacted the same way in a real encounter. From then on, when I attended the NTI I always took with me a snubby belt holster I could put on my belt at 4 o'clock prior to entering The Village. I never had that problem again and was never "killed" again in The Village over several subsequent years .
Prior to this experience I had already been a strong proponent of carrying your gear in the same place and carrying the same type of gear religiously . For instance if someone carried a semiautomatic service pistol but wanted something smaller for off-duty, I strongly urged them to get a smaller gun that operated exactly the same way as their duty gun. Wearing the same basic type of gun and wearing it in the same place would make problems like the one I described above far less likely. My experience at the NTI just deeply reinforced that notion .
I allow AIWB carry in my live fire classes specifically because I don't want people using some other type of gear if AIWB is what they really carry.
I am not a proponent of AIWB carry , not because of safety issues, but because no one that I know carries that way ALL OF THE TIME. I can, in fact, carry a gun at 4 o'clock on my belt whether it is my full-size pistol IWB, or snubby IWB, or hunting pistol OWB. By changing outer garments I can adapt to different concealment requirements, but my pistol is always in the same place and the draw stroke will essentially be the same. The experience I described above and other observations over four decades of training people lead me to be concerned that someone who does all his range work from AIWB but then has his gun at 4 o'clock because he's not dressed in a manner that allows an un-tucked shirt will reach first where he thinks the gun ought to be and then reaches for 4 o'clock . That delay in the presentation could be a serious issue. YMMV.
To me the whole purpose of repetitive practice both in dry fire and live fire on the range is to program a desired response and make it an automatic response to certain stimuli. I think it would be a lot easier to automate one response than to automate two separate responses to the same set of stimuli. I have been in several hairy situations in real life in which my gun appeared in hand with absolutely no conscious decision to produce it. I believe this was a product of always wearing the gun in the same place and doing ALL presentation practice, dry and live, from that consistent location. I don't dictate carry position in class, as it's your butt at risk, not mine.
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