What I learned at the range yesterday

[Al T.]

The other side is folks who neither compete or train. Puzzles the hell out of me.

Case in point: Buddy of mine has always "wanted" to do a class. He has several good suppressed rifles, time and money available for the Pat Rogers class next month. I sort of kicked the slats out from under him when he stated that he wanted to go, but was short magazines. I told him I had enough magazines that he could load all his required ammo up on Friday and shoot till Sunday night. Not sure if it's performance anxiety or what, but while he talks a good game, he ain't going.

Local club has 500 plus members, maybe 75 shoot in the IDPA/USAPSA matches. And a high percentage cross over.

Tango Charlie (back OT), heard one last year that you can tell your RO buddy. Guy buying ammo told the clerk that he didn't want JHPs for his defensive handgun as the hollowpoints opening up in flight limited his effective range.

5. It's impossible to hit anything more than 3 yards away with a Ruger LCP.

Correct. Stick with Kel-Tec as a Beta tester.

6. Clearing a room by attempting to "pie" a corner is stupid.

Ninja rolls. Gotta use Ninja rolls.

[John Hearne]

Local club has 500 plus members, maybe 75 shoot in the IDPA/USAPSA matches. And a high percentage cross over.

We have several active IDPA clubs in my area and a lot crossover to IPSC. I decided to shoot the IPSC based steel match one time and attendance was 1/3 of what I would expect. I asked where everyone is. I was told that if you suck, the steel doesn't fall over and you have to stand there and continually miss, in front of everyone. Apparently, those that are medicore prefer to to be publically humiliated.

[HeadHunter]

My gun club has 600 members. Typically, there are between 6 and 10 members at the IDPA/USPSA shoots (60-100 shooters), some of whom are crossovers. There are hundreds of current local IDPA shooters and probably a couple of thousand alumni. The majority of those know me because I started the largest IDPA club in Atlanta 13 years ago and have been continuously active in it ever since. In the past 10 years, less than a dozen have ever taken a class from me.

The Rogers Shooting School is 2 hours North of Atlanta. In the 5 years I taught there, maybe a dozen people from the Atlanta area attended a class.

The general hierarchy I have observed:
Gun owners: Don't keep their gun loaded and in many cases, don't even know exactly where it is or have ammunition for it (I have a funny story about that).
Gun collectors: Fiddle diddle with their guns regularly and sometime load their guns but usually only at the range once or twice a year. Most don't have a holster for their pistols.
Shooters: Out blasting with their guns regularly. You'll see them at several matches a month. At the end of the match, they take their guns off and put them in a car. Only carry guns when "they might need them." When they carry, it's frequently chamber empty. Most military people who like guns, including trainers, fall into this category.
Gunmen and gunwomen: Shoot their guns regularly, carry guns whenever they can, train with guns, and are actually capable of using guns for self defense on demand. That's maybe half of the people in Tom's statistic; say 8000 out of the millions of people who own guns in the country.

The math used to make my head hurt but not anymore.

I too usually keep my electronics off when I am at the range, especially an indoor range.

[JodyH]

I guess living in the desert with basically unlimited places to shoot has lowered my tolerance for stupid people at the range.
Id have looked him straight in the eyes and told him he was the stupidest SOB I'd talked to all year and to leave me the F' alone.
It must truly suck to have to deal with mouthbreathers like that just to shoot.
Especially when they are RO's who can eject you.

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[Lon]

Because God hates me and because "He's a moron" isn't a sufficient justification for assault in Virginia.

Like going from the local range, where I am like unto a ninja, to AFHF, where I am tickled pink any time I am not the suckiest at any given drill...

It must truly suck to have to deal with mouthbreathers like that just to shoot.

This thread is producing some great quotes of the day. When I read these stories I and God that I run a police range and don't have to deal with this ignorance.

[mscott327]

I learned a lot during my trip to the range yesterday, and I thought I would share these valuable lessons with the members of PF.com:

1. Shooting at 15 yards is bad because nobody can hit anything that far away with a handgun.
2. Shooting at a person who is more than 7 yards away is murder.
3. .40 S&W does not use an "aerodynamic" bullet, and as such is completely unable to hit anything past about 12 yards
4. Shooting "fast" is dangerous and destructive and completely unnecessary in real life
5. It's impossible to hit anything more than 3 yards away with a Ruger LCP.
6. Clearing a room by attempting to "pie" a corner is stupid.
7. My 9mm P30 doesn't have a prayer of actually stopping a bad guy.

unless these people telling you this hog wash are "authorities" in shooting, quit listening to all those nay sayers.

[rsa-otc]

I learned a lot during my trip to the range yesterday, and I thought I would share these valuable lessons with the members of PF.com:

1. Shooting at 15 yards is bad because nobody can hit anything that far away with a handgun.
2. Shooting at a person who is more than 7 yards away is murder.
3. .40 S&W does not use an "aerodynamic" bullet, and as such is completely unable to hit anything past about 12 yards
4. Shooting "fast" is dangerous and destructive and completely unnecessary in real life
5. It's impossible to hit anything more than 3 yards away with a Ruger LCP.
6. Clearing a room by attempting to "pie" a corner is stupid.
7. My 9mm P30 doesn't have a prayer of actually stopping a bad guy.

What...... this isn't a joke? Here I've been doing it wrong all these years. Actually the joke is the rangemoron.

I guess I'm fortunate that the public range I shoot at is owned by an IDPA shooter whose family includes a current World Champion IDPA division winner. When I get to the range the staff usually leaves me alone or moves me to another bay so I don't have to put up with morons. Other than the occational muzzeling , the only distractions I have is when the guy next to me asks me to shoot their gun to see if there's a problem with it.

[Tamara]

This thread is producing some great quotes of the day. When I read these stories I and God that I run a police range and don't have to deal with this ignorance.

Your department must have some unusually high hiring standards.

(Or a good R.O. to stomp on that stuff as it happens! )

[NickA]

Tom Givens remarked over dinner last spring that the training audience (folks that actually attend courses) is (IIRC) less than 15 thousand people, coast to coast. That discussion came about by playing "do you know" with Tom about a few folks I know. We had one guy from Georgia who remembered being in class in Indiana with Tam.

That's interesting; Tom mentioned to me that he appreciated AAR's as they get the word out to a limited audience and provide for feedback, now I see why.
On topic: recently had a conversation with a Marine who wanted to get a home defense gun for his wife while he's deployed and was looking at... the Judge we got interrupted before I could try to steer him in a better direction. Now that I'm starting to know at least a little about this stuff, I find I'm struggling with how hard to try and help those less informed. He at least seemed open to getting her some training so maybe it will turn out OK.

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[Corey]

At least here in Western PA.

Only true for 95% in Western, PA? That’s pretty good, it’s gotta be closer to 98% here in Utah (YVK, Seconds Count, and a few others being in the 2%). When I lived in North Central West Virginia and taught some ccw classes it was about 99.5%.

I try to ignore the other people at the range a practice at. As long as they are keeping the guns pointed downrange I just do my thing and go on my way. But people see me working from the holster, using a timer, etc. and some of them have to interrupt. I swear if one more person asks me what agency I am with just because I shoot better than them I am going to make up some bullshit secret squirrel mall ninja story just to screw with them.

OTOH, there is hope. I was working on doing the Press 6 drill one time and the guy in the lane next to me was shooting the same gun as me (M&P 9 FS) and was struggling to stay on an 8 1/2x 11 paper at the same distance (5 yards). He watched me finish my drill and started asking me a few questions about how I liked the gun and how long I had been shooting it. Then he started asking how I learned to shoot. I ended up taking about 15 minutes and helped him get a proper grip on the gun and some basics of trigger control. Did some ball and dummy drills with him and I could see the light come on. He was was eager to learn and had no resistance to changing the way he was doing things. After I gave him some suggestions for dry firing and practice and recommended some classes he commented to me, “I wish someone had shown me this stuff years ago.”

That left me with a warm, fuzzy feeling for the day.