I don't think splits are a requirement. If someone can fire a single shot accurately and appropriately and won't fire when they can't, I'm good with that.Originally Posted by alamo5000
I don't think splits are a requirement. If someone can fire a single shot accurately and appropriately and won't fire when they can't, I'm good with that.
“There is no growth in the comfort zone.”--Jocko Willink
"You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
No, not an “arbitrary” standard.
But yes, I do believe individuals should adopt for themselves a base standard of competence, and if they don’t meet it, they shouldn’t carry a deadly weapon in public. Surely you’d agree that if a person literally can’t hit a B-27 silhouette at 3 yards, they should not carry a firearm.
The tricky part is that a novice shooter doesn’t know what a base standard of competence is—they have to look to an expert for that.
And again, I’ll emphasize—this is not about legal requirements. This is about the new shooter of good intent who wants a guideline.
It was kind of a rhetorical point I was making. If someone is actually safe with a firearm that (to me) is the primary criteria. Anyway I am writing a bit more but it's not directed at you... I am just expanding on my thought process.
Do I think people should practice? Yes.
Do I think everyone should try to improve? Yes.
In general the 'competency' with a gun should be HIGHLY encouraged. By all means, yes. To me 'competency' starts with safe gun handling including when one isn't doing anything more than 'carrying it around'.
There also most definitely should have some skill level in shooting too. For example one of my mom's friends is so scared of recoil that he stretches the gun so far out and then jerks the trigger and flinches so bad that he hits the dirt in front of a 7 yard target. In that case I definitely think he needs to actually shoot a whole lot better before proceeding.
The same guy mentioned above, literally one minute later I took the 9mm away from him and handed him a suppressed 22 pistol and he was banging away at the plate.
So in essence I think the 'rule' should still be safe handling. Included in that is not flinching so bad that you hit the dirt in front of a 7 yard target.
See my follow on reply above. In general I think we are on the same page. I don't have a specific criteria in mind, well other than safe handling. If someone cannot safely shoot a gun then they should improve before taking the next step.
That is actually a really tough question..
For me I have a few different metrics for myself
- 3 second bill drill cold from concealment on a reduced A zone like defoor shoots
- a clean TEST drill at 10 yards from concealment
-ten rounds at 25 yards to a reduced a zone in under 20 seconds with 8/10 being A zone hits
A specific target a specific distance is arbitrary, unless it’s a requirement set by a certain group with enforcement power
By the above standard, I would guess there’s some police who shouldn’t carry in public not necessarily due to their own fault some don’t get the training time and some don’t care otherwise
So it may be ethical to carry a staccato, but not a J frame based on your shooting ability?
70 year old grandma should not be able to carry a gun, even though the likelihood of her having to use it is very low, however having it could quickly de-escalate a lot of stuff?
I think that police standards, in general should be higher, at the same time, I'm not really in favor of making CCW standards to the same level.
Your first sentence is what a rational person would adopt. However, to mandate a standard seems to go against what about half the states have done in adopting Constitutional Carry which most on this site fully support (I think).
Furthermore, a cynical person might look askance at standards set by folks who teach firearms for a living.
I agree that a person who isn't able to hit a B-27 at three yards ought not be carrying a gun in public, but they are assuming the liability for doing so, not me. Perhaps equally important is educating folks about that liability.
For licensed CCW, I'm in the camp of those who support minimal marksmanship standards and low fees. Simply because many folks who actually need CCW's for self-protection don't live in the rough areas they live in because they are making a social statement, they live in those areas because they can't escape. A higher training standard might keep many of those folks from protecting themselves.
It is a double-edged sword.
I have more, but I'm late for coffee.
Adding nothing to the conversation since 2015....
There will always be edge cases. The solution to the problem you identify is not to say “Well, since one single base level of competence standard isn’t appropriate for 100% of people, we shouldn’t discuss any and people shouldn’t adopt them.”
Instead, we should say, “Most people who carry are 30s-60s and in good health; they should be able to do X before carrying in public. From there, the standard can be tweaked based on disability/old age.”
In terms of equipment, I suggested the Five Yard Roundup as one possibility. There’s no reason someone with a J-Frame can’t pass that. That said, if someone finds that the standard is easier to meet with a Glock 19 than a J-Frame or LCP, that may show them something about their equipment choice. There’s value in that. The right approach isn’t just to say “Hey, you do you.” Some equipment is better than other equipment, and it would be good for novice shooters to understand the trade off between size/convenience and performance.
If a proposed standard really requires a Staccato to pass (eg, someone can’t pass it with a Glock but can with a Staccato), then it’s not an appropriate base level of competence standard.
Yeah, again, this isn’t about legal requirements. This is about what standard a novice shooter of good intent should adopt for him/herself.
I think it's important to keep in mind the difference between A) a standard enforced by a governing body (like a test to get a CCW), which a person must pass in order to legally carry in a jurisdiction, and B) a benchmark that, whether a person agrees to recognize it or not, is the minimum standard a person should be able to meet before making the decision to carry a loaded gun around their fellow humans.
I'd see it as analogous to the advice given regarding mindset, that if you are a reactive, aggressive, or impulsive person, then maybe you shouldn't carry a gun. No one saying that is suggesting the state should administer a personality test before handing out carry permits, but is rather asking people to do some honest self-assessment before making the very personal and significant decision to carry a deadly force implement.
Same thing here. I think that someone carrying a gun in public should be able to, for example, draw and hit an 8" circle from 5yds within, say, three seconds. But if someone says "I can't do that and won't try to learn to but I'm gonna carry a gun anyway," my reaction is "I'd really rather you didn't but I'm not your mother" and not "the state should prevent you from doing so."
Short version is I think we can all agree that while state-imposed restrictions on carrying guns should be minimal (or nonexistent), there are still plenty of people who for various reasons should decide not to carry one. That goes as much for people who can't hit a man sized target at 3yds as it does for people who can't control their temper, can't stay sober, know they could never bring themselves to use deadly force on another person, work around industrial magnets, etc.
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