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View Full Version : Handgun malfunction and Remedial action....SERIOUSLY???



NickDrak
09-08-2012, 02:23 PM
This was snipped from an entry on a local instructors website who runs multiple "Groupon/LivingSocial" type firearm instruction events which are targeted at new/unexperienced shooters that are held at a local gun club.


__________________________________________________ __
"In this video I am demonstrating the three most popular malfunctions in a handgun. They are as follows:


Failure to fire
Stove-pipe
Doublefeed"
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Im not quite sure what "popular" has to do with types of handgun malfunctions but I just wanted to put it into context. The following is apparently what he/they are teaching to these brand-new students who are attending his classes. The comments in RED are what concern me the most...
__________________________________________________ __


"Another thing I hear a bunch these days is, the new school of thought, instead of re-engaging after the remedial action go directly to an assess mode first. That is all fine and dandy but there should not be any need to assess. As you are doing remedial action, you do not disregard the enemy, and you surely dont forget if they are shooting back at you or not. The purpose of re-engaging with rounds down range is to let them know that you are back in battery and fully capable of neutralizing them. If in the couple of seconds it took for you to clear a malfunction and re-engage, the enemy fled then so be it, shoot a couple rounds and let them know to run faster.


Another reason to re-engage is to make sure that your firearm fires properly after the remedial action. If you just assess and put it back into your holster because the enemy is gone, you never know if you fixed it. A couple minutes later the enemy comes back and you pull that firearm out and it fails to fire. This is not the time to figure out what happened, you had plenty of time to figure it out if you would of fired a round after the remedial action and it failed to fire."
__________________________________________________ __


Im curious what everyone else's opinion is on sending rounds down range as a default after clearing a malfunction. I am of the opinion that it is patently retarded to employ and especially to teach this tecnique to new shooters


Now here's the kicker, If I want to host instructors with resumes like Larry Vickers, Kyle Defoor, John McPhee, Ken Hackathorn, etc., and more than 10 students sign-up for the class I need to arrange to have a club provided RSO sit thru the entire class and baby-sit. This guy is unaffected by this club rule because he has his own cadre of "instructors" to cover the number of students that show up to his courses. They are bringing in a high volume of students to their classes which concerns me for several different reasons.


Im not looking to harm this guy's lively-hood, but his tactics are idiotic and in my opinion introducing new shooters to this type of crap will not only cause problems for the club (and himself) down the road but will also place his students and innocent bystanders in situations of elevated liability and risk of death or injury.

The following was my response to his post on his website:

If you are teaching students to fire rounds downrange as a default after clearing a malfunction, where exactly are you teaching them to aim those rounds? If your attacker has fled then a case can be made that he/she is no longer a "threat" depending on the dynamics of the particular situation.

If the attacker is no longer visible and has moved behind cover/concealment, then where are you teaching students to aim the rounds that you are teaching them to fire as a default after clearing a malfunction? Should they take a moment to find a solid backstop to fire at even though this would likely take their focus away from finding the bad guy and will also likely reveal their own position?

Stay safe,
Nick

JodyH
09-08-2012, 02:43 PM
This is why we can't have nice things.
Idiot "instructors" do more harm to the firearms education cause than ignorant gun owners.

Maybe some day this "instructor" will have to take the stand in a civil trial and articulate his curriculum while the lawyers determine his culpability $$$ percentage.
Meanwhile his professional liability insurance (if he carries any) will hang him out to dry due to him instructing outside established norms and advocating illegal activities.

TGS
09-08-2012, 03:04 PM
This is why we can't have nice things.
Idiot "instructors" do more harm to the firearms education cause than ignorant gun owners.

Maybe some day this "instructor" will have to take the stand in a civil trial and articulate his curriculum while the lawyers determine his culpability $$$ percentage.
Meanwhile his professional liability insurance (if he carries any) will hang him out to dry due to him instructing outside established norms and advocating illegal activities.

Exactly my thoughts.

There isn't any way to bar him from teaching this stuff, is there? It'd be cool if we could let Mitchell have a field day with him in the court, barring this dude from ever teaching ever again. Like Nick mentioned, some of the stuff he's teaching appears to be grossly negligent. Fire at a person as they're retreating just to let them know to run faster? He's gotta be kidding. That's not self-defense, that's attempted murder/homicide/your-preferred-legal-jargon.

Al T.
09-08-2012, 03:12 PM
Dang. Massive "fail" on that guys part. Wonder if he teaches warning shots too?

Frankly, there's little you can do with these sorts of bozos. We have a couple here and they were just horrible to be around, so I wasn't. Life is too short - sort of like "never wrassle with a pig, you both get dirty and the pig loves it".

As far as the RSO, perhaps you could get the certificate and be your own RSO.

NickDrak
09-08-2012, 04:12 PM
As far as the RSO, perhaps you could get the certificate and be your own RSO.

The issue with that is the RSO cannot participate in the training and must observe only.

Al T.
09-08-2012, 05:32 PM
Makes sense.

TAZ
09-08-2012, 05:47 PM
To be fair, I always send a number of rounds down range after having a malfunction....on a square range.

Seems to me this "instructor" is setting someone up for a reckless endangerment or manslaughter charge and himself for a bankruptcy hearing. He seems to stupid to differentiate between what happens on a square range and what happens in the wild. His teaching handgun tactics is like me teaching open heart surgery. Makes for great self esteem, but it just won't end well.

MDS
09-08-2012, 06:41 PM
This kind of shenanigans isn't specific to gun trainers. It's a problem with any kind of business that sells a product that is poorly understood, that is controversial in a mysterious or sexy way, and especially one where what it takes to do it right is a whole lot of "boring" legwork. In a sea of BS and confusion, there's going to be plenty of more or less incompetent folks who realize they can make a living without going through all the bother of actually understanding what they're talking about. Lord knows I fight this kind of thing all the time in my own industry. I have a few minutes here, let me try playing with tables:



Characteristic
What's the problem?
Pistol Training
Information Security


Poorly Understood
For some reason, most folks have bad information.
Politics and Hollywood drive mass disinformation. Most people get their intro to guns from Hollywood. Nuff Sed.
Marketing and FUD drive mass disinformation. Most people get their intro to InfoSec from articles paid for by vendors.


Controversial
Relevant issues bring out reactions spread evenly across a wide spectrum, and folks feel those reactions strongly.
Issues include gun crimes, assault rifles, statistical studies, etc.
Issues include hacktivism, exploit markets, privacy impacts, etc.


Sexy/ Mysterious
Depends on where you're coming from here, you might fantasize differently. But fantasies abound.
SEALs/Delta/Marine Recon/Ghillie suits/Bond OR Drugs/money/power/gangs
Infrastructure/reverse engineering/tracking BGs OR 0days/pwnage/BlackHat


Legwork
Good information is out there, lost in a sea of BS. Basically you establish a good foundation and keep adding advanced capabilities.
Establish foundation: Take a good fundamentals class. Dry fire daily, live fire weekly for 6 months. Repeat once or twice. Continuous improvement: Take an advanced or tactical class. Dry fire daily, live fire weekly for 3-6 months. Repeat ad excellentum.
Establish foundation: Implement a good fundamental standard (e.g., NIST or PCI.) Run it for 6 months. Repeat once or twice. Continuous improvement: Implement an advanced standard or tactic, run it for 3-6 months. Repeat ad excellentum.



If you're out to make a few bucks, then this kind of situation is called "good for business." If you're out to do something well, this kind of situation is a frustrating, soul-sucking face-full of rotten FAIL pie.

/rant

JodyH
09-08-2012, 07:21 PM
The biggest problem is the bad information these instructors are giving out is supported by the equally retarded gun store employee.
The ignorant student get's bad advice from an "instructor", then another "authority" on the subject (gun store employee) gives supporting bad advice and now you have stupidity solidified.

ToddG
09-08-2012, 08:29 PM
First, let me say that the comments highlighted in red in the original post are indefensible and, were I called to testify as in expert regarding that lesson (or its application by a student), I would be forced to say it's most likely illegal, generally contrary to the established body of accepted procedure in the community, and basically idiotic.

Second, it does no good to get one's blood pressure up over instructors doing dumb stuff. I do stuff that other instructors think is dumb, too, after all.

JMS
09-10-2012, 03:08 PM
If nothing else good comes of this, those of us who've never seen it before can now add "hacktivism" to our lexicon.....

Chuck Haggard
09-10-2012, 03:49 PM
That guy has gone full retard, well after it has been established one should never go full retard.


I'd also be happy to testify against this guy as an expert witness, although I"d feel bad since the case wouldn't be any real work at all.

"The enemy"? WTF?

Dave J
09-10-2012, 06:10 PM
I'm assuming that guy isn't teaching CHL classes in a state with a mandatory training requirement.

If he were, I'd probably feel obligated to report him to the certifying agency. (DPS, AG, etc.)

MDS
09-10-2012, 07:56 PM
If nothing else good comes of this, those of us who've never seen it before can now add "hacktivism" to our lexicon.....

Glad to contribute. ;) I'd just had a particularly inane day at work, and indulged in a little thinking out loud here...

David Armstrong
09-11-2012, 10:33 AM
A good example of a long lasting issue in the world of firearms training, a lack of consistency on what doctrine should be mandatory and what should be prohibited. Like Todd said, he does stuff that other instructors think is dumb. I do stuff that other instructors think is dumb. Other instructors do stuff that I think is dumb, or that Todd thinks is dumb. Heck, I teach stuff that Todd thinks is dumb!;) Perhaps one day there will be a recognized Canons of Firearms Training, but until then it is very much buyer beware.

NickA
09-11-2012, 10:54 AM
There's subjectively "dumb", and there's flat out reckless. While any instructor might teach something that another disagrees with, firing off rounds as a function check after remedial action would, IMO, be very much the latter.

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Dr. No
09-11-2012, 09:21 PM
There's subjectively "dumb", and there's flat out reckless. While any instructor might teach something that another disagrees with, firing off rounds as a function check after remedial action would, IMO, be very much the latter.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

I have to agree. Teaching something that can take a student from "good shoot" to "You're going to jail" definitely falls under the 'no go' in my opinion.

I try not to teach lethal force policy in my classes, but I'm starting to think that perhaps I should cover it.......

JodyH
09-11-2012, 09:42 PM
I try not to teach lethal force policy in my classes, but I'm starting to think that perhaps I should cover it.......
If you do teach it, have a lawyer assist in writing the curriculum and do not deviate from that curriculum.
For my CCW classes I have a typed handout of my legal block of instruction that every student gets.
There is a area at the bottom of each page for the student to take notes, there is a reminder to write down anything not covered in the handout.
There is a place for me to initial that the notes they took are information I presented in class.
I've never seen a student pick up their pen, I've never initialed a students notes.
My goal is for the students to not write anything down because I do not ad lib or deviate from that handout.
That way if I am ever called to testify there is no doubt as to the information the student received from me.
CYA when it comes to giving "legal advice" if you aren't an attorney.

NickDrak
09-12-2012, 11:54 AM
For your viewing pleasure....
http://dmztactical.com/gun-blog/handgun-malfunction-and-remedial-action/

And another gem I found: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news%2Flocal&id=8730196

JodyH
09-12-2012, 12:21 PM
This seems to be a self correcting problem.
Over/under on how many days until the "epic level of negligent discharge stupidity, now with MOR blood!" YouTube video?

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