Appropriate level of skill to carry concealed, responsibly?
I come at all of this from a pure civilian perspective, and what was most surprising to me is that there isn’t a clear metric out there for when a person is “good enough” at shooting to carry concealed. Of course, there’s a lot more that people should be prepared for (legal considerations, willingness to disengage from a disagreement, etc), but here, I’m just talking about marksmanship.
To be clear, this is about personal standards, or perhaps what you’d suggest for a friend new to concealed carry—not about legal requirements. It’s my sense that the vast majority of people who carry concealed not only have no standard, but they don’t have a clear idea of their level of skill.
Here are some preliminary thoughts:
- No one is ever really “good enough.” No one leaves a defensive gun use thinking they spent too much time training, and you should always be aiming to improve your abilities. Still, it’s helpful to have some base level of standard to measure yourself against so you know when you can reasonably start carrying.
- It’s tempting to think that any carry is good. But if you can’t hit a B-27 at 3 yards 100% of the time, you’re not good enough. There must be some level of skill beneath which a responsible citizen would choose not to carry, even when legally permitted.
- If a CCW issuer has a marksmanship qualification, it’s invariably too easy. See the new SFPD CCW qualification, for instance.
Here are two that come to mind, as well as my rationale (based on my understanding):
- The 2019 FBI Handgun Qualification. Focuses on closer distances, but touches on distance. Target is quite large, but there will probably be a bit of time pressure on particular strings. Used by the FBI, so it has a degree of national legitimacy. FBI hires a lot of lawyer types and trains them from scratch—this isn’t an HRT qualification.
- The Five-Yard Roundup. Low round count. Focuses on the most common types of defensive gun uses, per Tom Givens (5 yards; 3 seconds). Probably somewhat more challenging to reach 80% on than the FBI qual, due to the time constraints. No exposure to long distance shots.
To the experts here: if you were a new shooter, but you knew what you know now, what standard would you set for yourself? Or put another way, if a friend was a new shooter and asked you this question, what qualification would you suggest for them?
Standard to strive for-not mandated.
An interesting question, and one I've thought about a fair amount. I'm a confessed "drill/eval/qual" nerd and shoot them a lot.
I'd refer you first to Karl Rehn, who posts here, and has done a lot of work in instructing and testing, mainly in Texas. Another instructor is Claude Werner, who has a Patreon account, on YouTube,etc. Both of these gentlemen have put out a great deal of information.
I would not want to see a mandated standard, because bureaucratic systems could make it hard enough where few would "pass". Having said that, I've used the Gila Hayes standard of 5 rounds in a 5" circle at 5 yards in 5 seconds or less from a ready position. Werner increases the standard to 5 successful runs in a row- the 5^5 I think is how he expresses this.
@vcdgrips laid out some cold tests years ago which I was impressed with. COLD-no warmup-step onto the range and perform one:
*a hit from concealment on 8"@3yds in 2 seconds from concealment. *FAST test in 10 seconds or less(concealed). *8"target @5yards in 4 seconds with movement. *No time limit, draw and hit an 8"plate at 10 yards. *5 shot group on a business card at 5yards, no time limit. I try to do one of these once a month as a check. The thread is "Doubts about 9mm" from 3 years ago.
There's a lot more: don't leave a gun in a car. Get your face out of your phone! Have contingency plans-pepper spray, hand to hand skills. Some first aid training-and don't go to stupid places with stupid people to do stupid things(heard that from Farnam first).
Realistically, I think very few people-exceptions here-will work to a standard. I'd be grateful for the 5x5 to be met...