History of Defensive Handgun Techniques

[ST911]

To my knowledge, Ken Hackathorn was the first to point out how much surveillance video has changed our understanding of gunfights, because it lets us study what people actually do in fights without having to rely on post-event reports and testimony. So add a few thousand YouTube videos to a couple of good forums, and that’s pretty much the state of the art today.

Ken had a number of good historical tidbits (mil, Cooper/API, competition, etc) in his podcast interview with Mike Seeklander: http://americanwarriorshow.libsyn.com/ken

[Al T.]

Damn okie john, you hit that one out of the park. I've been very interested in defensive shooting for nearly 40 years and find nothing to disagree with.

history of handgun shooting skills and training / techniques related to personal defense for ordinary people

I think it was Tom Givens who pointed out that an awful lot of what we "knew" in my early years was driven by Hollywood silliness. So, IMHO, from a historical point of view, Hollywood "trained" quite a few folks. Something to think about*.



* Col. Cooper got his start in competitive shooting at a "leather slap" competition, which was pretty much folks copying Cowboy movie TTPs.

[NETim]

Ken had a number of good historical tidbits (mil, Cooper/API, competition, etc) in his podcast interview with Mike Seeklander: Mike Seeklander's podcast interview of Ken Hackathorn had some good historical information in it: http://americanwarriorshow.libsyn.com/ken

That was an extraordinarily fantastic listen IMHO.

[rob_s]

Since you put these two things in one sentence... How many surveillance videos show gunfights with people who regularly engage in action shooting competition?

Hell, I'm still looking for ANY documentation of a competition shooter getting "killed in the streets" because of some bad habit he picked up in competition. To date, all I've seen is reaching, anecdotes, and flat out lies and campfire stories.

[rob_s]

And there are two other things that influence the state of affairs today, the influence of which has yet to be fully seen. The first is the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, which had the unintended consequence of helping the NRA put a ton of pro-gun candidates into mayor's offices, state legislatures, judge's chambers, and other public offices where they could make it possible for so many of us to carry concealed weapons today. That drives the market for most civilian instruction in the handgun.

there's something else the AWB did, of which we ARE seeing the effects, and that was to create the forbidden fruit syndrome. Once something was taken away, and then given back, the response was "I better get it while I can!" The guy that buys the AR today, visits a firearm forum tomorrow, attends a match next week, and wants training next month.

[Failure2Stop]

Hell, I'm still looking for ANY documentation of a competition shooter getting "killed in the streets" because of some bad habit he picked up in competition. To date, all I've seen is reaching, anecdotes, and flat out lies and campfire stories.

I was shooting a GSSF match last Saturday (USPSA to get laid, GSSF to get paid) and during the plates stage, the assistant RO (cop) said to me,
"I see that you're press-checking after a reload. A guy on my department that was in a shootout did that in the middle of the gunfight. Not a good idea."

Uh...yeah...not my problem.
Thanks for the free guns though.

[rob_s]

I was shooting a GSSF match last Saturday (USPSA to get laid, GSSF to get paid) and during the plates stage, the assistant RO (cop) said to me,
"I see that you're press-checking after a reload. A guy on my department that was in a shootout did that in the middle of the gunfight. Not a good idea."

It seems like just about every cop has some story like that they heard in the academy or in a briefing room in 1975.

[Chance]

I swear I've seen screen shots of an old manual, I want to say it was Prussian, demonstrating shooting techniques with a handgun. I can't find it right now, and it's driving me nuts.

Here's two blog posts that might be helpful, although they're not exactly what you're looking for. And here is a video from American Handgunner with Weaver talking about how his shooting stance evolved.





ETA: This wasn't what I was trying to find, but it does have some historical depictions of "hand fire-arms". Maybe worth a look. Granted, this is more offensive techniques of handguns, but hey, history.



Also, thanks for destroying my productivity for the day.

[Al T.]

How many surveillance videos show gunfights with people who regularly engage in action shooting competition?

Thought about this over lunch and realized that some decent percent of police compete in PPC. Wonder if anyone has checked police gunfight results versus competition standing....

http://ppc.nra.org/ppc.aspx

[okie john]

Avatar material, sir.


Okie John