[SIZE=4]ARMED RESPONSE TO A TERRORIST ATTACK
Defense Training International, John Farnum
August 28 & 29, 2021
CLASS REVIEW, AAR
Instructor: John Farnum
Weather: Sat & Sun: Cloudy 70’s off and on rain,
Location: Londonderry Fish & Game, Litchfield, NH
Round Count: Pistol 200 +/-, Rifle 400 +/-
John Farnum is one of the OG’s (original gangster) of firearms training. He is a law enforcement officer, an SME (subject matter expert), and a world-famous firearms instructor for civilians and law enforcement agencies that have been in demand worldwide for over fifty years.
This was not a high round count class, you attend a Farnum class for John Farnum. His vast knowledge of firearms history, world history, real tactics, and his personal experience is why you take his class.
I was not disappointed.
We met at a local breakfast place for breakfast, the class informally starts. You are not required to show up, but everyone in my class did. This was my first John Farnum class so I was the new guy, everyone else had been with him in the past. John and the other students introduced themselves to me and were incredibly warm and kind. The conversation was about guns, current events, and the unfortunate direction of the country. I felt right at home…. These were my peeps.
After breakfast, we drove to the range and into a building for the lecture portion of the class. John started off the talk with the following statement:
“…I am not here to tell you what to do… I am here to tell you what is going to happen to you once you do it…”
There was a deep and in-depth discussion of us getting involved in a critical situation.
- What are the legal implications?
- What are the moral implications?
- What if we don’t get involved?
- If we do, how should we handle ourselves with the police?
- If we do how do we handle non-shooters, innocent bystanders?
Our main thought process should be what can I do to not get hurt and go home to our loved ones.
Treat everyone as a threat until we know they are a non-threat.
When calling 911 we need to sell our emergency to the operator. Most departments are understaffed. If someone is in your home John suggest telling 911 that “We have a home invasion in progress, {give address.}
After a shooting John suggests smart cooperation with the police.
- Hold hand out palms facing out towards the officers.
- Thank God you’re here officers, I am the one that called you.
- That man (men) attacked me, tried to murder me, I was in fear for my life.
- I will sign a complaint against them.
- Point out any evidence and or witnesses.
- I will be happy to answer all your question once my attorney shows up.
- SHUT UP! Say NOTHING MORE.
When you are read Miranda Rights, the officer will ask you if you understand these Rights? Answer:
NO I DO NOT UNDERSTAND!
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Force = To compel by physical means
Violence = Unlawful force, inappropriate force
Criminals use violence, Good guys use force.
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Police asking you for consent to search:
I really don’t want you looking into my personal stuff,
NO I DO CONSENT to search.
Do you mind coming down to the station?
Am I under arrest? If no, DO NOT GO TO THE STATION.
Am I a suspect in a crime?
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Range time.
We started off with some warm-up drills from 7-8 yards into a Q target. John showed us where the fatal area was, that was our intended hit area. Anything outside the fatal area and inside the target was less than acceptable but not fail. Outside the printed area on the target was a fail. Always starting from the holster, shoot the number of shots as instructed, stay in the fight, move, scan 360 degrees, look for additional threats, reload if necessary and reholster slowly. After each iteration, john would come around and score your target, once the target was scored we taped all holes. We did this for a while, varying the number of shots and movements after the hot word. John added innocent people around the targets that represented people who we were not to be shot and they stayed around the targets for the duration of the class. Targets were added at different distances and angles. We did some longer-range pistol shots approximately 45-50 yards. Those were challenging for me with a pistol. We did the same drills with our rifle and then with both our rifle and pistol.
In the afternoon of day one, John sent up some scenario drills. For example, we were near our car (the car had our rifle in a bag inside of the trunk) we are facing up range and hear a stimulus (gunfire). We need to move, turn around, draw our pistol (facing downrange) fire at the bad-guy target not hitting any of the innocent targets around the bad-guy until John said he was down or ran away. Run to our car open the trunk, get our rifle out of the bag. Load it, move to engage the balance of the targets near and far with the rifle while not hitting the innocent targets around those bad-guy targets. At some point, John would blow his whistle signaling the bad guys were down. We needed to stay in the fight, move, scan 361 degrees, move, reload if necessary. John would tell us when the drill was over. As a group, we would walk the targets while John scored them. Our group was excellent shooters. 80% of all targets were kill shots. Very very few shots were unaccounted for.
We did this a few times with pistols, rifles, and both pistols and rifles. After the second time through we would choose the order, we shot the bad guys and we would choose the gun we would shoot the targets with.
We finished day one around 6:30, cleaned up the range, and headed out for a class dinner with John. Dinner was not mandatory. At dinner, we continued to listen to John’s stories and wisdom.
Day two started again at the breakfast. Looking around the table we all were a little slower, the group was tired… Not John! He is an animal! Full of energy. I remember him talking to a student about the German submachine history of WWII. It was a fascinating conversation. The amount of history and information this man has in his head is incredible.
Range day, day two was all scenario-based. More complex scenarios, longer drills, innocent targets were covering more of the bad-guy targets. Hostage targets were added. The kill shot area on the hostage target was the nose. John encouraged us to push ourselves and fail in the training environment. He said this group of students could all make perfect hits going slow. Go faster than you think you should today.
An interesting tactic was during a hostage situation, we would yell, “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” to the bad guy. Wait two seconds. (one one-thousand, two one-thousand) MOVE and shot him in the nose. John said it f***s up his OODA-LOOP, he’ll move his head to answer. Well, he’ll try to answer while he gets multiple shots into his brain stem. Another interesting fact we were told. Never let a bad guy take a family member by force out of the home. Stats show that 75% of them will be dead within four hours. Tell your family members that if they are taken hostage and they hear the words “what do you want?” drop to the ground. I am going to shoot them in the face.
It was the first thing I told all my family when I got home Sunday night.
We did a lot of these complex scenario drills, our choice of gun(s) when shooting, our choice of order of bad guys. The important thing was always to keep moving, be decisive in our decisions, stay in the fight after all the bad guys were down until John told you the drill was over.
All-day long we trained to kill active shooters killing innocents in crowded places. We were encouraged to keep the mindset that we were in the mall, movie theater, restaurant, not on the range shooting paper targets. John would induce as much stress as he could to simulate the actual stress.
This was a great class, my first with the great John Farnum. I wish I had started with him years ago. He is full of amazing history, actual details and lessons learned about real shootings. This is why you go to his classes. He is an amazing storyteller and keeps the class hanging on each word. This is one of those classes that the days go really fast and at the end of day two you wished there were five more days before you left him.
The other students were amazing, incredible gun handlers, accurate shooters, and just fabulous humans. I truly enjoyed being around them and learning all I could from John and the other students.
I highly recommend taking a John Farnum class before he retires. He is won’t be doing this for much longer.
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Originally Posted by Moylan
