Bill Wilson and Ken Hackathon's Crystal Ball Predictions

[MVS]

If you wanted to wager, the safe bet is that things will not be as bad as the pessimist believes, nor as good as the optimist believes. People and the earth have shown to be quite resilient, and willing to innovate and adapt to all sorts of challenges.

On training, there will be plenty of opportunity for basic instructors to teach the many new shooters beginning gun ownership. On the high end, I think things will become more specialized. The days of sitting around telling war stories and doing basic marksmanship oriented drills are likely largely behind us. An instructor needs to offer specific expertise, like with a red dot, or offer other value added instruction that goes beyond what any of us can pull up on YouTube.

I hope you are wrong. Not about the sitting around and telling war stories, but about being more specialized. I see that in many fields and it almost never ends well. (for the consumer) I think what is really needed are a lot of very good instructors of the essentials who can diagnose and actually teach. What we have right now are too many people teaching outside their lanes because that is where the cool stuff is. I realize that is driven by consumer demand, but unfortunately the consumer in large part don
't really know what they need. I can't count the number of classes I have been to and at wrap up the student says this was great! It was the best class I have ever been too! How many have you been to? Well, this one or maybe, a couple is typically the answer. Well if that is the case how do you know what a good class is.

[GJM]

I hope you are wrong. Not about the sitting around and telling war stories, but about being more specialized. I see that in many fields and it almost never ends well. (for the consumer) I think what is really needed are a lot of very good instructors of the essentials who can diagnose and actually teach. What we have right now are too many people teaching outside their lanes because that is where the cool stuff is. I realize that is driven by consumer demand, but unfortunately the consumer in large part don
't really know what they need. I can't count the number of classes I have been to and at wrap up the student says this was great! It was the best class I have ever been too! How many have you been to? Well, this one or maybe, a couple is typically the answer. Well if that is the case how do you know what a good class is.

I have had a bunch of instructors, some very good, that conducted a class by teaching you their methods. I have had only a handful of instructors, and Rob Leatham is at the top of that small group, that can look at you, and zero in on things, small or large, that can really move the needle on improving your shooting. That doesn’t happen in a 20 person class, but rather in a very small class.

[HCM]

I hope you are wrong. Not about the sitting around and telling war stories, but about being more specialized. I see that in many fields and it almost never ends well. (for the consumer) I think what is really needed are a lot of very good instructors of the essentials who can diagnose and actually teach. What we have right now are too many people teaching outside their lanes because that is where the cool stuff is. I realize that is driven by consumer demand, but unfortunately the consumer in large part don
't really know what they need. I can't count the number of classes I have been to and at wrap up the student says this was great! It was the best class I have ever been too! How many have you been to? Well, this one or maybe, a couple is typically the answer. Well if that is the case how do you know what a good class is.

While not a “basic” instructor a counter example would be Chuck Pressburg. When he first retired from the military he talked about doing nothing but night vision-based classes and specialized classes. Fast-forward a year or two and he’s teaching : coaching fundamentals executed at a high-level via his No Fail pistol in No Fail rifle classes. And those classes are in high demand.

[HCM]

I have had a bunch of instructors, some very good, that conducted a class by teaching you their methods. I have had only a handful of instructors, and Rob Leatham is at the top of that small group, that can look at you, and zero in on things, small or large, that can really move the needle on improving your shooting. That doesn’t happen in a 20 person class, but rather in a very small class.

To clarify, it could happen in a 20 person class if that class is broken into two relays and the instructor has good assistant instructors taking the admin burden.

Instructors doing private lessons either in person or increasingly via video can also be productive.

[GJM]

To clarify, it could happen in a 20 person class if that class is broken into two relays and the instructor has good assistant instructors taking the admin burden.

Instructors doing private lessons either in person or increasingly via video can also be productive.

It could happen. However, in for example a two day class, I would rather have 1/3 or 1/6 of my instructor's attention, than 1/20 or 1/25 of their attention. There is also the reality that the shooters that really suck get a disproportionate amount of attention. My days of 20 person classes are, fortunately, way in the rear view mirror.

I have also noticed, the older an instructor gets, the more they seem to prefer talking to shooting. I have been in two day classes, when the first shot isn't fired until 2pm on day one, when it is 100 degrees, and most would prefer a nap!

[TCinVA]

They're right. Putting an electronic sight on top of your gun and using the right fasteners to the right torque and the right thread locker and witness marking everything to hopefully keep everything there so it doesn't give an inaccurate reference when you need it or snap screws off in your slide requiring a complicated extraction procedure...well all of that can be described as extra complication. The typical person toting a pistol doesn't even lubricate the motherfucker or change springs in it. Think of your typical police officer's maintenance and ponder giving them an RMR.

They're wrong. Dots on handguns are complicated because we're still in the early days of the concept and we're stuck with a lot of options that suck. It's like cars. Prior to the 1930's controls on vehicles weren't standardized and everybody had their own approach. The RMR was the first widely successful optic for this and so it's sub-standard mounting methodology got out there. A couple of little fasteners with minimal thread engagement is not how you want to mount an optic on a slide, but people started doing it and it's become a thing.

S&W makes a 2.0 M&P that comes with a slide already machined for the Aimpoint Acro. That's what the future looks like. Leaving behind all this screw fasteners down into the slide and adapter plate bullshit and having the slides built with mounting lugs not too dissimilar to the top of an M4 receiver. Enclosed emitter optics will likely become more and more popular since they care less about environmental factors.

It will reach the point where mounting an optic to your pistol is no more complicated than mounting a dot optic to your carbine.

They're right. You don't need a dot to do realistic defensive shooting tasks. Iron sights work just fine. Even if you can't see them as good as you used to, with the right techniques and maybe even an occasional low-tech bodge you can do quality work at the typical fighting distances.

They're wrong. When I trained with Ken in low light lo those many years ago, he called lasers a game changer in low light. Dots on handguns provide the same benefits in keeping up with a moving target and keeping track of the background that lasers provide in low light situations...assuming you can find your dot. I don't visit many shoothouses these days, but I have used my dot-equipped pistol to track moving targets trying to evade death through the woods. It's much easier to track and make a precise shot in the fleeting moments when your background is good using a dot on top of your pistol than irons. Dots do not do anything to stop mistake of fact shootings (that claim is nonsense) but it does give an advantage in keeping track of what's happening downrange, especially in less than ideal lighting.

They're right. Given what we know about defensive uses of handguns by people who aren't doing uniformed police work, average joes AIWB carrying a gun with a mounted light are adding bulk for almost no identifiavle practical reason.

They're wrong. AIWB carry in general works well because it allows you to carry the widest part of a handgun on the widest part of your body, meaning you can effectively conceal more gun more of the time. This is why I switched to it almost 14 years ago and why I've stuck with it ever since. The ability to carry what I can use the best in non-permissive environments and has saved my ass on a number of occasions where otherwise I'd be making the choice between not having a gun or being exposed to life-altering consequences.

But I don't carry with a weapon light because whatever my odds of needing to use the pistol are, the odds of a WML being useful to me in those circumstances are a tiny fraction beyond that.

They're right. There are a lot of people out there who have great backgrounds and legit skill who can't teach their way out of a wet paper bag. Being able to do something doesn't automatically make you a good teacher or a good coach as well.

Institutional training in the police world especially is ate the fuck up with instructors who have that job because it's a better one than doing the actual mission of the organization they work for, not because they have any passion or interest in teaching. It's banker's hours and holidays off in the biggest institutions. And the ones who are in it for all the wrong reasons are convinced they're experts because it says so on this here certificate where they went and learned how to run a qual. So they're master instructors now. Just ask them. They've been to that one agency's program and that means they understand everything there is to understand because every other institution on planet earth is full of drooling idiots who have no idea how things are supposed to be done.

Or you get guys who were in Unit X who come out and hang a shingle and start running the range with fat office workers (guilty) the same way they ran a range in Unit X. Except nobody in the civilian world passed selection like the guys they used to have on the range in Unit X. And there's no 18D personnel on standby with helicopters and ambulances and emergency response plans. And there's no curriculum that's been chopped off on by 9 layers of command, no lesson plan that's been approved by 9 levels of command, and none of the fat office workers signed pieces of paper saying their lives are expendable in the service of the United States Government. So hey, cool! Bounding overwatch drills on uneven terrain for people who don't actually do infantry stuff ALL AROUND!!! Because people like it and it looks killer on instagram.

Ability? Opportunity? Intent? Immediate jeopardy? Preclusion? What the fuck is that? This ain't law school, bruh! Now let's get these people who can't zero a carbine doing some Australian Peels! (true story. Been there. Done that)

And I won't even get started on the dearth of coaching skills across the board. It suffices to say that encountering someone who can coach...as in look at you, see what you are doing, make a suggestion for improvement that yields immediate results...is so rare as to be like seeing a unicorn. This forum was founded by one such individual.

They're wrong. It doesn't take 2,000 rounds to acclimate to the dot. It might if you are trying to figure it out on your own, but if you find somebody who knows what they're doing it can take nothing more than some dryfire. What really helps is having someone who understands why most people can't reliably find the dot during their presentation give some coaching. The individual in question can actually learn what they need to do to find the dot in as little as five minutes. I know because I've done it. In Performance Pistol or Pistol Proficiency or our RDS class we have folks reliably finding their dot on presentation in far less than 2,000 rounds because they learn the components of a more reliable, better draw.

Rebuilding the presentation to get rid of problems will absolutely take some work. And there's a lot of other benefits that come along with rebuilding the draw in a manner that just happens to result in finding the dot reliably. It's worth the squeeze, even for people who are very proficient with iron sights. It don't have to be perfect to be better, and better is what we're striving for.

But the dot isn't the important part because the gizmo on top of the gun doesn't shoot the fucking gun. It's just the thing you look at to make sure the gun is where you want it. No different than the sights.

We like the visual part of shooting the most because it's the only part we can see. But what we can see on top of the gun is the least important part of the shot process. And before anyone yells at me, I said least important part of the shot process. Not unimportant. There's a purposeful distinction there. Don't fight with me about shit I didn't say.

They're right. I've been involved in formal firearms training in the private sector for 20 years. I've seen legions of people who wanted to do cool stuff with guns. I've watched guys strip out of thousands of dollars of carefully color matched multicam gear, put their expensive custom 1911 pistols away, and then go to dinner completely unarmed or with a J frame stuck in a pocket. You have no idea how often I've gone to dinner after a class and been the sole motherfucker at the table actually carrying a gun. The same gun I just trained with. In the same holster. With the same mag pouch.

The stuff people actually need is boring. Your average joe needs to learn how to recognize the circumstances likely to result in criminal assault, the pre-assault cues that tell him violence is imminent, a couple of tactics to help him avoid the fight if at all possible, some hard skills to win the fight if he has no other choice, the ability to do something useful if he's injured in the fight, and how to deal with the immediate aftermath of a use of force without getting himself locked in prison or sued out of his house. (And the only program I know of that exposes people to all those thing is John Murphy's)

You know what he doesn't need? Team-based vehicle ops classes or bounding overwatch or more goddamn Australian Peels.

I had one person complain to me that all we'd done so far is stand in front of a target and draw. I responded "Yes. And to this point you haven't landed a good draw to an accurate shot in a useful time frame two times in a row. So maybe it's a little premature to start fast roping out of helicopters." I mean, you might have to do ninja hatchet-throwing backflips, but if you need a handgun I can pretty much guarantee you are going to have to draw the fucking thing.

But that doesn't look cool on instagram, at least not unless we're doing some one second draw theatrics. There's guys with a legit one second draw and then there are people shooting a uselessly huge target at close range with the gun a their fucking chin as the shot breaks but nobody on instagram has enough of a coach's eye to see that the draw was a complete shitshow. It's all about that sweet sweet timer number, baby!

In case it isn't clear, my point is that you can argue either depending on how you take what was said and expand on it beyond what was said and assume intentions.

It was popular for a while to spend time shitting on Jeff Cooper because he was old and he was grumpy and he didn't seem to like that handguns other than the 1911 existed. But he's also the person who essentially re-started non-institutional training in lethal force, codified safe handling practices that work on the range and in a crowded mall full of innocent people fleeing from a malevolent narcissist with a gun, and his work on the defensive mindset is foundational to our understanding of armed self defense. A lot of police officers today would be far better off spending a couple of weeks at Gunsite under his tutelage than they are in their academy training.

Cooper got a lot more right than he did wrong (ironically if people would listen to some of what he actually taught they wouldn't struggle to find a dot) and we have the luxury of standing on top of those achievements plus a better understanding of adult learning and having massively improved equipment to let us see farther. No man is infallible, Cooper included. But people eager to shit on Cooper sound a lot like Mike Bloomberg stating that farming isn't hard.

[MVS]

While not a “basic” instructor a counter example would be Chuck Pressburg. When he first retired from the military he talked about doing nothing but night vision-based classes and specialized classes. Fast-forward a year or two and he’s teaching : coaching fundamentals executed at a high-level via his No Fail pistol in No Fail rifle classes. And those classes are in high demand.

Yes that definitely counts. I have cut way back on attending big classes, but his is on my radar.

[JCN]

This is a great thread. I wish Bill Wilson and Ken Hackathorne would read it.

[YVK]

What I’ve noticed when training newer shooters is that a RDS greatly helps their stationary shooting skills over irons but when I have them rapidly move while shooting they do worse with a RDS compared to irons.

The question that I have about this is whether newer shooters should even be shooting when rapidly moving, regardless of the sighting modality, especially in defensive training. Hence, whether better hits from a static position are a higher priority and more valuable skill than something that even skilled shooters should probably avoid doing unless absolutely necessary.

[ST911]

The stuff people actually need is boring. Your average joe needs to learn how to recognize the circumstances likely to result in criminal assault, the pre-assault cues that tell him violence is imminent, a couple of tactics to help him avoid the fight if at all possible, some hard skills to win the fight if he has no other choice, the ability to do something useful if he's injured in the fight, and how to deal with the immediate aftermath of a use of force without getting himself locked in prison or sued out of his house.

Boom.