How Old and Slow is Too Old and Too Slow to Carry?

[358156hp]

Old habits die hard.

[Stephanie B]

What I see with conscientious people is that they scale back their driving and scenarios as their skills wane.
No highway, no dusk, no inclement weather.

They know their limits and have risk mitigation levels to prevent hurting themselves and others.

My mom went through the same progression. She stopped driving on the highway, then stopped driving at night. When she got lost a second time coming home from the grocery store, she gave her car to her grandson. He got a ten-year old Subaru with less than 25,000 miles on it (and a lot of dents).

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I've seen shooters get 'lost' in a stage and turn towards to the crowd. One always volunteered to score keep and that really worked out well. Trigger on the finger and shots into the ground with a carbine when standing at ready - time to give it up.

[Jim Watson]

I have, too, but it wasn't because they were old and befuddled. Just befuddled.

[Robert Mitchum]

Robet, you've piqued my curiosity. Why only monthly? Is it to give him time to heal?


Duces

We formally do it once a month with stage possibilities of street encounters ... we also spar usually every other week.
Both of us have trained in different styles of fighting ..." time to heal " sometimes I have too.

[medmo]

I feel like we are way off topic. One of the reasons why I love P-F. Let it roll. My sister is a NP and specializes in geriatrics. She calls it “dwindling.” She called it with our mom so I think it’s real. Basically, the last 2 to 5 years of life going down hill and non progressive. Keep your boots on!

[Clusterfrack]

I've seen shooters get 'lost' in a stage and turn towards to the crowd. One always volunteered to score keep and that really worked out well. Trigger on the finger and shots into the ground with a carbine when standing at ready - time to give it up.

Yep. I was ROing an older gentleman shooting PCC at a USPSA match, and he got disoriented. The guy passed the front faultline and started downrange, then began to turn. I literally collared him, kept him facing downrange and gave the stop command. The shooter thanked me for stopping him. He got a re-shoot because he didn't break the 180, and because I touched him. Interestingly, I caught some heat from the rangemaster for laying hands on a shooter.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I was scoring keeping at an IDPA match. So I was standing next to the SO when he told a guy to load and make ready with a 1911. The guy proceeded to insert a mag, rack, go to holster and fire a round into the ground very close to our feet. He then said: Wha happen' - and started to wave the gun. The SO (a old time sheriff) grabbed his wrist.

I also saw a newbie with Serpa holster be unable to release the gun and was fumbling with a manner that would slide his finger into the trigger guard - the SO (another LEO) grabbed him.

I think it is legit.

[JRB]

Yep. I was ROing an older gentleman shooting PCC at a USPSA match, and he got disoriented. The guy passed the front faultline and started downrange, then began to turn. I literally collared him, kept him facing downrange and gave the stop command. The shooter thanked me for stopping him. He got a re-shoot because he didn't break the 180, and because I touched him. Interestingly, I caught some heat from the rangemaster for laying hands on a shooter.

Hopefully I'm still shooting when I'm in my happy golden years. If I am, and the same thing happens, I hope I have an RO willing to 'lay hands' on me to keep things safe if I screw up.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I designed a stage once with a clearly left handed bias (as revenge for all the righties). It included dragging a corpse around. A good friend, goes to Nationals IDPA, and right handed, got tangled in movement and ended up facing us. He stopped dead. Faced back down range, cleared, etc. Without a word, got in his truck and drove away. Such things happen.

At the NTI, we had a corpse draped through a window. One guy forget the offset of AR sights and barrel and proceeded to put all his rounds into the corpse. The corpse did not protest. These were good shooters.