"Bad Software"

[Dagga Boy]

"There is no timer in a gunfight."

Always a classic. Probably used by some of the same people quoted by Tam. Although literally true, it's often a symptom of unwillingness or inability to seek that which is better. And I might have said either of those things at some point in the past. Fortunately, some of us have learned that there is more skill to be built and enjoyed than basic marksmanship, gunhandling, and tactics alone, and we have grown accordingly.

I think I just said this recently in a thread. So I haven't grown.....so sad. What I say most of the time is that anytime you are racing a timer, stop telling me that you are training for real. I hear the "competition is just like the real thing". It isn't......in my limited experience. When the timer goes on in competition, I am so weak that I go into "win" mode. I shoot from right in the doorway (because if you put a door and doorway in a course, its real), I leave cover to reload (cause its faster), and a host of other things. Look at the thread on de-cocking....de-cocking to move 5 yards....the horror of the thought. How about not making surgical shots because you have calculated the points to speed. Want to watch a bad ass competition habit? Check out the post-shooting gun handling habits being instilled. Check out the speed in which a "unload and show clear" is done. Want to send the RSO into a total meltdown...come back to a ready, perform a tactical reload, and scan and re-holster...then un-holster to perform the administrative "load and show clear". I like the part where you flip the round in the air and catch it almost as the last shot is fired better for show, but it's not a great habit. So will competition get you killed? Nope, but you will start building some less than optimal habits. Is there a timer in a gunfight, no there isn't, and if you are leaving cover to reload "cause its faster"...you are wiring in some bad software for a fight, but good software for a game. Decide what you are doing and quite trying to make one into the other.

[LSP972]

Decide what you are doing and quite trying to make one into the other.

And that about covers it.

.

[KevinB]

I think I just said this recently in a thread. So I haven't grown.....so sad. What I say most of the time is that anytime you are racing a timer, stop telling me that you are training for real. I hear the "competition is just like the real thing". It isn't......in my limited experience. When the timer goes on in competition, I am so weak that I go into "win" mode. I shoot from right in the doorway (because if you put a door and doorway in a course, its real), I leave cover to reload (cause its faster), and a host of other things. Look at the thread on de-cocking....de-cocking to move 5 yards....the horror of the thought. How about not making surgical shots because you have calculated the points to speed. Want to watch a bad ass competition habit? Check out the post-shooting gun handling habits being instilled. Check out the speed in which a "unload and show clear" is done. Want to send the RSO into a total meltdown...come back to a ready, perform a tactical reload, and scan and re-holster...then un-holster to perform the administrative "load and show clear". I like the part where you flip the round in the air and catch it almost as the last shot is fired better for show, but it's not a great habit. So will competition get you killed? Nope, but you will start building some less than optimal habits. Is there a timer in a gunfight, no there isn't, and if you are leaving cover to reload "cause its faster"...you are wiring in some bad software for a fight, but good software for a game. Decide what you are doing and quite trying to make one into the other.

Yes but... I agree that a lot of the gaming methods suck - and if you want to win, it pushes you into bad tactics etc.

I fully agree that there is no timer in a gun fight -- as the goal is NOT to finish fastest - but finish. If it takes me 4 hours, so be it -- I'm not exposing myself (or in previous lives teammates) just to end something sooner than could be done with less risk slighlty slower. Sometime time is a risk and you need to weight that -- but the gun games as they are currently setup give massive training scars.

However I will say - that the faster you take a good shot - generally the better when facing a direct threat - so I can accept time standards for draws and certain drills -- however other than that, you end up with 'cheat to win' mentality and folks presenting themselves in ridiculous manners to cut their times for courses down, and/or taking shots that would see them in court or worse in a real life situation.

Its all about how your talking about time.
Fast draw and quick hits = good
shitty tactics for a quick run on a CoF = CRAPTASTIC

[Tamara]

What I say most of the time is that anytime you are racing a timer, stop telling me that you are training for real. I hear the "competition is just like the real thing".

False dichotomy, though.

The following is based on a real conversation that is taking place on at least one range somewhere in America even as I type this, guaranteed:

Shooter A: "Hey, dude, I noticed something about your reload. I learned this thing at this class that should shave a good half..."

Shooter B: "Piss off! Hardcore McFaceshooter says there is no timer in a gunfight!"

Shooter A: "Oh, uh, hey, cool. You've taken a class from Hardcore McFaceshooter? I've been meaning to take one from him myself."

Shooter B: "Nah, I read where he said it on the internet."

I get the meaning behind it. I will probably never be really fast at "shoot house" type stages in run 'n' gun games because of it.

But: Other than perhaps "Slow Is Smooth And Smooth Is Fast", no other single aphorism has been used to justify more mediocrity and lack of meaningful improvement by the unwitting than "There is no timer in a gunfight."

[TCinVA]

The question I always have is this:

Does a sub-optimal practice in competition (say standing in a doorway) translate to the same behavior when the person is presented with the realistic threat of death? Go to a competition stage and there may be a doorway with 4 targets inside of a "room". Go to the doorway, blast the 4 targets, open and show clear, easy day.

Now if we drop those facts into a real life scenario where lonely ol' me thinks there are 4 dudes in that room armed and prepared to kill me and here I am all by my lonesome in the dark, am I going to be in any great hurry to go stand in that doorway? Hell. No. Am I going to be firing a set number of shots and then trying to open and show clear? Hell. No. The threat of death would significantly alter my behavior. The whole situation gives me a very different series of problems to solve than the competition scenario and the penalty for failure just went through the roof. When everything changes and now I'm worried about trying to avoid the grim reaper, am I going to do everything the same way as if there was a plastic cup on the line?

When we look at real life shootings involving people who have invested some time into competition, do we see them performing in the shooting like it's a competition? Standing in doorways? Trying to open and show clear as a reflex before they've done what was necessary to stop the threat in their mind?

As for "there's no timer in a gunfight" that's true. There's just somebody else who is trying to kill you. Time is kind of at a premium, from what I gather. Someone who's primary focus is the use of a firearm as a tool for personal defense can certainly end up off in the weeds chasing hundredths of a second on some relatively unimportant bit of the puzzle while ignoring much larger and more important bits of the puzzle that are more predictive of success in a violent encounter. I'd argue that more often we see people who excuse their level of suck with the idea that the time you take to do something on a calm range with minimal stress has no bearing on your odds of successfully using a firearm when there's somebody engaged in the effort to end your life. There's certainly a happy medium to be reached there and I don't think that most of us here really differ much on where that happy medium can be struck.

[NETim]

Hardcore McFaceshooter.

[Tamara]

Hardcore McFaceshooter.

I used that to distinguish from some trainers I've heard use that line that made me have to bite my tongue to keep from replying "How the kitten would you know what there was in a gunfight?" On the other hand, there are people in this thread who tell me that there isn't a timer in a gunfight, and I believe them, because they went and checked.

[NickA]

As for "there's no timer in a gunfight" that's true. There's just somebody else who is trying to kill you. Time is kind of at a premium, from what I gather.

I know it's just another cliché, but I've always liked the line "A competition isn't a gunfight, but a gunfight is damn sure a competition." (not sure who said it, Ayoob or Cirillo maybe).

[NETim]

I've made the pilgrimage to Thunder Ranch for various handgun classes multiple times. In every class, the infamous line, "There's no such thing as a timer in a gun fight" was uttered numerous times in every one of those classes by Mr. Smith.

Like any good SD oriented instructor, aside from safety, his primary interest was always accuracy.

"Shoot good, not fast."

I don't for once believe Clint was, or ever has been, opposed to shooting "fast." The cutesy phrases were directed at those of us who thought shooting "fast" was an acceptable substitute for shooting accurately.

Let's face it. It's SO much easier to shoot fast than to make the effort to learn to shoot accurately.

D.V.C.

[Dagga Boy]

This is better applied in the other thread, but I'll dump it here. Time is sacrifice and balance. You want a "fast draw"... I get it. How much "time" is worth sacrifice for a correct grip? In most fights I have seen, "grip" initially tends to be jacked up in some way.....should you slow down and fix it? Go fast and then have to make that grip up with sights and trigger press that will take........time. Do you shoot "faster" at an "acceptable" sight? Or slower at a perfect sight? Both will take time, faster or slower with different results. How fast of splits do you want to shoot on Louie Awerbuck's final? Do you need to take a different amount of "time" on that than a Steel Challenge stop plate? How about target assessment and evaluation? Do you want to be "faster" or "righter"? Is the person who is "slower" but free of any errors better or worse than the one who "faster" and pretty good of fair? Depends on what you are doing. These are all sort of games, it's just that the consequences are different in the end for errors. Speaking of time-what are the consequences for using time. This goes back to being "faster" or being "righter". It's all balance. Some people based on their own goals lean that balance towards speed performance and others lean towards correct response performance. Some people have no balance at all and just suck........but that is for a different thread.