5 minutes (from the Pincus Dry Fire thread)

[SecondsCount]

I'm no Rob Pincus fanboy, but I do like one area of instruction that he advocates, 0 to shooting in 5 minutes.

Let me tell you why. Recently I had the opportunity to join a group of people that I work with in a golf game at Top Golf. This is a driving range atmosphere where you hit balls out over an area that has targets. The targets have a system that gives feedback as to how accurate that you are. Sounds a lot like shooting guns right?

I have played golf about 6 times in my life. Fun sport but not fun enough to really interest me so when I stepped up to the little green mat, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing except taking a long metal thing and whacking a white ball with it. Most of the people that were in my group had golfing experience. One handed me the correct club for what I was doing while the other started to instruct me on how to hold it, how to stand, keep my legs this way and my back that way, etc. Pretty soon I had a list of about 20 items in my head that I needed to do in order to hit the ball the correct way. The first time I hit the ball I got about 3 of them right and of course the ball did not go anywhere near where I wanted it to.

The same thing can happen when you teach a beginner to shoot. I have sat in an NRA basic pistol class where the instructor went on and on for half an hour about gun handling, what kind of guns there are, how to load them, etc. and guess what...nobody remembered half of what they were told.

I like to keep it simple, get the basic safety rules down and burned into the student's head, then stance, grip, and sight picture. I don't take much more than 5 or 10 minutes to do this because at that point to continue would be diluting the importance of the basics.

[HCM]

I've taught law-enforcement recruits who've never fired a gun before. Basic and K I SS are good. However Pincus takes it a little far. The issue is it's pretty hard to accidentally kill someone with a golf club or golf ball.

BTw - I despise Golf.

[Dagga Boy]

I have gotten to the point in life where it is a priority to anchor the safety stuff as a lifestyle with a deep understanding of the why's and context of the safety rules. This cannot be done in five minutes to the degree of importance I place on it. Again, I may be a bad instructor, but there is "teaching" safety and fundamentals, and playing lip service to them.

[Exurbankevin]

Five minutes might be pushing it a little.

I keep going back to Greg's amazing story about having to teach someone to potentially stop a threat to their family's lives with just one hour, one box of ammo and a crappy gun.

That sort of thing moves the needle in our direction more than hours and hours of blather about where to put our holster on our waistline or something similarly esoteric.

[Andy in NH]

"A golf course is the willful and deliberate misuse of a perfectly good rifle range."

Bill O'Connor

It had to be said.

[warpedcamshaft]

Five minutes might be pushing it a little.

I keep going back to Greg's amazing story about having to teach someone to potentially stop a threat to their family's lives with just one hour, one box of ammo and a crappy gun.

That sort of thing moves the needle in our direction more than hours and hours of blather about where to put our holster on our waistline or something similarly esoteric.

Thanks for posting that link... I've never read that article before.

[warpedcamshaft]

The initial idea of this thread is interesting... but teaching golf is a far cry from teaching the handling procedures of an object that can instantly take a life in a single moment of inattention.

[SecondsCount]

I've taught law-enforcement recruits who've never fired a gun before. Basic and K I SS are good. However Pincus takes it a little far. The issue is it's pretty hard to accidentally kill someone with a golf club or golf ball.

BTw - I despise Golf.

Rob definitely takes it too far. I don't think I would ever let someone begin using a holster with only 5 minutes of training.

[Lomshek]

5 minutes is too fast unless the zombies are closing in on us and we need to learn fast. In that scenario they get a Jimenez .380 with a single mag. No point wasting a good gun.

In reality if it's 1 on 1 with an earnest student we will probably be shooting in 15 - 20 minutes or so that'll be preceded by quite a bit of dry manipulation learning proper trigger finger index and muzzle discipline for loading and reloads (with dummies) and general handling as well as sights and trigger control then it's on to single loading live rounds.

How soon we're running Bill Drills and FAST's depends completely on their ability to maintain safety without me reminding them every 5 seconds.

[Joe in PNG]

Five minutes might be pushing it a little.

I keep going back to Greg's amazing story about having to teach someone to potentially stop a threat to their family's lives with just one hour, one box of ammo and a crappy gun.

That sort of thing moves the needle in our direction more than hours and hours of blather about where to put our holster on our waistline or something similarly esoteric.

The thing is, as O. Holmes said- "hard cases make for bad law". One can find examples were a control tower talked the novice pilot into making a safe landing, but that's not a precedent for flight training. A person can scuba dive with 5 minutes or less of instruction if needed, but that is a good way to die.

The biggest danger we face is not the bad guys with a gun, but your friend with a gun that doesn't know what the heck they are doing.