INGunOwners FAQs (sticky)

[Pami]

GETTING TRAINING

Training is important as it is a key element of responsible gun ownership. Train early and often, especially if you choose to carry your firearm as a self-defense weapon. Learning how you react to stressful situations should not learned as "on the job" training. Learn how you will react BEFORE you need to react.

Why should I get formal training?
It's great that you have decades of experience with your firearms. It's awesome that your Marine-trained dad taught you everything you know. But, have you ever had to USE that informal training in a real life scenario? Do you KNOW without a doubt how you will react in a real life situation?

During some down-time in a personal training session I had recently, my trainer related a few stories to me about some force-on-force classes he had taught in the past.

One gentleman he trained found out that he stops listening when put into a stressful situation. His focus was so completely on what was going on in front of him that he stopped listening to what was going on behind him. Even if an instructor was standing right beside his ear, this student didn't hear the instructor. This is bad because (as an example) if police do come on to the scene and shout for you to drop your gun, you need to drop your gun. This gentleman learned that because his ability to hear evaporated during stress, he needed to work on extending his other senses like being more aware of his peripheral vision to acknowledge the lights of police vehicles or noticing additional BGs coming up behind him.

Do you really KNOW how you will react when under stress? As many of your actions as possible need to be trained and practiced so they become second nature. If your gun fails, you need to automatically tap-rack-bang. If the bang part doesn't happen, drop the mag and put a new one in without thinking about it. Get back in the fight. Move while you're clearing your malfunction. Quality training will provide you with instructors who generally have spent years learning about and teaching the most effective techniques to keep you in the fight if you can't defuse the situation. Being in an actual fight is not the best time to find out what your weaknesses are. Get training frequently and practice often.

I've taken trainings where the class members ranged from complete newbies (usually me) to people who have been shooting for years but have had no formal training to people who have had over 600 hours of formal instruction. Every single time, every single person has taken at least one thing away from the class and found it worth every penny he (or she) paid for the class. Even if you take away what not to do in a situation, you learned something.

Where do I get training?
Check out the Tactics & Training forum. There are a lot of options as far as training goes: some are good and others are not so good. If you are completely new to guns, or even new to just handguns or just long guns, it is strongly recommended that you at least check out a NRA Basic class. From there you can move on to use-specific types of training, such as defensive pistol training by Tactical Response, TDI, Gunsite, etc. Some schools offer trainings on shooting sports in addition to their defensive courses, like our own ACT. For someone new to shooting long guns, the Appleseed program is an excellent source of training as well. There are a lot of options for just about everything; take advantage of as many opportunities as you can! A single well-placed round is a lot more effective than a magazine of rounds that miss.

A couple of links to some training companies we've discussed in threads on this forum (in no particular order)

Mindset Laboratory
Indy Gun Safety
Adaptive Consulting & Training
Dignitary Protection Group, LLC (DPG) - Home
Tactical Response
MODERN COMBATIVE SYSTEMS - Self Defense Training for Civilians, Military and Law Enforcement Agencies - Open Hand, Stick, Knife and Pistol
MDFI - Home
Gunsite- NRA firearms training pistol carbine rifle
Tactical Defense Institute
Defense Training International, Inc.
E.A.G. Tactical
Front Sight Firearms Training Institute
Suarez International USA, Inc.
Realistic and Practical Firearms Training

Just remember when looking for a company to train with that what you take away from the class depends most on the open mind you take to it. Even the same course offered by the same instructor at the same range by the same company may give you something different just based on how receptive you were to the material and/or how your classmates received the material. Not all classmates are the same; not all instructors are the same; not all courses are the same; and not every company is the same!


Should training be required to own a firearm?
There are a lot of opinions on this. Some die-hard gun enthusiasts will say that some form of training should be required in order to receive a license to carry or to purchase a firearm. Others who are training junkies themselves will say that requiring training is just a crutch: those who understand the importance of training would seek it out anyway, and those who take the training solely because it's required won't get anything out of the required training anyway. That is something that you will have to decide for yourself, but here is a couple of threads where we have discussed it before:

http://ingunowners.com/forums/tactic..._training.html
http://ingunowners.com/forums/carry_...d_testing.html