The Newhall Incident was a formative moment in American law enforcement training. The incident happened in 1970 when four California Highway Patrol officers were shot and killed by a pair of violent felons after a traffic stop in Newhall, California.
One of the persistent myths about this shooting is that one of the troopers was found with empty shell cases in his pocket because that was part of the training he received on the practice range. That myth turned out not to be true, but it highlights one of the pitfalls of defensive firearms training — namely, making what you learn on the range match as close as you can to what a defensive encounter might actually look like.
What we are talking about is training scars. This is not physical scars or signs of injury, but rather a habit or skill you learn in practice which can negatively impact your performance in the real world. We train on an indoor or outdoor range with a solid backstop and a clear, defined target in front of us. The real world, however, is messy and complicated, and bridging the gap between the two can be complicated. Let’s take a look at some of the more-common training scars out there and what we can do to correct them.
The Wrong Direction
The first is prioritizing the wrong things during a practice session. At the range, we tend to practice the things we’re good at in order to make them better. There is a limit on our time and ammo budget, however, and giving in to the ego boost of pushing our limits comes by sacrificing the time needed to improve our weaknesses.
As my friend Michael Bane once said, train your weakness, race your strength. He originally said this in the context of practicing for triathlons, but it applies to defensive firearms training as well. If you don’t know what your weaknesses are, a diagnostic drill like the Dot Torture Drill will help you find them.
Another common training scar is never practicing under artificial stress. Concealed carry is the American martial art. Just like almost every other martial art out there, it arose because there is a gap between the security that the society can provide an individual and what those individuals need to actually stay safe.
An effective martial art will have an element of sparring and competition to it. It’s not enough to practice your punches, blocks and kicks in a gym or dojo; those techniques must be stress-tested and refined so they become automatic.
Using a shot timer as your practice provides a measure of artificial stress which can inoculate you against real stress. Adding a shot timer to a relatively simple task like sending five rounds into a five-inch circle that’s five yards away can become a herculean task once you’re required to do it in five seconds or less.
A third training scar is using incorrect inputs to guide your training. Our mission as armed citizens is to avoid violent threats to our lives and the lives of our loved ones. However, if violence is unavoidable, it’s our mission to stop the threat as quickly as possible using an appropriate measure of force.
Sound Priorities
The missions of the military and law enforcement are different from this. The military’s job is to overwhelm an enemy force so it is incapable of effective resistance. Law enforcement, on the other hand, is tasked with pursuing alleged criminals until they are brought to justice. Each of these missions requires a different skill set — skills that can be very different than what is required to protect yourself and those around one.
For example, soldiers carry rifles and armed citizens use rifles as defensive firearms. However, aside from the basics of making the shot under stress, the use of that rifle can vary greatly from the military versus how the armed citizen uses a rifle. Taking a class which teaches military techniques like fire and movement can be fun, but it probably shouldn’t be at the top of our training priorities.
Finally, prioritizing the process over results will almost always result in training scars. If we need to use our defensive firearm, we need to get hits on target as quickly as possible while minimizing the risks to ourselves and others. Anything that gets in the way of that outcome needs to be eliminated in training before it shows up in the real world. This is why taking classes from a variety of trainers is so important.
The American martial art of concealed carry has not reached the point where our training techniques are rigidly codified. Karate has Shotokan, Wado-Ryu and a number of other styles that are under the umbrella of karate, but the styles and forms of concealed carry are wide open and borrow from each other. Take advantage of that fact and learn which techniques work best for you.
Training with a variety of trainers is one way to avoid acquiring training scars and optimize your practice for the real world. Another way is mixing up your training routine. Going to an indoor “bowling alley” range and punching a neat, ragged hole in a target seven yards away is a good way to build accuracy.
Next time, however, why not take a set of Bluetooth earbuds to the range, connect them to your phone, then slip them in under your protective earmuffs so you can hear the “beep” from the timer app on your phone? Use them to see if you can put one round into the target in two seconds from low ready, then push things and try to make two, three or even four shots in that same amount of time.
The explosion of online video and the constant presence of surveillance cameras means that there are now many opportunities to see what real-world violent encounters actually look like. These are an excellent reality check on your training in order to avoid creating a gap between what you know and what is useful for defending a life.
Head-to-Head
Another way to minimize training scars is pressure-test your training. The other martial arts figured out long ago that competition was one way to encourage real world results and created things like sparring matches and mixed martial arts competitions. This is also true in the defensive firearms world, where sports like the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) and International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) allow you to use firearms that can be quite similar to what you might carry with you every day.
There are those who say that shooting competitions can cause training scars, such as avoiding the use of cover and creating a “shoot two rounds and move on” mentality. To a certain extent, this is true. However, I have found that shooting a practical pistol match is the best way to learn how to handle an unexpected event when you are putting rounds downrange, and do so in a timely manner. The best stage plan in the world can fall apart with one missed shot, so learning how to adapt and overcome when something unplanned shows up is a skill that can be quickly learned at a practical pistol match.
Finally, you can test your abilities in a force-on-force training event using airsoft, paint marker rounds or other practice munitions. These can vary in quality, depending on the nature of the scenarios presented. Remember that we are not trying to boost our egos by going through the motions of a mock defensive encounter, nor should an instructor try to break down a student by presenting them with a “no-win” scenario. Rather, force on force should be used to see how closely what we know matches up with what we might face outside of the training range.
Conclusion
William Shakespeare wrote in King Henry V that “All things are ready, if our minds be so,” and ultimately, that is the key to avoiding a training scar. We should never be content with our current level of training. The real world can throw an almost infinite number of problems our way, and it is up to us to make sure the skills and methods we learn during training and practice can be quickly adapted to match the challenges we face in our daily lives.
Gun owners have plenty of reasons to be skeptical of politicians who suddenly discover the Second Amendment during election season. We’ve been through this before.
