I’ve been teaching firearms safety and defensive shooting for some time and have taught students of all skill levels. Not surprisingly, they all had one thing in common after attending a class, they LEARNED something. People who are interested in defending themselves and their families, train, and those people typically stand a much better chance of being successful in defending themselves as a result.
The question becomes, what is your excuse for not training? As a professional firearms instructor, I hear them all. People are great at making excuses as to why they don’t train with that brand new pistol or carbine, and not so great at what counts, actually using it.
I could discuss all of the excuses I hear for not training but that would turn into a book, not a blog post. So, I will concentrate on what I’ve found as the single most common and quite possibly the most dangerous excuse I hear.
“I already know how to shoot”.
When I speak about this particular excuse I often refer to the Dunning–Kruger effect as a point of discussion.
The Dunning–Kruger effect proposes that for a given skill, incompetent people will: [source]
- tend to overestimate their own level of skill;
- fail to recognize genuine skill in others;
- fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy;
- fail to recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they are exposed to training for that skill.
You may ‘know how to shoot’ because you were in the military, go to the range once a month, or were taught by your father to hunt, all valid points, however, I challenge you to look at your skill and how it would apply to a defensive or threat encounter either in your home or on the streets.
Back to the Dunning-Kruger effect, people have egos; people often overestimate their skill or ability and fail to be realistic with themselves and their level of ability. Competence is gained through training, not ego; one must be able to identify areas of improvement and train in that area until the skill is mastered, and THEN TRAIN MORE. I always say there are no experts, once you claim to be an expert, you cease learning.
When a person makes the decision to carry a firearm for personal protection, that decision brings a great responsibility. You must train and become MORE than just proficient with the firearm. Simply strapping a gun to your hip doesn’t magically enable you to be capable of using it legally, effectively or even safely just because ‘you know how to shoot’.
We learn to drive a car, we practice that often, but can you race a car? Likely not. That skill comes with training, ability and experience. A person stepping into a race car with nothing more than a driver’s license would likely end up with a wrecked car. The same thing applies to firearms, you can shoot, but can you present a firearm from a holster and take 2 shots within 1.5 seconds at a threat that is moving toward you with the intent of TAKING your life, all while having to make a split second decision as to whether or not you are legally correct in using that tool? That also comes with training.
I challenge you all to look at yourself honestly, evaluate your skill and train areas you feel weak in. KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW, and improve.
I train daily, I still take shooting classes, and I train until I can’t get it wrong, and then I train it more, because when that day comes, I am confident I will win, not because I think I’m good, it’s because I am honest with myself and train. I train with a parked ego, keep my ears open and mouth shut.
Continue to overestimate yourself and your ability; you may not be on the side that walks away. Take a course, as with ALL of our students at Kenaz Tactical Group, you will learn something. What is your life worth?
D-K Effect source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Robert Butler is the Owner and Chief Firearms Instructor for Kenaz Tactical Group and an NRA Certified Instructor in 6 disciplines. Robert also works in the Firearms industry as the Director of Product Development for Tactical Black Firearms and is a former auxiliary peace officer with the Colorado Mounted Rangers. Further, Robert is an 18 year veteran of the US Army and Army National Guard holding the MOS 12B and 13R.
18 thoughts on “I already know how to shoot!”
Just testing comments app on the website.. =)
And it works perfectly!
Another test comment. If this was a real comment, you would have read a comment that actually meant something.
Thanks Robert! Appreciate the test!
Speaking of that, the recent vendor show at our Lacey WA Cabelas had several self defense courses offered along with basic gun skills. Seriously thinking of taking one of the daughters and son in law to one of them, it's worth the money
Every time I go to the range it is stunning how often I see bad technique, poor and even unsafe handling and horrific shooting, even by loudly proclaimed "experts"
Bob, Rob talks frequently in his classes about 'experts'. He will admit, he is not an expert. He is, however, very good, and much better than me.
I have taken two classes from Rob and would recommend anyone to take any of his classes. Oh, and he does a great job with safety from the perspective of teaching firearm safety to pre-teens and teens. I have no problems allowing my youngest to handle my firearms, with my supervision, of course.
Other than ignorance the biggest reason is the COST of classes like this. Combine the class, ammo and travel and you can easily have over $1000 tied into two days.
Chris Harrison Just to respond to this, I've never had a student spend $1,000 on any of our classes, to include the 3 Day Fighting Pistol course.
That's good to know, but I've certainly spent that much going to weekend classes. 1,000 rounds of remanufactured ammo can easily exceed $350, three nights in a hotel is generally another $300 and I've seldom seen two day classes for less than $250. I'm not complaining about the cost of a given class, but you did ask why a lot of people don't train and for me that is the single biggest obstacle. Living were I do, travel is pretty much required for attending a class. I understand why instructors don't like for students to bring their own reloads and you time is certainly valuable. But cost is a critical factor. Despite that I've managed about half a dozen such classes over the years and try to get in at least one every year.
Chris Harrison Understood.. We try to create courses of fire that have a minimum round count, but give the student to 'option' to run more if they see fit. An example is in our Carbine 2 class, we run a drill to provide covering fire, the scenario is set so the students maintain a steady rate of fire, but do not burn ammo.. Unless of course they want to… (i've had a student run 2 mag dumps.. his option, though he could have run the scenario on 15)
Cost is a consideration for sure, but when I looked at the top 10 'reasons' we get for not training, it turned into a book. Once we took away the 'reason' for not training, the responses ultimately led back to the one I addressed in the article. An example of some feedback we received, First reason given was "it costs too much" , our response, "i'll work with you, I'll give you the class for 50% off and if you're happy, tell your friends" .. response, "well I know how to shoot so I don't need the training" … This happened on no less than 20 responses.
Anyway, I could go on for days…. perhaps I should start a book.. =)
I get it. I practiced martial arts for years and morphed toward a more straightforward approach including firearms. I was my units marksmanship instructor for about ten years and I shot action pistol for another ten years. I will always remember the day the realization came to me, the more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know. Training with qualified instructors, and the practice with a purpose. Too many people think that the ability to shoot well at a paper target under range conditions qualifies them as being ready to defend themselves simply because they have never been exposed to anything outside of basic marksmanship.
You're my new best friend.. Seriously though, I preach in every class, and even publicly on social media.. there are no experts, once you claim to be an expert, you cease learning..
I am working on another article now about training frequency citing my 2 month absence from training due to surgery… Perishable skill for sure.. and it was evidenced in my shooting post surgery!
Anyway, I really appreciate the comments.. Next challenge, how do we market ourselves to address cost by offsetting cost with value.
Robert Butler Experts, Ex has been, spert, constant drip. Its a journey, you never stop learning. I've yet to make a carbine class. Been signed up for one a couple of times with different outfits and for whatever reason the class got cancelled. I'm very curious at to the civilian approach. The military approach I was trained in really doesn't have a place in the civilian world. This will for sure be a cause unlearning for me. I'm a huge fan of a reliable carbine in a gun fight rather than a pistol if possible. We have three law enforcement guys that did some basic pistol here last year and I took their class and am hoping for their more advanced class this year as well as a carbine but unfortunately their calendar is bare.
Chris Harrison
I hold carbine courses at least monthly, as far as military vs civilian, there is a difference for sure.. I spent 18 years in the US Army, 12B and 13R, I am also currently an auxiliary Peace Officer.. One of the major differences is 'legal' engagement ranges, for example, in the military, we qualified w/ Irons out to 300m , take a 300m shot as a civilian, you'll end up spending a lot of years away.. also, I had to train out of the 'stimulus / response' engagement and into a defensive style.
As far as my personal defensive firearm of choice, it's the AR.
I'm with you on the AR. Just refinished several parts for a new build in 300 Blackout. Hope to assemble soon but have a very booked schedule. Also have a Rock River Arms that has proven it self in dependability and accuracy. I have 6.5 Grendel I build and I build my wife a nice, light weight rifle. Accuracy of my two builds is quite good, the Grendel is exceptional. But the RRA is my go to gun and will be until the Blackout proves to be highly reliable and reasonably accurate.
Yeah there is little doubt that law enforcement would frown on military techniques in a defensive shooting. So while I don't feel totally inadequate using an AR in a defensive scenario, much of what I was trained to do would be just wrong in all but the worst of circumstances. Therefore my desire to do a carbine class. Curios as to how the CO magazine capacity limit has affected your business. Far easier to find reliable 30 magazines than it is to find good, reduced capacity magazines.
Chris Harrison The capacity ban hasn't hurt us at all, most of our students had already owned standard capacity magazines prior to July 1st 2013. Not to mention the law is all but unenforceable, AND, Firearms training academies are exempted from the 'temporary' transfer of magazines / firearms during training.
A good article, worth a read…