This is the latest from our correspondent, Greg Moats –
This month marks the 46-year anniversary of my entering my first “practical” pistol match. It wasn’t called “practical” until a year later when the IPSC Columbia conference adopted that somewhat unusual moniker; at the time we just called it “combat” shooting. The “gong” of the first steel target that I hit was, for me, a gateway drug that in many ways altered my future.
While my days as a serious competitive shooter are long gone, I still shoot in un-affiliated “defensive-pistol” matches and an occasional IDPA event. I do this for the express purpose of experiencing the “pucker-factor” of hearing a buzzer and then having to perform upon demand under the watchful eyes of an audience. I have no illusion that this replicates “combat-pressure,” but it certainly approximates it better than shooting drills by myself on a square range. In conjunction with those events, I enroll in at least one or more training class every year. I do so for multiple motives: to learn new techniques, to develop new skills, to experience camaraderie with like-minded people, to have fun, but also to short-circuit the Dunning-Kruger effect.
According to Wikipedia, the “Dunning-Kruger effect” is “a hypothetical cognitive bias stating that people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability.” Examples are rife from the lofty halls of Congress to the coarse environs of any corner bar on a Saturday night. Whether the battle is a war of words or fists, the D-K effect will almost certainly play a role in the outcome.
As Dunning-Kruger relates to skill-at-arms, especially hand gunning, reality can be a cold slap in the face, not entirely unlike the tough captain of the high school football team’s first day as a recruit at Parris Island. That epiphanous experience is usually attributed to new shooters. However, in reality it applies with an equal if more subtle impact for those of us more seasoned and molded in our gun handling habits.
The explosive proliferation of concealed carry licenses has been a boon to the shooting industry financially. It may have also helped us politically, although that seems questionable at the moment. However, it’s created a brand-new generation of gun owners with severe knowledge and skill deprivation whose only anchoring bias regarding gun manipulation is what they’ve seen in John Wick movies. That’s a Petri dish for the dramatic escalation of the Dunning-Kruger effect on steroids.
A couple of weeks ago my Dunning-Kruger effect got that recruit’s slap in the face by attending the Tactical Concealed Carry Pistol (TCCP) class at Gunsite Academy. For full disclosure let me state up front that I’m not objective when it comes to Gunsite. For me, attending Gunsite is like going home. However, as a self-professed “training junkie” I am objective when it comes to the content and delivery of any training class.
Whether the subject-matter is sales, management or firearms manipulation, there’s a danger in the training racket of stumbling across a curriculum that’s effective and then repeating it ad nauseam until it becomes irrelevant. That’s the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” syndrome, or as a famous motivational speaker once quipped, “it’s easier to get a new audience than to get a new speech.” To their credit, Gunsite has evolved over the years and the TCCP class is a prime example of that evolution. I can label various classes that I’ve experienced at Gunsite in progressions from “how to shoot” to “how to fight” to “how to think.” I would label the TCCP as “how to live.” it incorporated an amalgam of material, not all “concealed carry” related.
To describe each class agenda item would be compositional anesthesia so I’ll just hit portions of the curriculum that I found particularly interesting and/or different from previous classes.
At the beginning of the class Bob Whaley, our lead instructor, made it plain that this would not be like other Gunsite classes that we had attended. We were each issued three orange “dummy” rounds and required to load them arbitrarily into our magazines forcing us to perform immediate action drills while participating in range exercises. Typically, dummy rounds are employed only during a teaching module to practice clearing malfunctions. Instead, throughout the entire TCCP class (other than during man against man exercises, the fun-house room clearing exercises and the final timed school drills when the dummy rounds weren’t required), we were expected to have periodic dummy-round induced stoppages. My initial reaction was one of annoyance, thinking that the frequent stoppages would simply interfere with the flow of the class. However, I came to appreciate the concept and marveled at how much better we all got and how intuitive it felt at the end of the class, a classic Dunning-Kruger revelation.
Another divergence from traditional Gunsite doctrine concerned tactical and speed reloads. In the early Gunsite years, if a student inadvertently shot to slide-lock, they were required by Jeff Cooper to buy the class a case of beer. Over the years, buying beer went by the wayside, however shooting to slide lock was still considered a tactical faux pas. In this class, tactical reloads were forbidden, in essence forcing us to shoot to slide lock and perform speed reloads under pressure. This maneuver was exacerbated by the prohibition of magazine pouches; we were required to carry spare magazines unsecured in our pockets. In those 46 years of competitive shooting that I’ve accumulated, I’ve NEVER practiced speed loading from anything other than a mag pouch. Upon reflection I have to confess that in everyday life I do occasionally simply stick a mag in my pocket but have never performed anything other than a tactical reload with the magazine so located. You’d be surprised how easy it is to fumble and drop a magazine when trying to grab it from your pocket at full speed. By the end of the week the technique still wasn’t intuitive but it was at least maneuverable. Dunning-Kruger strikes again!
One hand manipulation of the firearm requires a set of skills that are generally taught and practiced only during advanced courses of instruction such as this one. Drawing using only the support hand may be easily performed by an anorexic contortionist, but for the rest of us, a backup gun is probably a more realistic alternative. With the added complexity of a cover garment, it was discussed, attempted and then we moved on to clearing malfunctions one handed. Using the top edge of the holster to catch the rear sight and rack the slide is complicated by the addition of a cover garment. Some had to sweep the garment out of the way as during the drawing stroke and thereby have the gun actually rubbing against the holster. Others found that they could perform the maneuver even with the garment between the gun and the holster. Those with Novak style sights had to attempt the procedure using the back edge of the ejection port versus the rear sight due to the “edge-less” slope on the muzzle side of the rear sight. Clearing a double-feed required using the top of the holster to pull the magazine out of the pistol prior to racking the slide. An alternative was to use the holster to rack the slide while simultaneously applying upward thumb pressure on the slide stop lever, hence locking the slide to the rear and then removing the magazine. At first these protocols were performed with all of the grace of a monkey playing the trombone, but with repetition, it became easier. I’m not sure that Dunning-Kruger applies here since practicing one hand clearance drills while wearing a cover garment is something that I had never even thought of, much less practiced before.
Not unexpectedly, there were a number of “grey-man” references. How to function surreptitiously and not stick out in a crowd can be a deeper subject than you might think. We were encouraged not to dress like we just came back from a shooting match. Cargo pants, IDPA/Photographer vests and shirts with provocative slogans are items to avoid if wanting to remain “under the radar.” The first day of class, I had arrived wearing my favorite IDPA vest and was quickly divested (pun intended) of the idea and wore standard shirts snapped or buttoned up as a cover garment for the remainder of the week. It was noted in a later presentation that some criminals have become fairly sophisticated in terms of stalking, observing and even entrapping victims by blending in with their environment, making the grey-man concept a two-way street. In “outing” a potential adversary we were advised to look for anomalies in TEDD (Time, Environment, Distance, Demeanor). If you see the same person at the same Time every day and/or in the exact same Environment or location, if they verbally engage you from too close or too far a Distance or with a Demeanor incongruous with the setting, these should elevate your awareness to condition Orange. In other words, they’re anti-grey-man prompts. I found that an interesting take on an old concept.
While not directly tied to concealed carry, there was a segment devoted to vehicle defense. All of the shooting techniques employed in and around vehicles that you would expect were covered and practiced. Additionally, a segment covering where to park when you go to a convenience store versus where to park when you drop someone off at a store were discussed. Tactics for driving when you think that you’re being followed were explained. The law enforcement background of all of the instructors allowed for anecdotal support and gave weight to their suggestions.
Of course, there was significant time and effort spent on the techniques of accessing a concealed handgun with both open and closed front garments. A unique exercise we practiced was how to proceed when your draw doesn’t go right. There are a number of ways to inadvertently bollix a concealed carry gun presentation and we set up various draw-faux-pas and practiced protocols for clearing each problem.
When you add to the mix two force-on-force scenarios, one using air-soft equipment, the other Simunitions and a live fire fun-house exercise, you can see that this curriculum has unusual breadth and depth.
My initial motive for signing up for the class was to have an enjoyable time with some good friends at a place that I love; the idea that I might learn something new was secondary. Somewhere along the line the class turned into something much more than I anticipated, Dunning-Kruger hit me right between the eyes and left me in a better position to grow in the future. The TCCP was time well spent for me. Go to https://www.gunsite.com/classes/concealed-carry-pistol/ for details and/or to sign up for the class, I think that you’ll be glad that you did.
Greg Moats was one of the original IPSC Section Coordinators appointed by Jeff Cooper shortly after its inception at the Columbia Conference. In the early 1980’s, he worked briefly for Bianchi Gunleather and wrote for American Handgunner and GUNS. He served as a reserve police officer in a firearms training role and was a Marine Corps Infantry Officer in the mid-1970’s. He claims neither snake-eater nor Serpico status but is a self-proclaimed “training junkie.”