Handgun Mania and perfect shots

It is getting hard to find a handgun for sale. There are waiting lists and back orders. Some dealers are finding it difficult to stock certain brands and models. I was recently told by a screenwriter that sample firearms are getting harder to acquire for film projects. Everybody wants guns. They should. Firearms, as I wrote in Practics, are a tool for the civilized. The person who craves a safe, productive, and independent life may live outside the safety of the pack through the possession and mastery of a firearm. The hordes are yelping at the gate. So it's a good time to be in the firearms business.

Naturally, I have to find something wrong with all this as it relates to marksmanship. (It's my job.) The trouble with handgun mania is the same as the infuriating problem with gun nuts: A Thing is expected to substitute for competence. Of course, that doesn't work. Safe-actions, double-action-only pistols, etc., did not make police officers (or private defenders) more likely to hit their mark. I am not claiming that some improvements have not been worthwhile but not any of them could get around the need for shooter development. In the nineties, I wrote a policy and testing standard for laser sights on patrol handguns. I did so reluctantly. Many officers believed that within a few years, lasers would replace mechanical sights. They didn't, and the truth is mechanical sights were the quickest way to move the laser point within visual reach of the target. It just wasn't that big of an advancement in practical law enforcement terms. 

Today, many people who never expected to buy a gun are doing just that. Many of them will become the victims of the always present camouflaged, kill-or-be-killed crowd who have succeeded, in my opinion, in being among the worst generations for marksmanship skill. I am defining marksmanship as the ability to hit your mark under diverse conditions and circumstances, throughout the range for which your firearm was designed. Read a gun magazine and see photos of hyper-extended arms, clinched fists, and exaggerated postures. A police sergeant once told me, he trained that way because that's how his body would react under duress. Which is true by half. Fear will increase grip and lower the body, shrink vision, increase rate of breathing, and flex the muscles. So what? You don't think a form of that phenomenon happens to brain surgeons operating on children? I wonder if they train by gripping the scalpel with an additional fifteen pounds of pressure. Apparently not, or the mortality rate for brain surgery patients would be 100%. We train for perfection, knowing that perfection may be unattainable, and hoping that diminished proficiency  will be sufficient. Then we can master tactical skills.

The Perfect Pistol Shot and Practics Handgun Defense System have just had their e-book prices reduced for a limited time.

Good shooting.