The Case AGAINST Lasers

Shooting Gallery - On the Outdoor Channel

Michael Bane's article on laser sights reminds me of an incident which occurred at an IPSC Winter Club Match a few years ago.

Okay, it wasn't an 'incident' as much as a 'revelation'.

This was a winter match, and everybody wore coats. It was the first year that the Sherwood gun club decided to concede the coats, and declared that this was a Concealed Carry match. Rules: handgun and ammo must not be visible when you stand with our arms outstretched, and the way you present yourself to the Range Officer for inspection must be the way you shoot the stage.

Fair enough. The kicker was "Bring Your Stubby Revolver/Carry Gun!"

At the time, my 'carry gun' was an STI Edge in 1omm, which only could be carried in a 'race-gun holster' due to the extended dust cover. I wore it with my rain coat buttoned up ... well, all of the velcro front-fasteners were velcroed together.

The whole point of the match, for "normal people", was to give us a chance to see how we would do in an IPSC match if we actually used our carry gun. Generally speaking, it was pretty embarassing.

One of the shooters, though, actually brought a stubby Glock with minimal barrel (I don't know what the model number was, I'm not much up on Glocks) equiped with a grip-activated Laser Sight.

The guy was a Master Class IPSC competitor, and accustomed to shooting with an Open Gun. He had a matched pair of hard-chromed open guns with Holosights, and usually was among the top competitors in the club.

Not today.

Every target he engaged, he put on a dancing exhibition. It was a performance similar to the classic "C-More Shuffle", in which a shooter with a red-dot sight is trying to learn how to shoot it during a match. When he started to shoot at a target, he was looking at the minimalist sights, and expecting to see a dot on the target. The problem was, he was accustomed to shooting over the SIGHTS. He wasn't use to looking for a dot on the target.

And when he was looking for the dot on the target, he couldn't find it. Well, it was daytime and the bright cold winter sun just washed out that little red dot on the brown cardboard target.

He ended up with a lousy score, and placed low in the order of finish, because he was relying on his ability to put the dot on the target ... and see it ... and not drag the dot off the target when he pulled the trigger. None of which happened, mostly.

Now, Michael makes a great case for he 'intimidation factor' of a laser sight. Heck, I've seen "Predator" probably a dozen times, and you just can't argue with that kind of graphic evidence.

Or can you?

The thing is, for a "Bad Guy" (Michael's "BG") to be intimidated, he has to see the dot tracking on his anatomy. If the gun is pointed where it oughta be, it's either painting his heart or his head. How many of you thing that you can see a dot on your face? How many of you expect a BG to look down at his chest when he has been TOLD that there is a gun pointing at him?

Show of hands?

Right. The laser sight is only intimidating if the BG realizes he is being painted.

So what if he's not intimidated, and he makes a big rush at you -- the home owner?

This is "rubber meets the road" time, and you probably are going to revert to point-shooting techniques. That is, you're going to swap one shooting technique for another, under the most extreme conditions imaginable. You think you've got the BG buffaloed, and suddenly you're in a Robert Ruark situation where the Buffalo is charging you and you don't know whether to follow the bouncing ball or go with your instincts ... so you hesitate.

What will you do? What WILL you do? Drag out your American Express Card, a la Karl Malden?

Or will you be confused, distracted, and dead?

I'm picking Door Number Two.

The way I see it, if you're counting on your Laser Sight to save your bacon, this should be the gun and the sight that you use "all the time." When you go to the range, you practice with the belly gun and the laser sight. Forget about practicing with your iron-sights, or your dot-sight. Your goal in practicing is to build the groove in which you look at the target, point the gun around the room (or the range) until you have confidence in your ability to rely on the laser sight exclusive of any distractions such as a 200 pound biped Buff charging through your foyer directly at YOU!

If you have any other handgun-shooting interests, consider that the skills needed to shoot well with a laser sight COMPLETELY ignore the skills needed to shoot without it. Point-shooting, being entirely aware of the orientation of the gun, is not a skill which is apparently reinforced with a Laser sight.

Need proof?

Got to a gun store, ask to try one of their laser-sight equipped guns, and try to sight it on the Cape Buffalo head on the North Wall. See how long it takes you to redirect your attention from the over-the-barrel sight picture to the dot-on-brown sight picture. Consider what the Wall Buffalo might be doing if he was an aggressive biped while you're trying to find the dot, and ... walk away.

Use of a laser sight is an unique skill which must be learnt, and practiced constantly. If you're not willing to shoot somebody in the privacy of your home, at the cost of allowing all other gun-handling and gun-pointing skills to atrophy, you might reconsider the vagrant thought that lead you to consider a Laser Sight handgun for home defense.

Or, you can rely on bluff to defend yourself against the Buff.

Kudos to Michael Bane's Shooting Gallery: The Outdoor Channel

I been on blogging-hiatus, and recently catching up on my blogging, and my blog-reading.

Michael Bane's "Shooting Gallery" now includes dynamic hot-links to recent articles from blogs which, apparently, are linked to in his personal website. (I assume that the links are automatic and dynamic, because it has a link to an article that I wrote less than an hour ago.)

I'm flattered that it caught my latest IPSC-related article. He's temp-linked (not a permalink for that website, I'm sure) to the IPSC Practice article I wrote earlier tonite. I'm reluctant to publish this update, as it will wipe out the earlier link ... I think.

You can see that IPSC PRACTICE article here.

You can see Michael's Outdoor Channel website online,. and it is now linked on my links sidebar as:

Michael Bane's Shooting Gallery: The Outdoor Channel

Thanx, Michael. I owe you.

IPSC: The P-Word

It was a beautiful late-winter day in Corvallis Sunday, so SWMBO and I went to the range to PRACTICE!

I never practice.

Okay, that's not quite true. I love to practice, but due to my work schedule and the shortness of the days, I almost never practice during the winter.

However, last spring I bought 2000 rounds of new Winchester brass in .38 Super caliber, and half of it still sits in a cardboard box on the floor of my garage, next to the loading bench. I don't like to use brand new brass at matches, so I usually load it up and take it out for practice ammo.

Having some spare time Saturday, I loaded 400 rounds of it up and invited SWMBO to the range for a practice session. There was no club match scheduled for this weekend, and she has been complaining that her performance -- not up to her standards -- in matches during this winter is mostly due to her inability to get in any practice time.

Here's the answer: let's go practice!

She had, of course, no alternative but to go to the range with me, to practice. Sneaky Geek to catch SWMBO in a quandry.

On the drive to the ARPC range (where the only significant activity was a Black Powder match in Bay 3 ... there were 5 cars there when we arrived 15 minutes after the BP match was to start), we discussed what we should work on during our practice.

I had no idea what I should work on, and neither did SWMBO. I asked her what she thought I should work on, and she begged the question by suggesting that I was a much better shooter than she was and it was not reasonable for her to criticize my IPSC performance.

No help.

So I suggested that since she had complained about her inability to get good stage times, I though she would benefit from training which emphasized quick and efficient movement out of a shooting position, and into a shooting position.

Also, her time to transition from one target to the next might possibly be improved ... as might mine!

She very graciously acknowledged that this was an area in which we might both improve, so when we arrived at the range we quickly set up a stage designed to emphasize these skills.

Starting in a shooting box, engage a US popper (never mind whether you hit it or not, it's just there to distract you from what you're going to do next) and then immediately transition to an IPSC target ... both set up at about 15 yards distance.

Then, exit the shooting box as quickly as possible, move to another shooting box downrange and to the right: total distance about 15 yards. There are two full IPSC targets set 10 yards downrange of the second shooting box, so we need to have the gun mounted and something of a sight picture as soon as we enter the second shooting box to engage these two targets.

I took the first run on the stage, and everything went beautifully. I afterward consistentlyl missed the popper, of course, but was leaning perfectly on my way out of the box and caught two-Alpha on the IPSC target. Quick, efficient run to the 2nd box, gun mounted when I entered and dropped only one point on those two IPSC targets. Good time, good balance, good focus. Not perfect, but it was the best run I made in about 15 attempts.


SWMBO tried it, and took about 20% longer with a lot of misses, so we started focusing only on the concept of engaging the targets on the way out of the box. I suggested that she should already be shifting her weight as she transitioned from the popper to the IPSC target, and she didn't like it. She wanted to step out of the box with her leading foot, which was often touching the ground out of the box before she took her 2nd shot. She was working on her accuracy, and not paying any attention to her movement.

I suggested that she lead with her trailing foot, in a cross-over movement. She didn't like it, it didn't feel natural and she was concerned that she would trip over the box on the way out. Well, I have been known to do that myself so it seemed a reasonable concern. But she tried it anyway, and discovered that it wasn't as easy as it looked but it was do-able.

It took about a dozen runs before she could time the lean, the cross-over, and the shooting with accuracy so they all worked out for her. It wasn't consistent, but she was more comfortable, so we started trying to put that together with having the gun mounted and prepared to engage the two IPSC targets downrange as she entered the second box.

All this time, I was working on the same techniques, and I found my performance to be degrading with every attempt.

We had been filming each other with the Geek DigiCam on every run, and SWMBO finally asked me to please turn off the unspeakable camera, it was making her self-conscious.

I discovered that it was having the same effect on me. When we practiced with the camera obviously running, we did a terrible job. Without the camera we weren't as concerned with looking good as we were with working on the technique.

Toward the end, we quit working on the leave-the-box technique and focused on the enter-the-box problem. To make it more rewarding (we were both getting a little frustrated by this time), we moved the IPSC targets up to seven yards from the box. This helped us a lot by giving more positive feedback, and we found that we were actually getting more A-zone hits when the targets were closer. This was surprising, because we were actually getting clean misses, rather than C-zone hits, at the two yards greater distance. Go figure.

To wrap up the practice session, we rewarded ourselves by just starting at the second box and hosing the closer IPSC targets. After a dozen runs of the four-shot exercise, our draw times were getting down close to where we thought they should be, we were getting good splits and cutting our transition time between targets to around twice our split times.


We learned a few valuable lessons during the practice:

• Don't try to practice under the forbidding eye of an obvious running camera. It may be okay to set up a camera on a tripod and just let it run, but when you KNOW someone is watching you through a camera, it's a distraction.
• Instead of starting with a difficult problem, start with an EASY problem and make it progressively harder. For example, we should have started with the targets closer to the shooting position and gradually moved them farther away as we became more proficient. Doing it the other way is not only counter-productive, it's frustrating and detracts from the value of the lessons learned. You should start with what you KNOW you can do well, and then challenge yourself to learn what you can do better.
• Practicing with someone else is a good thing. You can take turns, which gives you time to relax between runs. We don't shoot five runs back-to-back in matches, and we shouldn't do that in practice. With the continued, prolonged tension of trying to do too many rounds per turn, you can see your performance degrade and you don't pay attention to EVERY run. They all just seem to blur together, and you learn nothing.
• Practicing with a timer works. It's the only way you're going to gauge your progress. If you can maintain an acceptable level of accuracy, and see your stage times going down, you're encouraged to keep it up. Always have a decent timer handy, and running with the timer on your belt instead of in the hands of a RO puts you in control of your practice.
  
• It IS a good idea to plan what you're going to practice before you get to the range, and to keep the lesson-stages simple and quick. You don't want to spend more time than necessary changing stages, and if you have too many items on your agenda you don't learn any of them well because you can't get enough repetitions to burn in the new skills.
  
• It IS a good idea to finish off a practice session with something easy, fast, and fun. It rewards you for a good practice, and it cancels out the gloom if it has been a bad practice -- and restores your confidence, which is an important part of competitive shooting. Besides, we shoot for fun, we refuse to put up with a day at the range which is NOT fun.

You probably already knew all of this. Heck, I knew it. I set up a bad practice, because I was out of practice at -- er -- practicing.

The next time we go out to practice, we'll use the tripod mounted video-tape camera instead of the handheld digicam. We'll start with closer targets, and move them out as we gain confidence in our skills.

My usual plan is to use the club matches as practice sessions, and hope I learn enough to keep up my skills. My new plan is to schedule at least one practice session a month, more in the summer, and work on specific skill sets.

One more thing:
We brought along a large plastic tarp to catch the brass. We needed two of them, because we were shooting from two different positions. It made a LOT of difference in the amount of time it took to pick up all of that new brass, especially in that the surface of the practice bay was large gravel and I know we lost some of the brass in the intercises between the rocks.

PS:
In case you missed it, the blue underlined text is a link to 1mb videos which demonstrate the subject.

PPS:
Unless you're just going out to shoot up some "questionable ammunition", prepare for your practice the same way you would prepare for a match. Have good ammuntion, have a clean gun, do whatever is required to ensure that your practice is not cut short or slowed down by jams and other malfunctions. Practice all of the safety rules, every time.

Work hard, have fun. Make loud, rude noises and generate noxious burnt-gunpowder stenches. That's what it's all about. Improving your skills, and enjoying it, comes naturally from all of the above.

Christians cower in fear in the New Palestine

Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World

Palestinian educator Dr. Maria Khoury geared up for the winter chill with what was at the time a meaningless purchase: a black silk scarf with silver stripes to drape around her neck.

But now, on her daily excursions from the West Bank's Taiba to nearby Ramallah, the scarf serves as a political symbol of the changing times.

"Since Hamas took over, I cover my head in Ramallah," she says. "I don't feel comfortable."

In the largely cosmopolitan Ramallah, though they comprise some 10 percent of the population, Christians are becoming less and less visible.

The first time that Khoury ran into her local parish priest there with her head covered, he raised his eyebrows and laughed.

"I see more and more women covered up," Khoury says, explaining that for now, it's preferable to play it safe and assimilate on the street, even if she would never choose to cover her head otherwise.

"Years ago I even used to go in short sleeves," she says. "You'd have to put a gun to my head to get me to wear short sleeves now."

With fear of government-supported religious coercion on the rise since Hamas's unexpected win in January's Palestinian elections, Christians across the West Bank and Gaza Strip are keeping a low profile, with eyes wide open.

It's not unusual that a minority population live in fear of ostracision for holding religious beliefs which are atypical in their society. But it does seem strange that minorities would make such statements as "You'd have to put a gun to my head to get me to wear short sleeves now."

This is beyond religious belief: it's a matter of a culture which rewards idiosyncratic dress with intimidation. Fear of degradation, rape, assault, death and dismemberment is becoming typical of Palestinian society.

This is an entirely negative reflection on the Islamist influence on government in this region, and we here in what we so cheerfully call "a civilized society" just can't quite get our minds around the concept.

When we condemn a judge for posting the Ten commandments in his courtroom, we act as if we are stopping this kind of extremism before it can be properly started.

But really, we have no idea.

We may be outraged that someone would suggest that they have religious priorities.

We may be quick to step on any hint of absolute morality, because it undermines our inherent of moral relativism.

We feel that our concept of atheism is consistent with avoiding acceptance of ANY religious beliefs in a secular society.

But looking at the extremes in which this antagonism to SPECIFIC religious beliefs (or more accurately, a disinclination to accept the religious beliefs of the majority) may be taken, it seems clear that any society which physically threatens mild deviations from the norm of the local culture is not only counter-productive, it is downright evil in that it causes a significant portion of its population to live in fear for their safety.

I don't know if the Palestinians have a good case to make for the return of land which they claim as their own, by historic right.

But I do know that the issue goes far beyond land. It encroaches upon the right of any people, or any culture which differes from that of its neighbors, to survive.

The right of free people to co-exist is central to civilized society. Any culture or society which alienates its neighbor from free practice of a legitimate religion is not only not endemic to a civilized society, it is a plague upon the earth and deserves no support regardless of the wrongs it believes to have been visited upon it.

On a personal note, I suppose I must know some Jewish people, and I might even know a Palestinian ... it just doesn't occur to me, in most circumstances, to wonder or worry about the religious or cultural antecedents of my friends or acquantances. However, if I had to choose between a pair of people from these two societies, I would be more inclined to support the one who was not committed to the total elimination of the other.

The Palestinian radicals who consider the finest act of their short life is to spill the blood of their proclaimed 'enemy' have already branded themselves as outsiders.

I much prefer a people who want nothing more than to live their life in celebration of their God, without actively seeking the elimination from this earth of a people who don't happen to believe in God in the same way.