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Don’t fall for it! Gun safety, authority figures, and you.

Don’t fall for it! Gun safety, authority figures, and you.

(Note: I am omitting names in this article, not because the information is secret but because I want to focus on a concept. The incidents I talk about are public knowledge and can be found with about 15 seconds of Googling; if you really want the nitty-gritty details, feel free to do the searching – but please don’t bring that information in to any comments here, as I want the discussion to center on the ideas not the players. Thank you.)

This last week two seemingly unrelated events came to the attention of the shooting public. First, a trainer whose background is supposedly Russian special forces (Spetsnaz) violated some cardinal safety rules and shot an assistant instructor three times; second, a well-known shooting retailer published an article on their blog that promoted what is universally considered to be an unsafe act when holstering a gun.

In the first incident, the trainer in question has produced some videos (one of which I’ve seen) that show techniques I find rather dubious from a safety aspect. They’re presented under the guise of being “real world” special forces training and aggressively sold to people in the private sector.

In the second incident, the writer (whose pictures and videos show a certain laxity with regard to trigger finger discipline) presented a technique for “safely” reholstering guns like the Glock. This technique required the the shooter to put the trigger finger into the trigger guard behind the trigger to ostensibly keep if from moving backward if caught on something. It was supposedly developed by a Marine-turned-police officer, whose “secret” work necessitated anonymity.

Fans of the instructor who shot his assistant tried to downplay the negligent shooting by invoking nonsensical terms such as “big boy rules” and “real world” safety. Because the instructor was formerly a special forces soldier his methodology, we were told, would be different and we needed to apply different standards of safety to him and his methods.

At the same time, the author of the article in question defended the technique by invoking the inventor’s status as both a Marine and an undercover cop. Because of his undercover work, we were told, his technique was “real-world” and needed to be judged under a different standard of safety.

The linkage between the two is obviously safety, but it goes well beyond that. Both incidents are infused with a liberal amount of the logical fallacy of ‘appeal to authority’ – that is, the material being presented is valuable (or not unsafe) because of the position of teacher/inventor. What concerns me is that so many people will actually fall for that.

Just because someone was a special forces soldier, Marine, or police officer doesn’t automatically make a technique or an opinion correct in all cases. First, because of context: just because it’s valuable in a war zone doesn’t mean it’s applicable to you in your home; second, because the authority (real or perceived) that someone receives from his job doesn’t mean that his opinions are infallible. If you assume either (or worse, both) of those you can end up adopting wholly unsafe and inappropriate techniques, not to mention the loss of valuable time training and practicing them.

It’s up to you to look at everything you read, see, or experience in a class with a critical eye. Just because someone is famous or holds a certain position doesn’t mean he’s right! You need to ask yourself whether what you’re seeing is safe, applicable to your own life, and addresses a plausible need.

More importantly, the person who is promoting that technique or idea must be able to give you more justification and explanation than simply “I’m special forces/SWAT, and unless you are too you’re not in a position to question!”

Whenever you encounter a technique justified only (or at least primarily) by the status of the person who invented or is promoting it, you should immediately question its validity. Anything you learn with regard to defensive shooting has to make sense, it has to address a real need, and above all it needs to be safe. If there isn’t a rational explanation forthcoming, if all you’re given is appeal to authority, then you should be extremely wary of both the material and the person feeding it to you.

-=[ Grant ]=-

  • Posted by Grant Cunningham
  • On November 19, 2012

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