Focus on the need to shoot, not whether you can.

A lot of people in the defensive shooting field are overly concerned with when they are allowed to shoot in self defense. I don’t think that’s the right approach; I believe instead that we focus on whether we need to shoot, not whether we can. Some time back I wrote a short little article on the topic, along with […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On January 26, 2014

Can you afford a good defensive shooting course? Yes!

I know quality training seems expensive, but it’s something you need to do to develop and maintain your critical defensive skills. Still, many people feel they can’t afford (or justify the expense) of good defensive shooting instruction. I wrote a short piece about affordable training options some time ago[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’][/author_image] [author_info]Content goes here[/author_info] [/author] […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On January 26, 2014

Training for defensive shooting has changed over the years, but not everyone has kept up!

Like everything else in life, the field of defensive shooting training has changed quite a lot over the decades. Today we know far more about how attacks happen, and about how the mind and body react in those attacks, than we did at the beginning of this century. We’ve truly come a long way! Again […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On January 23, 2014

Learning about the legitimate use of lethal force.

Last week’s discussion about armed intervention by a concealed carrier drew a lot of commentary, and for that I’m thankful. It’s important that topics like this are discussed ahead of time, before an incident unfolds. I worded the article very carefully to elicit one thing: a careful consideration, by each of us, of what we […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On December 16, 2013

How should you protect yourself from the knockout game attack?

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday! (Be honest, now: how many of you are taking advantage of Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals to get yourself something at a gun or outdoor store? Thought so!) Over the last week or so quite a number of people have written to ask me about the “knockout game” which […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On December 2, 2013

A little teaching trick: memory, feelings, and getting the two to work together.

One of the tasks of anyone who teaches physical techniques is helping the student physically coordinate the various inputs and actions that are necessary to shoot a handgun. For some this comes easily, but for others it can be a challenge (and I’m speaking of both the student and the teacher!) The brain takes in […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On November 18, 2013

Do you still do press-checks? Here’s another reason not to!

If you’ve taken any of my classes you know I’m not a big fan of the press-check (drawing the slide of an autoloader partially back to ascertain if there’s a round in the chamber.) I hold that it’s an unnecessary movement which does little more than raise the risk of the gun not being fully […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On September 16, 2013

Book Review: Concealed Carry For Women by Gila Hayes

I recently received (courtesy of the author) a copy of the new book “Concealed Carry For Women” by Gila Hayes. (In the interest of full disclosure, I assisted Gila with some pictures for this book and there is at least one picture of me inside. I’ve also known her for many years and consider her […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On September 11, 2013

Is your defensive shooting stance really something you can choose?

RECOIL Magazine, as you may have heard, is back in big way with all new management and a revised attitude. Though they tout themselves as a “gun lifestyle” magazine, that doesn’t seem to limit them to mere fluff; a recent article from Aaron Cowan, titled “History and the Fighting Stance III: what Burroughs found”, is […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On August 26, 2013

Defensive training, religious fervor – and you: why deification is bad for self defense.

I’ll admit to not fully understanding religious zealotry, despite having studied it fairly extensively. In most major religions you can find sects who seek to fix their beliefs and observances at some arbitrary point in time, and from then on never change (or, at least, try their hardest to not change.) This leaves me to […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On August 12, 2013

“I can’t afford to get good training.” True?

Serendipity, that’s what it’s called. A recent poll on Facebook asked about the biggest hurdle people face in getting defensive shooting training. I expected the number one reason to be ammunition supplies, but that barely rated for most people. Time? That was a bigger one, but it paled in comparison to the number one obstacle: […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On August 7, 2013

Not many people in this business will tell you the truth. This guy does.

Over the weekend Rory Miller (if you don’t know who he is, check out his author page on Amazon) put an interesting post on his blog. You should go read it before continuing here. Back already? Did you read all of the article? (Promise?) Miller makes a number of good points in his article, but […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On July 3, 2013

Why are we so resistant to learning from our mistakes?

Last week I became aware of a YouTube video of a fellow shooting himself in the leg after making ready during a match. He starts the video off by proclaiming that it wasn’t his fault – it was his gun which malfunctioned and was in the hands of the maker’s service department for analysis of […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On July 1, 2013

How’s your situational awareness right now? It may not matter.

I have a quick homework assignment for you. Watch the first minute-and-a-half or so of this video (you can watch the rest later, but now we have work to do!) You see what your knowledge tells you you’re seeing. You apply whatever base comprehension you have to explain or make sense of whatever it is […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On May 22, 2013

If it’s not relevant, why are you doing it?

I’ve written before of the need to match the training you get and the equipment you use to the life you actually lead, not the life you fantasize about leading. What does this mean? It means that if you’re training with a full-sized tricked-out autoloader on the weekends, but the majority of your waking hours […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On May 13, 2013

The toolbox metaphor, continued.

Occasionally I’ll run into an instructor who is actually teaching appropriate, plausible skills – but who insists on calling them “another tool for your toolbox”. Why would he or she intentionally handicap the material in that way? Sometimes it’s because what’s being taught lacks internal consistency. The skills and concepts don’t relate to each other well, […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On May 1, 2013

Tools for the toolbox: my least-favorite phrase!

In many of the classes I teach one phrase (or a variation) comes up with disturbing frequency: “another tool for the toolbox.” Not because I say it, but because sooner or later a student will say it. Then comes The Lecture. As many of my students will attest, I hate that term. When it’s uttered […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On April 29, 2013

Determining how and what we train.

A question from a student in the class I taught last weekend brought up an interesting dichotomy in the defensive shooting world: what we prepare for often doesn’t match what we actually face. Many people prepare for social violence, but actually face asocial violence. The difference between the two affects how and what we train. […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On April 24, 2013

Defensive training in context: even dinosaurs like the FBI evolve!

A story in USA Today a few weeks ago is potentially good news for defensive shooting training in the private sector: the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently overhauled their own training protocols. (Please go read the article – it’s surprisingly good.) The FBI went back through 17 years of data and analyzed the kinds of […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On February 6, 2013

When will the silly defensive shooting techniques stop?

After my article on not falling for a technique simply because someone of authority promotes it, a reader sent me an alert about an article in the Shooting Times Personal Defense 2012 magazine. The article is titled “Fight With A .380” by one J. Guthrie. (Had I written this article, I’d probably be embarrassed to […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On December 3, 2012

Task fixation in critical incidents.

One of the concepts that we talk about in most of my classes is that of task fixation: the diversion of attention to a particular sub-activity during an attack. We discuss this specifically relating to looking at the gun while reloading. The concept is clearly illustrated in this video of a very dynamic simulation during […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On November 28, 2012

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 – […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On November 19, 2012

Misogynists – ya gotta love ‘em. Or not, because their notions about women and guns are way off.

Several months ago I read a discussion about teaching women to shoot. In it was this gem (written, obviously, by a male of the species) about what a “woman’s class” should entail: “I would put a greater emphasis on field stripping, taking the gun down and putting it back together. Our society doesn’t encourage women […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On October 3, 2012

Over-react much? Comical training responses to the Aurora theater attack.

Over at the Schneier On Security blog, Bruce Schneier talks about the concept of risk in relation to the Aurora movie theater attack. I found his analysis interesting, inasmuch as gunnies everywhere are talking about how they’d respond to such an event — and how they’re changing their preparations, “just in case.” Some of the blogs, […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On August 8, 2012

Style over substance: training to impress.

I recently learned of a blogger and wanna-be instructor, a member of the disturbingly superficial “I’m cute and have a gun – read my blog!” trend, who wanted to have her picture taken with a well-known trainer who was visiting the area. Note that she didn’t want to take the excellent class that he was […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On August 1, 2012

Revolver malfunctions, Part Three – user induced problems.

There are really only two “malfunctions” that can be attributed to shooter technique, and they’re both easily avoided. The first is a failure to properly reset the trigger. This is especially common with autoloader shooters who pick up a Ruger revolver: used to resetting the trigger until they hear or feel a “click”, they do […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On July 2, 2012

An opportunity for a discussion: the short-barreled 1911 pistol sucks.

A very vocal portion of the shooting public gets very antagonistic when the subject of the compact 1911 pistol comes up. In short, most of us who’ve had some time on the range with many different students have come to the realization that short-barreled 1911-pattern pistols are uniformly awful. I don’t have a problem with […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On May 7, 2012

Safety rules. Again. Until everyone gets them.

From a new-to-me blogger comes the story that a woman in South Carolina was ‘accidentally’ shot by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy during a class to get her concealed weapons permit. The deputy was the instructor. What’s interesting to me are the blogger’s comments: Jeff Cooper’s rules, he says, “are not flexible”. Oh, really? I’ll refer […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On February 27, 2012

Critical thinking when reading: how to interpret a review of a “system”.

Someone sent me this link to a story on Tactical-Life.com about the Center Axis Relock (C.A.R.) system of Paul Castle. At the outset it’s important to note that I don’t think much of this “system”, largely because it asks the shooter to do a number of things that aren’t congruent with how the body reacts […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On February 6, 2012

The Double Tap: friends don’t let friends train that way.

At SHOT I made a passing comment to Pharmacist Tommy that, in the context of defensive shooting, practicing double taps was a tacit admission that a person wasn’t able to control their gun. He looked at me quizzically, as I’m sure you’re doing right now. (Let’s get some terminology out of the way. Most people […]

Posted by Grant Cunningham
On February 1, 2012

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