There are no absolute black-and-white truths, only shades of gray. Here are some thoughtful bits of wisdom from Rich Grassi.

 

I’ve been seeing an on-going resurgence of old debates in the defensive handgun arena. One is on competition as a training tool: it is on the extreme, from “creating deadly training scars” to “all the really hot gunfighters were also competitors.”

 

Similarly the choice of hardware is explored:  “1911s Suck” to “plastic ain’t good” as well as “only point shooting works in the real world” to “no sights = no hits.”

As usual, the truth isn’t so black and white. Shades of gray infiltrate, as in the argument on the choice of instructors: “only gunfight veterans” or “teaching is teaching, not gunfighting.”

 

Before making a decision on which is which, consider that an evaluation of gunfight reports indicate that, like fingerprints, we’ve not found two fights that were the same. Similar, sometimes, but not the same.

 

It’s been said by one such shootout veteran “Had I done in the second fight what I did in the first, I wouldn’t be here today.”