Tactical Fantasy Camp
The open-enrollment firearms training industry continues to be an unruly mess. With no accreditation or even consistent standards, a gullible customer base that seems to value military/police credentials and war stories higher than instructor skill or actual instructional ability, and a profitability arms race that seeks to cram as many paying butts into the classes as possible, I genuinely worry about the future viability of professional firearms training. It’ll only take a few more mishaps and fatalities to cause either legislation or liability burden to shut the party down.
Kill your heroes. There’s no reason why a teacher has to be a flawless role model in order to impart knowledge, as long as their students are capable of applying their critical filter and do not fall into the trap of putting their guru on a pedestal to be worshiped.
The expert forum concept is probably fatally flawed. The effort to squeeze out the derp in favor of anointed experts only ended up mired in politics, sales floor antics, and corruption. Once you outsource your PR, you’ve outsourced your ethics as well.
More here:
http://www.papadeltabravo.com/blog/?p=1932
Firearm User Network 
Theodore A Sames II
Feb 28, 2014 @ 11:09:11
I can truly understand your thoughts and concerns on this subject. But, let us not go to the other extreme. Part of the training experience is not what the students get if the FAI reads out of a standard “How to” shooting manual. Students are looking for an edge…looking for instructors that have real experience on the battlefield or on the street. Sometimes, the little aspects can save your life. Example: Good police instructors teach about the characteristics of ricocheting bullets off the street but the good military instructor will tell his students to stay 2 feet away from walls for the same reason. Students need a well rounded instructor and a couple of war stories adds to the class unless war stories take over the class. On the other extreme, civilian instructors develop theories and trademark techniques from stories they have heard and pass them on to the students as true self-defense methods. I, personally, do not waste time with war stories unless the student has a specific reason as “to why” and then a very short story is given. In the upper level classes, I desire to build stress so I keep the students moving quickly with minimum down or lag time. Ted A Sames II, SISSTRAINING.COM.
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John Tate
Feb 28, 2014 @ 14:13:08
This is so VERY correct. Right now I’m working with a woman who “learned to shoot” at a 1/2 day concealed carry class in which graduation criteria was hitting an 8×10 piece of paper at 7 yards 80% of the time… slow fire.
She has a jerk/flinch that shakes the ground on which she’s standing.
I’ve told her: minimum, 10 min. dry fire EVERY DAY!
Dry fire? She’d never heard of it.
Arrrrrgh!
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John M. Buol Jr.
Feb 28, 2014 @ 14:15:43
Yeah, kind of depressing. Fundamental marksmanship hasn’t changed that much over the last 1.5 centuries. You’d think the word would have gotten out by now!
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Anonymous
Feb 28, 2014 @ 17:13:22
Until the great mass of the citizenry shoot on a regular basis as a necessary and desirable social activity, like Switzerland, the word will be quite slow in getting out…
John B.’s lamentations on how few NRA members actually participate in any kind of organized shooting is on the mark (pinwheel!). The real challenge is in how to reverse it. Appleseed is a start, but we’ve a long way to go.
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Christoph Kohring
Mar 04, 2014 @ 12:58:55
Switzerland is not some kind of fantasy land or gun nuts paradise, most people there are not or have never been conscripts in its “militia army” (a kind of big NG/ TA full of draftees) & therefore do not shoot firearms if it’s not their hobby. As for the members of the army, because shooting is for them compulsory as is the rest of their military life, they are not necessarily highly motivated marksmen & most do not practice their skills on their own.
This being said, the Swiss military remains the most progressive armed force in the world since 1997 when not only it officially adopted Chuck Taylor’s American Small Arms Academy system wholesale but it also implemented Jeff Cooper’s 4 rules of firearms safety which led not only to a more realistic instruction but also to a dramatic drop in small-arms fire related death & injuries: no major injuries since 1997 & only one dead grenadier lieutenant in january 2005.
How do I know, you might ask?!? I was drafted in the mountain infantry on July 14th 1988 & I’m still there… but as a volunteer, now!
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