There is an abundance of firearm owners in the United States. Millions of people choose to express their natural right of self-protection and enjoy the freedoms enshrined in the Second Amendment. However, do they train to the level they should to employ them effectively as an EDC?
This conundrum is what drove Karl Rehn of KR Training to take a look at how many gun owners were getting training, and what sort of training they were receiving. He published this research in a series of blog posts, and the effect it has had on the firearms training world continues to this day.
Karl’s research showed that only one percent of gun owners in Texas sought out training beyond that which was required by law. In a state known for being friendly to gun ownership, 99 out of 100 gun owners did not take that extra step beyond what was required. Did they have to? No. Was the required training acceptable? Yes. Is it better to take your training to the next level? Beyond question.
The Sources
We’ll go into the reasons why this may be so later on, but first, let’s look at how Karl came to this conclusion. Karl’s research dates from the time when Texas required a permit for concealed carry, but based on my experience in my home state in Florida, requiring a permit for carrying a pistol has little effect on other training classes.
Based on data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation and other sources, Karl estimates that as of 2016, there were 3.2 million gun owners in Texas and approximately 1.2 million hunting permits and 1.1 million carry permits. Karl then estimates that around 10,000 people a year attend a formal training class, while other gun owners participate in shooting competitions and leagues such as USPSA, IDPA and A Girl And Her Gun.
Remember this sort of thing, because it will be important later on.
I believe one of the reasons why is that the larger elements of our society (where the 99% is) view marksmanship as something which comes naturally or instinctually to a person, versus being a skill which can be developed and learned. There are people out there who are born with quick reflexes and freakishly good hand-eye coordination, so yes, there is an element of natural talent involved.
However, I spent a decade watching top-level shooters like Rob Leatham develop their craft, and while he was born a natural athlete, Rob’s commitment to practice and training is a wonder to behold. Yes, some people are born better shooters than others. However, I believe that since most gun owners think that marksmanship is instinctual, not intentional, they may believe they don’t need to take a class to increase their skills beyond safe gun handling.
Why do large numbers of people do things like refine their golf skills, but a comparable number do not do the same with their marksmanship skills? I believe that because many people think that if they have safe gun handling skills, they “know how to shoot.”
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Yet when it comes to golf, which is definitely not instinctual, we don’t accept this level of competency, and we are willing to get more training in order to improve. Let’s look at a few reasons why this might be so.
Head to Head
First off, golf is an inherently competitive activity. Yes, you struggle to improve your personal score, but this is usually done so you can be better than the other members of your foursome. This is not true of casual gun ownership. Membership in competitive shooting of any kind is low amongst all gun owners, and only one type of sport, competitive clay shooting, has any sort of traction within mainstream culture.
If you say you own a set of golf clubs, nobody looks at you weirdly. If you say you like skeet shooting, you’ll get some weird looks, but people will understand that’s a legitimate sporting pursuit. Tell someone you shoot USPSA, though, and they’ll think you’re an assassin in training.
Ask me how I know this.
Secondly, golf is a very social activity. You may go to the driving range by yourself, but 99 times out of a hundred, you compete with at least one other person on the course itself. This brings a measure of accountability to the table. Your regular Saturday morning foursome expects you to show up and play, and peer pressure can be a tremendous motivator for improvement. God help you if you shank an easy shot into the water in front of your friends, and the high score for the round usually has to buy the drinks afterwards.
This motivation doesn’t exist unless you shoot competitions, where you’re shooting against other people in your Classification with your type of gun. It also exists in female-focused shooting groups like the aforementioned A Girl And Her Gun, Armed Women of America, Shoot Like A Girl, and others. Having a “range buddy” as an accountability partner, the same way you might have a gym buddy, will increase your desire to take a class in order to improve your shooting.
Thirdly, there are set standards in golf. Every golf course has a par for the course, and every hole on that course also has a par. If you take seven shots to make a par three, you stink. If you make it in three, or better still, two, you know you’re a good golfer.
Walk into any public gun range anywhere, though, and you won’t see standards posted as to what is and is not good shooting. The best you’ll see is “Don’t shoot the walls or ceiling” on an indoor range or the equivalent thereof at an outdoor range. This is roughly equivalent to “make contact with the ball” on a driving range or “don’t crash” at a racetrack, and hardly a measure of acceptable performance.
Having a set of simple, standardized drills available that can serve as a stand-in for the par scores on a golf course would go a long way in helping people understand that hitting a B-27 silhouette at three yards is not a goal, but rather a starting point. A drill like the Gila Hayes’ 5×5 Drill is a good starting point, as that is both deceptively easy and tactically useful.
From the Top
On the flip side, firearms instructors need to do a better job of presenting training as a journey, not an event. I’ve attended many, many classes in my time, but the list of instructors I’ve had who emailed me a list of practice drills to reinforce what I learned in their class can be counted on one hand. Giving your students mileposts to mark their progress after your class and then providing homework (aka drills) to achieve those goals encourages lifelong learning.
In addition, instructors need to do a better job of meeting their students where they are in their journey, not where the instructor is. I have seen some… questionable firearms show up in my classes, but as long as the student is safe with their gun of choice and it functions properly, I concentrate on skill development, not gear choice.
Firearms and golf share a fixation on hardware solutions to software problems. The fix for your tendency to slice your drives probably doesn’t lie in a new set of clubs; it lies in more range time and more instruction. Your trigger jerk? Same solution.
The 1% problem didn’t show up overnight, and it’s not going to go away overnight either. If we make training and competition more acceptable to gun owners as a whole, we will make gun ownership seem more normal to society as a whole.
As I said before, nobody looks at you cross-eyed if you own a set of golf clubs. Let’s work at things so that is also the universal reaction to having a gun safe inside your home.
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