Armed Response “Fundamentals of Defensive Shooting”

By David Kenik and Ralph Mroz

What is the biggest problem regarding gun safety facing gun owners today? It is the fact that many if not most do not practice or try to get additional training material. Many of our students buy a gun, practice before the CCW class and then never touch the pistol again. Then they wonder why they panic in a crisis. We stress training, training, continuing education and more training.

I have been an NRA Instructor for years and feel that I learn from every class I teach, or each time I go to the range to test equipment.  I will admit that one of my own faults is that I do not get to practice shooting skills as much as I should.  Being a Black Belt does help with close quarter drills and the tactical applications of using your hands or alternate weapons for defense. David Kenik has written Armed Response and the book is a great resource. It covers many of the issues that are not covered in most CCW courses.

This video developed by David Kenik and Ralph Mroz was very helpful because they covered the basics and many more advanced techniques. I will be showing some portions of this video in my CCW classes as Ralph Mroz is a very professional presenter and covers the topics smoothly and professionally. The advantage for showing parts of this DVD in my CCW class would be to help with consistency, and to let the students know that there are additional materials that are available at very reasonable prices.

If every student would purchase these videos and watch them, it would make me feel better that the students are trying to continue the learning process. If people are serious about protecting their family, this video series is a small price to pay for the amount of information covered. There are enough safety tips that it just might save their lives. Paying an instructor to cover all of these topics would be astronomical and they would not be able to replay the DVD for the parts that additional practice.

The some of the topics covered included: “Gun Safety on the Street”; “Handgun Fundamentals”;  “Reloading”; “Magazine Management”; “Different Carry Positions”; “Tactical Draw”; “Malfunction Clearing Skills”; “Sighted and Non-Sighted Firing”; “One-Handed Manipulations and Shooting”; “Accuracy”; and “Stopping Power”.

The first topics of Gun Safety were well done. Ralph goes through the normal gun safety rules and describes what the street rules for safety would be.  One of the best examples is the rule to always keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot. This is one of the most important rules of gun safety, but they have added; “touch the trigger finger to the pistol on the slide”. Practicing this addition to the rule will allow the subconscious and the muscle memory to retain when the finger is off the trigger. If the finger is just held off the trigger, you would not get in the habit or remember to do the same thing every time.  

Many instructors say that you fight as you train, and you should train as you would want to fight. Adding this simple but effective tip has the potential to save lives. This would help stop people from pulling their sidearm and putting their finger right on the trigger, therefore opening the possibility to accidently discharge the firearm before the target was acquired. The missed bullet could be into the concealed carry person’s leg, or an innocent bystander. This also applies to re-holstering the sidearm.

They also cover the fact that a safe shot on the range is so much easier to determine…it is down range and into the embankment. In the street there are so many additional factors that need to be taken into consideration.  Just acquiring your target, the bad guy, may not be that easy. You may have an innocent bystander behind the bad guy. Moving to the right or left may eliminate the problem with the target acquisition. Practicing shooting on the move is covered in the other video “Tactics and Techniques for Defensive Shooting”.

The Speed Load and Tactical Load was very interesting and had some key take away issues. All reloads should be “Speed Loads”.  The reason is because the speed load drops the magazine and quickly reloads the firearm. The tactical reload is a little more cumbersome and is usually used when there is a “lull” in the firefight. The shooter would drop the magazine from the firearm even with live rounds still in the magazine, and fill the handgun with the full magazine. The next step would be to drop the partially spent magazine into your pocket. They contend that most shootings are under 5 shots and if you have time to do a tactical load, you may want to drop the magazine as you would in a speed load and scan the area around you. If you verify that the area is secure, then pick up your additional magazine and place in your pocket. I liked the idea of practicing only one kind of reload in a crisis. 

I also liked some of the recommendations for magazine management. Keep your practice magazines separate from your magazines that you carry every day.  They also recommended changing the springs at least once a year, and marking or labeling the magazines. This will help you keep the practice magazines from getting mixed up with the carry magazines.

We have several churches in that have had a lot of students come through our CCW classes. Some of the churches take it even more seriously by having practices in the church to help with how to move to acquire targets while minimizing innocents being hurt.  In fact our last course had a lot of students from my own church. We had a “blast” and I am thrilled that more people are taking the necessary steps to protect our families and churches.  The entire series would be excellent for church members to purchase before they go to the range for key safety tips, and shooting drills.

As a Concealed Carry Instructor I will be recommending these to my students for continued education regarding CCW issues.  These will be made available to them at the time of the class. We have found that people who are serious about protecting their families want to learn from the pros. I would like to personally thank David Kenik for contacting us about Armed Response “Tactics and Techniques for Defensive Shooting”.  I have enjoyed talking with him, and I am very grateful for what David and Ralph are doing for the shooting community.

We will be covering other videos from David and Ralph as well. You can purchase this video, as well as all of the other videos at Armed Response.

Happy trails and keep the lead down range – Clark.