Life Liberty and the Pursuit

LLP #123: Mastering Your Firearm: How Much Practice Do You Really Need?

• Life Liberty and the Pursuit

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What makes a truly proficient shooter? The answer might surprise you. It's not about how many rounds you send downrange or how tight your groups are on paper—it's about practical application and preparedness when it matters most.

Drawing from real-world experiences, including a shocking story about a police officer who survived an ambush because of his daily practice routine, we explore the critical difference between shooting and training. While anyone can blast through hundreds of rounds on the weekend, true proficiency comes from deliberate practice of specific skills: presentation from concealment, transitioning between targets, and developing the muscle memory that could save your life.

We examine the fascinating psychology behind training scars, like the FBI's coffee can story where agents developed deadly habits during practice that nearly got them killed in actual gunfights. This stark reminder shows how seemingly innocent range practices can create disastrous consequences when bullets start flying for real.

The conversation takes a practical turn as we discuss the merits of different firearms for defensive use. While rifles might be the go-to choice for many, we challenge some misconceptions about shotguns, revealing how modern loads like Federal Flight Control buckshot offer remarkable accuracy at distance. Each platform—pistol, rifle, and shotgun—has specific applications where it shines, and understanding these nuances is crucial for anyone serious about self-defense.

Perhaps most importantly, we emphasize that effective training doesn't always require expensive range sessions. The "unsexy" fundamentals—drawing from concealment, weapon manipulation, presentation drills—can often be practiced at home without firing a single round. These fundamental skills might not make for exciting Instagram content, but they're what separate those who merely shoot well from those who can protect themselves when their life depends on it.

Ready to transform your approach to firearms training? Tune in now and discover why mindset and proper practice matter more than fancy gear or endless ammunition.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back everybody. This is Eric and Matt and this is Life, liberty and the Pursuit, your beacon of freedom and the American way of life. Tune in every Monday for a new episode as we dive into the world of liberty and what makes our country great.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back everybody. This is Eric and Matt here with LLP. I hope everybody has had a great week. Llp is your home for all things sane in a world gone completely mad. What's up?

Speaker 3:

dude, nothing much and sometimes crazy.

Speaker 2:

Oh gosh, you know it. So today's show y'all, we're going to talk a little bit about how much training, how much shooting, do you need to do to stay proficient? There's a lot of different thought processes that go into this, everything from dry fire practice to laser training devices to actual range time. You know people. Sometimes it takes them a while to gather a decent amount of proficiency with a given firearm. It takes a lot of training. Sometimes it takes people less training. How much remedial and, you know, ongoing training do you need to keep your skills once you get them? We'll talk about all these things and, of course, today's show we're going to get into a lot of different subjects, but that's the main gist of today's show is we're going to be talking about shooting proficiency a little bit. Maybe some things you can do to improve your shooting for a lot less money which is always a good thing Like little tiny tips you can add in that will definitely save you money in the long term. Ammo costs a lot of money. I mean, I get it, but especially now with all this inflation and all the crazy stuff going on in the world, you know a lot of people are choosing to kind of hold on to more of their ammo and they're generally not training as much. But there are a lot of people doing training classes and so we'll talk a little bit about. You know formal instruction, you know taking instruction, so all of those things are very useful tools in the arsenal and we will get into that in today's show. Before we get started, I would like to thank our friends at my Patriot Supply. These guys are an amazing supporter of the Life, liberty and Pursuit podcast.

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 3:

Holy cow, my Patriot, supply coming through with the deals.

Speaker 2:

They are playing hardball.

Speaker 3:

Last week it was 60% off of certain things and this week it's you know, great deals on solar panels. Come on, man.

Speaker 2:

Some of the deals that those guys put up, like you kind of have to jump on them. I hate to say like I'm not trying to be Billy Mays here, but some of those deals, even when I read them I'm like what, yeah, no.

Speaker 3:

I mean, it's like me. Like I said, I use the actual food. I have buckets of it and it's a good idea.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I do have a full review food, so if you want to get an idea of some of the offerings, check it out. It's over on the channel. So, talking about training, you know it's just so crazy. Before we get into the subject of training, though, so in last week's show, we showed off a picture that I took in town of this Vietnam veterans rig. You know this crazy car he was in. You know this crazy car he was in. You know this cool old school Oldsmobile with all the bumper stickers? Now, this one isn't as cool, but I will tell you this is crazy. I took this picture in town, probably a few hundred yards away from where I took the picture of this car, so keep that in mind. Okay, okay, all right. The caption for the Twitter post is Jane Fonda is pure evil, all right. And this is another Vietnam veteran that lives in my town, and Matt has not seen this picture yet, so he's going to react in real time.

Speaker 2:

Now this one's not quite as interesting maybe as the first one that we showed last week, but I thought it'd be cool to show. All right, so let's have a look at this.

Speaker 3:

Ooh, that one's spicy look at this. Oh, that one's spicy. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, and I'll, I'll read it. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's like it says vietnam vet, and damn proud of it, I'll forgive jane fonda when the jews forgive hitler. That's spicy, that's a tall accusation.

Speaker 2:

right there it is.

Speaker 3:

But and I'm not saying anything, you know outlandish here, but she did some pretty messed up stuff to the vets that were over there, especially the POWs. She did.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, she was supposed to take those letters back for them, and she disposed of them.

Speaker 1:

She destroyed them.

Speaker 2:

And she didn't just, she wasn't anti-war, she actively applauded the efforts of the communists when they hurt and killed us service members.

Speaker 3:

I mean that's treason you know what I mean. She went to a very treasonous act, yeah, like she went to, like the hanoi hotel or wherever, where they were actively torturing yeah, the hanoi hilton yeah, and you know the. The guy was like please, can you give this message to my family? And she was like no. I was like please, can you give this message to my family?

Speaker 2:

and she was like no well, no, she said she would. And then she said yeah, I'll take it. And then she destroyed.

Speaker 3:

Well, that was the letters. So she had the letters. But this was that they asked her like just to give it to them, like verbally, like hey, if you're not going to give them the letter, like just pass this message to to my family.

Speaker 2:

And she's like no, I'm like oh, my god I'm telling you there are so many vietnam vets that are gonna like if well, if they're still around by the time she's gone, they're probably gonna take a good piss on her grave like they hate jane fonda and and that's one of those things that goes around in the in the vietnam veteran community like it's a just universal hatred for jane fonda.

Speaker 3:

There was, like so many, like cadences, like marching cad cadences, going against that. It was hilarious man.

Speaker 2:

It's true. It's true. I mean, when Jane Fonda makes it into your military march, that's a sign she's not liked at all in that community. Anyway, I thought that was an interesting picture, and when I'm in town sometimes I'll just take like random pictures, and so each week I'll try to share a funny story from the week, or a picture or something.

Speaker 3:

I always like to try to you know kind of add that I like this segment. I'm gonna start trying to snap pictures if I see him out too.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, yeah, if you see something crazy, take a picture and we'll share it. I took a picture at the grocery store the other day of a dog sitting in the in the driver's seat of a truck and the way he was sitting up he almost had like his hands up like he was driving the truck. You know, you know, that's innocent.

Speaker 3:

Little pause on. Yeah, it's innocent and it's dumb.

Speaker 2:

But it's like sometimes you, you just, I don't know you feel compelled to take a picture. And in that moment I felt compelled to take a picture of that bumper sticker because I thought it was cool yep you know, and and anytime, because you know the vet that's driving is vietnam vet.

Speaker 2:

so you know, and a lot of those guys are getting older now, so it's just always interesting to see what their perspectives are. I would love to have like one of those guys maybe a few of them in to interview and talk about some of their experiences. You know, I think that'd be a pretty wild thing to hear.

Speaker 3:

You know it's also like super rare to find. Now getting more rare to find is the Korean war vets from like when you started hearing stories of like the chosen reservoir, like like man, if you could just sit down with one of those guys and just hear the stories that they have to tell those marines had it rough. Oh yeah, man, those guys got really hemmed up like frozen, like golly talk about.

Speaker 2:

You know one of my old guitar teachers, his grandpa, was in that battle in the Chosin Reservoir. Yeah, and oddly enough his picture was also on the cover of Time Magazine.

Speaker 3:

Really that's awesome.

Speaker 2:

Yep, there's a very famous photo of this extremely exhausted Marine from Time Magazine. Marine from time magazine and he's like sitting there and he's got a thousand yards there beard you know, his beard grew, you know a whole lot and he just looks like you can tell he's been through absolute hell, right. And that picture is my guitar teachers, my old guitar teachers, grandpa man, that's crazy so yeah, I remember when I still worked at the music store.

Speaker 2:

This has been a long time ago, this has been a long time ago, this has been like over 20 years ago. I remember he came in I was like, yeah, I want to tell you my grandpa passed away and all that. And he showed me some of the parts from the memorial and everything and the eulogy and everything. And I was like, wait a minute, I've seen that picture before. He's like, yeah, he was on the cover of Time Magazine.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's your grandpa, like wow, small world, you know. So it's just so strange, like when you think about the um, the brotherhood of, of military, and you know what people will go through for each other and and you know you're you're always constantly reminded of those things and I think it's it's important to keep the spirit of that stuff alive. And you know it's important to hear the stories that these guys have to tell, cause a lot of them don't want to talk about it. They don't want to talk about some of the things they've been through, whether it's it's it's through too traumatic for them. You know, maybe they saw someone close to them die, which of course, is not easy, or maybe they participated in some extreme violence and they go, and they go, wow, I don't want to talk about that. The real ones don't talk about it. That's how you know it's some dramatically crazy stuff that happened to them. When they don't want to talk about it, that's how you know what they went through is truly messed up.

Speaker 3:

Man, there was a great YouTube channel and I forget what it's called, but it's a nonprofit war historical YouTube channel and all they do is interview vets like World War II vets, korean War vets, vietnam vets. Eventually they're probably going to get into the GWAP when we start getting up into that age too. They do such a great service of just letting them explain the story in its detail. And when you get into it and they start talking the chosen reservoir, they're telling like hey, we were throwing hand grenades for hours, just like throwing nothing you run out of hand.

Speaker 3:

Yeah they're like my arm. I couldn't literally I couldn't pick anything up. I'm just throwing grenades at these people, boom, boom. They're jumping on quad 50s and just they just run the barrels out like he's, like they're melting barrels on quad 50s and the people are still coming. Could you imagine that man? Could you imagine shooting at a hill with a quad 50 and when the barrel of people, yeah, and when it's a wave of people. The barrels melt, the people just keep coming right.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, yeah but it's not a hill, it's like a, a wave of people yeah, you can just see uniform wool moving down.

Speaker 3:

You know wool melting down, climbing over each other whoa, I'm just coming over, so crazy, I mean so it's interesting.

Speaker 2:

Before we get into today's show, I'll kind of talk a little bit. It's interesting that north korea has also been sending troops to Ukraine.

Speaker 3:

Yes, sir.

Speaker 2:

Not to get off on the I don't want to get off on this Like. This is not the tangent that I want to want to discuss, but I just want to mention briefly how it's been kind of telling, how the somewhat limited combat effectiveness of the North Korean troops is pretty telling. You know, they've experienced some pretty heavy losses. Now, to be fair, the Russian commanders you know the Russians are ultimately in command of these men and what do you think they're going to do? They're not going to put them in a position that is going to, you know, be a good position for them.

Speaker 2:

Like they're going to use them in a very terrible way.

Speaker 1:

Cannon fodder.

Speaker 2:

The talk is yeah, yeah, the talk is cannon fodder, human wave tactics and things like these, and and there's this one video that just keeps coming back and just freaking, haunting the crap out of me every time I think about it, and it's this drone footage of, you know, getting close to a korean soldier.

Speaker 2:

He's a north korean soldier and the guy's absolutely terrified, pure terror, and it's like you can't manufacture that, like you can't fake that, you can't. You know, hollywood can't show that there. There is not nothing on this planet that can come close to seeing the way someone looks when, when they know they're about to go. And and the dude was absolutely terrified and you could tell in that moment like he felt absolutely helpless, like didn't know what to do, didn't know what he could do, all he knew he was there, probably forced to be there. They probably threatened his family. There's no telling what brought that guy to that point, but to but to see what I view essentially as an innocent man. I mean because you know, a lot of those folks aren't there by their own will.

Speaker 3:

Oh, absolutely not.

Speaker 2:

Nobody volunteers for that Right. And so in my mind, you think you know this person. Okay, is this person innocent? Maybe not innocent, but they are relatively innocent in a way, because it's like I mean, the guy's already lost, like he knows that he can't win against the situation. So it's like some of these drone attacks. What really gets me is like you know, you've seen some of these guys on both the Ukrainian and Russian side. Both They'll throw their hands up. Hey, I surrender. You know, like you can tell, okay, they don't want to fight, no more, they're done, they're surrendering, but then they still blow them up anyway.

Speaker 3:

Oh, yeah, you'll see the release ordnance. Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2:

So if the operator, okay if the operator of that drone sees that a soldier is surrendering and they drop the bomb anyway, is that against the rules of international rules? Warfare at that point? I mean, if a soldier is trying to surrender and you know they're surrendering and you recorded it, there's footage that shows the person. Hey, like the female russian. Did you see that video?

Speaker 2:

no, I haven't yeah, so there's a russian female soldier and again, I'm not trying to, you know, draw sympathy for either side of the conflict, but still you see these videos and you think, wow, this is royally screwed up what you just saw. There's this Russian soldier and it's a female and the drone kind of comes down a little bit, gets a little closer and the lady, she's not even holding a weapon, but she's waving, she's telling him no, I'm unarmed, basically, please no, don't drop it.

Speaker 2:

Look, I'm not a threat. I have no weapon. Whatever, she's surrendering and there's a flight into her anyway. Imagine how. The feeling of terror when you think, well, I'm trying to surrender I'm trying to give up, but you can't give up I mean there's no escape. That's a very, very good problem yeah, it's not like a person standing there with a gun pointed at you can talk to it's. You can't reason with a machine.

Speaker 3:

Think how royally terrifying that has to be. The machine isn't autonomous, right? So there is a person behind the screen. They can interpret that surrender.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and they can just choose not to. But how terrible is that those drone pilots have to be some really screwed up people to think like I mean dude that's royally messed up and I'm just going to put this in perspective.

Speaker 3:

Outside of like reaper drones, right, so you have like reapers and all that stuff that they they have a designated hit. They're like, hey, this person and they're dropping ordinance on a building and there's going to be people in that building that aren't necessarily they're innocent, right, they're kind of collateral damage, right, but you're, you're hitting, trying to hit that high value target, that hvt so it's at that point it's quote acceptable losses for that mission.

Speaker 3:

But in this, in this particular aspect, it's a drone operator right. That person serving isn't an hvt, they're just a regular right, regular person right, so that if that was a us operation those people would be indicted.

Speaker 2:

They would, they would like, just just put, call it what it is like, that would get you indicted as a war crime well, it's like when we got al zakari, you know, I think there was some collateral damage there they dropped a bomb on his, on his building.

Speaker 2:

You know he was in and I and, yeah, I think a few of his other lieutenants and people got taken out, but I think some people who you know maybe they weren't innocent, but they certainly were not the target also perished. So it's like, you know, how do you make sense of collateral damage? I mean, what if someone told you your wife was collateral damage or your kid was collateral damage? No one wants to hear that. No one wants to hear that their family member or someone they love is disposable, and that's a really terrible thing about warfare. Anyway, I didn't want to get off on that track here, but I just felt like it related to what we were discussing.

Speaker 3:

Real quick. Have you seen the new munitions to reduce collateral damage? So they took the Comp B and the TNT out of it and now it's just big razor blades. So it's a munition they drop. And now it opens up and it has like four or five just straight razor blades. So when this thing hits a car, it's like getting hit. It looks like it's been hit with a pizza cutter. It just whop and just like slices it up into like four or five pieces. But everything inside that vehicle also gets sliced into four or five pieces. Oh my God. So they'll throw it into buildings and it's just like a pizza cutter hit in the building. The bright side is that there's no explosion, so it's just like you know, hitting it and then cutting up everything inside. So the buildings next to it are fine.

Speaker 2:

The bright side, boys and girls, if you're not in the room with the razor, yeah, you're okay, but if you're the one in the room with the razor blades, you're gonna be turned into salami yeah, wow.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's where we're at now, folks, we're yep so it doesn't matter how much training you do, you're just going to get, you know, a razor blade, drone yep, dropped on you, all right. So how much shooting to stay proficient? Let's get to the uh, the question at hand and look, I want to mention to you guys real quick, before we uh kind of get off on this here is that, uh, we do put um chapters down in the description box below. So if you don't want to hear us, you know, ramble for 15 or 20 minutes in each show before and you just want to get straight to the question, we usually have a link that are a little timestamp that shoots you straight to the getting to the, to the task at hand. So if you want to, you can always click ahead if you, if you don't want to hear us ramble a little bit, or feel free to listen to us ramble or feel free to listen to us ramble, and we can do that too, y'all.

Speaker 2:

So how much shooting to stay proficient? And I think this is something that people tend to have maybe a misconception about. There are people that maybe they go out and they do a lot of shooting. I used to be in this category quite a bit. I used to go out and shoot five 600 rounds on nine millimeter every weekend, right.

Speaker 3:

A lot of shooting. That's a lot Right.

Speaker 2:

That was a lot of shooting, but was I actually training? Was I actually shooting in a way that that made me more proficient? So it's not necessarily how many rounds you log down range. Anyone can go out and blast 20,000 rounds a nine millimeter in a year. What are you doing with those shots? Are you running around? Are you drawing? Are you timing yourself? Are you working on the speed of your draw? Are you working on the speed of your transition from target to target? Are you trying to shoot faster splits?

Speaker 2:

So there's all these sort of technicalities that we can look at that. Can you know? Let's just say arbitrarily say how good a shooter is. Okay, this person can shoot fast splits. This person can draw fast. This person can move around and shoot while moving. You can do X, y, z, et cetera, et cetera. This person can take apart a Glock blindfolded and put it back together. I mean, there's all these things that we can say oh wow, this person is amazing at handling guns.

Speaker 2:

Because of all of these, you know very measurable things. That you know, of course, because human beings are scientific in nature first and foremost than they are anything else. We record, we have data. We really like to get into the weeds on. You know how to make a process more efficient, and that's really what fast and fancy competitive type of shooting is is how do I make myself faster and more proficient than the other shooters around me? Right, one shooter may move faster than me, but he may draw slower than me. One shooter may draw really fast, but he runs fast but he shoots slow. So all of these things in concert make you the shooter that you are.

Speaker 2:

The people that win competitions are going to be the people who can do everything really well. They shoot fast splits, they draw fast, they change mags fast, they run fast, they transition fast. They know the course. Well, they've, you know, done everything. And I'm talking about more about competitive shooting. Now, what about? You know we're talking about how much shooting to stay proficient. Now, what distances do most handgun battles happen when it comes okay, you're going to draw a pistol in a defensive situation and get in. Let's just say what we would call a gunfight or a defensive shooting, where you're actually going to draw your pistol in the name of defense. What distance is the? Is the assailant statistically going to be away from you?

Speaker 3:

I believe it is 21 feet.

Speaker 2:

There's a 21 foot seven yards seven to ten yards ten ten tens long yep sevens, you know maybe even 15, or you know 10 or 15 feet, and maybe from me to you maybe five feet. The point is, most people are going to be close, right, so they're going to be close and I think that for my purposes, what I look at pistol training and when we talk about handguns right now we're going to talk about rifles and other stuff a little bit as the show goes on, but we're talking about handgun proficiency and it's funny and Chad and I used to sort of argue about this a little not argue, but we would just have our differences of opinion.

Speaker 2:

You know he liked to shoot little tiny groups with handguns and you know sure it's great to be able to shoot in nice tiny group and to see how accurate the gun can be at longer range range where I've always been more of an instinctual type of shooter. I may not shoot the tiniest groups, but I tend to just kind of I'm a point shooter, I like to just sort of point and shoot and over time, like you, you kind of begin to treat the sort of muscle memory of the of the thing is like like wow, I've actually learned how to shoot accurately by pointing and shooting. So instead of working only on accuracy and you're not even thinking about the minutia of just treating the gun like an extension of your body and looking at the target, not the gun, yep no, I I agree so

Speaker 2:

it's two different schools of thought. Both are not wrong, both are not right, but both have their application, depending on what a person wants to achieve. I mean, is a person going to do some high level competition and you know where you need to be able to shoot tiny groups to win? Well then, yeah, don't learn how to shoot tiny groups. Will shooting tiny groups with a pistol make you a better killer? No. Will it make you a better shooter? No. Will it make you a better shooter? Yes. But see all of those things in concert. You know, just because you can shoot a pistol well and just because you follow all of the competitive circle stuff well and can do all of these different tasks, it still doesn't mean you're going to have the mindset to apply those skills in a way that is going to make you survive in a gunfight.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely true and those are great points. And I think that you brought up something that I want to talk about first, which is, you know, proficiency is relative to your result. Like, what are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to get proficient at USPA shooting? That's going to be completely different than like self-defense quote and like survival One you're starting with your gun on your side, one you're going to be drawing from concealment. So how do you like? Is shooting the actual meat and potatoes of your training? Not really, it should be presenting the firearm. Anybody can shoot the gun. When you get it out, it's how do you get it out Like you should and I'm not saying you should, but a big part that people neglect is like drawing the weapon, defeating the garment, getting up, getting to your presentation.

Speaker 3:

If you spend more time doing that, the shooting aspect will be easier. Yeah, if you can get your presentation to be consistent, then you're not going to have a problem. It's the part of like I'm not. I've practiced shooting at the. Let's say, you go to the gun range and you're shooting from the bench and you're always picking your gun up from the bench and then you're putting out static. Yeah, you're going to shoot great groups. But how are you when you have to yank your shirt up, pull the gun out, present it and then shoot?

Speaker 3:

And that's the part that people neglect because it's not sexy, that's not the sexy part of training. The sexy part is getting out on the flat range and shooting groups and running to the next target and shooting groups and then doing your press target and shooting groups and then, you know, doing your press check, taking your magazine out and putting your gun back. That's the sexy stuff. But then when you say, hey, show me from concealment, everything becomes super janky and they go really slow. They're like, oh, they're pulling the shirt up slow and they're making sure they don't shoot themselves in the leg because they're not used to it. So it's completely relative. I would say that you can do most of your training at home. You can sit there and I know guys, I train jujitsu with a guy that is an instructor for a major firearms company. Starts with a G, ends with the Ock.

Speaker 2:

Can you give me another clue, man?

Speaker 3:

And he's always posting his own personal reels when he's traveling because he has to travel to all these different places to teach. He's not even shooting. Most of the time he's just doing drills. He's in the mirror and he's just doing presentation drills. Boom, boom, boom, that's all. He's not even shooting. Most of the time he's just doing drills, like he's in the mirror and he's just doing presentation drills. Boom, boom, boom. That's all he's doing.

Speaker 3:

And that translates directly with how you're going to perform on the range. You get out there and you can really maximize your time. So I don't think you have to shoot that much to become to keep your proficiency, you have to do the unsexy stuff, the stuff that you don't really want to do, and it's the same thing with jujitsu. Man, everybody wants to go into jujitsu and just go ham and start like rolling and sparring and going really hard. No one wants to do the boring part of jujitsu, which is like working on one little part to become more efficient, because that's boring and unsexy.

Speaker 3:

So are you training for survival per se? Then train with like presenting from concealment. You know, that's what I believe. And then also, if you train a lot of USPA or like competition shooting. From what I've seen, it's not very practical. I know it's called practical shooting, but when you see them running the course, they're always having to keep their gun pointed down range. So if they're running, and then they're running this way, how would you do it in real life? Right, in real life, in a real life scenario, your gun is always looking where you're looking. You're not ever going to be running down a hallway with your gun facing this way, right? So at what point does it build bad habits? If you're? If you're doing that, yeah. So good point. You have to have a good mix of, you know, practical shooting presentation. I would say actual shooting is probably the least of of the training.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I think that with all of this, there are a combination of different skills that come into play, and I think they're all important, you know, I think you should be, and really what it comes down to, I always say, is, like it is weapons manipulation, it is your ability to manipulate that gun, whether it's draw it, whether it's point it, whether it's shoot it, whether it's clear it, whether it's clean it. Whatever you're doing, it's all about being familiar with how to manipulate that firearm in a way that is going to, you know, be consistent with what your goals are. Whether it's training for self-defense or training for competition, all the skills are equally important, and then, of course, the mindset. So I'm going to tell a couple of stories, and I might've mentioned these stories sometime in the past, but it's been a while since I've told this one, so I want to tell it again, because I think it's very pertinent here and it backs up what Matt said perfectly. A good police buddy of mine. Now he's long retired.

Speaker 2:

Okay, been retired a long time now we're talking back when Atlanta PD still issued model 19 revolvers okay, so this is.

Speaker 2:

This has been a while before every shift. Okay, he would put his uniform on and, um, you know, take his revolver, put it in his rig and he would do some presentations every morning in the mirror, just like you said. And we're talking, um, some of you might know who this guy is. I'm not going to mention his name because you know, I don't. I don't want to put the man's business out there, but it's a crazy story. So, get ready for this.

Speaker 2:

So the guy's doing some presentations, you know, whatever, getting ready for his shift, you know, do about 20 presentations in the mirror, just make sure nothing's catching hanging up. You know we have a, a police belt on with all the gear. You know, yeah, you want to make sure that nothing's in the way, nothing's shifted. You want, you know, because that can be a fatal thing. Like you know, you're checking your gear. Or maybe you just lazily threw your belt on left with a donut in your hand and a coffee and didn't even bother to check.

Speaker 2:

I mean, what if your holster came undone? Or what if, et cetera, et cetera, there could be some issue with the equipment? So you always check your equipment. Just go through and do a quick check. You know, handcuffs are in place, radio yada, yada, et cetera, et cetera. Well, anyway, so he did his press checks, loaded his revolver, checked everything, put it in the holster, out the door he goes. What do you think happened when he left the door? A guy, I kid you not, this is the craziest thing I've ever heard. A cop tell me okay and and look, this is bad, all right, it's bad guy literally pops out of the bushes, right outside of his house with a shotgun.

Speaker 1:

Wow.

Speaker 2:

And this guy, my friend, without even thinking about it, just comes out of the holster with a revolver, double action, right in the middle of his forehead, boom Shoots it, and I'm talking. A guy's got the shotgun pointed at him and he said some snarky remark. I'm going to kill you or something. And this guy pulled out his wheel gun and split, split, instant Blink of an eye Right between the damn eyes.

Speaker 1:

Shot the guy right in the head.

Speaker 2:

Well, it turns out the guy had been convicted of a crime that he was arrested for by this guy, so he was trying to get some revenge. He had gotten out of prison, he somehow found himself a shotgun and decided he was going to go kill this guy. And of course, you know, my friend had other plans. So imagine that your day of work, that day before you even clocked in, you had to do some work and it was the most extreme work you could ever imagine, right outside your front door. Now, what if he had not done his checks? And what if he didn't do his presentations? Would he have been fast enough to get on top of that guy with the shotgun? Maybe not. Had it been any other cop on the force, I guarantee they'd be dead Not my guy, because this guy is an amazing pistol marksman.

Speaker 2:

For one, he's a really great shot with a revolver. I've never seen a guy shoot a 1911 as good as this guy. He's a good shot with a 1911. And that's not the only shooting he's ever been involved in. He's been involved in other shootings, some with a Model 19, and some with. I think they were issuing m9s or berettas. At one point or no, did they switch to model 59s. Might have been the smiths, but anyway, at one point when atlanta switched to some autos he ended up shooting some people the semi as well dang he retired in like the early 80s so this is.

Speaker 3:

I mean, it's been a while. I'll tell you, man, when you said m9 beretta, there's one gun I absolutely hate golly one more story to tell.

Speaker 2:

Okay, now, it's not really a story, this is just more of a point in case to your effect. I'm trying to back up some of the things that matt was saying about this training uh, discrepancies that people may have. Um, and barry used to tell me this story all the time. You guys remember my old co-host, barry, rest his soul. He's been gone quite a while now, but Barry used to tell me the story about how, in the FBI and not only the FBI, but just general law enforcement agencies, but I think this example came from the FBI when the FBI was still issuing revolvers they would have these coffee cans that they would drop the shells into so they wouldn't have to pick up all the brass, right, well, okay, it makes sense.

Speaker 2:

You're on a flat range, you're training. You don't want to have a giant pile of brass for someone to trip over. It just makes sense to just drop the brass in the coffee can, right, well, what is that doing? It's teaching you a bad habit, because now you're shooting your rounds out of your revolver, you're opening the cylinder and you're just ceremoniously dumping the. You know, going out of your way to dump the shells into a coffee can, and then you're just grabbing rounds out of a box and then loading the gun and doing some shooting. I mean it makes sense. It would seem illogical. You don't want to chase brass everywhere. You don't want someone tripping with a loaded gun on some brass on the floor. I get it. That makes sense. What happened? They found that officers in the duress of a shooting would shoot and empty their revolver and then they would go to reload and be looking for a can in the middle of a gunfight.

Speaker 2:

They're like looking for their can because they trained so much to drop the brass in the can that they were going through the muscle memory of looking for something to drop their brass in. It was like like Smitty, what are you doing? You got a speed loader and they weren't training with their speed loaders. They were training by just dropping loose rounds into the chamber instead of using speed loaders. So now you're fumbling, wasting time looking for a can that's not there and you're not even using the dang speed loader that's issued with the gun. Now, of course, they corrected those training deficiencies, but it didn't take long for them to identify just how bad a bad habit can can be in the end, if you allow that bad habit to continue yeah on.

Speaker 3:

I mean, that is a perfect example of you know how training a certain way can affect your real life. Uh, performance, and you know that's why I'm not a huge fan of you know performance and that's why I'm not a huge fan of you know shooting competitions. If you shoot a competition to see if you're the best, that's one thing, but don't pass it off as training. It's a competition, it's. It's something completely different.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so that that's. That's a really great way to you know. Let that story kind of come full circle when it comes to the pistol training, and I I do want to talk about rifles and shotguns a little bit too. Before we do, though, I want to give a quick thanks to our friends at Modern Warriors.

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 2:

Right now, you can save 10% on your first order when you use the promo code LIBERTY at checkout. Visit modernwarriorscom today. Browse at checkout. Visit modernwarriorscom today. Browse their selection and see why they're not just another shop. They're your tactical specialists. Remember to use the code liberty at checkout to get yourself 10 off. They're based out of utah y'all, so if some of y'all are in utah, you go check out their store, their physical locations in utah. Yep, very cool, and a big thanks to them for supporting our efforts here on um, on llp. So, um, I think, when we think training Matt, and we think shooting proficiency, I think most people tend to gravitate to handguns. What do you think that is? Why did we talk about handguns first? Why didn't we talk about shotguns and rifles first? Why did we talk about handguns? Why did the conversation go just to handguns?

Speaker 3:

I believe that it's probably because more people have handguns and it's a little bit more practical because they actually carry them. You're not concealed carrying. I mean, maybe you are concealed carrying a SBR, but most people are going to conceal carry a handgun.

Speaker 2:

Right, that's the way I look at it. I mean, I think when most people think shooting proficiency, especially for defensive purposes, they're always going to be going to that pistol training as being like a super important thing. What's crazy about it to me is that, okay, this is where I probably depart from maybe some other people in the training community, which I do want to talk about formal training with, with, with trainers Uh, people like John Lovell, like John's great, he is so good with people. If you're in Atlanta and you ever want to take um a gun course, john Lovell is definitely a great guy for that type of training, especially if you want to learn like some advanced carbine handling and pistol handling. He's definitely, you know, right on up there in a high proficiency level course. But one thing I'll mention about his courses though if you do want to book a course with John Lovell, you certainly want to get it while the getting's good, because they usually those courses sell out pretty quick and also kd um kd with noc training.

Speaker 2:

You know he does a great job. Also my friend ken at perfectus, so there's lots of folks that do amazing training here, especially and I'm speaking more from georgia than I am other states. There's obviously several other great trainers in other states as well, but here in georgia, I mean, we've got some really great trainers here.

Speaker 3:

We do, we do, we have, we have access to a lot of different areas to train as well. So with us being in the South, we have a litany of different areas. We have mountainous terrain, we have like forests, we have open fields, flat, flat ranges. We have all kinds of stuff.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, a lot of topography, a lot of different.

Speaker 2:

you know areas that we can shoot in Shoot houses all kinds of stuff, shoot houses, and one thing I'll say is, like John Lovell and I were having a discussion about shotguns, I guess that'll be a good way to segue into shotguns, and I want to sort of get into this conversation, based on a conversation that I have with John Lovell about shotguns. One thing that John and I disagreed on was the application of shotguns and how important they are or aren't and why, and I think the question that I had for him. I was like hey, john, why do, why do less trainers teach shotgun course? You always see pistol and rifle, but you don't always see a shotgun course for, uh, training purposes. And I think his response was more along the lines of well, shotguns aren't as practical for what we do, as you know, a rifle or a pistol, which I would agree.

Speaker 2:

I mean, if I had a choice between a rifle or a shotgun, I'd probably choose a rifle. Yep, that makes sense. You're reaching for a long gun and you have a choice. Well then, sure, your Daniel Defense Mark 18 is going to be the ticket, right. But I didn't fully feel satisfied by that and I was like well, john, do you own a shotgun? He's like I'm not really into shotguns.

Speaker 1:

I'm like bro, come on.

Speaker 2:

But I noticed, like I saw some of the Warrior Poet Network things that he was posting and he's been talking about shotguns more and I'm thinking, okay, maybe I got to John a little bit, because you know he, he's been showing off shotguns and having some fun and just doing some general like fun videos, not necessarily just training but just showing off cool stuff.

Speaker 2:

Which I remember when John and I and this has been probably four, maybe five years ago he and I had this discussion because he came to my house and of course he saw my gun collection, he was like, wow, like you have so much crap that I have no idea what this is Like. He had such a sort of one track mind on the tools of his trade. You know, hey, he's got his Glock 19. He's got his, you know, his rifle and that's it, like for his job and what he did in the military. Those are the tools of the trade. So you can't blame a person for being proficient with the tools. No-transcript. I've noticed he's been playing with some military rifles and just coming out of his shell a little bit and enjoying a little bit of other guns than just a Mark 18 and a Glock.

Speaker 2:

So I'm glad to see that, because proficiency, in my opinion, is a universal thing. I always go back to that movie, black Hawk Down. I mean, look, I know Black Hawk Down is a great movie, it's a great war movie. And in Black Hawk Down there's a scene where the Rangers take control of a recoilless rifle attached to a truck. They capture this recoilless rifle, at least briefly and not long enough to shoot a few rounds out of it.

Speaker 2:

Yep, well, if you didn't know how to use a recoil-less rifle, you'd be in trouble, wouldn't you? So it's probably important to know how to use guns that you may not be familiar with, because you might have to commandeer something that you're not familiar with and guess what? You're going to be at a disadvantage if you've never held an AK or an SKS or recoilless rifle or an SVD or whatever. It could be a Ventures, it could be anything, you know. I'm sure even the dumbest grunt could figure it out in not a lot of time, but wouldn't it be nice to have a little bit of a working knowledge of some of those things? So I'm glad to see him, sort of, you know, having fun with some other stuff. Yeah and there was.

Speaker 3:

There were very few trainers that are, you know, shotgun specific and that's due to the fact that it's hard to run a shotgun Like. It's hard to run it proficiently, it's hard to load it quickly, it's hard to carry enough ammunition to keep it fed, to load it quickly, it's hard to carry enough ammunition to keep it fed. It's it's just way more technical and and like and the application. So if you watch some of these uh training sessions because I've seen some like some of the higher level combat shotgun training sessions like dude, these guys have their fingers taped up because all they're doing is just shucking shells into a shotgun. If they you know failure to extract, they're doing is just shucking shells into a shotgun. If you know failure to extract, they're trying to like pull these shells out.

Speaker 3:

It's not as easy, as you know. You're trying to run an AR, ar. You just kind of bang it around a couple of times like shotgun. It Boom, something comes out. You're ready to go. But I'll tell you what if you're on the other side of cover and you have someone throwing eight or nine rounds of double up buck, you know it like it is, it is definitely something you don't want coming your way. So it's just like you. Just, it's just, you're getting peppered with it. Um, it's, I like shotguns, but I, I, I am in agreements with you. I think that if you said, hey, pick one, I would definitely pick a, uh, ar or a carbine. Um, I think I can just get a little bit more surgical with it. Yeah, um, and I know I can carry enough ammunition to keep it fed, true I think there's a misconception that shotguns are not precise.

Speaker 2:

I think that's another big thing is a lot of whether it's a trainer or whether it's the end user. Going well, you know, they take the Hollywood route and they go well. Shotguns just throw a giant spread and they're just inaccurate. Spray and pray and you just aim in the general direction.

Speaker 2:

That's not true, especially when you're talking the buckshot rounds, like the federal flight control buckshot which has the flight control wad. Talking the buckshot rounds, like the Federal Flight Control buckshot which has the flight control wad, it's very accurate buckshot ammo I'm talking. It can print a tiny buckshot group at like 30 yards, which is absolutely crazy. Now that's flight control, which is really really good ammo. Not all buckshot is going to pattern like that, but it is not impossible to get a tight buckshot pattern out of a good Benelli or really even some of the lesser expensive shotguns still pattern well with that ammo, which is wild to me, because it's really that WOD design that makes a difference.

Speaker 2:

And um, I think that people tend to think that shotguns are not precise, that they're not precise tools, and that's completely untrue. I mean, a good shooter with a, with a good shotgun that knows what they're doing, can absolutely lay slugs down at 100 yards and they still have visceral energy at 100 yards. So I think that a shotgun is a much more precise tool than people you know maybe give it credit for. And that might intimidate a lot of trainers who maybe they don't really know the way to apply a shotgun properly, and it is true that, yes, you're. Even with the most well-equipped sem-auto shotgun, you're still dumbing yourself down to a third of the ammo you can carry in one AR magazine. So the logistics of, let's just say, supply and demand of the ammo you have on hand. I think someone would rather grab an AR that has a 30-round magazine in it than a shotgun that has nine rounds in it On its best day.

Speaker 1:

It has nine rounds in it.

Speaker 2:

Usually it's seven or eight, and what are you going to do with those seven in it? Than a shotgun that has nine rounds in it on its best day has nine rounds in it usually is seven or eight. And what are you going to do with those seven or eight rounds? Well, let's go all the way back to the original discussion where we talked about distances. All right, and the average defensive distance for any gun. Let's just say most defensive distances. Let's just say 21 feet. Now, if I have seven rounds of buckshot or seven slugs and you're 21 feet away from me, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to make that shot with a shotgun.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, You're not going to be there much longer, and trust me you are not going to require a trip to the hospital, you're going to require a trip to the morgue. That's it. Bring a, bring a bag, zip it up. That's it. Put the tag on the toe. Don't even take it to the hospital. They're done A center mass shot from a good slug at that distance out of a shotgun. Don't even bother calling the ambulance. Call the morgue. They're not getting up.

Speaker 3:

I would even go as far to say like if you're wearing plates like you would call an ambulance.

Speaker 2:

You're going to have some broken ribs.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's going to cause some heavy, heavy contusions.

Speaker 2:

It's going to knock your breath out and you're going to be dropping some ribs. I mean it's definitely especially like a one and three-eighth ounce Berniki Black Magic Slug. So I think there's also this sort of oddly sort of romanticized application that shotguns have, like everyone thinks of the. You know the sound that the media uses and the Hollywood always uses a shotgun and then like the sound of racking it and people Ooh, they run away, they get scared. I suppose there is maybe a psychological factor to that, but I think people get way too romanticized on that aspect of it and not really think about the actual applications that shotguns can have.

Speaker 2:

I mean, at close range they are a very powerful tool. I mean you're talking a good slug like a one and three eighth ounce Bernicke Black Magic. I always bring up the Black Magic slug because that's my slug of choice, because it's heavy and it's moving fast and it's well made. But that slug is generating some ridiculous foot pounds of energy. Now we're not talking like four bore territory. We're not talking 577 nitro express, big bore stalking rifle territory, but we might be talking, you know, at the right range.

Speaker 2:

You're talking a gun that could could potentially, you know, kill very large game like you're talking very similar foot pounds of energy to some big bore rifles like hunting rifles so if you think about it in terms of energy and don't think about it in terms of birdshot, everybody thinks a shotgun, they think birdshot that they don't realize it shoots solids too, and and powerful ones, like there's a very powerful gun and if you know how to use it right, it can, you know, shoot through walls, you can shoot through car doors, so that has an application. It will do things that rifle bullets won't in certain limited situations.

Speaker 3:

Not to sound like berninke, is uh sponsoring the show because they're definitely not but they actually have talk to us by the

Speaker 2:

way.

Speaker 3:

If you want call us um, but they have a barrier penetrator around the special forces. It's actually called the bernieke, like special forces, right it's? Special forces barrier penetrator specifically made like barrier penetration. So it's like, hey, car doors, metal door. Because then I know in iraq metal doors were a big thing, like a lot of the doors there were metal those shotgun slugs will do things that rifle bullets won't.

Speaker 2:

Yep, now again we're going to go all the way back around, full circle. We talked about pistols and shotguns. We picked on John Lovell a little bit Good guy, by the way, yeah, definitely a good guy but we save rifles for last. We're not going to spend a lot of time talking about rifles, because I feel like rifles are this universal tool that we're all going to fight towards. If you had a choice between a shotgun, a pistol or a rifle, most people would grab a rifle. If we did a poll, I guarantee 90% would grab the rifle.

Speaker 3:

And if you don't, if you're concerned about not having ever shot a rifle, I guarantee you you will shoot better with that rifle, having never shot one, than shooting that handgun or a shotgun especially. Yeah because I mean just the fact that they have like I think we talked about this before I've never met someone that didn't shoot better with a stock or a brace that doesn't shoot with one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Just because it just gives you so much more stability, or has never shot a gun at all.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so that's a factor too. I mean, if, if someone's a new shooter, you know they're all if, if. If you don't want to train them on a pistol right out the gate, let's say they're recoil shy or they're sound shy, they're worried about the sound and recoil. You start them out on a 10-22 with a suppressor on it. You know they realize it doesn't kick, they realize it's not loud, they realize it's accurate. They can work on the fundamentals, they can work on everything. You can talk to them while you're shooting, don't have to worry about the sound. So those things from a training element can, can really look rimfires, make a big deal on that. It's really good to get some of that, some of that you know, into play there. But at the end of the day, yes, rifles are way easier to shoot than shotguns.

Speaker 3:

It gives you a much better natural point of aim, like the way that you hold a rifle or even let's just say, like a pd, pdw or a flux, anything that kind of puts that those sights out in front of you just gives you a much better natural point of aim yeah, you can hold the gun a lot more stable yeah, like that, when you're shooting a handgun, unless you practice like genuinely practice a lot, you're going to get a lot of floating, you're going to get a lot of like down into the left action, because that's that's where everybody tends to go.

Speaker 2:

I know very few people matt that can come out of a holster with a glock 19 and and place a couple of rounds in quick succession on a on a plate at like 100 yards or something yeah, that's.

Speaker 2:

It's not a common skill for your average shooter to be able to just do on the regular right. It takes a lot of practice to shoot that. Well now could a person of average skill you know, maybe they've worked on the draw could they engage a steel plate at seven yards with relative proficiency. Maybe they don't get them all in the A zone, but they hit the plate. That's much more achievable. Work on getting fast and accurate at the ranges you're going to use the pistol in in a combat situation first. Then you can worry about doing trick shots at 100 yards, because really a 100-yard shot is a trick shot at the end of the day. You're not practically going to shoot a handgun at 100 yards. Really a 100 yard shot is a trick shot at the end of the day.

Speaker 2:

Like you're, you're not practically going to shoot a handgun 100 yards. You can get away. You can get to a better gun, I can get to a rifle. Why would I want to go out of my way? And this kind of gets in the argument of if PCCs are worthless or not, which we're not going to go there. That's a whole nother bag of apples that we're not going to open right here at the end of the show, but I think that I think that people tend to place too high of an emphasis on shooting handguns at long range when there may not always necessarily be a tactical application to shoot it that far. I'm not saying don't be good at it, because I do it all the time, I love it. But I also realize that practically I'm not going to go there, I'm going to grab a long gun.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean, why lob a Nerf football at somebody when you can send a laser beam, you know that's? I mean that's basically, if you're trying to lob in at 100 yards a 9 mil like, you can just pick up, you know, your rifle and send a 5.56. Like, because that same exact shot, completely different hold.

Speaker 2:

I think I've never really been a fan of subsonic 300 blackout.

Speaker 2:

I like the two twenties you know, two twenties out of a suppressor. Yeah, they're quiet, but but you might as well just shoot a 45 ACP at that point. I mean it it, it drops similar, it's a similar weight. Maybe the two twenties out of the 300 blackout have a better ballistic coefficient, because the bullet more bullet shaped versus a 45 is kind of a bowling ball just falls out of the air. Sure, okay, but you could zero a 45 caliber carbine for 100 yards with with a can and just have it for that distance I'm glad you said that, I'm glad you brought that out, that 110 triple shock, now is another story now, that's a monster out of a 16 inch barrel you're talking.

Speaker 2:

That's a nice little honest contender in a 300 blackout.

Speaker 3:

Well, I'm glad you mentioned that about 300 blackout, because I've never really liked it. Um, you know, it's a fun round to shoot and it's it's fun for the range. But that is a prime example of how something was designed for a very, very specific mission. It was designed for a very, very specific mission. It was designed for special unit operators to be able to go in shoot something subsonic, very quiet, little recoil, very close range, no body armor. The combatants that you're using this against in the Middle East don't wear body armor, so you don't have the contention, you don't have to worry about having high velocities coming in to penetrate. It's very, very mission specific and that's because the you know what is it.

Speaker 3:

Usasoc put out RFQ or a request for a proposal on this specific round and then it got out to the public and everybody's like, oh, the special forces uses it. It must be like really good in high speed, but it's for a very specific mission set. If you hit somebody with level four plates with that, it's gonna like it doesn't have the power, it doesn't have the speed to really do anything. It's coming out of a seven to eight inch barrel. Yeah, you know, very close range work, um, so I've just never been a fan.

Speaker 3:

It's super expensive, like you're talking two dollars, three dollars around um. On the civilian side, if you go and look it up, um, and it has a place, as you know, it's fun at the range. Or if you have some you know delusions of grandeur that you know you're gonna go out and like need to use this in in real life it'll work, but not against people that are armored up. It just doesn't work that way, um, and I know there's gonna be people out there that are 300 blackout. You know they love it, but let's just face the facts, man. That's what it is it's?

Speaker 3:

it's designed for a very specific mission set that doesn't. It's not applicable, uh, to the current situation, which is probably why they're not using it right now. Right now, they've kind of went opposite. Now they're like oh man, everybody's got armor, we need penetrators. So now they're going with uh, what is it this? The fury, what do they call that? Whatever that new round, the sig came out with 277 whatever it is yeah, I mean they went the complete opposite direction.

Speaker 3:

Let's make it bigger, stronger, faster, instead of smaller, slower, quieter. I think they're gonna regret that.

Speaker 2:

I believe I think in in the long term they're. I mean not, I'm not trying to take a dump on sig, because I think they're a fantastic company and they make some really good stuff um, but I feel like they're gonna regret that decision. Um, well, I already. I mean, look at some of the soldiers you saw recently. Like you know, they ain't passing a tape test. And that's a hefty rifle to tote around.

Speaker 3:

I was just talking about it.

Speaker 2:

today, you're asking an infantryman to tote around a bigger rifle.

Speaker 3:

Yep, I just don't see it in them.

Speaker 2:

Well, and I think they have had some issues.

Speaker 3:

They've had some issues with the chamber pressures and and stuff, because it's it's another work all yeah, it's an extremely high chamber pressure in that particular round, um, but I mean, as far as rifles go, uh, you're right. So everything should be to fight back to the rifle, right, and once you get the rifle. And so what are we looking at, like practicing with a rifle? Again, we're not talking. We need to work on the stuff. That's not sexy so, like you know, it's easy to get in line, get that natural point of aim and shoot. Now we got to work on up drills like hey, getting up to it, how are you presenting that rifle? Like when you're coming up, are you are? There's different rules of thought. There's guys that carry high port and come down. There's guys that carry low ready and come up, and then you have the high speed guys that punch out when they do it. You just have to find out, like, what works best for you. How are you going to present that, that rifle for for the best outcome?

Speaker 2:

yeah, and you know, practicing your offhand shooting, which I know I'm guilty of shooting from a bench a lot because I I kind chase accuracy and I love kind of seeing how accurate guns can be and I get pigeonholed into. Well, I don't shoot offhand as much as I really should, primarily in videos. I mean, when I'm filming YouTube videos on rifles, I like to shoot from the bench because I want to show the potential the rifle can do.

Speaker 1:

It's not about how good I can shoot.

Speaker 2:

This is how good the rifle can do, and I want people to get an honest representation of what the rifle's capable of, not what I'm capable of. So that's at least that's the story I'm going to tell, but you know it is important to shoot off hand Before we get any further in the show. We're going to probably wrap things up here in a moment. I do want to give a shout out to the last sponsor of the show today, and that's Allegiance Gold.

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 2:

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Speaker 3:

Heck yeah $5,000.

Speaker 2:

$5,000 worth of gold. It would have to be one heck of an initial purchase.

Speaker 3:

Well, I mean, if you're in the market to get that and start investing, then they're just kind of putting a little bit of icing on the cake, that's right.

Speaker 2:

So in in closing, I guess we could say that training is an investment in your future. Absolutely, I mean you. You should gather proficiency in everything you do in life, whether you know if, if you're trying to, you're going to be in a car owner, I mean for any amount of time. Eventually you're going to probably need to learn how to turn a wrench or two and try to assess a few problems on your own. Yep, same thing for motorcycles, same thing for owning a gun.

Speaker 2:

So owning a gun means knowing how to use the gun, knowing how to clean the gun, how to draw it, how to use it, what your rights and responsibilities are and everything in between. So you know there is an all-encompassing circumstance that goes into the way that we view firearms ownership, and you know those of us that, I think, think more like you and I do. You know we understand the sort of totality of it and there are people that wind up getting a gun and maybe they don't always necessarily think about everything that goes into it. They buy a cheap little holster, they buy some ball ammo, they throw some ammo in it and they go about their day. Will that work out for them? Hopefully, I mean.

Speaker 2:

We can only hope that it would Realistically, will it? I mean, I guess that's a risk you have to be willing to take If you, you know, don't want to put in the time to be really truly proficient with the firearm that you've purchased. You're kind of gambling with your own life at that point, because introducing a firearm to the scenario may actually be detrimental to you if you aren't actually really prepared to deploy it in a way that's going to make a difference. So having a gun is great, that's a first good step. But deploying it in a way that is actually going to change the tide of the battle, so to speak, is equally important.

Speaker 3:

No, you're right, and I think that's exactly when people say don't become a liability, like don't you pulling that firearm out, you better know how to use it. Hopefully and I would say, you know, I think we had a great conversation and I think what, hopefully, what everybody understands is that you need to train the unsexy part of everything.

Speaker 3:

It's always the unsexy stuff that you know we'll get the job done, um, that's right. So hopefully we, you know you guys get out there and you can train a little bit more, um, if you want to, and then go from there, Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Well, guys to and then go from there. Absolutely well, guys. Thanks so much for tuning in to today's podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's show. Uh, remember we post everywhere that you can find all your favorite podcasts stitcher, spotify, apple podcasts, etc. Etc. You can find us everywhere. Make sure you leave us a good review. Also, there's an email there. Uh, you can drop in um a comment if you want or give us some questions to answer. We're more than happy to answer questions on the air, uh, which I actually forgot to do in today's show. I do have some questions, but they'll have to wait till next show.

Speaker 2:

Get it next time. We'll get them next time, but I will. I will take those questions down that were recently submitted and answer them in the next show. Also, follow us at iraq veteran 8888 on twitter as well. As you know, we do post the show every monday at 9.m Eastern Standard Time here on the YouTube channel if you want to watch this in video form as well, and the Instagram is LLPpodcast underscore official. That is correct. Follow us on Instagram as well, and you can also follow me at IRACVeteran8888 underscore official. I share a lot of the LLP content over there as well. You have to type the whole thing in, though. I'm shadow banned, so if you're trying to find me on Instagram and you're wondering why I'm not showing up, that's why.

Speaker 1:

I'm shadow banned.

Speaker 2:

Anyway, thanks so much for tuning in many more on the way. You guys have a good one.

Speaker 1:

Train hard. Thanks for listening to life, liberty and pursuit. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, spotify and anywhere else podcasts are found. Be sure to leave us a five-star review. We'd really appreciate that you can support us over on Ballistic Inc by picking yourself up some merch and remember guys, dangerous freedom. Have a good one.