Seven Common Misconceptions That Can Get You Killed!

Before I share with you Seven Misconceptions That Can Get You Killed, I want to make sure you know at the end of this report I have arranged for a Las Vegas Showgirl to share with you her experience at Front Sight and demonstrate a few of the skills she learned in a course with us. This is important because many of the misconceptions floating around affect women more than men — but not Front Sight ladies — not after a Front Sight course!

Seven Common Misconceptions That Can Get You Killed!

With thousands upon thousands of law-abiding citizens, law enforcement officers and military personnel traveling across the country to attend courses at Front Sight, we are astutely aware of what people think — prior to their Front Sight Experience — about firearms, training, and their personal safety. Fortunately, they made it to our course before any of their misconceptions cost them time, money, or worse — their lives.

In the interest of helping you learn from others’ mistakes, allow me to share with you Seven Common Misconceptions That Can Get You Killed!

These misconceptions are not listed in any order of importance or frequency:

Misconception #1: If I stab my attacker with a knife he will immediately collapse. This misconception has been created and propagated by the movie industry. We have all seen the action adventure hero, throw a knife, sticking it into the stomach or chest or neck of the bad guy, and as the bad guy lets out a groan, he falls to the floor. In reality, a single knife stab is very unlikely to cause immediate collapse simply because the knife stab does not create enough immediate damage to the nerves, arteries, or organs to cause a massive spike and then equally massive and immediate drop in blood pressure. Even multiple stab wounds will not necessarily stop an aggressive dedicated opponent. All the while, your attacker is continuing his assault on you. A knife is better than no weapon at all, but is never a match for a gun in well trained hands.

Misconception #2: If I shoot my attacker with a handgun, he will stop and drop. This is another misconception created and propagated by the movie industry. The reality is that handguns are woefully inadequate in their stopping power as compared to a shotgun or rifle. The proliferation of street drugs that numb reaction to pain, access to body armor, and an overall increase in the number of hardened criminals victimizing Americans, makes the chance of a one-shot stop less likely than ever before. Even the handgun of Dirty Harry (Model 29 in .44 Magnum) will not guarantee a one shot-stop. (More on gun selection later in this report.)

Because handguns are inherently not good fight stoppers, you must rely on your skill and ability to deliver TWO, well placed shots, delivered quickly to your opponent’s thoracic cavity to create the greatest amount of damage you can. Then be ready — and mentally prepared — to fire a cranio-ocular shot (between eye-brows and mustache) if he continues his attack. This requires training. Without such training, you can be tragically surprised when your opponent is hit but does not go down. The good news is that after a course at Front Sight, You Will Be Able to perform this drill on demand to a level that exceeds the vast majority of people who carry a gun for a living!

Misconception #3: All you have to do with a short-barreled shotgun is point it at your attacker and shoot because the WIDE pattern will knock him down. This misconception comes from Grandpa! In reality, most lethal encounters will occur at a distance of three to five yards, be done in three to five seconds, with three to five shots fired between the combatants. At the distance of three to five yards, the pattern on your shotgun is not much bigger than the size of the bore and rarely larger than a couple of inches! It is real easy to miss if you don’t see a flash of the sights on your shotgun before pressing the trigger — especially under the stress of a lethal encounter, when you must shoot first and fast to save your life. We prove this in every course when we place our students into the live-fire tactical simulators. They can’t believe how easy it is to miss at such close distances. Once they understand the concept of a flash sight picture, they are just as fast (sometimes faster) and can guarantee their hits. After all it is not how fast you shoot that counts in a gun fight, it is how fast you hit that counts!

Misconception #4: Give a woman a small, lightweight revolver because all she has to do is grab it out of her nightstand, point and shoot. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard this in gun shops, at trade shows, and from husbands explaining why their wives are burdened with a gun that has minimal sights and a long, heavy trigger pull! I could literally write a book on the subject of Misconceptions on Gun Selection. Let me just say that a woman or a man, when confronted with a situation requiring them to pull a gun from their nightstand, needs a gun that they can quickly HIT with on the first and second shot and then be able to deliver a precision shot if needed. (See Misconception #2). If you miss, the only reason you will survive is because your opponent is sloppy. In order to be able to HIT with a handgun, you need high visibility sights and a trigger that provides a clean, crisp trigger break. The small revolver or small pistol is a weapon that satisfies a specific tactical niche and requires advanced training to use it effectively for general self defense.

At Front Sight we have hundreds of students attend every month that do not own a gun or have never fired a gun before attending our course. We rent them all the gear they need. We could provide any gun in the industry. What do we provide them? We rent them a semiautomatic Glock in 9mm. Why? Because it is simple to use, has high visibility sights, and a smooth trigger. By the end of the first day, our previously inexperienced students are operating the functions of the pistol like a pro and hitting their targets. By the end of the fourth day, they are able to present from a holster, and deliver a pair of center hits to a target 5 yards away in less than 1.5 seconds!

Misconception #5: You need to bring a Glock or 1911 to attend a handgun course at Front Sight. This misconception was spawned by students who see lots of Glocks and 1911s being carried by our instructors. The reason you see Glocks and 1911s being carried by our instructors is because they are reliable, simple to use, have good sights and a smooth trigger. The reality is that Front Sight’s motto is Any Gun Will Do — If You Will Do. What I mean is that in a lethal confrontation, training is superior to equipment. We will train you to be great with what you have, so simply bring what you have. You don’t need to go to the extra expense or time of purchasing another gun (unless you want to) in order to attend a course with us. The techniques we teach are specifically created and refined to work with any firearm. We train you so you can pick up any gun and operate it with the proficiency of a seasoned professional. Don’t ever believe that equipment will substitute for training as that type of thinking that can get you killed. Remember, YOU are the weapon, your firearm is just a tool. We are training YOU to be the weapon, not the gun you are carrying.

Misconception #6: I will rise to the occasion in a gun fight and be better than I normally am on the shooting range. This misconception comes from people who, in the past, have had great success when facing clutch situations, in activities involving gross motor skills — like the fullback who can be counted on to score the touchdown when it is fourth down and goal-to-go or the underdog boxer who musters everything he has to deliver a knockout punch in the last round. They are successfully responding to the positive effects of adrenaline which makes large muscles stronger and faster.

Unfortunately, in a gunfight, your body is going to dump massive amounts of adrenaline (much more than you are accustomed to in any sporting activity) into to your bloodstream from the fight or flight survival mechanism. This adrenaline dump will make you temporarily stronger and faster, but it adversely affects fine motor coordination such as your ability to focus on the front sight and press the trigger without disrupting the sight alignment. As a result, you will tend to be about half as good in a real gunfight as you are on your best day on the range.

We prove this to our students in the live-fire shooting house where their adrenaline flows a bit more than on the range! As a result of this phenomena, those who know, train twice as much on the range and in the live-fire simulators, so should they ever need to use their skills to save their life or the lives of their loved ones — in a real lethal encounter — their half as good will still be more than enough to win! Remember, you will not rise to the occasion in a gun fight. Instead, you will default to the level of your training and then only be half as good as you are on your best day on the range … so you better get great training and train to be twice as good as you think you need to be!

Misconception #7: Point Shooting (Shooting without seeing a flash of the sight picture before pressing the trigger.) The point shooting misconception has been around more than 50 years. Point shooting reinvents itself every now and then with a different name or different instructor or different agency and for different reasons, but still falls flat on it’s back because you cannot guarantee your hits unless you see a flash of the sight picture. Only good hits win gunfights and you need to see a flash of the sights to get good hits. Point Shooting can be very fast shooting if you want to practice five times as much as people trained to use their sights, but if any precision (cranio-ocular cavity) or distance (beyond 7 yards) is required, Point Shooting will get you killed because you have to see your sights to get good hits.

Here is a true story to illustrate the fallacy of Point Shooting:

Front Sight has the finest firearms instructor development program in the industry — bar none — because we hold several instructor development courses each year plus ongoing instructor development training for our staff during our regular courses. As a student you get to benefit from our stellar instructional staff.

Several times a year we hold our entry level Instructional Develop Course which starts with a skills test. (If you are going to instruct at Front Sight you must first, be able to perform on demand and that means you need to be able to demonstrate how to shoot and shoot extremely well!) At one of our entry level Instructor Courses, with the first pair of shots out of the holster at 3 yards, I noticed a point shooter in the instructor candidates. How did I notice? Because he was slightly faster than the rest of the group, but his two shots were not well centered on the target’s thoracic cavity.

I walked up and asked him, Are you a point shooter? He responded proudly, Yes I am! I then asked him, What do you do when you have to deliver a hostage taker head shot or have a small target at distance? He responded, I look at the sights. His was the correct answer in theory but it does not work in reality.

You see, it takes so much time to practice point shooting, that you engrain not looking at the sights into your reflexes and when under the stress of a skills test (not to mention a lethal encounter) you will default to the level of your training and you will not look at your sights!

So guess what happened when the line of instructor candidates moved back to 5, 7, and 10 yards? His point shooting group continued to open up with peripheral hits outside the thoracic cavity. At 15 and 25, even though he told me he looks at his sights at distance, the stress of the test caused him to point shoot instead of taking the fraction of a second to see a flash sight picture and he had one shot outside the outline of the target and one shot outside the thoracic cavity. At 25 yards he was completely off the paper!

We then brought the instructor candidates back to the 5 and 7 yard line for head shots. At 5 yards three of his five shots were outside the outline of the head and two were in the head but not in the cranio-ocular cavity. At 7 yards all five shots missed the head! Now understand he had plenty of time to tell himself to look at the sights, but again and again, under the stress of the test and the short time frames, he reflexively could not do it!

Training to see a flash site picture only takes a fraction of a second at the top of your draw stroke and it guarantees your hit. Your opponent will not know the difference between a fraction of a second, but he will know the difference between a miss and a center hit! So train to see a flash of the sight picture. Your life and the lives of those you protect are depending on it!

I hope you have enjoyed reading Seven Common Misconceptions That Can Get You Killed. Unfortunately, the gun industry and firearms training industry are loaded with them. The good news is that after a four day course at Front Sight you will be able to recognize all the major misconceptions floating around because you will be more knowledgeable and better trained than 99% of the gun owning population! I am sure of it. In fact, Front Sight will more than satisfy your expectations or I will pay for your training. You have my personal guarantee.

But again, don’t take my word for it. To watch a Las Vegas Showgirl who came to Front Sight with no previous firearms training, share her Front Sight Experience with you and demonstrate the skills she learned, click on: Jacqueline.

Watch for Message #8 from me in a couple of days where I share with you the Color Code of Mental Awareness. If you adopt this Color Code as your own, you are less likely to ever need the deadly skills we teach because criminals will see that you are aware of your environment, leaving you alone and attacking someone else who is less aware.

Feel free to share this report with your family and friends. To receive their own reports, our brochure, and 90-minute award-winning DVD then please direct them to Front Sight.

I look forward to seeing you at Front Sight!

Dr. Ignatius Piazza
Front Sight Founder and Director
Four-Weapons Combat Master
Your host of Front Sight Challenge Reality TV Series

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To watch a Las Vegas Showgirl who came to Front Sight with no previous firearms training, share her Front Sight Experience with you and demonstrate the skills she learned, click on: Jacqueline.