When Violence Is the Answer: Learning How to Do What It Takes When Your Life Is at Stake

by Tim Larkin

Look at firearms training. If you have a good instructor, you’ll first learn how to dry fire without any bullets. You’ll learn all the fundamentals of holding and aiming a gun. After you’ve internalized that information, you’ll dry fire at a stationary target, learning how to pull the trigger with as little jerk and lift as possible. Then you’ll learn how to load the weapon. Next, you’ll start shooting with live ammunition, usually one round at a time in single-shot groups. You’ll slowly and deliberately try to hit your target, repeatedly. Then you’ll move on to multiple-shot groups, where you fire a quick succession of shots at the target. Once your aim is consistently good (which could take days or weeks), your instructor might introduce the concept of a moving target. If you maintain accurate targeting in that phase, the instructor will introduce the next phase—which is hitting a moving target while you’re also moving. At any stage of the game, if there’s a failure or regression of any kind—if you start to lose your targeting capacity and your shot groupings start to widen—you’ll default back to the slow, deliberate targeting of a sedentary target. This is how skilled instructors train beginners in the basics, but it’s also how the best in the business stay sharp. The system never changes: break everything down to fundamentals. Repeat, repeat, repeat. When you can perform those fundamentals in your sleep, you’ll know you’ve mastered them.