I know you read it in a gun forum somewhere, IDPA will get you killed. There are some illustrated fools who make their life in forums by bad mouthing IDPA for whatever silly and/or nefarious reasons. Some are just repeating what they read somewhere, some have a vested interest in you attending their Ninja Gunfighter School of Magic Tricks and some probably sucked so bad at the sport that their egos still have not healed.

I am not going to launch into another tirade in defense of IDPA and other shooting sports but rather describe a teaching moment courtesy of an IDPA match. Yours truly is called to the line to face a 9 target Course of Fire to be shot on the move. The rationale behind the stage was that you were caught in the open when a gang of miscreants decide to come after you. You were to draw and engage all of the Bad Guys with at least 2 good shots on each target as I made my way to the safety of my vehicle.  Bad news: All but 2 of the bad guys are behind some sort of hard cover and I wasn’t and that meant shooting on the move and fast. As per Safety Officer’ instruction I load my gun and get ready…BEEP!

I had decided to play it safe, shoot fast and shoot every target at least three times and by golly I did. By the fourth target I perform a reload from slide lock that was a smooth as if I was Head SWAT Master of the Ninja  Tactical Academy. I keep going fast making all sort of neatly placed 9 mm holes in the targets and reaching the last target that receives one shot before the gun goes again in slide lock. I reach for the remaining spare mag in my waist and….. it was not there. Oh Crap!

I knew I reloaded all the mags and had them in place before the stage started. Stupidly I look down and I see the freshly empty & ejected magazine at my feet and then I look to my side and see 2 magazines laying on the ground some 15 feet away. I run back and identify the loaded mag, retrieve it, load the gun and proceed back to the last target that gets 3 more rounds on account of me being royally pissed at myself.

After unloading, showing clear and holstering, I found out what happened. My mag carrier is a leather Bianchi double stack, double mag pouch with tension screws. The right pouch is a bit looser than the left and somehow while retrieving the mag for the first reload, I somehow managed to unseat and drop the second one. My fellow squad members were torn between pity for a run that was going great and laughter at the Keystone Cops performance at the end by yours truly.

It was not a total loss. My equipment was not in combat condition, my fault alone. Did I forget to mention I shoot what I carry everyday? So I learned the cheap way that my lack of maintenance might have cost me dearly if the situation was real. Although I dislike eating humble pie, be subject to public ridicule and administering myself several hard ones to my rear end, I rather have that than be full of holes and being attached to a feeding tune at the local hospital.

So now my pouch is fixed, my holster was given a thorough check and even the belt got a nice cleaning. Contrary to the expectation of the nay-sayers, IDPA did not get me killed but it might have seved my life and taught me a lesson.

I am one of those freaks that believe in IDPA as a valuable training tool. I shoot any stage as if the cardboard targets had the ability to shoot back and produce involuntary ballistic piercing in my body. Today was an absolute manure maelstrom of a match for yours truly. Between doing scores in the computer, BSing with other shooters and just not paying attention, I got my carcass raked over the coals of procedurals. I had my mind so disengaged that I did not scan for targets and in two stages I was about to get Failures to Neutralize but for the good graces of the Safety Officer who was kind enough to point out the pristine targets requiring my attention. I got the procedurals because I opened myself to the “unseen” targets so much they had a good chance to pop my arse without a sweat. First I felt stupid but later I was absolutely pissed at myself. My mind was not in the fight and I got self-screwed by it. I failed to do such a simple thing like PAYING ATTENTION and I mildly suffered in my scores but in real life, my wife would be collecting the life insurance and paying all debts incurred.

I got cocky, my mindset was off, I paid a cheap price but I learned my lessons. In Real Life you don’t get second chances.

PS:We do our IDPA scoring courtesy of Beach Bunny Software. If you dont use it, you are working way too much on those scoresheets.

Mumbai photographer: I wish I’d had a gun, not a camera. Armed police would not fire back

This a headline and pictures that are been published around the world. Terrorist attacking the  Chatrapathi Sivaji Terminal railway station in Mumbai, India, doing their deed completely unchallenged and the the sad lament of the photographer who realized he could do nothing more than being a good witness instead of stopping the massacre.

Although we hope an attack like this never happens in the US, the sad truth is that we cannot depend on hope and wishful thinking. And we cannot depend on government to save our lives. The terrorists in Mumbai initially targeted anything that was uniformed or visibly carried a weapon and then started on the civilians so the government sponsored “protection” was neutralized at the beginning of the attack. The rest was just a literal excursion into finding the most appropriate/desirable/random victim to be executed on the spot.

When I saw the first picture, my first reaction was of surprise at how nonchalant the terrorist were behaving. But it makes sense when you realize that they were unopposed in a target-rich environment. The second thought that went through my mind was: “Shooter, Do you understand the Course of Fire? Shooter ready, Stand By! (beep).”

For the benefits of those who got lost in the last sentence, that expression is the final questions & warnings that an IDPA shooters hears at competitions just before engaging targets.  And although we shoot paper targets that do not shoot back and these idiots were carrying & shooting AKs, they were easy prey for any IDPA, IPSC, ICORE, SASS or any competition shooter with barely six matches under his or her belt.  Somebody with a basic training in sidearms could have stopped two islamofacist in their unholy tracks.

Yet we hear that our leaders want to make all areas of mass transportation Gun Free Zones and not just those deemed sterile by federal law. In other words, they want to increase the tract of unprotected, target-rich environment for terrorists under the pretense on making us safer. If they have not figured out with Mumbai that those regulations beacons that attarct the criminal and the derranged, we will be facing many more of these government-sponosred massacres in the future.