J. Kb’s post.
I’ve seen it with my own eyes, some ego driven operator wannabe go all roid-rage because he got his ass whooped by some accountant in New Balance sneakers who trains to win matches.
This checks out – Gun Free Zone
The club I used to shoot with had some LEOs that would participate regularly. Most were locals from different PDs and there was one roving U.S. Marshal that never missed a match when he was in town and most of them were excellent shooters. One LEO was a from a Fed Law Enforcement Department who participated long enough to realize his skill had augmented immensely by shooting with us. He also belonged to the department’s Ninja Squad and lobbied pestered his fellow team members to come shoot with us one day, and they finally relented.
That day they showed up strutting in almost full gear and being a bit (a lot) obnoxious about having to deal with mere civilians. I have no idea if it was the match director’s idea of luck of the draw, but they were squadded together with one of our oldest shooters, a proud owner of a prominent belly and one of our youngest shooter who perhaps had been with us all of six months.
Fed Ninjas were creamed with the exception of our regular member.
We are talking such an embarrassing performance encompassing poor handling, misses and hitting No-Shoot targets. And the Safety Officer went gently on them not enforcing the finest aspects of IDPA rules such as proper use of cover and order of target engagement.
I guess as much as we tried to hold it inside, it showed that we were laughing inside at how shitty they performed. We did invite them back so they could hone their skills, but we never saw them again. The strutting was gone as they returned to their vehicles.
I am fond to say that the NRA hold Police and Military Only Matches so the participants are not belittled and embarrassed by their civilian counterparts.
In the mid 80s I was stationed in Georgia. I met a guy that was into shooting and such. He got me into IPSC . We used to shoot 200-400 rounds a week practicing.. I had a bone stock series 80 1911 with a full length guide rod. I would regularly out shoot my buddy and his tricked out Gold Cup… he took it well. I never shot competition with the goal to win my class. Best I placed was second, until my last match before I got out of the service- I won my class that match.
My absolute favorite is when these guys get their asses kicked, the turn around and say something like “competition isn’t a gun fight, IDPA/USPSA/etc will get you killed in real life.” True, competition isn’t a gun fight, BUT, the fundamental skills of fast and accurate shooting and reloading are the same. Practicing those skills would only enhance military/LEO abilities in the field. But that’s the bullshit sour grapes excuse they always use to justify why they suck.
And I know of two cases in our club (One LEO) where they had to face bad guys and they won the real lottery of life.
I swear that if a police chief or Sheriff were smart, they’d encourage their subordinates to go to local IDPA/USPSA matches and give them training ammo to do so. But you can imagine what the political blowback from that would be.
I used to shoot High Powered Rifle (when I was still Active in the Navy). We regularly found that average shooters outdid the Aquatic Mammals/Ninjas, but those old time civilians put us to shame every time. My best day at a match, I hit in the mid-nineties, but an old dude with a BOLT GUN and Iron Sights cleaned every target (200 Off Hand and Sitting, 300 Rapid Prone, 600 Slow Prone). The funny thing is, all anyone seemed to care about was how THEY did, not worry about who was high speed and low drag.