CCW Safe Podcast- Episode 78: Documenting Your Training

Video version of the podcast:

Transcript:

Rob High: Hello again. Welcome to the CCW Safe Podcast. I’m Rob High in Oklahoma City joined by my partner Phillip Naman out in California. How are you Phil?

Phillip Naman: I’m doing great. Actually, I am in Prescott right now where my business is opening up a new office here. This is the first day in the Prescott office. We’re still working out a few bugs on the internet service here. Bear with us. All of a sudden there are freeze frame for about an hour.

Rob: Very nice. Coming into this new year, we’ve got tons of new members, tons of new gun owners, people that are brand new to this and have stepped up, accepting the responsibility of gun ownership. I want to touch base and just put a bug in your ear about the things you can do, not only to let you see your own progress over time, but these are things that could come up and be beneficial to you in the event that you really did have to defend yourself in a critical incident, in a lethal force self-defence incident.

I’ve talked with Phil about this. CCW Safe is based, as far as our response, the things we cover, the things that we do for our members were based on the Police Union model. If I was active duty law enforcement, I was involved in a [unintelligible 00:01:41] shooting, immediately I’ve got not just other officers coming to secure the scene and make sure everything gets processed, but I’ve got investigators are coming, attorneys are coming, chaplain services, if I need it.

We’re going to bring in crime scene specialists, we’re going to bring in reconstruction people later on, if necessary, so they can completely redo an accident or they can redo a shooting scene, whatever. One of the things that I did when I was an officer was, would represent the department in the city in lawsuits against police officers. Most of those involved forced or shootings.

The very first thing that I would do, would go to work on capturing all the data on the training that you’ve received. The successful training that you’ve done and completed to satisfaction, and that kind of thing. I don’t want to put it out there and go, “Well, this guy shot 100%. That guy only shot 72%.” Those reasons and for the little nit-picking things that can come up in a court of law, it’s a pass or a fail. Phil passed this course. Rob passed this course.

For my own personal gee whizz folder, I know when I was a brand new officer, I was not real proficient with a handgun, not to my satisfaction. I started going out to the gun range, I was shooting all the time, but it was just aimlessly wandering. I put a whole bunch of rounds downrange but there was no purpose, there was no, “What am I working on today?”

I had a good buddy of mine, that actually was my dad’s next-door neighbor, but he was a high master class shooter, shot for the marine corp pistol team, shot for the police department pistol team after he left the marine corp, super, super good guy. I asked for his help, and he started helping me, and it was amazing that he was breaking down just basic shooting fundamentals that, whether it was for stress or for failure to get that information across or whatever, I didn’t absorb all of those things when I was going through my firearms training. He would give me one piece at a time. We didn’t move forward until that piece was done, and that may take a couple of weeks. We shot three times a week, we shot every Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Phillip: Wax on, wax off.

Rob: Yes. I was a little slow. I didn’t get the full measure of that. It was amazing that within just a couple of months, I went from being very marginal to now I was formidable and I had a lot of confidence and a lot of faith in that skill set. It was silly because I wasn’t as good as I thought I was at that point in time, and he swapped out targets on me and said, “Now, we can leave beginner school and it’s time to begin study.”

It was amazing how far I came, how quickly I progressed. Back then, I was keeping track of that only for me. When we talk about training, I’m setting in good habits, I’m setting in things that prepare me mentally, physically. For those that have never been involved in a gunfight, it’s the most important timed event you’ll ever be in. The guy that gets rounds off accurately on target first is the guy that survives and wins. I have been in hundreds of armed confrontations, successfully walked away from every single one of them, but there was a lot of training and preparations that went into that. When we talk about this, we’re talking about building skill sets and causing external pressure to make me better.

The first time, they started a stopwatch on us. We’re going to stand at the 15-yard line, we’re going to shoot 12 rounds. I need mandatory magazine changes, so it’s going to be 4+4+4, and you’ve got 20 seconds. “Go.” I was like, “Holy crap. That’s never enough time.” Well, once you’ve become competent with magazine changes and becoming as efficient as you can with your movements and things like that, your draw stroke, picking up your sites and getting on target, resettle the gun after the flares, those things, you can go way faster than that.

[unintelligible 00:07:37] that’s unbelievable stress. I was like, “Holy crap. That’s all I got.” I like having those external stressors that come on. When we get into this, I don’t care if you keep a notebook. There are some apps out there that you can get that chart these stuff. There’s some things that if you’ve never done it before and you’re new to this, you really don’t know. The bonus is you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I failed over and over and over again, learned from my failures. I can tell [unintelligible 00:08:20] If I was going to ask you to come in and explain to me what you did on your last range visit with your handgun, Phil, what are the things that might be important to document?

Phillip: Actually, it’s funny because, well, last month in December I shot a course, practical pistol out here, and it was the one time I shot all year for that [unintelligible 00:08:51] thing. I actually went to the range on purpose, on the backend so that I could actually draw fire and move between the targets. My actual last training session with my pistol involves, with a timer drawing, putting rounds on target, switching to another one, doing magazine changes, changing lanes of fire, and it was fun. It was probably more fun than the competition was, to be honest with you. [chuckles] I was faster on my own. It was exactly those skill sets.

You talked, earlier, about documentation. As I was sitting here thinking about that, most of the people I’ve taken courses from, they actually give you a certification or some documentation at the end of what their course of fire was that you had this.

Rob: Absolutely. That’s one of those things that I want. If I go out tomorrow and I go by myself, that’s going to be something that’s notable in my records. I went on this day to the CCW safe range, and I worked on basic pistol fundamentals. I like having an– “Where did I go? Was I alone or did I have instruction? When did I do it? How many rounds did I go through?” I have days that I just wasn’t dialled in. For whatever reason, just not going to happen that day. Instead of just going out and wasting a bunch of bullets, it’s just like, “Yes, I’m done.”

“How many rounds did I shoot? Was I scoring them? How did you do? Were you shooting from multiple distances? Were you shooting from multiple positions? Were you putting yourself under time constraints, and what were these time constraints? Do you document the fact that through this course of fire, I force myself to make mandatory magazine changes or whatever it is like that?”

“What is it that I’m working on?” As a concealed carrier, I have a mission. My mission would be different from other people’s missions, as I have had a higher level of training. I’ve been involved in a lot of these situations. It wouldn’t necessarily be the same thing for my next-door neighbor who’s a concealed carrier. He’s never been through all that training. He hasn’t had the same experiences. His mission is a little different. We start out, everybody has to know basic shooting protocols, but from that, you need to start expanding and growing.

It’s one thing to stand there, stationary, at the 7-yard line and put rounds on paper, where the target is not moving, it’s not going anywhere, it’s not coming at me with evil intentions. It’s just a piece of paper.

Phillip Naman: It’s probably a green silhouette too.

Rob High: Terrifying, terrifying. We’re working on certain things, and once I’ve developed my basic shooting fundamentals, now, I can get into things that, whether it’s a moving shoot thing or a positional thing, or increasing your time or whatever, or diminishing your target. We don’t ever really improve until we press ourselves and force ourselves to get better. That goes to all things in life.

Phillip Naman: As I’m listening to understanding more, when you first brought up this topic, I was trying to see how that would work all the way around, but the more you’re explaining it from your mindset, coming from the police department where you had to document training, you had to say, “This officer is proficient and this, this and this. Here’s how he was kept up to speed on it.” It comes down to a personal side. If you go to the gym; here it is, we’re in January, everybody is now going to the gym if they’re allowed to or whatever.

If you just go to the gym, it’s like shooting a paper at seven yards static with two boxes of ammo, and the target ends up looking like a shotgun pattern because you weren’t focused on anything. If you go to the gym and you’ve got your booklet that says I’m going to do this many sets of this exercise at this weight, and you check that off and then you do the next one and you do the next one, and you have a plan, now you’ve been trained and now you have progress from going to the gym. You might be a little sore the next morning, but you’re doing the right thing and it’s growing you the right direction.

To apply that to our shooting disciplines, I think you’re making a great point, Rob, that maybe what I need to practice is I need to practice on presentation, from concealed. Maybe I need to practice appendix draw. As I’ve explained to you guys before, I like to do that with an airsoft gun because it’s the way I like to practice appendix draw. [chuckles] Or an empty firearm. There’s actually a magazine out there for Glocks. I have them from the 19s, 17s, and 21s. It’s called a double click. The gun is completely empty and you put this magazine in. You cork it, put the magazine in, and it will reset the trigger every time, so you can dry fire your Glock and instead of just the one pull and you have a dead trigger, it resets, so you can practice your drawing and your firing, drawing and firing, and moving target to target. That’s a great little thing.

Jason [unintelligible 00:15:23], one of the top shooters out here showed me that he practices with it all of the time. That’s a double click magazine that worked out really well, but again, it’s a safe way, with an empty firearm, to practice these things. I haven’t seen any accidents up close and personal, thank God, I don’t want to, but I’ve seen on some of the videos, people have their accident drawing their weapon and they have their accidents re-holstering the weapon. Unless they drop it in between, that’s usually the only thing that happens. It’s as they’re drawing, they hit the trigger or as they’re putting it back in, they’re not clear. If you’re doing that with an inert weapon, but still getting your reps in, so to speak, I think that would be a great idea.

Rob High: You touched on a point I wasn’t even thinking of. I need to begin this documentation. “Was this a live-fire exercise or was it a dry fire exercise?” I don’t have unlimited resources, unlimited funds, and unlimited ammunition. Money is an object, and it is for all of us, and ammunition is absolutely at a premium now. I can continue to work on my skillset. There’s all kinds of things out there. You can buy the low laser thing. You can feed into your firearm. You can do digital training in the house. It’s one of those that every single time we go back to firearms safety things. Every single gun [inaudible 00:17:07] I make sure that everything is properly cleared and handled that way.

Even beyond, I’m not practising by myself today. You were talking about some of the instructions you get and the certificates you get from these instructors. That’s another one of the things. “Who is this guy? What are his credentials? Where did the training take place? What was the training? Did I have to hit a certain measure to satisfy the performance objectives of that course?” Things like that. Then once you’ve developed a little bit of a skillset, we step forward and go, “Okay. I can make the little hanging down thing, come back and forth and make it go bang and all that stuff.

Phillip Naman: I like the way you instinctively turned your hand sideways. That was good.

Rob High: Absolutely. I wrote [inaudible 00:18:20] [crosstalk]

Phillip Naman: Lots of practice.

Rob High: [inaudible 00:18:22] do that. That’s funny. Once you’ve got that baseline and you’re– It never goes away. It’s something you need to continue to work on. Like Phil was talking about, I go with airsoft and do some dry fire exercises in the house or airsoft firing practice or whatever, or the magazine [inaudible 00:18:53] for the Glock so I don’t have to keep resetting every single time I press the trigger.

Once you’ve developed a little bit of that skill set, now it’s time to start to increase that pressure. I want to make myself adapt and become better than I am. That can be all kinds of stuff. Do I go to the range outside? Is it an indoor range? Most of the stuff I did was an outdoor range. It’s what the police department had. That’s where I got thousands of hours on that range. Was it windy, was it bitter cold, was it extremely hot? I’ve been on firing line out there when it was 115. I’ve been on the firing line, we had to wait until the weather got up to 10. I’ve been out there when it was pouring down rain, and it doesn’t matter if you’re in law enforcement or military or whatever, you are in a position that you don’t get to pick your conditions. You got to work in whatever you’re working in. Those are things to document, that, “Yes, I’ve done these things as a concealed carrier.”

It’s one thing to go, “Hey, I’m going to the indoor gun range today. I’ve got on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and there’s nothing to defeat, to come from concealment,” but have you shot with a winter coat on? Have you shot with gloves on? All of those things are factors that have completely changed what you thought your skill set was. “Am I shooting stationary? Am I moving and shooting? Do you do low-light training?” There’s all kinds of these things that you need to factor in.

I’ve had the fortune to be in a position to go– I’ve shot through a hollow-core door, I’ve shot through sheetrock, I’ve shot through a car, I’ve shot in and out of a car window, and to understand what those things can change on the performance of your firearm. It’s not something that everybody gets the opportunity to do, I understand that, but the things that we do with that, even if it’s moving and shooting, shooting off the X or whatever I’m doing, I like guys moving forward or backwards or laterally or however, but armed confrontations do not take place in static positions.

Phillip Naman: Unless you are at a salon with a white-brimmed hat, right?

Rob High: [chuckles] Then it’s just whoever is faster. That’s funny.

Phillip Naman: Actually, that’s another kind of practice we just did. Took my son and my son-in-law, and we did cowboy quick draw in Rancho Cucamonga with the deputies. They had Ruger Vaqueros. They have nicely done Vaqueros, not stock, 45 Long Colt, and it’s fired with a 209 primer and a wax bullet on a timer. Now, that’s a kick in the pants. That’s some good practice there.

Rob High: It is.

Phillip Naman: We have video documentation of that one.

Rob High: That was so cool. [chuckles] “Does it generally need to be firearm stuff?” “Should I document other stuff?” I’d mentioned, earlier, if you’ve got somebody going through martial arts training, there is an evolution that you go through. There are certain steps and performance objectives to meet to move on to the next level.

Phillip Naman: I think we’re touching on our next week’s guest, but your physical preparedness is your first step, and not only just your mental attitude and your awareness, but your physical ability. Like you’re saying, you are a judo instructor, you said? It’s extremely important because you don’t want your first line of defence to be your firearm. You want your first line of defence to be an escape or an evasion, or handling it some other way because when the firearm comes out, it’s only because it was a life and death situation, and we really don’t want to be in life and death situations. Talk a little about that physical training that’s required or suggested, recommended.

Rob High: [inaudible 00:24:06] that go into this– If my only tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail. I know that that our–

Phillip Naman: On that line though, if you’re only tool is a double-bladed axe, problems seem to go away. I’m just saying.

Rob High: [unintelligible 00:24:32]

Phillip Naman: There’s just something about that. [chuckles]

Rob High: [unintelligible 00:24:34] Our CEO, Mike Darter, is a martial artist, very accomplished martial artist. He was a defensive tactics instructor for the police department. Our COO, Stan Campbell, accomplished boxer. He was a defensive tactics instructor for our department. There’s a underlying current here. He is a subject matter expert in use of force. He is not anybody would ever want to have to tangle with. I’ve been involved with the sport of wrestling for more than 50 years. It’s just been a part of who I am.

I’ve done what Americans do, it’s called folkstyle, but I’ve done international wrestling. I’ve done both freestyle and judo, or freestyle and Greco, but I also have become a practitioner and teacher of judo. The confidence and the abilities that you develop, even if it was nothing more than just getting in the gym and working out a little bit or getting on a bicycle and riding, just increasing your physical capabilities, you tend to develop ways to control your breathing, control your heart rate, respond with more clarity to intense situations.

That’s a bigger deal than people realize. We’ve all heard the little sayings, “If you fail to train, you’ve actually trained to fail,” or– I’m going to mess this one up, but we fall to our level of preparation. You don’t think that something bad is going to happen at the mall, and there’s an active shooter and, suddenly, I’m going to be the hero. It doesn’t work like that. Matter of fact, for most of us, the safest thing we can do is get out, run, hide, fight kind of stuff.

It’s one of those things that I wouldn’t want that to come out. If I was involved and I had to resort to lethal force, and suddenly they come in and go, “Why did you do this?” “Well, this option wouldn’t work. I’ve done all of these things, and I didn’t have any other options left.” That was something I always felt like was easy to explain to a new cadet in the police academy was, “Oh my gosh, when do you shoot?” “When you don’t have any other options left,” but the more tools I have available at my disposal, the more options I have.

Obviously, there’s going to be times that somebody is actively involved in causing great danger, an active shooter or something like that, and that has to be dealt with rapidly and with great violence, really. That’s not what I’m looking for, that’s not what my purpose is. “Do you train with less lethal stuff? I don’t know. Do you carry OC? Do you have anything else like that in your personal stuff?” I’m asking. I don’t know. “Do you carry OC? Do you do anything else?”

Phillip Naman: OC, are you talking about pepper spray? Is that what you’re saying, OC?

Rob High: Mace.

Phillip Naman: No, I don’t. I know my wife and my daughter do. I’ve gotten into martial arts. Since I had my knee surgery, I can’t outrun anybody anymore. [laughs] I’ve had to build up my ground game.

Rob High: I understand that. More than you realize, I understand that. Now, something else that we bring up, and we’ve got somebody that’s going to start producing content for us here real soon that I can’t wait to get out there to our members, but “Do you do any first aid training? Do you carry an IFAK? Do you have a kit in your car? Are you prepared in the event that something horrible like that happens?” Because the odds of me running up to the grocery store and coming across a really horrible traffic accident is far greater than me going in and finding the active shooter inside the supermarket.

Phillip Naman: Actually, through the radio station Firing Line Radio we actually sponsored some lessons. We have kits in each car, kit in the garage. Why? Because I handle firearms. They’re not of the safe there, kit in each range bag just and a kit inside the house. You most certainly don’t want to be– you don’t want to have the opportunity to help and fail because you failed to plan. You’re there, you have the training, you’re there in a position for a reason, and then you can’t perform. I think that would be worse psychologically for you forever, just dealing with that.

Rob: Yes, I agree. I carry a firearm for my protection and for the protection, my family, my friends, my loved ones. Am I prepared to step in if something happens to them that I’m not able to respond in a lethal manner or a forceful manner; instead, now I have to respond with lifesaving techniques, and am I prepared for that?

Phillip: That’s saving a life. It’s saving a life.

Rob: Law enforcement people don’t realize this. I’ve watched this. I couldn’t begin to count how many times there’s been an officer in a wall shooting and that officer is the one that’s immediately rushing up; the threat stopped, and they immediately begin first aid attempts. They start trying to do whatever they can to save that life. My goal is never to shoot to kill. No, I just shoo to make the threat stop. As soon as the threat stops, so do I. Thos kind of things, but it’s one of those that I would think it’s really important. Again, I say, we’re based on the police union model, the things that come into play for our members, most of our people.

Phillip: You’re saying document, how? What do you suggest? A 3×5 spiral notebook that goes in your range bag? What are some practical things? You’re talking about an app?

Rob: That’s exactly how I do mine. It’s just a spiral notebook. When I get back from the range and I’m throwing all my stuff in the safe, it goes in the safe, and it’s documenting all those little things I was talking about. What have we done to increase the pressure? What have we done that has turned this up and made me perform under pressure? Because if you think a shooting a real-life shooting is not under pressure, you have no what’s fixing to come your way. We were the chief sponsor for concealedcarry.com in their guardian nation conference this last year. I had the good fortune to just move around all over the compound. It was held at a [inaudible 00:33:29] club.

It’s a huge, one-mile by one-mile range facility, and we had all kinds of instructors 10 or 12 inch [inaudible 00:33:39] was going all the time. I got to move around and go from person to person to person to person and pick, choose, and steal nuggets of wisdom from all of these guys. One of the guys, Matthew Little. He’s a special forces operator. He’s a retired Chicago police officer, was a SWAT team member and trainer and all kinds of stuff. Super, super good, high-level shooter, but just because somebody’s a high-level shooter does not make them a high-level instructor. I like to get in on the non-shooting part. I want to hear what they say. He gave a little thing out there for his folks that I just thought was just so invaluable.

He was talking about, you’re doing all this preparation, all this training, all these things for this possible worst incident that could ever happen in your life, but I need you to prepare your brain before you get to that. I need you to become okay, you need to come to terms with the possibility of what can happen. It’s not something you want to deal with on the back end of that. Something Phil and I, off the air, talked about, and he was like, “Man, document training, holy crap, all of a sudden, this is something that we’re going to go to court, and they’re just going to shove this down my throat.” Well, do proper documentation.

That’s part of what we’re going to do coming in defense of him. This goes into a courtroom, I want to be able to sit down and go, “Let me tell you all the things Phil’s done to prepare himself for this day. He has accepted the enormous weight of this responsibility and has become a responsible gun owner because of all the work that’s gone into this, he’s done all of these things. He’s never had to do blah, blah blah. He’s never been involved in a shooting, hasn’t done–

Those are such easy things to come in and put– I want a jury to know that. I want him to know that, “Man, this guy has been through the wringer. He’s peaceful. He’s been under intense pressure and came out on the other side a diamond.” They understand. It’s not a– “This guy’s–” We were talking with Gary last week and talking about the modifications on your handguns and stupid stuff to avoid. It’s the same thing with training. I’m not going out there and going, “I did this, this, and this.” No. I did really extreme, fundamental practice, and then I put myself in situations that I think might be worse than I could ever be put into.

Phillip: Let’s talk about some ideas. Again, we want to give guys good ideas and we want to avoid bad ideas. A bad idea would be faces on any kind of a target. That’s a really bad idea. I’ve heard of that stuff. It is like, “What are you thinking? That’s ridiculous. You are setting yourself up for a lot of problems.” If you’re going to shoot, I think that the [unintelligible 00:37:23] targets, the cardboard silhouettes are perfect. It’s practicing a skillset and it’s showing that you’re practicing a skillset. You see they used to have the eye [unintelligible 00:37:39] targets, personalized faces. If you’re living in free America, that’s probably not an issue. If you have to deal with a district attorney, like [unintelligible 00:37:53] in Los Angeles, that could be an issue.

You don’t want to do anything that’s going to make your legal fight more difficult, like we talked about the firearms. I think that little Punisher thing is pretty cool, that skull, and I like the movie. That’s pretty cool. I am not going to put that on my Glock. We just have to be aware of how something that was a funny ha-ha can upset the whole apple cart down the road, with ramifications that you don’t even realize were there until– There was an old manager I had. He told me one time, “It’s never a problem until it’s a problem.” Well, that’s the way our world goes. Yes. It’s not a problem until this happened and then they look back and, through their filter, they paint this picture.

As we saw in Kenosha, we saw a district attorney painting a picture independent of many of the facts that existed, trying to sell a synopsis to– trying to sell the cliff notes to the jury. If they just listen to his side, they’re going to go one way. We’ve seen that happen. You don’t want to give any ammunition to that. Leave the funny ha-ha stuff, which is probably bad humor anyway, just don’t do it. That’s my thing. Zombies on– just stick with bullseyes, stick with [unintelligible 00:39:27] silhouette, stick with the black silhouettes, the regular standard targets, just do your shooting to do your shooting.

Rob: I agree hardly. It’s one of those that– I want to be prepared. I don’t want to be fanatical. I don’t want to be.

Phillip: Right. Anyone give the appearance, you don’t want to give them an opportunity to say you’re fanatical.

Rob: Correct. Another little app for that. Um, and I’m going to touch [unintelligible 00:39:58] people, but monitor your own personal social media stuff. There’s some stuff out there that’s really funny. It’s– unless that’s something that gets dragged up because you’ve been involved in a shooting; that’s the worst thing in the world that could ever happen. I worked and testified against a police officer that had been involved in a shooting. He was found guilty. He was way outside the color of law. He just stepped over a line, but I also watched what they did with his social media stuff. It just was embarrassing. It was like, “What were you thinking?” It’s one thing, like you saw something funny, ha-ha, but it’s another thing that you just broadcast and just blast stuff out to the world. I’m telling you, as an investigator, one of the very first things I would start into is I’m going to get in there and deep dive and go through your social media stuff. “Is this something that, all of a sudden, you’re this Nazi Worship guy and way way out in the winds on your own, on some of your thought?” Fortunately, as an investigator, a lot of guys that are like that do those things, so they make it easy for you. Any takeaways there, Phil, what are your thoughts.

Phillip: Yes. We talked about the type of training, how to document the training. How about the frequency of training, rounds or time involved? What would you suggest, to be proficient with your firearm, what do you think would be the frequency of training?

Rob: Man. That is such a personal thing. I know the– [crosstalk]

Phillip: One and done.

Rob: [chuckles] I know that the things that got looked into and made as an agency where I worked. There was so much careful study that went into selecting what we were going to issue. I had vendors all the time when I was out at the police academy that would come to me and go, “Hey, there’s this new holster I’d like you to try,” and I’d just smile and go, “Give me two.” They’re like, “What?” I said, “Give me two.” I’m going to put them on a belt and take them out here in the gym with my guys, and we’re going to see if we can tear them up. That’s the very first step that you get. I’m not going to put a gun in it yet.” There were some out there just like, “Well, it’s not really built for that.” Well, it better be.”

Phillip: [chuckles] That’s right.

Rob: It’s what they do for their life.

Phillip: Level three, level four, level seven retention.

Rob: That’s the very first thing we would do, but we also didn’t just paint them into that corner and say, “You’re going to carry a Glock 17, and we do that for a while.” You’re moving– you’re over to a Glock M1, or you’re carrying the Sig 320, whatever it is, the things that went into making that decision for that firearm were for the masses. It was for the greater good of higher [unintelligible 00:43:42] but if we’re shooting a big, full-body,45, and all of a sudden, I’ve got this little lady over here that is 5’2 and 115 pounds, that’s not the gun she wants to carry. She can’t even get her fingers around the thing. They had the opportunity to go out and, with the range master’s approval, go to go to another firearm system and something that worked better for them or fit them better.

Phillip: That’s how the desert Eagle 50AE was born. [unintelligible 00:44:22] but it comes with wheels on it and a crew. It’s a crew-served pistol.

Rob: Where it could be something as basic as “Can I chang my holster. I have to carry this holster.” If you had 10 years previos experience before coming to us, and you’ve got all those reps in that holster, I don’t have a problem with you changing out, but you’re changing out your holster, that’s a big deal. I don’t mind you changing it, but I want you to have as many reps going in and out holster as you do with the newer issue, which is thousands. I have to have that muscle memory and all those things. Those are things like that are very important.

Phillip: Absolutely.

Rob: Every little bit of that documentation stuff matters, though. How frequently, I don’t know. “What’s your budget? What is your purpose? What is your mission?” You got to define your mission. I don’t know what these guys are doing.

Phillip: Another thing, you’re talking right now about officers and the parallels with that. Well, most officers have a duty gun the HK, VP9, or whatever, the Glock 17 too 34 or the 1911s, and then they have a backup gun. That’s the one that they’re probably going to, whether it’s like a 43 or something like that, or 43X, that’s the one that they’re carrying concealed all the time. You go to the range, you’ve got your duty weapon, or you’ve got your SIG320, whatever. You’ve got your full-size gun and you’re shooting on the range, but I’ve noticed a lot of guys don’t like to shoot Smith and west and 642, that much, or even the, say, 365 with some snappy rounds, that little sucker barks, and that’s where you need to have, especially for what we’re talking about, your reps on your small CCW gun, not just your big canon, the range gun.

Rob: It’s another thing to document. What gun am I shooting today? I’m not a big advocate of going out and just [inaudible 00:46:52] “I have a wife and she’s going to get a gun and I’m going to go help her out.” Well,. you defeat the purpose if you don’t bring her with you because she’s the one that’s got to be comfortable with it. There’s just so many things that go with this stuff. Anything that you can possibly think is important, is important, so document it. It’s not something I have to do as far as going back and reviewing, but I like to see where I’ve been. I like to see the progress I’ve made. I like to know that I’m better than I used to be.

Phillip: Well, from where I’m sitting you are, so there.

Rob: That’s why we’re standing in.

Phillip: [laughs] It’d be a great beginning of the year, so it’d be a great resolution that, “Hey, I want to shoot, let’s just say, once a month.” “I’m going to take live fire once a month practice, and not just paper seven yards, but try and do more of a dynamic approach.” Maybe that’s a good way to go and then maybe you’re going to say every two weeks. “I’m going to do dry fire,” or something, “I’m going to do mag changes.” “I’m sitting in front of the television set and I’m practicing mag changes,” something, whatever. I think here in January is a good idea to, “Okay, let’s set up a plan.” Whenever I’m setting up something, training for a hunt or whatever, I always start with the end-product, like the date. My Alaska trip, I had to start with, “When do I need to be prepared for this?” and then back into everything else.

Maybe you say, “I want to be able to do a certain shooting drill at a certain time.” Well, great. Where are you now? Where does it want to be? Then work that up for your goal for this year. It’s January, you can put as many goals in the shooting world and defensive world, as you can in anything else. All it costs you is a 3×5 notecard, just to get yourself started. Not a notecard, but like those little spiral–

Rob: Those original police palm pilot.

Phillip: Well, I actually have one of those for each of my hunting rifles, that has all the dopes inside of them because electronics fail, and that’s always in my, whatever rifle I grab, it’s with that rifle, just like your practice one for your pistols.

Rob: That’s just the way you should do it. It’s not necessarily a shooting drill thing to document, but I’m sure that as you’re preparing and going on some of these [unintelligible 00:49:50] you’re carrying a long gun and “I’m going to go through all of these different ammunitions, and it’s a [unintelligible 00:49:58] shop, I’m doing this and I’m shooting this many grains and at this distance and whatever,” so it’s the same stuff. We’re just doing your skillset on this part.

Phillip: All right. Well, have a happy new year, everybody.

Rob: Yes. Thank you guys so much. Bye.