If there’s anything the firearm community needs less of, besides gun grabbing busybodies looking to take away our rights, it’s probably idiotic training. Last week, I shared some pretty awful training with you, training that’s outright dangerous in my not-so-humble opinion. It seems that that one was part of a trend. I picked this one up from Everyday No Days Off:

This real life bRaH.???% ?@officialhardcore Gat tip:@ryanwiklund

A post shared by ENDO (@everydaynodaysoff) on Dec 3, 2017 at 1:28pm PST

Wow.

Now, Endo notes that at least this time these might be blanks, and based on how the weapon keeps failing to cycle, I’m inclined to agree, but so what?

Seriously, this is stupid, and while blanks might be safer, they’re still not particularly safe. Especially at that close of a range.

Folks, I get wanting realistic training. I’m a big believer in “train like you fight” as well, and yes, when you fight you’ll probably have plenty of gunshots going off other than when you pull the trigger.

Again, so what?

Training with a firearm is a dangerous enough activity as it is. Just one person on the range having a momentary brainfart can result in someone’s injury or death, for crying out loud. The last thing we need are so-called trainers popping off shots near folks’ heads to add to the risk. All it will take is one training accident to put the entire firearm training industry in a bad light.

Look, if you think your students need to hear other gunshots while they’re training, that’s fine. Point your weapon downrange and squeeze the trigger. Don’t point it down to the dirt just inches from the student and fire. The students will hear the same bang and often at a similar range to their noggins, but rather than pointing it remotely in their direction, you’re following the same rules you expect them to follow.

Folks, if your trainer wants to do this, leave. There is no reason for this kind of training and it’s inherently risky without any real benefit. No one wants to be shot and no one wants to watch someone get shot.

Admittedly, even with this kind of risky training, the chances of that happening are probably pretty low. However, they’re a whole lot higher than if everyone was obeying the Four Rules, including the instructors. Again, there’s no reason to tempt fate.

My hope is that someday, there will be no posts like this left to write. I’d love it if the only thing we’d have to argue about regarding training are minutia of firearm philosophy rather than this kind of stupid.

But so far, it seems unlikely that I’ll be that kind of lucky. That means neither will you, unfortunately.

The upside is that these still appear to be the minority of instructors doing this kind of idiocy, so there’s that. Perhaps there’s still hope for the bulk of the gun training community to avoid this “trend” and maybe move on to something that might actually help.