It seems that some people think that anything remotely difficult is somehow good training. It’s not. Sometimes it’s just an accident waiting to happen.
Take, for example, this bit of Derp from Everyday No Days Off.
Yeah…I got nothing.
No one should be surprised the guy apparently shot himself. That brand of stupid is just asking for someone to get hurt.
Yes, spinning around and making yourself dizzy is difficult, but what exactly is it supposed to train you for? A gunfight following a trip on a Tilt-A-Whirl?
Oh, I’m sure someone could present a scenario where training like this might come in handy, but really, what are the odds?
Rob Pincus’ Plausibility Principle is perhaps one of the most common sense principles in firearms training. It states that you should spend your training time preparing for the widest range of plausible scenarios possible. Not all the possible scenarios, but the plausible. What about this is plausible?
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen this video almost universally mocked for pure derpitude, it doesn’t change the fact that many shooters pay good money to sit in classes with instructors whose herpathalmus produces just as much derpamine as these guys. It just manifests itself differently.
Pincus’ Plausibility Principle may be common sense, but it’s common sense in a world where such a thing seems to border on the supernatural.
To be clear, it’s easy to look at training like that, or training where the instructor exists his vehicle, enters the back seat, pushed through to the other side, drops on the ground, then returns fire. Anyone with more than a couple of brain cells to rub against one another can look at that and say, “Yeah, that’s stupid.”
However, from time to time, people find themselves being training by someone who has them do some kind of shooting that seems weird. “You could face this on the streets,” the instructor barks back when questioned, and he may be right. You just might face something like that on the streets. I might also find myself in a firefight with alien invaders, but that’s not likely.
If you find yourself in a class like that, keep an open mind so long as the training is conducted in a safe manner. Complete the training, then review what you learned. Is it something you might plausibly encounter in your day to day life? If so, great. If not, but it was fun, then awesome. At least you got something out of it. If it wasn’t fun, well…you live and you learn, right?
If it’s not safe, well…
With professional trainers who have any reputation to speak of, that’s generally not a problem. What can be a problem is wasted time in training.
In the above video, police officers are wasting time doing this, rather than working on active shooter training, terrorism response, or any of a myriad of things law enforcement may plausibly encounter.
Don’t be like them.
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