This morning, I received word from a club that after reviewing my class syllabus and description of how I run classes & drills they are declining to host an Aim Fast, Hit Fast class at their location.
The point of contention was my insistence on running a hot range. First and foremost, there is simply no practical way to do otherwise. When I teach, the class gets broken into two squads. Half the students shoot while the others coach, load mags, take notes, and so forth. These two “squads” switch back and forth every 2-3 minutes.
If we had to stop and clear everyone after each run, then load up the next squad and clear them after their run, over and over again for two days… we’d literally lose hours of time just administratively loading & unloading our guns.
The second issue is that, in fifteen years of teaching & competitive shooting, the vast majority of accidental discharges I’ve seen have been with “unloaded” guns that apparently weren’t as unloaded as the owner thought. As discussed here less than a week ago, people tend to treat guns less seriously when they believe there’s no ammo around. Furthermore, all of that administrative loading & unloading is just unnecessary handling and unnecessary opportunities for mistakes to get made.
The fear of loaded guns is often paired with a lack-of-fear of unloaded guns. The entire concept behind the Cardinal Rules of Safety is that we don’t make a distinction.
Don’t get me wrong… the club has every right to run its range the way it sees fit. In the end, they are ultimately responsible for what they allow on their premises. The club has a wide membership that actively promotes a number of shooting sports there, including IDPA and IPSC. The club even teaches CCW classes to folks in their community. So these aren’t rabid anti-gunners or anything like that.
I simply take a different approach towards teaching and towards safety. From my standpoint, if you can’t be trusted with a loaded gun in your holster, you can’t be trusted with a loaded gun in your hands. Then again, I got my start teaching concealed carry classes and it seems to me that if a student isn’t safe to carry on a range, then he probably shouldn’t be walking around downtown City Plaza with a gun yet, either.
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
If you can’t be trusted to handle a gun safely, then, well, you can’t be trusted to handle a gun. I would think that they would accede to your protocol for the class.
John — They discussed it internally, shared their concerns with me, and gave me a chance to respond. The club was completely professional. They’ve got a set policy and feel it’s the best thing for their particular club. No hard feelings between them and me.
I always made the same argument about IDPA… I think it’s crazy that you get disqualified at a “tactical” pistol game when you show up with a loaded gun on your belt. 8)
Hopefully this isn’t one of the already scheduled classes?? I’m in for the Indy class and would hate to miss it for something like this.
That’s too bad, running a hot range I think is by far the “safest” way to do it. Besides the fact that it makes for better instruction and learning in my opinion. You ought to see some police academies with all the loading and unloading and shuffling around it’s amazing more people aren’t hurt. Thankfully ours is making some changes.
I always thought that hot/cold range decisions were driven by insurance requirements. At least that’s one range owner around here told me. Could that have been a factor in your situation?
I’ve run into the same problem with a couple ranges here in Utah.
There is no practical way of running a course unless it’s a “Hot” range.
Our IDPA group runs cold, unless it’s a night shoot, and then it’s hot because there is no way of doing it otherwise at a night shoot.
It always amuses me at the ignorance of some people and organizations. How do people propose to run the two way range? Cold?
People with “Unloaded” guns scare the POO out out of me!!!!!
And you should have seen the look on the range guys at a local range during a Farnam Rifle class when we ate at the range cafe with LOADED and slung carbines!!!
Now that is FREEDOM!!!!
JackOSU — No, this is not an announced class. We get these issues resolved before we commit to a class.
HC — If the club submitted its range safety rules to its insurer and those rules say it’s a cold range, then arguably it could be an insurance issue. However, insurance companies do not require cold ranges. My guess is it was just an easy way to avoid giving you the real answer.
Sean — In the club’s defense, they don’t pretend to get involved in that sort of thing. As I said, I don’t begrudge the club their rules or decision… that’s for them to decide based on what they think the risk & reward is. But I do think the concept of a cold range, under most circumstances, is at best a false security and at worse a genuine danger.
weird, i’ve never even heard of such a rule before. all guns while at the range should be considered “hot” it seems an unnecessary risk to invite the assumption otherwise.
Cold range policy is a strange thing… While I see why some clubs go that route, I agree Todd, I’m not convinced it’s any safer. Pretty much 99% of the nearly catastrophic things I’ve seen almost happen at a range has taken place at the end of an IDPA string when someone pumped up from the run almost did something stupid… You’re DQ’d if the gun comes out of the holster when you’re not shooting whether it’s loaded or not, might as well give guys a chance to calm down who may need it and have an area where guys can go to clear/load/etc cold range forces shooters to rush to clear their guns IMO.
I’ve been to several sanctioned matches where you have a “hot” range. They also had roped off areas and if you passed outside of these areas, you were DQ’d. Many sanctioned matches run in this format to facilitate the progress of the match. Doesn’t make sense; however, it is also a waste of time to argue the contrary.
Todd – one of your best written tutorials/commentary yet. Concur completely. Prior to retiring from almost 22 years in the Army I would get so frustrated in personally observing in Afghanistan and hearing stories from Iraq about the multitude of “accidental” discharges at the clearing barrels posted nearly EVERYWHERE on US installations, large and small, throughout both countries. They (both the clearing barrels and the accidental discharges) multiplied like rabbits b/c a number of high ranking officers and senior NCOs felt it was safer to have soldiers take otherwise holstered or slung weapons, perfectly safe where they were in holsters or on shoulders, bring them out in a crowded area and have marginally, in my view, trained personnel manipulate them and then pull their triggers whilst pointing them at the ubiquitous “clearing barrels.” It was so obviously absurd in a way that could only be properly depicted in a Joseph Heller novel…a classic Catch 22. It clearly didn’t render them any “safer” than when they were “loaded.” Really amazing. I’ve also had Army range control personnel agonize over the possibility that I was going to conduct a pistol training class in the manner you described. When I protested that we would lose, literally, hours of valuable and limited training time I was lectured about the significant safety hazards I was exposing everyone to and how safety was more important than the training. It used to be “mission first, as safe as possible.” That has morphed into the CYA “safety first” attitude prevalent in today’s regular Army. Of course I leave the special units out of this diatribe as they haven’t, as of yet, been infected with such idiocy. You are a gentleman to describe the club as you have. I think their concerns are ridiculous, entitled to them though they may be. If their members cannot walk around on a linear range w/ a holstered and loaded weapon they have NO business carrying same around my family and I in the streets of downtown. Such artificial concerns about “safety” are infuriating and a by-product of nothing more than ignorance and fear.
When I do IDPA I always start cold on a hot range for the first stage (and then I go hot for the balance). The hot range people get hot under the collar but from my perspective theirs is the only one of the four clubs that I go to that is hot. My chances of forgetting which club I am at and going hot would result in a DQ and possible ban.
Many more guns clubs are infact pretty hostile to action shooters then you would think. There is a cadre of older hunters that seem to think guns are things to be pulled out (cold of course) and sighted in once around hunting season–then put back in the case until the actual hunting. I call these “bench rest clubs.” Their clubs have no infrastructure for action shooting; they in fact have rules to prevent it even if you supply our own.
Examples: Always a cold range. No drawing from a holster. No shooting at steel targets unless on club sponsored event. No targets other than non silouette paper in specific tracks up against the berms at 25, 50, or 100 yards. Absolutely no shooting on the move (isnt that a felony?) They are in fact just urban indoor shooting ranges that just happen to be outdoors. Even one club allows no pistol caliber carbines in the indoor range but allows high powered handguns (its not a noise or backdrop issue).
The fact that no state requires holders of CCW licenses/permits to demonstrate competence at drawing from a holster, i.e., all qual courses are shot from ready, and some forbid it, is akin to this. That’s always been an amusing aspect of concealed carry “training” to me.