You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know (The Death Of Expertise)

If you haven’t read Tom Nichols book, The Death of Expertise, it is worth a read. I run the Pistol-Training.com blog for a few reasons. One is to keep Todd’s work available for other people to benefit from. One is to record my own thoughts for myself or possibly my kids. A third, very small function, is to educate/entertain/bore/drive to insanity (you pick) other shooters. In that regard, I usually view myself as having a conversation with friends, usually the 1 other guy who takes the time to read the blog. I’m not always serious or literal (but I am factual and there is a difference) and I often talk about things that real experts already know, but that people not as far along may not understand. This is probably not a good way to do things, but as of now, it is the only way I know. All of us pay for expert opinions on things throughout our lives and we often don’t value what we don’t pay for. It is what it is.

If I don’t provide “data” to back up things I say, people think I’m making it up. If proof is provided, they say it doesn’t count. Much of what I offer is based on my experiences in law enforcement and with the firearms industry. Those experiences and contacts allow me to learn things that do not get reported to the public and will never make it into a Youtube video. My qualifications come from more than taking a bunch of classes or standing on a range, shooting qualifiers. Those things are good, but they are a small part of the whole.

A recent example is my series of posts on striker fired guns and AIWB. Striker fired guns are not inherently, mechanically unsafe. Neither is AIWB. I have combined both for literally decades. The combo however, does not provide a lot of room for error when placed into human hands. Because of this, I don’t recommend it for casual users and generally consider it best for expert use only. Kind of like J-frames, but in different ways. Literally every expert I have ever met or worked with understands this. People who think it is “perfectly safe” are simply ignorant of the issues. It is no great shame to be ignorant, unless you don’t realize you are ignorant, or you have been trying to fool people into thinking you are an expert.

As the margin for error decreases, the skill and experience needed to be safe increases. Often not in a 1:1 ratio. This can be frustrating for people who have taken a bunch of classes and shoot pretty well. They view themselves as experts, but they are not. Does it make sense that a guy who bakes bread (or any other job) for a living would have the same expertise as a guy who trains and hunts bad guys for a living? Much like the various “blood sports” and other “adventures” people get into, when you don’t know that your margin for error has shrunk, it is because you are not expert enough to do what you are doing, except by luck.

DA/SA guns are possibly not inherently safer than other types of guns. They do however, add more of a margin for error when used by human hands. And that is the difference that concerns me here. Not what some engineer thinks, but rather what actually happens under stress, which is when these guns are designed to be used. People who focus on the pure shootability of the gun have not gotten the memo. Not that DA/SA guns don’t shoot every bit as well as every other type of gun out there, but there is much more to carrying and using guns in the real world than shooting competition can teach you.

Does it take more practice to learn to shoot a DA gun as well as a striker fired gun? No, not in my experience, but it does take a little more carefully crafted training and attention, and that is woefully lacking on both the professional and private sector sides of things. One possible exception is if your hands are just too small or too weak. Those are issues that can often (but not always) be trained around or mitigated, but again, your instructor has to actually know a thing or two.

One more thing about AIWB and striker fired guns. I am aware of multiple fatalities over the years from ND’s happening in the AIWB region. I am aware of even more AIWB ND’s that did not result in death. Some of those are on Youtube and in searchable news stories and some are not. Are we talking about large numbers of people? No, of course not. One of them that most people don’t know about happened to a cop in NY when I was working there in the 1990s. He died.

I am aware of many more ND’s from strong side over the years, and have witnessed a couple myself. One involved injury and the other did not. I am not aware of a single fatality that occured because of an ND from a gun carried strong side. That might be a clue as well.

I still carry AIWB, as I have for most of the last 30 years. I just choose to improve my odds and do so with a hammer fired gun. And of course, the DA/SA gun provides many more benefits as far as I am concerned, not the least of which is that it makes competition shooters who lose to you feel even worse. That’s the non serious part I was talking about at the top. Factual, but non-serious. I don’t want to make people feel bad, I want to make people shoot better. Shooting a DA gun well is like having a super-power, as my friend Justin Dyal likes to say. Who doesn’t want a super-power?

Do you want to admit you can’t drive stick? If you “need” a 1911 or a striker fired gun to shoot well, maybe its time to learn how to drive again. At the end of the day, there is a time and a place for different guns. Choose wisely or one day you may regret your choice. I would like you to avoid that.

I like analogies and I like driving so here’s another one. Riding a motorcycle, especially well, takes dramatically more skill than driving a car. Most people stick to cars, since motorcycles are more likely to kill you than a car is. Many riders (and drivers) figure this out the hard way, but many more people realize that motorcycles are beyond their ability. In the gun world, everyone thinks they are Valentino Rossi. After all, if this agency and that unit and this instructor and that competitor use X, I must use X too since I’m practically as good as they are. If those guys use an extra light, extra short trigger, then I must too. Never mind that the guys you are looking at have spent many more days, weeks, months and years shooting and training than you will. Never mind that they have chased bad guys with these guns and used them under stress day in and day out. Never mind that they have government budgets and government lawyers to fall back on if they get sued. These are all experiences and resources most gun owners will never have. Do you set your daily driver up like a Formula 1 car? Was your first motorcycle a Hayabusa?

Everyone wants to do what the best do and that is human nature. In some fields that is simply not the way to go. It is better to get the appropriate item for your needs, rather than your percieved needs or future (hoped for) abilities. In the end, guns are cheap. Bullet holes are not.