Farnam Basic Defensive Handgun Course

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ELB
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Farnam Basic Defensive Handgun Course

#1

Post by ELB »

Hi folks. New guy on the board here, I think a forum devoted to Texas CHL holders is an excellent idea, particularly the areas that help keep track of the law and training.

To that end, I would like to post a report on a defensive handgun course I took last year from John and Vickie Farnam. This is an slightly edited version of a post I did on another board, but I think there are enough different people here that someone may find it useful. It is a long one, so if you are going to read it, go fill up your glass and get a bowl of munchies first.

In March 2006 I attended the basic handgun self-defense course offered by John Farnam's Defense Training International (http://defense-training.com/). Thoroughly enjoyed it. Very useful.

Motivation:
I have been shooting for quite awhile now, since approx 1993 or so. I took a defensive handgun course with my revolver early on, and a shotgun course also, from Mike Dalton in California. Was also very worthwhile. Those focused primarily on the mechanics of shooting. When I got my CHL and started carrying regularly, I got much more interested in all the issues surrounding this - legal, administrative handling of the gun, concealed carry techniques, how to deal with the police if I was involved in an incident, tactical considerations, etc. I read as much as I could, haunted many internet sites, attended CHL classes, and so forth.

However, I never felt I really had done, or been taught, a systematic, top-to-bottom, examination of the whole self-defense issue. I always wanted to attend Gunsite or ThunderRanch or Lethal Force Institute, or a similar place.

I did some more research, became aware of Farnam, and found he covered many of the topics I was interested in. His website showed that he was coming to Victoria, Texas, so I sent an email, got an immediate reply with the local contact's name, and got myself enrolled. I am glad I did - it met most, if not all, of my goals.

The Course:

John Farnam taught an Intermediate/Advanced Handgun and Rifle/Shotgun course, while his wife Vicki taught the basic or beginner's handgun course, which is what I took. Altho I wasn't exactly a rookie, I felt like I would benefit most from getting a good grounding in fundamentals - and I was right! I only recently took up shooting semi-autos when I got hooked on Hi Powers, and things like magazine changes and malfunction drills were pretty new to me.

We all met Friday night at a Victoria motel, where John gave a talk to all students, rookies and advanced combined. Several doctors in the course, a lawyer, businessmen. The local organizer, also a doctor, had asked for donations to sponsor some local law enforcement, and got enough to pay for a Victoria city policeman and a Texas DPS state trooper to attend as well.

John emphasized adopting a mind-set geared towards avoiding trouble -- but if it can't be avoided, act decisively. One strategy for this, in his words, "Don't go stupid places, don't associate with stupid people, and don't do stupid things" and in all likelihood you won't ever have to defend yourself. Don't look like a victim - keep your head up, walk confidently, look around and keep track of who is near you or watching you, don't avoid eye contact. If you don't look like prey, then predators will pass on you and look for someone else.

Failing that, if confronted, try to disengage at the lowest level possible. He went over a couple techniques for this, with the goal of getting away before a real fight develops. (We practiced these the next day). Basically, he noted that if you are being set up for a mugging, it is likely that your mugger picked that spot for a reason, so don’t stay there! Move off the line of force – for you infantry guys, this is like moving out of the kill zone, fighting thru the ambush. Keep moving, look around for his buddies, shout “GET AWAY FROM ME� (not only tells him to move off, it alerts witnesses as to who is accosting who), pepper spray, and if you need to shoot as a last resort, do it decisively.

Also emphasis on getting the job done, regardless of problems. No second place in a gunfight, so do what you have to do to win. Act, be decisive, don’t get hung up dithering. One of John’s favorite saying is “We die in the gaps.� If a bad guy accosts you and you hesitate, you create a gap that gives him and his buddies time to execute the attack. If your verbal counter fails, don’t panic, go to your pepper spray. If that doesn’t work/he escalates the confrontation, go to your knife, gun, etc. Don’t focus on the problems, look for away to win. If your gun fails to fire or runs out of ammo and you focus on that instead of clearing it/reloading and getting back in the fight, you create a gap. The idea is to reduce the gaps as much as possible, to go smoothly from action to action, creating gaps in your opponent’s plan, whether by verbal counter-attack or shooting back.

He also had some recommendations on how to deal with the police after a self-defense incident. There was a lot more of this, and it was very useful to me, but this post is going to be long enough as it is. Basically, try to be the first one to call the cops, when the cops arrive tell them that guy tried to murder me (which is true, else I wouldn't have shot him), and tell them I'll be happy to cooperate and tell the whole story -- after I talk with my lawyer.

The next day, Vicki and some assistant instructors (local guys they had trained to instructor status in previous courses – interestingly, one of the instructors in the advanced class is also the Sheriff of a Texas county) got everyone kitted up and on line with holstered, unloaded guns, under concealment garments (vests, jackets, loose shirts). We walked through loading and unloading guns (everyone had semi-autos of some kind - largest percentage was Glocks). The Farnams emphasize procedures that can be used with any semi-auto, and are very strict that the procedures be followed exactly. Big emphasis on muzzle conciousness, and their way to maintain that and keep control is to always hold the pistol with the "master" or firing grip, finger well off the trigger, in "register" up on the slide.

The loading procedure had a couple points new to me (and if this is obvious to everyone else, I'll admit to being a dunce - that's why I went to class!). One key point was, after inserting the mag and racking a round in, holstering, THEN removing the magazine to top it off, reinsert it, tug on it to make sure it is seated, then sweep hand forward between gun and body to make sure I didn't get my shirt caught when I holstered. I had always laid the gun down when topping off, but now realize the blindingly obvious place to put it is in the holster. Like I said, I wuz iggerant, so I went to skooll to get more smarts. These are the kind of details I was looking for.

This procedure was also important because from that moment forward we were expected to ALWAYS be carrying a loaded pistol in our holster, and to keep our magazines topped off without being told. Guns were only unholstered at the firing line (or if the Taliban came over the hill ), but before leaving the line I was supposed to make sure there was a round in the chamber, and soon as possible, top off my magazines. Except for a couple instances when we needed to dry run a new procedure (e.g. catching the link, tactical reloading, etc), we always carried loaded guns, on break, at lunch (on the range), during lecture, whatever. So was a hot range all the time. We always treat guns as if they are loaded, so they might as well be loaded and ready for use.

They continually taught that there is no such thing as a safe gun, only safe gun handling, that the guns, and we as gunman, are supposed to be dangerous, but under control at all times. Lots of emphasis on this.

At one point we joined with the advance class, and role-played the verbal and movement techniques for disengaging from people who may be setting you up for a thumping. E.g. panhandlers who try to stop you to beg money or food and turn it into a shakedown.

Another are of high emphasis was accurate, precise shooting. No tolerance for misses. As we've all heard before, I'm sure, we are responsible for every round that leaves the gun, and there are really no acceptable places for the round to land except in your opponent's body. Misses waste time, deplete one's ammo supply, endanger others, and does not stop the violent felon one is confronting. It creates a gap. Thus a lot of drills on sighting in and manipulating the trigger. Better slow and accurate. Speed comes with practice.

When shooting at an opponent, Farnam advocates the "zipper" technique - first round just below the belt buckle, then walk the next three rounds right up into the chest. Then MOVE. If he still needs shooting, zipper him again. Then MOVE. We fired first at IPSC targets, with the zipper area being about 24 inches vertically by about 5 or 6 inches wide. Anything outside this is a miss. Most firing from 8 or 15 meters. Later we shifted to moving steel plates that were about 7 inches square, I think. Lots of emphasis on "only hits count." Take your time, but hit the target.

We usually started our shooting drills while moving laterally and looking around, sides and rear. At signal, draw while moving, still scanning area, stop, zipper (no misses!), move and scan again, stop and zipper, move and scan, if reload needed move and scan while doing it, if immediate action drill needed, move and scan while doing it, stop to shoot, then keep moving. Basically the only time we stood still was while shooting, This is a lot of work. I counted up after the weekend was over – I fired 463 rounds. Not the world’s highest round count, but a lot of work went into each shot!

The local organizer had supper brought in, so we ate on the range, then did lowlight shooting exercises. First drill with no artifical light, only sliver of moon and stars, then with “passing lights� (i.e. like headlights of cars driving by), then a strobe light, then using our own flashlights (I have a Surefire G-2 Nitrolon). Most people’s shooting accuracy went UP. Nothing to distract one from focusing on the front sight! We finished about 2100. (9 pm for you civilians!). Went motel, cleaned gun, took shower, Ibuprofen, hit the rack.

Next day, started class at 9 again. We divided into two teams (there were about 14 or 15 students in the beginner’s course) to compete against each other in a relay. One person from each team had to run to a post behind us and back (about 16 meters round trip) to push up the heart rate a little bit, then draw while moving laterally, fire a single shot at a steel plate at about 15 meters. If I missed, I had to run again, and keep doing this until I hit. Then next team member ran. Hits count, misses cost you. Then we did two shots, then four. If I missed any of the shots, I ran again. If I made a procedural error (forgot to move) or safety error (finger on trigger, weak hand out in front of draw), had to run again. I didn’t have to run real fast, but that wasn’t where we lost time. Boo-boos are where we lost time.

We added in reloading and immediate action drills. I stunk at this. Lotsa practice ahead for me! At one point everyone put their pistols and a spare charged magazine on tables, and we walked down the line shooting every gun in the class. After that, the instructors rigged the guns with some dummy rounds and smoke stacks, and we had to execute immediate action drills, get the gun running, and shoot the target, with three different guns in row, then did it again at the next table. John and Vickie emphasize techniques that can be used with any semi-auto, and this little drill helped emphasize those.

We did some more steel shooting at moving targets. The steel plates, about 7 inches square, were on the ends of a somwhat slanted pipe (so the plates were not in the same vertical plane) that rotated around an axle, like a ferris wheel. The rotation was forward and back, towards/away from us, as opposed to sideways. One drill was to shoot until we got the thing to rotate 360 degrees. Four shots, move, four shots move, don’t forget to scan while moving. If run out of ammo, move/reload and keep shooting. Happy to say I was the first to get a full rotation, and I was only using 115grain 9mm target ammo.

Then came the test. Simple, but deceptively hard. One round in chamber, magazine has four good rounds, one dummy that is not the first or last round. Start by moving laterally, scanning. At beep, simultaneously move and draw. Fire at steel plate 8 meters away. When gun stops shooting, execute tap-rack-resume drill – and don’t forget to move/scan at same time. Continue firing until slide lock. Move while reloading and scanning with a fully charged magazine. Fire two more rounds ONLY. Total of seven rounds. If you do it all in 22 seconds with no errors of any kind and seven hits, you pass and get a red pin. If take longer than 22 seconds, still pass, get a white pin. Red pins are qualified to take the intermediate/advanced class. Not sure what white pins get to do, but I was aiming for red.

I volunteered to test first. Failed right off the bat. Forgot to move at the buzzer. Rats. Everyone else tested individually, no one passed. Formed four stations with instructor at each one, and we each tried again and again until we got it right. I tried again. Dropped empty mag before grabbing full one. Fail. Try again. Executed tap/rack perfectly, but the dummy round fell right back into the chamber instead of ejecting properly, so now I had an unscheduled clearance drill. I did that well (heck, my fellow students cheered when I was finished) but I took way too long, and then fubar’d the next shot. Fail. Try again. Didn’t keep moving during reload. Fail. Gahhh! About that point one of the other guys got it all put together and became first one to qualify, and in less than 22 seconds. He won the prize, a big honkin’ Cold Steel folding butcher knife of some kind, probably $300 in the catalog. Of course, the very next one to qualify was me, along with another guy.

One gal must have tried about 30 times, I think. Her procedures were perfect, but she couldn’t put together seven consecutive good shots. Her Glock 19 was beating her small hand to pieces all weekend. She had a big welt right where I get one when I shoot a Glock, at the base of the thumb, and she was anticipating the recoil. I could see her misses were going just under the steel plate. But she kept at it, and finally got her seven good shots. She had a lot of grit to keep going, her hand must have hurt like the dickens.

Gee whiz, this is a long post, but the course covered a lot and I wanted to try to do it justice. I found it very, very informative, challenging, useful. I liked the emphasis on physically doing stuff, practicing every technique, including the non-gun stuff. I highly recommend it.

Here's someone else's review of a Farnam handgun course. Don't know the guy who wrote it, but his description is dead on.

http://www.personaldefensesolutions.net ... rticle.pdf

elb
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seamusTX
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#2

Post by seamusTX »

Good post. It reminds me of things that I don't practice often enough.
"Don't go stupid places, don't associate with stupid people, and don't do stupid things"
This advice is golden. Keep your stupidity detector calibrated.

- Jim

Venus Pax
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#3

Post by Venus Pax »

Good write-up. Thanks.
"If a man breaks in your house, he ain't there for iced tea." Mom & Dad.

The NRA & TSRA are a bargain; they're much cheaper than the cold, dead hands experience.

fm2
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#4

Post by fm2 »

Nice write-up. I need to get to a Farnam class also.

Ruprex
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#5

Post by Ruprex »

Good review. I too learned sooo very much from that class. I grew up around guns as my father was LASD and I thought I was very safe and knew a little something about firearms...boy was I enlightened!

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The best "first aid" for a gunshot wound is immediate and accurate fire at the person(s) who caused you the wound .
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