Concealed Carry & Home Defense

Training to shoot on the move

Font Size:

By Paul Rackley, American Rifleman

In pretty much all self-defense situations, distance is your friend. Putting distance between you and an attacker increases your chances of getting away unscathed, without having to use force to defend yourself.

If, however, you do have to draw and fire, you don’t want to stand like you’re on the firing line of the local range. Instead, you should move away from the danger to potential cover. As such, you need know how to fire on the move, possibly at a moving target.

While running all out and blasting away looks really cool in the movies, it’s actually an excellent way to waste ammunition and possibly hit something, or someone, for which you’re not aiming (remember you’re not using blanks). You are responsible for every single bullet that comes out of your gun, so unless you have a good sight picture of your target, even when moving, you shouldn’t press the trigger. Also, if you’re running full speed, you should probably keep running on out of the danger zone, so you won’t have to shoot anyway.

Moving forward or backward in a fight is fairly simple. Move forward by stepping out with the lead foot, landing on the heel and rolling to the toe. The same motion in reverse is used to move backward, toe to heel. Lateral motion is obtained by what is called “Big Step, Little Step.” Take a long step with the lead foot in the direction that you want to go and follow it with a shorter step from the opposite foot in a shuffling motion, making sure you don’t cross your feet. All movement, regardless of direction, should be conducted with the upper body slightly forward and the knees slightly bent.

Once the motions are understood, practice is needed for proper use. Unfortunately, many ranges are not set up to allow movement when shooting. One way to obtain movement training is through competitions such as USPSA and IDPA. Another is with an unloaded handgun in the comfort of, well, anywhere that won’t result in someone dialing the number of a Porsche model.

In a fairly open area, set up a target at about eye level. Then, check to ensure your gun in unloaded and that there is no ammunition is in the room. Double check the gun. While any handgun can be used, or even no gun if you only want to practice the motions, a semi-auto with second-strike capability or a revolver is best to allow multiple trigger pulls, paired with a hammer-activated laser, such as the LaserLyte LT-PRO, to mark hits.

Once everything is safe and set up, start slow from multiple locations with the gun in a holster and concealed by a cover garment. You can use furnishings as cover or concealment, and as barriers to force changes in direction. As you get more comfortable, speed up, add more targets and additional trigger pulls.

Once you feel you’ve mastered the craft, have a partner place the targets without your knowledge or try it in the dark with a light. There is almost no scenario that can’t be set with the right imagination and space.

 

Thanks to the team at American Rifleman for contributing this article. Visit them by clicking here http://www.americanrifleman.org.

Tags : self defense
NRA American Rifleman

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel