I spent October 23-24, 2010 with Tom Givens of Rangemaster taking his Combative Pistol 2 course, hosted at KR Training. While my general AAR is here, there were some things that came up in class that I wanted to speak about in greater detail. What follows is inspired by something Tom said or we did in class, but is ultimately my take on things and how thoughts gelled in my head. I would encourage you to train with Tom Givens, if you ever have the chance. Reading my blather is no substitute.

3 Shots, 3 Feet, 3 Seconds

The phrase goes something like that, that on average a gunfight is 3 shots, within 3 feet, and lasts 3 seconds.

Is there truth to that? To a degree, and of course it makes for a catchy mantra.

But here’s the problem with that.

It’s an average.

If I have two incidents, one with 1 shot, one with 5 shots, that averages out to 3. Another two incidents, one with 0 shots and one with 6, that averages to 3. If I have three incidents, 1, 4, 4, that averages to 3. You get the idea. Three may be the average, but that doesn’t mean it will be what it will be.

I touched on this in my previous article, “Jenny’s Got a Gun“. She read a web comment saying:

who really needs a 20-round magazine when you’re defending against a stalker? “Six or seven bullets will do you just fine”

She should have Googled further to see if 6 or 7 would be just fine (answer: maybe, but it’s your life… play with it as you wish. I carry 15+1 and a spare mag).

Tom Givens recounted to us a story of a man in prison. He had nothing better to do with his day and had access to a law library. So he worked up a case to sue the police claiming they used excessive force against him.

Why?

Because they shot him 62 times (I believe that was the number).

Let that sink in a moment. Because you see, that he was working up a counter lawsuit? That means he got shot 62 times and lived. Apparently gunfire from both handguns and rifles.

Yeah.. those 6 or 7 bullets may not be just fine. The human body is pretty resilient, and your pistol rounds suck. Of course, 62 times also means he wasn’t shot in any vital area, but that’s another topic. (BTW, his case was thrown out because protocol is to keep shooting until the threat stopped… on shot 62 he stopped, the police stopped, case thrown out).

Another story from Givens. One of his students was sitting in a chair on the lawn with his mother, little children playing in the yard around him. Some teenage boy came up, student told the boy to leave. Boy leaves, goes home, retrieves a gun and starts shooting it across the street at them. Student gets up, moves behind cover (car), returns fire and hits the dude in the chest ending the confrontation.

It was a 22 yard shot.

The student recounted that he never thought that he was the statistical anomaly, just that he had to take care of business.

Another story of a husband getting attacked in the driveway of his home. Wife retrieves the gun, goes to the second story window of their house and shoots the attacker from 15 yards away.

Go measure your house. Pace off various distances within your home. I bet some of those are beyond average (be it 3 feet, or the 0-5 yards often quoted for self-defense shooting). Now picture your spouse or child being held across that room. Make that shot, you have only one shot, one chance.

Averages tell us something and we can certainly learn from them and should not ignore them. But we must keep in mind they are averages and that means there are some on one side of the average, some on the other, and some at the extremes. Don’t get caught in training just to the averages.