Guns are cool. Cool guys with guns are cool. Cool guys with cool guns are cool. Yes, but, all this frigid firearms stuff is starting to leave me cold. Rob Pincus aside, how many greyhound-thin gun gurus’ tactical training can you take before you say Uncle? “You’ll never see me carrying one light,” hayleystrategic.com‘s sunglassman reveals. “I’ll always have two.” Good for you! If the SHTF, can I borrow one? I didn’t think so. My favorite gun guys are as low key as you wanna be. Would I wanna be in a line of newbies firing at a target with a flashlight at night? I would not. In fact, the more I watch this video the more I want to train with the OFWG with the Walrus ‘stache. Am I alone in this? Is anyone else going off the high spark of the low-drag boys?

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86 COMMENTS

  1. I definitely am fed up with these guys. Well, at least with the ones who come to the local range and show absolutely awful manners.

    • TTAG: Hey Fudds! Come hang out on our blog!

      Methinks Farago is a bit jealous, maybe even has a man-crush on Travis Haley, so he compensates by claiming he has no need to compete.

      Haley has higher speed and less drag than me, but I view that as motivation to get to a higher skill level, not declare my mediocrity as “good enough” or that I only have guns for “plinkin'”.

      • Yes. That’s it. I’m gay and jealous. Guns are only for plinking. All those thousands of articles on armed self-defense and the Second Amendment were just FUD designed to fool readers into mediocrity and subservience. You got me! Next question?

        • Not gay … more like you wish you were (like?) Travis, but realized you aren’t and convinced yourself you can’t be, so you blogged this.

          BTW, F.U.D. (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) does not equal “Fudd”, as in the derivation of the name Elmer Fudd– the type of guys who claim they’re 2A supporters but think “black rifles” have no “sporting purposes”, or who are just so large in the mid section that “dynamic shooting” means having to walk 7 yards to check results on a paper target. Obviously we get the “black rifles can hunt, too” non-Fudd content here, but this post wreaks of the other, more “Bubba” kind (or as Gabe Suarez calls them: “gravel pit kids”).

  2. I think it’s just more fun with us OFWG, walrus-mustache-wearing types (although I have a handlebar — I’ll be your huckleberry.) HSLD is cool, but sometimes I just wanna shoot for fun.

  4. The model for our second amendment, or at least a model for it, were the Greek Hoplites. The people should have arms and be available for competent military service when needed. It exists to ensure that the government is at least partly dependent on the people for its existence.

    The modern military is immensely powerful and there should be no pretense that an ad hoc group of citizens can take it on if, god forbid it becomes necessary to try. But by maintaining some military skills, there is at least some corporate understanding among the people as to how to form a military force.

    I think we will never need these tacticools and there training will never be used, but the day they are no longer available will be a very dangerous day.

    Again TTAG shows a philosophical bent against freedom and how firearms protect us.

    • I’m going to go further. The second amendment does not exist for hunting or self defense, as originally envisioned. It did not affect the states until the fourteenth amendment and the federal government did not have the power to control hunting and had no interest in keeping muggers and burglars away. Those were strictly state concerns.

      The second amendment exists because the framers wanted to protect military use of weapons (as pointed out in Miller). If you don’t like people training with weapons in a military manner, they YOU DO NOT SUPPORT THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

      • Disliking something is _not_ the same as condemning.

        I am not fond of the spiked Mohawk hairdo. However I fully support your desire to quaff your head fur however you see fit.

        You’re likely to run into some hat incompatibilities in the really, real world… but that’s yours to discover.

      • Well it’s a good thing we have you around to tell us what to think. In all caps no less.

        You must be a real blast at parties.

      • Well it’s a good thing we have you around to tell us what to think. In all caps no less.
        You must be a real blast at parties.

    • “The modern military is immensely powerful and there should be no pretense that an ad hoc group of citizens can take it on * * * .”

      Guerilla warfare is not about set piece battles against conventional forces. Its about exploiting the weaknesses present in any governmental organization. Its about assasinating politicians and their families, generals and their families, and crippling infrastructure, such as the electrical grid, water supplies, oil refineries, airports, etc. Any modern guerilla war can expect the guerillas to take 10-20 casualties for every government loss, but in an environment where things have gotten so bad that guerillas are willing to take up arms against their oppressors, that is usually an acceptable loss ratio.

      • Yup. Millions of American riflemen would certainly detour any would be dictator from ‘taking the next step’. You will not drop a hydrogen bomb on your own city because it would be “pooping where you eat/sleep”.

  6. The ‘operator’ move that gets me irrationally twisted is the ultra-slow over-exaggerated Terminator scanning double shoulder check after every firing action. I get the premise, I honestly do: break tunnel vision and check for additional hostile activities. It makes perfect logical sense.

    Is that how you’d do it all hopped up on adrenalin and fear? Nice, slow radar sweep? Or would your cranium be spinning more akin to Linda Blair? I’ll admit the latter is far more likely for me.

    I’m certain I’ll be bashed for the above, but (as a non-operator) watching guys at the range do this makes my blood boil.

    • “The ‘operator’ move that gets me irrationally twisted is the ultra-slow over-exaggerated Terminator scanning double shoulder check after every firing action.”

      LOL! Ditto! (and a perfect description – “Terminator.”)

      • I emphatically agree. I understand the point of the scanning, but it looks retarded. Hell I automatically do a scan if I let a fart out in the grocery store. If there is shooting going on around you, I’d think my head would be on a swivel anyway. And I don’t care if anyone disagrees with this.

        • Hell I automatically do a scan if I let a fart out in the grocery store

          This gave me a serious case of the chuckles. Thank you.

        • So that was YOU! You chased me out of the cheese aisle and I had to have my cheeseburger without cheese.

          Agree, about the head moves and all the garb, tacticool gear, and other excesses. I guess if you want to look like a horses rear you can do this swivel lookie thingy.

        • I’ll go you one better— even if one thinks there *is* a point to the scanning, it seems to me that making it a rote, mechanistic action takes away all the value it might have had…

          I recently saw this yo-yo who had this terminator-post-scan thing so ingrained, he did it after ANY time he had extended his hands, even making some pointy-fingered example with no gun— every time, hands back to the sternum in finest Practical Pistol style, and the head rotating back and forth like an automaton, while we all waited an extra five seconds for him to talk again. But here’s the real point: it was so ingrained, he saw *nothing* in doing this. His eyes didn’t even necessarily follow the head movements. It was ALL rote. And I would argue, this is not uncommon…

          Anyone here ever seen someone about to pull out of a driveway, do the over-the-shoulders check, look DIRECTLY AT YOU, and pull out anyway? That’s because they weren’t really looking, just performing the rote action. I’m sure many of you have done it yourselves; I surely have. So why make any practice designed to “get off the X” or break some fixation INTO a fixation? I think it destroys whatever value the practice might have had in the first place.

    • You beat me to it! I wholeheartedly agree: the trend towards overly stylied movement is rediculous. Truth of the matter is this: instead of standing there in a stationary position with your gun hugged up close to your chest and looking both ways in a perfunctory manner, the best survival technique is to move. Things that move tend not to get shot nearly as much as things that are just standing there. By shooting, you just anounced your position to the world, and that is usually the last place you want to remain. There are exceptions, obviously, but in most cases there is better cover to be found, and unas*ing the AO is usually the best course of action.

    • Sometimes when I go to the range I don’t even shoot, I just stand at the firing line, draw my weapon, scan left, scan right and then reholster. I’ll stand there and do that for hours, I don’t care. If I can’t make it out to the range, I just go into the front yard (without a weapon of course) and just stand there in my yard scanning left, and then right, and then I look straight forward for a few seconds and start the whole thing over. It kinda creeps out the range master and some of my neighbors (okay, it creeps out ALL of my neighbors), but it really helps me with my scanning when I live fire, and I save a ton of money on ammo that way. You should try it.

  7. This sort of training brings out the Walter Mitty’s. Which is fine. You should be free to spend your money and time on whatever hobbies you desire, so long as you’re not breaking the law.

    In the real world of civilian DGU’s I think this training is practically useless. we’re not cops or soldiers. And those of us that used to be either one will recognise that these weekend classes have little value.

    • “In the real world of civilian DGU’s I think this training is practically useless. we’re not cops or soldiers. And those of us that used to be either one will recognise that these weekend classes have little value.”

      A lot of LEO’s (local, state & federal) + military seem to think they have some value. Given most of the ‘bigger’ instructors are capable of meeting their student quota just opening the doors to LE & Mil. I know a lot of people in each group, that seem to think the classes are worth more than the departmental and basic training they received by their respective employers.

      I’m indifferent as to whether [I think] this training is better than your “standard” training when it comes to DGU. But the people who have actually been in combat situations and fired upon other human beings usually have better methods and techniques than your standard NRA “certified” guy that does CCW classes.

      • When I was in the service the big rage then was the chop socky movies made in hong kong and other asian locales. Bruce Lee was big at the time.

        Quite a few of the guys I served with flocked to the newly opened dojo’s that were springing up like mushrooms to meet the demand.

        Because cops and soldiers are willing to accept the flavor of the month weekend school doesn’t make it needed or valuable training, especially not for joe average citizen who just wants to deal with the tweakers he may encounter day by day.

      • Where is the Trainer that shows me how to wake from a sound sleep at the sound of window glass breaking, find my glasses, fumble with the flashlight and pistol I have in the nightstand, get some sort of foot covering on, when to call 911, and how to proceed from there in MY house? No kids, so only the wife and myself to deal with.

        I won’t be wearing any “tacticool” holsters and so forth in bed, so I want to know how to use my ten rounds to best effect, or how to deal with a second magazine for the pistol in my PJ’s. Yeah I’ve read the posts here about this sort of thing, but “book-learning” doesn’t cut it versus actually doing it, and that’s the rub…isn’t it?

        Insofar as the Training Haley Strategic offers, I think that if you see value in it, then do it. It can’t hurt. It may not help, either, but it’s a shooting experience that may open other insights in your personal defense strategy.

        tapockata….tapockata….

        • I can’t knock what training people want for themselves. On my time schedule and budget, I have to do a lot of self training. Try setting your alarm for 3am and check your watch to see how long it took you to do your checklist. For me, sleep to armed is 15 seconds.

          I have everything I need arranged in my gun safe based on the time I have. Noise awakens me (inside, outside, breaking glass, door, etc). Might kids be up? Pop safe and grab gun & light if not a “kid noise”. Wake wife. Assess noises (are they near bedroom?). Slip on bathrobe (with pockets). Then grab clip-on holster with spare magazine from safe. Additional magazines available in safe if multiple BG SHTF. Wake wife. Assess noises (where are they?). Wake wife. Get wife into cover and on the phone with 911. Assess if going to get the kids seems possible (are BG’s upstairs or downstairs, rummaging or quiet *ambush*?). Hand OC to wife. Reexplain how to use OC (point as so and push this button). Whether I was able to go get the kids or not, then we hunker down and wait for police. At any point during this sequence if an intruder appears and threatens, I’m ready. And the more time I have before imminent action is required, the more prepared (and conscious) I can be. I don’t want to take any offensive action until I’m coherent enough – I’ve got to be able to differentiate kids vs. BG’s.

        • Hey Jerry. THANKS very much for your input!
          I have copied your post to a text document and plan to use your scenario to help refine mine. I thought of using the alarm set at 3:00 am to start a self-training scenario as you described. We have no kids, so there’s only the wife to wake. The one challenge I have to figure-out is that our house is two stories and our staircase is wood, so it’s really a challenge for me (weigh 225 stand 6 foot) to figure how I can creep stealthily down stairs. They are fairly noisy. Will HAVE to work on that one, for sure. LOL!

          RF, would you consider posting an article to discuss your Home Defense Training and ask others to share their tips and tricks? Might be really helpful.

          Thanks, again, Jerry!

        • You ever watch the movie “The Game”? I say we open our own class and instruct just like the movie. That’s my fantastic idea of the day.

        • DerryM. I’m a big guy too. Wear socks when prowling your house intead of shoes. When doing the stairs keep your feet to the sides of each step, not the middle..

          But if you’re in your bedroom and you think there might be an intruder and it’s just you and your wife, stay there. Call 911 and cover the door with your gun. If there’s an intruder make him come to you.

        • @Brian…Hmmm don’t recall if I’ve seen “The Game”, but if it’s on NETFLIX I’ll watch it.
          @ING Thanks, couldn’t resist.
          @JWM Socks! Step on the sides of the stairs. Great ideas…otherwise stay put. My house is so constructed I would have to go downstairs to cover the front door and open it for the Police. It is compact, so when I get downstairs, if there are BG’s stealing my stuff a confrontation is guaranteed due to the floorplan arrangement, but will work on it.
          @Skyler – Given the above to JWM I may have no choice but to confront the BG’s as you suggest.
          Thanks all for your ideas, gents!

  8. I live about 2 hours away from Tactical Response. I dont know much about them except that a lot of people seem to have strong feelings against them. But I am not even sure as to why.

    Anyways, for the time being I am indifferent. I have no formal training aside from my carry class but would like to take FOF and low light classes. Would it be fun to take a balls out tactical type class through one of the big name high speeds? Maybe. But for now, I can spend about $200 less (not including travel expenses) and just get that training from local ranges.

    • If you carry a gun, you owe it to yourself to train at Tactical Response. You live so close, it would be a crime not to.

      I have taken several of their classes and look forward to more.

  10. My “beef” isn’t with the guys teaching this stuff like Travis Haley. They’re trying to do some good for people who do have to face these kinds of hostile situations in either a war-zone or police action against some determined bad guys like cartel scumbags.

    As for us ordinary Joe’s, that money would be better spent on a criminal law class and a gym membership. Guys strapping on a kitted up 1911 with a tac light, blade-tech holster, spare mag pouches, and an extra tac light will be sorely disappointed when their gear is seized by the cops as evidence and some douchebag anti-gun DA is using all that “tactical kit” to convince a gun-scared jury to jail the citizen on manslaughter charges.

    To us, all this stuff is interesting theatre. To a juror from Mass. or Chicago, this “Get Off The X ” business is nothing less than terrifying- note that military members and PMC’s don’t go to Grand Juries after killing hostiles in combat. For typical concealed carry, the best way to “disrupt” a threat is to not be there to meet it.

    • get off the X doesnt apply to a situation after youve killed enemy combatants. it applies when your up armored SUV (or softskin in some cases) gets shot at and the solution is to not to stay in the area.

      get off the X also applies to defense, namely if youre getting mugged, its okay to run away. if there is a shady neighborhood, walk the other way. or in a attempted carjacking, just drive off.

  11. Got real thin about 4 or 5 years ago for me. I could see that all this nonsense was about making money.

    I put this in the same category as preppers and Jonestown. I don’t need 20 years of dehydrated food or legacy seeds. I actually enjoy being ON THE GRID. My selective service classification is 1H (if I recall correctly), which means this nation doesn’t require my carefully honed shooting skills until the Red Chinese are making air drops of paratroopers over Sausalito CA. I don’t hang out at strip clubs at 2am in the morning. I go to bed at 9pm thank you. I never liked these guys. Slimey characters who push their bottles of elixir from their traveling medicine shows.

    As I’ve said before this is a big country. When you can get thousands of people to follow and give money to women who channel the voice of Ramtha, or convince people to drink poisoned Kool Aid, its no surprise that you can get folks to follow any given miracle producing martial art. Not only follow them but swear by them. Be fanatical adherents of them. Dedicate their lives to them. No surprise at all.

    Is there a reason, a rationale for learning about guns and the proper handling of them? yes. Is there a reason to think about gun fighting? yes. But be a careful consumer. Understand that the human condition means having to screen out, filter, all the crap you see, hear and read each day. Goes back to that old saying about “trust no one”. The world is filled with folks who are scumbags. And that means a good deal of the folks in the gun world are also scumbags. Be wary. As Jeff Cooper would say, don’t walk around in condition white.

  12. Are You Fed-Up With High-Speed Low-Drag Operators?

    No. But those low speed high operators in drag really put a twist in my knickers.

  13. Looks like too much time on your hands with no new gear to review and write about, ‘eh Mr. Farago?…

    So why this adhominem attack on Travis Haley’s training style and content? Haley at least has much impressive USMC real combat time credentials to back up what he now does for a living and your credentials? An op-ed gun review writer? Geez.

    Maybe TTAG should chuck it’s name bearing “Truth” and just be called “AGAFFT” : “About Guns As Farago’s Feeling Today’ blog.

    With “friends” like this amongst the patriots, who needs anymore new enemies?
    I know today TTAG for one, doesn’t have my backside covered.

    ZERO out of five stars for this TTAG post, Robert Farago.

  14. “Operators” are for our age what knights were to Medieval Europeans….badasses. Nobody wants to play “starving conscript” for $200 a day. Let the kids have fun. Provided the training is actually sound, I won’t blame anyone for learning new skill sets. Even if they’ll probably never need many of them.

    • The problem is that the technique is not sound. The technique is for guys that want to look kool at the range. Oh, I can hear it know: “Yeah, But Joe, thats’ what the military operators do.” Two responses: First, operators never “operate” alone, at least not by design. The smallest sub-team you will see is a two person unit, and even that is rare. Second, I have not been in the military for almost 20 years, but I never saw any of that non-sense when I was in.

      • I was in twenty years ago and I’m in an infantry battalion today. It’s changed a lot, especially in the Marine Corps.

  15. I’m glad this post was written and posted.

    Personally, I’m sick of it as well. I don’t mind the training itself, so much as I can’t stand those that think ONLY those that do this stuff are worthy.

    Especially when every DGU posted on this website are always old grandma’s, Aunt Mae’s and other people who have never fired their gun before.

    • I thought an Operator was the person who answered the phone when you dialed “zero”…..or a guy who could really mack the ladies…

  16. I’m in the High Drag, Low Speed Demographic, partly due to my days in the Green Machine where it was all OJT. If someone wants to pay for training that’s their concern, training negates fear and fear induced mistakes so it certainly has it’s place.
    In hindsight paid for training beats signing-up for 6 years of Drudgery and Suck, even if the ammo was free.

  17. Farago, so… you mean you DON’T want to be the best that you can be, because your pop-culture irreverence says watching too many cool dudes doing cool things, skills if you can learn to match, come close or surpass would also make you cool, but since you can’t match them right now, you should just hang up your spurs?

    Right. Come on Robert, what kind of message does that send? What example are you setting for your armed intelligentsia progeny!

    LOL

    Yes, because settling for being a OFWG is like sooooo inspiring, and/or something to aspire to.

    Didn’t someone say life’s a journey, not a destination?

    So, why give up Robert? We WANT to see you be cool and all; be all tacti-cool “high speed low drag” divorcee mid-life crisis suburban Jewish ninja, gosh dang it!

    LOL

    Tacti-cool gunnery is certainly cheaper than buying a new Ferrari, or hell, a trophy Israeli-model wife that you so often URL to, in what is certainly influenced from your days in UK where they make non-sequitur chick references to obscure but hot models, regularly.

    Well, I suppose “cheaper” also depends on one’s budget. LOL. But, you get the gist.

    So attend more classes, put up more videos. Worst thing to do is, be dissuaded from honing a useful skill in which you’ve already embarked on polishing.

    Why settle for mediocrity, when even if you cannot match, the process of learning to match high caliber skills will always take you to levels you’ve previously thought less than possible?

  18. I just said how much I respect Rob Pincus!

    The reality is that the little old Grandma packing heat occasionally gets the best of the hoodlums. That’s good stuff. I appreciate the high speed low drag, and I’m happy that we have enough freedom to train in such a way without (a whole lot) of interference from the government. I appreciate training in an intense environment, but I’m honestly not sure how well the trainers like Pincus and co. react to old fat people emerging victoriously from firefights using ordinary guns.

  19. Here is my problem with this stuff. It appears to me that some of these guys are revered for their expertise but I don’t see the qualifications with them. They may have them but I haven’t seen them. I would only trust those who were military trained and actually seen a fair amount of combat to develop their perspective. Otherwise, it’s all theory and theories are wrong ask of the time. Also, does the training include stress training to help you handle the pressure? We were yelled at for three months in Marine Boot Camp and put through so much just so we can handle combat. Those classes can’t do that.

    • I suspect that no one really thinks that this alone would make someone the equivalent of a Marine. But it does make a great point to start from if hasty training is required for anything serious. It’s also good training for those that are Marines.

  20. Everybody needs to feel important doing something. Ego and all.

    I am more fed up with the recent proliferation of “tactical” beards. Not cool.

    • That’s PERFECT! ‘Tactical beards!’ THAT’s what’s wrong with the HSLD guys! Child-molester beards! Especially on arrogant, overweight, ex-‘Operators’ who probably go to the men’s room tactically.

      YOU, Sir, are a genius.

    • Matter of fact, a beard CAN be a tactical device. Not the high-speed-low-drag rigs, though; I’m talking about godly facial hair. Gandalf style. Facial hair that says in no uncertain terms “You…shall not…pass!”

      Of course, it helps if the big facial rig emphasizes your own burliness, not the lack thereof. (At 6’2″/265, HSLD I am not.) I’ve seen plenty of people, some of them obviously up to no good, take one look at my gleaming dome, diesel-like profile, and massive chest-length goatee and swerve away. I’m a peaceful dude, never busted anybody up and don’t want to, but they don’t know that.

      When your attitude says you don’t *have* to notice them and your beard is big enough to hide a third fist, they tend to steer clear.

      On second thought, I’m not sure I’d call it a tactical beard — it’s more strategic. A handy passive defense, kind of like planting thorn bushes below your windows. Yeah, that’s it.

  22. The problem I have with these yahoos is that when the turds hit the turbine impellers, the poop never flies quite as neatly as their training classes would lead you to believe.

    I go back to a previous comment I made on another thread: People would benefit a whole lot more if they learned (and were trained) to recognize trouble before they got into it or before the trouble got close enough to them to require an armed response.

    I’m not interested in being “high speed, low drag” (whatever the dickens that twaddle means). I’m interested in getting through my day, attracting the least possible attention from either the perps or the boys in blue. I’m interested in being the big guy in the room that no one notices, the guy who can move through public attracting the least possible attention from anyone, the guy who when someone asks “Did you see that big guy over there?” the people in the area say “What guy? Where? What?”

    Too many of these recent trainers seem intent on making their students stick out in a crowd like a freak from Burning Man plopped into the middle of a state funeral. At some point, that’s going to not work out well for some of these students.

    There’s a maxim taught to me during private pilot classes that applies here: “A superior pilot uses his superior judgement to avoid getting into situations requiring superior flying skills.”

  23. I don’t see what the big problem is if people are looking at these classes realistically. I’m just a regular civilian. I go down my personal checklist and have been through many solid fundamentals and force on force classes to build skills I may actually use in real life as someone who carries. I’m in good shape, got my head screwed on straight when it comes to avoiding trouble and keeping out of bad situations, and have a lot of martial arts experience.

    So why not take a fun fantasy camp style class now and then if I have the time and can afford it? Even if I may never use the skills in real life it might be fun and I may learn something new that I can apply to a more realistic set of skills.

    If people are taking a weekend class and thinking they’re now Rambo then that’s their problem, not the instructors. Even if it’s marketed that way people are free to use their brains and realize they might not be able to use their night vision carbine 3 ninja skills to fight off diabetes. I’d imagine most of these advanced classes have pre requisites so as long as everyone can do it in a safe manner then have at it.

    If fantasy camp classes are more popular than fundamental classes that’s a problem with the mindset of the students. I’m not going to begrudge an instructor for meeting a demand and running a business. Its up to you to make the determination as to whether or not something is worth your time and money and separate quality from flashy bullshit. On the other hand I think anytime something gets popular or starts bringing in a lot of money there is going to be a backlash from the “cool kids.”

  24. Here’s my thing, they are focused on combat shooting. Self defense is not combat shooting, there is so much more to self defense than blasting large amounts of lead.

    • Sure, but the second amendment is not about self defense, it’s about national defense and defense against the government and only recently has it been about self defense.

      • I don’t think we should be so quick to engage in a debate about what the 2A is “for”. Do we debate the purpose of the 1st amendment? The Constitution protects our right to keep and bear arms, for whatever reason. If people don’t like it, for whatever reason, there is a mechanism for eliminating it. Good luck with that. [/sarcasm]

        • Exactly my point, Robert. So why do you complain that people seek military style weapons training?

          The original purpose of the 2d Amendment is embedded in the amendment itself, it’s for “a well regulated militia.”

          It has been expanded to include self-defense, most recently by Heller but that is not the only nor the first purpose of the second amendment. Many also claim it is for hunting, but that was never mentioned.

          I’ve no problem with hunting or self-defense, but you shouldn’t have any problem with people seeking military training either.

          • I don’t have any problem with anyone taking military style training per se. I have problems with its efficacy and suitability for OFWGs and their ilk. In other words, just because I accept it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

  25. Funny didn’t RF take a Sig Academy class with his M4gery, with a focus on combat shooting? He also said it was one of the better training events he did (I paraphrase). Yet criticizing Travis Haley and the bunch who offer these same classes that RF has taken? Hmmm? I guess it is/was a slow news day?

    I have zero problem with these guys Haley, Costa, Pincus, Lamb, et.al., offering this type of class. These guys have put many more rounds down range (and in combat) than I have, and I can learn something from them. Everything has it’s time and place. Is it always practical to a DGU, which may or may not occur in our own separate lives? That’s a definite maybe. I just enjoy hearing things go bang, and admire the skill and professionalism that many of these instructors bring to their training classes. I figure I can always learn something new, that allows me to think and see things I may or may not have considered, no matter the subject. Always keep learning is my motto.

    My two pennies.

    • The SIG class was a police instructor’s course to teach LEOs how to teach fellow LEOS how to counter active shooters. It was a great class but not something I’d recommend for non-LEOs. But hey, if they want to take it and can get SIG to OK it, I’m down with that. This being a free country and all.

      More to the point, I’m not arguing against the right of the Costas and Suarezes of this world to sell their expertise to the world. If civilians want to study firearms-related self-defense (or guerrilla war-making) techniques and strategies from HSLG instructors, why not? [See: above]

      What I’m not quite sure about: their world view (this from a freedom loving eyes-wide-open son of a Holocaust survivor). What bothers me: the cultish attitude surrounding these not-so-pseudo military guys. It gives me the heebie-jeebies. But again, that’s me. YMMV.

  26. Boards don’t hit back. Rather, steel plates and paper targets don’t shoot back. Training with these guys is a waste of time and money. Even those who have the best training are still human and can be killed very easily. How many tier one operators have been killed by a poorly trained insurgent armed with a RPG and a little luck? The only way to positively survive an armed encounter is to avoid one altogether. Just go to the range, become moderately proficient with your firearm, and hope luck is on your side if you ever have to use it. Or you can carry 2 flashlights, service pistol, spare magazine (again, 2 please), BUG, knife, and spend thousands of dollars making these scam artists rich if that makes you feel better.

  27. anybody that directs a ad hominem attack against these trainers is completely missing the point. i mean, jesus christ, can you anti-operators on here prop up any more strawmen? here’s a machete!

    we know that first and foremost, you avoid trouble and draw your gun only when absolutely necessary. not drawing unnecessary attention to yourself and simply driving off when somebody is trying to carjack you is a example of get off the X being applied to the civilian world. if any of you actually were taught to get off the X and applied it in a combat environment, you would see how this can apply to our everyday world.

    Also, these courses and instructors are not intended to be the end-all, know-all (and they dont act like it either). they’re intended as tools for gun owners to put in their toolbox. and of course they cover the worst case scenario, which is a shootout with multiple assailants. what did you expect? a classroom?

    it seems when a instructor does something different because it is more efficient and easier (like a tactical reload), those know-it-alls that arent professionally trained or experienced get their egos bruised. The problem isn’t instructors like travis haley; its those gun owners that “know it all” and think they dont need training because theyll rise to the occasion when they need to and they’re “not police or military”. its the same tired bullshit. Grow up. meanwhile, the sensible gun owners like me will continue to put tools in our toolboxes and squash our egos so we can become better people.

  28. I think to an extent firearms training has devolved from the glory days of zero fluff and extensive focus on the basics as defined by the likes of Cooper and Chapman to way too much “operator” kind of crap that seems to have an unhealthy focus on marketing/upselling as many different classes as possible.

    From the best gunslingers in our history to Grandma who has a gun but never fired it till she needed it, none of them needed gun mounted lights and lasers, multiple flashlights or goofy moves that honestly only complicate a situation that goes down fast and hard. Basics, basics, basics and common sense. That’s what has saved the good guys and gals for centuries. But…..

    Classes and training can be a great way to go as long as a person takes a step back, gets real and considers what exactly they are training for. It’s way too easy nowadays to get absolutely convinced that you need to turn a perfectly good 7lb home defense AR into a 30lb monstrosity with every “must have game changing” doo-dad attached to it along with all the fancy training classes on how to use them.

    Case in point. Firearms for both sporting and defense have been my passion for 25 years and one topic I still can’t wrap my head around is the common advice about weapon mounted lights. You’re supposed to absolutely have one but then again you shouldn’t use it because it will “give away your position”. If you don’t use it then how the hell can you identify your target and why even have it?

  29. if i could afford this kind of training i would definitely shoot for it(yes, pun intended). there are many people who wish they’d had some kind of tactical training, or rather they would but they’re dead.

    having a “well regulated” militia doesn’t mean it’s bogged down with counter-productive ROEs, excessive bureaucracy, and layer upon layer of red tape; it means something akin to “well trained, equipped(armed, as in with gear and weapons just as good as the military’s), and coordinated”.

  30. Only with their over-reliance on inane jargon and with some of their fanboys. All the respect in the world to Haley – seems like a good guy and good trainer, but every third word out of his mouth, it seems, is critical incident response dynamic situation disruptive environment thinker not learner etc..

    I’m all in favor of taking classes with the former DEVGRU and Delta guys who are teaching these days, I plan to do it myself – but I’ve got no Red Dawn fantasies or belief that the training is useful to my daily life. The knowledge in and of itself is interesting to me.

  32. I tried really hard to not comment on this one. And I lasted two whole days, but then I saw the new banner ad on this site from mission first tactical and nearly choked:

    “Superior assaulter/operator driven advanced arms accessories”

    REALLY? Did someone finally realize that operators usually connect phone calls and drive garbage trucks (nothing against garbage men) so they had to come up with a new pronoun? Assaulter? Boy, that is cool and dangerous sounding. I didn’t want to cast dispersions on the wide range of civilians that practice combat tactics. But self-described “Tactical-Assaulters” are tacit-asshats and deserve all the scorn we can muster.

    • I read all these comments on this site and enjoy the different views and things, but some of the letters strung together mystify me as to their meaning. Here’s one: asshat. It’s obviously an insult, but if you’re going to insult someone, if that someone doesn’t know what you’re calling him, then the insult missed its target. Case in point: I drove big rigs for over 30 years and had a CB and heard the various “radio rambo’s” and their insults etc, but I never found out what a “crackerhead” was. No one could explain it either, but it started a lot of cuss fights over the CB when someone called someone else a “crackerhead”. LoL

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