So I’m watching a DVR’ed episode of Personal Defense TV the other night and something made me say “WTF?”. While this isn’t uncommon, this episode had more than a few WTF moments contained in it. The episode focused on pocket guns and as usual, the show was filmed at Gunsite and Ed Head was the primary instructor featured. Some of the things he advocated were odd to say the least. Here are a few:
drawing of the pocket gun should be done dry and live fire practice should start from low ready - Seems like you would be short-changing yourself and hampering your ability to draw and fire smoothly. While they advocate having high situational awareness and starting a fight with the pocket gun in your hand; I find that to be an unrealistic expectation
Having two pocket guns in your hands at the same time - while they state you should do this so you can dump 2 mags worth of ammo into the suspect at once, the idea of keeping both hands occupied instead of one hand free to block,redirect,etc seems assinine to me
Firing 2 LCPs at the head of a target at the same time then bragging about 12 rounds in the face of an attacker even though six rounds are misses - this was the biggest WTF moment of the night. I couldn’t believe they actually aired that.
I can believe it. PDTV can sometimes be extremely fruity, as it seems at least some of the people who are producing it don’t really know what they are doing. I distinctly recall one episode where the Taurus judge loaded with birdshot was lauded for it’s anti-carjacker capability.
There’s a lot of stuff that looks great when you are shooting at paper targets who don’t move or shoot back…like dual wielding mouseguns.
The first thing that popped into my head when the blazing mice concluded was the misses on the target. IIRC, it was one to the left of the target and 5 to the right. In the real world, where would have those rounds gone? The entire segment reeked of irresponsible instruction/advocation. Its probably a good thing that there wasnt a photographer standing between the targets.
But don’t you guys know that Gunsite is one of the most respected training facilities in the country? Col. Cooper founded it, so it MUST be good! :rolleyes:
+1 to NCStar Patrol
I saw that episode too. On just last Wednesday on the outdoor hannel. I said the same thing about the two gun thing and told my son that it wasn’t practical what he was advocating.
I kinda hope they’re goofing for most of the shit they put on that show, but I don’t think they are. My biggest WTF moment for PDTV came during the episode where they showed a bunch of SASS guys out taking a defensive pistol class…with SAAs.
I saw the show in question and it’s the perfect fuel for gun store commando debate. I was quite shocked to see a respected name like Gunsite putting out this sort of garbage.
No one would want to get into a gunfight with Bob Munden either. But even he shoots a bottom feeder on occasion. A SA revolver can still kill a man graveyard dead, but not many would argue that it’s a superior fighting gun in this day and age.
I guess if you’re a curmudgeon that refuses to use anything else, there’s a niche for providing that type of training. But devoting a whole show to it seems a little on the silly side.
The irony there will be that while the mouseguns are going to be said to be capable of getting the job done, misses won’t be taken seriously because they are, after all, mouseguns.
The entire segment reeked of irresponsible instruction/advocation.
I agree completely. I love having gun related shows on TV, but sometimes what they present is pretty darn fruity…especially when it comes to instructions on self defense. I distinctly remember one episode of one of these shows where guys were debating use of the Mini-14 vs. a shotgun. One of the points offered against the mini-14 was that a criminal could mistake it for a Ruger 10/22 and take his chances. The counter was that with the addition of a laser and white light the weapon would look more intimidating.
That was a stunner.
Its probably a good thing that there wasnt a photographer standing between the targets.
Give 'em time. I’m sure they’ll have a TV show for WARRIORS!!! before long.
Personally on TV shows I would rather see instructional time dedicated to some interesting stuff like really testing out the capabilities of a small slide-mounted red dot on handguns. Get shooters of various levels and training and take them through a standardized course of fire with irons and red dots. Take them through some low-light stuff too…see what the results are. Ditto lasers since so few people seem to realize what they can do. Stuff like that…instruction that makes a convincing case to the viewer. High speed video of various stances and recoil control techniques to show what works, etc. That stuff would be genuinely interesting and informative…far more so than watching some dude John Woo a target with a couple of pocket guns.
With the way many of the hosts/guests shoot on these shows, I am not sure they are aware that multiple techniques exist or that one could gain something from a comparison.
The guest host (i.e. not pincus) on the latest epsiode of the S.W.A.T magazine T.V. show looked like my wife shooting both his 1911 and the AR. He could barely control the guns and I really thought they were going to fly out of his hands. Looked like one of the bad guys on Miami vice circa 1987.
It is a shame because these shows have so much potential. The ones L.A.V is associated with always have good stuff.
