How should our training approach differ from those who shoot for a living?
Or should it?

I see a lot of stuff on youtube, that gives me the creeps, when it comes to civilians (which I now must also consider myself) training with tactical Rifles.

As folks who do not shoot for a living, that is, do not train on the taxpayer tit w/ free ammo and time, there simply isnt enough time/Ammo to get good at everything stance and niche....
So it stands to reason that we should work on getting good at the high benefit areas. The Basics in other words

a) I think it makes most sense to focus on getting (and staying) good at strong side, since that's what we will use 95% of the time. .....getting equally or even just nearly equally good at support side, will eat up HUGE amounts of training time/ammo that we simply dont have and may even be a misdirection.

So training on support side will take away from training on skills that we will actually use (strong side). If you have plateued on strong side , by all means practice support side.
But who here has really plateaued strong side?
Not many, I bet.

b) "Transitions":.... for the same (and many other) reasons dont believe in spending much time on  transitions.. why? it looks so cool and all the "cool kids" do it??, ....Well whats more likely,..... to run out of ammo or to need  a handgun?.....
A Handgun, this very marginal tactical tool, displaces at least 2 magazines on your rig, maybe even 3......
making your primary less supported and so in turn less effective..

... so the question is not "Could a back-up handgun ever be useful"? Obviously it could and has been in many cases..........but thats not an analysis thats anecdotes (The "I know a guy who survived because X" that you will always hear no matter what piece of kit is discussed)
..........
. the question really needs to be  "are you willing to give up two or three 30 rd mags for a handgun?".. And unless you are on a SWAT Team thats being followed around by a van carrying your extra water and ammo for yo,  the answer is probably not..... .

c) Niche firing positions. Urban prone, "Supine" etc look great on youtube vids and appeal to the macho man in all of us, but they are so rarely needed I will not bother to spend significant time on them until I own Gods trifecta of shooting: standing,kneeling,prone.

Not that the niche postions cant be useful in some situations and they have been on (rare) occasions but again, cost-benefit analysis for those folks who dont train on taxpayer dime and time says... you have to make hard choices.
We can never train everything...so lets focus on the high pay-off content.

And is that a problem?

No its not, because you dont have to be superman with the tactical Rifle to be dangerous to your enemies.. you just have to be good enough that employing your tactical rifle is second nature to you so you can keep your head on a swivel.

The best way to accomplish that is with training that focuses on the basics: BRM-->Rifle Manipulation/Employment --> Small unit tactics.

On this note, I have met many pure civilians who with a little elbow grease have reached a level of BRM->Rifle Manipulations/Employment -> Small Unit Tactics, that I would place them above many, active duty combat arms guys..... Not the Cool kids Units mind you. but normal Combat Arms guys.

And that is plenty of ability to be dangerous to one's enemies and that's what the AR15 is all about isn't it?

Thank you for this post. It is productive contributions and well thought posts just like yours, that drive our training discussion forward and help us all examine the nuances of different training approaches.

Wall of text, but I made it to the end.

I guess I'll start:

A) I practice both strong side and weak side, especially with handguns. What if I get shot on my strong side hand?

2) My transitions consist of walking back to the truck, laying my rifle down, and picking up my handgun. I would want both in a SHTF scenario in case I needed to stash the rifle and move into a situation incognito.

d) Do people actually do the Costa firing positions?  I'm under the impression that some of them are pretty much satire.

I've never been .mil, so I can't and won't speak to potential abilities of either. I do think success in life threatening scenarios comes down to mindset more than anything else.

Let me know how these civilians do when teamed up together when or if SHTF. Your highly motivated civilians are lacking in team building, something that is essential to achieving objectives and keeping it together. then there's things such as how to maneuver while another element is suppressing, bounding, clearing obstacles, etc.

Then there are things such as knowing how to prevent heat injuries, first aid, land nav, among a fuckton of other things.

Not trying to down on you, but saying your civilians can do it better when it's go time, is very ignorant. Hence the

Get clear about what your 'mission' is, only then can you determine what you need to learn.

Your points are well taken, but this may even reinforce a the point I sometimes like to make.

Pure .civs and those of us who are out, need to make hard choices on what we train.

Some choices are easy, no sense to train employment of  a Claymore or AT4 if you dont have one right?
spending your energy on a core skill is key ,That's how the NG does it and they seem to do quite well,..... especially at team building.

Which units have the best unit cohesion? Short of elite units, thats often the National Guard. Why? because they are mostly from the same town/county and know each other for years, as they dont routinely PCS (except at the E-7 and above level to find the right slot )
Unit cohesion has time and again been shown to be one of the greatest predictors of combat success even more than kit .

Civilians that train together are often from the same area dont PCS and so can develop a lot of unit cohesion.

Speaking of military  training... for the majority of the ground forces our unit training was sitting on our ass in the bush waiting for the exercise to start...and washing the trucks afterwards....and any tactical training we would get (short of being sent off to a rare quality school), was short and often crippled by safety rules.

Not so hard to believe it can't be done better on the outside.?
DoD/DoS seem to agree or they wouldn't spend so much money on Academi, etc

very true, point well taken.
Let me define how I see mission:

Given that the AR 15 is a Tactical Rifle pattern, might as well train to employ it properly in accordance with the environment it was designed for.
or else why own an AR15?  

So you're stating that NG does it better because you were in the NG and never once saw things done in team building in the RA? Gee, all of the PT together, eating meals together when on duty or in the field, living in the barracks together, among a ton of other things done on a day to day basis, is now trumped by NG who live in the same state, and some that live in the same town, who only see each other on the duty weekends, and then go home and repeat next month?

I feel very bad for you, you never saw what being active duty can really do as far as team building goes. I started off in the Guard, and I went active and got to see both sides of things and this is what I have to say about the two: RA>NG.

Training is done and guided by a unit's METL. If your unit isn't the CA part of FORSCOM, then you ain't getting the training funds to do what they do...who gets more training and training money, a quartermaster company or the infantry? Easy answer. Special Ops and DA units get funded differently from the conventional side, and because of that they can afford to spend more money on training.

I'd rather be around a team of former mil who go to classes such as carbine and pistol, then a some civ's who can't even treat a deep puncture wound but they sure as heck can do well motivated mag flips.

Just my thoughts...

BlueZ:  Awesome post my brother.  This is exactly what we need to be looking at.  If you have read anything else this man has posted, you will already know what the mission is.  Defending yourself and loved ones in a WROL situation.  

Some of these guys that were in the military cracked me up.  You think you own SUT, or C3, or whatever.  That's pure bullshit.  I've been active duty, reserves, and ArNG, and can tell you straight out that I have met more motivated, intelligent, better skilled civilians in the last few years, than A LOT of the young soldiers and Marines in a typical line unit.  On average I see older, more mature folks, who are serious about learning the trade, not just going through the motions until they can out into the ville to the titty bars.  

So take a knee there, Ranger.  Generalizations can be hazardous to your health.  Yes, I myself would prefer a unit of former Marines or soldiers, in fact I always prefer the company of veterans.  But you gotta take the troops available and work with 'em.

To the OP, I couldn't agree more with the concept of focusing on some key core skill sets, based on time available.  Separate the wheat from the chaff as it were.  And we don't even have to waste our time on all the bullshit classes, like sexual harassment and such.

My comments in red

For all those who say they can shoot and weapons manipulate better than most combat arms soldiers after taking civilian classes, there are some areas that you are overlooking that will win out in many circumstances:

* Physical fitness

* Team work

A unit that has been doing PT together for years, in addition to battle drills, will run circles around you and your weapon manipulation skills.

The question should be, what training is done that the military does that I am overlooking.  The biggest answers are again:

* Physical fitness

* Team work

I'll never be without a pistol if I have the option. I've seen rifles go down including taking a round to the receiver. You can have all the ammo in the world but without a rifle it's worthless to you.

Which is both very easy and very difficult.

It is easy to do PT, and doing it with the group of guys you train with is great team building. It allows you to hold each other accountable too. You can do calesthetics, combatives, weight training, all sorts of stuff. Even if you don't do PT together every day you could do it once or twice a week and still be ahead.

For team building you have great FOF tools available now, Airsoft and Paintball have great milsim type options and there are UTM/simunitions available for civilians. Though finding a place to train that at can be very difficult, unless one of your team members has some land.

The most difficult part is to find people of like mindset that aren't kooks; you have to weed out the 88'ers, TEOTWAKI guys, government agent provocateurs, and general nut jobs. It's also hard to find people who want to push themselves hard and do combative type training, gun owners see guns as the definitive tool to stop and attack and those interested in H2H/MMA/martial arts see guns as dirty or a way to cheat.

First off...almost no civilian gun owners get any professional training at all, ever, so there's that (and the vast majority of soldiers and LE only get what the agency gives them, no training on their own time)

From a training methodology perspective there is no difference.  Effective training is effective training.  Use the crawl, walk, run method.  Tailor training to the anticipated mission and operational environment.  Make effective use of resources.  Conduct AARs, conduct follow-on training.

I think civilians can have a huge advantage when it comes to effective training...namely no bureaucrat or chain of command to say "no" or waste time on less effective stuff.  At the high resource end, a civilian (or a soldier/LE on leave and their own dime), can select from a plethora of the best instructors in the world and receive training on any relevant subject from small arms to tactical medicine, team tactics, low light, survival etc.  When these courses are not LE/Mil only, the instructors tailor them to civilian environments, assuming single shooter, single CQB clearing techniques (and cover dangers and advantages of barricade if an option).

Further, when resource limited you are still only limited by imagination.  Free dry-fire, inexpensive 3D plastic targets that can be clothed and rigged to drop only when hit in a vital area etc.  Making max use of rounds on every drill (you should be working drawing, moving, loading, malf. clearance, scanning on almost every string of fire).    Can also mix in other training modes-airsoft FoF and 300 degree video simulators that are available in many cities for a nominal range fee.

A civilian can't self-study from zero to hero without any professional instruction/feedback, but a few good professional courses, some good professional at home materials added to the self-discipline to actually practice what they learned dry and live, and it is easy for a civilian to exceed the skill of the typical soldier or LE officer, even to the entry special ops level (IMO).  I'm talking individual shooting, moving, gun handling skills, the soldiers obviously can do lots of other stuff that the civilian doesn't need to know since they aren't part of a unit, but civilians don't have to waste time training on any of that or the annual EO briefs!

In my travels to various firearms training schools/instructors, the one thing that is unanimously agreed upon by
the instructors is that 'joe' civilians, training on their own dime, are the most motivated students.

They say that because the student is motivated to get the maximum they can for their money. Cops, on the other
hand, are more often interested in the class ending early in the day. That's the way it is. I like
classes that have a good mix of cops and civilians

Sure, you'll get the odd civilian that slows down a class/is in over their head. They are usually the
exception, rather than the rule.

I agree with all of this.

There are many aspects of light infantry/SOF military units that can't be internalized by civilians without living in an intelligent predatory pack community though.

The culture aspect of it is what is extremely difficult to duplicate in the civilian side.

If a High School or College football team took up regular martial training with guns, cars, etc., that would be the closest you could get I think.  Competition within a group who are all set on improving and constantly vetting each other creates an environment where only the strong succeed to survive.

This !
most civie shooters can shoot. sure. but mostly from the bench. most are heavy 6's that cant fight their way out of a paper bag,
and have enough trouble lumbering out on the range to hang a target.

I'm sorry, you were saying stuff about being badass in the apocalypse, but I didn't see any mention of SOPs for booby trapped buildings, snipers, call for fire, or medevac. Exactly what definitive care are you going to take your buddy that activated a booby trap in one of the 5 most booby trapped locations in a building (You do know what those are, and the types of triggers, right? Right?) and loses his right arm? Then while you're doing that, what's your plan for a sniper that set up tannerite wrapped in duct tape and ball bearings on the natural lines of drift from the booby trapped building and starts shooting them while you're trying to get the hell out? Now night falls and those assholes apparently have NVGs and you're pinned while your buddies arm starts turning purple/white passed where the tourniquet was put applied.


Don't fantasize about how badass you or your buddies will be in SHTF.

I actually told my wife today that I need to work more on my pistol proficiency. I take my pistol to the range every trip. But it hardly gets drawn. I run the rifle, But I dont practice my techniques of pistol shooting. I told her it made no sense that I did this since I dont carry my rifle slung on my back everywhere I went.

So yea, Its basics for me for a good while. then more advanced, then back to the basics for maintenance and strengthening. then moving forward again and repeat.

As far as the OP, Obviously the basics and fundamental skills, principles, and  tools should be the most sought after and most strengthened. As far as monetary obstacles are concerned, yes it is difficult for people to "train" the way the may need to train to reach the level of proficiency they wish to achieve, but unlike the government, This "acceptance level" is determined ultimately by the trainee. If he or she feels they have done all they can do, and cannot afford to go any further, He needs to practice what he has been taught and make sure that what he has been taught IS second nature.