This past weekend I attended the Combat Shooting And Tactics (CSAT) Civilian Response to Active Shooter (CRAS) course at their Nacogdoches, Texas facility under the leadership of founder Paul Howe. I have never written an after action report, so I hope this is helpful and will be happy to answer questions if there are things I leave out. The course costs $700 and includes lodging in the CSAT barracks, which has a small kitchenette, shower, and laundry facilities.

First, a brief outline of what I brought to the class: I have been shooting for around 25 years with an initial focus on target shooting for tight groups. In pursuit of a law enforcement career, I began to learn tactical/defensive shooting in high school through unofficial training by local LEOs. I attended a police academy and earned the top shooter award upon graduation, but never found employment in the field. I have a Texas carry permit and a private security license which allows me to carry concealed as part of my local church’s security/protection detail. Last year I attended Paul’s 2-day Rifle/Pistol Operator course at CSAT (which is a 3.5 hour drive from where I live) as my first formal firearms training since the academy. It was very fun and helpful at pointing out areas to beef up my personal training routine, but it didn’t really push me out of my comfort zone, so I decided to take another course at CSAT. I emailed Paul (who encourages students to contact him with questions) and after reading my brief explanation of prior training and the roles firearms play in my life, he suggested the CRAS course as a good next step, to be supplemented by his Advanced Individual Tactics course afterwards.

(Dang, this needs to be posted in tiny bits... ctnd)

As for equipment, I brought my security duty rig and my low-profile carry system. This course would not really benefit from much tac gear, and every student worked from concealment for the duration of the course. For security work, I wear a Glock 19 w/ Streamlight weapon light in a kydex OWB holster at 3 o’clock, and two Glock brand mag cases at 10-11 o’clock with 17 round reloads. EDC handheld light (Fenix PD35) is always in a cargo pocket. I ended up not using my low-profile rig (IWB hybrid holster carrying an M&P Shield 9mm) because I only have 4 mags for it and didn’t want to be constantly running around topping them off. I also brought my 5.56 AR because after-hours range use is permitted within certain limitations.

Day 0:
I arrived the day before class and found a place to stow my effects and started meeting fellow students; most of whom had elected to arrive a day early as well. There were folks from all over the US, most had military backgrounds, and a handful had LE experience. One even had a career in the legal system. The vast majority were no longer being paid to carry a gun and were there as civilians. Everyone was squared away and a pleasure to have around.

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Day 1:
The first half of the day was classwork: basic administration, and overview of course objectives and procedures. We were issued tourniquets and strobe lights to use during the course. Paul presented a brief history (with some videos) of active shooter scenarios and civilian reactions to them, a brief bit on Combat Mindset, and verbally walked through his Exterior Contact scenario we would run later that afternoon. We were told our priorities of action in the event of an active shooter should be to establish security by ending the threat(s), see to urgent medical needs, and establish contact with police to keep responding LE informed. This outline was at odds with my LE instincts, which would have been to get help on the way first, but I can see where a conversation with a 911 operator would reduce my ability to aid in the scenario to a much greater degree than a LEO initiating a quick call for backup. Another departure from my LE mindset was Paul’s view that friendly fire from other armed civilians, off-duty LE, or responding LE was such a great danger that you should hide your weapon as much as possible. One alarming story he told was that on one occasion during simunitions training, the LE students were confronted by a sudden and unexpected appearance of a UNIFORMED police officer, and 19 out of 21 students shot at him, saying later that they saw the officer’s gun and fired before mentally processing the presence of a uniform. Lesson learned: in the event of an active shooter, the simple presence of a gun in your hand could very well make you the target of everyone else in the area with a gun, good and bad. Deploy it once the first threat is located, and stow it once the threat(s) go inactive. In short, Paul suggested that we should think like an assassin, blending in with the crowd until the scene calms down a bit.

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After lunch, we convened on the range for a few simple drills to warm up and allow the instructors to examine our weapon handling and operation. We went over the preferring method for going hot and cold together as a group. We did basic drills from the ready position, then from the holster. Malfunction drills, safe movement with a hot gun (Sul position drill), and then worked the 4 barricade shooting positions (standing/kneeling and right/left). After this basic flat-range work, we moved to our Exterior Contact drill in front of the shoot house, simulating a parking lot scene; where we practiced taking cover, moving into position to get a clear shot, servicing (Paul’s term) the target, then delivering instructions to bystanders while moving to cover to call LE and look for more work (further threats or medical aid).

After class, several students broke out rifles and tac gear to run Paul’s Scrambler course: a 500 yard run between shooting stations designed to challenge your ability to make precise shots with rifle and handgun under physical exertion. Fun times were had by all, though I discovered my rifle was zeroed with different ammunition, which made my performance with it suffer.

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Day 2:
We again began the day in the classroom, with an introduction to interior movement, doorways, intersections, emergency medical treatment, and self-aid while maintaining security. We were told that target discrimination should be systematic: Whole body, hand, hand, waistline, immediate area. The tactical shooting community is good at training fast shooters, but here in polite society responsible firearm use means shooting only as fast as you can identify threats.

After lunch, we hit the flat range for basic one-handed shooting, both from primary and secondary hand, and shooting for groups from 25 yards. Before long, we were back at the shoot house, where we stayed for the rest of the course. We began doing scenarios that required us to clear rooms from a hallway, deal with sub-rooms, retake the hallway, and clear a T intersection while addressing both threat targets and non-threat targets. The instructors were beginning to ramp up the difficulty with target discrimination by placing props onto the targets that would affect our threat/no threat assessment. For example, one target was arranged specifically to cause problems with a shooter who was obstructing his own vision with his gun by extending his weapon prematurely. There was a critical prop placed low on the target, and while I passed that particular test, several students were caught by that one. This target also demonstrates the attitude of the instructors throughout the course: they didn’t want to throw more than we could handle at us all at once, but every run through the shoot house was intended to teach us a lesson if we were making certain common mistakes. Even if we ran it clean we were always confronted with something we’d only heard about in class up to that point. It was abundantly clear to me that the instruction was intended to teach why and how we assess potential targets, not to trick us. When I made a mistake, the instructors made me feel like it was a normal part of the learning process and simply ensured the learning point had been successfully absorbed. We dealt with open doors, closed doors (opening in and out), casualties, and medical treatment during these scenarios. We finished up class for day 2 doing a self-aid drill: applying tourniquets to first one arm and then the other while continuing to service a Larue resetting target with our other hand.

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At this point, class dismissed and I was able to re-zero my rifle on paper: turned out I was about 5 inches to the right at 100 yards. That made me feel better about struggling to hit steel the previous evening. Paul stopped by the barracks that evening (probably to actually work on something useful) and graciously spent some of his time swapping stories with the students. For a guy with his training and experience, he is incredibly humble and down to earth.

Day 3:
The last day of the course we met on the range at the shoot house and ran larger scenarios which essentially strung together several of the scenarios we’d seen previously. I was pleased that I was successful in my target discrimination for the whole day, unlike the previous day where I’d shot a few non-threat targets.
After completing the final scenarios, we reconvened at the CSAT classroom for debriefing, certificates, and to return CSAT training equipment. Instructors were extremely positive regarding the quality of the class, and I hope we were successful in communicating our appreciation for their efforts and skill. I was really impressed with the rest of the class, personally. In the past I have been accustom to the occasional struggling, dense, or inexperienced student who slows down the whole class, but there were no problem students in this class as far as I could tell. Some were holding tighter groups than others, but as far as I saw everyone’s weapon handling and safety habits were rock solid.

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Conclusion:
I cannot say enough about what a great experience this class was. Simply to be able to work through the shoot house and practice target discrimination would have made it worthwhile, but the whole package made it the best firearms-related training I’ve ever had. I will be hard-pressed to find a better class for the civilian gun owner for the rest of my shooting career. Speaking of which, one of the topics that came up in conversation was that 99% of this course material and 100% of the range work would translate perfectly into the LE world if the officer was off-duty or even just the first one on the scene. Don’t let the word “Civilian” in the title dissuade you if you are in LE.

Everyone involved in this class has my thanks, and thanks to anyone actually taking the time to read this whole thing.

Nice AAR. Thanks

 
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Wife and I are moving to San Antonio this summer.  Classes at CSAT are tops on my list of things to do in Texas.

Great write up, thanks for taking the time to post it!


Chris

Good write up, OP. Mr. Howe is a top notch Instructor !

Good job OP!

Glad it was worthwhile for you. Sounds like something I should consider.