Author ScotShot Scott is an NRA and USCCA certified Instructor and Training Counselor in a range of firearms, and home and personal defense disciplines. In an Alternate Universe, he is a husband, father, grandfather, scientist, musician, educator and grumpy old professor. Just your average reactionary, short, fat, old, bald guy!

It might surprise you to know that only a small percentage of gun owners ever take a lesson from a Certified Instructor. Congratulations! You have taken the first step into becoming a Responsibly Armed American! Let’s talk about some initial things you can do to build and grow your new skill. Remember, “Use it, or Lose it!”

Most people who have become new gun owners in the last couple of years are thinking primarily about home and personal defense. In this post, we will focus there. Here’s an interesting little factoid. Over 80 percent of defensive firearms use takes place at the distance of between 9 and 15 feet, so don’t worry about further distances until you’re comfortable with that.

It’s also important to be aware that the TV visual that you only need one shot is, well, made for TV. In reality, you’ll need more, and you’ll want to shoot them pretty fast. So, while we aren’t target shooting, we *are* shooting with focus. We’re shooting with a Defensive Focus.

Here are the gory details. If we need to shoot in defense of our life, or the life of a loved one, then we must do so with purpose. That purpose is to “Stop the Threat”. How is the threat going to be stopped? Does the attacker turn and run when they see our defensive firearm? If so, there is no longer a threat and we can no longer justify shooting. This is important, Tigers!

But if we *do* have to shoot, then we must stop the threat as quickly as possible. The best way to do that is to shoot several times into the heart and lung area. This area is generally referred to as the “High Center Chest”. This is the best way to diminish the attacker’s ability to feed their brain with blood and oxygen. That is what will stop the threat.

So, where is High Center Chest? Take a moment and find a sheet of plain printer paper and fold the long end in it until you have a square. Now, hold it against your chest. Voila! High Center Chest. Easy peasy. Any shot inside that 8 1/4 inch square is an equally effective defensively focused shot. Do you think you could shoot rapidly into a target that size at 9 – 15 feet? Of course you could! So, how do we practice? Let’s hit the range!

We find the plainest target we can lay our hands on. Forget about the zombies and the balloons and the bunnies. Forget about anything with a target and rings and numbers and X’s. These are for different kinds of training. Our ideal target is the “Q” target and every range has them. Now, we either tape on our folded printer paper, or simply draw a square of about 8 – 9 inches with a thick sharpie, then run the target out to 10 – 12 feet.

We safely remove the gun from its case and set it down on the table with the muzzle pointed downrange, and the slide locked back. Load a magazine with five rounds. We bring the gun to a firing condition. We establish our proper two-handed grip and bring the gun back to our chest with the muzzle pointed straight downrange. This position is called “High Compressed Ready” and it’s the only “ready position” we should use. OK – good to go? Let’s fire one shot. We will keep both eyes open and focus on the square.

Extend the gun straight out to the target until both arms are as straight as we can make them, and into our line of sight of the target. The gun should be right in front of our eyes. Our finger should be off the trigger. We should not need to move our head down to find the gun. We should be able to see the gun right in the middle of the square. We touch the trigger but we don’t move it. We press the trigger to discharge one shot. We lift our finger back onto the frame of the gun and return it to High Compressed Ready (HCR).

Did the shot fall anywhere inside the square? Then it’s a ‘hit’! Score ‘1’ for you and ‘-1’ for the bad guy. Now we repeat. We extend the gun, touch and press the trigger, and return to high compressed ready with our finger on the frame. We always look at the target with both eyes. We’re going to repeat this until we can get every shot somewhere inside the square at 10 – 12 feet. This will generally not take more than 15 rounds, but if it takes us a few more, that’s ok.

OK! Now, multiple shots. We load five rounds and extend fully to target as before. We take as much time as we need to let the gun settle back into the square before firing a second time. Now back to HCR. Both shots in the square? Excellent! Extend again and fire three shots, again taking the time we need to get the gun settled and all shots in the square. Use two five-round magazines on this exercise. If we want we can do it again but firing all five shots into the square. That’s good work and 40 or 50 rounds well spent! Time to say “Well Done, Me” and call it a night.

So, let’s review. We are training ourselves to know how quickly we can fire while still getting our shots in the square. The more holes, the less blood to the attacker’s brain and the quicker we will stop the threat.

• We are training initially only between 9 and 15 feet;
• We are focusing on the target;
• We are working from high compressed ready;
• We are extending the gun fully with both arms, up into our line of sight on the target;
• We are *seeing* the sights within the target square, but we are not *using* the sights;
• We are touching then pressing the trigger, letting the gun settle back into our line of sight on the target between each shot;
• We fire multiple shots as quickly as we can without going outside the square.

We are balancing speed and precision, and learning to shoot with a defensive focus.

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