Home Safety: It’s a Family Affair

I believe that it is my responsibility to protect my family. Having firearms helps me do that. But as we all know, having kids and guns can be a dangerous affair. Rather than locking them up – the kids or the guns (your choice) – I decided to make the whole issue a family project. Not just protecting them from others but from themselves as well. It is my firm belief that education and hard training are the keys to this end.

The goal here is to expose every family member to firearms in every way. The entire family should be trained to a point that is beyond basic proficiency, rather, all the way to the point of absolute boredom. The purpose of training to this high level of monotony is twofold. First, as the old saying goes, ‘sweat saves blood’. The more you train, the more natural the movements feel and the faster you process target stimuli. Second: heavy exposure to the point of boredom makes guns less mysterious and inviting for kids.

At this point we are all clear about what is at stake. For you and for your family, the future is a crapshoot. Not to sound bleak by any means but I have seen it first hand. One minute everything is quiet. The next minute you’re scrambling for cover.

To be honest, the chances that you will find yourself in a war zone are relatively slim, but the chances that you or your family may be in danger at home are increasing. Home invasions, mass shootings, burglary, domestic violence, and accidental shootings are all on the rise. People are becoming increasingly desperate, and seemingly foolish, and it’s only going to get worse.

If you believe the above is true, as I do, it is a matter of prudence to teach your family firearms safety and marksmanship. At the very least it should be a measure to ensure that your kids don’t shoot their little friends when playing cops and robbers. This all seems obvious but it’s startling how many people don’t teach their children…anything.

Exposure to the point of utter and complete monotony is the key, particularly for boys. Guns, especially pistols, are exciting; they go boom, they blow things up, they are mechanistic, they are controversial, and all the cool guys on TV are running around using them. What’s not to like? All of these things peak a child’s interest, draws them toward the firearm for play and for curiosity and bang, someone is hurt or worse.

As parents we have two options: lock the guns up, treat them as scary and dangerous, and hide them away – which does not address interest, and leaves the child crippled with ignorance when confronted with a gun. Or, take the child to the range with way too many rounds and let the child shoot until it’s boring, teach them how the gun functions, where to point it, and how to disassemble and clean it. Give them so much information that the gun is a chore.

I purchased a SIRT training pistol (if you’re interested you can find them at sirtsurvival.com) and continue the exposure with regular drills. The SIRT is a very accurate analog, clearly not a toy and is perfectly safe.

My kids and I, once a month, go through drills that include clearing rooms, slicing the pie (if you don’t know what that is look it up, or wait for my next article), target acquisition, draw speed, and more. I make a friendly competition of it.

It has been several months since I have started this exposure technique and both of my kids are so exposed that they don’t even want to do the competitions anymore, let alone go to the range and shoot, the interest is gone and yet they are not crippled with ignorance. Lastly, I can sleep better at night knowing that my kids are far less likely to be involved in a shooting, accidental or otherwise.

Here is one drill that we do regularly. It’s fun and it can get tough really fast.

Hardware used:

• SIRT PRO Training Pistol (I have chosen the SIRT pistol for training because it is the most accurate pistol analog on the market, guaranteed not to hurt anyone or anything.)
• Deck of Cards
• Stopwatch

Software used:

•  None

Drill 1: Target Acquisition

The purpose of this drill is accuracy in acquiring and hitting the target. To step it up a bit, add the stopwatch to make it a race. Or, add physical training, push-ups, burpees, mountain climbers, whatever you like. Training the mind and body simultaneously is something we did regularly in the Marine Corps.

Pick playing cards and their functions. To keep it simple, make red a target – black is not. For a bit more complexity make face cards targets and numbers reps. For example, if you get a 5, you do 5 push-ups. If you get a jack you fire a double tap. Be creative and always try to do things differently.

• Get with a partner. Person 1 takes the deck of cards and shuffles them. Person 2 takes the SIRT, holstered, and stands ready to draw and fire.
• Stand about 10-15 feet apart. Person 1 holds the deck face down at waist height. Person 2 has the SIRT holstered.
• Person one draws a card and holds it up – holding it in a different place every time. Try to trick the shooter.
• Person 2 responds to the card as quickly as possible, either drawing and firing or dropping to the floor to do a set of mountain climbers.

You’ll find that this drill requires some thought, but soon you’ll be hitting targets and dropping to the floor at blazing speed.

I hope this helps get your family into the shooting spirit. At the very least they’ll be comfortable with firearms and less likely to be involved in an accidental shooting.

Stay tuned to Greywolf Survival for more tips and drills!

Graywolf’s notes

Here’s a quick video on this pistol that you may be interested in.

Here’s another, where Joe Teti (from Dual Survivor) uses it and shows he can get an accurate shot off in less than a second because of the practice he’s done with the pistol, which is a very similar idea to what Joshua just explained above.

If you want to learn how to properly handle, hold, and shoot a gun before you go to a professional trainer like Joe, check out Panteao Productions Make Ready with Bob Vogel Building World Class Pistol Skills DVD or Practical Shooting, Handgun Techiques, Vol. 1-3 by Matt Burkett and practice at home. You really need an instructor to give you some feedback, but the DVDs will at least get you on the right track.