Last week Michael Bane put up a post on competition versus real world shooting. This is pretty much "old territory". It's sort of like the classic debate between Glock owners and 1911 advocates. Or what is the best cartridge or bullet? I'm pulling some of my previously published data on this rather than contributing much in the way of new material.

In my collection of quotes I have one from Greg Hamilton which is essentially +1 on what Bane says:

As for the "I don't shoot that kind of game because I don't want to learn bad tactics" crowd, I think that is an over used excuse by people that can't win. Shooting IPSC or IDPA won't make you a bad tactician. Being a bad tactician will make you one! Most of the people that complain about tactics wouldn't know a tactic if it hit them in the ass.

Tactics are making the most out of the situation with the resources at hand. Every time you "game" a stage you are engaging in tactical thinking. They just might not be the right tactics for a gunfight.

Greg Hamilton
11/11/2001
Insights Training Email List

The following is only partially on target for the topic at hand but it is still worthy of bringing up:

From: Joseph K. Huffman
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 1998 11:21 PM
To: ipsc mailing list
Subject: RE: New target...

[...stuff deleted...]

'Classic Target' makes me think of George Orwell's '1984' and 'Animal Farm' books. To me IPSC is about shooting 'bad guys'. It is about using a gun to defend self, family, and country. If someone were to ask me if IPSC was training people to shoot other people I would reply with an enthusiastic "YES!". There are some people that need to be shot. And if the time comes that they need to be shot and I'm the one that must do the shooting my speed, accuracy, and power will be some of the critical items in deciding who walks away from the encounter and who leaves on a stretcher. For some government, or some naive group of people with political clout, to claim a moral high ground and demand that I stop practicing shooting at people is ludicrous. Self defense is a right all species on this planet have claimed for all time. For someone to deny me the opportunity to practice it is as alien to me as anything I can imagine. It causes an internal reaction of outrage in me that I find difficult to express accurately. If the world IPSC organization wants to add another target to achieve political advantage in some country or to gain entrance to the Olympics, fine. If necessary, as a first step, shoot with single shot air guns. Do what you have to in those areas where shooting real guns at (somewhat) realistic targets is not viable. But don't take away the fundamental principles of this 'game' from everyone -- shooting 'bad guys', fast, accurately, and with 'stopping power'.

-joe-

The point I like to make is, "How many class B and above IPSC shooters have lost a real world gun fight?" As far as I know the answer is zero. IMHO any time you get someone to the range and they put in some "trigger time" shooting fast and accurately they are improving their "real world" gun skills. Show me the data that suggests otherwise and then we can talk more but until then we just have opinions.