This article was inspired by a recurring problem in the firearms community: people often critique training without first understanding what the exercise is intended to accomplish. The Dunning–Kruger effect helps explain part of that behavior. Limited knowledge can make it difficult to recognize the limits of one’s own understanding, while experienced people may underestimate how much knowledge and context they have accumulated.
We see this whenever someone repeats something heard at a gun shop or read online, then presents it as a universal truth. I have been guilty of speaking without enough context myself. The better habit is to determine the purpose of what we are observing before deciding whether it is correct.
A Skill Drill Is Not a Tactics Demonstration
Mike Pannone once posted a video of himself shooting from concealment while using a handheld flashlight. Online observers immediately supplied corrections: he needed a weapon-mounted light, should not drop the magazine, and should not hold the light near his head. Pannone had a logical response to each criticism, but his central point was simpler: the video was not a tactics demonstration. It was a skill drill.
That distinction should have produced an “aha” moment. A short drill may intentionally isolate one task or combine a small number of component skills. It cannot be judged fairly as though it represents the complete tactical solution to an undefined problem.
Drills Develop Component Skills
Weapons proficiency depends on component skills such as marksmanship, draws, reloads, malfunction clearance, and light manipulation. Each needs purposeful practice. Drills allow the shooter to isolate a skill, receive clear feedback, and build reliable performance without simultaneously managing every variable found in an actual confrontation.
With sufficient practice, those skills can require less conscious attention. That matters because attention is limited. When a problem becomes complex, the shooter needs mental capacity for perception, decision-making, communication, movement, and the actions of other people.
Component skills should eventually flow together, but weapons proficiency and tactics remain different things. They support one another; they are not interchangeable.
Techniques and Tactics Require Context
Illuminating a target with a handheld light is a technique that must be practiced. Relocating after the light is deactivated is a tactical decision. Standing in place and placing rounds on a target tests weapons manipulation. Moving, using angles or terrain, and forcing an adversary to react involve tactics.
Both technique and tactics matter. Sometimes they are trained separately and sometimes they are integrated. Confusion begins when observers assume an isolated technique is being offered as a complete tactical answer.
The Post-Shooting Scan Problem
My agency qualified quarterly. Part of the prescribed course required shooters to conduct “checkpoints” before reholstering after each string: draw, fire, scan, and holster. The scan was intended to interrupt tunnel vision and condition the shooter to look for additional threats.
During one qualification, the instructor progressively reduced the time between engagements. I rushed the scan to return to the holster. I moved my head, but I was not actually searching for or processing anything. I was performing a post-shooting dance.
The range contained one paper target, known distances, and a prescribed number of rounds. I knew there were no additional threats. Repeating the physical motion did not create awareness because the exercise provided no information to find, interpret, or act upon.
Scenarios Test Integration and Decisions
Years later, as an instructor running force-on-force scenarios, I saw the difference clearly. Students could operate their weapons flawlessly while standing exposed and being shot at instead of moving to cover. Some froze; others overreacted and acted without thinking. Some engaged one adversary, reholstered, and celebrated while another adversary maneuvered against them.
These students had been taught to scan after shooting. The isolated movement did not guarantee that they could recognize and solve a developing problem. Similarly, students who learned to break contact in a linear bounding lane sometimes struggled when a scenario placed the threat between them and their planned route.
Scenario training adds uncertainty, competing information, consequences, and decisions. It reveals whether component skills can be selected and integrated under conditions that do not announce the correct answer.
Use Both for Their Intended Purpose
Skill drills are necessary, but they are not the complete picture. Scenario training is also necessary, but it is a poor environment for repairing every deficient component skill. Use drills to develop and measure specific capabilities. Use scenarios to test perception, judgment, integration, and adaptability. Then return to focused practice to address the weaknesses the scenario exposed.
Analyze your own training. Where are the gaps? Have you practiced the individual skills? Have you tested them in force-on-force scenarios? Are you rehearsing a meaningful process or merely performing a motion because the course requires it?
Ask Before You Correct
If an experienced instructor performs a task in a way you do not immediately understand, there may be a reason. Most of us would be better served by asking questions before making corrections. “It depends” may frustrate inexperienced students, but tactics rarely offer one universal answer. Context is necessary for understanding, and experience helps us recognize which context matters.
Understand what each exercise is designed to teach, use it for that purpose, and then connect it to the larger system. And remember: there is no spoon.
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