Shooting Illustrated by Steve Tarani February 6, 2022
Will competitive shooting help or hurt you in the real world?Defensive shooters scoff at competition shooters calling them ‘gamers’ and laugh at their ‘tactics’ while the average competitive shooter can readily outshoot the average defensive shooter. Is there a compromise? How can you as a shooter seeking to shoot well, benefit from both worlds?
The battle rages on between shooting for sport versus shooting for self-defense. Having served as a full-time U.S. federal agency employee in the defense intelligence community, a sworn deputy and on staff at Gunsite Academy for more than two decades, it’s been my observation of thousands of shooters throughout the defensive shooting community for a span of nearly four decades, that dyed-in-the-wool defensive shooters who do not compete raise their noses at so-called gamers. Conversely, competition shooters smirk at those defensive shooters who perform at lower skill levels.
On the defensive shooter side of the fence, whether you have a military, law enforcement or federal background as a gun carrier, you have no choice but to pass an agency or departmental firearms qualification – if you want to keep your job. In other words, there is a shooting performance standard that must be met for that agency for you to be qualified to carry a gun for food.
A typical qualification (qual) requires you to shoot specified strings of fire within a specified time limit for score. Each agency or department sets their own minimum and maximum qual scores. To keep the math simple, let’s set a maximum of 100 points and a minimum of 75 points. If you want to stay employed, then you must score at least a 75 on your qualification. At the opposite end of the scoring spectrum, the greatest number of points you can attain is 100. The average agency or department does not offer any training above and beyond the ability of the shooter to achieve a maximum qualification score.
On the competition side of the fence, whether you are a professional shooter or recreational shooter, you are in competition with all other competitive shooters around the world. Competitions are held at the global, national, regional, state and local levels. There are several recognized competitive shooting organizations such as the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC), the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA), the International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) and others. Such organizations are the governing bodies of the competition shooting sports and their activities include regulation of the sport by approving firearms and equipment for various divisions, administering competition rules and education of range officials who are responsible for conducting matches safely, fairly and according to set rules.
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https://www.shootingillustrated.com/content/competitive-versus-defensive-shooting-which-is-better/
