by Silver at Wolfesblog
“I’ve hunted with a shotgun for over 40 years, and I’ve kept one handy for almost that long just in case an intruder needed some persuasion regarding the wisdom of breaking into my house or apartment. I was trained to hunt by my father and other male relatives, but I had never been trained in the defensive uses of the shotgun.
That changed recently when I spent 2 full days at a professional firearms training center learning the theory and practice of close quarters combat with the shotgun and pistol.
The short version of this story is easy: if you plan to use any weapon in self defense, you need to train. Hunting, target practice, and home defense are utterly different. In a real defensive situation, your pulse will race, your hands will shake, and your fine motor skills will vanish. It’s much worse than the worst case of buck fever.
If you’ve practiced working under those conditions, you might have a chance. If all you’ve ever done, as I had, was target practice at the range and hunting, your odds of surviving a defensive encounter are greatly reduced.”