Gunfighting is pretty much an American phenomenon. The trans-Mississippi West conjures up dust-blown streets, fixed gazes, and worn steel drawn from weathered leather. No other country has a gunfighting history equal to ours.

Today, the equipment has evolved far beyond anything those Old West leadslingers could have envisioned. The average enthusiastic shooter probably fires more rounds in a single year than those men of yesteryear did in a lifetime. First, there wasn’t an overabundance of “shells” to practice with. An average store probably sold rounds by the singular box and not the case, and no one could afford a case of shells. One simply could not afford to throw away hard-to-find cartridges on everyday practice.

These are but a few of the things I ponder on a day-to-day basis. Without such questions, life would be incredibly boring.

The first man who drank milk: “I’m going to go over to that animal and squeeze on those things and whatever comes out, I’m drinking.”

Seeing-eye dog signs at buildings—who reads these—the dog?

The police administrator who changes things simply for the sake of change even though things are working rather well. The administrator who blames everyone else when his new policy is an abysmal failure. The administrator who changes things yet again with the same catastrophic results. The department that then promotes said administrator. The police captain who is admonished while a line-grade officer receives 15 suspended days for the same offense. The department that promotes said captain.

It is often stated that you will default to the level of your training when involved in a deadly force confrontation. Along with this goes the “train like you fight; fight like you train” spiel.

So far, so good—until you stumble into your first for-real contact and find out that all the cool-guy sayings don’t amount to a hill of beans.

The upside of “realistic” firearms and tactics training is that you can become competent in weapons manipulation, accurate bullet placement, and strategy and tactics.