What We Aim At, Part I: Be Sure Of Your Target

I felt good about my target. I had sent every round downrange with a sense of confidence as each shot broke. And being an introverted Type-A perfectionist, I couldn’t wait to bask in the satisfaction of a perfect score and then wildly celebrate in my mind.

But alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

Hard Targets

The targets we used in SWAT training weren’t the stereotypical bowling pin shaped outlines printed on white paper. They were a high speed, low drag monochrome photograph of a scary bad guy pointing a gun back at us. Inside that image were the boundary lines that determined if your hit counted or not. Anything outside of that bad guy, or “in the white,” was an automatic DQ — that’s a disqualification, people, not a trip to Dairy Queen.

But at 50 yards on an outdoor range with over a dozen targets and no lane markers, it could be easy to shoot the wrong target if you weren’t careful. (There’s also some guys on the team who think it’s funny to shoot other people’s target in the white on purpose because they have a warped sense of humor and enjoy watching others scratch their heads wondering how those errant rounds happened). However, in this particular case, what happened with my target was all my fault.

Fresh Paper

When the course of fire ended and we slow motion sexy-walked the 50 yards back to score our targets, it became clearer and clearer to me that something was missing. My target was blank. There wasn’t a single hole in the paper. Not a one. It was like the target fairy had magically hung up some fresh paper for me when no one was looking.

I had done everything right — almost everything. I had lined up my sights, controlled my trigger press, followed through, and the bullets hit what I had aimed at. I just hadn’t aimed at the right target. It was someone else’s.  My epic fail didn’t go unnoticed and took the wind right out of my tactical sails.

Precision Isn’t Everything

It didn’t matter how precisely I hit the target if it was the wrong one. It did me no good to shoot my partner’s target which scored me a grand total of zero.

Target practice is designed to prepare us for the real world. We train the fundamentals over and over again under time constraints to induce stress so that we can perform at a high level when it counts. But it all begins with selecting the right target. Because if I shoot the hostage, the janitor, or an unarmed person with precision who is not a threat, then all my practice, discipline, and execution was for nothing.

In the same way, we cannot shoot blindly around corners or into the darkness at indiscriminate shadows because we are accountable for every round. We owe it to the public and to ourselves to hit what we aim at and to aim at what needs to be hit.

Rule No. 4

I’ve heard it said that success is just standing atop a mountain of our failures. Which means in order to be successful we need something to fail at — or more precisely, to aim at.

Cardinal Firearms Safety Rule Number 4 says that you need to be sure of your target and what is beyond it. This simply means you must identify what you should be aiming at and limit or eliminate any potential for collateral damage. It carries the idea of not just identifying your target but also simultaneously deciding if it is the right moment to shoot based on the larger picture.

Though the target itself may be obvious, it may not be the right time to shoot. It may mean that we either need to wait or to first better our position so that we can eliminate other variables, isolate our target, and take the shot.

Aiming At Nothing

Author and motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said, “If you aim at nothing you will hit it every time.” What he is saying is that we need a specific goal or goals to work toward because we will not be successful by chance or by default. Just like our targets on the range, we hit what we aim at. If you want to be successful at something it all starts with identifying your target and then focusing your efforts on isolating it and hitting it without ruining others in the process.

If you are aiming at nothing — or the wrong thing — it’s time to adjust, because if you don’t you will hit it every time. I don’t think any one of us wants credit for that kind of accuracy.

__________________________

– What are you aiming at?
– Are you aiming at the right thing?
– Is it time to pull the trigger?
– What are you waiting for?
__________________________

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