Training with one hand is often referred to as “wounded shooter training”. Is this always the case? Read more to find out more.
Last week’s Facebook LIVE discussion covered one-handed survival manipulation; a subject I took a liking to long ago. When I was instructing with the Federal Air Marshal Firearms program, I was tasked with putting together the one-handed manipulation block. I scrounged all the books and ideas I had together and began a long road teaching how to manipulate a handgun (and later a rifle) with one hand.
Question: What is the real reason why we should be training to use only one hand to manipulate and shoot the firearm?
Lots of people might say “because it is common to get shot in one of your extremities and you will lose the use of one.” While I agree, and the statistics confirm this to an extent, during years of teaching I have witnessed some other factors that forced students to use one hand. Some of these factors might change the way we look at and select techniques for one hand only operation.
Depending on the reason we are manipulating the handgun with one hand, we might realize very quickly that some techniques are good for certain situations and others are basically useless. In the one-handed survival-shooting blocks I teach, I run through a variety of techniques that will allow someone to draw, reload, and clear malfunction. The goal for this article is to inform you of the importance of this type of training, and give you some things to think about in relation to shooting and manipulating your gun with only one hand.
First, lets look at the two common situations that force us to fight with only one hand. Note that there can be many different scenarios in each of these situations.
