Places Where You Stand Still
Dry-Fire · At Home
No gun for the first part. The next time you pump gas, use an ATM, or load groceries, notice how long you stand with your back to everything and your attention on a screen. Practice looking up every few seconds. Then at home, verified clear, run fifteen presentations while you do a small task with your hands and a partner standing behind you calls quadrants.
Live-Fire · At the Range
Twenty rounds at 7 yards on the quadrants. Start each string looking down at an object on the bench, look up on the call, and fire two rounds on the called quadrant.
Service Pistol
Writing a report in a parked car is the duty version of this problem.
Concealed Carry
The gas pump is the classic one. Stand so that you can see, not so that you can read the screen.
Carbine
Run the same look-up start from low ready at 25 yards.
AUX (when ready): look up, identify, and make a first hit in under two and a half seconds.
You are easiest to approach when your hands are busy and your eyes are down.
Your Daily Callout — By Archetype
You get absorbed in the task. Break your attention away from it on purpose.
Awareness is your strength when you are moving. Extend it to when you are standing still.
When you are loading children into the car, your back is to the parking lot. Change how you stand.
Pick the pump and the parking space for visibility. That is a decision you can make in advance.
Layer: start with your phone in your hand.
- Treat every firearm as if it is loaded — always, no matter what you think you know.
- Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
- Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target and you have decided to fire.
- Be sure of your target — and everything beyond it.
Dry-fire: no ammunition in the room. Verify the firearm is clear — twice. Use a safe backstop. When you finish, say it out loud: “Dry fire is over.”
The Four Universal Safety Rules
Non-negotiable. Every drill, every rep, every time. This applies to live fire and dry fire.
- Treat every firearm as if it is loaded — always, no matter what you think you know.
- Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
- Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target and you have decided to fire.
- Be sure of your target — and everything beyond it.