It’s been interesting watching the social media accounts blow up with various renditions of the “Dicken Drill.” Along with some not-exactly- “G-rated”-memes, it lightened the blow of another criminal outrage perpetrated – very likely – by yet another nameless idiot with a grievance.
The interesting part of this one is that he nearly immediately took fire. His response, according to one nameless source that has to be at least as credible as anything in the “news” media, was to try to get to the men’s room.
If someone was shooting at me, the need for a “uniform change” would be quite in order, but I digress.
The source said that, according to a video none of us can see, the first two incoming rounds from the defender caused the perp to turn, then go to the ground. Still moving about – trying to get his rifle going, or to find a target? – he continued to take incoming rounds.
The distance has been called “43 yards” and “40 yards.” The hit ratio was called 8/10. The coroner got to “score the target.”
Life goes on.
The din from the “3 rounds, 3 yards, 3 seconds” crowd suddenly ceased – even though that likelihood is still far greater than the spaced-out whack job shooting up a public venue. Even greater than the howls of outrage from the “false-flag, he’s a CIA-designed monster designed to create an outcry for infringements” has been the videos from the “look at me hit this target from forty yards in fifteen seconds” group.
That sounds disrespectful, but it’s really not. It’s more admiring – seeing it as a range challenge tells me that the masses just want to know if they can do it – on a square range, with a timer and camera, not in a public venue with ‘no-shoots’ all around and no significant backstop. I watched Rhett Neumayer go 7/8, I believe, from forty yards with a Ruger LCR-22 (2”, if it matters), in a timely fashion – left-handed. His dominant hand is mostly out-of-service due to an injury.
Well done.
Likewise, I watched a youngster who I’d never heard of try it with three different guns – all with optics. I concluded, from watching, that he’d do about as well without the glass. He seems to be that good.
Friend Dave Elderton, always capable, set up a B/C zone steel silhouette and put his ten-shot group from forty yards all on steel – with a Ruger LCP II in 22 LR.
The problem is that we really don’t know what happened in that mall for sure. They say fifteen seconds – but that was from the time the mope-in-question exited the men’s room and started shooting to the time the shooting stopped. It stands to reason that Mr. Dicken had to (1) figure out what was happening, (2) where it was happening, (3) remove his companion from the fracas, (4) move to his supported position (which was alleged by two sources, sadly one is unnamed) and (5) engage the target. It's likely his shooting activity lasted ten seconds or less.
Let that soak in before you move on …
To think that I followed Michael Bane’s lead (from his series The Best Defense) about a drill I call the Asym Drill – asymmetric as in “irregular;” the non-“3 rounds in 3 seconds from 3 yards” drill – starting back in around 2016. My modification was fifty yards, usually on a B/C zone – but often done on any old target that was around the range. It’s straight forward, no frills – pass or fail.
I require only three hits on the chest-area of the target, followed by a single hit inside the headbox from 25 yards. Scoring? 100% shot accountability, zero misses. It’s not like there’s a timer, or someone watching or someone shooting at you. It’s just – shoot it cold, three center hits from 50 yards, a single head shot from 25 yards.
Not complicated. Not always easy either. You see herein pictured efforts from a Gen4 GLOCK 19, the “Summer Special” of 2017, a hell of a shooter that was on loan, that I let go back … Also, there are the results from a S&W 9mm Shield and a Ruger American Pistol.
The Summer Special had faced the NRA TQ-21 law enforcement training silhouette on my second range trip with it. I’d used spray paint and a ‘bullseye’ stencil from Patriot Stencils to put an aiming spot on the target. From fifty yards, I held on the right side of the silhouette and put two rounds on the right-side scoring line of the target – in spite of my left-hitting GLOCK bias. The third round smacked the left side at the bottom of the aiming point.
At 25 yards, I made the head shot, but it was a bit high on the head box. I wasn’t complaining.
Still, it seems we always “prepare for the last war.” It’s not good to be caught by the same old trap, but it makes one wonder what is next.
I think it’s time to examine ways to acquire the skills to make such shots. In that way, instead of preparing for the war already won, we can open the focus and strive to win the one that’s coming. And I’d happily take suggestions from the floor as to ways to prepare for that unlikely long shot.
We’ll keep you posted.
-- Rich Grassi