Delta Force veteran teaches REAL gunfighting

Here's my latest story, which was just published on Ammoland.com

We live in the Golden Age of tactical firearms training.

There has never been a better time to learn gunfighting – not defensive pistol or tactical shooting, but honest-to-Pete gunfighting.

Our never-ending wars have produced a small cadre of incredibly experienced Tier One veterans. These elite shooters have, literally, won hundreds of gunfights, and now a few of them are teaching the skills and techniques that kept them alive to SWAT teams, street cops and lucky civilians.

Gunfighters teaching real gunfighting? Things were not always this way.

For decades, new shooters had to learn from gunfight theorists – good, well-meaning instructors who taught what they thought would work – what they theorized would work in a gunfight.

Adherence to established dogma was important. More than a few gimmicks were created, copied and passed around. Range theatrics – which we’ll delve into later – ruled the day.

But now, we’ve got actual Tier One guys teaching what really works. They never learned the dogma or the zany gimmickry of the past. They relied solely on what works.

There are few soldiers in our entire military who’ve been shot at more times than retired MSG Bob Keller, who spent his entire career in Army special operations, the last 17 years in Delta Force, where he became a team leader and then troop sergeant major.

I need to disclose that Bob and I are friends. We co-host a podcast together and we’re working on a couple books.

I also need to add a quick note about my use of the D-word: Given the NDAs he had to sign when he out-processed from the Unit last year, he can’t use it.

I can.

Bob has been on more than 1,500 missions or “hits” as he calls them.

Many of these turned into gunfights – hundreds of gunfights.

That’s what the Tier One guys do.

They don’t patrol endlessly or man static defensive positions. They hunt bad guys.

“We’re going out to a gunfight every night,” Bob said. “That’s the difference between us and all the other people who deployed. And we’re not ever gonna back off when we get there. We’re going to the target and we’re not leaving until the dude we’re going after is dead or tied up.”

Sometimes, his team would go out three or four times a night.

“It was nonstop killing. That’s what it was,” he said. “The killing part was easy. It’s the hunting part that’s hard – working with intel and trying to find them. The hit is the easy part. When it comes to the shooting, that’s easy. We were hunting humans and we’re the best in the world at it.”

Click here to read the rest of the story on Ammoland.com