Shooting pop cans, bowling pins, watermelons, and general plinking can be a great way to spend time with friends and family. Cans, pins, and fruit all react when you shoot them. We love our steel target range at our training facility for the very same reason.

However, plinking can have some drawbacks. Most plinkers never consider defensive tactics. We talked to a man once who shot a revolver, but he didn’t own or know how to use a speed loader. In his viewpoint, he didn’t need anything like that. He said whenever he and his friends went out shooting, they just re-loaded their guns on the tailgate of a pickup.

What benefit would that be if this man had to engage an armed assailant in a shopping mall?

By all means, have fun plinking, but why not learn to use your firearm from a defensive point of view?

Every time you handle your firearm, you should pick it up, load it, reload it, and shoot it using consistent and efficient motions. Repetition builds muscle memory. If you’re ever in a fight for your life, you don’t want to have to think about the basic gun mechanics of loading and running your gun. You need to focus on your assailant and the dynamic situation around you.