If I only had a gun, 1 hour of training, a 1 o'clock holster, an oversized shirt, and unfitted gloves against a highly trained attacker with gun radar

ABC did a show on 20/20 called "If I only had a gun" supposedly about concealed carry on campuses. You can watch it at that link.

The results are amazing. They conclude, with only slight doubt, that highly trained firearm instructors were able to shoot faster and more accurately at a single target than some random people they chose!

Someone fire up the Pulitzer.

I find it amusing that JD parodied the title "If I Only Had A Brain", because this whole "investigation" is full of men made of straw.

A Strawman Argument is when you want to attack a group, but you can't or won't attack them directly, so you erect a strawman, claim it as a member of the group, and attack it.

Diane Sawyer has picked some random people out of a school, and proclaimed them "trained to carry concealed weapons in the defense of themselves and others." If Sawyer had any journalistic integrity, or interest in getting some real results, she would have gotten a student with a real CCW permit, who supports campus carry, and ran him/her through the test.

But I guess those guys would be hard to find. I mean, it's not like they've got a website or anything.

This test is set to fail from the beginning, but they just can't help themselves!

Unsatisfied with the already unnaturally high chance of failure in their test, they make it even harder on the students!

Students are trained on holsters on the side of their waist, a 3 o'clock position, common with carrying when sitting. But when they are concealing, they are given triple retention holsters mounted right by the belt buckle. This means from a standing position, the student would have to unsnap the retention strap, and draw the weapon at the correct angle. But the students are attacked while in a sitting position, which means the gun is jammed between their stomach and leg, virtually inaccessible, and completely inaccessible if one ducks for cover, like they were apparently supposed to do.

If that wasn't enough, students were then given oversized white t-shirts, presumably to show the impact of the shots better, but couldn't they find ones the right size? Now the student has to get out of the sitting position, and get to cover while reaching under an oversized shirt, releasing the retention strap, drawing from the right angle, and returning fire accurately.

Unsure if they had done enough to ensure failure, they had the students put on gloves! The students were then expected to do all these things without the sensation of touch!

Somehow this wasn't hard enough, so they decided the attacking shooter was going to be the professional instructor who trained all of them!

Then they told the instructor where the person with the gun was going to sit every time!

THEN THEY ADDED ANOTHER TRAINED SHOOTER!

Amazingly, one actually manage to draw and return fire! WHOOPS! Maybe they should have put them in a straight jacket, and hung them upside down from a burning rope!

Yes, one of these random students with minimal training manages to shoot the attacker, but she had been shot immediately after the teacher, and didn't feel it. Had the attacker not known EXACTLY where the student with the gun was, she would have taken him down. This was practically a victory! With the odds stacked against her, a barely trained student manages to take cover, draw from a poor holster position under oversized clothing, all without the sensation of touch, and return fire on an attacker, and all they can say is, "Well, he got you first."

Of course he got her first! The attacker was briefed on exactly where the student would be, and as the first-person camera shows, actually avoids shooting other people in favor of shooting the student who hadn't even revealed possession of a gun! This is their unbiased test?

For Diane Sawyer, there's no such thing as "close," only pass and fail. 20/20 uncovers the unbelievable truth that simply having a gun on your person, and practicing with it for an hour, doesn't qualify you to carry a firearm in the defense of yourself and others.

This best kept secret is known only to almost everyone who carries a concealed weapon.

Gee, Diane, if you were some kind of reporter, maybe you would have actually TALKED to someone who carries concealed. A simple 5 minute phone call with someone who actually carries would have informed you that your "test" was flawed in numerous ways. But hey, you're obviously the expert here. I must have missed your article on CCW training in last month's Guns 'n Ammo magazine.

But lets not forget the student with hundreds of hours of experience. And by "experience" they mean range time. And by range time, they mean a person shooting a gun in a lane at paper targets, not a person training to draw and shoot a gun from concealment. But forget that, he's the token gun owner, and proves without question that gun owners are unfit to carry concealed under all circumstances.

The shooter in this "test" was given two instructions; to shoot the teacher, and to shoot the person sitting in the chair in the middle. What would have made it interesting would have been if the person with the gun switched seats, or if the shooter wanted to kill as many people as possible (you know, like they do in real life?), instead of intentionally avoiding shooting anyone but the person they were told had the gun. But then, that would have broken the intended series of events labeled;
1: Shooter enters.
2: Shooter shoots teacher.
3: Shooter shoots person sitting in chair #7, proving once and for all that guns are useless unless you're a bad guy.

Who cares about accuracy when you've got an agenda?

So, Diane Sawyer, just for the sake of argument, lets assume your conclusion is accurate. Lets assume that a good guy with a gun had a good chance of failing.
Lets assume the good guy has a 10% chance of stopping the shooter.
Does that mean it would be better if there was a 0% chance?

Sorry, the piece just left me with all these inconvenient questions that were conveniently left unaddressed.

You want a real test, Diane Sawyer?

Talk to the folks at ConcealedCampus.org, and ask them to send you a student with a CCW who carries the same gun used in the training. Let the student wear whatever he/she wants, let the student carry however he/she wants, and let the student sit wherever he/she wants. Then, tell the same highly trained instructor to enter, shoot the teacher, then kill as many students as possible.

Do this once with a student carrying somewhere in the class, then do it again WITHOUT a student carrying somewhere in the class.

Record the results, then report.

I think you'll be surprised.

We won't, but you will.

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But hey, maybe I'm being too hard on Diane. Maybe she was just too ignorant to realize she was playing the useful idiot to the police instructor with an agenda. Maybe the carry position, t-shirts, gloves, seating position, and selection of shooter was his idea, and Diane was just too trusting to realize she was being conned. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

So, what say you guys?

And what say Diane?