CRITICAL THREATS: Scenes from today’s new Force on Force class.

GSL Defense Training’s new Critical Threat Management force on force class is off to a great start.

We did some simple exercises on the importance of moving off the “X”, to tactics to give you time and options in dealing with an attacker armed with an edged weapon or a blunt force instrument. From there, it was Tueller drill exercises and then the scenarios.

Oh, the scenarios.

“HELP! My baby’s not breathing. Help me!” At the Force on Force class today at GSL Defense’s Critical Threat Management class, students learned some great information on how to identify and manage threats. What would you do? Are you a sheepdog? Would you help and take the person inside the Walmart store for help or walk away? (If it was your wife or daughter, would you want someone to help her or walk away?)

Or would you freeze up and push the baby and mom away while reaching for your gun? Nobody took control and directed the distraught mom back into the store to get help.

Stress makes people do strange things.

Here’s what happens when you stress your students. They tend to default to bad things if they haven’t practiced. This student puts his support hand behind the slide. Why? After it was over, he said he thought his shirt was hung up on the gun. He wasn’t thinking clearly in the fog of the moment. Nice work Tammi Dash as the “aggressor” lunatic trying to burn the demons out of the teen girl Ashlyn.

Domestics have a nasty tendency to turn on a dime.

Was our student (right) able to draw in time to beat the angry husband?

No. Too close. Much too close.

The big butcher knife means he needs one less step to ruin your day.

Another students attempts to intervene.

Below, bad guys often travel in pairs and convenience stores can be dangerous places. Here, our student does a fine job holding onto his Cheetos as he engages the bad guy pursuing the teen girl clerk out the front. Unfortunately for him, BG#1 obscures BG #2 who is more than eager to shoot our Cheetos-loving good guy.

It all happened very fast. Here’s a full-auto sequence:

Our good guy was tunnel-visioned in that he didn’t see BG#2 until he felt incoming rounds. And he still held onto those chitos.

Sucks to leave your CCW piece under the front seat because you thought you weren’t going to need it. It’s not going to end well against a guy who has got his gun out intent on doing you harm.