Why Train at Front Sight?

Front Sight opened its doors to the world in April 1996.  Our goal in those early days was extremely focused: offer the world’s finest training in the defensive use of handguns, shotguns, and rifles.

To fill those original courses, I visited every gun shop in California promoting our facility, our curriculum, and our top-notch staff.  Additionally, I contacted everybody I met during the years I spent traveling the nation receiving my own firearms training.  For the first couple years at Front Sight, we filled the seats with like-minded “gun people” consisting of professional soldiers, law enforcement officers, competitive shooters, and gun aficionados.  While this was certainly exhilarating, I soon realized that Front Sight was influencing a very small sphere of individuals.

Think of our student body as a triangle.  At the very tip-top are the gun enthusiasts who completely understood Front Sight’s vision, in the middle are people who may have shot weapons in the past but never had an interest in formal training, and at the base of the triangle are people who never even considered the potential that they may someday face an armed criminal who wants to kill them.

I decided to tackle the much larger, and much more challenging, task of “reaching that 95% of the gun-owning population who do not know what they do not know, and bring them here to Front Sight where they can immediately get the training that they need.”  We changed our marketing approach entirely and started to focus on mainstream America, that is, business owners, school teachers, professionals, soccer moms, etc.  As we became more successful in reaching the “base of the triangle,” we found that some of our assumptions no longer fit our new clientele.  In the early days, we all spoke the same language.  As an example, everyone knew the difference between a magazine and a clip, between ammunition and bullets, and between a grip safety and a thumb safety.  That is no longer the case.

At Front Sight, we routinely train people who are brand-new to the world of firearms.  They are completely green and many have never even fired a weapon.  Unlike some “boot camp” schools that run off these newcomers, Front Sight welcomes them each and every day, and we train them to exceedingly high levels.  Unlike other people in the firearms industry, we remember what it was like the very first time we held a weapon.  We welcome YOU!

We no longer make ANY assumptions about your knowledge or skill.  Our goal is to give you as much comfort and understanding about the subject of firearms training before you arrive at Front Sight.  That way, you are better able to absorb the gunhandling and marksmanship techniques and don’t have to wrestle with terminology.  If you encounter material on these pages which you already know, feel free to skip past it.  Conversely, if you encounter material on these pages which you don’t understand even after studying them, feel free to contact us for further guidance.

You are in the right spot and Front Sight is going to train you correctly from the very beginning!

At Front Sight we have coined a few phrases which vividly encapsulate our philosophy.  Below are a couple of examples.

• You Are the Weapon; Your Firearm is Just a Tool

When it comes to defending your life, you are the weapon.  By “you” we mean your mind, and your ability to think, form a plan, predict outcomes, and concentrate.  You are the weapon; you are the one who will win this fight.   Granted, you will select a tool to get the job done.  That tool may be a fist, a knife, or a handgun.  Just as likely, that tool may be your cell phone to dial “911”, it may be your feet as you simply run away from a bad situation, or it may be your voice as you talk your way out of the problem.  You obviously need a tool, but the tool is secondary.  The WEAPON is always YOU.

We discuss these concepts in greater detail in your classroom lecture titled “The Color Code of Awareness and the Combat Mindset”.

• Any Gun Will Do, IF You Will Do!

This motto literally means that just about any gun will suffice to win a fight…if YOU do your part.  Any beat-up, rusty, piece-of-junk gun will still get the job done if used by a highly skilled operator.  The opposite is not true.  In other words, the best weapon in the world is useless in the hands of an untrained, unskilled operator.

Your training will always trump your equipment.  A well trained individual will always be able to make good use of a gun, even if:

• The gun is not the ideal choice or the ideal caliber
• The gun belongs to someone else and you just picked it up off the pavement in the middle of a fight
• You are left handed and forced to shoot a right handed weapon
• You are injured
• The weapon malfunctions
• Etc., etc., etc.  You get the idea.

Of course, the best situation is for you to have a high-quality weapon to compliment your high level of skill.  Through your training at Front Sight, that will definitely be the case.

• How Good is “Good Enough”?

“Good enough” means you have sufficient skill to win the fight you are currently engaged in.  If bad guy is a 4 and you are a 5, then you are “good enough”.  If bad guy is a 4 and you are a 10, even better.  Determining your skill level is pretty easy.  We can go to the range and test your skills, no problem.  The difficulty is you cannot predict the skill level of your adversary or the difficulty of the problem you will face.  For example:

• You are “good enough” to handle a guy who pulls a knife on you.  But what if it’s three guys?
• You are “good enough” to handle the guy standing a few paces away trying to shoot you.  But what if he’s all the way across the parking lot and armed with a rifle?
• You are “good enough” to handle this knife-wielding idiot standing in front of you on the sidewalk.  But what if he drags your child at knife point into a dark building you are not familiar with?
• You are “good enough” to handle this guy standing 10 yards away and threatening you with a gun.  But what if he has your wife at gun point, is wearing body armor, and is hiding behind your wife’s head?

All of the above scenarios are winnable with the right level of training and a robust Combat Mindset.  As you progress through the different courses at Front Sight, we will make you “good enough” to handle the above situations, and many more.

Since you cannot define the problem you will face, you cannot accurately answer the question “how good is good enough?”  All you can do is train to the highest reasonable levels.  At Front Sight we encourage you to keep training because you are NEVER “good enough”.