Don't Forget to Practice!

I went to the shooting range for the first time in quite a while. Unsurprisingly, my lack of recent practice definitely had an impact. While performing single-handed double tap shooting drills engaging multiple targets, I missed two headshots (4" square head of a cardboard silhouette target, with the body of the target obscured by a "no shoot" hostage target). In my defense, I did pick off all of the targets with follow up shots, and this type of timed speed drill is pretty challenging, but I didn't have this sort of problem when I was practicing frequently. Normally when my shooting group has a friendly competition, I finish in the first couple of places. This time I was only near the middle of the group.

Moral of the story:
If you have weapons of any kind, make sure you do not let yourself get out of practice with them. Build and maintain those reflexive skills so that you can effectively use your weapon of choice with minimal risk to yourself and to innocent bystanders.

Imagine if someone had broken into my home with the intent to do harm to me or my family. There I am with a gun in one hand and a surefire light in the other. The bad guy jumps out at me with a gun, and I fire off the same two rapid misses I did at the range yesterday. The bad guy would have had me.