When your super realistic tactical alternative to USPSA allows shooting through "no penalty vision barriers" shaped suspiciously like innocent bystanders in order to hit the "bad guy" targets, its value as a super realistic tactical alternative to USPSA is called into question.
This is amplified when someone who uses a laser or mini red dot or carries AIWB can't use their street gun in your "street gun competition" and has to use special game gear to play. On the equipment front, IDPA is becoming a version of SASS that looks fondly back on the previous century instead of the one before that: Instead of Cowboy Action Shooting, it's '90s Action Shooting. Maybe instead of fishing vests, you could have participants dress like Ethan Hunt or Nash Bridges?
Or for true retro shooting, wear a white suit and pastel shirt, the "Don Johnson" Miami Vice special of the 80s.
ReplyDeleteLet us cut to the chase here: MVAS.
ReplyDeleteMiami Vice Action Shooting.
Points will be awarded based on how stylish the participants dress (maximum points for a white jacket, or a classy suit with a pink tie).
Everyone will have to use a shoulder holster and drive a sports car.
The music of Phil Collins and the Eagles will be played at all matches.
My only concern with this idea is the possibility of Jim Zubiena deciding to compete, as he'd win every match.
Perhaps the stage was intended to be an IDPA variant of "Kobayashi Maru"?
ReplyDeleteIs there a stage where you sneak up on a cabin and shoot their kid's dog, then you have to shoot the kid?
ReplyDeleteMack Sperglord,
ReplyDelete"Is there a stage where you sneak up on a cabin and shoot their kid's dog, then you have to shoot the kid?"
You probably think that was a real knee-slapper.
So, I guess I'd be wasting my time to invite you down to shoot my club's major next May? :)
ReplyDeleteNot bloody likely you'd see such lameness at our club. One of our members was at nationals and from hearing the discussion of that stage at last night's match it would be frowned upon at our place.
As of 1 October, thou shall not criticize IDPA or you'll get a time out , made to walk the quad, or be stricken from the roll of the chosen.
ReplyDeleteIn a perfect game of IDPA, a hit on a non-threat would be stage DQ.
I will say I saw a photo of a responder to the Kenya attack wearing his fishing vest and IDPA patch.
Gerry
Also such nonsense is another nudge to me perhaps having a look at Single Stack Major.
ReplyDeleteI think I will just stick with ICORE. I know it's a game. The IDPA guys I have seen locally scare me...
ReplyDelete-Rob
One of the problems that I have with the shooting games is the restrictions like:
ReplyDeleteIDPA: Max of ten rounds per magazine. I was told this was so California residents could compete. I can't see why I should be penalized in a competition because of a single state's law.
and don't get me started on IPSC's major/minor classification that is there purely to favor fat, slow bullets.
I stopped shooting competition when I got aggravated with what I refer to as "the rules committee," a group of shooters that walk around with a copy of the rule book and constantly read excerpts from it, and from the gamers who were constantly looking for loopholes.
IMO, that is when it crosses from a valuable training tool into being just another FPS.
Divemedic,
ReplyDelete"IMO, that is when it crosses from a valuable training tool into being just another FPS."
It's not a "valuable training tool"; it's a game.
It happens to be a game that involves a lot of gun-handling skills that can be relevant to self-defense, but anybody trying to tell themselves it's some kind of "tactical simulator" is just wanking themselves.
I think they should jut use plain old circular targets and say "you gain points for shooting the green ones and lose points if you shoot the red ones."
I like the IDPA scoring system as it stands.
ReplyDeleteUSPSA seems rather complicated from what little I've looked at.
Why are there no gun-competitions where the shooters are shot at by automated paintball turrets?
ReplyDeleteLike this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxBa5bQfTGc
Such a competition could be designed to better approximate a gunfight.
I agree with Divemedic... They are ALL games... and many are populated by gamers...
ReplyDeleteI asked my local IDPA club if I could join and shoot a match or two. I was happy to pay all the match fees and everything, I just wanted to shoot it with the gun I carry EVERY DAY. But because it has an RMR on it they said no way. Not even if they don't keep score.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI agree with Divemedic... They are ALL games... and many are populated by gamers...
So? What's the alternative?
Bullseye shooting?
Legalized duelling? Watching TV?
I have one - put all the contestants in smart body armor, face shields, all around helmets, give them .22 CB cap firing guns.
Wires on the outside of the body armor would give indication of hits, a small computer would determine when someone would be out of the fight.
That might be pretty entertaining and closer to a real gunfight. Costly though.
"I think they should jut use plain old circular targets and say "you gain points for shooting the green ones and lose points if you shoot the red ones."
ReplyDeleteWe set up a stage in our ICORE matches almost like that: 18 steel plates - 14 white, 3 blue, 1 red. Called it The Blue Plate Special. Shoot 'em any way you want, any order. After each blue there's a mandatory reload, the red is the stop plate. Of course, there was a blue and a red sandwiched between a couple of whites, etc. Fun stage, and kind of amazing how many shooters maintained rhythm L-to-R or R-to-L and dropped the wrong plate at the right time or vice-versa.
You know, the old Bowling Pin Matches are starting to look real good to me....
ReplyDeleteBubblehead Les,
ReplyDelete"You know, the old Bowling Pin Matches are starting to look real good to me..."
I love bowling pin shooting, but it doesn't involve a lot of movement or drawing on the clock or...
There's no law that says one is only allowed to play a single gun game and must foreswear all others. :p
They're all games, you just have to be OK with playing a game sometimes. You can still learn a lot and improve a lot of skills by playing a game. Wrestling and boxing are games with extremely restrictive rulesets, but if you had to win an unarmed, no-rules fight to the death in six months, a boxer or a wrestler would have a huge head start.
ReplyDeleteLet's get back to the 90's PSC League idea, unless it's not too late to start an all-out brawl by comparing people who think IDPA/USPSA are training to people who think Crossfit is training . . . .
"There's no law that says one is only allowed to play a single gun game and must foreswear all others"
ReplyDeleteNo law but there are certainly time and financial limitations :-(
Although I have heard my club might be getting Steel Challenge going.
I might use that as the vehicle to scratch my revolver itch since I won't have to reload on the clock.
Miami Vice Action shooting sounds fun but Zubiena waxed my ass enough in the '80's in SWPL ... closest I got was when he was trying to get the Bren to run.
ReplyDeleteMack's joke was tasteless, but it was funny.
ReplyDeleteThere needs to be a MSL established. (Minimum Stubble Level.) Don Johnson rules, sorry.
ReplyDeleteMack's comment wasn't funny, it was a sad indictment of a gubmint run amuck, now ever so much worse with every piss-ant bureaucrat wanting to play real-life cowboys and Indians.
ReplyDeleteSperglord's ( what an appropriate name ... ) joke would have been more funny if the perps had been prosecuted for their acts.
ReplyDeleteThat HRT shooter is STILL wanted for murder in Idaho.
I don't have a prob with Miami Vice shooting ... I have been tempted to get into Zootshooting ..
ReplyDeleteKristophr,
ReplyDelete"Sperglord's ( what an appropriate name ... ) joke would have been more funny if the perps had been prosecuted for their acts."
Sperglord's comment would have been funnier if there was even the tiniest faintest hint of a goddam connection between the referenced incident and the IDPA game.
Hey, here's another joke that is funny in the same way: What if there was a play in football where, on "Hike!" the linemen all ran up in the stands and put the Jews in gas chambers! Get it?
No, I really don't.
I wasn't there, didn't read the COF, BUT I suspect the object was to NOT shoot the no-shoots, but the gamers gamed it and shot them for a better score.
ReplyDeleteEveryone want more challenging, exciting "fun" stages than bitches because their not tactical......sigh......314
So this methodology of shooting through bystanders would be an NYPD training tool?
ReplyDeleteOBTW wouldn't intentionally shooting a no-shoot just to better your time be a FTDR? Would be if I was scoring
ReplyDeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteI was there. Those aren't no shoots, they're vision barriers. There was no penalty for shooting through them.
I shot some CASS some years ago. It was a lot of fun but the clothes will bankrupt ya.
ReplyDeleteDidn't realize you were beating him over the non-sequitur.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I've been guilty enough on that one that I didn't see it until it was pointed out.
Is your post title a Jane's Addiction reference? If so, loving it.
ReplyDelete"Is your post title a Jane's Addiction reference? If so, loving it."
ReplyDeleteWhy, yes. Yes, it is. :)
Caleb:
ReplyDeleteSorry, re-read your post. I'm with you now.
Shoot thru bystanders! At the nationals!
I thin somebody's got some splainin' to do---Joyce.....