Rob Pincus– evolution of a gun nerd
If there was a gun community equivalent of Dos Equis’s Most Interesting Man in the World, Rob Pincus would surely be a top contender for the position. With a staggering roster of credentials and accomplishments, and an even more impressive list of hobbies, one would be less than shocked to find him a raging egomaniac. Turns out, Rob is quite the opposite. He’s a gracious, thoughtful guy who is as serious about learning as he is about training others. I was lucky enough to chat with him recently about his self-defense philosophies and methods, the evolution of the gun world and why he’s such a vocal proponent of second amendment rights.
RebeccaGuns: Listening to a recent podcast you did, I believe you said that you’re on the road roughly 300 days a year. Travel on that scale is a tremendous amount of work by itself, added to the growing list of other roles you play including author, instructor, consultant, editor and CEO of I.C.E. Training Company, it seems like it might overwhelm most people. What is your motivation to put so much time and energy into training and educating individuals on personal safety?
Rob Pincus: This is what I enjoy doing. I like to travel. I like seeing friends around the country. I like bring training courses to places that have never hosted courses before or don’t have strong training communities. The way I look at it, my “job” supports me getting to do the things I like… and between classes, I get to go on adventures, or hunt or just spend my occasional days off in interesting places.
RG: Your approach to self-defense is somewhere between unorthodox and revolutionary. Your bio on the Personal Defense Network website states, “These methods stress gaining maximum value from limited training resources and working well with what the body does naturally under real world conditions.” How did you arrive at this methodology?
Rob Pincus: Just about everything we do that might approach “revolutionary” was an improvisation that worked or a hopeful experiment. There are some things that I teach or advice that flies directly in the face of traditional approaches because I think those approaches are wrong. So those things would probably qualify as “unorthodox” at this point. Teaching sighted fire first, for example. For people interested in Defensive Shooting, I think teaching athletic, kinesthetic alignment is the best way to learn to shoot efficiently. After that, we teach sighted fire so that people can increase their deviation control when necessary. When I say “after that”, I don’t mean weeks later… we teach sight alignment & sight picture during the first hour of shooting in most CFS Courses… but only after people are getting consistent hits at “across the bedroom” distances by integrating with the gun naturally. I proved the efficacy of that model in the early years at Valhalla. We had plenty of people who had never shot a gun that wanted to try out our live fire maze on the recreational side of that business…. the key was to minimize training to get people “up to speed” to go through the live fire runs and take down reactive mannequins which had about an 8×10″ vital zone that required multiple rapid hits to be taken down. We were putting people in the maze with less than 20 rounds fired without even mentioning the sights. After their first session, we would add in the sights and take them on a second run with longer distances and some head shots mixed in to force them to use their sights… but only when really necessary. Our “balance of speed and precision” approach isn’t as unorthodox as it was a decade ago. The industry is evolving.
Generally, when compared to other programs teaching physical skills that are post-modern-technique, I stress that our approach is more efficient not really more “effective”… but, yes, when compared with the 1980’s stuff, there is no doubt that intuitive shooting programs featuring a squared off body angle, weight forward, multiple rounds strings of fire (as opposed to double taps) full extension of both arms,etc. are more effective for defensive shooting as well.
RG: Oftentimes having a parent in law enforcement has a great impact on the children, be it positive or negative. Would you say your dad was a motivating factor in getting involved in firearms training? Have you always been a “gun nerd”?
Rob Pincus: Yes and No. My Dad is not a gun guy at all, certainly not a “gun nerd”. That said, there is no doubt that it was his career as a police officer that gave me access for firearms as a kid. I also got to hear about a lot of the things that police officers deal with and probably see/discuss some things very early on that not every kid thinks about. He was always very supportive of my interest in shooting and my “gun hobby” and certainly facilitated access to a lot of resources. As I got older and it was more and more clear that I was going to be involved in some way in the military, law enforcement or security professions. I was also able to take advantage of his network of professionals and had a lot of people around to talk about gear and techniques. While we definitely haven’t spent a ton of time shooting together, I can remember a few key moments, like when he taught me how to shoot my first BB rifle, trying to get my little kid hands to make the grip safety on his AMT Backup disengage and the hilarity of dropping his cut down Ithaca pistol grip “raid shotgun” the first time I fired it at about 10 years old.
I, on the other hand, have always been a gun nerd. A few years back I was visiting my Mom and an old neighbor who had been SWAT Team Member when Glocks first came out stopped by. He was retelling the story about how he knew that I would want to check out his new plastic gun because I was always out behind the house shooting at silhouette targets and stuff. He mentioned that at one point when he was doing some renovations on his house, I asked for spare lumber to build target stands… we did the math and realized I must have been 11 or 12 at that time.
RG: It’s remarkably easy to get sucked into “gun nerdom”. I am consistently surprised at the number of, shall we say atypical, gun enthusiasts that I meet in my home town. You have been active in the community for quite a while. What’s your take on this sudden explosion in firearms ownership?
Rob Pincus: My first SHOT Show was 1997… so I’ve been around a lot longer than some people realize, I think… I’ve seen major changes in the firearms community. I have also spent a lot of time interacting with people who are curious about firearms by are pretty far removed from the stereo-typical “gun person”. I think our community can be its own worst enemy sometimes when it comes to being critical of what a “gun person” is. There two things that I think are the biggest factors in the shaping the industry and the training community right now are:
1. The evolution of the industry old guard & leadership in regard to “black guns”. I remember when you couldn’t have full-auto capable firearms on display at SHOT. I remember when Benchmade used to have hide their automatic knives in a closed off space! When SHOT launched the “tactical” section, there were some people who were nervous about it… there is no doubt that it has been the fastest growing section of that show and the industry over the last decade. Companies that barely sold a gun without wood on it 10 years ago have jumped into the defensive side of the market with both feet.
2. I think there was a lost generation in regard to the American firearms tradition. During the 70’s and 80’s guns were vilified in popular culture and the era of seat-belt, helmet and no-smoking laws was born. Somehow, firearms became objects of death and danger in many parents eyes and, by the 90’s, we got the Assault Weapons Ban and many state level restrictions on firearms ownership that were unheard of in the past. The firearms community, thankfully, got the wake-up call and we stopped talking about “sporting tradition” and hoping that our guns wouldn’t get taken away and we started talking about the responsibility and right to personal, home and family defense (As I said in Item #1). So, now, we’ve got a bunch of people in their 30’s and 40’s who did not grow up with guns who are starting to feel like they might want to start learning and taking their own personal protection more seriously. In the training community, this is an awesome thing. We have adults showing up who are generally interested in learning, don’t have decades of bad habits and are coming out to training courses in droves. They are also able to take advantage in modern, efficient equipment without emotional ties to older designs or approaches to shooting.
Rob had a lot to say about training and the direction he feels the gun world is heading. Check back next week for the second part of our conversation, in which I bring up the dreaded Recoil Magazine incident…
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