Clint Smith

Thank you.

I appreciate you all asking us to be there.

You have to remember that doing it as long as I've done, which is like 50 plus years before a couple of you were born, there were certain things like, for example, I grew up

with basically no training in the Marine Corps.

And that's not uncommon, like in that era.

So I joined in 1967 and I was 67 to 70.

So there was basically that timeframe where you wanted to fill the hole.

And I'm getting to your answer, which is like, I didn't really teach you very much about a pistol, shoot seven rounds.

And then, so it was mostly a familiarization firing.

From that point,

Then I went into the world of law enforcement, which at that time, the big money was in what was called PPC, Practical Pistol Course.

Well, it was anything but practical.

It taught basically no movement to cover.

It didn't teach you about the idea of trajectory, which everybody in America who owns a gun could learn something from trajectory.

Just because you shot the target doesn't mean that's where the bullet stops.

And so I think that...

That was some of my first eye openers.

Long story short, because I know we're dealing with time, but I went to a law enforcement firearms instructors thing at Camp Perry in Ohio.

And they stood up in front and said, OK, this is where most police officers are killed at seven yards and they're killed by this and killed by that.

And so like at the end of the banter, I raised my hand and I said, if we know we're dying inside seven yards, why are we here?