Drew K. is a respected firearms instructor who lives in Chicago and works for a firearms training company.
Early one morning Drew heard a commotion coming from the alleyway by his house and went outside to investigate armed with his Glock 19.
After investigating the threat and not finding anything, Drew attempted to reholster his firearm.
But, when he did so a piece of his t-shirt got caught inside the trigger guard. This caused the weapon to fire.
The personal defense bullet went into Drew’s upper thigh and hit his femoral artery.
Drew quickly lost consciousness and a responding police officer immediately applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.
Medical personnel administered CPR to Drew and broke all of his ribs in the process.
After arriving at the hospital, doctors were able to revive Drew after giving him more than 30 units of blood.
Drew wanted to share his story to, “illustrate that even experienced, safe people can still make a potentially fatal mistake. I 100% own this as my mistake, and the fault lies not with Glock or the method of carry, but with me.
He added, “I hope that others realize that safety doesn’t end when you have experience, and maybe this will encourage them to not repeat.”
As Drew said, someone with extensive firearms training and a quality holster and gun can still make mistakes.
This is why everyone should spend as much time practicing reholstering their weapon as they spend on other firearm skills.
Considering this, here are a few ideas for practicing your reholstering skills.
Practice the entire draw:
Whether you are at the shooting range or practicing your dry fire, there are steps to drawing a gun to train.
For instance, you always practice your grip, point the gun at the target, get two hands on the gun, etc.
And you should practice reholstering your gun an equal amount.
Practice reholstering after firing your shots so that it’s natural during a real-life scenario.
Slow is safe:
If you are reholstering a firearm it should mean that there is no longer a threat.
Which also means there is no need to rush to put your firearm back in the holster.
So, take it slow.
While you want to stay aware of any threats it’s critical to take one second to watch the gun into the holster.
This way you can see if there is a t-shirt or anything in the way of the trigger guard.
And don’t forget to remove your finger from the trigger guard as well.
Different positions:
When you are at the shooting range or dry firing you are likely standing.
However, for the exact reasons you should practice shooting from a seated or prone position, you should do the same with training your reholstering.
By doing this you’ll likely find that reholstering while seated or on the ground can be challenging.
For instance, if you are seated in your car there could be a seatbelt in the way.
This is just another reason to take your time, look at the holster and ensure there aren’t any obstacles blocking the holster.
Unfortunately, reholstering is when many accidental discharges occur.
That’s because it’s viewed as a mundane task, so it goes unpracticed by many people.
Now, speaking of training to use a firearm in your car, this is another area that gets overlooked by the majority of folks.
That’s why I organized all my training, tactics, and drills from my time with the agency and training alongside America’s tier one operatives and commandos.
