“Over the years, Americans in particular have been all too willing to squander their hard-earned independence and freedom for the illusion of feeling safe under someone else’s authority. The concept of self-sufficiency has been undermined in value over a scant few generations. The vast majority of the population seems to look down their noses upon self-reliance as some quaint dusty relic, entertained only by the hyper paranoid or those hopelessly incapable of fitting into mainstream society.”

― Cody Lundin,

A well prepared patriot is likely stocked up with weapons and ammunition in preparation for the coming collapse of society. As our government hurls headlong towards a socialist utopia many of us understand that a well-stocked arsenal will be an essential element of survival in the lawlessness that is likely in the times to come.

In fact so many of us understand the direct connection between weapons and the safety and security of ourselves and our families that ammunition prices are currently skyrocketing due to the abrupt increase in consumer demand.

Many of us likely feel a sense of security when mulling over our prized collection of guns or taking inventory of all of our valuable ammunition to feed them. However, more often than you might think people neglect to spend the necessary time to ensure they have at a minimum, an adequate level of proficiency using their weapons. If you can’t hit what you are aiming at your weapons ARE worthless.

Just as running out and buying an expensive race car and parking it in your garage does not make you a race car driver, buying a gun does not make you a competent marksman able to use a gun to defend himself or his family. When the time comes for you to actually use your gun, when you really need to hit your target to protect yourself will you, or will you miss?

If you’re not sure about the answer to that question, it may be time to invest in some training tools to ensure your proficiency because after you need them it’s already too late. Being a survivalist is all about being prepared in being prepared does not mean going half way.

 When it’s all said and done your weapons are nothing more than tools and if you lack the skills to use them properly they are nothing more than dead weight, your prized ammunition worthless.

How can you get the most from your training?

Most experts agree that using reactive targets, in other words targets that respond instantly by sound or movement when being hit can reduce the time to shooter proficiency by more than 50%. Although AR500 steel reactive targets are initially more expensive to purchase you obtain a high level of proficiency with the use of much less ammunition so in the long run these targets will actually save you a considerable amount of money.

We recommend AR500 steel gong style shooting targets like those produced by shootingtargets7.com. Their shooting targets last basically forever when used as recommended and they produce an excellent report sounding off strongly when hit.

In addition to being much more effective training tools than cheaper paper targets or nonreactive zombie type targets the steel targets are a lot more fun and you’ll find yourself using them more often as a result.

So the next time you’re looking at your gun collection say to yourself, “yeah but can you shoot that thing?”