ENG – Some contradictions that reveal the Authenticity, Seriousness, and Toxicity of This Industry

If this industry were truly “professional,” its first instinct would be to measure itself against science, not against aesthetics and tactics.
This post is not meant to please. It is meant to lay bare some of the many inconsistencies.
Because between what people say they do, what they think they do, and what they actually train, there is an abyss. And into that abyss fall method, clarity, preparation, and, when it truly matters, survival.

These are just some contradictions that reveal the Authenticity, Seriousness, and Toxicity of This Industry .

1)
90% of what you are taught has no scientific foundation.
It is based on an approach to the subject that is entirely empirical and subjective, built on personal beliefs or experiences, passed along through word of mouth and imitation.
It is not grounded in objective data, measurements, or scientific validation, and in most cases it lacks any real method.

2)
You train on a shooting range, in an environment that is completely different from the one you live in every day, with only one common element: you. An environment radically different from the one where, one day, you may have to fight for your life.

3)
You carry a firearm because you know that one day you might need it to survive, yet you train once a month, at best. And you do it without a method, under predictive conditions that are optimal and entirely in your favor, constantly inside your comfort zone, and without any database that tracks your work.
Someone who competes to win a simple local club match, instead, trains at least three times a week. They do it with a method, under predictive conditions that are far more demanding, and their results are tracked in every competition through something called statistics. And above all, even if they lose, they still make it home.

4)
You train 98% of the time at the range during daylight, under optimal lighting, in an environment designed specifically for the safe use of firearms, controlled by safety rules and ballistically homogeneous.
But most crimes and violent offenses happen in the evening or at night.
So when you carry a firearm in the evening or at night, you will do it in the dark and, if you are forced to use it in low light or no light, maybe in confined spaces like your home or out on the street, you will be operating in an environment that is not suitable for firearms use, not controlled, and ballistically heterogeneous. Above all, you will be relying on exactly 2% of your training, in the most optimistic scenario.

6)
You spend thousands of dollars on a super-custom firearm, the latest-generation red dot, and all the other “cool” accessories, and then you walk around with a 30-dollar plastic holster, or worse, with overused leather holster or you clip it onto an old leather belt, because you have not understood that carrying a firearm is an indivisible chain of elements connected to one another.

7)
The only stimulus you train to react to is the beep of a timer.
A long, artificial auditory stimulus (about 0.20 seconds), unmistakable, emitted in a sterile environment where there are only three kinds of sound: the beep, the bang, and your voice.
Yet as human beings we interact roughly 83% through vision and only 11% through hearing.
Ninety-eight percent of decision-making processes in real life are based on visual stimuli, not auditory ones.
So you are training the wrong sense, in the wrong way, neglecting the processes you will rely on for real, massive, irreversible decisions made under extremely compressed time, such as discriminating a threat or pressing the trigger.

8 )
There are millions of videos online about firearms tactics and techniques. Perfect choreographies where everything works flawlessly, every detail is perfect because it is pre-known and planned, and where social-media aesthetics and appearance are the true focus.
Every instructor is the keeper of absolute truth: the fastest, the most accurate, the most tactical, the most “aesthetic,” always better than everyone else.
Everyone explains what to do to survive in the real world: a gunfight, a knife attack, a violent assault.
And yet there is not a single video on the web that shows what to do if you must react with a firearm while pushing a stroller, while you have children in a car seat, while you are carrying one on your body in a carrier or holding their hand, while you are eating ice cream on the street or walking through a mall with your kids or your wife by the hand.
And yet real cases and reporting clearly show these are real dynamics, increasingly frequent, tied to modern threats, from terrorism to active shooters.

9)
They call it a community. They talk about unity, cohesion, and shared values.
In reality it is one of the least professional environments in existence, where the only truly shared value is making money at any cost, regardless of compromises.
Ethics, respect, and education have been replaced by appearance, superficiality, and ignorance.
A brutal market where everyone talks badly about everyone else, where gossip and backstabbing are daily bread. If they do not do it to your face, they will do it behind your back the moment you turn around.
An environment where social media have become pulpits from which self-proclaimed Pros pour out insults against colleagues and industry professionals, never seeking technical discussion, but driven by personal interest, frustration, envy, or, worse, a few likes and a little more visibility.
A community where even the sport side has become toxic, adapting to the worst social dynamics of the commercial industry.

10)
You would tattoo the phrase “Train as you fight” anywhere, but you train in open carry and then, in real life, you carry concealed. You claim to believe “practice makes perfect,” and then you buy a new jacket and, without testing it even once on the range, you wear it with your holster and your firearm underneath.

You can look away, tell yourself “it’s not like that,” take refuge in the noise of the community, in the likes, in the certificates of “Pro” tactical courses, in catchy phrases, in choreographies.
Or you can do the hardest thing: take responsibility for reality.

Because when the context changes, when time compresses, when the noise fades and you are left alone with what you have truly built, no aesthetic will protect you.
No word, no title, no like, no “bro” will come to save you.

In that moment, only one thing will matter:
who you have become when no one was watching.

Training to defend your life is not a hobby.
It cannot be.
Carrying a firearm is a way of life.
It is a moral choice.
It is a pact with reality.
It is a commitment that allows no compromises.