Spurred by the pandemic and protests against racial injustice, the United States now has an estimated 8.4 million more gun owners than it did at the start of 2020. As guns have risen in popularity, so too have tactical firearms courses 1/wired.trib.al/NBJ8VIB
Once the purview of law enforcement officers and military operators, tactical shooting skills are increasingly being passed down to ordinary, armed Americans by a sprawling and diffuse industry 2/ wired.trib.al/NBJ8VIB
Photographs by Jesse Rieser
Photographs by Jesse Rieser
Gun ranges and private facilities around the US are teaching the art of armed combat. At a Texas resort, you can engage in an exercise inspired by the Iraq War; at a facility in Florida, you can practice taking out a shooter at the Liberal Tears Café 3/ wired.trib.al/NBJ8VIB
A byproduct of years of rampant mass shootings, and of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tactical culture is a space where paramilitary ideas thrive and where ordinary gun owners learn to see themselves as potential heroes 4/ wired.trib.al/NBJ8VIB
It's also where many Americans have simply gone looking for a way to negotiate living in a country where there are more firearms than people 5/ wired.trib.al/NBJ8VIB
To try to understand it better, our writer spent the fall learning how to fight like a special forces soldier. Sometimes it felt like CrossFit with bullets; sometimes it was more alarming than that 6/ wired.trib.al/NBJ8VIB
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