The Polite Society
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Robert A. Heinlein wrote "An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." --Beyond This Horizon (1942) It is from this quote and this idea that The Polite Society takes its name.
The Polite Society is an organization that holds shooting matches designed to test defensive skills with the handgun. This organization was formed primarily by Tom Givens of Memphis, TN and Jim Higgenbotham of Kentucky. Tom and Jim both have actual street experience as police officers, and experience in the military, and are both currently active trainers for civilian, military, and police departments in various places around the country.
The Board of Directors has several other members that also have similar "real life" experience to draw from.
Real everyday carry guns must be used. The general rule is, if a gun would not normally be considered appropriate to be carried on the street, it cannot be used in a Polite Society match. The other rules are designed around winning real life street confrontations, not winning matches.
The Polite Society was not designed to replace any other shooting sport, but merely to have a place to shoot with like-minded individuals who realize that some shooting sports focus too little on real life skills needed by the everyday permit holder (or police officer) who carries a gun to protect himself and his family, and who is not worried about owning guns or practicing techniques that will only serve to help win matches.
Targets used are generally one of two types; Humanoid reactive (they fall over when properly hit) or cardboard targets which must have a minimum number of points to be considered neutralized, rather than just something ambiguous such as "two hits per target." Scoring zones on these targets are usually place much more emphasis on accuracy, requiring the contestants to actually hit what would be considered a "vital zone" on a human.
After exploring the issue for a year with experimental formats, the Polite Society was formed (to be a not-for-profit corporation) and officially opened its doors for membership on February 21, 2003. The Polite Society is not about sport shooting or competition, but rather about a triad of marksmanship, gunhandling, tactical skills and knowledge, as all three are considered important for a well-rounded gun person. The Polite Society is about information. You do not come to a Polite Society event in order to win a trophy; you come in order to improve yourself, and others.
To be sure, there are scores involved in many of the shooting programs and they are scored under a wide variety of systems, but the thrust here is to gauge skill not to compete – basically you should be competing against yourself or against a standard of excellence. Thus it may seem strange to go to a shooting event where some (or even all) of the tests do not result in the actual firing of your weapon or where there is more emphasis on use of cover than marksmanship. You may travel a long way to an event and fire only a few rounds – but the knowledge gained will be as significant as if you fired 300 rounds in routine competition.
Additionally, most major matches will involve separate training events besides the shooting event. In particular, the yearly national match at Rangemaster in Memphis, TN hosts multiple trainers from around the country, and while a shooter is there, he may attend any of the classes that strike his interest for no additional charge. This typically results a student having access to training that would normally cost as much as a few thousand dollars for only the nominal fee to attend the event (approximately one to two hundred dollars).
The Polite Society is not intended to compete with other shooting sports. We fully support those sports and heartily suggest participation in them for gaining skill at marksmanship, and in fact, most of the trainers and board members still hold active memberships in most of the other shooting sports. We exist to raise the consciousness of those who believe that mechanical skill is but one facet of one’s entire self defense package and that good tactics should not be discouraged by the scoring system and poor tactics should be penalized.
The Polite Society has already attracted many quality trainers and is in the process of developing an advisory board of the best-known weaponcraft trainers and experts extant. Already that list includes (alphabetically) Tom Givens, Marty Hayes, Jim Higginbotham, Keith Pridgen, Karl Rehn, Andy Stanford, Gabe Suarez, and we are currently adding many more!
