Do they go to a shooting range? Do they shoot empty cans in the woods? Do they wing it?

It's a pretty perfunctory asset for a mobster to have and I imagine it's something they should invest time in to perfecting, but for some reason I can't envision a lot of them doing so.

My personal belief is that the average gangster, who for example recently bought a gun, doesnt have any shooting skills. Obviously from a very close range almost anyone can complete the job and in time, the more he's involved in the shooting job, the more he gets skilled. Also a lot of criminals carry guns just because they want to act tough but dont have the balls to pull the triger or maybe they are afraid because they could miss.As for the professional hit men, at the beginning they obviously train on some private shooting range and learn about weapons. They also train on how to shoot from a moving car or motorcycle. There are some reports which show that during the late 1920s one young and disorganized group in Chicago taught their newest members on how to use the getaway cars during robberies so i can only imagine on what is going on these days for example in the Mexican underworld and their kind of trainers. You obviously need trained skills so you can fire an ak47 while your buddy is driving the motorcycle on high speed. Thats why in the old days the hit squads used to be something like seperate factions within some of the syndicates.I believe that it mostly depends on whos the mentor or what kind of individual is he, meaning is he a business type or the murderous type

Most mobsters have bad shooting skills to be honest. I mean most killings are up close(Back of the head}

But even then some manage to fuck it up, case in point: the failed attempt on John Veasy.

In most cases the type of bullets might be fucked up, or maybe even the gun might get jammed. The Outfit's one time alleged acting boss and later underboss Jack Cerone had a similar situation such as the Veasy one. Cerone shot this guy a couple of times in the head but survived. Same goes with the Ken Eto hit.

My personal opinion is that the most professional Mob hit was the Castellano/Bilotti murders, not at the back of the head but still from close range in a crowded space, and as for the real professional hits, I'll give to the Bugsy Siegel and Nick Rizzuto jobs

No doubt, that was some Chris Kyle-type of stuff.

Gaspipe Casso, and Phil D'Andrea (a Capone bodyguard) were the only gangsters whom I've read about who actually practiced shooting. The others, as everyone else here noted, rely on "up close and personal."

Keep in mind that gangsters of the Twenties and Thirties grew up in an era when there weren't many gun controls. They probably had plenty of (legal) guns around them and had plenty of opportunity to practice. Not so today.

I think the mobsters today had a legal gun and train at the shooting range, the mobsters need to know how to kill not to be snipers, there are so many cases where they could not shoot at the head of the victims,and fired at close range without striking them.

"Most wiseguys didn't have a fucking clue what to do with a gun. I went to the shooting range and practiced. I became an accomplished shooter that way. It's like being a ballplayer. You better take batting practice."
-Sal Miciotta, The Brotherhoods

I used to shoot with air guns when I was a kid, some guys learned it in the army like Frank Sheeran.

How much skills does it take to shoot a pistol into the back of someone's head? Not much.

There was also a Murder Inc guy named Vito "Chicken Head" Gurino. He got his nickname from practicing shooting the heads off of live chickens as they ran around in his backyard.

If they were brought up right and or regular family or mob family the guys that you got along with or the guys a few years up on you will show the ropes .

Many many skippers and well off soldiers had and have places up state with shooting ranges or just a field with a pile of dirt as a backstop.

Then there are the few that never left the city and or was not well liked and did not have that advantage.

But most killers have many hours behind the weapon .

When was the last time they had actual shootouts, as opposed to shooting a guy in the back of the head? My guess would be the second Colombo war in the early 90s, or the Philadelphia Family war in the 80s and 90s. They don't seem to do that many hits at all anymore, anyway. I think the emphasis is more on earning and giving some of what you earn to the right guys more than on shooting.

Then throw in the fact that some of these guys are high as a kite on something when they go to shoot someone. Half the reason that Frank Salemme survived the IHOP shooting was that the four guys were wasted on coke and couldn't shoot straight. Although in Canada, it seems like they almost never miss up there.

We still see shootings/shootouts mentioned in indictments and detention memos. I remember reading a shooting allegedly involving a Bonanno mobster in one of their recent cases. They don't get as much attention as dead bodies. This week's GL talks about a shooting.

Okay, you are right, I forgot about the Bonnano man being shot. I think that was in Harlem? Was that a mob guy who shot him, or drug deal gone bad,or robbery attempt?
Getting back to how guys learned how to shoot, I imagine some of them were or are hunters. The ones still with clean enough records to get hunting licenses, anyway. Even in NYC there are hunters, they go to Upstate NY, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania to hunt.

They just wing it...even most of the known hitmen weren't marksman.