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Let Freedom Ring,
Posted on 06/18/2007 11:11:20 AM PDT by Dutchgirl
[W}hen one is faced with a deadly threat...talk to those who have won in life's ultimate contest, to see what they saw, felt and heard, the rest of us will be better able to understand what to expect and how to prepare for it.
Without fail, the people who remember seeing or using their front sight are the ones who were prepared to engage in combat. Good examples of this are soldiers on the field of battle or SWAT cops who know going in that they are quite likely to shoot. These folks kept sights in their "cone of vision" and relied on them when a hostile target was encountered. I have also experienced this phenomenon while working narcotics for a number of years. Prior to raids and vehicle takedowns, I would visualize in my head what I planned on doing, including where my firearm would be. This position would always be some type of high ready position where the gun and its sights were within my "cone." I found that during the operation itself, that when I encountered potential hostiles, I could shift between the actions of the suspect and the location of my front sight with little problem. The big difference here is that I was "prepared" to engage and not caught in startlement. Awareness is as important to gun fighting as is trigger control.
[A}rmed confrontations occur at very close distances (often times at arm's length), that few shots are fired and the person involved usually misses. These statistics were compiled from the FBI's Officer Killed Summary, which are released on an annual basis. Note that the operative word here is killed; [H]ave you ever wondered what happened with the officers that won? Did they do anything different to help ensure they would prevail?
(Excerpt) Read more at handgunsmag.com ...
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Let Freedom Ring,
The key IS preparation.
I remember hearing about a case in New York City. Four cops barged into a 12x14 bedroom and suprised a guy who picked up a gun and opened fire. Between the perp and the cops, twenty five shots were fired by the five people in the 12x14 bedroom, and nobody got hit.
Ultimately, it all boils down to the simple fact that in a life-and-death situation, people do not tend to rise to the occasion, but instead sink to their lowest level of training.
Train hard and get mad!
Thanks for posting this, even if you’ve read similiar articles and trained for such an event, a review is always a good thing.
Very few things are as serious as this. Treat it accordingly.
LOL, unbelievable. They should all be shot for being such lousy shots.
Pinged for later.
But I'll bet that there a very strong and unpleasant odor in there.
Gunpowder? Oh, never mind........
George Bemis . . . wore in his belt an old original “Allen” revolver, such as irreverent people called a “pepper-box.”
Simply drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the pistol.
As the trigger came back, the hammer would begin to rise and the barrel to turn over, and presently down would drop the hammer, and away would speed the ball.
To aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a feat which was probably never done with an “Allen” in the world.
But George’s was a reliable weapon, nevertheless, because, as one of the stage-drivers afterward said, “If she didn’t get what she went after, she would fetch something else.”
And so she did.
She went after a deuce of spades nailed against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards to the left of it.
Bemis did not want the mule; but the owner came out with a double-barreled shotgun and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow.
It was a cheerful weapon—the “Allen.” Sometimes all its six barrels would go off at once, and then there was no safe place in all the region round about, but behind it.
- Roughing It MARK TWAIN
Good article.
Practice, practice, practice!
Please don’t ask me to remember where I found this, it was several years ago while I was plundering a trove of stuff from a military surplus store. I read in some War College military thinking piece that in WWI, WWII and Korea, the “hit” factor was way low. In other words, 100 soldiers firing at human targets only produced some 15 to 20% hits.
It was noted they trained on paper targets.
In Vietnam, the “hit” factor improved dramatically. I forget the percentage.
It was noted that the military switched to human profile targets.
Their conclusion was that most humans have a natural aversion to actually shooting another person, and that by using human outlines, they were able to desensitize the troops considerably.
I always thought that it was an interesting observation, and one that should probably be considered in any kind of crisis training.
was this before or after the change in gun sights
bump for later. thanks for the post.
Sounds to me like the “modern technique” was lacking in that encounter.
“Sounds to me like the “modern technique” was lacking in that encounter.”
I rolled on the floor too. The FBI stats are chocked full of this kind of stuff.
Odd things do happen when the pucker factor red lines in nano seconds.
This sounds a lot like research done by Dave Grossman for his book On Killing.
Sometimes the confrontation is in bad or no light. Try shooting in darkness. There might be some surprises if you have never done this.
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