A Case For Point Shooting.

[JohnKSa]

six guys in or around a car in front of your home.

The article doesn't say that. It says he was parking his car when he was attacked by 6 men.

six guys bailing out of a car parked in front of my home

It says nothing about a car being visible nor does it say the men were visible when he drove up.

It's highly unlikely that even the most brain-dead thug would think that a good way to take a person in a motor vehicle by surprise would be for a half-dozen men loiter in front of a residence in full view. The point is that given what the article actually SAYS, there's no way to blame this on SA just like there's no way to say that sighted shooting was the cause of the misses or that point shooting would have saved the day.

What I was getting at with my comment about SA is that it's commonly used as a convenient "out" or as a "scapegoat". I hear people recommending ill-advised courses of action and when the problem is pointed out they blithely respond that their excellent SA will prevent their poor tactics from biting them in the nether declivities. I hear people immediately assuming that SA was the problem in scenarios even when there was no evidence to suggest that it was.

The fact is that NO one manages to ALWAYS have perfect SA, and even those who have excellent SA are not immune from having bad things happen to them. SA is very, VERY important, but it's not always the problem when something goes wrong and it's not always going to save you from trouble.

 

[nate45]

(opening can of worms..) uh, exactly what IS the delay with using sights? How much time exactly?

It's a fraction of a second and in my opinion worth expending in order to use the sights.

 

[Playboypenguin]

I love gun mag stories. It is almost as good as the letters section of Penthouse. They give some guys erections for very different reasons but they are almost always made up.

My favorite was one I read recently about two campers being rousted from their sleeping bags by two "hippies" clad in flowered shirts and bell bottoms wielding knives and bats. Luckily both men had headed the advice to always sleep with your firearms inside your sleeping bag.

Although, I am a big supporter of both point shooting and being able to shoot with both hands. At least of my practice time is done point shooting.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

But, if one is shot first which method--point or aimed fire-- would give him a better chance of hitting his mark?

LOL, you can't honestly being asking this question and expect a realistically useful answer or that there is a universal truth, do you? That would be very naive.

Don't you think that would depend on where a person was shot, maybe?

FYI, from the description YOU provided in the OP, it sounds like the story teller was using point shooting...

It was almost impossible for me to correctly aim and shoot. I have been trained to shoot with both hands, but I recall that I fired one handed during this incident.....

 

[Deaf Smith]

"Without warning he (the BG standing in front of his car) fired a shot at me. I felt no sign of impact to my body: I didn't even know that the slug hit me squarely in the middle of my chest. But my subconscious did, because it instantly sent gallons of adrenaline into my system, turning me into a stumbling zombie. I pulled my own revolver and tried to take cover behind a concrete pillar of the carport and fired off my first round in the direction of the attacker...
...The main attacker was still taking cover at the back of the car, less than two meters from me, and he kept firing at me.
He was constantly changing his position, never standing still.
It was almost impossible for me to correctly aim and shoot. I have been trained to shoot with both hands, but I recall that I fired one handed during this incident.....
..Then, without warning, the attackers turned tail and fled. As quickly as it started, so ended the first phase of my struggle for survival."

So at 2 meters he fired (six feet), not sure if he hit the guy or missed (no mention of blood or any kind of wound) and one thinks one handed fire was in some way superior to two handed fire (or point shooting for that matter.) The other guy just bugged out.

I don't see how this validates anything. Misses with one hand are about as good as misses with two hands.

On the other hand, I'd read Paul Howe's work on the subject. Might see other thoughts on this.

Say brownie, how much experience did the writer of the article have? Hmmm he had a wheel gun in the age of automatics. Kind of wonder about him. Please enlighten us.

 

[threegun]

The article doesn't say that. It says he was parking his car when he was attacked by 6 men.

That section of the post was responding to the victims lack of situational awareness. The article said the bad guy was standing in front of his car.

"Without warning he (the BG standing in front of his car) fired a shot at me.

The point is that given what the article actually SAYS,

It says bad guy standing in front of HIS car. If all six guys were out of the vehicle the victim had poor SA. If the lone exposed bad guy was standing in front of his car filled with other bad guys his SA failed. I did speculate in my post but that doesn't change the poor SA by the victim.

 

[kraigwy]

Ok I'm sold, I'm gonna file off all the sights on my pistol.


LOL not likely, they put those sights on pistols for something.

 

[JohnKSa]

I took that to mean the victim's car, but I believe you are correct.

Nonetheless, the article doesn't say that the men or the vehicle were present or visible when the man pulled up. In fact, it sounds like they pulled up behind him based on the description of the article. If you take the statement to mean that the BG was in front of the BG's car then the next statement which seems to say that the BG was at the back of the victim's car supports that idea.

It's still building a lot on a little. It's too bad that the OP didn't post the entire text of the article, or at least the entire text of the pertinent section of the article.

 

[bds32]

One of the things that I took out of the brief information given about the confrontation and from the other training experiences in my LE career is this: When someone is shooting at you at very close range, you don't have the ability to make a conscious choice. That part of your brain is out of operation at that moment. The good guy in this case went one handed instead of two. This was not a choice but simply a reaction. The same will happen with the use of the sights. His mammilian (mid-brain) had taken over and he was powerless to make any sort of decision while being shot. Once time and distance are established and gunfire is no longer striking you or very near you, I think you can make some choices.

I train to use the sights most of the time but I believe with 100% certainty that if I have to shoot someone who is shooting at me or is pulling a gun for that purpose, at distances of around 10-15 yards or less, I will not see the sights. I know this because it's happened to me on numerous occassions while conducting Force on Force Simmunitions training. Despite the bazillions of rounds of sighted fire I've shot, my experience is that I focus exclusively on the target trying to shoot me and not on sights. A SWAT commander and trainer named Randy Watt confirmed that this is likely to happen to alot of officers in an experiment he conducted a couple of years ago. In that experiment, sighted fire shooters outshot point shooters on static targets(no surprise). When participants were put in a position where someone started shooting them with Simunitions while they engaged a target (with live guns and ammo), the sighted fire shooters still outshot the point shooters even though not a single sighted fire advocate could remember seeing his sights while being shot at. Why? When you train to use your sights, you are training your body to put the gun in the right place. When being shot at, the gun is still lining up just like it has many many times, whether you see the sights or not. It makes perfect sense to me.

 

[nate45]

bds32

When someone is shooting at you at very close range, you don't have the ability to make a conscious choice. That part of your brain is out of operation at that moment.

Exactly, the adrenal gland would go into overtime and there's nothing any of us could do about it. I still contend that not a single one of us knows for sure exactly what we would do or be capable of doing in a similar situation.

Just the fact (if it is a fact) that he drew his weapon and returned fire, is fairly impressive in and of itself.

 

[threegun]

In a real life or death situation, given the relatively puny nature of handgun rounds and what it actually takes to incapacitate someone. My opinion is that the more well directed the shots are at the sternum and brain the better your odds are of success.

To me it is more important to get a hit somewhere between the nipples, neck, and solar plexus, aka a center of mass hit, as fast as possible, than it is to get a perfectly placed hit to the dead center of the target. If you can get this faster without the sights....why not?

Slopemeno,

(opening can of worms..) uh, exactly what IS the delay with using sights? How much time exactly?

Sighted fire can be very fast and real close to point shooting but it isn't possible to be as fast using the sights. When using the sights you must allow for the signals between brain, eye, and finger. With point shooting you eliminate the eye to brain communication. Don't know the time difference for the record but it is noticeably faster without recording devices.

 

[Slopemeno]

My point is- you can't miss fast enough.

 

[pax]

threegun ~

If the person using sighted fire is using the sights to align the gun in the first place, that's noticeably slower.

But if they're using the sights only to verify the alignment, looking at the sights adds no extra time and might very possibly prevent a miss.

Misses add a lot of extra time...

pax

 

[threegun]

BDS32,

The time I thought we were in the process of being robbed I went into auto pilot mode. I drew, raised my pistol while taking up the slack on the trigger, and then abruptly stopped the firing sequence when I realized that the would be robber was in fact an idiot trying to scare a coworker while wanting to pawn a crossman bb pistol he pulled from under his shoulder alla shoulder holster carry. I thought it was going to be a shoot out. I got tunnel vision and experienced hearing loss. Everything felt slow motion.

I do remember looking for my front sight and repeating front site front site over and over, thinking that the guy was very skinny, hoping that I wouldn't miss, and realizing his gun was a bb gun, all in less than half a second (my draw time back then). I was aware of feeling slow motion at the time although my coworker said my draw was smooth and fast.

Some will say that this doesn't count as reacting under pressure because it turned out not the be a robbery but just a man being very very stupid. I will say this......in my mind and my coworkers mind we believed our time had come. My coworker froze up and just looked at me as he had been reading to me an article from shotgun news and was bent over the counter caught completely off guard. I was sufficiently fooled into thinking this was real to get tunnel vision, hearing loss, and slow motion. I was utterly amazed at how much information my brain processed in such a small amount of time.

 

[threegun]

But if they're using the sights only to verify the alignment, looking at the sights adds no extra time and might very possibly prevent a miss.

For me if I use my sights at all whether it be both, front only, or as you put it use the front hump to gain verification of the muzzles direction......I was not as fast as throwing the gun up and pulling the trigger.

If you have a proper grip you don't need to spend the milliseconds worrying about front sight. The gun will point for you and misses are very very rare.

Misses add a lot of extra time...

In a match....its over you aren't going to win......in a shoot out it could mean death. They are time consuming for sure.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

Some will say that this doesn't count as reacting under pressure because it turned out not the be a robbery but just a man being very very stupid.

"Realness" doesn't make pressure, PERCEPTION of "realness" makes pressure.
You thought it was real, it was pressure.


BTW, did you whip the dog snot out of the idiot, or did he wet himself when he saw you draw?

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

You can't make a case for technique 1 vs 2 or 3, with a vivid instance or two.

Actual analysis of such takes controlled studies to sort out the different variables. Such is known in most other human performance fields.

However, this idea is slow to sink into to gunfighting in the popular gun outlets. Some folks - like the Army and police reserch are starting to study such.

As John pointed out, too much is uncontrolled to decide if one thing or another is the 'answer'. In fact, the real answer probably would just indicate different probabilities of success based on varying factors.

However, the gun world likes to have yes or no, black or white dichotomies. A change in technique might mean a major change in success ratios or even a small change. That would have to be empirically demonstrated as compared to anecdotes.

 

[nate45]

I only know what I can do and hopefully will do

From any distance past arms length out to 3 yards, I can draw and bring my pistol up to eye level with a two hand hold and hit the head A-zone in 1 second or less. I don't know what handgun method would more effectively neutralize a threat better than that.

If someone is the fastest gun in the West and can draw their single action army and hit me in the chest in a quarter of a second. Unless they get lucky and hit my spine, even if I eventually die, with the above method I'll take them with me.

On top of that, somehow I don't think the odds of me ever facing a world class gunfighter in a deadly confrontation are very high.

I'm not a criminal, but if I was going to ambush someone with the intent of killing them, they would never know I was anywhere around or what even happened, unless they found out in the next life.

 

[threegun]

BTW, did you whip the dog snot out of the idiot, or did he wet himself when he saw you draw?

My coworker, embarrassed by freezing, scolded the guy with some foul language and ridicule. The idiot could care less how close he came to being shot. Back then it was a G-20 with Glaser safety slug followed by Winchester 175 grn silver tips.

Nate45,

From any distance past arms length out to 3 yards, I can draw and bring my pistol up to eye level with a two hand hold and hit the head A-zone in 1 second or less. I don't know what handgun method would more effectively neutralize a threat better than that.

Thats great on paper but hitting the MOVING head of a bad guy under gun fight pressure might be a tad more difficult.

If someone is the fastest gun in the West and can draw their single action army and hit me in the chest in a quarter of a second. Unless they get lucky and hit my spine, even if I eventually die, with the above method I'll take them with me.

You are speculating since that first hit might turn you into a "stumbling zombie" as it did the victim in the OP's post. What happened to the OP's victim is precisely the reason I want my lead to hit first. I believe your attitude is the proper one needed to face grave danger though.

Question you aren't faster if you don't use the sights?

 

[nate45]

Question you aren't faster if you don't use the sights?

Not at making consistent hits and the difference is a fraction of a second. I know I have a timer.

Thats great on paper but hitting the MOVING head of a bad guy under gun fight pressure might be a tad more difficult.

Yes, but I don't know how much or how far thet can move in a second or less.

You are speculating since that first hit might turn you into a "stumbling zombie"

This whole thread has turned into wild speculation, speculation about a scenario that I don't even know actually took place.

I've stated several times that none of us know what we will or will not be capable of doing if attacked in such a manner as outlined in the OP.