For those who think sighted fire won't work at close range

A BG can cover 20 feet in less than two seconds. Draw, sight and fire in that time? Try it.
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Yeah, but he has to know where he is going, first. A guy kicking in your door that doesn't know the layout of your home and furniture is going to be slowed down quite a bit by his attempts at identifying what is in the room in order to navigate, identifying threats, and deciding on a course of action.

Actually, it's not that hard. There is a training technique called the "progressive draw drill" which is a great way to increase your draw-to-shot time. While I'm by no means a top level competitive shooter, I can draw, get the front sight, and have a my first round downrange in a little under a second using a Serpa holster, and a little faster when I use a holster without the Serpa lock. Sighted fire at short ranges in small amounts of time is simply a matter of training and practice, as was aptly demonstrated by the referenced story from Mr. Farnam's student.
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Uh huh. Draw and with sighted fire hit a target at what distance in under a second? That is a full half second faster than what Farnum considers to be a good draw time...

A good draw time for this is in the 1.5 second range, ...
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Of course, that is being ready to fire and knowing what your target is and having made the decision to fire before the drill ever starts. Things don't usually work that way in real life, when you are sitting in your living room, watching TV.

Let's see, for the average human adult, it takes 0.20 seconds for the brain to process the stimulus indicated the "go" signal and for the signal to be sent for the hand to start moving. So in less than 0.80 seconds, you are able complete all the movements required for drawing, sighting, and firing your gun? That is extremely impressive, especially for a person that isn't a top level shooter. The only folks I ever see doing that, that ever hit anything, are the ones with the fancy race holsters.

Contrary to Mr. Farnum, just because you blow the draw does not mean that you should end up blowing the string.
 
Lilburn, Georgia

From WTVM of February 27, 2009
Lilburn homeowner shoots, kills intruder at door

The Gwinnett County police say a homeowner shot and killed 1 of the intruders when two men kicked in his front door.

The incident happened shortly after 5 p.m. Friday when the men knocked at the door and when no one answered, kicked it in.

Police spokeswoman Illana Spellman said the resident fired, striking and killing one in the doorway. She said the second man ran away and police using search dogs were unable to find the man.

No charges have been filed in the incident
 
DNS, I never said that it was easy, just that it takes training and practice. My fasted draw and shot combo in practice was 0.98, but as these things often go, no one was there to see it - just me and my CED7000. In dry fire practice, I did one once in about 0.6 seconds, but that's just dry fire.

The point though is that while difficult, speed is often just a factor of training. If the average guy with a little practice can draw from an unconcealed holster in 1.5 seconds, then with even more practice all they're going to do is get faster.
 
I never said it was easy either. However, what YOU said was...

Actually, it's not that hard.
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Not that hard sounds like it is either easy or middle of the road difficult, but certainly "not that hard".

The point though is that while difficult, speed is often just a factor of training.
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So now we go from "not that hard" to being "difficult."

Got it. I am starting to understand the backpeddling. It isn't that you can do it, but you have done it in the past. Got it.

We are all very good when we dry fire.
 
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http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/me...009/02/27/lilburn_homeowner_shoots.html?imw=Y

http://www.learnaboutguns.com/2009/03/02/lilburn-ga-homeowner-shoots-home-invader-in-self-defense/

I just wish they hadn't published the street number (but then, who want's to mess with him anyway, right?)

There are many things to learn from this incident.

1) A gun in the hand beats 10 in the bedroom.

2) Even are extreme close range, if you keep your wits you can use your sights (100 percent hit rate ain't bad.) And even if you can't see them, bring the weapon up to the same place AS IF YOU CAN SEE THEM will work well at such close range.

3) Do something the BG does not expect (and a hail of gunfire is something they don't expect.)

4) Notice he scanned, reloaded, and took cover AFTER the BG was DRT. That was training, not just plinking on the range.

5) Note he fired 7 rounds. His Glock 38 holds, fully loaded, 9. He almost emptied it. What would have happend if the other BG still tried to take him? The old saying, "it's better to have and not need...." comes in here. Remember it.

6) Notice most of the JHPs didn't expand. Don't count on the 'magic bullet'. Count on shot placement (and pray the bullet does expand, as advertized.)

7) Improvise! Adapt! Overcome! But don't just sit there dumbfounded.
 
We are all very good when we dry fire.
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Fair enough, I did backpedal from the difficulty level. I suppose I should have said "it's not easy, but it's not super hard either, and if you practice enough most people are capable of doing it and repeating it."

It can be done with practice and repetition. Your mileage will vary with training and practice of course, and not everyone will get under that 1 second mark, because not all people are physically equal.
 
Something 'very' fishy in this story.

He says he was surprised, yet the newspaper account says "the homeowner had his gun out and was ready for them". Maybe he even knew that he was being hunted.
I've been around too many shootings/killings in my Chicago days to just buy right into the perp's account. Especially if the only witness is dead.

Anyway, he fired at 'less' than 8 ft. Therefore, by 'finding his sight' he needed his arm extended by 2 ft. That's 5 ft to target!

He claims that he used his 'sights' at 5 ft from the intruder? C'mon, that's total bullcrap!
He instinctively pointed metal at meat and fired away.
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When people are using two seconds as a benchmark in this scenario for whether or not a person will be able to use his sights, I gotta wonder. How long does it take the bad guy to finish kicking down a door, assess you as a threat, start making his way towards you, and finally reach you? Two seconds seems a bit fast to me... Unless I misinterpreted that debate as about that particular instance, in which case, forget what I said.

Also, did the guy retreat or try to? How can we be sure that the BG wasn't just trying to get to the TV the guy was watching :rolleyes:? (That last part was sarcastic, in case I didn't lay it on thick enough)
 
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could someone please tell me what the heck "Spin your OODA Loop" means?
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Curt,

OODA means Observe, Orient, Decide and Act.

Col. John Boyd, USAF, coined the term.

http://oodacycle.com/OODA.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_Loop

and about a billion other hits if you use Google for 'OODA'.

It's not really a new concept, but Boyd went so much deeper than anyone else to understand and codify it. If you read his bio you will end up with great respect for him.
 
Dad always called it 'instinct shooting'. It's something that I was taught from a small child. First with bows and later with firearms, it's something that I still practice today. Simply, it's being able to hit a point that you are looking at.

Inside of a house, with anything that I own you will be DRT.
 
A couple of observations:

If the news story is the same as the student's story, this doesn't appear to have been a "home invasion" robbery. According to the news story, the suspects knocked on the door and after receiving no answer kicked it in. This is a very common "method of operation" for residential burglars who have no desire to find someone inside. That is why I believe you should always immediately check to see who is knocking at your door.

Neither the shooter's depiction or the news account mention anything about a weapon in the suspect's hands. The news story says he shot one at the door. But, according to him, they rushed at him. Either way, he is probably justified. But, in keeping in line with the post topic, I say all of that to say that I believe it is a lot easier to "keep your wits" and find your front sight when no one is pointing a gun at you or worse, actually shooting at you. In instances of the latter, the front sight might not be so easily attainable.
 
Anyway, he fired at 'less' than 8 ft. Therefore, by 'finding his sight' he needed his arm extended by 2 ft. That's 5 ft to target!

He claims that he used his 'sights' at 5 ft from the intruder? C'mon, that's total bullcrap!
He instinctively pointed metal at meat and fired away.
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<8-2 = <6 feet, unless you assume that less than 8 feet means 7 feet and then the answer is 5. :D

And he certainly may have used his sights. I don't doubt it. Now, the question is, how did he use them? Did he just index off the sights without actually aligning them properly in the traditional sense? That would still be using them. Or, did he just use the front sight and pull the trigger, which can work if a target is that close. The shot will be higher than the front sight, but at 5-6 feet, the misalignment of looking over the rear sight to the front sight isn't dramatic. If he aimed COM, it would be terrific.
 
Skyguy,

Now to call someone who is not even here to defend himself a liar, especially after he offed a BG at very close range, is well, beneath you.

Let's get something strait. There are plenty of examples of pilots having do do all kinds of cockpit intensive things, real fast, as they are about to crash/collide with other aircraft/get shot down/etc.... and they had to concentrate quite a bit and focus on what needed to be done.

There is also the likes of Jim Cirillo, who in one of his shootouts, when HE was suprised by the BGs at the door, did write how he saw his sights while shooting.

If all you do is train to point shoot, I have no doubt you won't use the sights. In fact, Paul Howe and Clint Smith feel, if you learn one way, don't be surprised if you use that way when the chips are down (but they are actually talking about sighted fire.)

Oh, and another thing, the guy who did this (the one I posted here at the first of the thread) apparently is a graduate of at least two schools. Farnam and Gabe Suarez. Do some research and you will find what he trained to do. He was no newbie with few skills.
 
Now to call someone who is not even here to defend himself a liar, especially after he offed a BG at very close range, is well, beneath you.
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Ouch! Reread my post. I don't use the word 'liar'.

The homeowner says he was surprised, yet the newspaper account says "the homeowner had his gun out and was ready for them".
Somebody's not telling the truth.

There is also the likes of Jim Cirillo, who in one of his shootouts, when HE was suprised by the BGs at the door, did write how he saw his sights while shooting.
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Back in the day when I was with the Cook County gang unit, Jimmy Cirillo and I compared notes more than a few times. He was fascinated with viet nam and my combat experiences with the 173rd.

Jimmy said a lot of things. And of course he used sights, but he also believed strongly in his method of close up shooting. He called it silhouette sighting; put the shape of the gun on the target and shoot.

Later in his life he became a 'very' strong believer in using CT lasergrips.

As an aside to all this, we had a 73 year old lady out here, with only basic revolver skills drop a home invader with 2 to the chest.
She hadn't shot a gun in over 40 years.
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From what I get from the student's story and the news story is that the BG's knocked, but he didn't hear them for some reason. After he didn't answer they kicked the door in.

Here's what I don't get... if he killed one BG and the other was never caught... and he didn't hear them knocking... how does the reporter know they knocked?

The second news link seems to say that he did hear them knocking and that's why he got his gun, and that is opposite of what the student's account was. Hmmm.... something fishy indeed...

Great stroy though. Since it seems something did happen and a BG caught a few in the chest and the innocent victim survived without a scratch, I'm very happy. The first BG probably never even knew saw it coming. I'm suprised they didn't find the second one. Did they try following the urine trail?

My theory is that the reporter was the other BG.
 
Skyguy,

A question. Since when are newspapers 100 percent accurate. Especially when it relates to anything about guns and violence?

Think about that.

Does one believe a newspaper written by who knows, or the actual man who was there?
 
A question. Since when are newspapers 100 percent accurate.
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Newspapers get a lot of things wrong....for sure.

But in my experience, reporters get their information about home invasions and killings from the police dept...and the detailed reports made by the investigating detectives and officers.
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