Question About Marksmanship Under Stress

It is all about the training and not just shooting. Simulated deadly force situations using sims, paintball, or air soft are part of the total package. I will not criticize these officers other than to state that the officer who shot one handed would have been better served to use both hands in this particular set of circumstances.
 
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New York City incident, "good practice", NYPD...

I wouldn't call the subject a "bandit" because he did not plan or intend to rob the victim. Media reports state the two men knew each other and the victim was murdered in a work related dispute.
I also wouldn't rail against the 2 uniformed patrol officers in the MOS(member of service) shooting. They were most likely regular shulbs who were assigned that area that day or were "on the job". I highly doubt these cops were like the elite ESU or "Hercules" counter-terrorist squad the NYPD set up after 9-11-2001.
To my knowledge, the spec ops officers on the Hercules unit are highly trained & deploy to possible terrorist threats around the metro area on short notice.

Finally, I'd add that a member here made a good point. Practice is important. You can't go out 1/2 a year to shoot at paper targets then consider yourself fully prepared for a lethal force event.
When I was a young soldier going through MP school, one of our cadre made a good point; "you should practice often, but make sure it's good practice. You should train with the correct methods & do it the right way consistently."
The US Army cadre was right. Proper training & mindset can aid you in a lethal force event.

CF
 
johnwilliamson062 50% isn't bad at all. It sounds like a number of those injured were injured by concrete.
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No, 50% isn't all bad considering more 9 people were hit out of 16 shots that were innocent bystanders! How good is that? :eek:

Why do we see the cops' shooting here is being all that good? A LOT of the wrong people were struck by slugs or hit by fragments. That the wounds turned out to be minor (like many of those on the BG shooter) seems to make many folks here happy, as it shooting the wrong people and otherwise injuring the wrong people is okay if the wounds are "minor."

I don't know why people are calling the shooter the BG. As far as the shooter was concerned, he was the GG who shot the BG.
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Hmm, I don't know, maybe because he went to his former workplace and got into a fight with a person apparently with whom he had had confrontations previously, ended up shooting him to death despite no witnessed threat of lethal force by the deceased, then fled the scene. Once confronted by cops, he pointed a gun at them. That would all seem to indicate that he was not the good guy in the situation...any part of it.

You know, there are bank robbers who don't consider themselves to be bad guys either, but that doesn't make it so.
 
I don't know why people are calling the shooter the BG. As far as the shooter was concerned, he was the GG who shot the BG. Then the cops shot him and everyone around him. Maybe, he's got to be labeled the BG so the people can sooth their own fears and misdeeds.
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Would calling him a "perpetrator" or a "Suspect" or a "Subject" or "Loser with a gun" be more acceptable? I have no fears or misdeeds I need to sooth. Usually the one making such silly complaints is the one who needs the introspection.
 
50% isn't bad at all. It sounds like a number of those injured were injured by concrete. I also agree one officer probably made the majority of the hits here.

I still doubt this 33% number for police shooting at people.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/24...ntcmp=obinsite
In this news story they say 20%. My CCW instructor who was a Columbus PD instructor cited OPOTA statistics at just below 20%
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NYPD inlcudes all officer involved shootings (including dogs and suicides) in calculating the 33% average hit rate for their officers. Hit rates against dogs tend to be higher (50% IIRC) and of course hit rates in suicides are very high. LAPD, who does not include suicides, averages 28%.
 
I don't know why people are calling the shooter the BG. As far as the shooter was concerned, he was the GG who shot the BG. Then the cops shot him and everyone around him. Maybe, he's got to be labeled the BG so the people can sooth their own fears and misdeeds.
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Please tell me you are not serious.
The guy walked up to a former coworker and shot him 5 times! Then, when confronted by the police, he aimed his gun at them.

Murder
Attempted murder

Yeah, those are qualifications for the term "Bad Guy."
 
I personally think both Police Officers acted bravely and with skill. They I believe had been tipped by a civilian that Johnson had a gun or had a gun and had just shot someone. In a place as crowded as New York City and in uniform it is doubtful that they could have followed him to a more safe place to apprehend him and they probably wanted to apprehend him immediately before he shot anyone else.

In the video which is grainy, you see the killer Johnson looking backwards while walking curbside between a large concrete planter with an upright pole and the street with the two police officers one behind the other hurrying to catch up with him from behind him.

Johnson pulls a gun to fire at the police officers and both police officers move to their right to fire at Johnson while taking cover behind the concrete planters. To his credit the police officer farthest away from Johnson who was behind the other police officer bravely breaks cover and moves laterally across his left front while exposing himself to deadly fire and firing at Johnson.

Johnson for some reason moves from behind cover out into the open to his right front while the closest police officer bravely stands his ground and the other police officer who is moving and firing and between the two of them they kill Johnson.

While it is unfortunate, civilians were wounded, I am sure there will be an investigation and the video will be thoroughly analyzed and critiqued and there will be lawsuits and I am sure the NYPD is heavily insured. If there is anyway this could have been prevented or handled better I am sure that be analyzed and found and taught in the future, but at this point I do not know how it could have been handled differently.

This brings us up to the point of accurate shooting in a gunfight and if the officers could have had better training and put all or most of their rounds on target thus reducing or eliminating the wounded civilians.

I really wonder how many of those critical of the officer’s shooting skills have ever been in an actual gunfight themselves or even any split second life and death situation in their entire lifetimes where the stress and adrenalin rush are unreal.

There are two old sayings that come to mind:

“Don’t be too critical of a man, until you have walked in his shoes.”

And

“If you don’t have the guts to play, don't be too critical of those that do."
 
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Like kraigwy I wish they would have waited or followed him rather than confront him in an area where there was a high likely hood that other people would be injured.

I know this was unknown at the time, but even if they did lose him, they would have most likely found him again, given the amount of people that knew there was bad blood between him and the guy he murdered.

The original victim was already dead. The guy wasn't walking around the street randomly shooting people, why risk other lives to stop him right there?
 
Back to the original question...how good is your marksmanship under stress.

Take two shooters, one who practices a lot and one who thinks he's good enough for CCW and shoots every now and then. Go to the range, set up several shoot targets, some no-shoots here and there and some hard cover.

Now take the title to their cars and the deed for their homes and put them in a hat. You are being scored on speed and accuracy. Any non threat hit makes you the automatic loser. Winner takes all.

Who will feel more stress? Who will perform under pressure? Will one feel more pressure than the other even under the same situational stress? Will one "knowing" he can do it because he has practiced it have an advantage over one who "thinks" he can do it because when he does shoot he's "pretty good"?

If you CCW and do not do everything within your time and financial limitations to practice and become as proficient as possible you put yourself and those around you at risk. With the right comes responsibility.

If you put a gun and a bullet proof vest on as your uniform for your job (and I have) you owe yourself, your partner and me no less. If my life and safety depend on you knowing how to use the tools of your trade then, by God, you better know how to use them. Don't hand me that crap about how the department only provides enough ammo to qualify once a year.

If this perp had pulled his gun on a stranger and been neutralized by a citizen with his personal CCW, preventing further loss of life, but in the process the citizen inflicted wounds on 9 innocent people he would be figuratively CRUCIFIED by the press, the police and probably the community. Why hold the Police to a lesser standard? After all, Bloomberg says "they are the professionals." Don't get me wrong, I love Police Officers and they do a heck of a job but never give them a pass for not becoming proficient with their sidearm.
 
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If you CCW and do not do everything within your time and financial limitations to practice and become as proficient as possible you put yourself and those around you at risk.
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Uh-huh, and if you haven't mastered various other open hand martial arts and practice those, learned at least paramedic level medical practices and are fully competent, learned and practice evasive driving from qualified instructors, memorized your home, workplace, and places of regular visitation to the level of being able to navigate fully in complete darkness, etc. etc. etc., within your time and financial limitations, then you are a danger and liability to those around you.

With being alive in American society comes great responsibility.

Come on! EVERYTHING? There isn't CCW folks who aren't already in the security industries that trains to the limits of their available time and financial resources. Everyone has excuses for all sorts of other things that are no necessary that they put ahead of doing everything to be proficient as possible. Even most professionals don't do that much.
 
What the heck are you talking about? Is there a point?

So you believe you have no duty whatsoever to become proficient with your pistol?

Wait, I get it...you are a double naught spy so I can see where you would need to be proficient in all the other things you mention.

Get serious. This is serious business.
 
Actually, I think DNS makes a very good point. I'd wager that many of the same people who are aghast at how little shooting the police have to do in order to stay current in their qualifications haven't had any formal driver training since they got their learner's permits decades ago.

I still find people who learned to drive in the pre-ABS days and have no idea that yes, you're supposed to depress the brake pedal fully and keep it there to minimize braking distance while still being able to steer and avoid an obstacle.

I'd also bet that over the course of a lifetime, you're a lot more likely to save your own life (or inadvertently take someone else's) as a result of your driving abilities than as a result of your shooting abilities.
 
DNS and Scottriqui,

I agree totally! I think some folks get a skewed idea from being active in something, like firearms/shooting, and it seems to lead them to believe that everyone that has a firearm is similarly proficient, and/or interested.

I can offer to take any number of folks I know to the range (many with a ccw) and they always have an excuse as to why they are always busy, dont have the time, etc.
 
I personally think both Police Officers acted bravely and with skill.
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Brave, yes. Skill? Ummmm ..... er ..... yeah, they know which end the bullets come out of and where the bang switch is.

Going 5 for 14 at a man standing 8 feet away and is not yet shooting back is not exactly an example of good marksmanship.
 
I was thinking about when you take friends/coworkers to the range (police officers and CCW permites ) and they can't hit the broard side of a barn. And then the excuses start... Wrong grain bullets, too much wind, too hot, hand hurting, etc... etc...
 
ZXIf you CCW and do not do everything within your time and financial limitations to practice and become as proficient as possible you put yourself and those around you at risk. With the right comes responsibility.
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For someone who carries, he needs to be as proficient as he plans to be in a life-threatening situation. Most people who carry are not going to intervene in a hostage situation or bank robbery, and don't need a tremendous amount of skill. There are some people who only carry in case they are raped, or robbed at an ATM. It doesn't take a whole lot of marksmanship to hit someone at arm's length. It does take some intestinal fortitude, and that can't be taught in a classroom.

90% of people only need to know to keep their fingers off their triggers and the guns pointed in a safe direction. And that isn't exactly rocket science.

Plenty of us are willing to go beyond that in training. Good for us. But not everyone is the same.

I still find people who learned to drive in the pre-ABS days and have no idea that yes, you're supposed to depress the brake pedal fully and keep it there to minimize braking distance while still being able to steer and avoid an obstacle.
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Kind of off topic, but I never owned a vehicle with ABS until a few years ago, and the hell of it is that in a life or death situation, it's a hard habit to break. ABS is made for people who panic and lock up the brakes. Doesn't really matter that you "know" to start braking like someone who panics. It takes a long time to train your way out of decades of driving like a normal person.
 
I personally think it is expecting a lot of anyone to be as proficient as possible with a handgun for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it's expensive, going on very expensive, besides in a lot of cases, going on impossible. There just isn't enough range space to go around, at least if everyone did that. Even so, when I go to the range, there's a line all the way round the room of people waiting to shoot.

Another thing is that you simply cannot keep yourself at the peak of perfection forever. By that, I mean nothing more than the simple fact that you lose your physical abilities over time. Young people won't believe that. On top of that is diminishing returns of additional practice. You're only going to be so good and in fact, I believe additional shooting will even reduce your abilities. I won't go out on a limb and say how much is about right, though, but that's been discussed in other threads.

Judging from what I read, most civilian encounters are nothing like what the police do, and likewise, most successful civilian use of a firearm were not by people who were highly trained or experienced in what just happened. Chances are, neither will the police. From what I understand, policemen who are involved in shootings will find themselves in assignments of less risk. As for civilians, the law of averages is on their side. Of course, trees fall on people's houses all the time where I live but the law of averages is still on our side.
 
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