For those of us who have taken a life , and for those of us who have defended our self with lethal force, the theoretical game is far from the actual game... I've mentioned many times, shot placement is a nice thing( easy thing ) when the target isn't shooting back.. but don't depend on shot placement under stress... I spent two tours in South east Asia, I am a retired disable veteran spending 22 months in combat( 65-66 and 66-67 ) then continuing my service career until 1977. I've also had to draw my weapon in self defense of myself once and my wife and kids once in the last 35 years of civilian life.
I said that if IM going to take a swing at someone in defense of my life... I want to swing a Big hammer not a tack hammer, that's why IM swinging a 45 ACP.... John Hinckley shot James Brady at point blank range (* less than a foot ) a direct shot in the head.. then unloaded his 22 automatic at President Reagan. One rounf entered his left chest, and came within 1/2 inch from his heart and lodged in his left chest.. as we al know both men lived... there is no kinetic shock wave with a 22... had it been a 45 acp that shot path would have been .750 wide with Kinetic shock waves of an inch on either side of the bullet path...
Two cops in Ohio went up against a guy with an AK-47 who demanded the cops kill him.. ( suicide by cop ) the bad guy stood out in the open 20 feet from the police car.. and fired at the police cars tires and radiator.. the two cops, one a sergeant ( seasoned veteran and a female rookie ) fired 56 shoots with their 9 mm service weapons .and in 56 shots, only six hit the attacker.. 4 of the shot were non lethal. and two ( a chest shot and a head shot were lethal.) so even seasoned cops with lots of training from the cover of a police car were not able to bring down the bad guy with shot placement after they expended 56 rounds.. I've been on S&D mission with an 8 man patrol carrying 2400 rounds of ammo, and took out small strike teams of NVA killing 5 or 6 and expending 1500 round to do so. So don't depend on shot placement.. think about using the biggest hammer you can carry and be confident... BTW practicing shot placement is something I do every week... there is nothing wrong with practice and muscle memory.. but when the juices a re flowing , you are not looking at the sights, you are ( or should be ) looking at the threat.. because unlike a station target at the range.. a bad guy is not going to stand there and let you kill him. So ( my recommendation is ) 3 shot bursts, looking at the b ad guy and not the sights.. don't unload your weapon in one burst because most attacks are over in a few seconds.. you don't want to unload your weapon and have and empty weapon when the bad guy finds you.. you are not going to be able to reload in a street fight.. I practice three shot burst @ 21 feet and reassess the threat, firing 3 more shot, and assess.. and if the threat isn't neutralized I wan to have three oir four round left when the threat is 4 feet away. and hopefully one of my 45 acp rounds slowed him down...
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E-T, I respect your service and sacrifices you have made for our country. I strongly disagree with what you have to say with respect to shot placement. I can assure you that not a single elite military or police unit in our country (or anywhere I know of) trains according to your philosophy. I personally know of no firearms instructors who preach what you are preaching. Nobody I know of trains to just “spray and pray,” without any reference to their sights in a gunfight, unless their adversary is essentially so close they can feel their breath. Yeah, you need to keep your eyes on the threat. Acquiring at least your front sight should not cause you to lose sight of the threat, and you need to be doing more than just looking at the threat. You need to be shooting, moving, or shooting and moving. Try testing your theory at an IDPA or USPSA match (which does not present nearly the pressure of a firefight, but it does introduce some). You will find you simply cannot miss fast enough. You need to be quick, yes… but you also need to be accurate, and you will need to use your front sight at the very least in order to do that, and you will need to combine it with trigger press control.
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Your example of the two police officers facing down the guy with the AK-47 is a poor argument against shot placement, but an argument
FOR disciplined shot placement. The scenario you portrayed was an example of poor training and lax firearm handling/skill standards. It’s also an example of how that poor training can cause police to end up being as much or greater threat to the safety of the community than the criminal they are trying to stop/apprehend (New York City police not long ago served as an excellent example of this:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/25/justice/new-york-empire-state-shooting/). Firearms skill standards vary enormously across various police agencies and even within agencies. Some are good, some have good elements, and some (far, far more than there should be) are downright horrendous.
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In the heat of a fight, “when the juices are flowing,” you will revert to whatever level you have trained to, minus a degradation factor. If your training was crap, your performance will almost certainly be crap. If your training was good, your performance will usually be somewhere between 50% and 80% of your best day in training, depending on how often you trained, how intensely you trained, how (as Vince Lombardi would have said)
perfectly you trained. The trick is to have your 50%, 80% or whatever be better than what your adversary brings that day. Is training a guarantee you won’t be wounded or killed in a gunfight? Obviously no. But it is a way to help stack the odds in your favor and against your adversary.
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For most people, particularly for people who don’t have the time or the money to train often, and for nearly any self-defense scenario beyond just a few feet, I recommend training to acquire and focus hard on the front sight, and keeping that front sight on target while achieving a quality trigger press. Those two elements can be practiced effectively with dry fire practice, which costs you nothing except your time, and with disciplined observance are remarkably effective at putting rounds on target under pressure. If you train to that, that’s what you’ll do “when the juices are flowing.” It isn’t just about how fast or how many rounds you shoot…
Effective fire is what stops a determined adversary. Your own example proves that. Misses do nothing, and represent a lethal hazard to everyone else around you. If you truly believe your own argument, why do you ever practice shot placement?