The following video was posted by the company as a representation of how they conduct small arms training and how their students and instructors perform on range exercises.

Comments welcome…..

We welcome a variety of points of view on the subjects of shooting and marksmanship. Test them objectively on the range and let the results fall where they may.

SHOOTING DISTANCE AND SURVIVAL

by John Veit

The shooting distance is a critical element to survival in Close Quarters shooting situations, so I was surprised recently when I read some comments made on a majpr Police site by two noted Police trainers that were totally out of line with reality.

One comment was the “most trainers believe in a flash sight picture up close and more precise sighted fire at 15 yards and beyond.”

Another was: “I encourage point shooting for deadly encounters inside 12-15 yards….and….if the officer’s grip includes thumbs pointed forward and they have indexed correctly there’s little difference between pointing with their index finger and aiming the gun in a similar manner. The trick is making sure the trigger press / manipulation doesn’t move the barrel off the target…”

IMHO, discussing shooting distances and methods that don’t jibe with FBI shooting stats and Police study findings, present misleading notions about Close Quarters Combat shooting. And if accepted as fact, can set up Officers and civilians alike to be killed.

They also can perpetuate the continued use of shooting qualification standards that are not data and science based. Qualification standards prescribe shooting distances, and as such, dictate the training one needs to do, to qualify. And if are not reality based, they can become prescriptions for failure in real life or death situations.

The FBI statistics on Law Enforcement Officers Feloniously Killed with firearms, set out the shooting distances that Officers and civilians should/must be trained in to give them the best chance of survival in real life or death situations.

Here are the FBI’s 1988 – 1997 stats on Law Enforcement Officers Feloniously Killed with firearms with details on the distance between victim Officers and Offenders.

Total Officers killed — 633

Contact to 5 feet ——- 337 — % 53

6 feet to 10 feet ——- 132 — % 21

11 feet to 20 feet ——- 73 — % 12

21 feet to 50 feet ——- 53 — % 8

over 50 feet ————- 38 — % 6

86% were killed within 21 feet.

……….

Here are the FBI’s 1994 – 2003 stats on Law Enforcement Officers Feloniously Killed with firearms with details on the distance between victim officer and offenders.

Total Officers killed — 568

Contact to 5 feet ——- 286 — % 50

6 feet to 10 feet ——- 122 — % 22

11 feet to 20 feet ——- 60 — % 11

21 feet to 50 feet ——- 47 — % 8

Over 50 feet ————- 43 — % 8

Distance not reported 10

83% were killed within 21 feet.

……….

The following data is from the 1970′S (old but still good), NYPD SOP 9 study of over 6000 Police combat cases that reviewed cases from 1854 tO 1979.

Total Officers killed — 254

Contact to 3 feet ——– 86 — % 34

3 feet to 6 feet ——– 119 — % 47

6 feet to 15 feet ——– 24 — % 9

15 feet to 25 feet ——- 12 __ % 5

90% were killed at within 15 feet.

The shooting distances where Officers survived, remained almost the same during the SOP years (1970-1979), and for a random sampling of cases going back as far as 1929. 4,000 cases were reviewed. The shooting distance in 75% of those cases was less than 20 feet.

Contact to 10 feet — 51%

10 feet to 20 feet — 24%

In 70% of the cases reviewed, sight alignment was not used. Officers reported that they used instinctive or point shooting.

As the distance between the Officer and his opponent increased, some type of aiming was reported in 20% of the cases. This aiming or sighting ran from using the barrel as an aiming reference to picking up the front sight and utilizing fine sight alignment.

The remaining 10% could not remember whether they had aimed or pointed and fired the weapon instinctively.

Also, Officers with an occasional exception, fired with the strong hand. That was the case even when it appeared advantageous to use the weak hand.

The value of placing heavy emphasis on weak hand shooting during training and qualification is subject to question.

IMHO, shooting training and qualification standards should reflect the reality of the above statistics.

Further, shooting beyond the 21 foot kill zone, requires learned behaviors which conflict with those needed to shoot effectively in the kill zone. And if ingrained, they may/will cause confusion and conflict as to what to do in a real life or death situation, and that may/will result in the death of both Officer and Civilian victims.

The recognized and continuing atrocious hit rate in CQB situations of less than 20%, attests to the need for administrators and trainers alike to wake up, and discuss, develop and implement shooting qualifications and skills that deal with the realities of CQB.

Some encouraging news on this subject has been provided by John Buol, who is an adjunct instructor for the AARLEA (Alamo Area Regional Law Enforcement Academy).

During the firearms portion of every class, students shoot a qualification that exceeds TCLEOSE (Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education), standards, and is a requirement for graduation.

A 50 round qualification has been used for the last several years for all classes.

88% of shots are fired at 21 feet or less, and 20% are fired at three feet from retention and incorporate movement. Everything at nine feet and less is shot one handed, and all shots within potential contact distance of the target are fired from retention.

Here is a link to John’s site: http://firearmusernetwork.com

Here is a link to more info on the SOP 9: http://www.pointshooting.com/1asop9.htm

Here is a link to a closely related article on this subject area that deals with: How you will shoot in a “real” CQB situation: http://www.pointshooting.com/1adetroi.htm

We welcome a variety of points of view on the subjects of shooting and marksmanship. Test them objectively on the range and let the results fall where they may.

HOW YOU WILL SHOOT IN A “REAL” CQB SITUATION

by John Veit

The often touted theory that Sight Shooting is the way to shoot in Close Quarters Battle situations, has been around for 100+ years, and teaching it has kept many a trainer employed, yet there is no evidence in the form of pictures and videos of it being used effectively in real Close Quarters Battle. As bizarre as that may seem to be, it is the truth.

To Sight Shoot effectively requires that one meet the marksmanship requirements of taking a proper stance, getting a proper grip, correctly aligning the sights, obtaining a sight picture, proper breathing, and squeezing the trigger smoothly to the rear until each shot breaks.

And given photos and videos of real Close Quarters Battle situations, that is a prescription for suicide.

Sight Shooting behaviors conflict with the behaviors that are used to shoot effectively in the 21 foot kill zone, where most all gunfights occur, and there is the greatest chance of your being shot and killed. And if ingrained, they may/will cause confusion and conflict as to what to do in a life or death situation, and that may/will result in the Officer or Civilian defender being killed.

……….

The following pictures show real people in real shooting situations.

This series of pictures shows some of the action in a drug store robbery.

The first picture shows that the robber’s attention is on the druggist who is returning from an aisle and is holding up some pills.

The robber then notices the guard, who had acquired his gun, and is moving to confront the robber.

Note the guard’s pistol is in a two handed Isosceles type grip, which puts the gun close to his centerline and points it at the robber, and his thumbs are up, not forward along the frame. He also continues to move during the confrontation.

The robber points his gun at the guard.

The robber is shot.

I was surprised that the guard was not shot when I saw the picture showing the robber’s gun pointed at him. It clearly shows that the guard is a hairbreadth away from being shot. And that certainly would have happened, had the guard not shot the robber.

As to why the robber did not shoot, it could have been that he made the decision to shoot, and was physically in the process of doing that when he was shot.

I also wondered why the guard had not shot the robber, when the robber was bringing his gun around towards the guard. It may have been, as just mentioned about the robber, that the guard made the decision to shoot, and was in the mental/physical process of doing that. That process takes a fraction of a second, and during the lag-time, the robber pointed his gun directly at the guard.

Pictures freeze the actions being taken. So, it may look like things happened slower than they actually did. In real time, it took less than two seconds for the guard to move out from behind the counter, confront the threat, and then shoot.

Here is a link to more information and pics on the robbery.
htttp://www.pointshooting.com/1arobber.htm

These pictures are from a video of a shooting where an Officer also is taking aggressive action to stop a life threat.

Note the positioning of his feet as he moves naturally. He shoots 5 times in just over 1 second in the video, so unless he was Superman, it would have been impossible to meet the marksmanship requirements of Sight Shooting for each shot.

These pictures show a Chinese Police Officer, who after distracting a hostage taker with a knife, moved quickly towards him and used her strong hand only to end the hostage situation.

These pictures are from the video of the armed assault on a Detroit Police station and show an Officer courageously responding to a very aggressive threat armed with a shotgun.

The picture which shows the Officer’s gun hand fully extended was followed instantly by a shot from the perp which knocked the Officer back and down, and also shot off some of the fingers of his hand.

The video vividly and clearly shows that there was no time to employ the marksmanship requirements of pistol shooting that must be met to shoot a handgun effectively (a proper grip, stance, breathing, squeezing the trigger, etc.).

It is possible that due to the Officer’s training, he attempted to obtain a sight picture before shooting, which according the scientific study of CQ situation, just is not physiologically possible, and that the time lost in attempting that, was used by the gunman to shoot him and shoot off fingers of his hand.

This is no way is meant to question him or his actions. His courage, bravery, and action under fire, was heroic.

……….

As in the other cases, there was no time to meet the marksmanship requirements of getting a proper grip on the gun, taking a proper stance, aligning the sights, and squeezing the trigger smoothly back until each shot breaks that often are repeated religiously by trainers who advocate the use of Sight Shooting. The rub is that it never shows
up in shooting videos of real close quarters life threat situations.

There just will be no time to meet the marksmanship requirements of getting a proper grip on the gun, and taking a proper stance, aligning the sights, and squeezing the trigger smoothly back until a shot breaks in situations that take place within the kill zone where there is the greatest chance of one being shot and/or killed.

And if you think you will do otherwise, and train as such, good luck to you, and RIP.

There are a variety of articles on this site which explain and support the use of AIMED Point Shooting or P&S as I call it. It is fast, accurate, and instinctive, and with it you get automatic and correct sight alignment and an automatic and correct sight picture.

They also provide details on: the time and environmental constraints of Close Quarters situations and their dynamic nature, which do not allow for the use of sight shooting, and our instinctive and uncontrollable physiological responses to close quarters life threats, which makes the use of Sight Shooting moot.

Here is a link to a closely related article on this subject area that deals with: Shooting distance and survival.

http://www.pointshooting.com/1aquals.htm

armyreservemarksman.com is a spam site hawking pills and has nothing to do with the US Army Reserve Shooting Team

I registered http://armyreservemarksman.info because Army Reserve Marksman is an informational site. Top-level domains  were intended to reference the site to the type of organization/activity it represented. For example, .com (commercial site), .net (networking technology, such as ISPs) and .org (non-profit.)

.mil would be most accurate, but that is a restricted TLD managed by the Defense Information Systems Agency

Once OCAR (Office of the Chief, Army Reserve) again officially circulates Army Reserve Marksman,as required by published Army regulation, we can possibly get armyreservemarksman as a .mil TLD.

For now, Army Reserve Marksman is officially armyreservemarksman.info