The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post

bds32 · August 11, 2008, 03:43 PM

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.

August 11, 2008, 03:43 PM	#49
bds32 Senior Member Join Date: August 5, 2006 Location: Texas Posts: 481	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.