Question About Marksmanship Under Stress

[farmerboy]

I know , I also work deep nights mostly on the interstate for the excitement that it brings. I too can not be cooped up.

[drew332]

I went to NYC the very next night after this shooting for an evening out with the wife. We walked from Grand Central to the restaurant at 5th and 24th, walking right past the Empire State Building on that same exact sidewalk where this all unfolded.

Having previously viewed the video footage of this shooting several times, I recognized the same planters and bench from the video. There was now a visual heavy police and media presence in the area, and it was still extremely crowded, being less than a mile from Times Square.

As I walked through what was a crime scene only 24-36 hrs earlier, my thoughts were, first, "this is where it all happened", and, second (as a LEO), how would I have responded if placed in that same situation. This tourist and commercial area is highly populated at the time of day when the shooting occurred.

I won't judge the officers involved in this shooting, for I was not there and won't speculate on how I would've responded because it would only be conjecture. I've been involved in armed conflict in the past, having served 9 yrs in the military (primarily in Army Special Operations and Intelligence) and know that just because you've performed satisfactorily in one encounter does not mean you will do the so the next time. Luck, skill, training, and Mr Murphy all play a part in surviving such an incident, with the most important being a survival mindset.

I certainly don't envy these officers one bit for being put in this situation. You don't pick the day, the day picks you....and when it does, you will most certainly wish that your trained more (no matter your training level), because when proverbial **** hits fan, we default back to our level of training that has become instinctual.

That being said, the BG (and, yes, he is a BG after he executed a former coworker in broad daylight by shooting him once in the head and 3-5 more times as he lay on the ground) dictated the onset of the confrontation when he drew his .45 1911 model on the officers, pointed it at them, and pulled the trigger. Luckily it jammed or misfired. The officers (both 15 year veterans) fired a total of 14-16 rounds, with one officer firing 9 rds and the other 7 rds, and struck the BG between 6-10 times. Under high stress and on an extremely crowded city street in one of the largest cities in the world, the hit percentage on BG was very good....despite the unfortunate civilian casualties. Believe it or not this could've been a whole lot worse.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

BTW, I read it wasn't a 1911 but a Star clone, if that matters.

[ltc444]

Pucker factor is all ways a consideration. Until you are in the situation you will never know how you will react. It takes your training time to kick in when you are in your first gunfight.

Recently there was a post involving a shoot out between a Police Officer and a robber. The Officer fired some 20 rounds before his training took over and he remember to use his front sight. These two officers did some what better.

That said I think Kraigway's first posting is spot on.

[Magnum Mike]

It never happened! Handguns are illegal in NYC!

[Double Naught Spy]

Recently there was a post involving a shoot out between a Police Officer and a robber. The Officer fired some 20 rounds before his training took over and he remember to use his front sight. These two officers did some what better.

Why, because the officer firing 20 rounds before his training took over shot more than 10 people unintentionally?

[dawg23]

"You won't rise to the occasion--you'll default to your level of training."

You won't rise to the occasion -- you will default to the level of training that you have mastered..

[dstryr]

This past weekend I was at a local range while an instructor was teaching a class some basics that I have yet to learn and/or practice. The drill they spent a lot of time on was drawing from approx 3 yds, firing 2 shots to COM, one to the head, withdrawing the weapon to high ready, and then looking left and right for more danger.

I went in to work later and loaded snap caps into my .40 and played a scenario out sitting at my desk. It was a bad guy coming down the hall and I imagined I would know a problem was coming because the BG would have to go past my counter guys to get to the hallway. I practiced pushing back from my desk, drawing from IWB and pulling the trigger, 2 COM, 1- head.

I'll tell you that between being involved in a few accidents and more than enough close calls of one sort or another that I so rarely get an adrenaline rush that I hardly remembered what one felt like. That 'drill' gave me a chill. I was slow and clumsy with my draw because I have never practiced and have only recently begun to CCW. I feel like I'm a lifetime behind in training and I will look at taking some classes. Much seems like common sense but a skilled instructor putting logic and reasoning behind it sure beats trying to figure it out in real life.

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by dstryr

... That 'drill' gave me a chill. I was slow and clumsy with my draw because I have never practiced and have only recently begun to CCW. I feel like I'm a lifetime behind in training and I will look at taking some classes. Much seems like common sense but a skilled instructor putting logic and reasoning behind it sure beats trying to figure it out in real life.

You might be interested in understanding how we learn a physical skill.

In learning a physical skill, we all go through a four step process:

1. Unconscious Incompetence: We can't do something and we don't even know how to do it;
   
   
2. Conscious Incompetence: We can't physically do something, at least consistently, even though we know in our mind how to do it;
   
   
3. Conscious Competence: We know how to do something and can do it properly consistently, but only if we think about what we're doing and concentrate on doing it properly; and
   
   
4. Unconscious Competence: At this final stage we know how to do something and can do it reflexively, on demand and without having to think about it.

A class helps you know how to do something, and you can properly begin working on going from doing it right every time by thinking about it to doing it right reflexively.

At the third stage, you need to think through the physical task consciously in order to do it perfectly. To move on to Unconscious Competence, start slowly, concentrating on doing each step of the task perfectly. Strive for smoothness. As you get smoother, you will also get quicker. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.

Going from Conscious Competence to Unconscious Competence is usually thought to take around 5,000 good repetitions. The good news is that, in the case of shooting, dry practice will count. The bad news is that poor repetitions don't count and can set you back.

If one has reached the stage of Unconscious Competence he will still need to practice regularly and properly to maintain proficiency, but it's easier to maintain it once achieved than it was to first achieve it.

[doofus47]

Dliller

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.

If the officers were on a CT post, then following the BG, and abandoning their station, might not have been in the playbook. (The preceding sentence was a mix of my assumption of police duty behavior and another poster's comment that he heard NYC say that the 2 officers were there for CT).

To the OP: I would expect that I would fire a bunch and maybe miss a bunch in any type of real, pop-quiz engagement. That said, I expect that most engagements are going to be an unplanned scenario. So, practice all that you can, in as many ways as possible like IDPA, but you can never plan for everything. Perp in the house at 3 a.m. is not the same as a mountain lion in the goat pen at midnight.