[Leaf]

Leaf, your logic isn't anywhere near effective.

From your comments I would suspect the reason for that is that you interpreted my comments in a manner consistent with what you wanted to believe I was saying rather than what I was actually saying.

Any shot to the upper torso under the conditions that you are setting is faster and more certain than a shot to the head. Heart and lungs are about five times larger than the brain, and about twice as large as the head in general. Multi taps to the head aren't anywhere near as simple and automatic as a straight line dump into the chest.

The only conditions I was stating was that you were very close to your assailant as that impacts your assailant’s ability to respond in a manner not conducive to your ongoing good health. In the close-up scenario and even taking into account the mobility one might reasonably expect in that manner of close-up combat; accurate head shots are not as difficult as you seem to think. One’s failure to take into account their ability to make an effective head shot or even multiple effective head shots will leave your assailant with his/her chest wound plenty of time to send you to your maker. And by the way, a “straight line dump into the chest” will still leave your assailant with the 10 to 15 second opportunity to ruin your upcoming weekend itinerary.

Your assertion is that trying to find the heart is a bad idea, and time consuming, but the truth is that finding the heart isn't the idea. The idea is to just put holes in the CP group and let the immediate damage shock the attacker and possibly halt the attack, and it's much easier in many ways than trying to put a shot into the head that is, in fact, not a guaranteed stop. Bleeding out over five or ten minutes is not the only way that you can disable an attacker, just taking a shot anywhere will stop many people.

I did not say that trying to hit the heart is necessarily a bad idea. I said that doing so may leave your assailant with plenty of time to send you to your maker.

There you have it. As you yourself said, you can risk missing his head or you can take a far easier try for a target five times bigger than the brain.

Yes, there you have it. Falsely presuming you’re going to be alive afterward by having made that choice to take your assailant out by hammering home on his/her chest at the cost of your own life does not constitute a good decision in my estimation. You will have made the “easy” choice at the cost of your own life.

If we want to take it into another direction, which isn't much of an argument either, we have to look at professionals and ask them their preferences.

I am one of those professionals and I’m giving you my opinion. You can take it or leave it. Admittedly, there are those professionals who would disagree with my input. But then again, I know for a fact there are also those who if I had taken their advice I wouldn’t be typing in this forum right now.

So far as I know, no police departments have a policy to choose head shots over body shots unless the head is the only possible target.

“So far as I know” speaks volumes and I don't mean that in an insulting way.

One of the most important things that hasn't been accounted for is that the spinal column is the one absolute in a shooting. A shot to the spinal column that hits will buckle the attackers knees at a fraction of the speed of nerve conduction.

Something maybe you haven’t read or considered is that a below the belly button shot, regardless of whether or not you’ve struck the spinal column is very effective at ceasing the assailant’s advance.

Think about what you have said. Making this statement on a forum is easy. Sure, I'm going to shoot the guy in the head and make him fall down immediately. Now, when the time comes, are you really going to draw your gun and take aim for the brain, and plan on several rounds before you are lucky enough to hit it? I doubt it. When faced with an attack, most people default to their lowest capacity. You will probably draw and fire at the chest.

Doubt as you will, at close range yes I will. I know exactly what if feels like to face an attack, how I respond, AND survive. Maybe you should give yourself a little credit and recognize you can survive a close-up attack and effectively disable your assailant without sacrificing your own life if only you were inclined to accept some useful advice from a fellow who may have also inadvertently hurt your feelings in the process of providing said advice.