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Old May 5, 2012, 12:46 PM   #51
MLeake
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With regard to the question about the rifle being easier to snap shoot - it depends on the sights (not to mention training).

A reflex sight, such as my EoTech, eliminates parallax. If you can see the dot, and the dot is on the target, you should be able to hit the target. Your eye doesn't have to be perfectly aligned, just close enough to aligned that you can see the dot.

Additionally, the reflex sight allows the shooter to focus on the target; the dot almost appears as an afterthought.

Such a system is VERY fast, if the shooter practices.

Did you ever wonder why SWAT, ESU, etc use AR or SMG platforms as primary, with pistols in a backup role, even indoors? (Even when they do not plan to use full auto.)

With the right sights, the long guns are faster.
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Old May 5, 2012, 01:37 PM   #52
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Tactics
With two officer I would think the following approact would be the ticket. Please someone educate me if I am ill informed or incorrect......

Two officers shooting from behind cover at one subject who is shooting at them (presumably also behind cover). In theory one officer could be responsible for laying suppressive cover fire and one officer could be responsible for waiting for better higher % shots.

Obviously this would have to be trained and ingrained in the folks who would be asked to do it however I could see it working.

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Old May 5, 2012, 03:54 PM   #53
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Nope , doesn't work that way. Suppressive fire is really a military tactic and is done with machine guns. Cops [non SWAT ] don't carry enough ammo .
Just slow down a bit and AIM , you know FRONT SIGHT !
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Old May 5, 2012, 05:10 PM   #54
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If the two officers were ex-military, they might have defaulted to their military training....supressive fire & all....
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Old May 5, 2012, 10:55 PM   #55
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It seems to me that the author (John Farnam) of the linked article is using a different meaning to the phrase "use enough gun" which is the title of Robert Ruark's book. On the one hand, where Ruark was focused on choosing an adequately powerful and penetrating big game rifle cartridge; on the other hand, the linked article seems to be premised upon at ranges over 20 yards a handgun is not enough gun. Not enough because pistols lack what a rifle has, a shoulder stock and a forearm which provides much greater stability; and therefore, accuracy at what Farnam calls "beyond pistol range".

Farnam states: "The fact is, this threat was out of pistol range!" [the distance was 21 meters.]

Farnam lists several example of cartridges he feels would do: "223, 7.62x39, 7.62x51, 6.8Spc, 300Blk, 30Carbine".

I can only imagine how difficult it is to place shots on a armed adversary who is firing at me. I know how difficult it is in IPSC competition and in the Gunsite shoot-offs to quickly and accurately place major caliber hits. However, my competitive experiences are artificial stress and can't compare to a life and death shoot out.

I remember one night on patrol being the first officer on the scene of a shooting where I spotted a man down on the sidewalk. I was trying to look in ten different directions for potential threats, trying to call for help, preserve the scene, and identify and corral witnesses . . . . .
That was stressful, and no one was shooting at me.

I can agree that having the option of a readily accessible carbine in a patrol car would be good for officer survival. Even pistol cartridges in a carbine platform would have likely have been a great advantage. It was not a lack of power or a lack of the bullets to incapacitate, but a lack of hits on the threat that was the focus of the article.
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Old May 6, 2012, 03:44 AM   #56
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Nope , doesn't work that way. Suppressive fire is really a military tactic and is done with machine guns. Cops [non SWAT ] don't carry enough ammo .
Just slow down a bit and AIM , you know FRONT SIGHT !
See Lubbock SWAT 2001. We have some threads here and you can google it. 369 rounds fired, 3 people hit with 1 killed and 2 wounded after responding to a call about man who might be suicidal who was burning belongings from his house in the yard (apparently, most of his wife's stuff after they had fight). SWAT setup with teams in front and back and did a brake and rake for entry because the door were barricaded. A shot was fired and 2 SWAT guys went down in the stack for the front entry. One had a grazing scalp wound and the other was dead from the same bullet, IIRC. Front team opens open on the house with suppressive fire. Bullets travel through the house and out the back and so the back team opens up. In the fusilade, the suspect in wounded in the leg and surrendered within the hour, was treated very poorly by the cops for murdering one of the entry guys. Medical care was delay, threats were made to him,...and he didn't fire the shot.

So the man, unemployed and distraught about his situation ends up with nice settlement from Lubbock for the police's willful neglect in their operation. He had been shot while hiding inside of a closet by a random bullet...as just about all were random. The sniper had shot the fellow team members and tried to cover it up.

Aside from the sniper's shot, 368 rounds were fired into the house and not a single shooter had eyes on the suspect. Moments after the firing stopped, a radio call (used to be on the internet) was made to get somebody from the police range to bring more ammo to the scene as most of the entry folks had discharged most of their ammo from their primary guns.

So, a shot happens and the front entry team has 2 hit and so they start their suppressive fire so they can retrieve their folks and get back to safety, only their shots fly past the entry team in the back who open up with their own suppressive fire.

The suspect did have guns, but never threatened the cops with any, they never saw him with a gun, and apparently the guns were all stored/cased and unfired. So they were in the house, but he was unarmed. Lubbock PD underwent some restaffing in mgmt and on the SWAT team...all over a guy who was distraught, would not speak with the cops, and needed a ticket for the illegal disposal of garbage for burning belongings in his yard inside the city limits.

And what of the sniper who killed his own team member?
Quote:
Police Cpl. Wade Lee was cited by interim Police Chief Claude Jones for violating departmental policy regarding firearms safety and falsifying a written report about the shooting of Sgt. Kevin Cox by a fellow officer.
http://lubbockonline.com/stories/071...13020032.shtml
http://thefiringline.com/forums/show...threadid=75603
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89932
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Old May 6, 2012, 08:17 PM   #57
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DNS

That is an unsettling story. The first I've heard of it. I can see how the suppressive fire tactic would be military more so than LE. However in an extreme situation it might be a good option.
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Old May 7, 2012, 05:07 AM   #58
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In a military situation, supressive fire is a great tactic.....in a police situation, it creates a hazard for bystanders and opens up departments to all sorts of liability....

....pick the right tool for the job....
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Old May 7, 2012, 06:18 AM   #59
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Hey Fella's

Wow... some interesting posts.
First off I'd like to comment on the NY Trigger. I currently have one in my Glock 19. Left over from my days with the department. There is nothing wrong with the NY Trigger IMO. I actually prefer it. IMO It allows the user to be a bit more aware of each pull. After training with the NY Trigger it's no different than a lighter trigger.

In my experience... shootings happen where they happen, when they happen, at the distance it happens. The police rarely get to choose any of these equasions. The only common thread in shootings is they happen very very fast. Officers, and armed civilians (I know the police are civilians too) are almost always are behind the curve reacting to the threat.

This shooting happened at an unusually long distance for an urban gunfight. This in my opinion is the major reason for high miss rate. Of course a practiced bull's eye shooter probably would have made the shot... but he may also have been killed by the perp. I didnt see anything in any artical about colateral damage to property or people. I choose to attribute this to the officers keeping their shots on target rather than using a cover by fire tactic. I'd love to know what the object the perp used for cover looked like.

The NYPD does not have a dedicated patrol rifle, but there are units within 15 minutes response time with rifles, shotguns, tear gas, and a bunch of other neat stuff. But even if the officers did have a rifle in the radio car they were in the fight with their hand guns. Like I say these things happen very very fast. They wouldnt have had the luxury of going back to the golf bag and choosing the .223 iron for this shot. You fight with what you have.
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Old May 7, 2012, 09:03 AM   #60
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In a military situation, supressive fire is a great tactic.....in a police situation, it creates a hazard for bystanders and opens up departments to all sorts of liability....

....pick the right tool for the job....
I am not sure of the repeated comments that because suppressive is a tactic that can be used by the military that it can't be used or has not place being used by the police. If you are talking about the right tool for the job, it most certainly can and has been used by the police.

That the police should not use suppressive fire assumes that all police situations take place in a context where there are bystanders such as inside of a densely occupied city, that the liability to the police is greater than the risk, and that suppressive fire is necessarily a high volume spray and pray sort of shooting. None of these assumptions are necessarily true or necessarily negate the use of the tactic.

http://www.lapdonline.org/inside_the...sic_view/27319
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/fami...s-and-justice/
http://vanessawest.tripod.com/columbine-4.html
http://www.hendonpub.com/resources/a...aspx?ID=208297

Some may wish to debate the use of terminology between suppressive fire, directed fire, or cover fire, but the intent of use is the same - to keep the opposition from being able to fire for a period of time by putting rounds on his location.
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=270353
http://www.policeone.com/officer-sho...cer-to-safety/
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Old May 7, 2012, 05:57 PM   #61
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So at the range, making use of cover, I would have thought that officers would shoot slower and better pick their shots. Also, the suspect was within the cops trainging rage and the officers outnumbered the suspect. and so they had the upper hand which should have afforded better shooting. Apparently, my thought was wrong.
Unfortunately adrenaline is much stronger than training for most people. Standing and throwing bullets at paper doesn't equal training. Most officers really don't recieve considerably more than that. The average officer's yearly training is about equal to an NRA Defense Outside the Home course with a dash of retention. Then they get a day of active shooter training.

Until an officer is tested in the heat of fire there is no true understanding of how they will react.
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Old May 7, 2012, 06:18 PM   #62
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DNS: While there may be few times when supressive fire is useful for police, the vast majority of law enforcement situations are not those times. In fact, supressive fire may injure the very public that the police are supposedly protecting. And every bullet has a lawyer attached....and an out-of-court settlement paid with taxpayer funds....
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Old May 7, 2012, 07:39 PM   #63
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Maybe they should have called in artillery fire, the guy they were firing at was using this:




.
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File Type: jpg megaSuperULTRAdeadly22.jpg (54.1 KB, 211 views)
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Old May 7, 2012, 08:16 PM   #64
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Cheap gun can kill you just as dead as an expensive one....
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Old May 7, 2012, 08:27 PM   #65
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I have never been in a gunfight with small arms. Havng said that let me say that as fighter pilot in Vietnam I learned early on that when divebombing, it is much wiser to take an extra few seconds to aim carefully on the first pass despite the fire coming against you. Because if you don't hit the gun/gunner the first time you have to try it again. Mathematically that means that you are exposed to enemy fire for at least as long as the carefully aimed attack as you will be to go into the dive bomb attack again, and possibly again.

And extra second or two improves your odds significantly. Remember that time compresses in the heat of battle
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Old May 7, 2012, 09:43 PM   #66
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All about shot placement. 14 hits with a rifle would not have changed the outcome if those hits where not properly placed. Just like a properly placed .22 could have ended the confrontation with 1 bullet.
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Old May 7, 2012, 10:22 PM   #67
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Shot placement is typically easier to achieve with a rifle...
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Old May 7, 2012, 11:19 PM   #68
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^ yep. It's not about caliber, it's about the greater ease of placing accurate shots with a long gun.
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Old May 8, 2012, 05:23 PM   #69
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DNS: While there may be few times when supressive fire is useful for police, the vast majority of law enforcement situations are not those times.
Right, and I never said otherwise. However, the original claim was that it was a military tactic requiring full auto guns and that cops don't carry enough ammo. Without know the specific history, I would not doubt that it is a tactic orignal to the military, but otherwise, it can be useful to the cops, does not require full auto, and the ammo quantity isn't particularly relevant. Obviously, with the more ammo you have, the longer you can provide suppressive fire, but otherwise there is no quantity standard.

As you note, the vast majority of the time, this tactic would not be useful for the cops. I agree completely. That leaves the small amount of time when it is. From what is seen from various cop battles, it is used only in very limited number of situations....but is used.

Quote:
And every bullet has a lawyer attached....and an out-of-court settlement paid with taxpayer funds....

In fact, supressive fire may injure the very public that the police are supposedly protecting.
And every shot fired by the police has the potential to harm the public. Suppressive fire can be controlled and aimed so as to reduce said risk. With that said, police use of suppressive fire does not seem to be for the purpose of protecting the public in most cases, but protecting the cops in immediate danger.
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Old May 8, 2012, 08:53 PM   #70
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Suppressive fire can be controlled and aimed so as to reduce said risk. With that said, police use of suppressive fire does not seem to be for the purpose of protecting the public in most cases, but protecting the cops in immediate danger.
On that, we agree.....the public is just on their own, I guess....the public....& the lawyers....
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Old May 8, 2012, 09:05 PM   #71
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I don’t believe for one minute that it was a suppressive fire.. It was mad shooting much like the vietnam mad minute...

Poor shooting skills with a weapon that has less than stellar out of the box trigger and sights and lack of training and lack of critical thinking... Sounds like classical inexperience with an at best average gun thrown in the mix...
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Old May 16, 2012, 09:06 PM   #72
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This is actually a fairly funny scenario. I can actually picture myself in this firefight...and after I hit the suspect I don't know...4-5 times and he's still standing and shooting back, I think after that point I would probably go a little bullet crazy to trying to take this guy down.
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Old May 20, 2012, 09:21 AM   #73
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1st is another case of a 9mm just not getting it done. 2nd if he would have been hit in the boiler room with a .40 or .45 with good hollow points it would have been game over. I bet the hits were NOT in the boiler room. If some were then that points to #1. A shotgun would have put an end to it in short order with slugs or buckshot.
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Old May 20, 2012, 08:34 PM   #74
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1st is another case of a 9mm just not getting it done. 2nd if he would have been hit in the boiler room with a .40 or .45 with good hollow points it would have been game over. I bet the hits were NOT in the boiler room. If some were then that points to #1. A shotgun would have put an end to it in short order with slugs or buckshot.
The issue wasn't that the cops didn't have enough gun or enough caliber, despite Farnam's claims that the distance was too great for pistols. As with the Lubbock SWAT folks, people can often miss just as effectively with long guns as they can with handguns.

Going with .40 or .45 over the 9mm would not have made any difference except that the cops likely would have either had less ammo (but same number of mags) or would have to have made more reloads, but still shot just as crappy.
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Old May 20, 2012, 11:33 PM   #75
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Hmm... 84 rounds fired at one suspect. That's as many rounds as the ENTIRE German police force fired last year.

I think a shotgun with OO-buck would have been far more effective. At 21 meters through an 18-inch cylinder barrel the spread would have been about human torso size.

Last edited by Axelwik; May 20, 2012 at 11:41 PM.
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