HOW YOU WILL SHOOT IN A "REAL" CQB SITUATION.
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.
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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 that 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. Also note the druggist's movement during the sequence, as readily identified by his hand holding the pills.
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.
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 situations, 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 that often are repeated religiously by trainers who advocate the use of Sight Shooting. The rub is that Sight Shooting never shows up in shooting videos of real close quarters life threat situations.
There just will be no time to take a proper stance, get a proper grip on the gun, align the sights, and squeeze the trigger smoothly back until each shot breaks in confrontations that take place within the kill zone where there is the greatest chance of being shot and/or killed.
And if you think you will do otherwise, and train as such, good luck and RIP.
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The following is an old text description of three real shootings that is based on carcam videos. I'll check my files and look for them as they are old and in VCR format. If I locate them, I will try to snip them into video clips and pics.
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Car-cam video cameras record and have perfect recall of what they see and hear. They don't care who or what caused this or that to happen. And they don't take sides or have agendas. They just tell what happened, and they do it frame by frame.
VIDEO 1
In Dallas, Texas, in broad daylight, a suspected bank robber slows his car down, and stops on a roadway.
A Police cruiser pulls up and stops about three feet behind the suspect's car, and just to its left.
The line drawing below shows the positions of both vehicles, the suspected bank robber, and the two uniformed Officers.
One on the Officers is seen in an semi-crouched shooting stance at the right rear of the Police car. Her position is shown by the 1.
The other Officer is just in back of the driver's door. His position is shown by the 2.
The suspect's position is shown by the 3. He is out of his car and can be seen standing upright by the driver's door with a gun in his hand that is held down at his side.
1 ____ -- Officer 1
| |
| |
e| _2 -- Officer 2
|____|
____
| bac|
| |
| d _3 -- Suspect
|____|
Here is what happens in the next three seconds.
The suspect brings up his gun, IN HIS STRONG HAND, points it the direction of Officer 2, and begins shooting at Officer 2.
Officer 2 ducks down behind the door, and Officer 1, who is in a fully exposed position at the right rear of the Police car, begins
shooting at the suspect.
Her hits, which are shown on the drawing as a, b, c, d, and e, are caught on the video. The first three can be seen as flashes or reflections of light coming from the bullet strikes on the surface of the car, and the other two are as described below. She uses 2 hands.
The first hit (a) is at the top mid portion of the trunk lid, the second is just to the left (b), and the third (c) is higher up at the top rear corner of the suspect's car on the drivers side.
The forth hit (d) is to the lower middle part of the windshield, as shown by glass fragments spewing out to the front of the windshield.
All of these hits are to the right of Officer 1, while the suspect is one to two feet to the Officer's left.
Officer 1 shoots again. This hit (e) is to the rear view mirror on the passenger side of the Police car, and sends it flying off and away from the Police car. That hit is to the other side of the suspect.
Officer 1 then crouches down and moves to the middle rear of the Police cruiser.
Officer 2, who by now has bobbed down and then up three times, as the suspect shot at him, quickly fires at the suspect.
(he may have fired with both hands, but that is doubtful as he was bobbing up and down, and he also was shooting in the V like opening at the top of the door of the police car.)
He stops for a moment.
The suspect has been hit.
Since the shooting began, only three seconds have gone by.
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The suspect falls backwards and down into the driver's area of his car.
As he falls, his gun discharges and glass is seen spewing up from the top portion of his car's windshield.
This action takes an additional one and one half seconds.
The gunfight is over. Only 4.5 seconds have gone by since the shooting started.
Officer 1 was in a fully exposed position and directly to the front of, and clearly within the suspect's field of vision, but the suspect was obviously locked onto and looking at Officer 2.
Officer 1 was about 20 feet from the suspect who was looking at and shooting at her partner, Officer #2,who was within 15 feet of the suspect and taking direct fire.
The suspect died.
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VIDEO 2
Here is a brief description of a 10/96 shooting involving two State Patrol Officers and a suspect.
The suspect is in the right front seat of a four door car.
One Officer, is at the passenger side back door.
He begins firing at the suspect, and as he shoots, he backs up towards the rear of the car. He fires 5 times.
The other Officer moves up to the driver's door which is open, and shoots three times into the car. His gun is about one foot from the car while he is shooting.
The suspect who had a gun, did not fire it.
He was hit but survived.
It was quite clear that both Officers shot without using the sights.
VIDEO 3
2/15/97 - Wilmington, OH, about 1:30 PM
A Trooper has stopped a vehicle.
The Trooper's car is in back of the stopped vehicle.
The driver and the Trooper are standing in the front of the Troopers vehicle. And there is a passenger in the stopped vehicle.
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A Deputy Sheriff arrives on the scene as backup.
He stops on the far side of the road, leaves his car, and begins to walk towards the Trooper and the vehicle driver.
The driver then bolts and runs from the front of the Trooper's vehicle, back towards his vehicle.
The Deputy moves to the driver's door of his vehicle to block him, so the driver and the Trooper who floows after him, stop and end up near the rear corner of the suspect's vehicle on the driver's side.
We next see that the Deputy goes for his gun.
Within 2 seconds the Deputy's has his gun up, and is pointing it at the passenger.
Then, the Deputy begins to move backwards from the driver's door of the suspect's vehicle.
He side steps while moving and by the position of his arms it is clear that his gun is pointed towards the vehicle, though the gun can't be seen.
We hear a shot which is assumed to come from the Deputy's gun, as the passenger is still inside the vehicle and the windows are not seen to be open, and the muzzle of the Deputy's gun jumps.
About 4 seconds have now elapsed since the Deputy started to go for his gun.
The Deputy continues to move back and around to the middle of the suspect's vehicle. (In doing that, he also moved around the suspect's vehicle driver and the Trooper who had stopped at the left rear corner of the suspect's vehicle.)
The passenger is now out of the vehicle and engages the Deputy from the side of the road.
The Deputy begins shooting at him and also backs away from him. We see four muzzle jumps of his gun as he backs up.
The Deputy is now out of the picture but may have fired again due to the sound track. That is unclear from the video.
It also is unclear from the video sound if the passenger fired, but it looks as if he fired twice.
About 7 seconds have now elapsed since the Deputy went for his gun.
The gunfight is over.
No one was hit.
The Deputy later says "I had all the time in the world to see that he had an all black semi automatic handgun right there in his hand and
that he was bringing it around in our direction. And all I could see was the black in the end of his barrel and the fire coming out of the end of the barrel."
From the video, it is not clear that the suspect fired while inside the vehicle as no broken or flying glass, or hole was seen to appear. Also, and based on the video record, it did not appear that the suspect fired while at the side of the road.
This video, which I first saw on TV as a news clip, was my "wake up call" as to what really happens in CQB situations.
What amazed me, was that no one was hit when shooting at the distances involved. I had for years and years thought that Police at least, knew what they were doing, and in a shooting would shoot and hit what they were shooting at.
Silly me.
Later, the thought came to mind that P&S as I call it, could be used to accurately aim and shoot handguns, just as I was able to use it to aim and shoot a grease-gun when qualifying back in 1954 when shooting from the hip and without use of the sights, and I hit what I was shooting at.
P&S worked for me then then, so why not now, and with a handgun?
So I began my quest into the world of the gun with the purpose of providing information on the simple and effective method of shooting in Close Quarters that I call P&S, and suggesting that it be adopted by those involved in Close Quarters shooting.
If I knew then, what i know now, I would have just shut-up, turned on the TV, and watched the latest episode of As The World Turns. :-)
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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.
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