It is my opinion that teaching Sight Shooting for use in CQ situations, sets up students to be shot and/or killed, because it teaches them a shooting method that is not or cannot be employed in most life and death close quarters situations, where the possibility of being killed is real.

This thinking is supported by the absence of film or video documentation of Sight Shooting being successfully used in real life and death CQ situations during the past fifty years, by the documentation of thousands of police officer descriptions of the shooting method they used in combat (NYPD SOP 9), and by the science based literature now available.

If you have a handgun at home, you probably bought it with the thought in mind that you could use it for self defense. And, you probably have been trained to use the sights for aiming and shooting it.

Well, if you think you will be able to use your handgun and that training in a real self defense situation, you could be dead wrong. And here's why.

Darrell Mulroy, a LE trainer and an owner of Plus P Technology Inc. in Minneapolis, MN, stated that he made a review of 900+ videos of real shootings, and found that Sight Shooting was not used in any of them. Here is what he said about Sight Shooting: "You still ASSUME you will look at the gun in a real shooting. Wish we could find it on REAL videos of such things. We are still looking 900+ videos later."

Darrell passed away in 2003.

Believing that Sight Shooting can be used in real close quarters shootings, is like believing in flying saucers.

There are a lot of good and honest folks who believe in flying saucers, and some have even said they have taken rides in them. Now, I don't doubt their honesty and sincerity a bit, but it would be nice to see a video or two of some flying saucers coming over low and slow.

There also are a lot of good and honest folks who believe that Sight Shooting can be used in real close quarters shootings.

Some say they have used it themselves, or they say that they have seen it used. I don't doubt their honesty and sincerity either, but it would be nice to see a few videos of Sight Shooting being used.

I also have seen many shooting videos. In them, the shooters do not aim. They just point their guns towards a target and blast away. Sight Shooting training, if they had any, goes out the window, and what you get is Point and Blast shooting and a miss rate of around 80 percent.

In a review of 900+ shooting videos, you could expect to find a few cases of gun operator error in which Sight Shooting was not used. But when there are 900+ cases of gun operator error in 900+ videos, something is seriously amiss.

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In 1969, the Firearms and Tactics Section of the New York City Police Department instituted a procedure for the in-depth documentation and study of police combat situations. It was designated Department Order SOP 9.

Data gathering began in January 1970, and over 6000 cases were studied during the 1970s. The study results and findings were released in 1981.

The following is from the SOP 9. More info and a link to the SOP 9 data is on the main page.

As to shooting distances:

The shooting distances where officers survived, remained almost the same during the SOP years (1970-1979), and for a random sampling of cases going back as far as 1929. 4,000 cases were reviewed. The shooting distance in 75% of those cases was less than 20 feet.

Contact to 10 feet ... 51%
10 feet to 20 feet .... 24%

As to sight alignment:

In 70% of the cases reviewed, sight alignment was not used. Officers reported that they used instinctive or point shooting.

As the distance between the officer and his opponent increased, some type of aiming was reported in 20% of the cases. This aiming or sighting ran from using the barrel as an aiming reference to picking up the front sight and utilizing fine sight alignment.

The remaining 10% could not remember whether they had aimed or pointed and fired the weapon instinctively.

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There is a growing body of scientific knowledge that deals with close quarters life and death situations and what happens in them. It provides scientific reasons why Sight Shooting is just not practical for use in close quarters.

The scientific research has shown that when a person perceives that they are in life and death situation, what is called the Fight or Flight response or Body Alarm Response, is activated.

It is the survival mechanism that allows mammals to focus their resources to meet or flee a threat.

It is automatic, supersedes all voluntary and involuntary systems, and it is virtually uncontrollable.

It enhances some abilities and limits or turns off others, so that only those that are most critical to fighting or fleeing are maintained.

It begins with a release of hormones that speed up the heart which in turn sends them to all parts of the body in seconds. If the heart continues to speed up in response to the threat, the effects of the response will continue to increase.

That can be good or bad. For example, as the heart rate increases, fine and complex motor skill abilities will increase in effectiveness, but only up to a point. Once that point is reached, they will deteriorate rapidly until they are lost.

If you know what can or will occur, you can prepare for that, but you will not be able to prevent or override it from happening.

For example the motor skills needed for Sight Shooting will improve until the heart rate reaches about 110 BPM, then they will rapidly deteriorate and be lost when the heart rate reaches about 130 BPM.

Now, as will be detailed below, since the heart rate is expected, at a minimum, to go over 145 BPM in a real close quarters life and death situation, the fine motor skills needed for Sight Shooting will be lost to use.

That effect and the one below having to do with vision are the two most applicable here.

Here are some other effects of the Fight or Flight response that you can expect in a real life and death threat situation.

You hearing will be limited and you will not be able to hear gunfire noise, warnings, or vocal directions.

You will lose much of your peripheral vision. You will experience tunnel vision.

Your pupils will dilate to gather in more light, and that will cause you to lose your near vision. You will have difficulty focusing on the sights or even seeing them.

Your target focus may be distorted.

You monocular vision, or vision with one eye, will be inhibited or lost.

You will lose your depth perception.

You will lose your night vision.

You will not feel scratches, cuts, or even bullet wounds.

You may not bleed.

Your thinking processes will slow down due to the loss of vision and sensory inputs that are needed to make decisions and come up with responses.

Bruce K. Siddle, in his book Sharpening the Warrior's Edge, says "Motor skills that use large muscle mass (gross motor skills and are cognitively simple (require very little decision making), produce optimal performance during high levels of stress."

He also references a study by Weinberg and Hunt (1973), in which they found that "motor skills dominated by large muscle groups which have minimal fine motor control and very little decision making or cognitive complexity, were not affected by high levels of stress."

To me, that is a clear and scientifically based reason for the use of P&S.

Also, only gross motor skills, like those used to perform the isosceles shooting stance, which requires the use of muscle groups working equally on both sides in simple symmetrical movements, or a straight punch, will continue to improve with increased levels of stress, even if the heart rate accelerates to 220 BPM.

Complex motor skills on the other hand, like those used to do the Weaver stance which requires the use of different muscle groups working asymmetrically, will deteriorate once the heart rate reaches about 145 BPM, and they will be lost when it reaches about 175 BPM.

Lastly, fine motor skills that include any action that requires precision hand eye coordination, such as shooting a firearm, will initially improve as the heart rate goes up. But they will rapidly deteriorate once the heart beat reaches about 110 BPM, and they will be lost at around 130 BPM.

A good portion of the chapter of Mr. Siddle's book dealing with Survival Motor Skill classification, focuses on which is the better shooting stance to use in a survival situation, the Weaver, which is achieved mainly through the use of complex motor skills, or the Isosceles, which is achieved mainly through the use of gross motor skills.

That discussion does not address at length, the fine motor skill action of hand-eye coordination which is needed to sight shoot a firearm, except to indicate that it would need to be added to both shooting stances.

However, in the summary of that chapter, there is a statement which has great impact here.

"Since it is reasonable to expect any survival situation to increase the student's heart rate beyond 145 beats per minute, all survival training should be based on gross motor skills whenever possible."

When I read that statement, something clicked in my mind, and a light went on.

Since, the ability to use fine motor skills zeros out at about 130 BPM, it became obvious to me, why Sight Shooting does not make it into the videos of close quarters survival shooting situations. In those situations, the heart rate is expected, at a minimum, to go over 145 BPM.

The statement answers the question of why Sight Shooting training "goes out the window" in close quarters shootouts, and why all you get is Point and Blast shooting with a miss rate of about 80%.

Sight Shooting training is just not applicable for use in real close quarters survival shooting situations.

It is coin, but of a different realm.

I am sure there are exceptions, but they would be few and far between.

AIMED Point Shooting or P&S, requires minimal fine motor control, and very little decision making or cognitive complexity, as pointing the index finger is instinctive and automatic.

P&S does require that one pull the trigger, but trigger pulling happens in the videos.

P&S is a no brainer, and that is just what is called for in such situations.

It is simple, instinctive and automatic, not complex and cognitive.

It will leave whatever brain power you have that is functioning, free for making decisions and directing actions to save your life or the lives of others.

Here is another statement from the summary of the chapter mentioned above: "In essence, the ideal survival skill should be kept as simple as possible in technique complexity, technique response time, and theory of application."

With P&S, you grab the gun, point your index finger at the threat, and pull the trigger if needed. No more, no less.

Below are more statements that expand on the information above. They also answer the question of why the shooting accuracy achieved with Sight Shooting during qualifying shoots, can not be expected to be repeated in real life and death survival stress conditions.

"...there are many conditions of survival stress that can not be duplicated outside the real threat. Therefore, we cannot correctly assume that techniques which are successful in training, will also be effective in the field." (Page 40.)

"Countless studies have found that to maintain optimal performance conditions for fine motor skills, the conditions should maintain at low or non existent stress levels." (Page43.)

"Closed motor skills are skills conducted in a static, non-stressful environment...An example would include a firearms qualification in which the student performs the firing sequences on command at targets that are consistently the same and do not shoot back." (Page 45.)

"...since it is reasonable to believe a student's heart rate will exceed 145 BPM when exposed to a life threatening stimulus, the training of fine and complex motor skills should be avoided as much as possible. (Page 97.)

Bruce K. Siddle's book Sharpening the Warrior's Edge: The Psychology and Science of Training, (1995) is an excellent source of information on the Fight or Flight response. It is well written, and it is both scholarly and easy to understand. It is distributed by PPCT Research Publications, PPCT Management Systems, Inc., Millstadt, IL 62260.

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Other papers that document and explain why Sight Shooting fails in real life and death close quarters situations are available. Use the link below to access some of them.

The papers also discuss training, and means and methods to effectively deal with real CQ life and death situations.

Click here to go there.