A gunfight might not be like you expect it to be

The NYPD latest annual firearms-discharge report shows it's not like the films:

some quotes:
of 52 officers.. 'only one officer reported using the gun’s sight before firing'.

'The 33 instances in which an officer intentionally shot at a suspect last year represented a 30 percent decrease from the year before'.

'in 1971..the police in New York City fatally shot 93 people and injured 221 others.
Last year, the police shot and killed 8 people and injured 16'

'...the other lived after being struck by 23 bullets'.

'In a force of 34,565 officers, only 00.15 percent intentionally fired at people last year'.

'four officers were injured by gunfire during shootouts. Two were hurt by police bullets in [a]gun battle. One officer was shot three times when opening the door to the room of an armed suspect. Another officer was shot three times while pursuing an armed 17-year-old up a flight of stairs'.

'22 instances of unintentional discharges, including three in which officers accidentally fired while chasing suspects'.

full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/nyregi...ml?_r=1&hpw

Very interesting...

Good info if you're planning on getting into a gunfight with a police officer. I'm more worried about what the bad guys do though.

<Good info if you're planning on getting into a gunfight with a police officer. I'm more worried about what the bad guys do though>

Accidental discharges are more common than you think. So keep your gun off target till you are sure. Stairs doorways and the fellows on your side are very dangerous.
They are useful facts for anyone.
qjs

Plus, that's the stats for people with some (rudimentary) training- imagine the stats for people with none!

Interesting info, thanks.

The information about use of front sights is not surprising. Police training includes the use of "point shooting," which does not involve the use of the sights at close ranges (usually seven yards or less), which is where most encounters occur. Most street gunfights are fairly high stress situations, not target practice - so I am told - I have never experienced one.

Kyle Lamb of Viking Tactics has an excellent video (Youtube) and astute comments regarding point shooting (at less than contact distance)

Kyle is one of the premier pistol and carbine trainers in the world

Something I read (can't recall the source) said that a big problem with "using the sights" are the low-profile sights on todays semi-auto pistols. Apparently using the older Smith & Wesson type revolvers was easier to hit targets, since they often had a large, prominent front sight.

Most shooters I know either buy guns with good sights or replace the sights right away when they get a new gun. My experience has been that good training helps you unmask any problems with how your sights work for you.

It was my pleasure as a range safety officer to check every gun used for competition in our league last year. Almost every one of them had what I would consider to be good sights for competition, and many of them had what I would consider to be good sights for defensive purposes as well. Personally, I buy TFO (combined tritium fiber optic) sights for my defensive pistols, making it easy for my old eyes to pick up the sights in most light conditions.

Here's what I've READ about not using sights in a gun, being that I've never been in a gun fight myself. The person in the gun fight does what they're trained to do. If a lot of your training is point shooting, then you probably won't ever use your sights in a fast moving gun fight. Also, even if the cop actually used his sights, his adrenaline may have been so high that he only remembers pulling the gun out and trying to hit the target somehow.

As I imagine a gun fight, aiming my sights is not something I would remember. There's no room for such a memory when the 38 years of my life are flashing before my eyes.

Another thing is that it seems that some people in this thread assume cops are better trained with the use of their guns. I don't know if that's necessarily true. I know a lot of gun owners, and am a member of several gun forums. Everybody I know who carries in public practices their craft ALL THE TIME. They are so paranoid about doing something wrong in public that they aim to do everything perfectly. They're constantly studying their craft.

In contrast, I doubt cops experience the same level of paranoia, and I doubt their training requires the same level of dedication. They must carry because it's their job, but how many cops actually like guns and study all the time? The cop label does not automatically mean higher skill. I would guess law abiding citizens who carry in public tend to have more skill and more knowledge.

What was that statistic from Vietnam? Something like 10,000 rounds fired for every confirmed kill? Versus 1.8 rounds for the snipers?

I'm curious what time frame that study covers? Since the summary mentions that they started with 800 lethal force situations, it must go back quite far.

As moral beings, it's a good thing that these officers hesitate to use lethal force, unfortunately, in a lethal situation, that can get you killed. But I wonder if the situation has actually been changing in the last decade compared to the report's findings?

I say that because law enforcement has increasingly become "militarized" since 9/11 and the traditional police vs military mindsets are very different. Not only in terms of firepower and tactics, but even the officers themselves have changed. Many vets from Iraq/Afghanistan have joined police forces, and many police officers were called up to deploy, so these officers have combat experience that most officers in the 80's or 90's probably did not experience.

A combination of the "war on terror" and increasingly violent events along our Southern border by Mexican drug cartels, in addition to the wider "war on drugs" seem to have triggered this sea change in American policing. Extra funds devoted to police forces for these purposes have given them the means to buy all kinds of potent weaponry, pay for SWAT teams, pay for more elaborate training, etc. The extreme example is NYC after 9/11 where beat cops were suddenly supplemented with heavily armed officers with helmets, body armor, and automatic weapons openly patrolling public spaces, like busy Grand Central Station and other venues. Another visible example of this change is the increasing use of SWAT teams to serve more and more search or arrest warrants, in scenes reminiscent of soldiers "stacking up" and kicking in doors in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Like that FBI report, the US military noticed a long time ago that a great many soldiers would not fire directly at enemy soldiers. They would not fire their weapons or would deliberately miss. In response, the military devised training methods to try and override that tendency. If more and more of our police officers have had that training, plus actual combat experience, it stands to reason that fewer officers will hesitate to pull the trigger now compared to 10-15 years ago IMHO.

This link that I came across the other day seems relevant:

More Militarized Than the Military

I don't know if I would use my sights in a gunfight and I hope I never find out. I do agree with chaosmagnet about the TFO sights for old eyes. I use them on my G23 and love them. I also have a nephew who is a deputy sheriff and I know for a fact that some police officers(not all I'm sure) have far less training than you might expect.

just a comment from a competition shooter, and not a real world gunfighter... USE THE SIGHTS...unless you can touch your target...with a weak thumb forward presentation to target, about 1000 muscle memory dry fire draws will produce a natural pointing motion, and allow you to acquire a flash sight picture as the arms are extended

To me the biggest lesson of the article is;
'gunfights are very rare; even for those who have to run towards, what we'd all run from'.
Is a gun and the training that goes with it really the best use of your resources?
It's a struggle to think of any situation where carrying a gun legally is a disadvantage.
But there are plenty of times (and they are the ones that are probably going to happen) where "I wish I'd spent that time on a first aid course instead of the range" or; "I wish I'd spent that money on a GPS or satellite phone, rather than at the gunshop", might be going through your mind.
Given that time and money are limited; preparing for the unlikely, at the expense of the likely, is a recipe for disaster.
qjs

The closest thing I've been in to a gunfight was force-on-force training with Simunitions. If you ever have a chance to do this, I would strongly recommend it. In one of the classes I took, the instructors' goal was to push our stress levels up so that we suffered from tunnel vision and auditory exclusion. For most of us in that class it was pretty effective towards those ends.

I'm pleased to report that I did what I was trained to do during the Simunition gunfights: I used precision shooting with the sights at longer distances, flash sight picture at shorter distances, and point shooting at bad breath distance.

For most people, point shooting doesn't work unless you use the correct grip and train to do it.

All of my resources? Of course not. Some of my resources? Sure. You can buy a good defensive pistol for about $600, and spend maybe $1000/year on training and practice, including ammunition, and be well-prepared. I spend and do more because I enjoy competition shooting, but that's a case where my hobby helps me be prepared rather than being preparedness spending.

You don't need a gun until you need it badly. With that said, if your resources are constrained such that you can carry a cellphone or a gun but not both, carry a cellphone.

I've never been in a gunfight - and I hope i can still say that at the end of my life. It makes sense to avoid a shootout if possible.

I will point out one thing. You always have the option to lay down covering fire - and then make a quick exit. Force the other guy to get his head down ... and make a break for it. The beauty of this option is that your fire doesn't have to be very accurate - just close enough to your attacker to give him second thoughts.

This isn't going to be effective in all situations.
But it might improve the odds.

Pete2

Pete the problem with that is you're still responsible for every round put downrange. It would suck to kill a kid or someone that's walking down the street a mile away.

Having been in a few gunfights, even one where I had to draw a pistol quickly, if you pull the gun you had better be ready to kill. The Hollywood wounding or scaring someone with a warning shot is not practical. If you are threatened enough to pull it, doing anything other than killing is likely to make the situation worse. You also HAVE TO KNOW where that bullet is going. You have to be aware of what is behind and around your target. You are risking someone else's life if you do anything other than engage the threat. If you do not intend to destroy something, do not pull the gun out, find some other way of mitigating threat, even if that is just getting your own self out of the danger. Guns escalate the situation, rarely do they reduce the threat without killing someone. Make sure it is the person who is the threat and not you or an innocent.

well, a gun fight is really scary coz it will cost your life.


--
http://www.bulletproofvestshop.com/lightweight-bullet-proof-vests/

Imagine how scary it would be to be in one without a gun.

I'll put on my instructor hat for a moment: That's not exactly correct. If, as a civilian in the US, you use a gun defensively, it should be to stop the threat. When the threat stops, stop shooting. Not before, and not after.

We train to aim for the center of mass, because that gives you the best chance to disable the attacker. Certainly, that can kill someone. But your intent should be to stop the threat.

As for legal issues, I'm not an attorney and this isn't legal advice. I strongly urge you to consult a competent attorney in your jurisdiction if you carry a gun as a civilian.

Per recent training I received, LEO in California also shoot to stop the threat, not necessarily to kill. And, yes you are aiming for COM, so in some respects the distinction is academic;nontheless, it is significant.

A starting point may be firearm law manuals, if someone wrote a good one for your state. (The one for my state, for instance, has gun laws by counties and even by towns. This sort of variation makes me nuts. We aren't walking encyclopedias of arbitrary legal codes, so how can we make sure we don't break the law when we go somewhere new?) That's still no substitute for professional advice, because we civilians can easily misunderstand law or the application of law.

I'm not a law enforcement certified instructor, so I'm careful to speak only to civilian use of force when wearing that hat.

Each law enforcement agency has a use of force policy and every sworn officer receives ongoing training and is responsible for staying within that policy.

I agree with the principle that the shooter should be 100% responsible for every round fired downrange. In practice, it may be difficult to always reach that standard ... but it's the right attitude.

"Guns escalate the situation, rarely do they reduce the threat without killing someone."

Since you've been there - and i haven't - I will think seriously about what you said.

Pete2

It's also the law, everywhere in the US that I know of.

Jeff Cooper's 4 basic rules of gun safety just seem wiser the more I know:

1 All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as
if they are.
2 Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to
destroy. (For those who insist that this particular gun is
unloaded, see Rule 1.)
3 Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the
target. This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly
responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges.
4 Identify your target, and what is behind it. Never shoot at
anything that you have not positively identified.

qjs

And maybe I should clarify a bit. Every situation is different. You always have to use your best judgment and try to read the situation. This is difficult without training for that specifically. Law enforcement officers spend extensive amounts of time training on that. In the SF CQB course, you spend almost three months learning to discriminate targets and only hit the right ones, the bad guys. One round on an innocent and you are dropped from the course. It doesn't matter that the innocent was behind the terrorist target. When people without that sort of training get into gunfights, it looks more like a gang war with bullets going everywhere.

As I said, every situation is different. If someone were breaking into my house, in order to protect my family, the first thing I will do is work the action on my pump 12 gauge, then yell out that I have already called the police, then I will call the police. I would rather not shoot in my house unless absolutely necessary. Most criminals are intent on surviving and not getting caught and will immediately vacate the premises.

If I found myself in the area while two armed people were threatening each other with firearms, I will seek cover and get as many other people to cover as possible. Then I will call the police. A gun coming out at this point will only make matters worse.

If someone is intent on killing, such as a workplace shooter or school shooter, there is no deterrence. They are usually intent on dying as well. You must eliminate the threat as quickly as possible in any way possible.

It is not natural for one human to kill another. There are strong psychological barriers to this. These barriers must be overcome, even in soldiers (I can quote a huge number of studies to support this) and they must be trained to overcome it. There is a process for doing this (see Bandura on "The Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement"). If someone is already carrying a gun and threatening (or trying) to kill, they have likely already gone through the process and are very willing to kill.

My usual choice is to be as non-threatening as possible until I have to take action, then I take the action necessary. This does not necessarily involve a gun, in fact even if I have one I will avoid pulling it if possible. In situations where you are likely to need a gun, once you pull it out you should be ready to use it.

Sorry for the psychobabble, but I am pursuing a PhD in Psychology. I know; it is an unusual combination of a former SF soldier and psychologist.

Not psychobabble at all. It strikes me as a very well reasoned and intelligent approach. The SF soldiers and other spec ops folks I have met have generally been pretty smart folks. I'm sure you will do well with your psychology career.

Agreed. By the way, I was surprised at where my bachelors in Psych took me -- I'm a network security consultant.

To me it sounds like a great combination - and a real asset to this forum

While I've been lurking and later posting at this forum I've had a shift from more gear focus towards the mental aspects related to survival situations. Anything from mental preparations to how people react under stress and discomfort (and how do I prepare to deal with that - both in myself and in others). Discussing gear is still great fun, but the really interesting stuff is now what's inside the skull.

So I really appreciate having someone with background in phsychology on board!

FWIW, NYC cops are required to have a twelve-pound trigger on their service pistols. This is what I was told, last week, by an NYC cop who is joining my range/club. I have no reason to doubt his statements. I have no issue with a minimum trigger-pull requirement for a carry pistol, but 12 pounds is so much that aim must suffer.

Also, NYPD officers can only practice on the NYPD range once a month, on the last Wednesday, with 100 rounds. See, at the bottom: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/training_nypd/firearm_tatics.shtml

The officer mentioned in the first paragraph told me the firing line I very crowded on these Wednesday practice sessions.

So, most NYC cops get little practice, one time a month, on a fixed line, with a 12 pound trigger. Lucky if they can hit anything when under stress.

This is the dumbest flipping thing ever.

The New York Trigger comes from the days that NYPD was transitioning from .38 revolvers to Glocks. Officers were trained to start pulling the trigger on their revolvers during the drawstroke. This is, of course, a violation of firearms safety canon and incredibly stupid. When they transitioned to Glocks, officers were having NDs during their draws, sometimes shooting themselves in the leg. NYPD's solution wasn't to fix the gross flaws in their training program but to demand heavier trigger pulls.

I'm disgusted beyond belief that this idiocy continues.

If NYPD changed the equipment to accommodate outdated training, does this imply that the training remains the same? I hope this doesn't mean they still start pulling the trigger on the drawstroke.

I don't know if they still train that technique.

I'm a volunteer RSO for a shooting league with a lot of cops in it. One of our "go home" offenses is cover the trigger guard with your finger before you're on-target (there is no penalty for moving your finger onto the trigger and taking up slack during your press-out -- if you're on-target, you're good). We've expelled people from the league for repeat offenses.

Ditto. One of my dad's good friends was a Vietnam vet SF guy. Ended up w/ a PhD in ... something. Criminal science or computer security or something. Anyway, working for the state of TX last I heard. His SF credo's go a long way, and a LOT of them are highly trained in a LOT of different fields (first aid, marksmanship, languages, explosives, communications, electronics, etc, etc, etc). You can't be an idiot and absorb that much information.

If a criminal has put me in a life threatening situation - whether by gun, knife, overpowering me, etc. - I figure the situation is already about as escalated as it can get (due to the criminals actions). I am escalating nothing by drawing my firearm and defending myself at that point. I would not do warning shots, covering fire, shoot-to-wound, etc. I would be defending my very life, and my shots would be aimed to stop the assault as definitively and as quickly as possible. In actual practice, assuming conditions allow, that typically means initial shots to the center chest, and if that fails to stop the assault, additional shots to the head. (I win the "most commas in a sentence" award for that last one!)

My rules for combat (guns, hands, whatever, these apply):

1. Have a plan and train that plan
2. Make the plan simple
3. Know that your worst in training will be the best you manage under stress (in other words when you have a bad day in practice - that is the standard you can rely on under pressure)
4. Mental skills beat hardware
5. Luck is always a factor - by entering into combat you have invited the gods of chance to play, and there is always something that can go wrong (slipping on a wet floor, unlucky ricochet, misfire whatever). Training and hardware can minimise it, but they don't eliminate it, so don't enter in to it lightly

An excellent thread. Thanks!

I have found these sources useful for choosing ammunition for home defense: The first is a youtube video entitled "Testing Five Different .22 Bullets". The second is tactical brief #10 at the firearms tactical institute website firearmstactical dot com, entitled "Shotgun Home Defense Ammunition". What these did for me was to get me thinking about optimizing ammunition for the goals I want to achieve. In a self defense situation, I assume many would want to minimize collateral damage while effectively stopping an attacker.

"FWIW, NYC cops are required to have a twelve-pound trigger on their service pistols. This is what I was told, last week, by an NYC cop who is joining my range/club. I have no reason to doubt his statements. I have no issue with a minimum trigger-pull requirement for a carry pistol, but 12 pounds is so much that aim must suffer."

That's very good news for the NY criminals ... if it is true. Might just be a rumor, though.


reddog - thought your basic rules were pretty good.
I agree that the main thing for home defense is to have a PLAN.

Pete2

You can order it as an accessory from Glock yourself. It's their "New York" trigger springs.

I know Massad Ayoob strongly reccommends getting the new york trigger and with 22 out of 55 shootings being unintentional, I'd have to ask if a 12 pound trigger is even heavy enough:

from the thread originating post:

'33 instances in which an officer intentionally shot at a suspect...
22 instances of unintentional discharges.

qjs

Check this out. NYPD wants Kahr to increase the trigger pull from 7.5 to 13 lbs due to negligent discharges:

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-12-12/news/30509585_1_pistol-discharges-nypd-brass-kahr-arms

I can only assume people who were used to those heavy 12 lb Glock triggers applied the same force to the light little Kahrs.

Now, the Kahr pistols I've handled have good triggers. (They didn't feel like 7.5 lbs, but my finger isn't a digital scale.) I'm glad the manufacturer couldn't (wouldn't?) modify the trigger pull and destroy a good thing.

I guess we're drifting away from the original topic...

I hope Glock keeps available their "standard" Glock trigger spring. I don't find it to be light. I hardly ever shoot a revolver.

If these cops don't realize that shooting someone is serious business UNTIL they are already pulling the trigger, Lord help us!

Booger hook off the bang button until you're ready to fire.

Pretty simple training if you ask me.

Let's look at those police stats from a different point of view.

Suppose we accept that the NY police officers represent a "reasonable test group" of human beings who have gone through training with a handgun. Maybe what the "22 incidences of unintentional discharges" are telling us ... is that it's much harder (than we think) to effectively control your mind and your body - when someone else is literally trying to kill you with a gun.

Would we really do any better than the NYPD under similar circumstances??

Pete2

My law enforcement training is rather old. Revolvers were state of the art when I was on the range, but it was pointed out that the real world was very different from the training we received, although we did have some "shoot -no shoot scenarios" where we watched a situation projected on a screen and had to draw and fire, or not, depending upon the situation.

I flunked,although I drew, fired,and nailed the bad guy who was holding a weapon. I did not identify the woman and child just over his left shoulder. The real world is a whole lot different from any firing range.

It would be interesting to hear the experience from anyone who has actually been in a real world gunfight.

If someone were trying to kill me with a gun, I drew mine, and fired, that would not be "unintentional" nor would it be illustrative of a lack of control of my mind and body.

I imagine when they're saying "unintentional" that they're talking about people that give themselves a case of "Glock Leg", shoot their locker in the dressing room, etc. I find it hard to believe that someone would claim to be in the middle of a gunfight when they "unintentionally discharged their firearm". Possibly if they shot another officer in friendly fire. But not as a typical excuse in the middle of a shootout.

Yes, we really would. They were trained with a dangerous, stupid practice and they reaped what they sowed. People who are trained correctly are hugely less likely to have an ND.

"I flunked,although I drew, fired,and nailed the bad guy who was holding a weapon. I did not identify the woman and child just over his left shoulder. The real world is a whole lot different from any firing range. It would be interesting to hear the experience from anyone who has actually been in a real world gunfight."

First, I pointed out that I've never been in a real gunfight myself. Hope things stay that way.

I did talk to one guy who worked as a Gov't agent for many years. He said he had been in one real exchange of gunfire. His comment was that his heart was beating so fast, and he was so preoccupied with the situation, that he actually didn't remember even drawing his weapon. Next thing he knew - his pistol was in his hand and he was firing at the attackers. So there's a situation where "training took over".

Pete2

This is very normal. The saying goes something like "you won't rise to the occasion, you will fall to the level of your training."

I've taken classes that included stress inoculation -- force-on-force scenarios designed to cause a full-on body alarm reaction. I experienced tachycardia, and a degree of tunnel vision and auditory exclusion, even knowing that we were using Simunitions and it wasn't real. The more we did the easier it got, and my physical symptoms of stress were reduced.