GUNS ( Part 4: Marksmanship: The Reality of Shooting Under Stress )

Marksmanship: The Reality of Shooting Under Stress

And returning to the subject of marksmanship:  As we have already examined, stress and fine motor skills do not generally go hand in hand.  Using the recommendations of the Joys, Ms. Reid and Ms. Behar, pinpoint accuracy like “shoot them in the leg” or “in the behind” would be an exceptional feat in the midst of a stressful encounter.  Like trying to thread a needle after sprinting up a flight of stairs, successfully achieving pinpoint shot placement on what is likely a moving target would not only be impossible, but would probably fail to stop the attack in progress.  Center of mass training is in place to both stop the attack and increase the probability of successful hits on the target.  Recall a few short decades ago, cops were carrying 6-shot .38 caliber revolvers, eventually graduating to the higher capacity 9mm semi-automatic pistols, both relatively anemic rounds as compared to the .40, 10mm and .45 pistols found in the holsters of law-enforcement officers today.   And modern ballistics have improved as well, making the 9mm of today a more powerful round than it was back then.  But there were numerous documented encounters with assailants of sufficient body mass, fueled by adrenalin and drugs, that failed to stop the attacker even after they had sustained multiple hits.  This lead to a reassessment of ballistics and training, resulting in higher-powered cartridges, larger magazine capacity and the tendency, based on real life encounters, to continue firing until the assailant is subdued or your magazine is empty.  And how accurate are our police officers in these encounters?  Unfortunately, the answer is: not very.  Boone County, Indiana Sheriff Ken Campbell produced a series of videos detailing the statistics of armed encounters as well as examining the media-fueled notion that banning high capacity magazines is in the interest of public safety. He makes the salient point that “civilians defending themselves from a violent attack are under conditions similar to those encountered by police officers”.  “Most US Law Enforcement agencies”, he states, “shifted to firearms with larger capacity magazines for two reasons: 1. Because 75-80% of round fired by police officers in lethal force encounters miss the intended target, and 2. Many rounds that do hit the target fail to achieve immediate incapacitation (i.e. the threat continues)”.  Well, that’s not very good.  He continues with more sobering statistics: “NYPD officers fired 368 rounds in 2010 to stop 24 attackers  (a 6.5% hit rate)”, despite the fact that “in 27% of the encounters, only one round was fired.” This leads one to suspect that in some instances, the situation deteriorates significantly into chaos.  In a foreshadowing of the Breonna Taylor shooting, he outlines one incident inside an apartment in which “four officers fired a total of 21 rounds, and struck the subject three times (14% hit/86% miss).  In yet another encounter, four officers fired 46 rounds, hitting one subject four times and the other 21 times (and three bystanders and one police officer one time each).  Some years ago in Providence, RI, State Police officers had the misfortune of pulling over a vehicle driven by an armed parole violator, who leapt out of his vehicle and opened fire with a six-shot revolver.  The two police officers responded in kind with their high capacity semi-automatic pistols.  When the smoke cleared, the assailant had scored three hits on the officers, a 50% hit rate, whereas the police officers managed to spray their 30 rounds all over the neighborhood scoring no hits at all.  Embarrassing to say the least.  But it details the fact that these trained professionals suffer a significant degradation in skills when faced with high stress encounters, encounters that are life threatening. And why wouldn’t they?  They are understaffed, underfunded, and not adequately trained for these encounters, encounters in which they may find themselves, surprised, outgunned, on unfamiliar ground, and now restricted by the court of public opinion. My State Police source, for example, was recently tasked with a routine serving of a warrant that degenerated into a home search that resulted in the perpetrator emerging from his hiding place to attack the officer with a kitchen knife.  Split second.  What do you do? After a few moments of flailing more akin to the 3 Stooges than CSI, his partner shot the perpetrator.  Center of mass.  One shot. Stopped the attack.  The perp, a person of color, survived the encounter, which is likely why you haven’t heard about it, nor have you seen a city burn.  All in a day’s work.  So progressive left pundits, listen up.  Go head, defund the police, thin their ranks, lessen their training and expect perfection.  Perfect decision making, perfect interactions, perfect marksmanship. Or better yet, form your citizen police forces, your neighborhood militias.  And these lesser-trained weekend warriors are going to be armed with what exactly? See how that works out for you. Who you gonna call?