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?

 

GUNS ( Part 3: Shooting Incidents and Training )

Shooting Incidents and Training 

For those of you that have seen the body-cam footage, it is remarkable how quickly these incidents escalate from routine to life threatening.  Rarely is there opportunity for de-escalation when what starts as a professional interface with the public degrades into brawling and grappling for a firearm.  Often the officer has been struck, or his weapon has been compromised.  He is undoubtedly angry.  His authority has been tested; his well-being is in danger.  He may be injured.  He is caught between the desire to be safe and the requirement to do his duty. The adrenalin is flowing and the fight-or-flight response is in high gear.  You’re essentially on autopilot where we become victims of our own physiology: blood is shunted from places where you don’t need it to places where you do.  Your blood is diverted from your GI tract to your skeletal muscles and you often off-load waste you don’t need, thus the effect of peeing yourself…. or worse. All the better to take flight.  Your heart rate increases as blood is pumped to your muscles and your airway dilates to allow you to take in more air, oxygen to fuel your engine. You sweat to cool your muscles, your hands shake from the epinephrine surge.  Your pupils constrict, you get tunnel vision, better to see distance and focus on your escape.  Your brain’s higher function isn’t required, only the instinctual desire to escape or fight.  At this point the situation has deteriorated to something primal.  

Training can mitigate much of this fight or flight response and, of course, the best response is not to get into this level of confrontation to start with.  But that would involve either a level of social working skills that officers may not possess, skills that may expose them to a greater potential for injury should the efforts fail, or the option of not showing up to the confrontation at all. And when the interaction deteriorates into combat, how much training do officers actually receive in high stress confrontations?  In speaking with a State Police officer, the answer is: not much.  Officers are required to qualify with their sidearm at the range to meet minimal standards of marksmanship.  But slow-fire marksmanship is altogether a different skill than shooting under stress. In recent years practical shooting has become very popular in the civilian sector with competitions and courses available to the gun owner. IPDA (International Defensive Pistol Association) in particular, offers shooters the opportunity to run courses that present the participant with scenarios that require quick decision making, marksmanship and using cover while being timed, perhaps the best simulation of real life shooting situations this side of actually taking fire.  The Police apparently have no such program in place.  They are often required to practice on their own, purchasing their own ammunition.  And as many of you might know, finding ammunition these days is a feat in itself.  Ammunition stores have been depleted by a run on ammunition as the Biden Administration introduces more anti-gun legislation and news of rioting and lawlessness dominates the airwaves.  Common handgun ammunition is virtually impossible to find and, when it is available, can command prices as high as a dollar a round, up from Trump era prices in the range of 16 to 20 cents a round for 9mm, for example.  The situation has become so bleak that many defensive pistol courses, offered by firearms training schools like the SIG Academy or Gunsite for instance, have had to cancel their classes and students have had to drop out when they are unable to find or afford the 2500 rounds required for enrollment.  Even professional shooters who compete internationally in IPSC (International Practical Shooting Confederation), a more technical precision shooting competition, have had to limit their practice time and reduce their appearances at competitions when they routinely digest over 20000 rounds a year.  Practice has become either unavailable or unaffordable and alternatives like dry-fire drills, air-soft guns or even using the more affordable and available .22 caliber round does not simulate the recoil, the noise, or the skill of reacquiring your target after each shot that comes with using the real thing.