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Killed on the Streets Again....

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JTH:
“This is likely to be my last post. This morning I was told in no uncertain terms that using the sights is slow and I should point shoot ‘cause the fight will be less than three yards and I won’t have time to use the sights and shooting competition will likely get me killed on the streets and fine motor control…”

…such was the post from a friend of mine the other day on Facebook.  (He's on this forum, he'll recognize his words...)

We had a useful chance to test that at the NFOA Annual Meeting the other day, so I thought I'd write about it.

https://precisionresponse.wordpress.com/2015/08/24/killed-in-the-streets-again/

TL;DR version: I shot a steel challenge stage with my carry gun from concealment almost as fast as with my competition gun from a competition holster, beating almost everyone else. For self-defense purposes, getting the gun out and getting accurate shots on target quickly is the primary (and priority) handgun skill set.  95% of my practice is with my competition rig. What part of competition shooting is going to get me killed on the street?

Mudinyeri:

--- Quote from: jthhapkido on August 24, 2015, 11:54:21 AM ---For self-defense purposes, getting the gun out and getting accurate shots on target quickly is the primary (and priority) handgun skill set.  95% of my practice is with my competition rig. What part of competition shooting is going to get me killed on the street?

--- End quote ---

For self-defense purposes, I'll take not getting shot over accurate rounds on target quickly.  If you can get accurate rounds on target quickly while taking rounds yourself ... you're a better man than me.

I'll follow up those two sentences with an admission.  I don't shoot traditional pistol competitions so I don't know how much they focus on getting to cover/concealment.  I watched a little bit of the steel match and USPSA at the member meeting and didn't see any focus on getting to cover/concealment.  I did see shooters shooting around barricades, though.  That's at least a step in the right direction.

In the "For What it's Worth" category, I don't think competition will get you killed on the street any more than doing nothing but dry fire will get you killed on the street.

The thing about potentially getting killed on the street is that the situation is completely dynamic whereas competition and dry fire and standing at attention and putting slow fire rounds on an 8" plate 25 yards away are not.  The best thing to keep a person from getting killed on the street is training that mimics what happens on the street.  Unfortunately, that's almost impossible so we make do with less than optimal solutions.

Lorimor:
I happen to know the guy that penned the original text quoted above.  :)

The debate originally centered around point vs sighted fire and then devolved into the "competition" thing. 

Inside 3, maybe 4 yards, I am confident at this point in time that my body index is good enough to consistently get COM hits w/o the traditional hard front sight focus.  That of course, is on stationary targets while yours truly is stationary.  Beyond the 3 yard mark, I really try to look at the front sight hard.  The further the distance, the harder the focus.  Moving, at any distance, I really want that front sight. 

My opposition steadfastly maintains that a fast hit anywhere on the torso is better than a slower hit COM.  I'm not sold on the idea that a peripheral hit on the torso can be counted on as a game changer.  Maybe it is.  Maybe it isn't.  It depends, doesn't it?  (Of course, we all know stories of folks who have been hit squarely COM and are very unimpressed.  There are times they even manage to kill the defender before expiring, even after being extremely well ventilated.  Handguns suck.) 

Regardless, I believe COM is the only realistic goal (barring armor and provided COM is visible.)  It's iffy enough already as a fight stopper.  I want to do everything possible to put shots COM.  (It's a smaller target than many folks realize.)  The ability to produce fist sized groups, on demand, perhaps even at distances you wouldn't expect, is paramount. 

I firmly believe it's worth the extra fractions of a second to get good, solid COM hits. 

Naturally, if you practice under the stress of timed fire, you soon get an idea of how hard the front sight focus must be vs distance vs presented target size.  Which is why competition is good.  Even great.   It doesn't lie.  You find out real fast just how good you are.  And you see first hand what a REAL pistolero can do.  :)

And for the record, nothing I've presented here is unique or original.  Just good stuff I've gleaned from some very knowledgeable people.  And no, I've never been shot at. 

GreyGeek:

--- Quote from: Lorimor on August 24, 2015, 03:28:44 PM ---(Of course, we all know stories of folks who have been hit squarely COM and are very unimpressed.  There are times they even manage to kill the defender before expiring, even after being extremely well ventilated.  Handguns suck.) 
--- End quote ---

Now you've got me thinking of ways I can conceal carry my 20 ga shotgun!  :D

JTH:

--- Quote from: Mudinyeri on August 24, 2015, 02:55:07 PM ---For self-defense purposes, I'll take not getting shot over accurate rounds on target quickly.  If you can get accurate rounds on target quickly while taking rounds yourself ... you're a better man than me.
--- End quote ---

Well, the article did pretty clearly say "primary handgun skill" not "primary self-defense skill" so I didn't figure that this topic would come up. 

After all, shooting competitions are tests of shooting skills.  Practicing situational awareness, choosing to NOT engage targets, or very importantly, deciding to run away just doesn't come up much in a shooting competition.

We are testing shooting skills.  That's one of the reasons that many of the arguments about how competition shooting will get you killed make so little sense.  A shooting competition isn't a self-defense competition (whatever that would look like) so expecting it to include all aspects of good self-defense practice makes little sense.   That expectation ("this one thing should include everything!") was not something I ever understood.

It is like someone getting on my case about how my piano practice doesn't do everything I need to help me create a platinum record album.  Well, of course not.  And yet, I'm pretty sure that practicing my piano-playing ability will be important to my music.  Practicing the piano isn't supposed to do everything--but what it does is important.


--- Quote ---I'll follow up those two sentences with an admission.  I don't shoot traditional pistol competitions so I don't know how much they focus on getting to cover/concealment.  I watched a little bit of the steel match and USPSA at the member meeting and didn't see any focus on getting to cover/concealment.  I did see shooters shooting around barricades, though.  That's at least a step in the right direction.
--- End quote ---

In Steel Challenge you stand there.  On the beep you draw and shoot things.  Complete test of pure shooting skills.

In USPSA you do more than that, but it isn't meant to be defensive or tactical.  The only tactics used are when planning stage runs to minimize time.  The "barricades" used were simply walls to force people into movement and into different shooting positions.  Had nothing to do with cover or concealment.

IDPA purports to require cover, but even a cursory look at matches shows that actual use of cover and anything resembling good tactics for any sort of standard citizen self-defense situation is missing.  (The day I win a stage by quietly walking away after the beep, I'll start thinking of it differently.)

That's okay, though, because again, the point is shooting skills.


--- Quote ---In the "For What it's Worth" category, I don't think competition will get you killed on the street any more than doing nothing but dry fire will get you killed on the street.
--- End quote ---

Are there people who think that dryfire will get you killed on the street?  I hadn't heard that one before.  (I know you don't think so, I'd just never knew that anyone thought so.)


--- Quote ---The thing about potentially getting killed on the street is that the situation is completely dynamic whereas competition and dry fire and standing at attention and putting slow fire rounds on an 8" plate 25 yards away are not.
--- End quote ---

No competitions are dynamic?  Huh.  I mean, I know that most targets aren't doing anything, but between shooter movement and some moving targets (both appearing/disappearing and various types of movers) I don't think I'd claim that no competitions include dynamic situations.

If you meant "they aren't force on force because the targets aren't reacting to you or shooting back" sure, I'll go with that.


--- Quote ---The best thing to keep a person from getting killed on the street is training that mimics what happens on the street.  Unfortunately, that's almost impossible so we make do with less than optimal solutions.
--- End quote ---

Agreed, up to a point.  (I think the best thing to keep a person from getting killed on the street has to do with things that happen far in advance of any actual "action on the street."  But I get what you mean.) Although an amazing number of people argue about what "on the street" actually means, many of whom do so contrary to what we actually know based on data, so that makes it somewhat harder to get people to make good training choices... 

What interests me is that every year, literally thousands of people with little firearms training (often no formal training) defend themselves effectively with firearms.  About a year ago, John Johnston (of Ballistic Radio) wrote an article about precisely that.  (And Claude Werner has also.)  In a vast majority of defensive (firearms-based) situations, people didn't need tactical training, practice at using cover or concealment, knowledge of tac reloads, etc.

They needed a gun and the ability to get accurate shots on target quickly.  Period.

I am all for the ability to utilize cover and concealment---but like the concept of shooting on the move, I think that many people strongly over-prioritize it compared to the ability to get the gun out and get accurate shots on target, given the situations that actually occur for citizens.

Tom Givens has a bunch of interesting data about that, and in his experience (and data) cover and concealment falls a distant, distant way behind 1) having a gun, 2) recognizing the problem and having the skill to get the gun out in time, and 3) getting accurate shots on target quickly. 

I personally think that if someone shoots me, my ability to defend myself will drop sharply, at best.  So this is not me saying that I can just take whatever comes my way and shoot back---instead, this is me saying that the situations that normally occur often have no cover or concealment available in the time frame you have to respond, and shooting at bad guys will often tend to make them less likely to shoot you back.

Sure, if they START by shooting, standing there drawing/shooting isn't really optimal.  But that isn't the way most citizen self-defense situations seem to start.  If it was, sure, I'd like to be able to use cover (much more than concealment, though I'll take what I can get).  But considering how rarely the stuff around me is actually cover, and given how self-defense situations seem to mostly occur, I'm still going with "get the gun out and get shots on target fast" as a good training priority for handgun skills.  The ability to get to cover and respond with a gun is much farther down the list.

I also note:  Just because I test my shooting skills in the shooting sports doesn't mean I can't train other things.  Sure, 95% of my shooting training is with my competition rig---but I have never understood why people seem to think that if you shoot competitions, that is ALL you do...

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