Jt, it seems you are getting a little stressed yourself. You are obviously too emotionally invested in this topic to continue it in a reasonable way. It seems you are forgeting, or choosing to ignore, things I have already posted. So before you get any more personal Im going to take a break. I am fine with agreeing to disagree.
So, you can't refute what I said, and have no logical argument to make? Ok, I am fine with disagreeing.
While I was typing this I recieved a reply from Trevor. JT feel free to ignore, distort or discredit the following. Everyone else try to be objective and come to your own conclusion.
If I have distorted anything, or said anything non-factual or illogical, feel free to point it out. That is what discussion is for, after all. If, however, you simply cannot actually argue my points, don't attempt to say it is because I'm ignoring or distorting facts.
After all, you are the one who isn't answering questions, and have been continuing ignoring facts and logical arguments I've stated.
Here is an explanation, references, argument, and a few final comments.
The body alarm system in reactive situations at face reading distance activates the amygdalla and causes a person to instinctively or intuitively react to a threat. This involves squaring towards the threat and looking directly at and focusing on the threat. Nothing in our alarm system tells us to focus on a 1/8 wide piece of metal or plastic that has no relation to the threat. The amygdalla when "activated" is a shorter loop and interrupts deliberate thought. The deliberate or higher brain must play catch up.
With less duress and more time, the deliberate thought loop can kick in allowing a person to make a choice that is counter instinctive or counter intuitive, such as to focus on one's sights. This is why I say sighted fire is mostly a deliberate choice. The amount of time needed to switch to this loop is operator and training dependent, but it is clear under more duress with less time, it is less likely to happen.
You have 6 degrees more or less of direct vision. This is a very small (tunnel vision like) field of view for the best focus. Under duress, since clarity of the threat is of utmost importance, you will not instinctively or intuitively put any object in front of you to obstruct that line of sight unless it is done to shield you from the attack protectively. So you will not want a gun up in your face in your direct line of sight.
This---contains a number of facts along with a number of conclusions that are not supported by those facts. Taking them in order:
The body alarm system in reactive situations at face reading distance activates the amygdalla and causes a person to instinctively or intuitively react to a threat. This involves squaring towards the threat and looking directly at and focusing on the threat.
True, with the caveat that while that is most general the initial reaction, it is not the only reaction possible, and it isn't what has to continue happening after the initial reaction. (I also note that squaring towards the threat ignores the flinch reaction, which is also fairly common depending on the type of stressor induced.)
Nothing in our alarm system tells us to focus on a 1/8 wide piece of metal or plastic that has no relation to the threat. The amygdalla when "activated" is a shorter loop and interrupts deliberate thought. The deliberate or higher brain must play catch up.
True in that nothing in our alarm system tells us to do that---which is not the same thing as saying that we
cannot do it. And even if people haven't trained in defensive reactions initially (which certainly can be done), again, the fact that the amygdala "is a shorter loop and interrupts deliberate thought" doesn't mean that after the initial reaction, higher thought (and other choices, such as focusing on a point) is impossible.
The initial reaction (which is actually more variable than the "square to them and focus on them" listed above) is just that---initial. What happens immediately after is subject to many different things.
With less duress and more time, the deliberate thought loop can kick in allowing a person to make a choice that is counter instinctive or counter intuitive, such as to focus on one's sights. This is why I say sighted fire is mostly a deliberate choice. The amount of time needed to switch to this loop is operator and training dependent, but it is clear under more duress with less time, it is less likely to happen.
I agree with the last sentence here, because obviously the more time someone has to react, and the less stress they are under, the better their reaction will be. And I won't argue that using the sights is a deliberate choice.
You have 6 degrees more or less of direct vision. This is a very small (tunnel vision like) field of view for the best focus. Under duress, since clarity of the threat is of utmost importance, you will not instinctively or intuitively put any object in front of you to obstruct that line of sight unless it is done to shield you from the attack protectively. So you will not want a gun up in your face in your direct line of sight.
Hm. You are aware that a standard flinch reaction to stress is to turn away, duck, and raise the hands between the person and the perceived attacker? As such, your contention above simply isn't true.
In addition, after the first initial reaction (and sometimes as part of the first initial reaction), many things can occur with training. For example, plenty of people have been trained to deal with sudden attacks wherein their startle reaction includes reflexive blocks which transition immediately into offensive techniques that include having their hands in front of their face.
It simply doesn't work this way. I'd be interested in seeing any research you'd like to cite that supports your contention.
In theory you might be able to condition someone to use their sights intuitively, but this would require enough repetitions while in a body alarm reaction mode to overcome 1000s of years of evolution.
Actually, in "body alarm reaction mode" (or, as most people say it, "under stress") lots of people can and have been trained to do very complex things, many of which are significantly more difficult than holding a gun high enough so that the sights are superimposed on a close target.
Evolution is a curious thing---and our reactions to stress can vary wildly. It is certainly true that most people's initial reaction to a sudden, significant stressor is strongly reflexive, and tends to occur in one of two modes (either flinch/avoid response, or a square up/hands up response) but what happens
after that is significantly variable and
highly influenced by training.
Training without the amygdalla activated (range training) will not work as well for conditioning because it is in a different psychological context. Then on top of this, you would have to train in a fine motor skill (aligning sights) during times of high stress and rapid heat action.
Pulling the trigger = fine motor skill. Drawing the handgun from a concealment holster = fine motor skill. Pointing your finger at someone and making sure the sights are sufficiently on target for the situation? Still a fine motor skill---and no more difficult than the rest.
I do certainly agree that training for stress situations without training IN stressful situations is significantly non-optimal. As I told Shawn, it isn't
necessary, as plenty of people defend themselves with firearms each year without having ever had a stress-based course, but for people wanting to actually learn how to defend themselves, stress-based courses, force-on-force iterations, and scenario training really can make a difference.
There absolutely is a place for sighted fire, but I think we are wasting too much time training it under conditions when it will never be used and then not training the actual skill that will be used in those conditions.
I have yet to see how a failure of reaction training means that sighted fire should not be used. Meaning, poor training for effective incident reaction means a non-optimal reaction, mostly that people flail badly, yank out the gun one-handed and engage in wild, rapid, unsighted fire with poor results.
How does that mean that training shouldn't include sights?
References:
--NYPD SOP9-
http://www.virginiacops.org/articles/shooting/combat.htm
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%
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.
I've read that initial NYPD SOP 9. Matter of fact, I've read several of their followup reports.
And I have yet to see how the fact that poor training causing officers to not use their sights, causing extremely poor hit rates, means that the
sighting system was the point of failure.
Under stress, officers who were poorly trained ended up not using any of the techniques in which they had been trained. (This isn't a surprise.) As such, one-handed un-aimed fire with incredibly poor hit rates occurred.
...how is that an argument for unsighted fire?
--"What Applegate Said"
http://www.hfrg.org/storage/pdf/APPLEGATE.pdf
Um, you do realize that this article directly goes against what you are saying about not raising the gun in front of your face?
"The mechanics of instinctive pointing (Applegate method) are very simple: the eyes focus on the target, then the arm is raised until the hand breaks the line of sight...keeping the elbow and wrist lock and raising the arm like a pump handle, a very accurate and consistent alignment of the pointing hand and the line of sight can be achieved. Contrary to popular belief, Applegate did not believe that shooting was as easy as pointing your finger. He believed that the eyes, pistol and target must be in line."
So the Applegate method goes directly against your comment earlier:
Under duress, since clarity of the threat is of utmost importance, you will not instinctively or intuitively put any object in front of you to obstruct that line of sight unless it is done to shield you from the attack protectively. So you will not want a gun up in your face in your direct line of sight.
Matter of fact, I see that you quote Siddle. Here's what he said about Applegate's method:
"Applegate student and survival skills preeminent instructor Bruce Siddle, who studied extensively with the Colonel states Applegate advocated to "always" bring the weapon to eye level and use the whole weapon system as the front sight."
Matter of fact:
Applegate covered all contingencies from touching distance wherein the officer or soldier could not physically raise the pistol to techniques where more time and distance allowed bringing the pistol up to eye level, using two hands, and using the sights, "Realistic combat shooting technique therefore becomes a continuum that ranges from contact distance (so-called 'hip shooting') to two-handed, sighted fire.""The good Colonel believed that the gun should be brought up to eye level if at all possible."
--Bruce Siddle, "Sharperning The Warrior's Edge", I don't have it with me.
Effects of survival stress: "loss of near vision"
--Every single force on force high duress scenario driven training I have conducted over a period of 20 years. I have taught CQB courses to special force soldiers who only practice sighted fire and at the end of a 2 day course, they will admit they never used their sights under reactive duress for 2 days!
The default under severe reactive stress is always point shooting. I have observed this and recorded it with video and it is unchanging regardless of the level of operator. There is a gray zone where training will allow one operator to stay more calm than another and use sights, but the close range, reactive, high duress situations yield the same result.
This can easily be repeated and I have consistently observed even some of the top competitive sighted shooters, Mike Hugh's for example, resort to point shooting during scenarios unless they had the opportunity to be pro-active.
Hm. So here's my question:
1) what ranges are you talking about?
2) When you say "unsighted fire" or "point shooting" do you mean Applegate's method, or something different?
Because it seems to me that there may be a definitional issue here, among others.
For example: at contact distance, obviously no one will be using their sights. At ranges out to 3-5 feet, someone with basic practice at sighted fire will be able to (without looking at their sights) align the pistol to easily hit an open target. At 6-10 feet, someone with practice at sighted fire (and thus experience with gun alignment) will be easily able to hit an open target using just the silhouette of the slide.
I'd consider that all point shooting. Yes?
And yet, in my opinion, the reason those folks can do that is
because of practice they have made with sighted fire---understanding what pistol alignment creates good hits, having practice and gaining experience by working on understanding body alignment, grip, and pistol alignment.
For those cases where
every time you say they only did point-shooting---how many of them occurred at distances where sighted fire would have
actually made sense? If none of them, then of course you saw point-shooting.
I don't think anyone here is saying that at 5 feet, you have to have a strong front sight focus in a standard defensive situation. So....are you saying that people should only (or even mostly) train for 5-15 feet, and wide-open targets? Or are you saying that people who trained in sighted fire, when put into a high stress situation in which their target was at 12 yards or so, STILL only performed point-shooting?
So---the question really is, for those people you have seen all point shoot: At what ranges were they (because at 3 feet, of course you don't bother using the sights) and more importantly, would those people have been able to get the hits they did without the experience they had in sight alignment and gun alignment?
In other words, if we compared four groups of people:
1) Completely untrained
2) Trained in unsighted fire only
3) trained in sighted fire only
4) trained in sighted fire with practice at close-range shooting
...would group #2 actually do better than group #3? Is there any research on this?
My person opinion is that if group 2 and 3 both had no stress training, under actual stress conditions at worst the group's abilities would be equal, and more likely, #3 would do better. However, that's just my opinion because I haven't seen any actual research comparing groups like this.
Have you? Do you have any? If so, I'd like to see it.
-- Review of over 200 life and death shootings caught on video
Did you know the type and level of training for those shootings? The reason I ask is that Shawn's contention was that:
"officers and operators will most often not use their sights, despite any type and level of training"
...and as such, most videos I've seen of shootings don't give any training information.
--Medical studies investigating the effects of survival stress (various sources, I don;t have time to find them all)
I'd be interested in seeing them, if you could post them. Mostly because some of the statements you've made above are phrased in too absolute of a fashion for actual truth, so I'm interested in what the research you've read actually says.
There is not one empirical study which has shown sighted fire as a primary means of dealing with reactive, close range, threats. If some trainer actually could get people to use sighted fire under severe duress, wouldn't they record the facts and soon become the greatest firearms trainer on earth?
Well, some people might ask Bill Rogers or Tom Givens, as a suggestion. Of course, they merely have thousands of students as opposed to having done actual research, so you may not count that. I'll note that I don't consider their information actual empirical research, either, though the data Tom Givens is compiling is very very close to it.
And chances are you'd say "well, those weren't all
close-range" or something similar. That does remind me---are you saying that high stress causes people to only use point shooting, or does it have to be high stress AND close range? Because, after all, close-range shooting on an open target means you don't NEED to use the sights much, so there is more going on than merely stress reactions.
Your contention seems to be that since no one uses their sights in reactive, close-range, high-stress threats, that people shouldn't bother teaching sighted fire, and that point shooting should be taught strictly instead.
And yet---what data do you have showing that people taught point-shooting-only 1) are accurate at close-range faster, 2) react any better under high-stress situations when compared to people who are taught sighted fire?
You say that you've taught lots of CQB, and no one used their sights, even though they were taught sighted fire only. (Which is odd, really, since I'd expect that special forces folks would have been taught shooting from retention positions and such, so I would have assumed they would have practiced unsighted fire before.) So---how'd they do?
Did they use their knowledge of body alignment, grip and gun alignment, and their experience with the gun silhouette to instinctively align the gun properly at close range? If they hadn't had that sighted-fire experience, that experience that taught them where the bullet would go given certain alignment of the gun?
Would they have done better if they had only been taught unsighted fire?
What part of this actually supports the idea that teaching unsighted fire makes you better at close-range shooting?
I have asked for evidence from the point shooting disbelievers and they can only come up with anecdotal evidence, and we all know that stress effects your memory, or do I have to prove that too? Then they demand proof from me, and I provide study after study and they do everything they can to deny it or look for little minute ways to interpret it to their liking. With any basic rules of logic or debate, I am clearly and undeniably in the lead.
I think---that isn't true. As I've mentioned above.
(I'll also note that when you say that "stress effects [sic] your memory" that also influences the responses of police officers in the SOP9 who said they couldn't remember using their sights.)
The bottom line is this, I can take any sighted shooting proponent and consistently and repeatedly get them to point shoot under realistic high duress situations and record that fact. The anti-point shooters cannot say the same.
And yet, that doesn't actually support the contention that teaching point-shooting will result in improved results.
Do you have any data that shows any comparison between training groups supporting the idea that teaching point-shooting vs teaching sighted shooting gives better results in high stress close-range situations?
I will say no more until the sighted shooters provide a shred of empirical evidence as the court is beyond clearly in my favor. I don't care what someone said, or what someone can do on the range or in competition, or what they think they can do. I want real empirical proof. Tactics are like a religion to people in the same way everyone used to think their martial art was the best until people started doing MMA. I'm not the kind of guy who ever stuck to one martial art, I was always looking for "the way" and have had 20+ years of experience while being trained in the widest possible fields of tactics and being operational in a variety of special operations units in a variety of environments. I now say the Army/Military and range based shooters are largely inbred with tactics and beliefs. People learn the same thing and repeat it from the same people, while never having the ability to branch out too far or empirically test it and record it.
So my simple question is:
What supports your contention that (for all the people you've seen successfully use point shooting in close-range, reactive situations) teaching them solely point-shooting will make them more effective?
All of your points seem to be based on the idea that people use point-shooting at close range. Okay----but it doesn't necessarily follow that only teaching point shooting is actually more effective than teaching sighted shooting, or even better, teaching sighted shooting and periodically having an evolution of close-range work.
If you've got any information comparing groups like I've listed above, I'd really like to see it.
