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Thread: Interesting Vision Comment from Force Science

  1. #1
    Member John Hearne's Avatar
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    Interesting Vision Comment from Force Science

    Apparently, Bill Lewinski was in Memphis, this past weekend. I find the correlation with my conclusions and this article very reassuring. If I could just fix him on a few small points.

    From Force Science #276:
    It is said that stress hampers eye focus, making it impossible to use your sights in a life-threatening encounter. Yet some people who have been involved in real firearms engagements state they used their sights. Can you aim and use sights under stress if you have the proper training?

    Capt. Jorge Tierno Rey
    Dir., Dept. of Security & Protection
    Spanish Marine Corps School
    Cartagena, Murcia State, Spain

    Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute, responds:

    In a panic situation, where an officer is caught in a threat by surprise and perhaps overwhelmed by emotion, he or she may not be able to respond with sufficient control to attain a sight picture in the fraction of time available. There are changes to the eye under stress that can make sighting more difficult, but with the right training these can be overcome. Our research with equipment that tracks eye movement shows that sighted fire can be accomplished even under intense stress.

    The key is a combination of two critical elements: 1) your innate ability to acquire and implement the technical skills of effective weapon management, and 2) the type and quality of instruction that constitute the "right" training for gunfight mastery.

    In the US, many departments train their officers only to the level of minimum state standards, which are inadequate for achieving high-level proficiency. The bulk of their training often is presented in concentrated blocks, after which learned psychomotor skills rapidly deteriorate, rather than through continual reinforcement at intervals, which tends to build and maintain skills over time. And, deplorably, many officers are never exposed to firearms training of any kind that allows them to practice perception, decision-making, and responses at the speed of an actual gunfight.

    All this leaves them dangerously deficient in many aspects of quality performance in a crisis, sight-acquisition among them.

    It's important to understand that using your sights in a gunfight is not always necessary or even desirable for effectively placing rounds. If you don't get a sight picture at 20 ft. and beyond, your ability to shoot accurately is likely to be seriously impaired. That's actually not very far, in real world settings--down a hallway or across some rooms.

    Closer than that, at distances where most gunfights occur, trying to use your sights may take too long; by the time you're sighted in, your target may have moved. At less than 20 ft., you're probably best to fix your gaze on your target and quickly drive your gun up to align with that line of view, firing unsighted.

    Obviously, to do this successfully requires a great deal of consistent practice, responding to force-on-force scenarios at various distances that develop realistically in terms of action, movement, and speed. This will help you learn to identify the telltale patterns of an evolving threat so you can get ahead of the reactionary curve.

    Over time, you will learn how threats unfold and be able to anticipate what, where, when, and how the "play" will progress. This, in turn, will build in you the ability to react automatically--without conscious thought--either with or without the use of your sights, depending on the dynamic circumstances you face. You will, in effect, be better equipped to stay ahead of the reactionary curve.

    To achieve that level of skill, be prepared to go, on your own, beyond the training offered by your agency. It is the rare department indeed that has the budget and the time to take officers as far as their native ability allows and elevate them to truly elite status.

    Even at no cost, you can still strengthen your fundamental skills, including sight acquisition, through dry-fire drills. With modern weapons, you can dry fire literally thousands of times without damage to your equipment.

    When your life is on the line, your personal commitment to be the best you can be will seem a small price to have paid.
    • It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
    • If you aren't dry practicing every week, you're not serious.....
    • "Tache-Psyche Effect - a polite way of saying 'You suck.' " - GG

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    The good Captains blog can be found here:http://tirotactico.net/author/ebdt2/

    Good stuff though en Espanol

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    Very Pro Dentist Chuck Haggard's Avatar
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    I disagree with the good Dr's thoughts as stated ref "unsighted" fire. I have seen people miss horribly at even very close ranges due to not using some sort of sighted index.

    Dr. Bill is good people, saved a good friend's butt in his first expert witness gig, but he and I have disagreed on a number of things.
    I am the owner of Agile/Training and Consulting
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    Hillbilly Elitist Malamute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HCM View Post
    The good Captains blog can be found here:http://tirotactico.net/author/ebdt2/

    Good stuff though en Espanol
    For those that may not know, you can go to google, search "translate" it will give you "google translate" as an option. Once there, you can translate certain things you copy and paste into the box, or put a whole website address in and it will give you the whole thing translated.


    https://translate.google.com/transla...%2F&edit-text=


    It doesnt require a "classic sight picture" to use the sights effectively. Never shot at people, but hitting running rabbits and other things isnt difficult with just lowering the sight picture slightly so you can see whats going on but still get a good usable reference.

  5. #5
    Very Pro Dentist Chuck Haggard's Avatar
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    I forgot to add that Jorge does indeed seem like good people, from my numerous LF and FB conversations with him. He's a guy trying to do the best in the way of firearms and tactics training that he can do in a European country and stuck with silly assed gun laws.
    I am the owner of Agile/Training and Consulting
    www.agiletactical.com

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chuck Haggard View Post
    I disagree with the good Dr's thoughts as stated ref "unsighted" fire. I have seen people miss horribly at even very close ranges due to not using some sort of sighted index.
    Coming from an IPSC background, I fully agree. And take into account that you know the course or fire and have prepared for it, and you don't have bullets coming your way...

    Save for arm lenght distances or so, it takes almost no extra time to present a "normal" grip and stance and get good hits. Wheter you focus on the target and get a very basic sight index helped by proper grip, get a flash picture, or really focus on the front sight depends on the distance and size of the target. You can get a flash picture VERY fast, and it will greatly help to compensate the errors we all make when adrenaline is pumping and we are trying to go too fast.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Chuck Haggard View Post
    I disagree with the good Dr's thoughts as stated ref "unsighted" fire. I have seen people miss horribly at even very close ranges due to not using some sort of sighted index.

    Dr. Bill is good people, saved a good friend's butt in his first expert witness gig, but he and I have disagreed on a number of things.
    Couldn't agree more. My first job had a famous shooting that occurred between 2 cops with G19's and a perp with a snubby revolver. Everyone involved emptied their guns at about 3 feet, and nobody hit anything.

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    So I'm reading the quote from Dr. Lewinsky regarding what he calls unsighted fire for 20 feet and closer. But he describes bringing the gun up into line of sight and aligning it with the target. This seems to me to be simply a crude form of sighted fire - aiming with the body of the weapon instead of the sights as described by Jim Cirillo years ago. I recently listened to Masad Ayoob's interview of Chicago PD gunfight veteran LT. Bob Stasisch (spelling ?) Who states that he is "A point shooter" but goes on to describe his "point shooting" as bringing the gun up into line of sight and indexing the body of the gun or the front site with his target as opposed to a classic sight picture.

    I think a lot of this is simply a matter of terminology – 6 degrees of sighted fire.

    Dr. Lewinsky also discusses the need to be able to run the gun at a level of unconscious competence in order to free the conscious mind for decision-making. I certainly agree with that philosophy but if we are running the gun via unconscious competence isn't it likely that we could be using our sight and not remembering?

    John Shaw had a very good description of people's potential ability to see sights at speed. He describes the now illegal practice of subliminal advertising during movie trailers. Movie film runs at a pace of 26 frames per second. Theaters would insert one frame with a picture of soda and snacks into a film trailer. Your eye and subconscious mind is able see that image causing you to suddenly crave popcorn etc. even though you would not consciously recall seeing the image. His reasoning was that if your eye and mind are capable of seeing one frame out of 26 in a second, theoretically you could see 26 sight pictures in a second.

  9. #9
    Member John Hearne's Avatar
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    This is a simple matter of math. A competent shooter can verify a flash sight picture in around 0.05 seconds. The fastest you're going to fire a shot is 0.15 and between 0.20 and 0.30 is more likely. It literally takes 3 to 6 times longer to fire another shot than to visually verify your first one.
    • It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
    • If you aren't dry practicing every week, you're not serious.....
    • "Tache-Psyche Effect - a polite way of saying 'You suck.' " - GG

  10. #10
    Very Pro Dentist Chuck Haggard's Avatar
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    Ref that Bob Stasch interview; Some of the shootings he mentions were at like four feet. That's not too tough a marksmanship problem, if you can see the gun superimposed on the bad guy you will likely hit him.

    I have to wonder if the first shooting he mentions, with the multiple round .45Colt/.38/.44mag "failure to stop" event, would have dropped the bad guy quicker if they have hit him a little more centered and not kinda all over the place.

    Very few people take a high A zone hit with any round and stay on their feet for very long.


    Jim Cirillo told me in conversation that he was convinced that a well trained shooter would and could use the sights, often subliminally, and see enough sight picture to make the shot they were needing to make at that moment. I think Jim was correct in his assessment.
    I am the owner of Agile/Training and Consulting
    www.agiletactical.com

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