Interesting Vision Comment from Force Science

[Dagga Boy]

Scary as in really good vision or scary as in " wow that dude has shark eyes" ?

Like "I see dead people" eyes. Guy defines Apex Predator.

[BJJ]

Like "I see dead people" eyes. Guy defines Apex Predator.

Super Dave?

[ToddG]

I am simply hoping this was a joke post. Well let's see, you have one percent of the top one percent of the US military and you can't see the difference?

I hope you are joking.

The number of people on PF who have both received and given significant training at a municipal LE, federal LE, and top tier military unit level is probably one. I'm not talking "I had a SEAL in class" and "I have a shooting buddy who is a SEAL," I mean going through the same formal weeks-long unit specific shooting & tactics packages as those units' personnel on site and then providing content-specific training for them in return.

Given that SLG has, I think it's rather odd to suggest he doesn't know the differences (and similarities) between those entities.

[GJM]

This thread now appears to have reached that inflection point, where on PF we do the deep dive and get to the core of the issue. I was going to write up my thoughts from shooting with Robbie yesterday, but maybe I will just make popcorn and watch.

[Dagga Boy]

I hope you are joking.

The number of people on PF who have both received and given significant firearms training at a municipal LE, federal LE, and top tier military unit level is probably one. I'm not talking "I had a SEAL in class" and "I have a shooting buddy who is a SEAL," I mean going through the same formal weeks-long unit specific shooting & tactics packages as those units' personnel on site and then providing content-specific training for them in return.

Given that SLG has, I think it's rather odd to suggest he doesn't know the differences (and similarities) between those entities.

I wasn't intended to disparage his experience or abilities. My point is that there is a difference in the top 1 percent of 1 percent and other folks. If there wasn't, anybody could be in those units....they are not. Some folks could put in the exact same amount of training time and never be a world class athlete, top level special operations soldier, or an astronaut. There is a difference. We have a guy who does some training with us who is exceptionally good. As long as he is hitting the markers on accuracy, we never slow him down. The difference is he also has the assessment skills to go with it. For guys not like that we don't like them shooting faster than they can deliver 100%....that is 100% decision making, hits, assessment, etc. with solid balance across the board for their world. We are also on severely limited resources with most people that is not as much of a limitation with the top military guys. Again, more resources, more options.
Some of this may be lost in translation and maybe we are not far off and I read it wrong or misunderstood. If that is the case, I am willing to be enlightened. With that said, I hope SLG can get to one of Hearne's presentations. The smart guy in the room will note there is in fact a difference with those guys.

[SLG]

As I've said before, writing on the web is not my forte, and maybe that is where the disconnect comes from.

I'm pretty aware of the similarities and differences between and among the current levels of shooters in the world. That was why I asked, "What makes you think that guys in high end military units aren't like us, in this one, and only one, regard?" Notice the bold. What I meant was, requirements in a fight are the same for everyone when you bring it to its most elemental. Hit the other guy in the vitals enough times so that he's unable to do it to you. High end Soldiers/Sailors/Marines are humans, as are undertrained cops or civilians or most of the rest of the military. Most of them learned to shoot from civilian development that was transferred to the tactical world. It goes back and forth, but the civilian side has contributed more over the years. Since they hold their guns like we do, and use their sights (or not, sometimes) like we do, and press their triggers like we do, why does the "pace" of their shooting change? That question was asked in regard to the thought that we should slow down and not shoot so fast, nothing else. I don't know if what I wrote now is any clearer, but I hope so.

Maybe the issue is that what some of you consider a lot of training is not what I'm thinking about as a lot of training? If a non elite person gets 40 hours of training in their life, you really can't expect them to perform similarly to a guy who has trained 40 hours a week (average) for years and years. I wasn't suggesting that, but maybe that was the part that wasn't clear? If someone is going to keep their cool in a fight, then they can be expected to do reasonably well if they have decent training. Given that we have proof that plenty of undertrained civilians and cops do in fact do that, why are they different, in this one regard (how to shoot in a fight) then the elite?

Any clearer? I'm just rambling now.


After re-reading the last few posts, I just want to clarify that I have given and received quite a bit of official training with various DOD and LE entities, but have not officially given firearms training to any "top tier" military units.

[Dagga Boy]

Much clearer...thank you, and this makes it much easier to answer.

Accountability at this point is the big issue, not ability. May intent with the following is not to be critical of other trainers, but as a representation of the difference. "Burn them into the ground" is the problem. We do a drill where we give a student two seconds to do the most work they can with 100% hits into the black on a B8 bull. It is a test bed for us at where a student is, and to give the student an idea of where they are at and to develop a 100% speed for them. My best to date was an accident at 5 yards on a demo of "what not to do" where I hit 11. We normally run around 8 on the high end. I am sure that is not earth shattering, but we are at below average practice levels ourselves these days due to "life". One demo we do particularly for our basic students is to run a full speed run dumping 8 plus rounds into that bull in two seconds. Then we do a very controlled failure drill in the same time and ask "ladies and gentleman of the jury" questions as to what is excessive. Same time frame, same target, yet most of these "jury of peers" types will generally respond that if somebody shot a person 8 to 10 times, they would be concerned...and his is after seeing how that happens. I have a suspicion that if somebody in a high end mil unit got ten rounds in some stinky bearded terrorists chest in a couple seconds, folks would be buying them beer. We teach a pace that is consistent with stopping and assessing every shot, because we have to. You need time to shift focus, time to evaluate, etc. most can shoot faster than they can think. I had a great conversation with a member of the top tier NSW unit about this. He flat out said that overseas they are often going faster than they can think and process. The result was that we agreed that folks we were working with would likely get killed in his world, and his guys would be in prison in mine. That is the difference. If I am investing training time that is a limited resource,MIT needs to be tailored to the application and the standards applied to the end user. We have to teach a system that accounts for getting the student wired to not only hit efficiently, but to leave room to assess efficiently. Essentially, I don't want to be sitting across from a Federal Agent explaining how round four ended up in the back of a suspect. Sure, with enough money, FSI or someone can come to court to explain it, but I would prefer to simply not be sitting across a table from anybody. That takes exceptional "control" during a shooting incident. I may be wrong, but I have not seen the CONUS standard of control at max performance levels of pure shooting.

Anybody who got to see my presentation at the Tac Conference will understand that all those photos of results were made available to me because no prosecution,or civil action was associated with all those bad guys. Those results were all based on a high accountability shooting program that accounts for high accountability in assessment and evaluation as well.

Hope this makes sense.

[JustOneGun]

Much clearer...thank you, and this makes it much easier to answer.

Accountability at this point is the big issue, not ability. May intent with the following is not to be critical of other trainers, but as a representation of the difference. "Burn them into the ground" is the problem. We do a drill where we give a student two seconds to do the most work they can with 100% hits into the black on a B8 bull. It is a test bed for us at where a student is, and to give the student an idea of where they are at and to develop a 100% speed for them. My best to date was an accident at 5 yards on a demo of "what not to do" where I hit 11. We normally run around 8 on the high end. I am sure that is not earth shattering, but we are at below average practice levels ourselves these days due to "life". One demo we do particularly for our basic students is to run a full speed run dumping 8 plus rounds into that bull in two seconds. Then we do a very controlled failure drill in the same time and ask "ladies and gentleman of the jury" questions as to what is excessive. Same time frame, same target, yet most of these "jury of peers" types will generally respond that if somebody shot a person 8 to 10 times, they would be concerned...and his is after seeing how that happens. I have a suspicion that if somebody in a high end mil unit got ten rounds in some stinky bearded terrorists chest in a couple seconds, folks would be buying them beer. We teach a pace that is consistent with stopping and assessing every shot, because we have to. You need time to shift focus, time to evaluate, etc. most can shoot faster than they can think. I had a great conversation with a member of the top tier NSW unit about this. He flat out said that overseas they are often going faster than they can think and process. The result was that we agreed that folks we were working with would likely get killed in his world, and his guys would be in prison in mine. That is the difference. If I am investing training time that is a limited resource,MIT needs to be tailored to the application and the standards applied to the end user. We have to teach a system that accounts for getting the student wired to not only hit efficiently, but to leave room to assess efficiently. Essentially, I don't want to be sitting across from a Federal Agent explaining how round four ended up in the back of a suspect. Sure, with enough money, FSI or someone can come to court to explain it, but I would prefer to simply not be sitting across a table from anybody. That takes exceptional "control" during a shooting incident. I may be wrong, but I have not seen the CONUS standard of control at max performance levels of pure shooting.

Anybody who got to see my presentation at the Tac Conference will understand that all those photos of results were made available to me because no prosecution,or civil action was associated with all those bad guys. Those results were all based on a high accountability shooting program that accounts for high accountability in assessment and evaluation as well.

Hope this makes sense.

I agree everyone has to be 100% accurate on target ID before the first press. Anything less is unacceptable.

What you say above seems to suggest that your students are taught to ID the lethal threat between rounds? If so that sounds a whole lot like the old double tap and assess type training. It was abandoned because over time it was shown that people would stop shooting, physically move their eyes to the weapon and see that it was still there and start shooting again. Some of them didn't shoot again because witnesses and surviving cops said that's when they got shot.

That leaves us in a bit of a conundrum. I can only focus on one thing at a time. I should only be shooting when I see my front sight but have to stop to see if there is still a threat. I agree telling someone to just shoot someone to the ground is also unacceptable. It is however what would usually happen if I did a failure drill on someone successfully. So did I shoot him to the ground inappropriately if witnesses said he dropped the gun after the second chest shot and while I was on the way to the head? Would you testify against me?

It's not just word games but legal word games that we must play, but if I understand you correctly I believe you are using them incorrectly to the detriment of the student. I use lethal force on someone to stop them from severely injuring or killing me. But I don't care if they die or not. That is not my purpose. If I shoot someone to the ground due to the physiological realities of a gunfight, that does not mean I meant to shoot them to the ground as an outcome. To be so afraid of having to explain the truth to a jury as a trainer that you place your students in a greater danger of dying is unacceptable. You explain it as an either/or and it is not.

Of course firearm trainers will often agree to disagree. But you quote, "the true knowledge of anything depends on testing one's ideas in actual experience because, in and of themselves, ideas are little more than hypothesis until tried upon the anvil of experience".

This is not a valid argument. In fact, Chief of Police use it all the time to deny much needed training. We know most officers (substandard to great) not only survive their righteous gunfights but win without injury. They do so because they suck less than the bad guy. So if that is working why not use POST minimums as not only the standard but the goal of all police training? The answer is that experience is situational and just like statistics don't tell the entire story. Dead good guys don't have timers on them to show they shot slow or stopped to assess and got killed because of it. Dead men tell no tales, including hero's in blue.

[Dagga Boy]

My students are taught to deliver rounds high in the chest if available from any angle and move to the head immediately if it is still there after a a few rounds. There is no huge delay, it is a wired response. I have enough righteous shoots using this exact technique to validate it. Every single shot ever fired needs to be assessed to some degree and the evaluation process is imperative. It will require constant focus shifts, which can happen very fast...faster than most can shoot.

Hey, teach what you want. I am pretty secure in what I am doing. I am at the point in life of simply sharing knowledge and done trying to convince anybody of anything. As I said before, I am happy with the beating that anvil has taken from my students. By the way, my students also didn't have to deal with much in the civil process and those who did were very successful as well. None ever faced criminal charges.

If it makes anyone feel better that I wasn't a tool for administration, my program was dismantled before the ink was dry in my retirement papers....because it was too hard, too much effort, and focused too much on use of force. They went back to having lots of crappy performance like most places.

[Dagga Boy]

"We teach a pace that is consistent with stopping and assessing every shot, because we have to. You need time to shift focus, time to evaluate, etc. most can shoot faster than they can think. "

Went back and re-read this. I am typing on my phone, so it is not as clear. My intent was to say a speed at which you can stop and a speed at which you can assess every shot. Not to stop at every single shot and then assess. Hope that helps. I have been impressed with post shooting debrief with how much information is actually available during a shooting that seems to be due to how time is perceived.