Self Defense: The process of shooting your target after the decision to fire is made

[Rex G]

Okay, so we've got two sides of a story. Those that believe they can see with enough detail to know when to stop shooting and those who believe that they can't.

If you believe you can see the gun fall and will somehow know to stop shooting, what if you're wrong? What might the outcome of that be? Often we see people empty that gun into the bad guy. Someone mentioned this earlier in reference to Wayne and DB over at HITS. If guns are not death rays and bullets don't magically stop people then in the time span of emptying the pistol in them, they can continue to try and kill you. Having a plan to stop the fight, IMHO, should include shooting them in the head. That idea is more complex than just, "Shoot them in the head" but that would be a whole other thread.

But there are other problems with not thinking this subject through. We had a previous thread about trigger choice and stopping shooting. No matter where a person comes down on that argument we still need to look at the elephant in the room. If I believe I can see the gun fall while focusing on the chest then perhaps I believe I can look at the bad guy's gun and still shoot the chest. Anyone that has done a lot of FoF has been shot in the gun hand by the student. They shoot what they see. As someone said earlier, I don't think.

We train to have a mental trigger to start the unconscious draw process. Some don't train to move their eyes from the reason for lethal force (i.e. bad guy's gun) to the target (high chest). When that was emphasized getting shot in the hand was rare.

(Snipped)

1. Should we presume the weapon will "fall?" It may not fall. The weapon(s) may be retained with a white-knuckle grip until the actor becomes unresponsive, and then have to be knocked free so the EMS personnel can start their work. He is a sample of one, but a Mr. Montoya held onto his knife, and a snatched SL-20, as I stood and watched him bleed out. EMS were already on-scene, but had to wait until we knocked the weapons from his hands, before they could start any treatment. (It was not my SL-20 that had been snatched; that happened before I arrived.)

2. I stopped firing because Mr. Montoya was no longer a threat. He abruptly changed direction, away from me and the others present, and staggered along for a bit. (Again, of course, a sample of one.) I had never been trained that my handgun was a bullet hose, to be reflexively emptied toward an opponent.

3. I do not understand this moving-of-eyes concept. I saw his left hand, held low against his abdomen, chambered for a thrust, while also seeing his right hand held high, holding the SL-20, ready for a downward forward strike, while also seeing his eyes. Wow, those crazy eyes. I also saw my GP100, including the sights, though not a classic target-shooting sight picture; the front sight and rear notch were in line, but I was looking over the weapon. I saw the instantaneous hole appear. I saw it all. Tunnel vision? No, wide-angle vision. It had to be wide-angle, because we were close; probably just beyond the distance for him to reach my GP100's muzzle with the SL-20*. Of course, I am a sample of one.

4. I certainly did not shoot his weapons, or the hands/arms holding the weapons. Had he been a B-27, well, I would have hit his X-ring. My tactical error was not compensating for his being at a bit of an angle, so the bullet track was X-ring to rear armpit area, but the heart was still within that bullet track, and severely damaged.

For reference, this was June 1993, well before I had attended any type of force-on-force training, as we know it today. I do not claim to be any kind of expert, or any kind of hero, and do not presume that I am necessarily a typical sample.

*I might well have fired sooner, but waited until a colleague, who had been behind the actor, moved safely out of my line of fire. Be aware of what is beyond one's target!

[Rex G]

I guess where we disagree is that you believe your peripheral vision is still there and I think tunnel vision is a physical construct of the pupil that limits the vision. But even considering this, my whole idea is that the hard focus on the front sight didn't seem to degrade my ability to see changes in the small tunnel of my vision.

The human eye has a lens. A camera has a lens. When I adjust the aperture of a camera lens to a smaller opening, the focal length of the lens remains the same, which means the angle-of-view remains the same. I believe that tunnel vision is not caused by the iris of the eye, but is caused by the brain.

[AMC]

Glenn....thanks. I was hoping someone would chime in with the scientific explanation for how the structure of the eye works. This was my understanding from my Neuroscience classes (26-27 years ago!) and the reading I've done​ on "Fight or Flight" response.

JustoneGun....I don't think anyone is saying they "plan" on being able to see a gun or knife fall from a suspects hand, or that they know they will, only that it's possible you might. Or might not. In my shooting, once my gun started going boom, detail of the bad guy faded away (of course, this was at night in a parking lot at 15 yards dimly lit by crappy sodium lights). I was shooting while moving laterally to cover, and the bad guy dropped out of my sights.....as he hit the ground face up...I could see the gun still in his hand.... pointing at me. I had apparently followed him to the ground with the muzzle....and shifted focus to him, all without any conscious thought. Training, I guess.

I just wanted to.comment, too, on the whole "shot in the hand" thing that we in LE have for years believed was due to "focusing on the threat" and shooting toward the threat. I have never believed this. The gun is likely to be in front of the suspects center of mass somewhere....which is where we're shooting. It's between our gun and our "target", so to speak. Anyway, others MMV.

[Peally]

That's always how I've understood it. Hands get hit a lot because they're usually flailing in the way.

[BehindBlueI's]

Does that mean I can train to hard focus on the front sight and see the gun drop?

I'll ask again, why are you so hung up on "seeing the gun drop"? Are you sure you're asking the right question? Would the better question not be "how can I see the person is no longer a threat?"

The shoot house is a terrible place to figure this stuff out. The tenth time you're shot by a student, you are play acting, you aren't responding naturally. Watch dash cams and body cams and listen to the stories being related here. Show me one where "dropping the gun" was the sole signal the shooting could stop?

[octagon]

Very good thread with a lot of good information discussed in a mature,respectful way. This is why I support PF right here. I recently listened to this podcast with Rob Leatham and it is so very relevant to this discussion I hope everyone will listen to it when they can. It is almost like they were thinking of this thread when they had their discussion.

http://www.gunfightercast.com/wordpr...eatham-aiming/

I will ad a quick note on the hand hits also. I played the badguy a lot in Simunitions scenarios as I was a range officer and we usually planned the scenarios then played the badguy. I also got plenty of hand hits on me and saw plenty of others. What I didn't see is when the gun was not extended close to the center of the body there weren't hand hits nor when an edged or contact weapon was used and held above head or swung. This points to supporting the idea of hand hits because they are in the center of the body where people are focusing and intending to hit.

[fwrun]

I saw it all. Tunnel vision? No, wide-angle vision. It had to be wide-angle, because we were close; probably just beyond the distance for him to reach my GP100's muzzle

That's how I describe it to people. I recall aligning my sights in his T-Box, seeing the crisp outline of the front tritium vial, but I also saw him pulling out his man-purse, a silver 1911 in a full firing grip, and I saw it drop to the ground. I also recall seeing lights turn on inside a house that was 20ft to my left, about as close to 90 degrees as you can get. Seemed like a wide angle lens that captured the whole scene in the most HD picture I've ever seen, and the guy was no more than 6-8 ft from me.

[JustOneGun]

I'll ask again, why are you so hung up on "seeing the gun drop"? Are you sure you're asking the right question? Would the better question not be "how can I see the person is no longer a threat?"

The shoot house is a terrible place to figure this stuff out. The tenth time you're shot by a student, you are play acting, you aren't responding naturally. Watch dash cams and body cams and listen to the stories being related here. Show me one where "dropping the gun" was the sole signal the shooting could stop?

I'm personally not hung up on it. I can't see it. If you say you can see it then fair enough, we can agree to disagree. Or we can chalk it up to people being genetically different. But people talk about things and say, "Oh you can't see it". Then they go right ahead and make decisions as though they can see it. Or they make decisions where their decision only makes sense if indeed they could see it happen at the same time as they are shooting.

Now I'm not saying you personally are doing that. I have no way of knowing. But I've seen plenty of people make silly decisions. Sometimes, depending on how the gunfight evolves, it is a big fat, "Meh" didn't matter. But sometimes through no fault of our own gunfights happen were our decisions do matter.

One big example is that last big thread where I think we agreed to disagree. And no I don't think I'll change your mind.

We talk about making a decision to shoot or no shoot and then we transfer our vision to our selected target while presenting the gun. We talk about that as though it is a step one then step two. But we actually turn that into one procedure and do both at the same time. Then we start going down a road to fix it using hardware instead of thinking about what we are doing wrong in the first place. The sad part about that is making that two procedures is quite easy. One was I've already written about. I'm sure there are plenty of other techniques to solve that problem.

And as has been written in this thread there are other things about that small nuance that can have negative outcomes.

[JustOneGun]

Very good thread with a lot of good information discussed in a mature,respectful way. This is why I support PF right here. I recently listened to this podcast with Rob Leatham and it is so very relevant to this discussion I hope everyone will listen to it when they can. It is almost like they were thinking of this thread when they had their discussion.

http://www.gunfightercast.com/wordpr...eatham-aiming/

I will ad a quick note on the hand hits also. I played the badguy a lot in Simunitions scenarios as I was a range officer and we usually planned the scenarios then played the badguy. I also got plenty of hand hits on me and saw plenty of others. What I didn't see is when the gun was not extended close to the center of the body there weren't hand hits nor when an edged or contact weapon was used and held above head or swung. This points to supporting the idea of hand hits because they are in the center of the body where people are focusing and intending to hit.

Obviously not everyone did that. But it happened everyday I was the bad guy. I often had the pistol in me left hand. It almost went away when we explained it to people to make that two procedures. At the end before retirement I didn't get hit that often in the hand. FYI I often brought the pistol from low behind the back and swung it out. I've hold it high by my shoulder but no where near center mass. It was a definite problem for some people. But it was an easy fix.

[JHC]

Very good thread with a lot of good information discussed in a mature,respectful way. This is why I support PF right here. I recently listened to this podcast with Rob Leatham and it is so very relevant to this discussion I hope everyone will listen to it when they can. It is almost like they were thinking of this thread when they had their discussion.

http://www.gunfightercast.com/wordpr...eatham-aiming/

.

That was really superb. Thanks.