You’d think it would be simple. Probably was at one time when father’s would train their children. Well, for years parents have been encouraged to abdicate education to the state... enough said.
Try cleaning a firearm when totally s-faced, it's real easy to have an AD that way and I lot of people do just that.
There is really just a few. All firearms are loaded, until you have proven to yourself otherwise. Always keep the end that goes bang pointed in a safe direction, so if it goes bang damage will be minimized. Always know what's downrange and beyond, if someone is downrange and takes fire, they just might shoot back and aim better than you did.
It’s requiring that the trigger finger stays out of the trigger guard and planted above it unless the decision to fire has been made.
Yea I figured that, that's LEO sort of training where the threat of a lawsuit is a greater threat to a department than the loss of a LEO. This is proper defensive trigger control, safety off, finger on the trigger ready to fire, not a panicked trigger pull where the finger drops off the trigger guard slaps the trigger, probably screwing up the aim and maybe causing a hit on to the wrong person.
If your adversary is at 15 feet or less, trigger slap really doesn’t matter as long as you don’t anticipate the shot and pressure on the trigger is straight to the rear. You can test this yourself at the range. At 3-5 yards, put two hands on the gun, point the gun at the target, then slap the trigger straight back. Try it both with and without using the sights. You are not going to get bullseye accuracy, but you will get combat effective hits on a man-sized target. Use of sights and trigger control become more important as the distance to the target gets further. Police officers necessarily carry guns in their hands as a precaution or to cover suspects. They move on unfamiliar ground, often in darkness. Fellow officers and innocent citizens are often in proximity to the officer with a gun in his hand. For all of those reasons, I think keeping the trigger finger off the trigger until you have decided to fire is essential. It really isn’t as important with a double action revolver or a double action first shot semi like on a Beretta 92, but it is essential on a semi with a short trigger travel and much fewer pounds of pressure needed to fire the gun. You’re right that government wants to avoid liability, but more importantly, LEOs have a moral duty not to shoot negligently, wounding or killing innocent people. So the trigger finger discipline we require just goes with the job. Police officers volunteered for the job, and this is the way it has to be, and if they can’t deal with it, they are in the wrong profession. My
Nope you can slap the trigger on a shotgun shooting skeet, you always pull the trigger on a handgun. I don't use sights, I partially use a front sight and a perfect aim is always critical. Bull get off by a few inches and your shot effectiveness is greatly reduced and the chance of hitting something you didn't want to is greatly increased, when you are being shot at the shooter is seldom standing exposing his entire body, that's Hollywood BS, sometimes the only shot you can get is a exposed arm or leg of half a face and those are some small targets to be "slapping" a trigger at. More BS, trigger control is always important and again it's not sights it's sight as in front sight.
Depending on the operator, I would suggest, keeping your finger off the trigger until you’ve made the decision to shoot, is a good policy for two reasons. The first is I have witnessed an unintentional discharges twice during movement, one while hunting and once in a fight, that we’re likely the product of a misstep (a good thing to know and practice proper movement), both times no one was hit. The second reason is under high adrenaline for anyone, the effects of spiking adrenaline can have effect on the ability for precise physical/mental control, particularly for those that have never had the high spiking that comes with their first life/death experience and while mitigated by intensive training, still can have an unexpected effect (often seen in a 20/20). I am a huge believer in continual training, but it’s hard to build in simulated stress in training to provide some level of acclamation to the effects of adrenaline rushes, but that kind of training can be had, though it is not generally part of the training regime of most. As for LEOs, many agencies don’t provide, IMO, adequate budgets to properly train and prepare those the expect to be superhuman on the job subject to the armchair critical review of those that would never put themselves in danger to serve, but never the less feel somehow ultimately qualified to render ‘expert’, often biased judgement. BTW, I am a big believer in continually changing scenarios using simunition.
Partially agree. If an adversary is close but well covered, presenting only a small piece of himself, then that is like firing at a bigger target that is a considerable distance away. In that case, sights and trigger control matter a lot more. For a long time I believed just as you do about trigger control. All of my early training emphasized it. So sure was I of my stance that I actually resisted any doctrine that contradicted it. It took a lot of convincing and experimentation to prove me wrong. I am very accurate with a pistol at extended ranges when I can take my time, line up the shot, and slowly press the trigger with no anticipation of the shot. I totally understand that skill and its value. In those situations where the target is small or far away, trigger control and sight picture are essential. It’s different with different shooters, but for me, the necessity to at least use the front sight and slow down on the trigger begins at around 5-7 yards. But most police shootings happen at 3 yards or less and the necessity of speed outweighs the need for perfect accuracy. I challenge you to go to the range sometime and try it out for yourself. Fire from 2, 3, 4, and 5 yards. Start with the trigger finger straight and above the trigger guard and focus on the target, not sights (Heresy!) Then move your trigger finger to the trigger and fire as fast as you can recover from the recoil. Try it with one shot, then 2, etc, up to a whole magazine. Another exercise would be to start at 1 yard with the gun in the holster, draw, present, and fire as fast as you can while simultaneously moving backwards until the magazine runs empty and then check your work. Don’t use sights, and don’t worry about trigger control. Focus on the target. You can also try it at about 3 yards while sidestepping laterally instead of moving backwards. The correlation to reality is to imagine your adversary suddenly pulls a gun or charges with a knife. I think you may surprise yourself. Believe me, I was very set in my ways and hard to persuade until I was willing to work with it. I can shoot a 1 inch group all day long at 5 yards, aligning the sights, and using good, careful trigger control. Fast, target-focused shooting at that range results in 6 shots in a centered 6 inch group in 3 seconds or less, and that is slower than other shooters I know. When time is of the essence, at close range, this works. Try it for yourself sometime.
I agree, but in defensive shooting I am a believer that one must be ready to shoot once the target is located and identified. The time difference from finger on the trigger or finger on the trigger guard is the difference from shooting to being shot. The other guy is not worried about an AD, all he wants to do is win and stay alive, as such becoming equal to the criminal is survival, rules are for losers. Well known factors and very hard to get enough training to get out of. However lets step back to the early 80's, long before the concept of finger on the trigger guard came along. Pembroke Pines Florida, a domestic disturbance call went out, first unit on the scene was a young officer with 14 months on patrol, the department issued .38 revolvers, but a officer could buy his own firearm and if he qualified with it, he could carry that as a service firearm, the officer was carrying a government model .45 ACP. This location already had numerous DD dispatches and it was known firearms where in the apartment or held by WM living there. When the first unit arrived it was noticed the front door was open, inside there was a lot of yelling and screaming, the officer entered and ID'ed himself, he noticed a heavyset WM holding a heavyset WF by the hair and was trying to drag her into a bedroom, seeing the officer the WM let go of her pulled a gun and fled into another bedroom on the opposite end of the apartment, the WF was screaming "my kids are in there." A second 2 man unit arrived, the WF who was intoxicated was removed from the apartment, the first unit, gun drawn ordered the WM to come out of the room, that order was answered with a single shot fired in the officers direction. The WM went to take a second shot and was shot in the right forearm causing him to drop his gun, he was again ordered to exit the room, he then leaned slightly out of the door and attempted to pick up the gun with his left hand. A single shot to his head ended the conflict. Conclusion. It was ruled a justified shooting, however the officer was disciplined for not waiting for a supervisor to arrive and for endangering the children in the room. He resigned from the department and never went back into law enforcement again. I know that guy and never for a single second was his finger on the trigger guard, lots of stress, body pumped full of adrenaline and shots only placed where they needed to be. But back then there was no real training, those who where into it, trained themselves, others just wrote reports.
Come out to my range and lets give all of that a try. I didn't move out of the middle of nowhere to have to bother ever going to a public range again and put up with their rules, I built my own out here and have since added a couple of old vehicles to work with for tactical training and it can be used day or night. I train for fun and to win.
Nice! In the example you gave of the shooting at the DD, I would argue that once the suspect fired the first shot, the gunfight was in progress, even if there were a couple of breaks in the action of a few seconds until it was finally over. In the same situation, I’m sure I’d be touching the trigger too.
Your comment in the your subsequent post, that you train to ‘win’ is something often not conveyed in training. IMO, It is a necessary mindset in a fight. Once the hammer, figuratively drops, if you have a mindset to just survive, you may not. Once a fight starts, IMO, you must make a commitment to win to win or else there is likely to be hesitation, momentary indecision, uncertainty..... it’s a hard thing to learn. Regarding your ‘conclusion’, I can understand the fellow departing service. Being judged by an arm chair ‘expert’ who wasn’t present, likely politically biased and whose life isn’t on the line would be frustrating to me. No one is a greater critic of my actions than I am, and hopefully in my self criticism, I learn. But, being judged by such an arm chair type, IMO, can have the unintended (you’d hope unintended) of installing ingredients for self doubt, hesitation, etc. that have potential for a deadly result on the officer and, worse, on those innocent that would be collateral to his being shot in such an encounter. There is realty based evaluation of a shooting and then there is a comparison to an unobtainable ideal by those with no experience. While adrenaline can have adverse effects on performance, I have experienced situations where I acted far more quickly and precisely that in hindsight, I have trouble understanding how I could have done what I did. While, I have had more than one such incident, the one that always comes to my mind, is being ambushed where a fellow stepped up behind me, put a PPK to my head and pulled the trigger. Some how I not only realized I didn’t die, but was able to snatch the gun away, but realized, in in that fraction of a second, it was a PPK, and likely didn’t have a round chambered. I didn’t make his mistake. I still can’t explain what I did. It was a moment of unrepeatable clarity of mind and action. I have seen some of the like with others when witness you are left with that, how was that possible? Thought.
Installing the safety in the trigger is like installing the brake in the gas pedal. I prefer an external thumb safety.
On the Glock the trigger safety makes any decision to pull the trigger a 'definitive' one. You cant partially commit to pulling the trigger so it reduces the chances of a UD.
That is great. Now add an ambidextrous external thumb safety and you’ve convinced me to buy one. I already have 3 from my early gun buying years. They don’t get used often. I prefer Smith & Wesson M&P 9 with external thumb safety. I love that gun so much I have four of them. 2 full sized and 2 smaller.
To each his own according to his own tastes, myself it's single and/or double action hammer fired autos and double action revolvers, the ONLY types I conceal carry. I have several striker fired autos but use them strictly as range guns since I don't fully trust their safety for concealed carry. Yes, yes, I know they're as "safe" as any with proper training.... but having an acquaintance with a unfortunate fellow who's missing his left nut curtesy of a striker that went off in appendix carry, WITH ALL SAFETIES ENGAGED, well I'll pass, thank you.
Colt series 80 systems have a real nice and simple way to prevent hat from happening with SA firearms.
