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Now some will say that with that many rounds being fired that there was a lack of marksmanship. For those that say that, they have never been in a gun fight.
I had a chance years ago to watch a police training exercise. This was in the old days of the Smith Model 10 and the PPC. One of the stages concentrated on during that day was twelve rounds in twenty-five seconds.at a standard silhouette target, no speed loaders allowed. It wasn't unusual to see officers miss the complete silhouette fifty percent of the time and struggle to make the time. Ordinary scores rarely exceeded more than sixty-five to seventy-five percent hits. Maybe two of the sixty or so officers were hitting in the eighty percent range with bullet holes scattered all over the silhouette with only one real shooter in the mix. After fifteen or so seconds he was standing around with a holstered revolver, and you could have covered his group with a teacup. Instead of the jerky movements of the others, he looked like the slowest man out there, running at what appeared half-steam, almost bored other than the wicked smile at the end.
This kind of shooting couldn't have had the pressure of a life and death situation, but still the nervousness was palpable. They shot in front of their peers. Scores were recorded. The range officer screamed almost nonstop. An accident on his watch was going to be a real black on his career.
From my limited experience, which mostly amounts to recounted stories, and the small amount I've personally seen and done, throw the tiniest amount of emotion in, and ordinarily expected levels of marksmanship disappear for most of us. So how do we prepare for that?
One answer is to accept that you're going to fall to pieces, get the largest capacity weapon you can carry, and back it with as many high cap magazines as you can carry. Likely, you're going to face the encounter at a disadvantage from the start, your antagonist starting gun in hand. Unless you've spent an awful lot of time practicing your draw, you're unlikely to be able to get a shot off in under two seconds. How many rounds can your opponent put in the air against you in those two seconds? Seven? Eight? More?
If your accepted strategy is that you can't hit under those emotional pressures, and your first two seconds is dedicated to filling the air with flying bullets, how many more chances have you just given him? Criminals are documented as on average being notoriously poor shots, but I wouldn't rate chances of surviving four or five seconds at typical gunfight ranges under the fire of a high capacity semi-auto as good.
Knowing what you need to make the hit, or even if you can, under the emotional pressures, the available light, the distance, and the size of the target seems enormously important. If your opponent is shooting from good cover, and you don't think you can hit what little is exposed, it might be a better response not to shoot at all but to dive for cover or run.
If I'm presented with a full-sized human target at room-length distances, I'm going to believe I can hit him. When nothing discernable happens, I'm going to believe I made a hit but under the conditions it wasn't evident. There seems to be an enormous psychological difference in believing you're finishing with insurance shots rather than the panicked, "I missed. What do I do next?" I'm not sure how you can fully prepare for this phenomenon without having seen a lot of things hit, knowing it exists may be a start. When the counting is done, if a few of my shots proved misses, that just means the delivery system was human and not a machine. Confidence, is extraordinarily important, provided that confidence is based upon a realistic assessment of skills and not arrogance.
Shooting well under pressure is a learned experience. It's an important first step to appreciate what pressure does to you, but I don't think you should stop there, accepting that a high level performance just isn't possible. There's no guarantee in real world conditions that you'll see the threat coming and get the chance to fire the first shot., but if you're serious about staying alive you want to train until you believe you can make that first shot count. Every miss reduces your capacity to fight, every second gives your assailant more time to kill you.
Don't mistake any of this as speaking against high capacity weapons. I just suggest that the bulk of training be placed on quick, accurate shooting and not assume that filling the air with misses will solve your problems. Suppose you hold a weapon with a twenty round magazine and you have a couple of spares. How long would it take a halfway trained man to expend every round? Doing so might put your opponents to flight and solve everything. If it doesn't, you're holding an empty weapon, while trying to remember typical police response time in your area.
If you need a bit of a confidence bolster, remember this: we're Americans. We've had a long and bloody history. Those men who shot straight lived to have children. You're born of that tradition.