I have several problems to highlight with this article:
First most of the information is taken as it regards to police officers in firefights. And contrasting the FBI data on average distance for example, it should be noted police shootings are very different from civilian shootings.
Police are often involved in shootings around vehicles during traffic stops. The distance they stand away during most felony stops for example is easily 20+ feet.
Even when engaged in a fire fight during a regular traffic stop, they are often more feet away than a civilian being confronted by a bad guy.
Further Police approach most stops as a potential life and death situation. Often times resting thier hand on thier gun when uneasy (or just for retention), ready and willing to take action quickly. Those same attitudes and actions are not conductive for normal day to day activities for most civilians, and in fact doing things like touching your gun will get you into trouble (implied threat, and now known to be carrying.)
Most police shootings involve criminals trying to use force in an escape. While a criminal using force against a citizen will often involve offensive force, with them advancing rather than fleeing.
Another problem is the source of the data. If you choose to focus on compiling statistics on just the officers who won, you will not necessarily simply find what actions worked, but rather what factors were or were not in play that acted against them.
Two officers may have reacted exactly the same, but one may have first had a hostile action by the opponent from a couple feet, and the other from a couple dozen feet.
Also the data tends to focus purely on the officers, leading to the assumption some did the right thing that had good results, and others did not. While the other individual attacking them is just as big a part of the scenario. There is criminals of a wide range of skill sets, training, and mindsets. Case in point, some like the North Hollywood individuals, or those of the 1986 FBI Miami shootout may have trained, be cool under fire, and advance upon the officers. Individuals that keep coming and delivering accurate fire even after multiple rounds penetrate thier body and they have received fatal injuries.
In fact in light of the drug cartel violence coming over the border, and incidents mentioned by LEO, some even work in fire teams as a group while under fire.
While many others will fire while trying to flee, leaving more of the deciding positioning to the officer, and drop from the first torso hit.
The very same officer reacting the very same way could have entirely different outcomes facing different opponents.
Would that make one action the wrong action and one the right action?
The distances, and the way one handles themselves as police officer and civilian before a threat has actually materialized, and how the criminal responds to both is very different. Criminals are trying to get away from the officers, while they are trying to advance on thier civilian victims.
Officers also initiate most encounters, so while not knowing what to expect, they do know when the potential of danger will be there within a few seconds most of the time: When they are making that stop, approaching the vehicle, searching for that criminal, chasing him and he turns, etc
Citizens forced to defend themselves, even the most alert are approached by the criminal, and only the criminal knows if they will be a threat and when. The criminal initiates the action, and thier victim responds.
That same suspicious person in a parking lot that could rob you may also walk right past you. The guy that may be coming to victimize you may just ask a question (and may proceed to victimize you or walk away.) Yet treating them like a threat, going for your weapon, or even acting hostile in all such situations would be very likely to get you into trouble as a civilian. Yet not doing so means if thier first action puts you out of commission, they will win the fight. Thier first action may be the first thing that even exposes them as a legally justifiable threat.
So there is very different criteria, legal requirements, and odds for police and civilians.
Officers are more in an offensive position, even though they shoot defensively, while citizens are in more of a defensive position. There is always some advantage, even if it can be negated, given to the offensive side.
Since society expects very different behavior from police and other citizens before an obvious threat has shown itself, and they must conduct themselves with very different attitudes, and actions in society. Since they deal with criminals on a very different level, and must react to potential but not identified threats very differently under the law, I find much of the information and statistics concerning police only mildly valuable. The officer can draw thier weapon in light of a potential threat and be ready, the civilian cannot even touch thiers until there is a clear threat.
The average armed criminal has the advantage against most armed civilians(in public, not in the civilian's home), and a disadvantage against most police officers for exactly those reasons.
The only things that really apply in most of the article are the sight color, ease of use, and mentality once a threat exists.
I did find this quite interesting though:
The most dramatic wound that I ever personally saw involved a woman who was shot in the head by a .357 Magnum. I was a patrol deputy and responded to a public housing project on the report of a shooting. I arrived at the same time as the medic crew and found a white female sitting on the sofa with a dimpled hole in her forehead.
There was a similar wound on the back of her head. As I spoke to her at the scene (to find out who shot her, not to further my personal research) I was told that she had been in an argument with her live-in boyfriend when he picked up a snub-nosed .357 revolver and shot her in the forehead. She advised that her head, "Slammed back and I fell back onto the sofa. I have been sitting here ever since. I have a big head ache." It later turned out that the 158-grain jacketed semi-wadcutter bullet used in the shooting had spilt the lobes of her brain finer than any surgeon could have hoped to. The bullet left a hole in the rear of her skull, which was patched in some way. This victim was released from the hospital and then refused to testify against her boyfriend. ("I still love him.") He was prosecuted anyway. This incident remains one of the strangest things that I have ever seen.
A round more powerful than most semi-auto defensive calibers taken right to the brain, manages to do little harm, and the person then proceeds to coherently talk about the situation before being taken to the hospital.
Wow.
