Why Learn Sight Shooting first?

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okjoe

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When reading "self defense" web threads, I occasionally note that both Sight Shooting and Point Shooting advocates say it is best to learn Sight Shooting first. I find that troubling, because Sight Shooting is NOT used in most all CQ self defense situations. And it is in CQ self defense situations where one is MOST likely to be shot and/or killed.

That is the truth of the matter as backed up by scientific investigations, and studies like the NYPD's SOP 9 study of 5,000+ police combat cases. And I have yet to come across scientific data/studies which refute them.

If you plan to use Sight Shooting for CQ self defense, then in all likely hood, you will end up with nothing in your hand but a lethal noise maker if you are ever faced with a CQ life threat.

The only saving grace is that since most everyone has been taught Sight Shooting for self defense, in a real CQ life threat situation, most everyone will default to Spray and Pray shooting, and the hit rate will be the norm for armed encounters (less than 20%). As a result, unless one is unlucky, there is a very good chance that he/she will come away unscathed.

As to the dismal hit rate of < 20%, it is often attributed to Instinctive Shooting or Point Shooting being used in armed encounters. Whether or not such statements are true, they acknowledge that Sight Shooting is not used in real CQ life threat situations. Yet seldom if ever is there a call for Point Shooting training with proficiency testing as a practical and realistic alternative.

If the hit rate was a concern, you would think that something would be done about it, other than just making "official" pronouncements like "One must use the sights to insure that each shot goes where intended."

As to learning Sight Shooting first, nowadays, most young people already know how to Sight Shoot. For example, our grandsons and their friends Sight Shoot when using an airsoft pistol. And our grandsons did that from the get go, they didn't need to be taught. They just did it, and with good results.

As they are typical teens, I suspect the same is true for most all teens.

And I attribute that to years and years of watching movies and TV shows, playing electronic and video games, and interactive play.

Now, as a Point Shooting advocate, I have suggested that they try Point Shooting. I have told them why, and even showed them how, but to no avail. Brainwashing works, and peer pressure/acceptance rules.

However, I will continue my effort's, because in a CQ life threat situation, the truth is that instinctive shooting will be used in most all cases. So developing proficiency in Point Shooting, will better insure their survival.

Point Shooting employs our instinctive abilities and large muscle groups, both of which can be very effective in CQ life threat situations.

It is simple and easy to learn with little or no training. And once learned, little training or practice is required to maintain one's proficiency.

Point Shooting can fill the void when Sight Shooting can't be used because of poor lighting, or when there is no time to use the sights and squeeze the trigger, or when fine motor skills, which are needed for Sight Shooting, are lost to use in a CQ life threat situation.

However, Point Shooting does not just happen by magic. Learning it is like learning how to ride a bike or tie your shoes. Impossible tasks until done. But once mastered, they become automatic, and can be done with little conscious thought.

That is not the case for a Sight Shooter. The eyes and mind of a Sight Shooter in a life threat situation, will be bound up and struggling to try and do several things at the same time, some of which may not be able to be done due to environmental conditions, or because of the activation of the SNS. Those several things include: threat identification, making shoot - no shoot decision/s, achieving a proper stance and/or grip, bringing the gun to bear on a stationary or moving target, and also literally finding and attempting to focus on the gun sight/s.

It is no wonder, at least to me, why in most CQ life threat situations, instinctive shooting is defaulted to.

By contrast, the trained Point Shooter's eyes and mind will be free to identify the threat, and if needed use of a very simple and effective method of shooting. Stance, grip, trigger manipulation, and the use of the sight, will not be requirements for success.

Point Shooting is not a bar to Sight Shooting if conditions and circumstances allow and permit the use of Sight Shooting.

I believe that Point Shooting and in particular P&S, should be the basis of any self defense shooting program, and not an afterthought.

P&S is the simplest of Point Shooting methods, and does not rely on establishing a body index, or the use of peripheral vision, or an aim point.

Here are links to 3 papers that provide information on what happens in life threat and high stress situations. They support the use of Point Shooting.

http://www.emich.edu/cerns/download...llness/Survival Stress in Law Enforcement.pdf

Survival Stress in Law Enforcement by Steve Drzewiecki of the Traverse City Police Department

http://www.cji.net/cji/CenterInfo/lemc/papers/Darin Clay.pdf

Understanding the Human Physiological and Mental Response to Critical Incidents by Lt. Darin M. Clay

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/fbi/percep_distort.pdf

Perception and Memory Distortion During Officer-Involved Shootings by Alexis Artwohl, Ph.D.
 
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in the civilized world, you learn sight-shooting sometime between age 5-8, long before point-shooting for SD is appropriate.
 
Sight shooting is taught first because:

1. It is a "throw back" to the popular SPORT of target shooting.
2. Sight shooting is easier to explain, if not to teach, than point shooting.
3. Sight shooting also lends itself to bulls-eye targets and other "scored" targets that make it easy for a training department to rate a trainee.

Properly taught, point shooting should begin with the use of very large targets shot from very short range. The reason for this is that the trainee MUST be able to receive the visual feedback from his hits that help him to correct his aim and develop the "muscle memory" required by the technique (actually there is more to it than muscle memory but that is a good starter term). This feedback needs to be virtually instantaneous. If you misplace a shot from 15 yards using sights you learn the sight picture was wrong but you have learned an intellectual fact that requires analytical corrections to be made on the next shot. With point shooting the trainee must learn a reflex correction - not an analytical correction. Therein lies the whole reason point shooting is faster than ANY other technique at appropriate ranges. The aiming instruction goes rapidly from eye to hand with very little brain involvement. This is no more than the techniques of almost any martial art applied to firearms.

Trainees MUST learn sight techniques after their point shooting is competent. Sight shooting will be needed and the shooter will unconciously learn to decide when sight shooting is more appropriate than point shooting.

After that, shooting with telescopic sights and laser sights will come easily since the mind puts the firearm almost on target and the sights provide a final correction and confimation.

It really is very simple to learn to point shoot if you start in the correct way.
 
The longest journey starts with the smallest step.

---------------------
In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it than for the lovely, perfect weed-fringed lake you see across the sun-baked salt plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is there absolutely true, beautiful and believable.

Ernest Hemingway
 
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Tallpine,

6-8 hours and you would be on your way, another 6-8 and you own it forever. I was explaining this to one of my last students who could not believe that could be true before he got here.

I expressed the opinion that shooting was easy [ to hit whatever you wanted ] and just plain fun, that people made it too difficult and too complicated for the most part. He got out here and in some 10 hours he was a shooter, and understood what I was talking about.

It takes confidence that you can hit anything you can see, Integrated Threat Focused Training instills that confidence in short time spans, the students reviews further support that.

It's not rocket science, but you do need to be shown by someone who themselves has the skills and then can impart them to others, fully understanding the nuances involved and being able to answer the students questions about the subject at hand.

Brownie
 
Trust me... when I was young and shooting rifles and bb guns, i was sight shooting. But when I got to the point in my youth where time was spent in arcades playing increasingly realistic shooting games (except for that cool sniper one), paintball, lasertag, etc., I was definitely point shooting. ANd got pretty darn good, if you ask. I'm sure there were many, many young men around my age that grew up with the same experiences and make darn good point shooters.

PS: My mall just got the coolest anti-terrorist shooting game that features 1:1 scale H&K MP5's, short barrel and everything, and even has the famous H&K select-fire trigger group, and recoils and everything! How cool is that! :D
 
I think it would be most efficient to lear PS first. Why? Well the student only has to focus on stance, grip and trigger squeeze. Worrying about sight picture can be hard to someone new on top of everything else and they often focus on sights to the detriment of the other fundamentals (jerking the trigger because the sights are on).

When you are a really good sight shooter, you don't actually line up the sights. The gun and sights are aligned on target due to highly coorinated muscle memory and you just verify alignment. By teaching PS first, the student gets body alignment right from the beginning, so when you add sighted fire in later, they are already in the verification mode.

As another poster stated, most people get taught sighted fire early on so it is usually a moot point. Applegate said if he had a very short period of time to train someone, he would teach them one handed sighted shooting. A way of giving them the best of both worlds at once I guess.
 
Pistol craft shouldn't begin with sight shooting or point shooting. It should begin by developing a kinesthetic awareness of the realtionship between the gun and the target face with no visual inputs at all with your eyes closed. The alignment is then confirmed with the sights. If you can't do that, you won't get far with either method. Just another point of view.
 
Scoot & Point-shoot

There is only one way to prepare for defensive shooting: scoot & point-shoot (as we were taught in our tactical shooting classes). I agree with the statement about begin with BB guns, then 22s, and onward and upward, learning instinctively to point-shoot. I think most people who shoot well (especially on-the-move) do point-shooting, but they may not know that it’s called such if they were not formally trained.

Doc2005
 
I'm one of Brownie's students. He's a no BS outstanding trainer! He came to Knoxville this April and taught me, my wife and several friends point shooting techniques that were beyond impressive. I have no problem saying that he taught us lifesaving skills that I'll carry with me all my life.
 
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I disagree with the thought that everyone knows now adays how to sight shoot. I am a Range Officer for the MTU pistol club. I will say that with out a doubt, 9 out of 10 shooters who come in the door do not know how to use sights. Even exerpeinced shooters are given the basic instructions on sight useage. I am surpised by the number who admit that this short lesson eliminated shooting problems they had been dealing with for years. I do practice point shooting of sorts, mainly drills where the target is 2-3 yards away or less. As for dealing with a charging opponet, step away perpendicular to the opponent and use sights. I have a problem with not knowing for sure where each bullet is going.
 
Everything is learned from simple to complex. Slow to fast, near to far.

Before you learn to walk, you learn to crawl. Before you learn to run you learn to walk. Shooting, any kind of shooting, just like h2h fighting has fundamentals you must learn first. Without those fundamentals you will never get good and may very well learn many bad habits that will inhibit you from progressing.

Trigger control comes from fundamentals. Grip, 'stance', breath control, on up to being able to lead a target all start with fundamentals.

If one cannot hit using a sight picture or trigger control that is learned from sighted fire how does one espect to hit without sights and no trigger control? You walk before you run, crawl before you walk.

Do not learn by doing the more difficult task first.
 
The discipline of point shooting is being able to make the firearm point where you want it to point regardless of what the rest of your body is doing. It is as if your head/eyes and your wrist/hand are somehow subliminally connected together by a linkage that makes them coordinate below the level of concious thought, like breathing or swallowing.

This linkage is established by proper practice. A safe shooter could teach himself. A beginner should find an instructor.

Deaf is right in saying that learning is a progression but shooting is an activity with many sub-techniques. It is not unreasonable to start with the basics of different techniques. Hopefully, if the instruction is good, the student ends up in the same place whichever route he follows.
 
Accurate sighted shooting is a fundamental baseline which establishes things like proper grip, firing technique - trigger manipulation and control - etc. In addition to these essential skills, this establishes the ability to make controlled shots with pinpoint accuracy at short ranges, and to a lesser extent out to medium ranges.

Jumping the gun here is not a good idea.

---------------------------------

http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates.org
 
Sight shooting teaches discipline and technique. Gotta walk before you can run, and like others have said, when teaching a child how to shoot, that's your only option.
 
The views in the four posts above are correct but too narrowly applied. There are distinct differences between stance, trigger control, grip and accuracy requirements in point and sighted shooting.

1. Sight shooting benefits from a solid stance. Point shooting, ultimately, accepts whatever stance the shooter was in when the shot was needed.
2. Sight shooting benefits from a controlled trigger squeeze. Point shooting requires a controlled trigger "mash".
3. Sight shooting benefits from a two handed grip. Point shooting accepts that this is not always possible.
4. Sight shooting emphasizes accuracy. Point shooting sacrifices fine accuracy in exchange for speed.

Sight shooting and point shooting are two branches of the same skill. Since they involve the mutually exclusive detail techniques listed above there is no reason to say that one technique must be learned before the other. Whichever technique is taught first will lead to easier learning of the other technique because, although the techniques are different, basic firearms confidence is instilled by training in either technique.

The important thing is that the shooter should eventually be skilled in both techniques. They complement each other not replace each other.

OS - There is a difference, see above. You may have practiced until the difference is not apparent but it is there.

LAK - We are not jumping the gun. This is like learning to drive in a stick-shift or an automatic. Either type of transmission is OK to learn in and gets the job done. You can always learn the other system later.

Xavier - There is absolutely no difference in whether the pistol is coming from the holster or from the ready. If you find a difference you are doing something wrong. The important thing is not where the pistol comes from but what it is doing when it settles on the target.

Keith - Agreed that you should not start a child with point shooting, not safe. It requires a certain amount of body and hand strength to point shoot. This is not present in most children.
 
Xavier - There is absolutely no difference in whether the pistol is coming from the holster or from the ready. If you find a difference you are doing something wrong. The important thing is not where the pistol comes from but what it is doing when it settles on the target.
Click to expand...
We will have to disagree. I find a big difference between the act of drawing from a holster and acquiring the target in my sights and acquiring the target in my sights from low ready. I do not think I am doing anything wrong. I carry my gun in a holster at 4:00 on my hip, not in my hands at a 45 degree downward angle in front of me. If you do not find a difference between low ready and a holstered gun, perhaps you should draw from the holster and shoot more often.
 
XavierBreath;

I find a big difference between the act of drawing from a holster and acquiring the target in my sights and acquiring the target in my sights from low ready

What differences do you find between the two? I'll profer the speed of presentation between them, the different combined muscle movements to get the muzzle on threat, propericeptive skills between them, any others?

Brownie
 
What differences do you find between the two? I'll profer the speed of presentation between them, the different combined muscle movements to get the muzzle on threat, propericeptive skills between them, any others?
Click to expand...

Brownie, you named three. That is quite a ways off from "absolutely no difference" as stated by shooter503.

I find that my time from buzzer to shots fired increases with a holster draw vs low ready. Why is this? From a holster one must acquire a grip on the gun. One must remove the gun from the holster without sweeping one's body. If a two handed grip is to be used, the weak hand must complete the grip on the gun. One must bring the sights to bear on the target.
From low ready, one must simply raise the gun and align the sights.
If there were no difference between the two, SWAT teams would enter buildings with holstered weapons.

Do I point shoot? Yes, and at 15 feet or so I am quite good at it, consistently hitting paper plates, from the holster, on the move. I recognize that past that point my accuracy and consistency peters out. I'm not against point shooting, but I do consider it to be advanced marksmanship.
 
"Because point shooting is easy, but scoring hits consistently while point shooting from the holster is not. Misses do not count."

Xavier - Excuse me pointing this out but in the first post, quoted above, you made no mention of SPEED to the shot, only the accuracy of the shot. If you now wish to talk about speed that is a different matter. Clearly a shot from the holster takes longer than a shot from the ready because there is more work to do, more movement.

However, at some point in the sequence, the motions of "drawing and aiming" and "aiming from the ready" become very similar. This must be true or we would be using different aiming techniques in both circumstances. The point at which this happens depends on an individual's technique. It is certainly by the time the pistol is roughly aligned with the target. My comment about no difference refers to actions at and after this point.

I stand by my point, after the activity of drawing or raising the arm from the ready is completed "The important thing is not where the pistol comes from but what it is doing when it settles on the target." The rest, as they say, is history.

Of course, I am somewhat intimidated about disagreeing with you because of your apparent telepathic ability. How else would you be able to provide such well-founded advice as "perhaps you should draw from the holster and shoot more often."

I believe I will follow your advice and pop off another hundred rounds this afternoon. Perhaps if I practice enough I , like you, could get quite good at it. Now I know that I have been setting myself against a task that requires advanced marksmanship I feel much less disappointed by my mediocre performance.
 
I'm not against point shooting, but I do consider it to be advanced marksmanship.

I would say that it is not so much advanced as it is a different way to accomplish the same goal [ put rds on threat when they need to be there ]. People tend to think of it as advanced for various sundry reasons, not the least of which is that most have not taken the time to train with someone who can get them to perform with applaum in short time spans, have tried what they believe to be pointshooting, suffered degenerative hits due to a lack of real knowledge and training in this sub category and then think it is harder than using the sighting method they have more experience in and thus have better results in their hit ratios.

Brownie
 
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