I guess without knowing if my attacker is wearing a vest, and I'm only armed with a 5 shot 38spl snubby I'm shootin for the belly/pelvis. Being gut shot will ruin your day and there is no skeletal structure there to slow or deflect the bullet.
And many think that their target shooting will give a reasonable indication of their "shot placement" in a use of force encounter.Seems some folks think their bullets will go exactly where they want, as they sit and sip a soda while on the computer...
Many people like to belittle police officers and to criticize their training, for that reason.Fact is that piles of research shows that most bullets miss their target, and hits rarely occur where intended.
Yes indeed.Given this very broad and general information, the upper torso is the obvious target. The skill is a small, fast moving round target - and as Deaf Smith pointed out - bullets are known to deflect and not penetrate. From any angle, the head is only flat/ideal for a target over perhaps a few inches diameter before it rounds and makes a poor target. Great if you score a penetrating hit, but scoring that hit is quite difficult.
Very true, and that is the answer to the question at hand.A point that is so obvious it's almost not worth stating, but the torso/COM offers you a 12" x 24" flat and soft target with a lot of organs, bones, and such that can quickly end a threat. Broken bones (ribs, hips, collar bone, shoulder joints, etc.) in and around that area are nearly debilitating for most people too, and certainly hinder attacks.
AMEN!As for "pausing to assess" - no thank you. Shoot until the threat stops.
Adopting a less effective aiming point based on assumptions bred from poorly trained people getting poor results just doesn't make sense to me. Why not train properly and aim at a more effective location getting both more and better hits? As an aside, I have yet to encounter any professional trainer teaching COM for close in fighting, nor have I seen any realistic target with a COM aim point. Even USPSA/IPSC/IDPA cardboard is center chest.
Practicing marksmanship on a square range has almost no coorellation to gunfight ability as evidenced by police officers qualifying "expert" and going on to miss 80-90% of the time.
A 2 day defensive handgun class, a 2 day advanced handgun class and a 2-3 day force on force class with the student effectively practicing what they learn will put them light-years ahead of the lowest common denominator statistics. That is only 48-ish hours of training, neither cost, nor time prohibitive spread out over a couple years.
That may be a reason that applies to some people, and it most probably is, but I would not take it any father than that.The reason for the high miss rate in real shootings is due to both the poor training (if any) and unsuitable (for a gunfight) training possessed by the ones doing the shooting.
I am not at all persuaded that trying to balance speed and precision in hitting the upper chest area of an violent attacker at close range constitutes in any way the adoption of a "less effective aiming point". It's not the right approach for hostage rescue, but people who do that do not train to "shoot at center mass".Adopting a less effective aiming point based on assumptions bred from poorly trained people getting poor results just doesn't make sense to me. Why not train properly and aim at a more effective location getting both more and better hits?
Posted by strambo:That may be a reason that applies to some people, and it most probably is, but I would not take it any farther than that.
First, there is this from Vern Humphrey: "...my experience is you can expect a 90% degradation in performance in combat".
Second, there is my observation about the video of Rob Pincus in the Gander Mountain Academy simulator, and that was simulated combat. People who do not subscribe to the PDN premium videos really should.
I am not at all persuaded that trying to balance speed and precision in hitting the upper chest area of an violent attacker at close range constitutes in any way the adoption of a "less effective aiming point". It's not the right approach for hostage rescue, but people who do that do not train to "shoot at center mass".
For what it's worth, I agree with everything that Jeff White said in his post above.
To the third point, in my first post of the thread, I said the OP was conflating COM with center of chest and many here still are including you. Center of mass is not center of chest!
Try this drill at the range on a human target at 20 feet. As the shooter, do 30 pushups and situps, run in place to work up a sweat, then pick up your gun and
safely wobble back and forth, side to side, and move up and down and around while you "aim" at the target, to simulate your stress and the attacker's movement. See where your hits land.
That thought crossed my mind.If you have time to aim for a target as small as the groin, then are you under enough threat to your life to shoot? Might be a hard sell to a prosecutor.