Call me crazy, but I am a FIRM believer that night sights are wasted money (unless you shoot low-light IDPA or otherwise). I for one, just black out my rear dots and put orange paint on the front dot. Should the situation arise that you need to pull your gun and fire on an assailant, I've been told by several people involved in actual shootings, that the sights are pretty much pointless. Adrenaline is too severe to overcome. YMMV
I keeping hearing that excuse for not using sights in a gun fight.
Let's look at why that's actually a lame excuse:
1) It is true that on average law enforcement hit percentages are around 20% - and a big factor in this is a failure to use their sights in real world shoots.
That failure is partly because law enforcement officers are usually not recreational shooters and are not really what we'd call gun people.
As an example, one study comparing police officers to novice shooters found that LEO recruits that had competed a formal training program shot with 87%, 38% and 14% accuracy at 1-3 yards, 6-16 yards and 20-25 yards respectively on a head and torso sized target. In comparison, police recruits identified as novice shooters who had only handled a firearm once or twice in their life demonstrated percentages of 75%, 28% and 6% at the same ranges. Those differences in accuracy are all that a formal training program achieves - under ideal range conditions.
One of the more interesting findings was that the novice shooters demonstrated a much higher percentage of head shots at 1-3 yards. That's something to think about when you consider that 65% of LEOs who are shot, are shot at 10 yards or less. The study's finding that novices go for head shots at close range supports data on LEO gunshot fatalities that indicates 3 out of 5 slain officers are shot in the head. More to the point, it also means that the 12% "improvement" in accuracy at 1-3 yards and much of the 10% improvement at 6-15 yards demonstrated by LEOs who have completed a formal training program is just a product of learning to shoot center of mass.
In the real world under stress, people will devolve to their lowest level of mastered training, and for the "expert" officers above, that will still mean pointing the pistol in the general direction of the target and spraying rounds. At 1-3 yards that might be enough, but at 10-15 yards, they'll be skipping rounds all over the neighborhood and police accuracy statistics support that conclusion.
2) Better training does make a difference.
Baltimore County PD for example demonstrated a 64% hit rate in real world day light shootings and 45% in low light conditions. That's much better than the 18% national average over all.
3) Officers can literally afford to miss, while an armed citizen cannot.
If you are an LEO and you shoot civilian, either as collateral damage or as a mistake of fact shooting, the department gets sued, but if your shoot is ruled a good shoot, you're not going to be held criminally or civilly liable.
That is most definitely not what happens when an armed citizen has a mistake of fact shooting or hits a by stander. The court does not give an armed citizen the great deal of latitude it extends to an LEO after a MOF shooting and the odds are good you'll be charged. Similarly, you'll be sued in civil court.
As an armed citizen you own the liability of each and every bullet you fire from the time it leaves the barrel until it comes to a full and complete stop. Accuracy needs to matter to you. If it does not, you need to leave your hand gun in its holster, or better yet, leave it home.
4) Some people perform better than others under extreme stress.
Most folks who have been shot at will tell you that time seems to slow down. Where the differences lie in what different people are able to do with that greater perceived time. There's no way to really know how you'll react until you've been there, but again better training helps. Things that you've done so often that they are ingrained in your reflexive muscle memory will still be largely intact.
If you've practiced drawing, bringing the pistol into your line of sight and ensuring the front sight is on target long enough and often enough you'll still do that under extreme stress. You probably will not check sight alignment beyond whether the front sight is on the spot you want to bleed but again, repetition is your friend. Over thousands of rounds your hand knows exactly how the muscles have to be to align the front and rear sights, and it'll do that even if you're not looking.
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In short, way too many people hear that officers seldom report using their sights in a gun fight and then mistakenly conclude sights are of no use in a gun fight, because they don't understand the training and experiential limitations that result in officers seldom using their sights.
Personally, I view night sights as virtually essential on a concealed carry handgun. I am no longer an LEO and I no longer go into dark and scary places looking for bad guys with guns. And even then, I waited for backup. As an armed citizen I have zero reason to go poking into dark and scary laces for guys with guns - and I still call for back up - in the form of the local police department.
As an armed citizen ai do not carry a bat belt full of every day carry gear, and only infrequently do I carry a tactical light. More to the point, if I'm out and about and I need a tactical light, I've screwed up badly and should not be where ever I am. If I have a light on me it's in anticipation of normal need a flash light purposes.
If I encountered a self defense situation (outside the home) there would not be time to employ the light anyway, since those events happen very quickly.
That is where night sights add value. When you are confronted with a imminent threat out in the real world it happens fast, and you need to be able to draw and fire in the limited time available. Night sights will enable you to still put the front sight on target, and that gives a well trained shooter a distinct advantage.
If you want to give up that advantage, or if you're not trained well enough to have that advantage, then that's 100% on you.
