Jeff Cooper had talked about a combat triangle, or something tacticooly trianglish like that, where he claimed power speed, and accuracy were all equally important. Well, I believed it for a long time, until I found out how much he really knew about real gunfighting,
But first, if I may since you have obviously collected a lot of data, do you happen to have statistical information for the agencies, such as the LAPD, that push for sighted fire on the percentage of officers that are shot without ever drawing their weapon or that did draw it but never fired it compared to agencies that don't push it so hard? And also the percentage of officers that are taught to use their sights that actually do? Most of the agencies I've dealt with teach sighted fire at every distance but the officers themselves that have been in actual shootings admit that they didn't use them during the event, even though they intended to do so. The FBI doesn't collect all this information and it's hard to find.
Thank you.
Actually, the FBI summary of LEOs killed each year would have the info as to whether the officer was killed with his gun in his holster, returned fire but was still killed, etc.
Sighted fire has nothing to do with a quick and efficient draw stroke.
Jeff Cooper killed at least three men in combat, at close range, using a handgun, one of them had just opened fire on him with a sub-machine gun. That gives him far more experience than the average guy.
He also made a study of debriefing as many other combat veterans as he could, and had quite a few graduates of his school report back using his teaching successfully.
I never met the man, nor attended his school, but to say he didn't know anything about gunfighting is simply not true.
To throw even another variable into the mix, it is completely possible for an officer to have in fact used sighted fire and have no memory of the sights, just as they often have no memory of hearing their gun go off, having reloaded after the fact, etc.
I met a SWAT officer once who was involved in an entry where they were ambushed. This officer only remembers the point man going down from multiple leg hits, and having trouble getting a grip on the drag strap on the injured officer's vest to get him out of the line of fire.
This officer had not memory until well after the fact that he had emptied a 30 round mag on an MP5 and reloaded, shooting the bad guy numerous times.
Some info on memory distortion and other factors in deadly force events here;
http://www.forcescience.org/articles/stressreactions.pdf
Another study by the Force Science folks here on gaze patterns;
http://www.forcescience.org/fsinews...pattern-findings-mean-for-your-training-more/
With this clip from the article;
"Through innumerable repetitions they have developed a highly accurate feel—a strong kinesthetic sense—for raising their gun to a proper alignment without consciously thinking about it or making a pronounced visual or attentional shift to it. If you ran a laser beam from their eye to the target, it would shine right through their sights.
"Careful sight alignment was an important step in starting them toward that point of excellence. Experience and intensive training are ultimately what brought them there. Over a long time, they were able to transition from one emphasis to another. Yet even at their exceptional performance level, referencing the sights in some manner, however fleetingly or peripherally, was still part of their response in the type of rapidly unfolding encounter designed for this study."
