Availability and cost of firearms and ammunition continue to stress police budgets and training programs. Things are about as tight as anyone can remember and no improvement is in sight. This has prompted questions about how to make the most of what little is available. Suggestions I have been making regarding firearms training have included more emphasis on gun retention and disarming training, dry-fire practice and more use of simulators, if they are available. Still, nothing really takes the place of rounds down range.
One area that definitely needs attention, and can be addressed with less ammunition than the typical qualification session, is practicing a smooth draw and accurate first shot (or shots) on your target. In many law enforcement shootings that I have reviewed, there seemed to be a sense of urgency in simply shooting or returning fire as fast as possible, regardless of accuracy. That is, of course, understandable. If someone is threatening to kill you, you want to stop that threat quickly. However, rushing your shots usually also means that they don't go where they need to in order to accomplish that goal. How often have we see or heard of high round count shootings where most of the shots were either misses or peripheral, ineffective hits? We seem to think that shooting back quickly is sufficient. I'm suggesting that shooting back accurately is more important.
Since the days of the gunfights of the Old West (that's the real Old West not the sensationalized Hollywood version that most people are familiar with), there have been lessons to be learned from gunfight survivors. Wyatt Earp, for example, was a real gunfight survivor. Stuart Lake, Earp's rather star-struck biographer, had asked Earp how he had managed to escape being shot, despite all the times people had fired bullets at him in various gunfights, including at the O.K. Corral. Earp's answer, related in correspondence with Lake as he was writing the book "Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal," was a straight forward insight into how such things really work. Earp responded: "I SHOT them while they were shooting AT me." Earp emphasized lining up the fore-sight (front sight) with the back sight, before commencing to fire.
In more recent times, real gunfight survivors have tried to send us the same message. Bill Jordan, who was an icon for my generation and certainly an authority on the subject, quoted John Hughes, a famous Texas Ranger from the early 20th century, as saying: "Take your time quick." Jordan himself said: "Speed's fine. Accuracy's final." And that's coming from one of the fastest shooters that ever wore a badge.
Jim Cirillo and Bill Allard, partners in the old NYPD Stakeout Squad, both tell of their gunfights in different ways. One point they always agreed on, however, was that it was of paramount importance to line your sights up on your target, then start shooting. Bill Allard, in a recent interview on one of our Pro Arms podcasts said: "It isn't the person that breaks the first shot that wins the gunfight; it's the first person that places the first accurate shot in the opponent that walks away a winner. So don't rush. Speed doesn't win the gunfight; accuracy does. Accuracy is paramount; everything else is secondary." Bill shot more bad guys than any of the other unit members. He was never hit in any of those NYPD gunfights and was known as a "never miss" member of the team.
So, how do we translate this lesson into some range drills that reinforce the concept for today's potential gunfight participants? For one thing, you're going to need a range timer. A range timer is a good investment for all types of firearms training, whether owned by the agency or for individual personal training. In any case, it is the only way to accurately measure your progress at improving your speed. For now, however, the first step is to do some dry-fire drills.
Make sure your gun is unloaded and all ammunition is removed from the area. As always, safety is of paramount importance. Once the gun has been checked, and re-checked, holster the gun in your normal carry holster, be it a level-whatever retention duty rig or some type of concealment holster. You need to begin with slow, smooth drawing practice. The object is to make the smooth operation of your holster retention system or safety straps effortless and reflexive.
The late, great Ray Chapman, an engineer by trade and the first world champion pistol shooter, stated it best by saying: "Smoothness is 5/6ths of speed." If you practice for a smooth draw presentation, speed will follow. What you want to practice for now is a smooth draw to the first, accurate shot. By accurate I mean a hit on the cardiac complex or the components of the central nervous system. As your gun comes forward toward your target, align the sights with the appropriate target location and squeeze the trigger. Doing this as a dry-fire exercise first gives you the chance to hard wire the movement pattern, finishing with the sights aligned.
In many instances when cops try to shoot quickly, they start shooting before the gun is indexed on the target, resulting in hits to the legs, edges of the torso, or even complete misses. All of this wastes precious time in stopping the attack. It is far more efficient to take the extra fraction of a second to make sure the gun is indexed before pulling the trigger. This is a hard lesson to learn when the real fight starts. Serious, dedicated practice will habituate a smooth response when the time comes. Take the time to do the boring repetitions now. All it takes is time. Precious and scarce range ammo can be used more efficiently after you've got the movement pattern.
Once you have that, and it may take a few hundred repetitions, you can move on to live-fire drills. Here again, start slow and smooth. Speed will follow. Using the range timer, begin measuring your draw to first accurate shot times. Make sure they are good hits. Release the gun from the holster, bring it up, rotate it onto the target. Run the gun forward toward the target, aligning the sights as you go. Then put your finger on the trigger and squeeze the trigger straight back. You'll find that the time to your first accurate shot will improve dramatically, especially if your prior shooting technique involved hitting somewhere on the target and then "walking" the shots onto a spot where they actually need to be.
Some officers have told me that those first, less effective hits will at least be a distraction to the bad guy. Not necessarily. We had a shooting here a while back where the attacker, armed with a knife, was hit five times with 230 grain, .45acp Speer Gold Dot bullets. They were peripheral hits and, at least at first, he did not even realize that he had been shot. He stopped his attack in reaction to the realization that the officer was shooting at him, rather than from the effects of the hits. Granted, he now has some long term health consequences, but what matters is the immediate cessation of a violent attack. In this case, and many others like it, spraying bullets in the general direction of the threat isn't an effective resolution of the problem.
Using a shot timer will give you realistic feedback on your speed and the holes in the target will show you your accuracy. By practicing one-draw-to-one-shot drills, you'll find that you are consuming your ammo less feverishly that if you draw once and fire multiple rounds, as is common in most qualification courses. It makes more sense to have 60 draws and 60 accurate hits, instead of 6 or 8 draws and 60 shots somewhere downrange. The main result of all of this, of course, is that you will gain both speed and accuracy. But what the timer will also do is show you that smooth IS actually faster than "grab and yank." This should then give you the confidence to accept that smooth, accurate shooting is what will get you home at the end of your shift.
Steve Denney
Steve Denney is a former municipal police sergeant, USAF Officer and chief of security/safety officer for a large retirement and healthcare community. A former SWAT officer, crime prevention officer and both military and police firearms trainer, he is currently an instructor for LFI Judicious Use of Deadly Force, LFI Stressfire, and NRA and other defensive tactics disciplines. He currently trains police, military and private citizens. He is a charter member of ILEETA and a member of IALEFI.
