Some of my friends wonder why I’m so serious about pistol training. Their questions are usually combined with one of the following additional statements:

“I’m good to go…I’ve got my concealed carry permit.”

“Our department is serious about training. We actually shoot and qualify every quarter.”

“I’ve really gotten serious about shooting. I took a 4 day class about 6 months ago and I’ve been going to the range about once a month since then.”

None of those are bad things. In fact, they’re all GREAT. But they won’t make you a better shooter on their own.

Most concealed carry permit classes are about understanding the law more than how to put effective rounds on target when you are under life or death stress.

It’s not the instructor’s fault…they’ve got an impossibly small amount of time to convey a LOT of information. But head knowledge from a class won’t help you perform under stress…practicing to the point of developing conditioned responses that you can execute sub-consciously is how you perform under stress.

Is more training the answer?

Yes and no.

Let me give you an example of 2 incidents.

I’m going to summarize what happened so we can get to the takeaway lessons you can use.

The first is from April, 2012 in Harlem. A man killed his 13 year old half-sister with a .22 pistol and police were called. It was 3:27 a.m. Police found and began chasing the suspect on foot. The suspect shot at police once. The 2 officers pursuing fired 84 rounds, hitting the suspect 14 times, and he still refused to drop his weapon. One officer fired 39 shots and the other fired 45 shots (with 2 reloads). The officers were behind cover and 70 feet from the shooter. The shooter survived to stand trial.

The 2nd is from September, 2015 in Bushwick/Brooklyn. The suspect ran from a botched armed robbery where he shot his intended victim at around 1AM. There were 2 firefights with law enforcement. In the first one, the suspect got behind a car and shot at the police, hitting an unmarked police car (some reports said with many rounds and other reports said with 1 round). 4 officers fired a combined 52 rounds, missing with all 52 rounds. He ran away from this position and ended up running right towards another 2 officers in their patrol car. These 2 officers both emptied their 15 round magazines + the rounds in their chambers. I don’t know if they reloaded. 1 of those 32 rounds hit the shooter in the calf.

In both of these cases, the officers were better trained than the average civilian, but it STILL took 84 rounds (14 hits in 1 case and 1 hit in the other) to stop the shooter.

Police officers get training in POST before becoming officers as well as annual training and have to pass qualification shoots 1 or more times per year. It would seem like we could make a blanket statement that since the average officer gets more training than the average civilian, that they would shoot better than civilians. Even so, in both of these cases it took 84 rounds to stop the suspects.

How does this happen?

This doesn’t justify the hit ratios, but for comparison, in the early days of OIF/OEF, the ratio of rounds fired to enemy combatants killed was 250,000:1. Take out miniguns and machine guns and divide that by 2,000 and it’s STILL 125:1. We WANT to strive for better and should strive for better, but reality is stubborn and isn’t always simple.

1. Low light increases the number of rounds fired per incident.

2. When multiple shooters are involved, the number of rounds fired increases.

3. NYPD gives their officers 3 choices for pistols…Sig P226, Glock 19, or S&W 5946. Regardless of which they choose, they are “broken” by gunsmiths to be double action only with 12 (T W E L V E) pound trigger pulls. For women and men with average or less than average grip strength, a 12 pound trigger press makes it almost impossible to isolate trigger finger movement from overall grip. That means that pressing the trigger causes the entire hand to sympathetically flex and the muzzle of the gun (and point of impact) to move inwards and downwards.

In addition, the excited anticipation of the shot being released (and the neurotransmitter release that goes along with a shot being released…especially in combat when there is an unconscious association between the shot being fired and the threat going away) makes it very likely that a shooter will jerk the trigger if the trigger press is too long and the shot doesn’t release soon enough.

4. On the first shooting, the distance was 70 feet…just under 25 yards. Increase the distance and the hit ratio drops.

5. On the 2nd shooting, the shooter was behind cover for the first 52 rounds. His target profile was smaller than if he was just standing in the open. Smaller targets lower hit ratios.

6. In the first shooting, officers were running and gunning. Fitness and lack of experience moving and shooting could have easily played a role.

7. If the officers were like most officers and civilian defenders, they were not used to shooting from awkward positions, didn’t practice regularly on their own, and hadn’t taken steps to prepare their minds for combat.

8. The NYPD firearms standards, as I understand them, are incredibly lax.  50 rounds.  5 at 25 yards, 15 at 15 yards, 30 at 7 yards.  2 points per hit, and 75 points to pass.  That means you can miss all 5 shots at 25 yards and 7 shots at 15 yards.

So, regardless of whether you’re law enforcement, civilian, or military, are there quick, easy, and affordable steps that you can take to improve your performance in a situation like this?

Yes. And that’s been my mission for the last 8 years.

The biggest lesson is that training is not practice, and practice is one of the key factors that separates shooters who shoot good on the range from shooters who shoot good under stress. NYPD officers are well TRAINED. But training gets you head knowledge, and head knowledge just doesn’t get the job done under stress. What you need to perform under stress is skills that you’ve practiced to the point that they have become conditioned responses that you don’t have to consciously think about to execute.

Frankly, I don’t blame the officers involved for their performance.  There is a culture that is pervasive in many departments that guns are a necessary evil and if you ignore them, they’ll go away.  That works right up until the point where somebody’s life depends on how well you have mastered the craft of shooting.  If you work in law enforcement, do what you can to encourage a culture where every individual officer practices on their own–specifically dry fire.  Dry fire COMPLETELY removes the two main objections of lack of time and lack of money.

The fastest and most affordable way to develop conditioned responses is through frequent small block dry fire practice sessions…we’re only talking about 5-15 minutes per day, a few times a week. This is the core of the Concealed Carry Masters Course, 3010Pistol, and Dry Fire Training Cards and why they’ve been so effective.

There’s an 80% chance that if you face a lethal force threat, it’ll be in low-light conditions. That means that you REALLY need to practice shooting in low-light conditions. We made a full 25% of the drills in Dry Fire Training Cards low-light drills so that you could practice proven low-light drills in the comfort of your home for less than the cost of a box of practice ammo.

If you’re in law enforcement, I STRONGLY suggest that you practice regularly with a light bar behind and beside you. The combination of adrenaline, light bars, and low light can make your sights dance around in ways that aren’t believable until you experience it. If I have the presence of mind and have to make a precision shot in these conditions, I’ve found that I’m exponentially more accurate when I close my left eye. Your mileage may vary. Some may argue that you shouldn’t shut your eye. That’s fine. I understand–keep both eyes open. But if you’re burning through your mag and not getting hits, try shutting an eye.

Low standards in training lead to low performance in the real world.  Raise your standards and keep pushing your limits.

If you’re saddled with a long, heavy, 12 pound trigger, you might want to double up on your grip & forearm workouts. And maybe find another department to work for.

The absolute best tool that I’ve found for helping shooters conquer the problems associated with the excited anticipation of the shot being released (flinch and jerk) is the Deadly Accuracy from Matt Seibert at Insight. 80-90% of shooting is mental and when you factor in all of the emotions involved in a self-defense shooting, that number goes even higher. This is the best program for mastering the mental dynamics of shooting…from mental hacks to instantly eliminate flinch and jerk to high-speed techniques that will help you blunt and counteract the performance robbing effects of the adrenaline/cortisol dump that comes with a sympathetic response in a life or death situation.

Finally, these 2 shootings illustrate just how messy and dynamic real life shooting situations are. The targets weren’t stationary. The officers weren’t stationary. They were running, moving to cover, popping out around cover, and more. A gunfight isn’t the place to learn these skills. Neither is your local range.

That’s why we developed Dry Fire Fit. It’s a set of 50+ movement based dry fire drills that are designed to help you perform better in real life shooting situations…like the 2 described here. Dry Fire Fit is the easiest, most affordable, and highest leverage way to hone and refine your 360 degree shooting skills, as well as shooting on the move and shooting around cover. Use them with a SIRT, a blue gun, airsoft gun made inert, or your sidearm after it’s been made temporarily incapable of firing live rounds, but get these drills and hone your skills now so you’ll be able to perform if the need ever arises.

Questions? Comments? Sound off by commenting below


    8 replies to "Training vs. Practice 84 rounds to stop a threat"

    • Daryl

      Ox,
      Great article. I fear that the problem may get worse as many of our current LEO’s are coming from a military background where they are trained to kill the enemy. Many are not being vetted prior to employment as a LEO. I mention this, as one of my relatives was recently hired by a large metropolitan Highway Patrol, only to be let go several months later as he was suffering from serious PTSD from four tours in Iraq as a M.P. How he got hired is anybody’s guess as we were very aware of his problem when he visited us just before he was hired. Great kid when he went in, over the top manic when he came home from his fourth tour of duty. This is in no way critical of our military as my Grandson is currently in boot camp for the National Guard, and I am a Navy vet. Just an observation. Love your articles. Always learn something new.

    • Doug

      Excellent article. It’s hard to imagine 12 pound triggers. That is absurd. That is like soldiers going on patrol with unloaded weapons. The result of bureaucrats making policy decisions. As an armed citizen I feel a greater responsibility for every round because the officers have the Department to back them up. I have nothing but my documented training. Before everybody jumps on me, I know some officers have been held individually liable and that’s a travesty if they followed procedures, they still had the department initially. Anyway, all the more reason to practice, practice, practice.

    • Firewagon

      I would also proffer that the “one stop shot” from a pistol or revolver might be impacted by these stats. The ‘only’ reason the handgun is considered marginal as a defensive weapon and should be used to enable you to get to a rifle or shotgun, is inadequate power and inadequate skill with it – and not necessarily in that order! The ‘fact’ that the Boston bomber was ‘running around’ with eight (8) forty caliber rounds in him, and only expired after his brother ran him over with a car, is the simple truth of my contention. The FBI and police units went to the 40 S&W over the 10mm because the 10 was “too hard for most officers, especially women, to control.” The “problem” is most officers are simply deficient with ‘any’ handgun!

      My ‘full’ G29 10mm has NO issues with creating fatalities on ‘breathing’ critters – a two shot (both fatal), kill on a ‘large,’ running, feral hog, one through the heart and lungs that still had him running, and the last behind his ear that sent him cartwheeling – both shots @ approximately 30 yards! A one shot kill on a coyote @ a range finder verified 110 yds. That round, however, is not making 900-1050 fps, like the 40, it clocks 1250 fps from that 29(624 FPE) and 1400+(800 FPE) from our BarSto 6″. That 40 S&W, if using 180 grain bullets, just makes 400 ft lbs @ 1,000 fps, just ‘marginally’ better than the ubiquitous 38 special+p!

      As I once overhead a match worker say to a novice shooter that was missing pretty regularly, “you can’t miss fast enough to win!” I would further say, if you can not get two rounds on target @ 21 feet in less than 2 seconds, you need more practice – I can do that from a concealed carry position in <1.5 seconds, consistently, with that 'carry' load, not some pip squeak target thingy! The primary thought, you should have, is that 'anyone' of average physicality can be one you, from a distance of 21 feet, in that 1.5 seconds…. Remember, also, targets don't shoot back – those times WILL go up under "life and death" stress!

    • max

      Absolutely true. A large percentage of shooting mastery is mental and should be backed up by solid training on shooting mechanics. The above cases only prove that lack of it severely affects situational awareness in real life situations. I believe in dry firing and I suggest that all shooters master it. There’s nothing wrong in training to be a “better killer” if one really is dedicated to defend the lives and properties of others. If we need to kill, then we need to train to kill swiftly. If we intend to incapacitate, we need to do so equally well and quick.

      Nick, you are right to mention the anti-LEO mentality that is pervasive today but that will fade. But even if society and the general public do not care for their defenders, it is the obligation of each officer to be proficient in defensive skills and should maintain a high level of it. It is the only real skill set they need next only to their knowledge of the law. Otherwise, they’re just constable with billy clubs that look like guns.

      Police departments SHOULD adopt dry fire training as an integral part of maintaining their officer’s proficiency. I know, I’ve dry fired 15 years. Saved a lot of ammo and time. I spend more time in mental preparedness to develop a well-honed defensive attitude. Simply a “kill-or-be-killed” attitude and being decisive in assessing threat levels.

      • Ox

        Hey Max,

        Thanks for your comment and feedback.

        One thing that I’d like to emphasize is that the goal of shooting an attacker shouldn’t be to kill them. It should be to stop the threat. The target may be the same, but the followup action can be different. If you shoot an attacker and your pre-programmed thought process is to stop the threat, you’re more likely to stop shooting when the attacker stops being a threat. If you shoot an attacker and your pre-programmed thought process is to kill the attacker, you might keep shooting after they’ve stopped being a threat. Now there are obvious legal, civil, and moral problems with this, but the immediate problem in a gunfight is that if you shoot more rounds than necessary to stop the threat, you have fewer rounds left to stop additional threats.

    • nick

      Just a thought. Taking into consideration today’s “Hang the Officer” mentality, WHATEVER you do ABOVE and BEYOND your particular Department’s “Requirements” had BETTER be done Quietly, on your Own, and kept as Low Key as possible or you’ll find yourself accused of trying to become a “Better Killer” for sure. Blows my mind that I even feel compelled to point that out. SORRY state of affairs!

      • Soljerblue

        That’s especially true if you’re a legally armed citizen who simply wants to do the responsible thing and become proficient with your defensive firearm. You can be pretty sure that an overzealous prosecutor who doesn’t care for armed civilians will use your prior training history to paint as a stone killer if you happen to wind up in court after a defensive shooting.

        • Ox

          Fortunately, it works out a little different in practice. If you go to trial for a self-defense shooting, you want to use your prior training in your defense. You can do this if you train with good instructors who are providing solid training…specifically someone who understands that the rules of engagement are different for civilians, law enforcement, and military…and that off-duty military and off-duty law enforcement will most often be held to the standard of a civilian and not to the standard that they’d be held to if they were on duty or in a war zone.

          As an example, if your training taught you to shoot from the hip at targets that are 21 feet away and you did that in a self-defense situation, you’re going to have problems as a civilian even if that worked great for you in a cave in Afghanistan where there were no innocents around.

          If your training covered statistics and examples of the reactionary gap and the damage that an unarmed attacker could do to you with just their fists, it would be a lot easier to justify drawing a gun on a bigger, younger, unarmed man who was threatening you and it would be a lot easier to justify shooting them in self defense if they charged you.

          That being said, there are no hard and fast rules. Know the laws, law enforcement attitude, and prosecution climate where you live and act accordingly. If someone from Chicago or Washington DC does something because they read that someone from Boise says it’s effective, it could cause you a lot of trouble.

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