Time Out, Mr. Burglar

Today I got some comments about point-shooting, which is the practice of shooting a gun without using the sights.

Gun nuts generally frown on point-shooting. They have solid reasons. If you’re in trouble, and you have an opportunity to use your sights and squeeze off carefully aimed rounds using the same skills you use at a gun range, you should do so. That’s my opinion, anyway. You can’t beat the sights when it comes to accuracy.

Here is the problem. You won’t get that opportunity. Criminals are crummy targets. Criminals shoot back, they move, and they don’t give you time to aim. They’re very inconsiderate when it comes to providing you with good lighting, too. If you need to use your gun, you may not even be able to see your sights, let alone use them.

So imagine yourself in a dark place (like your home) with an armed idiot coming at you from fifteen feet away. Seriously now, are you going to assume a modified Weaver stance, take a deep breath and let half of it out, line the top of the front sight up with the center of mass (taking care to let the target blur while the sight remains in focus) and carefully squeeze the trigger?

Please. This has never happened in the history of mankind.

First, you’ll probably forget where your gun is. Then you’ll forget where the safety is. By the time you have your gun ready to shoot and you’re trying to aim, you’re full of cheap FMJ .38 Special ammunition fired by the idiot, who has never been to a gun range and who is holding his gun sideways like they do on TV.

Now, what if you’ve been practicing your point-shooting, and you carry a gun like a Glock which is always ready to fire? A long gun is better, but let’s say it’s in the next room.

Draw. Point. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG. Reach for spare magazine, if necessary. Try to avoid getting criminal’s blood on your new shoes.

Call me crazy. It just sounds better to me.

When I was a kid, my cousin and I used to drive around in my car, shooting signs. I realize this was stupid. It was bad enough when we used his Crosman pellet pistol, but we also used a .22 rifle. While the car was moving. I actually shot signs while in the driver’s seat, while most of my body was hanging out the window and my cousin was steering.

We used to shoot mile-marker signs with the pellet pistol, with no hope of aiming. We held the gun with one hand. We almost always hit the signs. A mile-marker sign is smaller than a human torso, and a smoothbore pellet pistol is less accurate than a rifled firearm.

Granted, a pellet pistol has no recoil. Placing a second pistol shot would be harder with a real gun. But what about that first shot? No difference. And what if you’re shooting a low-recoil pistol, like that nutty Herstal thing that has all the hippies scared? Combined with point-shooting skills, that may be the ultimate personal defense handgun.

I remember standing by the side of the road with my cousin’s pellet gun, by a tall streetlight. I guess it was forty or fifty feet tall. I raised the pistol and fired at the light globe without aiming. PING. Nailed it. Expected to. I’m fairly sure I never used the sights on that thing, but it didn’t matter. I knew what I could hit and what I could not.

Maybe we shot it so well because we didn’t know we weren’t supposed to be able to do it. Being ignorant kids, we learned a lot of our marksmanship standards from cowboy movies. If Clint Eastwood could make a can dance up the road while shooting from the hip, why, we could, too! If we had known point-shooting didn’t work, we probably wouldn’t have been as good at it as we were.

I think the skills we learn at gun ranges are a lot like the languages we learn in high school. I won prizes in high school French, but I could not understand real French people very well. They broke the rules! They used slang, too! That wasn’t fair! Here in Miami, Cubans speak Spanish as if they have marbles in their mouths. No high school teacher will prepare you for that. And the things you learn about pistol shooting at gun ranges will not prepare you all that well for encounters with criminals.

I’ve read a lot of stories in the NRA’s “Armed Citizen” magazine feature. I’ve noticed two repeating themes. First, in many encounters, everyone misses. Second, in many encounters in which the victim prevails, the victim still gets shot. That’s no good. One shot can blind you or sterilize you or paralyze you. One shot can cost you an arm. You want to end the encounter before that happens.

You want to be able to shoot accurately and quickly, and you want to be able to hit the criminal with a large number of shots, because there is a huge difference between a mortal wound and a wound that prevents a criminal from harming you. You can shoot a burglar through the heart and still be killed by a blow from a rolling pin he took off your kitchen counter. You want to empty your magazine into him; shoot horizontally until you have to shoot downward because he’s on the ground. When you pull the trigger and hear a click, you know you’re done.

The last time I went to the range, I shot round after round into a hole the size of a golf ball. The leader of my church’s armorbearers was a few booths down, shooting into a much wider area. But he was shooting three shots quickly. Two in the chest and one in the head. I was shooting slowly. I started shooting his way (which is not allowed at the range I usually use), and my groups opened up by several inches. And that was at seven measly yards. It became obvious to me that practicing for ideal circumstances was stupid.

If I practice point-shooting, there will be no down side. I’ll still be able to use the sights when circumstances permit it, but I’ll also have a skill that allows me to get by without them. I see no reason not to do it. It’s all plus and no minus. The only problem I foresee is that if I do it with a pistol, I’ll have to carry the same gun all the time, because different pistols point differently.

As for point-shooting with a long gun, I think it’s probably a fine idea at household distances, when you’re using a weapon with limited recoil. The longer a weapon is, the easier point-shooting is, until recoil becomes a factor. Pick up a rifle and stand across the room from a chair and point the rifle at the chair, while holding it shouldered. Seriously now, are you worried about missing? I’d be much more worried about being shot while trying to find the front sight. And if recoil makes a second shot harder when point-shooting, it will be even worse when you’re trying to locate the sight after a loud blast and a bright flash.

If you point-shoot a long gun from the shoulder, you should have ample accuracy for hitting a human target at fifty feet. If you can’t hit a man that way, the sights probably won’t help you.

Here’s what I think should happen, should I be the victim of an armed home invader. I pick up a semi-automatic shotgun or a semi-automatic rifle which is ready to fire. I turn on the laser and strobing flashlight. I point the gun at the criminal and pull the trigger over and over until he falls. Then I retreat to a safe place and call the police. If I can manage to remember to do that short list of things under that type of stress, I’ll consider myself very lucky.

When Richard Marcinko ran SEAL Team Six, he made his men practice point-shooting, with tons of ammunition. If it’s a good idea for a Navy SEAL, it’s probably a good idea for anyone.