"The Real Combat Stance"

[FUNDAMENTALS]

Upon further rerview, It appears that Robert Stasch, has retired from
the Chicago Police Department with the rank of Lieutenant in the
Detective Division. He specialized in Gangs. Apparently had been involved
in 14 Lethal Force Confrontations in a 30 year career. I did a search and
found the following: proarmspodcast.com/2010/05/23 . An Interview about
armed lethal encounters. I am going to finish this by quoting a portion of
his article again from the original post: "that in a sudden unexpected attack, the one-handed combat position was the most natural, comfortable, instinctive and realistic way in which to respond to the threat",
So, if his fellow officers passed on to him this info, it is definatley worth
looking into as a defensive tactic. Ask yourself this one quesation, How
many Lethal Force Encounters have we seen/involved in, that deadly force
had to be used in the real world?.

[synergy]

Upon further rerview, It appears that Robert Stasch, has retired from
the Chicago Police Department with the rank of Lieutenant in the
Detective Division. He specialized in Gangs. Apparently had been involved
in 14 Lethal Force Confrontations in a 30 year career. I did a search and
found the following: proarmspodcast.com/2010/05/23 . An Interview about
armed lethal encounters. I am going to finish this by quoting a portion of
his article again from the original post: "that in a sudden unexpected attack, the one-handed combat position was the most natural, comfortable, instinctive and realistic way in which to respond to the threat",
So, if his fellow officers passed on to him this info, it is definatley worth
looking into as a defensive tactic. Ask yourself this one quesation, How
many Lethal Force Encounters have we seen/involved in, that deadly force
had to be used in the real world?.

Off-topic, but you know you don't need to hit return when your text hits the end of the box you're typing in, right?

It makes your posts much harder to follow when you keep breaking the lines, and don't separate paragraphs.

As for your question, I have no idea what you're asking or where you are going with it.

Is one handed shooting worth training? Absolutely. Should one never train 2 handed? No. One handed shooting is the next step after a shooter can perform acceptably with two hands.

[mythaeus]

Upon further rerview, It appears that Robert Stasch, has retired from
the Chicago Police Department with the rank of Lieutenant in the
Detective Division. He specialized in Gangs. Apparently had been involved
in 14 Lethal Force Confrontations in a 30 year career. I did a search and
found the following: proarmspodcast.com/2010/05/23 . An Interview about
armed lethal encounters. I am going to finish this by quoting a portion of
his article again from the original post: "that in a sudden unexpected attack, the one-handed combat position was the most natural, comfortable, instinctive and realistic way in which to respond to the threat",
So, if his fellow officers passed on to him this info, it is definatley worth
looking into as a defensive tactic. Ask yourself this one quesation, How
many Lethal Force Encounters have we seen/involved in, that deadly force
had to be used in the real world?.

Well, that explains it...Chicago cops...it's hard to shoot gangsta style with 2 hands

But seriously, I appreciate the follow up on the writers credentials. However, to me, the sum of his experiences and the officers he talked to is still anecdotal without clear sources and detailed analysis in a reputable reviewed publication. With all due respect to his experience, the training background, experiences of the officers involved in the shootings, and the actual locations/position of the shooting, i.e behind barriers or in the open, make a big difference in the use of 1 or 2 hands. There are still a lot of variables and unanswered questions. If the evident is so overwhelming, why are designed trainings are more focused on 2 handed shooting?

I will continue to keep an open-mind on this and continue to practice one handed, but I simply can't imagine or be convinced without further details that I'd "naturally" revert to 1-handed with all the 2-handed shooting I've done.

Al

[FUNDAMENTALS]

Sorry guys, was in a rush. Thought I did the post correctly. Dam
compueter been acting weird latley. Must be because I hit the big
66 this past week. Thanks for the responses, good info from all.

[Valorius]

I just saw the paragraph Fundamentals posted.

The article also cited no sources and the author is a police officer, not a statistician or scientist and I don't know anything about him. The original publication is not known either. There's a different between an internet publication and a reputable research journal. I don't see the date on that article or charts/graphs of the 100 officers, their ages, their experience, their trainings, and the locations where they shot from (i.e behind barriers or in the open). All of those factors should be accounted for. Maybe they were accounted for, maybe they weren't, that wasn't clear to me. Peer reviews of the article also lend some merits to the gathered information and conclusions.

I'm not saying that he made these things up nor am I trying discredit his credentials/profession. Neither am I trying to discount the possibility that 1-handed shooting is significant (as I do practice 1-handed). I'm just trying to validate the details in the numbers and I still think the variations in situations and other factors can be significant and may not necessarily validate the conclusion.

Al

It is of note to me because literally all of my training is two handed, and i have also held a guy at gunpoint one handed in the past. (both hands free, range about 10 feet, no intervening barriers)

Afterwards, i remember thinking, why on earth did i do that?

And i've been using weaver exclusively for 20+ years.

[PeteG]

I am of the view that if one trains to shoot with two hands (and use thier sights, by the way) they will do that in a fight . . .

unless, of course, they have something in thier other hand they cannot release, or are using that hand for some other purpose (such as keeping their assailant from hitting them in the face), or they have injured that hand . . . etc.

If one has time (which may or may not happen), and one is not injured, running or knocked down (which may or may not be the case), they will do better in the marksmanship and weapon retention departments with two hands. But one is well advised to know how to get the sights aligned and the trigger pressed with one hand, from any position in which he may find himself.

I believe this latter ability is more a matter of training to stay calm and stay focused in the fight than specifically training to shoot with particular speed or accuracy with one hand.

Citations to collectoins of interviews and anecdotes generally do not reveal all the things we need to know to draw conclusions about whether shooting with one hand is "natural" or "people will default to it." If six-out-of-eight shot with one hand, what were they doing with thier other hands? We don't know.

And if we did know, such that we were to establish definitively that one-handed is the default mode for homo sapiens, that would not tell me one-handed shooting is the surest, most efficient, strongest, most accurate or otherwise "best way" to shoot in an emergency.

People have argued that "since you are going to do that anyway" (a dubious assertion) there is no point to training yourself to do it any other way. Nonsense.

Consider how people "instinctively" attack others bare-handed. The "instinctive" punching, kicking, shoving, slapping and kicking is pretty standard from person-to-person. Compare those methods to those of a trained fighter, who conditions himself to do counter-intuitive things (such as step inside toward a threat or use his palm-heel), and simply refine the way he punches or kicks. The methods to which people train are far, far superior than those nature gave us.

I think being very familiar with handling one's weapon is all we can do in this department. Otherwise, one's limited training time is better spent working on acclimating to chaos and responding cooly.

PeteG

[Signmaker]

This thread needs more force-on-force, and less theoretical exercise.

People tend to shoot one-handed when on the move, being hurt, or in very close quarters. When the range opens up, you're stationary, and you're not being hit by incoming fire, you'll tend more towards two handed shooting.

Hit the range to get good muscle memory to deliver accurate fire in both positions. Then grab some buddies and some airsoft/dummy guns and run some scenarios to learn what you'll instinctively do and when.

You can think about this stuff til the cows die of old age, but you wont know until you are in that scramble of combat.

[Edg]

cop shootings, and self defense shootings will have very little in common. They are having gunfights...you more then likely will be defending yourself. You are not the aggressor. You dont pull out your gun and yell freeze, you will be reacting to having been attacked in some way.
For accuracy at the range I shoot with two hands....but I also practice draw and double tap from the hip. Draw and double tap while falling backwards of from the position of having already been knocked to the ground. I shoot right handed, left handed sitting, kneeling, laying on my side, because you never know.
Many times I will stand 2 feet from the backstop and draw with my right and bringing my left hand up to the top crossbar at the same time and firing into the target. To me this is the most likely position that I will be firing in. Blocking an incomming blow or knife or gun with my left while drawing and firing with my right. My goal is to get both shots in the torso or on torso 1 neck even better.

[PeteG]

" . . . falling backwards of from the position of having already been knocked to the ground."


This particular scenario is a good example of why it is difficult to do firearms training that very closely equates to a fight.

Many of us have been instructed on how to start on the ground, get our sidearm out, maneuver to a fighting position and shoot the target until we are on our feet. I think this is a good thing to practice. But how many people practice getting knocked to the ground, then working out of that position while returning fire?

Getting knocked to the ground is a lot different than getting down on the ground and starting the exercise from there. The injury, distraction and confusion resulting from whatever blow put you down, and then injury, distraction and confusion from landing are huge parts of what will be involved in an actual fight, and they are completely missing from any of the ground shooting drills in which I have ever participated. Nor is there any follow-up attack by the imaginary attacker in these drills. (Do we imagine our attacker will viciously knock us down and then stand there like a dummy?)

But we can hardly hit students in the face or kick them over, and then stomp them, just so they "know what it's like." Nor would I be prepared to be the one standing there as they managed to start shooting back.

For these entirely practical reasons, one's fighting practice has to be one place, and shooting practice another. Merging them is very difficult.

"Southnark" has a course that does merge shooting and close-quarters fighting. It is much more physically demanding and rigorous than any firearms training I have ever seen or heard of. It requires special equipment, very close supervision, and exercises involve only two or three people at a time … which means down-time and a low round-count. It also results in lots of bruises, raspberries, cuts and scrapes. Very few people will tolerate bruises and scrapes, physical exhaustion, and low round counts in their training courses.

From what I observed, “Southnark” knows what he is doing, and he keeps very close control of the process. He does a great job for the very few who will subject themselves to that kind of training. But the fact is we live in a world where (I guestimate) only five gun owners in 100 obtain formal firearms training of any kind, and of that five percent the great majority only take a one or two day introductory course. Even those who become "training junkies" tend to take fifteen different flavors of the same course. The number of people who take a course like the “Southnark” course is so minuscule it is insignificant.

So, while I think it is a good thing to get down on the ground and shoot from there, I do not think it actually prepares one for an attack during which he has been put down there involuntarily. As training for being knocked to the ground and fighting back with a gun, ground shooting drills will only work if someplace else we are also training to be knocked to the ground without being disabled. Otherwise, we are kidding ourselves.

And therein lies the problem of "the real combat stance."