 |
| Movers and also be used for training and just plan shooting fun. |
The prudent person would and
should conclude that a concealment garment increases response time and
reactionary distance. One way is to
literally increase your distance. The
other is to put your hand on the holstered gun.
 |
| Armstrong Mover |
Placing your hand on the weapon
isn’t a cure-all. At closer distances
reaction gap can still kick your butt!
FBI statistics indicate that 62.2 percent of officers murdered with
firearms in the line of duty were shot within 0 to 10 feet of perpetrators.
For the armed citizen this is
ameliorated as we do not have to take these individuals into custody, just
prevent them from harming us.
Reaction Time to10ft mover
(average time)
|
Participant hand on gun
|
10 ft. Mover
|
|
Frank
|
0.42 sec
|
|
John
|
0.52 sec
|
|
Bruce
|
0.45 sec
|
Many of the shots were at contact
distances; the expanding discharge of gases constantly blew pasters off making
observation of hit location impossible.
A speed of 21 ft. in 1.8 seconds
is 11.6 ft/sec. At 10 feet, it should
have taken 0.8 seconds to reach that distance.
Based on that calculation these times look more then adequate. So why were we shooting essentially into the
side of the target?
I suspect the main reason was the
lag time on the spy mode timer. Add 0.19
to 0.26 seconds to these results and the times becomes more realistic. Then too, since the mover has low mass and pulled
by hand, we may have been faster than the average human can accelerated from a
dead stop.
At this distance every thought
must be focused on the mover. Let your
attention slip off for a half second and it was on you. Despite being a moving piece of cardboard,
every shooter was caught by surprise and expressed some intimidation as the
target lunged at you.
This heightened sense of arousal
makes you twitchy. A movement caused by
taking up the slack on the mover pull rope resulted in draw flinch and adrenaline
spike which makes you only more witchy. Any
movement by a human assailant, either the start of an attack, or a move to put
the weapon down or away can result in a potentially fatal discharge.
It doesn’t take any imagination
to see a fatal outcome when police roll-up on justified CCW shooting and
someone makes an innocent but unexpected movement.
One needs to study police video
of actual encounters and you’ll see the person with the contact weapon twitch,
move, retreat, step sideways and make gestures in the air. Some of these are Suicide by Cop, but if suicide
is anger turned inward, it can instantly turn outward at you. You should also notice that most officers
have drawn their sidearm, as soon as they have determined a threat is present,
regardless of distance.
While moving back and to the side
helped, many of the shots were fired when the mover was within arm’s length of
the defender. While this, in a gun game
context, is a success, it might not be classified as such if you were wounded
or twitch shot your target when you did not intend to.
Your best option, in my opinion,
is to increase the distance and reactionary time. Those same videos show LEOs constantly on the
move making it difficult for the assailant to select a target and constantly
control the reactionary time (distance) they want. If distance isn’t controllable due to the
surroundings, attempt to get an object between you and the assailant. Even a plastic waste basket complicates the assailant’s
charge.
Making the weapon more
accessible, by drawing and presenting to a high tuck ready position is a last
resort that can save your life.
Comments
Post a Comment