The video below is graphic. It shows a man with a crowbar threatening a police officer, and the police officer shoots him multiple times. Violence is never easy to watch, so take that in to consideration if you press play.
After watching the video, and ignoring the jackwagons that filmed it, what do we see here? The police have their weapons drawn on an obviously disturbed individual. He is belligerent and has been breaking the windows of the Carls Jr. restaurant that the police have found him at.
The police try to subdue the man by shooting him with a taser. The man simply shrugs off the taser. He then attempts to rush one of the officers and the shoot him.
What would you do if you were in this same situation?
I have to admit that I see nothing wrong with this shooting. I would have done exactly the same thing.
The primary complaint with this shooting is that the police used excessive force. After they brought the man down with the first shots, they shot him again while he was on the ground. This is viewed as excessive. While an argument surely will be made for this, I do not agree with it. They shot the guy with a taser and he shrugged it off. They then shot him five times, and he still tried to get up and go after them. They then shot him again to end the threat. The police did exactly what they were trained to do. You shoot until the threat is over.
Now we ask the question, if this would have happened to an armed citizen, would they be treated the same as the police? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The laws are different for ordinary people and police. If this had been an armed citizen instead of the police, the man with the crowbar would have actually had to have gotten up and came at the armed citizen again before the citizen could have fired a second volley.
What do we learn from this incident? When you are at the range you MUST reserve some time and ammunition to train multiple shot accuracy. You don't train this by simply spraying shots down range. You train this by slowly building up the number of shots you can send down range quickly. It takes a lot of time and ammunition, especially if you use a large caliber, like my beloved .45.
This is what I do:
First find a good sight picture on the center of your target. After you squeeze off the first shot bring the pistol back down and immediately reacquire your sight picture on the target. You will have to have very good shooting stance and technique to do this well. You have to be rock solid to minimize the muzzle flip.
After you can shoot one round, and get the sight picture back immediately, try two shots. Squeeze off the first round, reacquire your sight picture and immediately squeeze off the second, and get the sight picture back just as you did when you were just working with one shot.
This is when you will experience strange things. Shot anticipation can be a big problem when you are trying to get off that second round. Many people will flinch or rock forward in their stance anticipating the recoil. This will throw their aim completely off, normally low and to the left. To correct this, you need to practice your stance, and throw in some snap caps in to your magazines.
A snap cap is a dummy round that protects your firing pin during a dry fire (shooting the gun with no ammunition in the breech). It is an excellent training tool. They really helped me see what I was doing in my stance and in my grip.
After getting two shots quickly down range and accurate, go for a third, remembering to reacquire the sight picture after every round expended. After being able to do the accelerated pair, sending more quick succession shots down range should be easy. Slip some snap caps in to your magazine to check your technique and to practice clearing a jam or misfire.
Do not get ahead of yourself in your rapid fire training. Don't be the guy who just blows the whole magazine down range to impress his friends on how fast he can shoot. What is impressive is shooting rapidly and keeping the grouping inside a four inch diameter. That is what is impressive.
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