Wow . . . Just reading through this thread and seeing some of the quoted links, I stand corrected. I have never seen this done, nor have I ever heard of anyone training like this. Wow. :eek:
I’m not saying it’s bad, I just didn’t realize this was the “way things were”. Learn somethin’ new every day. [sub]That’s why I love this board.[/sub]
Tripler
First paragraph: pun intended.
I have an analogous question: why do the police on TV always hold their flashlights with an overhand grip? Is this just one of those TV cop mannerisms that every bit player learns from watching TV, or do real cops do it for some real reason?
I remember playing a computer game a few years ago (I think it was Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six) that had quite an odd stance in it. When aiming at a particular window of a building your snipers would sit cross-legged on the floor, similar to how the person is sat in this link. I know nothing about guns or stances so I don’t know what advantage it gives you, it just struck me as being odd 
The “overhand” grip allows the flashlight to be used as a baton (nightstick).
Yeah, this is what I’ve heard too. Basically, if some goon jumps out at the cop, he can just bring the flashlight down on top of the guy’s head, whereas if he held it at his hip like most people do, he’d have to fight gravity to bring the light up to defend himself. I imagine it doesn’t make for a big time savings, but moments count in this kind of game.
Actually, I was taught that one for longer distance shooting. It does serve two purposes:
It isn’t all that odd. It’s actually very helpful for carefully placed shots.
Tripler
But that “point shooting” stance seems to be all muscle, which is why I couldn’t see it as very useful.
I was always taught (decades ago) to hold the flashlight off to one side. Is is due to the intruder tending to shoot at the light source. Holding it in front of yourself, around chest high, seems counter productive.
When not carrying a flashlight, I too tend to use a modified Weaver stance. It seem to me the I.S. gives too broad a target for the other guy and it is hard to move thru a house in that stance.
YMMV
I thought that this thread was asking a question that I tried to get an answer to before, but it’s not.
Does anyone know what stance ‘Vic Mackey’ uses on The Shield? It’s very odd. Looks like a Weaver stance, but both arms are bent so that the gun is real close to body. No one answered last time, so I assumed it was some Hollywood thing, but I saw an internet video of Kim Jong Il’s (Lil’ Kim) bodyguards training. They were talking about how a good shot he was as well, and he was using the same stance.
In the movie “Thief” James Cann uses the isosceles stance in a house sweep. He keeps the gun aimed at the floor while moving and brings it up to point only when he thinks he might need to take a shot. By Hollywood standards it at least looks like good technique.
I’m picturing he was clearing rooms or buildings at the time. Am I right? You’d want to keep whatever gun you had close to the body if you are, so as not to ‘telegraph’ movements either into rooms or around corners.
Tripler
I haven’t seen a working TV in awhile, so I can only picture that particular position.
Yup. But when he aims, he just brings the gun up with both arms bent and tucked in. So the gun is literally just a few inches away from his nose. Not with one or two arm extended like the stances shown in pkbites’ link.
I tried to see if there was a google picture of what I’m talking about bu there doesn’t seem to be.
Yup, I thought so. It’s the same thing with a rifle or shotgun. You kinda/sorta hunch over it, with the heel of the stock in your shoulder, but the length of the weapon tucked down low–almost pointing at your feet. That way all you have to do is bring the weapon up to eye level, and shoot.
This is just what I was taught. YMMV. Everyone’s got their own way to shoot and move.
Tripler
Most people focus on the former, and not enough on the latter.
I can’t find it, but I saw a funny picture on the net of the “new Gangsta Glock”, or somesuch. It had the sights mounted on the right side of the slide. Very funny.
See post 12.
It is. The producer hired Jeff Cooper, one of the world’s premier authorities on tactical handgun use, as a technical expert. Cooper worked closely with Caan to teach him the proper room clearing technique.
More Thief trivia - all of the technical details in that movie are bang on, right down to the voltages shown on the voltmeters for security equipment and telephone lines. And when he’s cracking safes, he’s really cracking a real safe, using safecracking equipment borrowed from ex-con safecrackers the movie hired as technical experts. Even the thermic lance they used to cut open the vault was real, and the director had to go to a lot of trouble filtering the cameras to be able to shoot it.
I think it’s the most technically accurate movie I’ve ever seen. Great film.
Hey! There it is!
That’s what I was taught when I went through the academy back in 1975. I did a lot of shooting back then. My friends and I were on the range almost every weekend.
For a long time, I had one of my best targets as a souvenier. Shot against a reaction timer at 7 yards, doing the drill of 10 rounds in 25 seconds. I shot it with a S&W model 15, .38 caliber. The first round reaction shot was at .41 seconds and all 10 rounds were fired in 18.4 seconds. I hit the 10 ring with every shot. One of the best days I had in competition.
In the Heat–2 Dics Special Edition there’s a documentary (I think it’s the one entitled “Into the Fire”) which shows the firearms training that the actors had to go through to prepare for the downtown shootout after the bank heist. The way DeNiro, Kilmer, Sizemore, et al handle their weapons, and the cover formation they use during extraction are all very accurate. (What isn’t clear is why Hanna and his MCU buddies decided to engage in a firefight at lunchtime in downtown LA–it seems like it would have been much wiser to attempt to follow them out or at least let them clear out of the most populated area, but whatever…it’s a great scene anyway.)
Thief is indeed a great movie and even the presence of Jim Belushi doesn’t bring it down much. I’m not looking forward to Mann’s retooling of Miami Vice, though.
Stranger
Apparently, there’s a scene in that movie of Val Kilmer doing something with his gun (changing mags? Clearing a jam? can’t remember) that is so good that the military is using it as a training film for proper procedure. The technical expert for the film was former SAS.
HA! That model’s called the “HomeBoy.”
