Defensive firearms training, police vs civilian and center mass

In My Humble Opinion
1

Got into a conversation with a close friend the other day, as I received my CCL in the mail and have started carrying my firearm. Spoke with my friend about whether she’s OK with me carrying when we’re together or I’m visiting her home. Turns out, she is, and she knows I’ll never tell her whether I’m actually armed or not.

But the conversation evolved a little further and she was curious about, if an incident were to occur, where I would be aiming. I said, “center mass, that’s standard training.” You have to stop the person from attacking and that’s the most successful way to do it. I won’t pull my gun unless I fear for my life, and if I do, it’s him or me. I won’t choose lethal force unless I fear it’s necessary, and if I do it will be center mass. I then said I’m pretty sure cops do the same, train similarly but with more scenarios and circumstances than I do as a civilian.

And she wasn’t convinced. Insisted that the police friend or two she’s asked about this sort of thing, they’ve told her they may choose to shoot a leg or the weapon out of the threat’s hand. I said, “that’s PR glurge,” and she insists they would tell her the truth. So she said she will re-approach the question with the professionals she knows. I decided to ask here. I said I was pretty sure, but will be fine to stand corrected. But doubt any circumstance where an officer decides to pull the trigger, will be one where he could have shot a leg or something instead. That sounds silly to me (my instructors have all been NRA certified), and if I felt the same, I have pepper spray and a knife I’d prefer to use over my gun. I think police feel much the same.

So the main question: Are police trained to shoot center mass, or are they trained to shoot “appropriately” to stop someone from running at them (like a leg) or to disarm them (say it’s a knife)?

2

The default is center mass or center of visible mass.

It’s conceivable that a police officer would shoot at something else if he deviates from standard training or in particular circumstances. Particular circumstances could include a hostage taker using a human shield or this kind of thing: sniper shoots gun out of hand - YouTube

Overall though, it’s center of mass, not fancy Lucky Luke stuff.

3

Departments and regions may vary but all the ones I know are trained to shoot to kill; which usually means center of mass. There are a few exceptions; snipers are trained both for center of mass and head shots. And I have heard of cops making the decision to go for a leg; one case I recall the “perp” was holding a knife on himself and the police shot a leg out from under him and swarmed him. But for a department to train or expect something like that? Not any place I am familiar with.

4

Center of mass is standard. Unless you are taking some kind of specialized sniper training, there is no other decision. It is not “shooting to kill.” If you are pulling the trigger then you are already shooting to kill. “Shooting to wound” is not just idiotic and impractical, but legally indefensible. Here’s why:

(1) Watch any actual video of a police shootout and you will probably see them discharge a great many rounds to no effect. Most studies confirm there is little correlation to marksmanship in training and in combat. It is already hard enough to shoot a person without trying to do some kind of trick shooting. You aim center of mass to maximize the odds that you will hit the target.

(2) It is not possible to “shoot to wound.” Even if you strike a person in the arm or leg, there are major arteries in those parts of the body and a person so injured can easily bleed out. Also, if you miss it is entirely possible that you will hit the target in the head or torso by accident.

(3) This creates additional legal and moral complications. If I am not justified in killing my target, and I shoot to wound, and nonetheless kill him unintentionally, what would a jury make of that? How would a jury distinguish between someone who “shot to wound” and missed, and someone who shot to kill (center of mass)? It is impossible to distinguish between the two.

(4) I know of no human being who could disarm a person with a shot from his handgun, except the Lone Ranger. You may recognize this person as being fictitious. As others have pointed out, the only people who can actually “shoot to wound” or disarm are police snipers. These people have specialized training, accurate rifles with high powered optics, and have the advantage of setting up in secret to shoot at a stationary target. If they were shooting at a moving target, they would be lucky just to score a hit to the center of mass. Shooting the knife out of the hand of a person who is charging at you is just lunacy.

5

If you miss shooting center mass you still have a good chance of hitting something. If you miss shooting to wound you have a good chance of hitting nothing.

6

She’s either lying or the cops she talked to were being sarcastic. Handguns are carried by police because it’s easier than walking around with a rifle or shotgun all the time. But past a certain distance handguns aren’t very accurate. Shooting something out of someones hand is ridiculous movie fluff. Shooting someone in the leg is only going to make them fear they are going to die and convince them to shoot back even more.

Here is my states current qualification. [sarcasm hat on] Tell her I intentionally edited out the part where we’re trained to shoot in the leg and weapons out of hands [sarcasm hat off]. I’ve been on the job since '82 and have never been taught such b.s… The last section allows for hits anywhere, but only because at 25 yards your lucky if you hit anywhere.

There is such a thing as “untrained but justified” and “dynamic application of a trained technique”. But in a life or death situation no officer I know is going to intentionally shoot in the leg or hand.

7

It depends on what you’re shooting. If you’re shooting a rifle or handgun, aim for the center of mass. If you’re shooting a shotgun into a crowd, aim a few feet in front of the crowd if the ground is hard - the projectiles will ricochet off the ground and hit people in the legs. If you’re shooting a tear gas projectile, aim about eight feet upwind of the person you’re shooting at; that way the chemical has room to spread out before it gets to the person (plus if you’re using tear gas, you’re trying to keep it non-lethal so you shouldn’t aim a rocket directly at somebody). If you’re shooting somebody with tear gas spray, you need to hit something warm so the chemicals will work; so aim for exposed skin - if you have a choice go for the neck and lower face so the chemicals rise up into the eyes and nose. My training was in New York state.

8

Furthermore, if you do find yourself in a position where you need to shoot someone, you really don’t want to hit them in a leg or arm and have them still coming after you.
I never really thought about this and always sort of laughed to myself when people talked about the ‘stopping power’ of this gun over that, in my mind, whether you get hit with a 45 or 22, you’re going down, period. When I took my CCL class and when I took a little bit of other training both people said that if you have someone determined and/or intoxicated, getting hit in the arm with a plinker (especially if they’re wearing a heavy coat or something to slow the bullet down) may very well not stop them. Now, they’re angry, still coming for you, and possible armed as well.

This is also the reasoning behind not just putting one bullet in someone and then wiping the sweat from your brow because the guy is on the ground, but instead, shooting until the threat is gone (the guy is dead) or you’re out of bullets.
Something else to be mentioned. I don’t know if this is the case everywhere, but I believe in my jurisdiction anytime you shoot your gun it’s considered a lethal action. So, firing a ‘warning shot’ at someone giving you a hard time with no intention of hitting anyone can get you an attempted murder charge. Same with aiming for a limb with no intention of killing (and assuming it doesn’t kill), again, using a gun is lethal, therefore you attempted to murder the person. The point is, as I was taught, don’t bring out your gun unless you’re planning to kill the other person and at that point you shoot to kill, you’re beyond trying to scare people now.

9

:confused: When and for what? Corrections? In all the defensive and tactical shotgun, rifle, and pistol training I’ve had I’ve never been taught to try to ricochet any round off of anything.

10

Not really. [Nitpick: Wisconsin where Joey lives doesn’t have a murder statute. It’s homicide] There are a couple of other charges that could be pressed instead, from reckless endangerment all the way down to a municipal cite of discharging a firearm. The situation would rest on several key factors of the actors actions. Most prosecutions that I’ve seen for the very stupid act of firing a warning shot were not for attempted homicide. You mention intent and that is a big factor in what charge the DA issues.

11

I’ve overheard the aim low advice given to women with home defense shotguns at outdoor shooting ranges in what looks like one-time “lady of the house” firearm training. Point it towards the bad guy, aim low, you’ll hobble him with the ricochet and hopefully not send buckshot into the night through your paper thin McMansion walls.

I’m not saying it’s good or proper, but that’s where I’ve heard it.

12

Yes, I worked for corrections. We had to qualify every year and this was the consistent way we were trained.

I’ll admit it didn’t make sense to me; if you’re trying to hit somebody’s legs why not just aim at their legs? But this is what we were told to do.

13

Officially, our intent was to “disable” the person we were shooting at. Of course, when you put a 357 round into the center of somebody’s chest, the disabling effect is often permanent.

14

I’m a former basic pistol marksmanship and tactical firearms instructor, and have participated in practical and defensive shooting competitions as well as participating in tactical assault simulations.

First of all, in combat there is no “shoot to wound” or “shoot to kill”; the shooter is shooting to hit a threatening target in the most effective location to stop the threat with as few rounds as possible. Any time a shooter puts iron on a target and drops the hammer, there is a good potential for permanent disabling injury or death, so it is only ethical to do so when legitimate homicide (for self-defense, to defend the lives of others, or prevent a crime of major property destruciton which may result in deaths such as arson). Despite what you see in movies on and on the televisor, there is no way to shoot someone with a firearm which will assuredly not result in death or maiming injury. A shot to the thigh has a good chance of severing the femoral artery which will result in death within minutes

Because most shooters, even law enforcement agents, do not fire tens of thousands of rounds in training and do not train under geniune stress situations, they are generally taught to shoot for the center of mass to endure the highest probability of hitting a vital organ, hip or shoulder, or spinal column, which will disable if not incapacitate an attacker. Note that while a service grade pistol should be capable of achieving better than a 5" circle of precision at 25 meter distance, practically speaking a shooter under stress will be doing well to to stay inside the 7 ring (basically, hit the center torso) at 7 meters. Units trained in special tactics, such as US Special Forces, the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, or major municipal SWAT/SIS teams, may train to hit smaller target areas for a higher probability of immediate incapacitation, such as the head or the hip. I have never heard of anyone training to shoot a hand or foot because these are very small targets at the extent of moving appendages and thus almost impossible to assuredly hit, and may not do disabling damage even if they do.

It is also the case that any bullet that doesn’t strike the intended target in deep tissue will travel onward unimpeded until it hits something else, which may well either be an innocent bystander or riccochet into who knows what. While the fourth rule of safe firearm handling is to always assure that you have a good backstop, this isn’t always possible in a tactical combat situation, so you want to maximize the chance for the bullet to enter and remain inside the target. (This is also the real reason that hollowpoint bullets are used; it’s not that they’re special “killer bullets”, but by remaining inside the target and delivering all of their energy, they are more effective at stopping the target with fewer hits and pose less hazard to bystanders as they will remain in the target body or fragment rather than riccochet.) So shooting at center of mass helps to reduce the hazard to bystanders.

Shooters employing baton rounds (“rubber bullets”) may fire in front of targets in a crowd control scenario to bounce the rounds off of pavement in order to reduce momentum. I have never heard of any authority on tactical shooting advise firing a round with a metallic bullet from a pistol, rifle, or shotgun into the ground in front of a target hoping for a riccochet “just to wound”, and in fact, this would be a patently ridiculous thing to do, since there is no way to predict where the riccochet will go. All this would do is pose greater hazard to bystanders while wasting ammunition and prolonging the attack.

If possible, a shooter should disable a target with 1-2 shots, and in fact the people who taught me drilled in firing two shots into the spinal column or head, with any shot further than 3 inches from profile center considered to be a faliure. However, in a genuine threat situation, the shooter should keep firing at the center of mass (or head, if they are close enough and confident in marksmanship under stress) until the target falls down and stops moving. If the shooter was not justified in killing the target, he or she were not justifed in shooting or even pointing a gun.

Stranger

15

Yeah, corrections training is different.

I was a deputy for 25 years before retiring from that and starting a 2nd career with another agency. Because the sheriff had the jail on top of the regular academy we also had to complete a 6 week training academy to become state certified correction officers.
Even if we weren’t assigned to the jail (regular C.O’s were) we had to do it. I was on the job over 18 years before I pissed the wrong guy off and got yanked off the road and reassigned to the jail for 2 years. I hadn’t ever worked in there previously.

Even things like unarmed defensive tactics are trained differently (POSC vs DAAT or RISC). Mostly because in the majority of situations a C.O. does’t have a sidearm in the force continuum.

But even the guys who worked in the jail their entire careers did not train with the shotgun in the manner you described.

16

This gets too many pics of gun ranges, but the paper targets used do show up:

https://www.google.com/search?q=police+training+target+range&hl=en&gl=us&authuser=0&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2wv_Apt7NAhUk9IMKHWmkD1UQ_AUICCgB&biw=1920&bih=985

Yes, center of torso scores highest. Pelvis seems to be second-best.

And: nobody ever shoots a gun out of another’s hand without making a mess of said hand.

But damn, it makes for some fun Westerns, don’t it.

The only redeeming thing about Marshall Dillon’s shootout at the opening of Gunsmoke is that he is NOT shown shooting the gun out of the bad guy’s hand.

17

Aside from sleep deprivation and physical exertion, how are genuine stress situations created in training?

Sounds like an interesting work day. Anything you can tell us about the scenarios/types of tactical assault simulations?

18

Have you ever seen any leg or arm shaped paper targets at a gun range?
Granted my only experience shooting at other humans is on a paintball field, but it is actually very difficult to shoot another person who is moving and trying to shoot you while avoiding getting hit yourself. And that’s under circumstances where you really don’t care if you get hit or hit the other person because the only consequence is a welt and bragging rights. You aren’t really aiming at “head” or “torso”, you are aiming at a moving shape that suddenly seems very small.

Also, I should point out that within 20 or so feet, someone running at you with a knife can typically close the distance and stab you before you can draw and fire your weapon.

Soldiers, cops and other people who are trained to shoot other people for a living are trained to shoot at the center of mass, not because it’s more “lethal”, but because that is where you have the highest likelihood of a hit.

19

Here’s a good overview of a much-studied firefight that shows how untrue that is - this incident was the primary reason LE agencies in the US moved from .38 special and low powered 9mm rounds to larger calibers and/or higher powered loads. It also illustrates how much confusion there is in an actual shooting situation.

20

To be clear, the question is on my friend’s behalf more than mine. I already knew this, but in a general knowledge sense (culmination of training these last 6 months and being pretty sure my civilian defensive shooting training is very similar to police) rather than knowing for sure, first hand, because I’m not a cop.

I was already 99% certain, but my friend can be convincingly convinced sometimes to the effect that I need to be able to cite from sources other than my own brain. (You know, stuff you just already “know,” it’s ingrained, like the way I tie my shoes)

She asked the “where would you aim” question and I answered, followed by “same as police are trained, it’s the standard.” After which she was so adamant her police friends told her different that I needed to make positively certainly sure. I also sent her a great article I found on the subject, with all the stuff I already knew, but in the moment, in a bar, couldn’t start listing from memory nor cared to while trying to get my drank on and have some fun.

So thanks all, for confirming, as to me it’s the only thing that makes sense anyway. It’s interesting that I’ve been taking carrying into consideration and thinking about it and training for several months, to the point that it was already natural to strap my gun on the way out the door, the day after my license arrived, and not have any self-conscious issues (like I’ve heard newbies to carrying may “check” unconsciously, thereby giving away their concealment. Not here. The few people who know I may carry, I’ve already told them they’ll never know and I won’t tell them when I am.