A common debate about practical defense-oriented shooting is whether a “speed draw” is really important. Some folks like to argue that their amazing power of awareness will protect them from any unplanned, unscheduled harm. However, an interesting tidbit comes from a recent article by Dr. Darrell Ross (professor and department head of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice at Valdosta State University and Director of The Center of Applied Social Sciences) called Assessing Lethal Force Liability Decisions and Human Factors Research.
Professor Ross explains that in 90% of the 1,100 cases studied, an officer had less than two seconds to react to perceived lethal danger. (Law Enforcement Executive Forum, 2013, #13(2), p90)
Two seconds. Now sure, you can tell yourself that the Gunbelt of +5 Awareness around your waist will allow you to detect these dangers much more easily than the experienced street cops studied by Ross. After all, they only had professional training and years of experience upon which to rely. You’ve read about pre-fight cues on the internet! (and if I can add one more sarcastic comment: did you know that police officers can read stuff on the internet, too?)
So the next time someone tells you that a “quick draw never won a gunfight,” ask how they know that. Because I’ve yet to meet a gunfight survivor who said he wished he had drawn his gun more slowly…
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
Interesting timing of your comments; it comes just after this: http://www.nwcn.com/news/221730151.html where the bad guy was shooting just as the Trooper was exiting his vehicle. Already behind, a quick response (and accurate) made the difference. As you’ll read; both players got their hits!
Thanks for that link, Matt. Glad the Trooper is going to be all right.
It’s also a great example of the difference between a killing shot and immediately incapacitating the threat. Sounds like the driver was able to return to his car and operate it at least well enough to get it moving down the highway again before he died.
Tragic for the kids in the car, whoever they are.
Two seconds to identify the threat, draw and make accurate hits? Todd, guys like you can do that in competition. Do you think you could routinely do that when you are going about your business? It strikes me that even the best are going to have a hard time meeting that standard.
IMO,2 seconds is being charitable.When the other guy gets to make the first move,odds are your first sign of trouble will be a bullet flying in your direction.
While there’s a place for situational awareness, we should prepare for the possibility of facing a 3 strikes felon who’s got a few bodies on them.Too often I see gun owners preparing to face down a common thug without realizing there are proficient criminals among us.
“…An officer had less than two seconds to react to perceived lethal danger.”
Meaning they had already assessed and decided that there was a lethal threat, then had two seconds to respond? Or they had two seconds to perceive, assess, decide, then act?
And how are they qualifying the (I hate to use the term…) deadline to a response? The first shot from the bad guy, the first act with intent to injure…?
(I could buy the journal issue, but I’m very, very poor.)
Steve & Chance — My reading of the article is that the two seconds begins at the time the officer made the determination that a deadly threat existed. In Cooper terms, the time from going Condition Red to the time a shot was fired.
Our entire training program at HiTS is based on two seconds. Its funny that a combined experience of four decades of cop work and studying officer involved shootings, Wayne and I came to this conclusion without a study. Kind of neat to hear of some academic research.
One of the things we spend a ton of time on is how to get ahead of the curve in order the most possible work in that 2 seconds. It is why situational awareness is so important as well as threat recognition and threat assessment. Many who have a lot of experience in the L/E world with serious bad guys understand over time how to get ahead and how to pick up on when things are wrong. The best example is one of our mentors and close friends has been in a lot of shootings-in all but one his gun was in his hand ahead of the decision to shoot rather than working reaction from the holster. This is called learning, and this is a tough arena to learn in with a ton of risk while gaining that knowledge.
Additionally, we have also found that hitting first is critical. Even if you are behind the curve, it is important to hit first, thus first round accuracy is critical.
“Quick draw never won a gunfight”……I have seen a couple cases where it was critical, but what was much more important was not having it come down to a quick draw to win the fight. As a tell people about my last shooting-“It is hard to beat me in a quick draw contest when mine is already out”.
The link Matt posted only references one of two Oregon State Police shootings that happened in two days. The one on I-84 was by far the stranger of the two, but both resulted in dead bad guys and the cops ok (in the I-84 case the Trooper was injured, but not seriously, in the second on the Troopers were not injured). Both were incidents of the bad guy pointing guns at the cops…
like Nyeti said, having your smoke wagon skinned before you need it is key. it’s one less thing to have to process and do, it allows you to get right business. However, you generally can’t just walk around all the time with your smoke wagon in your hand. For instance the I-84 example Matt posted, this was a case of a traffic stop, and the bad guy was getting out of the car and shooting as the Trooper was getting out of the car. So, although pre-indicators should make the hair on the back of our necks stand up and we should skin our smoke wagon, it is also critical to work on a smooth efficient draw..
Being fast and able to hit your target is important. Being alert, aware and prepared to deal with that target, will keep you alive.
LCSO264-We are beyond totally aware that many encounters become a “surprise event”. What we try to do is really show our students (and we really like to stay in the L/E realm) is what they can do in that two seconds and we hold them to a tight accuracy standard. For many a single surgical hit in 2 seconds is what they can do, others can get a few, while they can do far better work from a ready, and need to work harder in lowlight with a flashlight, or on the move, or a combo of many factors. We change the factors, not the time. It also shows the importance of a variety of fundamentals. If you are on a surprised draw with a security holster and muff your grip (very common), you will have to make that up with sights and trigger. If you are in a iffy situation and at least establish a great initial grip on the pistol, even if you have not drawn, you will be able to do more and better work if you have to. Moving off line or circling while in the draw-stroke is viable, but it has to be practiced to maintain the accuracy standards to get those initial hits.
Many people (especially in L/E) run at pure full throttle, which is fine when everything is perfect. What we try to do is throw a lot of imperfect in to let students understand how to gauge their speed. Its like driving, if you try to drive a curvy mountain road at autobahn speed, you will drive off a cliff. I equate the 2 seconds to the length/distance of the road that is consistent with what we have seen over a lot of years. The key is learning how to drive that road in a wide variety of conditions.
Todd G…..I am not trying to turn your site into our advertising, but the “Two Second Standards” is the equivalent of our “FAST drill”, so I get enthusiastic, and like to discuss it.
DB — No worries at all, dude.
Not to rain on anyone’s parade about a 2 second standard, but I am reading the following:
Professor Ross explains that in 90% of the 1,100 cases studied, an officer had less than two seconds to react to perceived lethal danger. (Law Enforcement Executive Forum, 2013, #13(2), p90)
Since it says LESS than 2 seconds in 90 percent of the cases, woldn’t it make sense to train for as fast as possible, as opposed to 2.0 seconds?
We try to get maximum work to a tight accuracy standard in two. Again we use the time as the maximum with a B8 standard and then vary the conditions. My best to date is 9 rounds from the ready in 2 seconds, 5 yards, with a P30. Wayne is usually 10% faster. That is running error free at max with no variables. I know I cannot do that every time, and I can guarantee that I can change the variables to make it worse. We strive for maximum work with fist size accuracy. We work students to failure, and then back to 100%. That 100% is where we want them to understand. It varies between every student, every variable, and varies with their skill on that day. The key is for them to realize what they need to do for that accuracy and the time. If they get a perfect draw and things are wonderful, they can push hard. Just had Tom Givens run 6 rounds from the holster like this-everything near perfect. The emphasis is on realizing that if things are not right, to make them right at speed…….like if your grip is jacked up, you aren’t getting a solid visual verification, you can feel your trigger press is going off the rails, etc. You will need to slow up. We simply want solid, guaranteed hits within the 2 seconds from whatever we give on the variable. How many is very subjective.
I have seen WAY too many LEO’s not hit inside of very close ranges. Speed was not the problem (they were in fact going “as fast as possible”), accuracy was. I have had way too many students win fights not being fastest, but having the fastest solid hit, and the fastest follow on, and the fastest transition to the head on a failure or to recognize they needed to go to the lesser percentage head shot first.
GJM, we are never going to agree on this, and I am fine with that. I have enough successes (both winning fights and winning the aftermath legally) with this stuff with non-dedicated shooters to stick with the process we use.
Not sure you understand my point. The study just said 90 percent, as in roughly 990 out of 1100 incidents required a shot in LESS than 2.0 seconds. My question is why you have picked 2.0 as your standard when a large study just said in 990 out of 1100 incidents, you had to be UNDER 2.0 seconds?
nyeti: I’m not a cop and never have been one. But some decades ago, I was in the armored cavalry, and the doctrine for our light tanks was that the first hit won but if you couldn’t get the first hit, get the first round off nonetheless, on the ground that it would likely disconcert the other guy. We learned that one from the Germans, who had proven it in WW II.
Don’t you think that might also work in a pistol fight? Get a round off from the hip (assuming it is a close in fight and then get the weapon out straight and continue shooting?
Again, I speak in ignorance, and a tank duel is different from a pistol fight. But I would think that some of the fundamentals might carry over.
We use 2 seconds as the maximum. Keep in mind, some problems should not be handled in less that 2 seconds, as even the best shooters in the world couldn’t handle it in that time frame. Meaning lots of cops could miss at the the same rate as a USPSA Grand Master. We are not good with missing in two seconds because that is how fast the engagement unfolds. Many of these things happen faster than shooting can solve the problem.
This is where moving or “resetting the clock” in some other manner, may be a better option in some cases.
Too fast with us is when you are not hitting. If you are hitting at 100% without issue, we aren’t slowing anyone down. It is essentially an individualized program. We do caution our students that dumping a ton of rounds in a short period into someone is not always a best course of action. We want them looking at the failure to stop as an option and we do those inside the time frame as well, so they can react to shot performance. We like a pace that is consistent with reaction time of the shooter. This has panned out well for my people in the field because they tended to run very low round counts and end up either being able to stop the threat rapidly with accurate solid hits, or can react to their rounds not producing a result and switching to the head.
Steve J-easy question, if you or one of your loved one was in the area of a L/E interaction with a bad guy, would you be okay with that officer missing the bad guy? We teach that every round fired hits something. We want our people to hit “something” they can justify shooting, and not “something” that didn’t need to be shot. War has this whole “collateral damage” thing that is part of the equation. If you think it is okay for U.S. law enforcement to embrace “collateral damage” as being acceptable as a means to make things better for the officers that is fine, but I have a little girl that is my entire world that I never want to be collateral damage so that an officer could make a scary noise to hopefully stop a bad guy through fear.
Nyeti, wasn’t trying to argue with you. I totally agree with what your saying. I was just pointing out a surprise/ambush situation may not reasonably allow for you to have your gun in your hand… I press/encourage my guys to be heads up, and get their gun out before it turns into a reactionary deal..
No problem, I totally got what you were saying, and with out being so wordy……we work a lot of holster work in those same two seconds. The difference in how much can be done between the gun in hand and from the holster is drastic, and we hope that our students can be working from the ready, but are prepared to work from the holster.
Nyeti:
I wasn’t arguing with you–just asking a question so I could understand better.
No problem, often my “typing” is harsher than I intend the delivery. Read it with an inflection of Wilford Brimley and not Clint Eastwood, and that is how I intended it. Sorry if it came across like I was typing angry.
This article quotes a Valdosta State University professor. That makes it a top quality article and beyond reproach.
And this is where other skills can come into play, if you have them.
Coppery being different than what most CCW situations look like, cops have to go look for and confront people.
I have never shot a person in my LE career, but I have spontaneously disarmed a few people at very close range when it would have been to my detriment to go for my own gun due to time and spacing.
If memory serves, off the top of my head I’ve done this four times with suspects armed with handguns and seven times with folks armed with knives or things that cut.
I would venture to guess that I had well under two seconds to react.
I think this research, along with the Bill Lewinski Force Science Research has given LE a lot to think about.
Bill’s research showed an armed man intent on delivering a shot at a cop did so in around 1 second from the waistband, with very little practice.
Absolutely being aware of the indicators of attack has saved lots of LE lives and has helped officer who have used deadly force to explain their actions when to novices it looked like they used excessive force in dealing with suspects.
I with Chuck have had the experience of disarming suspects who pulled guns and knives on me, and the two second time frame is very generous….. Seemed like only a fraction of a second from seeing the gun to taking it away before being shot.
More importantly in our training plan was giving officers a variety of situations that allowed them to already have seen the threat and know how to react when it happens. Like Col. John Boyd taught in the OODA loop, the more you practice situations, the quicker you can decide how to respond and get it done.
And portraying to the bad guy that you have confidence in knowing what to do, has caused them to think twice about trying you and prevented the shootout in the first place.
Stay safe out there.