Accuracy - Speed's Important Partner

Availability and cost of firearms and ammunition continue to stress police budgets and training programs. Things are about as tight as anyone can remember and no improvement is in sight. This has prompted questions about how to make the most of what little is available. Suggestions I have been making regarding firearms training have included more emphasis on gun retention and disarming training, dry-fire practice and more use of simulators, if they are available. Still, nothing really takes the place of rounds down range.

One area that definitely needs attention, and can be addressed with less ammunition than the typical qualification session, is practicing a smooth draw and accurate first shot (or shots) on your target. In many law enforcement shootings that I have reviewed, there seemed to be a sense of urgency in simply shooting or returning fire as fast as possible, regardless of accuracy. That is, of course, understandable. If someone is threatening to kill you, you want to stop that threat quickly. However, rushing your shots usually also means that they don't go where they need to in order to accomplish that goal. How often have we see or heard of high round count shootings where most of the shots were either misses or peripheral, ineffective hits? We seem to think that shooting back quickly is sufficient. I'm suggesting that shooting back accurately is more important.

Since the days of the gunfights of the Old West (that's the real Old West not the sensationalized Hollywood version that most people are familiar with), there have been lessons to be learned from gunfight survivors. Wyatt Earp, for example, was a real gunfight survivor. Stuart Lake, Earp's rather star-struck biographer, had asked Earp how he had managed to escape being shot, despite all the times people had fired bullets at him in various gunfights, including at the O.K. Corral. Earp's answer, related in correspondence with Lake as he was writing the book "Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal," was a straight forward insight into how such things really work. Earp responded: "I SHOT them while they were shooting AT me." Earp emphasized lining up the fore-sight (front sight) with the back sight, before commencing to fire.

In more recent times, real gunfight survivors have tried to send us the same message. Bill Jordan, who was an icon for my generation and certainly an authority on the subject, quoted John Hughes, a famous Texas Ranger from the early 20th century, as saying: "Take your time quick." Jordan himself said: "Speed's fine. Accuracy's final." And that's coming from one of the fastest shooters that ever wore a badge.

Jim Cirillo and Bill Allard, partners in the old NYPD Stakeout Squad, both tell of their gunfights in different ways. One point they always agreed on, however, was that it was of paramount importance to line your sights up on your target, then start shooting. Bill Allard, in a recent interview on one of our Pro Arms podcasts said: "It isn't the person that breaks the first shot that wins the gunfight; it's the first person that places the first accurate shot in the opponent that walks away a winner. So don't rush. Speed doesn't win the gunfight; accuracy does. Accuracy is paramount; everything else is secondary." Bill shot more bad guys than any of the other unit members. He was never hit in any of those NYPD gunfights and was known as a "never miss" member of the team.

So, how do we translate this lesson into some range drills that reinforce the concept for today's potential gunfight participants? For one thing, you're going to need a range timer. A range timer is a good investment for all types of firearms training, whether owned by the agency or for individual personal training. In any case, it is the only way to accurately measure your progress at improving your speed. For now, however, the first step is to do some dry-fire drills.