Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigdog
put five of six rounds into the poor victim...
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Probably the most likely scenario, but since the victim is already dead meat, at least there's a chance. You do the best you can.
Part of the problem is that most training still stresses "shoot to center of mass", by which they mean the middle of the chest. (the real center of mass is about a foot lower) The problem is that in a hostage situation that target area is probably not going to be available.
The whole idea of training is to make your response automatic, since stress reduces your IQ to somewhere between "root vegetable" and "Democrat." But the aims of police or security training aren't necessarily best for an individual. Current big-city police thinking is for the beat officer to stand back, maintain the situation, and wait for SWAT backup if possible. There's only so much training time and funding to be had, and the department and the city don't want any "police incidents", so they train one group of officers one way, one another. The SWAT guys stand off, set up at (relative) leisure, and take an unhurried shot; their chance of an accurate shot to a partially-exposed head is much better than some poor badge staring down the barrel of a gun and stoked on adrenaline, who might not have pulled his gun since he re-qualified with it a year ago.
Anyway, just because the target has the bullseye over the heart doesn't mean you have to restrict your practice to that spot.