< continued from above >
So with this in-mind, let's go back to that "skull shot."
I know, I'm going back-and-forth, here, but bear with me, please.
Let's look at the CNS shot - typically portrayed in various two-dimensional targets as either the "eye box" (VTAC and Opsgear), "triangle of death" (what we called it in medical school - and is shown by targets such as those for The Reston Group and the Federal Air Marshal Service) or "the fatal T" (Glockstore/Lenny Magill head-shot overlay).
We are reminded by Awerbuck that this "kill zone" zone as it is printed on paper is only valid when the target is directly facing us in much the same manner that we view a flat-range 2-dimensional paper target. Why? Look at the anatomy - look at what we are actually shooting: we're not shooting "the brain" as a whole - that critical "eyebox/death triangle/fatal-T" delineates an area not only of material weakness in the bony structure that is our head, but also has further implications in terms of the areas of the brain which govern the vital functions that keeps us, as humans, alive. To-wit, Representative Gabrielle Giffords was "shot in the brain. Similarly, let's not forget this one -
Boy survives arrow shot through the eye , each of which shows just how much difference a fraction of an inch - or even a variance in individual anatomy - can potentially make:
Florida woman survives gunshot between the eyes
So again, we take that, and now we move back to the upper thoracic yet again - we should remember that similar implications carry over to the vital organs and large vessels in the "high center chest" critical area. Depending on how that target actually presents in real-time, in 3-dimensions, taking that "high center chest" shot may actually not produce the result we want (i.e. incapacitation) - that maybe the shot needed to have instead entered through the abdomen or even the crotch (i.e. the target is laying flat, with his groin facing you), or, in going back to the CNS example, maybe through the neck area in order to reach the anatomy that we need to disrupt.
Marksmanship is never a bad thing.
Having a bullet that performs well, terminally, is never a bad thing, either.
In addition to the above anatomic/physical considerations, Awerbuck also reminds us that the physical circumstances of the fight can also be used to explain why even trained shooters miss at even close range - that the rule of inverse proportions and simple angular geometry can demonstrate that a dynamic, moving target can well be easier to hit at 13 yards than it is to hit at 3, and that furthermore, at closer range, that angular deviation open up more of the backdrop, making Cooper's "Rule 4" all that much more important when shooting in the "real world."
So, as-usual, this is my embarrassingly long way of coming to the point that I want to make.....
It's all too easy to say that "combat effective" shooting is more than sufficient for "the real world," without realizing that "combat effective" is only valid in those dire moments, and that our shooting must be considerably better when we're just practicing by ourselves on the range or even when we're in a training class or competition, where the stresses are just not the same.
It's all too easy to say that "having a gun is better than not having one," versus insuring that we have "enough gun for the fight," let alone having put some thought into the terminal capabilities of the cartridges that one has filling the magazine.
That flat-range 2-dimensional target we're shooting at is far from "the real world," and getting "combat effective" hits on it does not translate to what we know of either anatomy or physics. "Combat accuracy" is not a measure of how well one can shoot. It's what the end-result is, after an actual life-or-death defensive event in which we have discharged our firearm. It accounts for our movements, that of the threat, and the four-thousand-and-one other factors that go into ahat defensive shootout that makes it so much more stressful than even the hardest drill/test we have run on the range. It's what our performance FALLS TO, from the height of perfection that we have attained and truly mastered in practice.
One of Clint Smith's "Clintisms" is that mediocre shooting is often all that's needed to win a gunfight. A corollary to that is the Clintism that he insists "we train to magnificence" so that we can fall to barely adequate when under pressure.
If one can only attain adequate or mediocre performance when under training stress, what will he/she fall to, when faced with a violent confrontation?
No-one ever wished they shot slower or were less accurate.
Yes, shooting more rounds, faster, inherently biases the BSA template and compromises accuracy.
That is true for everybody from the completely-fresh-to-shooting novice all the way to the most badass of ninja-killers and even top-tier competition shooters.
But our shots have to count. It has to count both in the form of our base performance behind the gun (our ability to deliver the shots where they are needed), and it has to count in the form of terminal ballistic performance. Terminal performance in the base form of penetration -because we've learned from the above that it's not necessarily going to be "belt-buckle-to-belt-buckle"- but if I can get some expansion, too, I'll definitely take that as gravy.
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