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WHAT HAPPENS IN A REAL GUNFIGHT



What Really Happens In A Gunfight?

The conclusions from twenty-five years of lethal force investigation.

By Dave Spaulding

Like many serious students of personal defense, I constantly update my
knowledge of what actually happens when one is faced with a deadly threat.
The best way to do this, at least to my way of thinking, is to talk with the
folks who have been there. This means talking to gunfight survivors, getting
their perspective on what transpired at the moment of truth. It only makes
sense that by talking to those who have won in life's ultimate contest, to
see what they saw, felt and heard, the rest of us will be better able to
understand what to expect and how to prepare for it.

There are some who question such an approach, saying that the mind often
does not "record" events clearly, which I admit does have some merit. I can
remember working as a violent crime detective and taking witness statements
from not only the victim of a particular crime, but also from people who
witnessed the event. The discrepancies between what the various people saw
and heard can sometimes be quite dramatic. These discrepancies are due to
the shock effect that such an incident has on the witness' psyche.

Most people who witness a violent event (such as a crime in progress) are
not accustomed to violent acts. Witnesses have told me that they always
thought a violent attack would look like the antiseptic event as portrayed 
by television. When a bystander witnesses blood, victim screams, pandemonium 
and the shear violence of the real thing, they are taken back and oftentimes 
tell themselves, "This can't be happening; this can't be real." This denial
state will certainly interfere with their re-telling of events.

Unfortunately, this same attitude and level of perception is also the norm
with crime victims, oftentimes resulting in a deadly lag time. Criminals and
terrorists know this and believe me, they use it. Additionally, criminal
attacks tend to happen in times of reduced light (predators like the dark),
and the human eye does not function as well when the light is low, further
clouding the witness perception of the event. I have interviewed people who
were just a few yards from a crime and cannot remember what type of weapon
was used in the attack. Interestingly, this is usually due not to low light,
but to inconsistent light. While what the perpetrator was doing was clear,
his face, hands or other actions are often cast in shadows by the inconsistent
light at the scene. Think about the environment that you live in. How often is 
there a totally dark environment? Isn't there usually a street or house light
that lights up an area with darkness all around? Look down an alley sometime.

It is likely that you will see a lighted area but with dark spots, like the
shadowed area behind a nearby dumpster. This inconsistent light environment
is very real and is a factor in armed confrontations. Police officers have
told me of incidents where they left their flashlight behind because they
were working the day shift and they didn't need a light because the sun was
out. Then they get into a situation where they need to look into a dark
closet, alcove or basement and they just can't see well enough. Being able
to see well is critical.

Perception is a funny thing, but it is really all that we have when trying
to investigate such events. The human mind is not infallible...actually it
is easily tricked. There are any number of magicians and illusionist who are
making a good living making people think they saw something they did not.
Unless a video camera is running at the time of the event (which is
happening more and more), then the testimony of the participants is still
the best indicator of what transpired. This is still the standard for our
court system and I feel that it will remain a big part of defense research
for years to come.

Even the video camera does not always tell a complete story. Quite often,
what the viewer sees is not necessarily what actually transpired. For
example, a student of mine was involved in one of the most publicized
shoot-outs in recent history. In this case, this young deputy assisted a
state trooper on a traffic stop that turned out to involve two domestic
terrorists who were also murder suspects in another state. The fight took
place at very close range and fortunately, the deputy was not hit.
Unfortunately, neither was the suspect who then became the subject of a
nationwide manhunt.

After the trial was over and the court imposed "gag order" was lifted, I was
able to talk with the deputy at length. I was quite gratified when he told
me, "Lieutenant, everything that you told us in the basic academy was true.
It happened just like you said it would. I felt that I was very well
prepared for what happened." We instructors live for such moments; they make
all of the frustration worthwhile. I then went on to ask him a battery of
questions that I had asked so many others over the years, feeling that I
already knew the answers since I had watched the video over and over again.
It was at this point that I found out that my eyes had not seen what really
happened. I said, "I was glad to see after the initial exchange that you
moved behind the engine block of your cruiser to take cover."

His response to this was surprising, "I didn't take cover, I fell down and
it was the scariest part of the whole situation. Here I was in the middle of
a gunfight and I was flat on my back. I was terrified that I was going to
get shot in the butt. I felt so helpless. What you told us in the academy
about not trying to walk backwards was so true." This and other such
incidents have made me realize that videos do not necessarily tell the whole
story. It is essential to interview the participants.



THE GUNFIGHT PROJECT
Over the last 25 I have made it a point to talk with every gunfight survivor
that I could find. Last count, I had spoken with almost 200 individuals.
These people include men and women, military (including war veterans), law
enforcement and legally armed citizens. These confrontations include
battlefield situations, back alley struggles, attempted muggings, attempted
rapes (and successful rapes) and the like.

Right after I started my law enforcement career, a local police officer was
involved in a shooting incident. I had the opportunity to speak with him and
found myself fascinated with his accounting of what transpired. Afterward, I
thought that what had happened to him could happen to me and I needed to be
better prepared than he had.

So I undertook this project to educate myself on what happens during lethal
encounters. At every opportunity, I sought out others and asked them what
happened. I then developed a list of questions and included them in my
interview process. I did not try and make this process "scientific" as it
was for my own edification. Once I got involved in defensive skills
instruction, I began to rely on what I was told to develop my lesson plans
and decide what I should teach. Over time, I have found this approach to be
quite reliable.

I began to seek training from the best and most famous firearms instructors
and was concerned when what I had learned sometimes conflicted with what
they taught. On one occasion, I spoke with one of these well-known
instructors and inquired about a discrepancy regarding a technique he taught
based on what I had been told. He looked at me and said, "Young man, I have
been teaching this technique around the world with a great deal of success.
I'm not going to change now based on a few war stories." This technique was
one of this instructor's flagship techniques. It was quite clear that he was
not going to let reality get in his way.

Several weeks ago, I was talking with Handguns editor Dave Arnold about this
same topic. When I told him of some of the trends that I had seen, he asked
me to write an article about the myths of gun fighting. I had a few
reservations about this, as I never intended to do this. I have not
catalogued it, nor have I tried to put percentages on how often something
happens. Quite frankly, there seems to be no set pattern on what people
remember about their confrontation. What I have found, however, is that
there are certain trends that seem to occur, in some fashion, over and over
again. With this is mind, I agreed to Dave's request to report on what I
have been told. I am not trying to go head to head with the research of
others, nor am I trying to become the guru of gun fighting. It is
information that the reader may use as they see fit. If it helps someone
somewhere, that's great.



SIGHTS TO SEE
One of the great controversies of gun fighting has long been whether or not
people can use their sights during the high stress of a gunfight. First, let
me say that some version of point shooting needs to be taught in any defensive 
handgun course. There are going to be times when pointing the gun at someone 
close will be a necessity, period. However, I am not convinced that it is 
impossible to see the sights in a gun battle. This being the case, I always 
ask the people I interview if they remember seeing their sights during their 
confrontation. I know that there are different scientific studies explaining
how it is impossible to see the sights on a pistol during an armed confrontation.

Recently, AO Sight System released a document entitled "Factors Influencing 
Visibility of Firearm Sights During BAR" (BAR meaning body alarm reaction) in 
which author Dr. Edward C. Godnig claims that it is possible "to maintain 
visual awareness of the 'sight picture'." I, too, have found this to be the 
case, but it is dependent on several factors. The first is whether or not the 
subject in question was caught unaware and the startle response kicked in. When 
startled, people will respond out of fear and panic, which usually does not 
result in the desired outcome.

The biggest factor during a startle response is luck. While luck will always
be a factor in every confrontation, I am not convinced that we should make it a 
factor in our training. When statements are made such as, "I'm not going to be 
able to use the sights anyway, why spend training time using them?" It is almost
as if we are expecting to be caught unaware and allowing luck to be the deciding
factor. Clint Smith has said, "When you get up close you don't have to be good, 
you just have to be lucky," which is certainly true. Maybe the answer to this 
problem is not to be worried about whether or not to use sights, but to 
concentrate on being "switched on" to what is going on around you.

Without fail, the people who remember seeing or using their front sight are
the ones who were prepared to engage in combat. Good examples of this are
soldiers on the field of battle or SWAT cops who know going in that they are
quite likely to shoot. These folks kept sights in their "cone of vision" and
relied on them when a hostile target was encountered. I have also experienced
this phenomenon while working narcotics for a number of years. Prior to raids
and vehicle takedowns, I would visualize in my head what I planned on doing, 
including where my firearm would be. This position would always be some type 
of high ready position where the gun and its sights were within my "cone." I 
found that during the operation itself, that when I encountered potential 
hostiles, I could shift between the actions of the suspect and the location
of my front sight with little problem. The big difference here is that I was
"prepared" to engage and not caught in startlement. Awareness is as important 
to gun fighting as is trigger control.

Along these same lines, the speed of the event is also reported frequently.
While it is common knowledge that people report a sense of slow motion
during an armed confrontation, there are also people who say, "It happened
so fast, I just couldn't get caught up." While some may relate this to being
startled, I'm not sure that the speed of the event and startle response is
one in the same thing. Being startled is being caught flat footed and not
being able to get in the fight quickly enough. The people I have spoken with
report that their aggressor was fast, moved quickly and aggressively, moved
with purpose, and inhibited rational, controlled thought on their part. One
person told me that they actually were aware of their attacker's presence
and were preparing to respond, but when the attack came, it just happened
faster than they thought it would. This same person asked me, "What happened
to all this slow motion s**t that I've heard about? This guy moved at warp
speed." Add to this trying to draw a gun, necessary movement, muzzle flash
and other related things and, well, speed kills.



CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
For many years, we have been taught that armed confrontations occur at very
close distances (often times at arm's length), that few shots are fired and
the person involved usually misses. These statistics were compiled from the
FBI's Officer Killed Summary, which are released on an annual basis. Note
that the operative word here is killed; these are officers that lost their
confrontation. Have you ever wondered what happened with the officers that
won? Did they do anything different to help ensure they would prevail?

In 1992, veteran police officer Dick Fairburn, now a trainer for the
Illinois State Police, was commissioned by the Police Marksmen Association
to answer this very question. Mr. Fairburn's original quest was to try and
answer the stopping power debate of the time, in which he failed because the
database of 241 shooting incidents was too small. However, what he did
develop were some interesting trends that showed what officers did when they
won the confrontation. One of the most interesting was the distances
involved. While the FBI statistics show distances as being around ten feet,
the PMA study showed the average distance being more like twenty. This makes
sense, as distance will favor the person with the most training. This
relates directly back to awareness as the sooner you see trouble coming, the
more time you have to prepare for war. The PMA study also shows that the hit
ratio per encounter was closer to 62 percent instead of the often-reported
18 percent. The history of gun fighting for more than a century has shown
that the person that lands the first solid hit will usually win the
confrontation. Hitting is hard to do without preparation and relying on luck
is an invitation to disaster.

While talking with the people that I have interviewed, I could not help but
notice that the people who performed the best (and could also remember the
best) were the ones who were able to keep control of him or her self. Many
remember getting control of their breathing and using this to fuel their
inner drive. Those who could get control and overcome the startle response
were able to handle the situation. Many of these folks reported that they
were not surprised, but were angered by the audacity of the person trying to
attack them. It appears that those who became angered were able to channel
the chemicals flowing into their system into fight instead of flight or freeze. 
Many advised that they had taken the time to think about what they would do in 
the event they were attacked and had even played out scenarios in their head. 
It is clear that this role-playing or visualization prepared them to take action 
with little lag time. For years this has been called if/then thinking. For my 
students, I tell the to think of it as when/then thinking.

The other trend that I have noted in regards to the use of sights is the
actual configuration of the sight itself. I have noted two distinct
categories of individuals who remember using their sights; they are those
that used long guns and those that used a revolver. The reason for the long
gun use of sights seems to be directly related to responding as one is
trained. All that I spoke with advised that when they saw the threat facing
them, they brought the gun up until their cheek connected with the stock and
the fired. None of the people I spoke with advised that they had ever been
taught to fire their rifle or shotgun from the hip. When asked why they
remember their sights, a common response was, "Because they were shoved up
in front of my face."

Revolver shooters continuously told me things like, "I remember that big red
(or orange, or green) front sight coming right up in front of my eyes and
laying right on his chest." For those of us who broke into defensive
shooting using revolvers, we can remember how well that red front insert
contrasted with the wide black rear sight on our Smith & Wesson Model 66 or
Ruger Security-Six. Those of us who did not have such an insert would
usually paint our front sight with some high visibility color. Think about
what is now available on semi-automatic pistols. We now have to line up
three dots or we have to place a dot on top of a bar, all of which I believe
is too complicated for our eyes to do quickly. The revolvers simple, but
contrasting, sight system was easy for the eyes to use under stress.

Dr. Godnig reports on this phenomenon, "Contrast of a target is a critical
variable directly related to ease of visibility. Contrast corresponds to the
ability to discriminate a dark visual image from a lighter visual image
within a total visual surrounding. In general terms, contrast is the
relationship between the lighting intensity of two adjacent areas. A dark
image, approaching black (having no reflected light) is most easily seen
next to a white (reflecting all light) background. Shades of gray that
mostly resemble each other in light intensity and reflection are most
difficult to visually discriminate and separate because the contrast values
are most similar." Dr. Godnig also states, "Size of an object is related to
visibility because relatively larger image sizes have the potential to
stimulate more retinal cells inside the eye resulting in higher numbers of
cones and rods sending information via the optic nerve to the brain for
visual information processing." Objects that are large and of contrasting
color are easier to see under stress, which makes the current generation of
semi-auto sights on the wrong end of the sight plane. I, for one, have
highlighted the front sight of all my pistols with bright orange emergency
warning tape. It offers a contrast that is large and bold and I feel is the
reason that I can recall my sights during high stress events.



THE RIGHT STUFF
Another area that I address with the people I interview is the subject of
bullet effectiveness. Like many, I am interested in whether one caliber is
better than another or whether hollow point ammo is more effective than full
metal jacket. Truly, the most important thing in all this is where you hit
your opponent. I have spoken with a little old lady who severed the aorta of
a home invader with a FMJ .32 while, at the same time, talking to a police
officer that could not stop a knife-wielding assailant with five rounds of
.45 ACP hollow-point. As a matter of fact, many of the people that I spoke
with continued to fire until the threat was no longer in front of their gun.
Think about the time it takes for gravity to pull a 200-pound male to the
ground. As a matter of fact, time it for yourself.

Lay a mattress on the floor and just collapse on it. It will take between
one and two seconds to hit the floor. A lot of rounds can be fired in one to
two seconds. Dr. Vincent DiMaio, a noted pathologist and author of the book
Gunshot Wounds, has been quoted as saying the stopping power comes from,
"Where you hit the person and how many times you can hit them."

Interestingly, few people remember taking notice of any immediate effects of
their bullet strikes. Some reported that they expected small chest explosions 
like they saw in the movies and were surprised when that did not happen. Some 
recall the suspect's shirt puckering or moving, but most have no recollection 
of any bullet strikes. Most of the people I spoke with remember shooting and 
then their opponent "just not being there any more." At the same time, gunfight 
survivors who are shot vary greatly in their recollection of what happened when
they were shot. People, who are shot in the leg, unless a bone is hit, take less 
notice than other areas of the body that are hit. People who are shot in the 
chest remember being slammed or being punched at the time. How they handled the
impact seems to fall totally on how much anger and resolve they felt at the time 
they were shot. Doctors and emergency medical technicians have told me over the 
years that if you are not killed instantly by a gun shot wound (a vital organ 
being hit) or bleed out in a few very short moments, you probably will not die 
from your wound.

The most dramatic wound that I ever personally saw involved a woman who was
shot in the head by a .357 Magnum. I was a patrol deputy and responded to a
public housing project on the report of a shooting. I arrived at the same
time as the medic crew and found a white female sitting on the sofa with a
dimpled hole in her forehead.

There was a similar wound on the back of her head. As I spoke to her at the
scene (to find out who shot her, not to further my personal research) I was
told that she had been in an argument with her live-in boyfriend when he
picked up a snub-nosed .357 revolver and shot her in the forehead. She
advised that her head, "Slammed back and I fell back onto the sofa. I have
been sitting here ever since. I have a big head ache." It later turned out
that the 158-grain jacketed semi-wadcutter bullet used in the shooting had
spilt the lobes of her brain finer than any surgeon could have hoped to. The
bullet left a hole in the rear of her skull, which was patched in some way.
This victim was released from the hospital and then refused to testify
against her boyfriend. ("I still love him.") He was prosecuted anyway. This
incident remains one of the strangest things that I have ever seen.

It is safe to say that the larger the bullet, the more effective it will be.
I do not feel that it is a real dramatic difference, but bigger is better.
At the same time, it is safe to say that hollow-point ammo is more effective
than ball. This seems to be the result not of expansion, but from the
bullet's energy being dumped in the body and not exiting.

While not trying to place a percentage on how often they will be effective
with one or two shots, I have seen certain rounds be effective over and over
again. They are the .38 Special 158-grain lead hollow-point; 9mm +P+
jacketed hollow-point; .40 155- and 165-grain jacketed hollow-point; .45 ACP
hollow-points; .223 55 grain FMJ and hollow-point; 12 gauge 00 buckshot; and
12 gauge rifled slugs.

The various phases of body alarm reaction that have been discussed over the
years such as tunnel vision, slow motion movement, loss of digital dexterity
and the like, were all recalled by the subjects interviewed. None of the
people I spoke with remember suffering all phases, but everyone remembers
suffering at least one of the sensations listed under the category of body
alarm reaction. Those that understood what was happening to them better
handled the sensation during the encounter versus the people who did not.
Without a doubt, forewarned is forearmed.



REFLECTIONS
Finally, how did these people feel after the incident was over and they were
the victor? Again, a wide variety of responses are reported. There are those
who survived only by sheer luck and actually had little input into their own
survival. These people were "horrified" by what happened and what they had
to do and will never be the same person that they were prior to the
incident. These folks all seem to share one common trait--they thought that
nothing could ever happen to them. They are life's sheep and felt that
criminal attacks happened to others or to society's underbelly. It should be
noted that some "gun shop commandos" or "gun bullies," regardless of their
outward bravado, fall into this category.

The other extreme, those who are totally comfortable with what they did,
have no doubt in their justification to do so and have suffered no side
effects whatsoever. These people tend to be those who are confident and well
adjusted in their everyday life. They took the time to think about what may
be, without dwelling on it, and made proper mental and physical
preparations. The majority fall somewhere in the middle, what I call the
compassionate survivor.

These folks regret having to take action against another human (it is not
normal in the animal kingdom to prey on one's own species. Mankind seem to
have the patent on this), but they realize that if they had not, they would
have been seriously hurt or killed. Some have a period of physical and
mental distress, but it passes and they go on to live productive lives.

Where most survivors are taken off guard is what happens in the court
system. Few (including police officers) are prepared for the grand jury and
court system. While they think they understand what will happen, few
actually do. Others are amazed that the relatives of "the lowlife" who
attacked them are suing them. The process is, "Hey, I am the good guy here.
This person attacked me and I just defended myself. How can these people
possibly sue me?" People can sue for anything and they will--be prepared for
it.

Take this information for what it is worth. I'm not trying to dispute research 
that has already been published, nor am I trying to take on any specific group 
or theory. This is merely what I have been told by a little fewer than 200 
survivors. Take it for what it is worth and use it as you please.

By Dave Spaulding