Dareg Book 3: First draft done.

[rockhazard]

[PS Power]

I've been working on handgun fighting styles. Mainly body-supported one and two hand holds, with an emphasis on fairly accurate unaimed work between 0-25 meters. (I worked out how to get bullets on a man sized target at 30 meters, unaimed, but not while moving.)

The goal is to get past the very high "miss" ratio that most people have during gun fights.

*Interesting factiod: Train shooters (The police) are often credited with hit rates during a handgun battle of up to 28% Most of the time this is actually lower, with the bottom end being around 13%.

Untrained users most often hit at about 10%.

The thing here is that the statistics hide a whole lot of things. For instance, with the police...

In police shootings, about 10% of the shooters, the police either opening fire first, or defending themselves, hit with nearly every bullet. Call it 80% to be friendly to the rest of the picture? Another ten percent hits at over 50% of the time...

So, if there are (arbitrary example numbers to follow)

100 officers in our sample.
and 400 bullets that hit the target (the average is actually something like 4.3 bullets fired per encounter/gun fight. That's a bit misleading, since the highest hit rates come in when the police are shooting unarmed individuals, or so it seems, which is hardly a fight.) splitting all rounds evenly.

That means we have a breakdown that seems a bit like this:

10% will hit 80% of the time or slightly higher, accounting for 320 of the bullets that hit.
10% will hit 50% of the time (Being incredibly generous here, which is why the numbers don't match up. I'll get to that in a bit. Rest assured, it's worse than I'm making things seem here.) accounting for 200 bullets that hit the intended target.
leaving 80% that... Hit nothing at all.

Now, the real facts have the top 10% hitting even more than that, and my second group is actually reported to hit that high of a percentage, but likely is actually hitting closer to 17.0% (It is very, very hard to get at the raw numbers, since most Police departments don't report them to anyone, and tend to hide the information. Which I can sort of see... I mean, seriously. That's a lot of missing going on, given that most of these gunfights take place between 0-15 feet...

So 80% of trained shooters are sharing the meager remainder of .5% (Half a percent! I don't know if I noted that correctly for the math.) Meaning that almost ALL trained shooters, in a gunfight, at very close range... Miss their intended target, almost every time.

The reason? Most will try to credit fear/adrenaline for it. My take is that fear is part of the whole thing, but adrenaline reactions actually take about two-three minutes to really kick in, and aren't as bad for cognitive function as I previously thought. (According to the research done that I was able to find. It actually boosts reaction times AND short term memory. I always thought it functionally made you a moron, but research doesn't back that. I also figured that it would hit your system inside 20 seconds. I was, it seems, incorrect on that score)

So, while initial fear is a big factor, from examining tapes, it seems to me that lack of good form and practice are the real problem. SO many people try to punch out their bullets, working their fist like that's going to propel the things any faster... It just sours the aim!

Think about that one: almost all police officers fail to hit the incredibly large target, right in front of them, over and over again in real life shooting situations. Trained shooters... Miss, almost all the time.

To fix this I propose a few things, which are outside of the stuff that I've been working on, since there's no real need to pretend that my new way of doing things, which is new and therefore untested in real life, is the best way to do things.

1. Use laser sights.

People using laser sights hit their targets 92% of the time in a gunfight. Compared to missing almost all of the time. Many of these shooters were actually fairly poorly trained at the time on the new equipment. It just helps that much. (Particularly in low light conditions.)

2. Practice using your flashlight.

Most police gunfights take place in low light situations. It's one of the reasons they always think your cell phone is a gun. That part doesn't matter, but what does is that having a light helps you hit the target, if you use it. So carry one, and use it in any dim light situation. In fact, while there is some speculation going on here, it seems that having a flashlight at night, and using it, is a better deterrent to criminals than having a firearm is, as far as preventing robbery or rape.

Flashlights are cheap, and small now. There is no excuse for anyone not to have one all the time. Except for fashion, and speedoes.

3. Practice.

Being good enough to hit a human sized target with good one or two handed shooting at 0-21 feet is not hard at all. So why do so many people fail at it when the chips are down? (Remember, the police are horrible, and most everyone else is worse!) It seems to really come down to not regularly practicing what you want to do in an emergency situation.

Most people who open carry or have a CCW (Concealed Carry Permit. No, I tried to look it up, but no one seems to really know where the "W" comes in. My guess is that it actually stems from "Warrant" but there's no proof of that in particular. Everyone has a theory, but... It really doesn't matter.) either don't practice much, or if they do, practice only static target shooting.

You have to know how to move and shoot, shoot from cover and be good enough that you default to good enough form when the chips are down. You don't have to LOOK good doing it however. Just hit the target.

It can be hard to find ranges that allow that, so I recommend cross training with airsoft or BB guns for the movement portion, or against moving targets.

That way if you mess up and shoot yourself in the foot, it's just a learning experience, and not a life altering one!

4. Shoot first.

Note: This is almost always going to be illegal. I'm not suggesting otherwise. In fact, unless society falls apart on us, I really suggest running away, rather than fighting anyone. It will work more often, and protect you from harm better than a firearm will.

That said...

The primary factor that is show over and over again is that the person that wins a gunfight is the person that hits the other with a (singular) bullet first.

Notice, that isn't "hit's them in the A-zone" or "performs the best head shot" first. Just hits the other person, anywhere on the body. Now that is much different than a big discussion about stopping power, or what it takes to put a person down. What seems to happen however is that a solid hit, even with a small calliber weapon, really spoils the other person's aim for some reason.

Which means that the high percentage shooters almost all tend to actually be taking a good stance, and then firing before the other person can.

*Which doesn't mean you shouldn't learn to aim for the head in close range combat situations. That just makes sense if you're bothering to put in enough practice already.

Okay, so this is a small book, on a topic that very few will actually care about. If you find the idea of practice to be unneeded, or my response to be too uneducated, then... Well, a lot of people likely will, so join the club? I don't think that anyone is really going to lose out by practicing more however.

*I've also been working on slingshot techniques. Mainly speed work. I can get something like ten whole shots a minute now! (I think.)

[rockhazard]

I suspect that part of the problem in the hit-miss ratio with cops is heart rate. It isn't just about the adrenaline itself. Having a fear response increases the heart rate fast. We were taught constantly that once our heart rate reached 145bpm that our fine motor control would take a severe hit and that this would happen very quickly -- in the context of a life-and-death struggle maybe only lasting 7 seconds. I think a controlled trigger pull is a fine motor skill. You can do it under this kind of stress, but your performance will degrade vs. a calm environment. Hell, I've had my hands shake from fear in only a few seconds, so that wouldn't help either. Add to the obvious reasons to be afraid the fact that a person with a knife can do a suicide charge at a person armed with an unchambered handgun from 20 feet and manage to land a stab before being shot, and the fact that one RCMP study showed that only 20% of cops knew their opponent in a controlled and safe training environment was armed before the training knife was deployed and already stabbing them, and you get a recipe for disaster. Nevermind that bullet proof vests are crap against a knife blade because of the second thrust in every stabbing (the motion we all naturally perform when our progress with a blade is initially impeded). This all adds up to bad juju for a cops' state of mind.

We were also taught the average bleed out times for various target locations on the body so we'd know how to achieve tailored effects and know what to defend as a priority, and it's scary. It's possible for a person slashed at the neck to lose consciousness in 2 seconds!

I have good reason to suspect a lot of cops know these things because my sifu was the defensive tactics instructor for the local police department, and many of my fellow students were cops, military, and even a bail bondsman.

The laser pointer is an excellent idea, and I agree with your note to run away. Fights hurt, and people often don't know what they are getting into. The mentality should be that there's always more than one assailant, even if you don't see them, and that you are taking your life into your hands every time you choose violence. Multiple hidden assailants are also the reason I don't really like the standard Brazilian Jujutsu tactic of taking everyone to the ground: it's fine until their unseen buddy comes up with a knife.

I'll end my infodump now...

[PS Power]

What I've been working on is literally stabilization techniques, to get around the shaking of the fear response, so I hear you there!

Most officers don't work in a fear state however, but a startle state response pattern. (That shaking after a few moments thing, the jumping away from a loud sound, that kind of stuff.) Yes, it's linked, but not all due to adrenaline in particular. (Which really was what I had been thinking before.) So at least they have that going for them.

At seven meters you can shoot accurately, even without fine motor control. Jerk the trigger, have wobbly hands... Just because the person is so close to you. At 0-3 meters it SHOULD be nearly impossible to miss. Even shaking like a leaf.

BJJ works primarily due to the fact that people had moved away from grappling and toward stand up fighting thanks to martial arts movies. There's a real reason that Mixed martial arts doesn't focus on BJJ exclusively, and that the fights are becoming more stand up over time. People are learning how to get around the grapplers again.

Not that this has anything to do with Dareg, in particular.

[rockhazard]

[Ronald Dukarski]

Okay, but the use of firearms may be of limited use. As I understand it, an adversary can be killed (or wounded) in his own universe, but his doppelgangers that he uses to fight with, ( the two adversaries in the fight sequence at the end of the first Dareg book seemed to use them as well as Dr. Millis to be in multiple times at once) turn to black smoke when killed. A weapon would have to be fired at all times within the moment of conflict (multiple times, one for each time/dimension to kill or wound them all) which would be problematic with weapons as we know them. I think. We'll have to see how Dale handles it. Maybe, killing one kills them all? Maybe killing one puts the others out of play? We'll have to see how it works.

[rockhazard]

[SPOILER ALERT]
Good points, but I don't think a large number of them have the resources to move between worlds, as was hinted at in Persist, and it looks like they may have a means of finding out the location of the original via Epson's powers. That was the limited circumstance I was talking about. Also, a submachine gun could possibly do wonders by dropping their numbers very rapidly, especially in the hands of someone as enhanced as Dareg. An MP5 can pump out 800 rounds a minute. Admittedly, they don't have anything like an 800 round magazine, but we don't yet know Dareg's ability to absorb damage yet. Reloading could be of little concern to him. Who knows? He may not even have to lose a ship next time.

[PS Power]

I just saw this, but I think the latest book will leave people feeling happy on this issue.

[Korwin]

[PS Power]

Not at this time.

I should have the new book up on the first of April. Yay! I can't wait!