Using a firearm in self defense is one of the most difficult and stressful experiences in someone’s life. It is incumbent upon anyone who might face these life changing decisions to maintain a high level of skill in making use of force decisions. New research from Calibre Press has shown that something as simple as changing your muzzle position can have drastic effects on making good shoot no shoot decisions with a firearm. Keep reading for all the details.
Caliber Press has recently published the results of some interesting research titled, ““Engineering Resilience” Into Split-Second Shoot/No Shoot Decisions: The Effect of Muzzle-Position.” This piece of research investigated the link between a police officer’s muzzle position, in a simulated shoot / no shoot scenario, and what effects that had on the accuracy of their decision to use lethal force. Let’s get into the details.
Research Design
Caliber recruited over 300 active law enforcement officers. These officers participated in the experiment using a laser gun and video simulation program. They were dispatched to a suspicious person call where they were informed someone was looking into houses, armed with a gun.
While the simulation played out, they were told that they must keep their pistol in one of three positions: aimed in along the sights, high ready (pistol at sternum level), or low ready (pistol at navel level). Their fingers were straight and off the trigger in all conditions.
Eventually, the simulation brought the officers face to face with the suspicious person. The subject then turned rapidly, reaching for an object in their pocket, and presented it towards the officers. This forced the officers to make a split second decision to engage the subject who either presented a cell phone or a firearm.
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Research Findings
Researchers found that in all scenarios, where a gun was presented, the officers correctly fired their weapons. The biggest difference was in the scenarios where a cell phone was presented.
For officers presented with a cell phone, who were aimed in on their subject, they mistakenly shot this unarmed person roughly two thirds of the time. Officers who were at the high ready position shot the unarmed subject over 50% of the time.
Officers who were at the low ready position, shot the unarmed subject roughly 30% of the time. While this is still an incredibly high error rate, it is roughly half the error rate that officers aimed in shot the unarmed subject. Now let’s discuss some possible reasons for this large discrepancy.
Research Discussion
The first and most obvious explanation for this huge difference is the amount of time it takes to engage from each muzzle position. Obviously, the further your muzzle is from your target, the longer it will take to move it into position and accurately engage.
The researchers analyzed this and they found that there wasn’t a statistically significant time difference between the aimed condition and the high ready position, with the average engagement time being .51 seconds in those conditions.
In the low ready positions, they recorded an average engagement time of .62 seconds. They correctly point out that this extra tenth of a second is about half the time it takes for an average shooter to fire one round.
Given this information, it seems likely that there are only two factors that are causing this huge difference in shooting errors. The first is that even though this extra tenth of a second is minuscule, it might be enough time to correctly identify a non threat object.
The second hypothesis is that the actual body position itself is priming officers to more likely engage any target, regardless of the threat being presented. This leads us into some future research recommendations.
Research Recommendations and Limitations
It’s important to point out that these researchers limited their focus to reaction times, and shoot no shoot decisions. They did not look at accuracy or hits on target.
We know from previous articles that officers in research settings display accuracy that is generally between 50-70%. In real world scenarios it can drop below 20%.
I would recommend that the researchers perform a real life version of this scenario where they use paint marking cartridges. This would allow them to assess the quality of hits on the subject, as well as the decision making in a simulated scenario at higher stress levels. It hurts to be shot with these cartridges, and this anticipation of pain reliably increases stress levels.
Secondly, I would propose that they run versions of this experiment where they modify the amount of time the officer has to react to an armed/unarmed subject. You could have a simulation quickly present the gun/phone, or slowly present the object. This would allow you to determine if that tenth of a second is actually usable for good decision making.
Lastly, you could run a variant of the experiment where officers are required to place their finger straight along the frame, touching the trigger, or putting pressure on the trigger prior to being faced with the shoot no shoot situation. This would allow you to determine if body position is in fact influencing the shoot decision.
Final Thoughts
I will echo what the researchers have correctly pointed out. This bit of research is not enough information to make any solid recommendations as to where you should hold your firearm in real world situations.
Most competent firearms trainers teach that you need to hold your firearm low enough to see a person’s waistband and hands. These are the most common areas to find weapons. If you hold your firearm higher you cannot see these vital areas.
If you carry a firearm professionally or for self defense I highly recommend that you seek out quality instruction that includes force on force training. The ability to mechanically shoot a target means nothing if you don’t have any practice making good lethal force decisions under stress. In fact, you are more of a liability because you know how to shoot, but you’ve never practiced when to shoot. Now get out there and get training!
