Could you shoot a pistol accurately when scared shirtless? :D

no not shirtless, you know what i'm referring too. since we talk guns a lot here, i was wondering if anyone had any situations where they've had to fire a pistol under duress. i ask because a couple nights ago, my home alarm wakes me from a dead sleep at 3am. it seemed like a looooong, no very looooong time for me to become coherent enough, to a)know it was the house alarm b)realize someone may be in the house, and c)get my pistol from my nightstand drawer. i have never been this scared in my life, my wife in bed next to me, my two small kids asleep upstairs, the alarm loud as hell....in the dark. i really didnt know what to do first, luckily by the time i made it to my alarm pad in my bedroom, the security company was calling and telling my wife it was a faulty relay from a smoke alarm(which i have tied to the house alarm).

has anyone ever had this happen to them? if so, do you think you could actually hit the broadside of a barn with your firearm? it made me rethink keeping a shotgun handy seriously.

 

Yes.

 

Yes.

 

scared sh1tless with a gun! sounds bad, might cause you to pull the trigger on the wrong thing.

 

Yes.

 

What are you guys answering "yes" to? I see three questions up there.

 

glad i didnt start a poll. everyone here has icewater in their veins and a heartbeat below 60 when in a fight. i guess i wouldnt fare so well in that armageddon thread either. prolly a bunch of badasses over there too.

 

Accurately? I don't know. I'm a light sleeper and I wake up a lot to things that go bump in the night. I know at the very least I'd be armed and ready to pull the trigger. Hope I never have to test my aim.

 

I like to think so. I hope never to find out tough.



Regarding the shotgun, at common home distances, contrary to common belief, you still have to aim. The spread at under ten yards (how many rooms are morethan 30ft across) is nearly negligeable.

Practice. Practice. Practice. Then hope you never need said practices.

 

i found this excerpt in my quick google search of a 10 year study of NYPD shootings. seems those officers dont frequent this BBS. they didnt hit much, at 34%, and only 13% in an actual gunfight. Go figure.



"The average number of bullets fired by each officer involved in a shooting remained about the same over those 11 years even with a switch to guns that hold more bullets — as did officers’ accuracy, roughly 34 percent. This figure is known in police parlance as the “hit ratio.”

While officers hit their targets about a third of the time over all, far fewer bullets generally found their mark during gunfights. In 1999, only 13 percent of bullets fired during a gunfight were hits. "

 

That is pretty much the standard. 1 of 3. That is why I think capcacity often means more than caliber in real world shootings.

 

Yes


Ride safe,
AAron

 

well if thats the standard, i might vote yes with all the other john waynes here too. to me, that just doesnt seem that accurate in a life or death situation. i do practice a lot. nothing insane, probably 2000 rounds a year or so. i know some people shoot that in a month.

 

This ^^

Handgun within reach, shotgun in two steps.

 

At home, my dad is a Ex Green Beret, odds are the perp would be dead before I even woke up, odds are it wouldn't be done with a gun either.

I haven't shot anything in a while though honestly. Probably should.

 

I agree with never wanted to have to find out how you would react. No, I have never, but my father has as a law enforcement officer. He said that training for situations does help,especially with weeding out negative aspects, but until its "real" you never know.

Which is why I am seriously considering the Kel-Tec shotgun that had a thread focused on it recently. You may never need a 15 shot shotgun, but I also wouldnt want to have to have a gun where you have down time to reload if the situation arises, be it from bad aim or whatever.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in that case. If you have a gun for self defense, you better make sure you are willing to use that weapon in self defense, because the other person involved may not have that hesitation.

 

The gun world seems to think, it's because of the heavy trigger springs in use.
Other police departments have higher scores.

 

Never heard that one. Everything I have read hase pointed to an average of 33 percent in pistols. Under duress. Millitary and civvy police infused.

 

if you can't use a shotgun