Quote Originally Posted by AB View Post
I see it as the same trade-off you do. If your trigger control is good enough and your natural point of aim is developed enough, you can "point shoot" out to decent distances. Where I'm at, I start using sights as opposed to being simply aware of them around seven yards.

There were some folks (from the FSU psych school, IIRC) that put a bunch of cops on eye tracking equipment and threw them into a simunitions environment and they said the majority of shooters could not take their eyes off the threat. They stayed target-focused through the entire encounter from start to finish. That caused a debate, again, IIRC, that should we train to what we know we are most likely to do and really focus on point shooting or should we train so hard that we have the discipline to use our sights?

I have always said that acceptable sight picture is a product of time, distance, and target size. Sometimes I just "look through the gun" on close targets. The target is my focus and the gun is in my peripheral vision enough to know it's lined up. Get a little farther out than that and I have a flash of the front sight just to make sure there is some daylight on both sides and go. As the distance increases or the target size decreases, I have to have a more refined sight picture to make it.

For those that don't know, the first four shots of the FDLE pistol qual are from the hip at three yards.
My real issue is some experienced and competent shooters who can point shoot beyond 7 steps want to teach it to everyone and I think that's a disaster in the making.

If you remember Izzy, the really big Sgt. on the team, he claimed at first he was point shooting by NPOA when in fact after he consciously thought about it during actual shooting, he smiled and said he actually is catching the front sight.

I look at point shooting as a "no other option" vs. a specific shooting tactic oriented at reducing engagement time. No way I'd teach it as a tactic of choice to the casual shooter let alone the cop on the street who shoots only at qualification time.