You can't have a cure if you don't know what the problem is, and most times a street confrontation doesn't correlate to last week's range problem. Last week's range situation consisted, among other things, of a known target shape, a known distance, a target on the same elevation as the shooter, and an "expected" time frame on an unchanging, unmoving scenario. Ergo, if you base your street training on unrepresentative range drills, the result is inevitable-you lose. Taking the above ingredients in order:
A. Known target shape and distances.
If you repeatedly train on the same target and merely progressively extend the distance, all you are doing is honing your sight picture and trigger control skills. In the street, a six-foot situation is often more difficult to control than a 2S-yard range problem because you have to react to a threat, identify the vital zone, and then hit it.
On the commonly used, generic, option-shaped target, you know in advance where the vital zone is; it's in the center of mass of a square edged, rectangular target. You don't have to expend time finding it before you can shoot, unlike reality where the irregularly shaped target is invariably moving and angled to the shooter.
Inflate several party balloons to different sizes, suspend them all individually from cotton thread at five yards, wait for a light breeze, and then commence firing. This will bring home the problems of tracking down the ever changing vital zone you will encounter for real.
As discussed previously, it's not fair and it's not easy, but it is better than deluding yourself.

B. Differing elevations.
It's 3 A.M. and you are forced into shooting to defend yourself in your home. Mr. X is rapidly descending the stairs to your lounge-distance from you: 12 to 15 feet.
In the space of a couple of seconds his elevation, relative to yours, has changed about four feet. He is dressed in a three-quarter-length coat, which is flapping wildly about his body. You prudently didn't switch on any lights, so you now have an extremely difficult-to- discern vital hit zone on a moving, angled target, albeit at "only" four to five yards.
Let's face it. What you have is a problem much more difficult to solve than your broad daylight range probably at 50 yards on a nonmoving, belt buckle to belt buckle option target, where, as should be increasingly apparent by anyone all you accomplished were marksmanship and manipulation.
The range drill did nothing to get the job done, and it won't until your 50 rounds and basic target scenario reach reality based drills. You can't become better
on the street until you accept that basic range drills are - basic range drills. You can be like Pavlov's Dog" , and put two rounds at 10 yards in in two seconds with a handgun on the range, but will pull the same peformance on the 3 A.M. shift in a frantic effort to revert to what you have mechanically practiced. Obviously, the target situation is constantly changing, and, obviously, you are going to crank off two tactical rounds like a vegetable, for sure the second bullet will work under these circumstances, Equally, the fact that all the mechanics executed range drills based on a bunch of static distances have naught. The answer boils down to finding the right solution(s) and hitting it/them repeated as quickly as possible. This will be every single time and will be by the tactical circumstances. these projectiles have to be delivered , of course, but if you don't hit a vital area, you're lost. Maybe a solid hit doesn't do the job, and you'll have to shoot again until he stops. The bottom line is, fast and inaccurate fire will definitely not accomplish anything. The objective is to shoot as fast as you can and still maintain accuracy. This will be dependent upon the tactical situation, not on a stopwatch and prescribed range distances.
Two things to think about:
1. Anybody can throw a 50-yard touchdown pass on Monday morning. Very few can do it on Sunday with a nose-tackle spitting in their face.
2. Recently I was observing one of the very few who really has "been and done" practicing on the range. I overheard an armchair quarterback commenting on how he didn't know how the man in question had survived, shooting as "slow" as he did. What the observer didn't understand is that the Ark was designed by Amateurs; the Titanic was designed by Experts.


Louis Awerbuck