Archive for April 10th, 2014

Engagement Distances

April 10, 2014

Excellent story about the practicalities of pistol training.

hsoi's avatarStuff From Hsoi

The April 2014 Rangemaster newsletter discusses engagement distances of private citizen self-defense incidents. You should read the whole article (it’s only a page long), but here’s a key take-home:

We have had over 60 student involved shootings. Of those, two incidents occurred at less than 3 yards. One involved intentional physical contact between the shooter and the offender, the other involved purely accidental contact. The vast majority of these shootings occurred at distances between 3 yards and 7 yards, with the bulk of those at 3 to 5 yards. So, we see that the typical self-defense shooting is well beyond arm’s-length and may be past the length of your car. The average American sedan is 16 feet long. That is approximately 5 yards. My Silverado pickup is a little over 18 feet long, or 6 yards. This is way beyond arm’s-length.

Another useful thing is a graph Tom made:

Now consider…

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