Can you see the hand?
“Why are you slicing the pie with your gun lowered?” – Is probably one of the common questions I get. There are few reasons, but the most critical reasons are Human vision under stress & duress and of course the necessity of Positive Identification. Two things go a long way together.
Attached are two pictures that simulate a variety of two positions. One position with the weapon fully raised, eyes above sights and one position with the weapon lowered, not greater than 45 degrees. As you can see, we also added effect that simulates, to a certain degree, visual perceptual distortions that individuals are likely to encounter in certain arousal levels.
Fully raised. note that you can not see thah and properly.
Weapon lowered, still index, note the visibilty of the hand in addition to more texture.
As you have noticed, the shooter in the video and pictures is exposed to a lot of information. Isles, boxes, shadows, textures, open spaces, in-depth spaces, etc. in addition, he looks for a person he basically just engaged / or is hiding. The issue is that a fully raised weapon tend to decrease significantly important environmental cues that might instinctively alert, or alternatively, discriminate the opponent. The result? A much slower response if at all. In addition, taking into account that most cues of identification that enables lethal force are often located around waste/chest levels, the shooter is dismissing a lot of crucial cues that will alert or increase the ability to anticipate the opponent conduct.
How ever, nowadays since the paper shooting and shot timer slavery is a cultural authority or validation of things, most individuals are certain that a fully raised weapon will allow a faster shooting (or as should be referred to – response). While it is true versus a paper target, in reality, you need to identify. You can not identify without seeing. And you cannot be fast in response without it too. Speed is marginal. Vision isn’t. its either there or it isn’t.
What happen often in force on force is that once searching for the opponent, individuals who fully raise their weapons are either prematurely shoot on the opponent as they skip PID, or lower the gun in order to see and shortly afterward raise up and then shoot – which actually, and most ironically, increase the time of response. An individual who is already at a proper and logical lower ready position can already PID and in the process, almost at the same time, already bring up the gun – and shoot.
There is a huge difference between searching and identifying, to shooting in the shooting range.
For a more detailed view of the situation describe above, check the FOF video embeded to the left.