Michigander
Regular Member
Read your own post here. Why on earth would you want to shoot from the hip in a crowd? You already addressed that you could wind up shooting over a crowd and obviously care about the consequences. You have absolutely no control over where that bullet is going and could easily hurt non-threats. Shoot IDPA or another defensive competition and you'll quickly find that hip shooting is NEVER a good idea. Think about the fundamentals of "aiming", technically a hip shoot IS NOT aiming in any sense of the word. It's actually point-shooting and from a weak stance and weak grip at that.
Even most LEOs will tell you that the hip shoot is literally a crap-shoot and should only be utilized in extreme close quarters where BG is attempting to wrestle your unholstered firearm away. (can you say B.U.G.?)
That said, IF you're left with considering that as an option (it could happen after all couldn't it?), get a Crimson Trace unit and sight that thing in dead-nuts accurate. That little red dot can be a wake up call for some BG's and is nice to know that you're going to be putting the round right in that spot (unless you've knocked the laser out of alignment).
It is sad, but I honestly believe Jeff Cooper, while well intentioned even if he stole others ideas and called them new, he had good intentions. But I don't believe in a lot of what he said. He was usually fixated on using the front sight. I have talked to exactly no one who has used a handgun in an actual shooting, be it simunitions or real world, and even had their brain allow them to use the sights. There are people out there who would claim this, but I have never met them in person.
It is a well established fact that in a shooting, your brain will instinctively have you point shoot, particularly up close. The grip will be extremely tight, and all of the little minute techniques of a 2 handed grip will go out the way side in a real hurry, which seems to account for the 85% miss rate of police in real world shootings.
Your criticism of hip firing also doesn't take into account that at 2-6' or so, which is roughly the distance of what you can expect in a SD shooting with a handgun, you will instinctively go to hip firing to retain your handgun. Not having practiced to do so would be especially dangerous in a crowd, because a crowd would be a place where your insincts would probably be screaming at you to hip fire.
In praciticing to contradict your instincts, you do yourself a disservice. In preaching to contradict your instincts, you can unknowingly put lives in danger. This is the problem with what I might call the "front sight mentality". Certainly I'm not insulting sight picture shooting, but I believe it should be recognized that it is the exception, not the rule to combat shooting with handguns, particularly in non police circumstances where the goal is merely survival and evasion.
I say these things not in an attempt to be abrasive, and if it comes off that way, I apologize. It is something I take more seriously than most.