Basically as the distance between the officer increases, the chance of success decreases (imagine that), and total number of shots also decrease (also expected). There's a fair bit of back in forth in the two page article talking about why officers shouldn't use lethal force, or when they do shoot their firearm the result tends to be lethel, but I'm uncertain why they have such a problem with the success rates.
They're not talking about IPSC comptetion results; they're talking about real world results. The real world isn't a John Wayne movie (though I may enjoy those as much as everyone). You can't "throw" your pistol forward and hit every time. Anyone that shoots regularly knows this, and can attest to this at the gun range. Ok, so let's find someone who might know what they're talking about; look at what the NRA Handgun Qualification says about their Marksman rating (the third level up from beginner):
Warm-Up Event
Position: Standing, two hands.
Distance: 15 feet.
Target: Paper plates/discs 9" diameter.
Time: No restrictions.
Rating requirements: Acquire 10 plates with 10 shots in each plate. All shots must be inside a 1½" margin from the edge of the plate. The 10 plates do not have to be fired in succession or on the same day.
That's 100% success rate...with no hurry on when you shot. Ok, not quite what the police are likely to encounter. How about the NRA's Sharpshooter classification (level 5 of 7)?
Sustained Fire Event
Position: Standing, ready, two hands, with strong side and weak side stages.
Distance: 25 feet.
Target: D-1 precision target. This event is conducted in 2 stages. Both stages must be completed in the same session to qualify as one completed course of fire.
- Stage 1 strong side: 5 shots in 20 seconds.
- Stage 2 weak side: 5 shots in 20 seconds.
A total of 10 shots per target. Possible score per target: 100.
Rating requirements: Acquire 10 targets, 5 with a score of 60 or better and 5 with a score of 65 or better. The 10 targets do not have to be fired in succession or on the same day.
Ok the distance seems right, and now there's a time constraint. They still want 100% on the target, but notice that the area of the target becomes important. Note that these are essentially "paper plate" targets in size, so they're a fair bit smaller than "standard" police targets.
Here's a clip on the LA police qualifications:
Without defining what is good (which the article doesn't do), how do you determine if a police force is shooting accurately? Maybe via comparison to other cities? They do compare it to LA, but then again, the size and environment of the city is vary different between LA and NYC as should be readily apparent. I'd be curious what the differences were between NYC and Chicago are, and why that wasn't used in the article.
t would seem hard to say with any certainty what is a good percentage for accuracy until the paper plates start shooting back.
