I hear a lot about point shooting lately.  I guess this is the big thing out on some ranges. It has been around for quite a while but has grown in popularity recently. Well, at the risk of losing some readers I am going to say that I am not a fan of it.  I think it buys into a lot of the problems we have lately based in general laziness.

Instincts are Trained not Born

Point shooting basically is the idea your rely on your instincts or natural point of aim to engage a target.  Well, this has problems already. Instincts are trained not born.  For example, I was on a mission once with a lot of press, foreign military, and non shooter types.  We started taking fire on the compound and everyone except my unit went flat on the ground. My unit immediately turned towards the fire and started maneuvering towards it.  We had trained countless times for that moment.  The others hadn’t. Each group reacted instinctively differently to the situation. Don’t trust your instincts until you have trained them properly.

Now I am not saying that there are times that you might squeeze off a shot before you get your sights on the target. I was taught as part of the isosceles stance to bring the pistol to my waist after the draw and get it immediately in a level position,then raise it up acquiring the sight picture.  The reason to get the pistol level is the ability to squeeze off a shot in case the threat made an immediate move. Think of your pistol barrel having water in it. If you tilt it one way or another, the water runs out. By keeping it level and pointed towards the target you have a pretty good chance of hitting it.

Notice I said pretty good chance before. You really want better percentages than that in a personal or home defense situation.  Do you want to take the chance of hitting an innocent bystander or maybe even a member of your family? You really need to use your sights,at least the front sight to accurately place effective rounds on target.  On top of that, you need to train, train and train until you have the muscle memory to shoot smooth, fast and accurate.