Thomas Sowell - At Last
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samus
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At Last!
By Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
People for whom indignation is a way of life -- and there seem to be an increasing number of such people -- repeatedly have outbursts of outrage whenever the police fire a lot of shots at some criminal.
People who have never fired a gun in their lives, and have never had a split-second in which to make a decision that could mean life or death for themselves or others, are often nevertheless convinced that the police used excessive force.
As someone who once taught pistol shooting in the Marine Corps, it has never seemed strange to me that the police sometimes fire dozens of shots at a criminal.
While an expert shooter can run up impressive scores in the safety of a pistol range, it doesn't take much to make shots go off into the wild blue yonder in the stress of life and death shooting.
Even on a pistol range, it was not uncommon to see shooters not only miss the bull's eye, but miss the whole target, which was the size of a man's torso.
Among other things, this suggests that a pistol may not be the best firearm to keep for home protection. A shotgun is far more likely to hit the target -- and far less likely to have to be fired in the first place.
Any intruder who hears the distinctive sound that is made when you load a shotgun is likely to decide that he would much rather be somewhere else, very quickly. Nor is he likely to return.
Getting back to shootings by the police, now -- at last -- there is a study introducing some facts into controversies that have thus far been largely a matter of emotions, rhetoric, ideology, and politics.
This study shows how often the police in New York City miss when shooting at various distances during the stress of actual confrontations with criminals.
Even within a range of 6 feet or less, the police miss more often than they hit -- 57 percent of the shots at that distance miss and 43 percent hit.
As you might expect, there are even fewer hits at longer distances. At 75 feet -- which is less than the distance from first base to second base -- only 7 percent of the shots hit.
Moreover, just because a shot has hit does not mean that it is now safe to stop shooting.
First of all, this is not like an arcade game, where lights go on when you hit something. Depending on where the shot hit, the policeman who is firing may have no idea whether he has hit the criminal or not.
With the adrenalin pumping, the criminal himself may not be aware that he has been hit, if it is not a serious wound.
Even if the policeman knows that his shot has hit the criminal, the real question is whether the hit has rendered the criminal no longer dangerous. If the bad guy is still capable of shooting back, it is no time for the cop to stop firing, because his life is still in danger.
When there is more than one policeman on the scene, there is no reason for any of them to keep track of how often the others have fired. After it is all over, it may turn out that 30 or 40 shots were fired at the criminal.
But so what? It is very doubtful that the criminal has been hit 30 or 40 times.
Only part of the problem is that many people have no idea of the capabilities and limitations of different kinds of guns, much less how much difference it makes if the shooter is in the safety of a firing range or in the stress of a life and death battle. What is a bigger and wider problem is that too many people feel no hesitation to go spouting off about things they know nothing about.
People who have never run even a modest little business assert with great certainty and indignation that heads of multinational corporations are paid much more than they are worth. People who know nothing about medicine and nothing about economics unhesitatingly declare that pharmaceutical drugs cost too much.
Maybe all this is a product of the "self-esteem" taught in our schools, instead of the academic subjects in which American children trail children from other countries.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.
At Last!
By Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
People for whom indignation is a way of life -- and there seem to be an increasing number of such people -- repeatedly have outbursts of outrage whenever the police fire a lot of shots at some criminal.
People who have never fired a gun in their lives, and have never had a split-second in which to make a decision that could mean life or death for themselves or others, are often nevertheless convinced that the police used excessive force.
As someone who once taught pistol shooting in the Marine Corps, it has never seemed strange to me that the police sometimes fire dozens of shots at a criminal.
While an expert shooter can run up impressive scores in the safety of a pistol range, it doesn't take much to make shots go off into the wild blue yonder in the stress of life and death shooting.
Even on a pistol range, it was not uncommon to see shooters not only miss the bull's eye, but miss the whole target, which was the size of a man's torso.
Among other things, this suggests that a pistol may not be the best firearm to keep for home protection. A shotgun is far more likely to hit the target -- and far less likely to have to be fired in the first place.
Any intruder who hears the distinctive sound that is made when you load a shotgun is likely to decide that he would much rather be somewhere else, very quickly. Nor is he likely to return.
Getting back to shootings by the police, now -- at last -- there is a study introducing some facts into controversies that have thus far been largely a matter of emotions, rhetoric, ideology, and politics.
This study shows how often the police in New York City miss when shooting at various distances during the stress of actual confrontations with criminals.
Even within a range of 6 feet or less, the police miss more often than they hit -- 57 percent of the shots at that distance miss and 43 percent hit.
As you might expect, there are even fewer hits at longer distances. At 75 feet -- which is less than the distance from first base to second base -- only 7 percent of the shots hit.
Moreover, just because a shot has hit does not mean that it is now safe to stop shooting.
First of all, this is not like an arcade game, where lights go on when you hit something. Depending on where the shot hit, the policeman who is firing may have no idea whether he has hit the criminal or not.
With the adrenalin pumping, the criminal himself may not be aware that he has been hit, if it is not a serious wound.
Even if the policeman knows that his shot has hit the criminal, the real question is whether the hit has rendered the criminal no longer dangerous. If the bad guy is still capable of shooting back, it is no time for the cop to stop firing, because his life is still in danger.
When there is more than one policeman on the scene, there is no reason for any of them to keep track of how often the others have fired. After it is all over, it may turn out that 30 or 40 shots were fired at the criminal.
But so what? It is very doubtful that the criminal has been hit 30 or 40 times.
Only part of the problem is that many people have no idea of the capabilities and limitations of different kinds of guns, much less how much difference it makes if the shooter is in the safety of a firing range or in the stress of a life and death battle. What is a bigger and wider problem is that too many people feel no hesitation to go spouting off about things they know nothing about.
People who have never run even a modest little business assert with great certainty and indignation that heads of multinational corporations are paid much more than they are worth. People who know nothing about medicine and nothing about economics unhesitatingly declare that pharmaceutical drugs cost too much.
Maybe all this is a product of the "self-esteem" taught in our schools, instead of the academic subjects in which American children trail children from other countries.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.
rocinante
Member
I only started shooting pistols and am damn impressed HOW HARD it is to hit with them. It takes practice and I have the added handicap of aging eyes. For home defense I feel much better with my shotgun BUT I get so bleeping tired of that "the sound of a sliding rack will make them flee" argument. Would I be better served by a tape recorder, hit the button and get a shotgun slick glick sound effect. My shottie is a saiga 12, is the bolt racking sound intimidating enough?
I like this fellow Sowell. He is hard core conservative and to me in his youth being a hard core leftist adds to his rage.
I like this fellow Sowell. He is hard core conservative and to me in his youth being a hard core leftist adds to his rage.
Beatnik
Member
I'm frankly a little disappointed.
I know the purpose of the piece is to defend police "excessive force" charges.
It comes off to me as anti-pistol.
One could easily take what was written and run with it like this:
You don't need a pistol at home because a shotgun is better anyway,
and you don't need a pistol in public because you're not as good as the cops, and they miss 57% of the time, so you're endangering everyone.
The obvious conclusion is that you don't need a pistol.
Oh, and for those who have never heard of Thomas Sowell: odds are it's because he's a very conservative black man. Walter Williams is another good read, too. I've never seen either of them in print outside of the Washington Times, for obvious reasons. And nobody knows about the Washington Times, either.
I know the purpose of the piece is to defend police "excessive force" charges.
It comes off to me as anti-pistol.
One could easily take what was written and run with it like this:
You don't need a pistol at home because a shotgun is better anyway,
and you don't need a pistol in public because you're not as good as the cops, and they miss 57% of the time, so you're endangering everyone.
The obvious conclusion is that you don't need a pistol.
Oh, and for those who have never heard of Thomas Sowell: odds are it's because he's a very conservative black man. Walter Williams is another good read, too. I've never seen either of them in print outside of the Washington Times, for obvious reasons. And nobody knows about the Washington Times, either.
The Annoyed Man
Member
Actually, the Washington Times has a fairly large circulation, and a large presence on the Internet. Furthermore, the article is on TownHall.com, not the Washington Times anyway, and TownHall.com is probably the single most influential conservative website out there, with a HUGE following.
How can you possibly come to that conclusion.
If it is anti-pistol to point out that pistols are, by their very nature, less accurate and less powerful than a rifle or a shotgun... then paint me anti-pistol. (incidentally, I own far more pistols than rifles and shotguns put together)
Simply because a rifle or a shotgun is BETTER for defense doesn't mean he is saying we don't need pistols.
Zundfolge
Member
I take it you've never had any formal handgun training.
EVERY good instructor I've had usually starts out his class with a lecture on how handguns suck.
Col. Jeff Cooper (considered a God among men in much of the shooting world) said a handgun is only good for fighting your way to your rifle.
If you're going to use a handgun for self defense, you MUST know its limitations ... its not the hammer of Thor, its not a magic talisman, you can't pull off headshots at 30 yards while diving sideways through the air with a pistol in each hand no matter how many times it happens in Hollywood movies.
Dr. Sowell is right, handguns suck ... but the reason we keep relying on them is because they are handy and they're better than harsh language.
Beatnik
Member
Fairly large is still 1/7 the circulation of the Post, and I know of fairly conservative people who won't read "the Moonie paper". All I'm saying is that you have to be either plugged in, or read the Times, to know who these guys are, and it doesn't surprise me that some of us don't know them.
Well, yeah, I have. Now I've only been shooting pistols for four years, but I have my CHL, I know what they do, I know what I can hit with them, I know that my performance in a life threatening situation isn't going to be close to what I can do on the range, and I've got a pretty good idea of when to shoot and when not to.
My comment was not about whether pistols suck or not.
I'm pointing out that despite the fact that this article isn't about rights in the slightest, it can be used as an argument to take away our right to keep carry pistols using the logic I already outlined.
If he had taken an extra sentence to state why police need to carry pistols despite the fact that they suck, I'd have less of a problem with it. But it's not said - they carry pistols for the same reasons we do, and we carry pistols for the same reason they do.
Doggy Daddy
Member
Actually, I read him in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Beatnik
Member
Good then!!
He and Williams are two sterling examples of people to be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin... and I'm glad to hear that they are in print in other places.
He and Williams are two sterling examples of people to be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin... and I'm glad to hear that they are in print in other places.
I'd assume this has to do with the statistic that 98% of the crimes stopped by civilian carry do not involve a shot fired.
Honestly, if you have evil intent and you hear the Ka-chink of a shotgun and don't know where it is... aren't you gonna high tail it out of there?
Chuhhuniban
Member
Does anybody have any references/links/citations on the study that Dr. Sowell refers to in the article? The NYC one regarding hits and misses. I would very much like to read it.
News Shooter
Member
Henry Bowman
Senior Member
And studies show that the hit/miss ratio is significantly better for non-LEOs.
I wish he hadn't made these statements. Or if he must, at least explain the roll of nature of false assumptions and stereotypes.
True, but keep in mind he's an economist, not a gun rights advocate. As such, he will have a tendency to say something that is true expecting people to understand it, although Sowell is far better than others about explaining himself usually. These statements can be twisted, but if an anti wants to cite Sowell as a source, that opens a HUGE can of worms...
Guys, Sowell was simply trying to make the point that as a weapon a handgun does not contain magic bullets and there are few one-shot stops despite what Hollywood depicts.
He is pointing out that for the average individual (who does not train as much, if ever, as the readers of this site) that a shotgun has a much greater effect, is easier to shoot, and the mere chunk-chunk of pumpshot gun has a deterrent effect.
Pistols are hard to shoot accurately. I grew up shooting rifles and it took me months to become halfway proficient with a pistol, and I have to work at it continously; whereas, I can pick up a rifle and be good to go in a 30 minute practice session.
Pistols are sorry defense weapons, and poor offensive weapons. There are better than, however, throwing rocks, hand to hand, or a knife fight; particularly if you have a gun and the other guy has a knife!
I believe that it was Jeff Cooper that stated that you carry a pistol for the purpose of fighting your way to your rifle.
Let's not be so sensitive. He wrote an article whose purpose was to try to educate an uninformed public as to why so many shots are fired in police shootings and to create realistic expectations in a public that only receives its information thorugh an uninformed media.
Sowell, by the way, had a weekly column in Forbes magazine for many years until he took a sabbitcal, and it was there I discovered him. I have always enjoyed his sound and reasoned articles.
He is pointing out that for the average individual (who does not train as much, if ever, as the readers of this site) that a shotgun has a much greater effect, is easier to shoot, and the mere chunk-chunk of pumpshot gun has a deterrent effect.
Pistols are hard to shoot accurately. I grew up shooting rifles and it took me months to become halfway proficient with a pistol, and I have to work at it continously; whereas, I can pick up a rifle and be good to go in a 30 minute practice session.
Pistols are sorry defense weapons, and poor offensive weapons. There are better than, however, throwing rocks, hand to hand, or a knife fight; particularly if you have a gun and the other guy has a knife!
I believe that it was Jeff Cooper that stated that you carry a pistol for the purpose of fighting your way to your rifle.Let's not be so sensitive. He wrote an article whose purpose was to try to educate an uninformed public as to why so many shots are fired in police shootings and to create realistic expectations in a public that only receives its information thorugh an uninformed media.
Sowell, by the way, had a weekly column in Forbes magazine for many years until he took a sabbitcal, and it was there I discovered him. I have always enjoyed his sound and reasoned articles.
cambeul41
Member
Who is this guy Sowell?
Winchester 73
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