Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Ouch!

My friend got shot in the belly button.

Luckily it was just a Simunitions round in force-on-force training, so the only thing perforated was his dignity.

Condolences may be delivered here.
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

My grandfather got shot there too not all that long ago; my sister and I were shooting my cousin's BB gun in his backyard, and when she tried to shoot a can, it ricocheted off of a wheelbarrow...and went right into his navel. O_o

9:28 PM, December 12, 2006
staghounds said...

GOOD, I'm glad he was shot. (Without being glad he's hurt, of course.)Being shot, and even more shooting something the shooter doesn't want, preferably in front of plenty of witnesses, is a great cosciousness raiser for safety.

That sounds silly, but it's true. Not long ago I read an article in which the author pionted out that when fire or something sharp looks like it's about to get out of hand, people go wild, but an uncontrolled muzzle often gets little or no active squealing and dodgine.

As he pointed out, most people have been cut and burned.

5:33 AM, December 13, 2006
Matt G said...

Well, thanks for your condolences. I don't know if there's a problem with my mo-sheen, or if the problem is that I just changed the title from "naval gunfire" to "navel gunfire," the link doesn't work for me.

http://maypeacebewithyou.blogspot.com/


http://maypeacebewithyou.blogspot.com/2006/12/navel-gunfire.html


Staghounds, I agree. There's something about imminent big pain that makes you check six more often. Even better: we had trainers walking around with video cameras, zooming in on triggerguards when officers were failing to index their trigger fingers, backing off an taking open long shots of guys who weren't covering their area of responsibility (incredibly hard to do when the gunfight is behind you, out of your AOR), and even one NICE shot of a pistol coming into frame from the hidden ambush bad guy who took careful aim and put a red pellet center of the left buttcheek of a cop who was trying to help his mates, but gave up the hallway. Ouch. We were very gentle-- we only watched it about 3 times, once on slow-mo. We really couldn't hear his response over our own laughter.

Funny as it was, it was sobering. When it's life and death, you have to train like your seeminingly unimportant job of covering the rear is the single most important assault that year. The glory hounds may push hard for Point, but they can't shoot the shooter when the shooter's buddy takes them out from behind.

When I first received training along this line, the idea was 4 to 6 man groups. Now they're teaching that two can make do, and move fast. Good. Because when the balloon goes up, you think I'm waiting for three to five other units to arrive, when every shot is somebody's child dying?

The key is to practice like we play. And a little pain is a good training aid.

12:10 PM, December 13, 2006
Matt G said...

Fixed the name back to the wrong spelling so the the link will work.

1:16 PM, December 13, 2006
staghounds said...

I'll never forget a swat training once, I was a (compliant, it was practice for the team noot me) hostage. The bad guy had me standing up, still, in a floor to ceiling open window while he was negotiating. Then, POW, I was shot by an officer right in my chest.

Not as a joke either, he thought that I was the criminal. Sobering indeed.

7:37 AM, December 14, 2006

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