Too Ready To Shoot?
The impact of gun position on shoot/don't shoot decisions and speed.
Publication
Taylor, P. L. (2021). “Engineering Resilience” Into Split-Second Shoot/No Shoot Decisions: The Effect of Muzzle-Position. Police Quarterly, 24(2), 185-204. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098611120960688
What Was The Issue?
Police officers must sometimes make split second decisions about whether to use deadly force. This study looks at the impact of three weapon positions on both the ability of officers to make correct shoot/don’t shoot decisions and speed of their responses.
How Did He Look at It?
More than 300 law enforcement officers completed a scenario on a FireArms Training System (FATS). Officers were dispatched to a suspicious person with a gun call. After the dispatch audio finished, officers were randomly assigned to one of three gun positions. The aiming position involved the officer holding the gun sights in alignment with the FATS screen (i.e. ready to shoot). The high ready position involved holding the gun at the level of the officer’s sternum and pointed toward the screen, and the low ready position involved the officer holding the gun by their naval and pointed at the screen. After the officers held their guns in the assigned position, they would begin interacting with the suspect on the screen. After a few seconds, the suspect would rapidly pull either a cell phone or a gun out of their pocket. Officers were to respond accordingly.
What Did He Find?
All officers assigned to the scenarios where the suspect pulled a gun fired at the suspect regardless of the gun position that they were assigned. There were no false negative errors. Officers always shot when they should have.
False positive errors (shooting when the suspect pulled a cell phone) varied by gun position. The officer fired when the cell phone was pulled in 64% of the aiming scenarios, 57% of the high ready scenarios, and 30% of the low ready scenarios (see table below). These differences were significant and suggestive of strong effect for gun position on false positive errors.
Reaction time in the scenarios where the suspect pulled a gun also varied by gun position. Officers in the aiming conditions shot in .51 seconds on average. Officers in the high ready position fired in .55 seconds, and officers in the low ready position fired in .62 seconds (see the table below). Only the difference between the aiming and low ready positions was statistically significant.
Finally, the author compared the difference in risk reduction by gun position and the tradeoff in time. When comparing the aiming and high ready positions, he argues that there is not much difference. However, the aiming position produces almost double the shooting errors when compared to the low ready position and the low ready position is only .11 seconds slower. The author argues that this may be a good tradeoff.
So What?
This study demonstrated that a simple change in weapon position can have a substantial impact on false positive shooting errors. But like most things, there is a tradeoff involved. In this case, the low ready position results in about a 1/10 of a second shooting delay. In many of the studies that we have conducted, a 1/10 of a second is the difference between shooting first or being shot. On the other hand, making an incorrect shoot decision can have dramatic consequences not only for the unarmed suspect, but also for the officer that made the incorrect decision, and the community at large.
This study does not reveal why there are fewer false positive shooting errors based upon gun position, but the author does discuss some possibilities. One is that the lower gun position allows the officer to see more of the suspect this allows them to see what is in the suspect’s hands more quickly and accurately. The other is that the additional time that it takes to bring the gun into firing position allows the officer more time to correctly assess what the object in the suspect’s hand is.
I think that both of these play a role. If we look at this from the Ecological Dynamics point of view (Ha! Its been weeks since I’ve been able to bring up the Eco Approach! If you missed my earlier rants, you can start down the rabbit hole here.), the officer needs to be able to perceive the critical information from the environment to be able to act. In this case, that critical information is the suspect’s hands. If the officer’s gun position prevents the officer from seeing the suspect’s hands, he will not get the critical information that is needed to make a correct decision.
There is also another area of Eco research that shows that high level performers often begin their actions more slowly than less capable people. For example, soccer goalies that have more powerful jumps will wait longer to start their dive when a penalty shot is made than less powerful jumpers. The more powerful jumpers save more goals, not because they react faster, but because being able to wait just a little longer to start their jump allows them to more accurately assess where the shot is going. The data in this study are consistent with this. The more time it takes the officer to shoot, the less chance that there is of a false positive. That 1/10 of a second seems to be enough to substantially lower errors.
Dr. Blair,
A couple takeaways from the Taylor article and your comments. I agree that a low ready position would allow the officer to have a better view of the subject and would provide that 0.11 sec delay to identify the presented object before firing. While the low ready is a staple in LE and civilian training, marksmanship from that position is wanting. There are other methods that provide unobstructed views of the subject and a rapid firing response once the threat/non-threat is identified. That method is the 360° CQD (Close Quarter Defense) formerly Central Axis Relock (see www.naturaltactical.com). The Combat Ready position provides an unobstructed view of the subject with the muzzle pointed off body and the ability to affect a rapid sighted shot when needed.
I think it would be more instructive to see how the officers in the gun scenarios group that had no false-negative errors would do in the cell phone scenario. In addition, first hit accuracy was not measured. Even using a SIRT laser pistol, shot placement is easily identified. One of the problems with rapidly moving from low ready to target location, especially under any stress, is overshooting the target area or bobbling sight picture (depending on type of sights) if using sighted fire, or just point shooting. No distance was given and no information of shooting techniques provided.
I am a fan of the Ecological Dynamic approach and, as you note, the critical information to act needs to be perceived from the contextual environment. That brings up two issues not addressed in the study, the first, which you did address in your comments. They are: Game IQ, the ability to perceive the cues of where and what to look for i.e., early subject movement and what is in the hand, and Gaze-Action Coupling. Lewinsky/Vickers (2012) study showed that elite officers didn’t draw their weapon faster than rookies, but they did so sooner because they used Game IQ to identify early movement. In addition, they used visual focus (gaze control) on where a weapon or non-weapon would be produced. After ID, the gaze moved to center mass for an accurate hit. Even then there were some false positives.
Dr. Taylor, in discussing his study with Chris Butler on the Trainers Bullpen, episode 14, made some critical observations about police in the Netherlands doing a similar exercise. They had no false-positives. The reason given was that the officers moved offline, drew their weapon and fired appropriately to the threat. They could not get the officers to shoot the cell phone scenario until they constrained their movement. This has enormous implications for LE and civilian training.
Your goalie example is spot on. As noted, goalies who can move faster than less capable goalies, can wait longer (to gain more information) before moving. Applying this to training, moving quickly offline (not just a side step) would provide more time to evaluate the object/threat before shooting than 0.11 seconds.
Just some thoughts.
Alan Kerby