The following is from John Farnam and is a good read for anyone that is interested in defensive pistol-work or the martial arts:
I counsel my young and energetic students, as a "general rule,"to be always "too accurate, rather than too fast." That is, they are advised to ever-error in the direction of being excessively accurate, rather than inordinately fast.
However, I also encourage them, during training, to "push the envelope" in an effort to see how fast they can really be. Knowing how fast you can run your trigger, and still get desired results, is a judgment that only comes from experience, mostly negative experience. Put another way, you need to fail regularly (in training) if you want to really learn anything. Who "play it safe," never risking missing a shot, will never know how fast they can go (while maintaining accuracy to an acceptable degree).
There was a time when we all carried six-shooters, and reloading, even with revolver speed-loaders, was a relatively tedious and slow task. We had to remind ourselves that every shot had to be effective. Rifles were similarly limited.
Today, our pistols are fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen-shooters, and reloading them is smooth and fast. Our rifles now have thirty-round magazines. With these magnificent technological improvements, many of us have become complacent and lazy, thinking all that firepower will somehow compensate for personal incompetence.
So, once again, here is the caveat: Missing is triply disastrous -
- It doesn't stop the fight! The longer this fight goes on, the more hurt I'm going to get. When there must be a fight, the only kind that interests me is a short one! When my life is endangered, I want the threat(s) neutralized immediately. Missing fails utterly in that regard. In addition, missed shots will embolden your attacker(s). When they conclude (correctly), from your slovenly shooting, that you are personally incompetent, they may well press their attack, rather than voluntarily disengaging or surrendering.
- It provides me with one fewer round with which to solve my tactical problem. Yes, I may have lots of rounds, assuming my gun(s) continues to function normally, but there may well be several individuals who all simultaneously represent lethal threats to me, and, accordingly, all must be neutralized quickly. I might just need all those rounds, every one. I can't afford to miss, with any of them!
- When one of my rounds fails to hit something I wanted it to hit, by definition, it will hit something I didn't want it to hit! "Sloppy shooting," as manifested by missed shots, missed shots that went on downrange to cause unintended injury and property damage, are never dealt with kindly by investigators, nor prosecutors, nor juries. When one of your bullets ends up in an "unhappy place," you're the one who will have to explain how it got there. At that point, your "intent," no matter how sincere, is largely irrelevant!
Competent Operators hit consistently. They know how fast they can hit, and go just that fast, but no faster.
SHOOT LESS. KILL MORE!
