Heresy: Training for Headshots vs Training to hit COM

Me and my guys will try a little noggin shootin' from time to time.

I got a bunch of those VTAC targets a while back. Even though I have my own backyard range, I'm lucky if I can get my pals to come over 3 or 4 times a year to shoot.....but I try to run them through some simple drills when they do show up.

One of the drills my buds like doing the most is when at the sound of the buzzer, you have to draw and shoot the chest box three times, take a quick, long step backwards (or sometimes sideways), then put two shots into the pelvis box, then take another long step back and then put two shots into the face box.

When using handguns we'll try to vary the starting point from 1 yard, to 5 yards, to 10 yards.

I am thinking about this too. I am thinking to start training headshots 5-3 yards and in and upper thoracic 5 yards and out. Under the stress of sims classes I have always gone for the upper thoracic (Excepting the one time I shot GBM in the throat.) even when a head shot would have been a better choice. I am sure this is due to my always training to shoot COM except for specific drills such as the aforementioned Mozambique.

ETA But yeah, you can get armor as cheap or cheaper than a decent pistol and no background check. 

I shot a dood in the face twice, one after the other, leaned over in the passenger seat on a moving target while shooting through the passenger side window. It's possible under stress but during the majority of the course I shot high upper chest and was hitting it.

It was a consicous effort to remind myself to do it. I whole heartedly agree, shoot the head and face. If you can't go for the chest. Pelvic shooting is fail, the hip bones are tough and will not shatter from pistol rds. The hip joint itself is small, forget it.

The head is easily as big as a 8" dinner plate. We've all trained for too long to shoot COM or upper chest but we need to rewire for the head, IMO. It's safer, stop the threat sooner and requires one maybe two shots thus lowering your liability.

I've always thought as much.  
A large number of the men in my family have gone the LE or .mil route as a career, with not inconsequential  trigger time on two way ranges.  Their collective wisdom, which I lapped up as a youngster, is that with a pistol point shooting is what it all boils down to when things get hectic....and that just takes an awful lot of time putting rounds on target with your weapon of choice until it becomes as natural as pointing at something with your index finger.


*edited to add*
Dear old Dad once mentioned that he thought of it as "punching" someone with his pistol....didn't matter if they were two feet away or twenty . 
I wonder how that meshes with the tacti-cool instructor's mantra of "driving  the gun" at the target.

... Unless the person you shot in tbe back was attacking somone else and you fired in defense of that person.   Or the person was in the act of commiting arson on a structure.      Probably a few more lawful justifications for doing so, depending on the jurisdiction in which the incident takes place. 
No mistake,  even if lawful and justified expect the investigators to put you under a microscope to an even greater degree than other SD shootings. 
As far as headshots vs other shot placements in a SD shooting being lawful,  it's not so much where you shoot them but why you shot them,  and that the investigators,  DA,  and jury(if it gets that far)  believe your intent: to stop the threat,  not to ensure killing the attacker.       The death of the attacker should not be your intent, just a regretful side effect of having to use leathal force to defend yourself from death or grievious bodily harm. 
You may draw a hostile DA who tries to paint the headshot as intentional murder irrespective of every other factor in the case,  but any decent attorney should be able to point out that the perp would be just as dead had you shot him COM and hit the heart.... but that it might have left him functional just long enough to kill you as well,  that you knew that possibility existed,  and that your shot placement was motivated soley to ensure your survival by stopping the attack.... not one iota of your motivation was a desire to end the attackers life. 


That,  or you can tell them you aimed COM and the shot went high. 

Better yet,  let your attorney answer any questions.    You have an attorney,  right? 

Dannus,
I understand your point, but there really isn't any way for us to be sure which is the "better" method. While there's ca crap-ton of data out there showing that COM stops are far, far more common than Headshot stops, almost no one has been trained to use a headshot as a primary. Put another way, we have plenty of control data but nearly zero variable data.
I agree wholeheartedly that COM is going to be easier to hit than the head, but if you're looking for an instant stop you need heart or spine. Those are much smaller targets and about on par with the brain as a target.
Hitting anything else in the torso may bleed them out or debilitate them, but so would shooting off somone's jaw, ect. I submit that the attacker who isn't fazed by having been shot in the head is an attacker who wouldn't be fazed after being shot in the torso without catching the round in the heart.

For decades the idea was to use the biggest round you could manage in order to create the biggest wound channel to cause bloodloss, and in the pursit of the mythical hydrostatic shock*/stopping power. Bigger rounds, harder to control.... Easier to hit COM. But if you're using an easier to control cartridge then Headshots may not be quite so difficult. Something like the 5.7 for example.
There's also the decent chance of you hitting the upper torso or neck when aiming at the head**


If I were rich rich rich (or had a govt grant), I'd run a study with a few hundred "average" CCW holders. Have them trained with Headshots emphasized over COM (once or twice a week), then run them through one of the simunitions courses and see how they faired in comparison to folks who've been trained on the traditional COM.

The targets (heart or brain) are both fairly small targets. If you're capable of hitting one you should be able to hit the other. Aim small, miss small and all that sort of thing.

*in handguns. In rifles it may be different.
**So we've got that going for us, which is nice.

I think the above is my basic issue.  I've responded to enough shootings that I am very, VERY leery of phrases like 'instant stop', and am thus leery of tailoring my training to attempt to achieve this mythical effect.  Yes, I've worked shootings which were 'instant stops'.  Some were point blank suicides, one was a pistol to the back of the head execution, one was a 5.56 dead center in the sternum.  In those cases, the person who was shot was dead a millisecond after the trigger was pulled.  All other shootings, accidental or intentional, involved anywhere from 1 - 7 bleeding holes in a person, and said person was likely perfectly able to continue being a threat if they chose to be.  Many of them were NOT a threat anymore, for whatever reason, but if they were dead set on keeping up the fight there was no mechanical reason they couldn't have. 

Put another way, I think a home defense practitioner should absolutely NOT expect that when they shoot somebody with a pistol it will 'stop' the threat, and I fear that training for headshots because they will provide an 'instant stop' is perhaps selling a false set of goods.  Down that road lies the person who fires a few shots at a bad guy and then thinks they can put down their guard because, well, I just shot the dude, the fight must be over.  No.  Shoot as many holes as possible into the bad guy, run that gun dry, then be prepared to have to beat them to the ground with your empty pistol or bare hands, stick a pen in their eye, run over them, or turn tail and run the hell away.  'Instant stops' are such a rare animal that they should be a pleasant surprise caused by punching numerous holes somewhere into the bad guy, not an expected outcome because you've trained for them.

Now, all that said, I certainly agree that 5-6 shots to the head more than likely has a greater probability of killing somebody quickly then 5-6 shots to the torso, and if you're training to achieve that goal then you're solid in my book.  I just don't know that the average shooter should emphasize headshots.  If we're talking about above average shooters (more experience, etc.), then training for headshots is no problemo, and value added.