“Or that 0-3 feet distance that most fights take place in the real world”
Let’s examine that statement. Various figures are cited as the source for statements making this assertion, most commonly “the FBI.” However, the FBI does not gather information about distance of gunfights in routine submissions to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.
The only information on distances is gathered as supplemental data in cases where police officers are actually Killed. These data are compiled in Table 36 - Distance Between Victim Officer and Offender, 2002–2011. However, this table reports only a very small subset (63 of 2,209, or 2.85% for 2011) of gunfights police engaged in.
Even these data must be interpreted carefully because the distance given is for where the officer was actually killed. For example, a State Trooper returning home was ambushed from across the street at a distance of 35 yards with a rifle and severely wounded. His assailant then walked over to him and executed the Trooper at close range with a handgun. Since the Trooper was killed at almost touching distance, he was reported as a 0-5 feet casualty. The ‘fight’ actually took place at 35 yards, though.
The data collected about the totality of police gunfights is compiled in Table 70 - Type of Weapon and Percent Injured, 2002–2011. No distances are provided in this Table. It does list an interesting piece of information that provides a reality check on the “0-3 feet distance” assertion.
“Other dangerous weapons” and “Personal weapons,” which must be used at contact distances, report injury rates to officers of 24.0% and 28.5%, respectively, over the past 10 years. On the other hand, firearms report an injury rate of only 9.4% over the past 10 years. If most police gunfights took place within three feet, it would seem reasonable to expect that the injury rate would most likely approach 100.0% rather than 9.4%.
Using these data to partially vet the distance of police gunfights would seem to indicate that police gunfights do NOT take place at near contact distances. More likely, gunfights actually take place at considerably further distances where popular point shooting techniques employed by criminals are rather ineffective.
A more justifiable assertion based on the data tables would be that if a police officer is shot (at) by a criminal at a distance of under 5 feet, the possibility of death is high. The data gathering and analytical capabilities of the FBI and UCR are probably not necessary to arrive at that conclusion.
The only study that actually looked at distances of gunfights in a detailed and methodical way was done for Police Marksman magazine by Richard Fairburn in the 1990s. The average distance reported in that study was 14 yards.
The problem with statistics is that their data collection methods and interpretations must be well understood before the final product becomes useful information. And the actual source for the statistic must be determined and vetted to be real and appropriate.
Crap,now people will have to use sights again.