Target systems that train people to prepare for armed conflict must reflect this reality. They don't have to be fancy or cost a lot of money; they just need to move while requiring the shooter to track the movement over the front sight. Great strides can be made with dueling trees, plate racks, man-powered swingers, wobblers and chargers while at the same time getting the shooter to move while he shoots.

If all things were equal, everything in a sight plane would be in focus, but this is not the reality of a gunfight. Note that even when the gun is out of focus, the red dot is clearly seen.

Airsoft and Simunitions are an excellent end cap to a quality training program, as they force the shooter to respond while being shot at. Do not fall into the trap that force on force replaces traditional firearms training and fundamentals; it does not. The student must know how to shoot before he learns how to fight; the two are a matched set. At the same time, great fundamentals are only worthwhile if they are used while in the most realistic of settings.

Again, emphasis on the use of the front sight while involved in force-on-force training will enable the shooter to do so when the chips are down, but only if the shooter can see the sight without having to focus sharply on it. A good combative pistol sight needs to interrupt the shooter's field of vision. If he has to go looking for it, it probably won't happen. I say this based on what I have been told over the years by those who have been there as well as what I experienced in a few tight spots.

Through my interviews I found that those who remember seeing the front sight fall into two categories, the first being long-gun shooters, the second those who used a revolver. The long gun is actually easy to understand, as very few soldiers, Marines, street cops or SWAT team members are taught to fire their M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, M14 , M16, M4, UZI or MP-5 from the hip. All were taught to bring the gun up to the eye/target line, connect to the shoulder, look through the sight and press the trigger. Not surprisingly, most did just that, though many were engaging the enemy at distances greater than is normally associated with handgun confrontations.

Sheriff's deputy Dave Parin states that he can pick up the top of this Hi-Viz fiber optic in his peripheral vision at this point.

The use of sights on long guns has been bolstered considerably in the War on Terror, as many of the returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans talk about placing the red dot of their Aimpoint reflex sight on an insurgent and pressing the trigger. Since these dot optics do not require the shifting of the eyes from the target to the sights and back again, this "place and press" sight system works very well even in the most frantic of environments. This is the type of information that brings an end to such debates, and it is my feeling that the close-quarters war now being fought in Iraq will end a lot of the debate on how we should train for close-quarters gunfights.

Many revolver shooters, however, did remember using their sights at close quarters but not in a traditional sight picture. Most described seeing a "red glob," "orange bar" or "red and black block" in their field of vision when shooting at their opponent, which makes sense, as the sights on most combat revolvers of the time (and to this current day) were a red plastic insert combined with a flat black rear blade/window.