When you're at the range, and you line up your shot to center mass, and you pull the trigger, where you miss is indicative of what you're doing wrong -- if it's consistent. (Some short barrel concealed carry guns are not accurate at longer ranges; they aren't intended to be, either. However, the average full size hand gun is intended to be pretty accurate.)

Here's a link to a helpful free (PDF) target that may make you a better shot.

If I miss at the range -- which is rare -- I usually miss down and to the left of the bullseye (but not by much) because I'm pulling my index finger a little too hard -- I'm tightening my fingers.

If I was in a high stress situation -- say one where a yelling, large, aggressive nearly 300 pound man is charging me, I'd probably tighten up even more and miss to the left, say, hitting the assailant in the right arm. As I continued to pull the trigger, I would likely start missing up from the recoil of the gun -- more likely if I've firing a .40 cal, which has a sharper, more upward recoil than a .45 ACP or a 9mm does. (I've shot a few .40 cals before -- I've not shot a .40 cal Sig Sauer, but I have shot a couple of Berettas and I wasn't a fan. Besides -- .45 ACP is better than .40 anyways :) )

In this regard, the autopsy result of Michael Brown tends to support the officer's account of what happened. Brown was charging him, and under stress he over tightened, and missed to his left from center mass which would be the assailant's right arm / shoulder as he likely did not take a lot, if any, time to re-sight as he was in the line of a charging bull.

The other piece of evidence is going to be the brass. If it's all in a localized area, the officer was standing still. If it's scattered, then he was running toward the assailant.

The other question, which leads into another somewhat related point: How many rounds did Officer Darren Wilson fire? His gun had a 12 round magazine (+1 in the pipe) so it's possible that he missed a few times - which wouldn't surprise me, as here's a dirty little secret:

The police do not train with their firearms enough, or even as much as the average CHL holder.

A couple of my closest friends are police officers, and I can out shoot them any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Despite their "training" I have a much tighter grouping and many, many more bulls-eyes with the same weapon than they do.

The reality is, this trend tends to hold across the general population. You are far more likely to get shot by a cop -- whether intentional or not -- than you are a legal concealed carry licensee.

Consider that little fact the next time you want to think that "only the police should have guns".

And if you are a concealed license holder -- when was the last time you practiced? Find a range and keep those skills sharp.

I would that he could have learned this lesson at a price less than the ultimate one: barbarians gonna barber.

I was talking to someone at work about how some of the best political wisdom I've heard came from a Douglas Adams book, specifically the bit about how the ones who aspire to positions of authority are those least qualified to have said positions. The conversation then devolved into how the Beeb had created a site to act as a real-life Guide.

Out of curiosity, I set out to see if I could find my posts, and I did. The problem is that I hadn't posted there since April or so of 2000. I had no idea what my login was, no clue on the email address associated with it, and certainly not my password. I went back and forth with their "Gurus", explaining all this and how I would gladly answer any question they had in an effort to identify myself. I gave email addresses I used at the time, too. Next thing I know, they're sending me my login and my password via email, in cleartext.

Wow.

Needless to say, I changed the password right quick.

You can't really play the Romans 5 card, emphasis mine:

. . .without noticing the symmetry of having one man finalize that group punishment for all mankind, before or since. Furthermore, one chapter over:

Everyone's flesh gets paid the same wage: a final heartbeat. But for the punishment to achieve true universality, we'd all have to die at once. But this punishment is not universally administered; we each get our reward as individuals. Those who've internalized what life really means (i.e., Jesus Christ) needn't fret that final heartbeat. Or the fables of the secular priesthood, like anthropogenic global warming (or whatever the current focus-group/choir-approved term for the lie is), life beginning at some arbitrary, lawyer-defined moment, or whatever tale the dirt-diggers (I mean 'experts') are spinning this week about when/where/why early humans were tooling around. God bless them all. I wish that there was some other course one could steer in life and reach joy. I grasp that mine is insufficient for you, and hope you find mercy, in the final analysis.
(a) I haven't really 'won' anything, in a secular sense: there is no competition.
(b) While I flatter myself an eternal winner, in a non-secular sense, there is scant value in winning ugly.
(c) Peace.

Well, it's done. Had my Certification exam for GCUX earlier this week.

I passed. :)

One argument made on television last night by a Ferguson City Councilwoman was that the Officer used "excessive force" by shooting a 6'4", 240 pound man 6 times.

6 times! She said.

...... the ignorance is breathtaking.

Here's the reality: Remember this story of a woman hiding in her attic with her children? She shot the assailant 6 times. He survived his injuries. Link to Local News Story

I bring this up as an example to my larger point: Compared to long guns (rifles, shotguns) ALL HAND GUNS SUCK.

The woman in the story was using a .38 special, I do not know what caliber the Officer in Ferguson was carrying. I will wager an educated guess and say that most likely the officer was carrying a 9mm, as it's arguably the most popular police issue handgun. A size comparison between the .38 and the 9mm reveals that they are very, very close in size. The 9mm is faster, as the cartridge contains more powder.

Hollywood has lied to you.

When people are shot, even with the mighty .45 ACP (well, mighty for a hand gun, that is), most people do the following: They psychologically react, think, "OH MY GOD I'VE BEEN SHOT" and lay down, where they are either captured, taken to the hospital, and recover or pass out due to loss of blood pressure and bleed out. They do not fly through the air emitting a Wilhelm Scream only to be stone dead when they hit the ground.

The only way to *stop* an assailant with a hand gun, barring the psychological effects, is to hit someone in the following areas on the body: The pelvic girdle, shattering the hip bone making walking difficult if not impossible, severing the spinal cord, or a hit to the brain. Even a direct shot to the heart is not enough to stop immediately, as a person with a destroyed heart could still have anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds of combat ability before they pass out due to loss of blood pressure.

Here's what we know: According to the officer and eye witness testimony, Michael Brown was rushing the police officer, who fired. The first few shots hit the assailant's arm, and did not stop him. Finally, a shot that hit just above his eye (autopsy report) ended his life.

Far from being a cherub faced child, Michael Brown was a 6'4", 240 pound giant who had just committed a strongarm robbery of a bunch of Swisher Sweet cigars, popular for hollowing out for use with marijuana (which was found in the toxicology report).

Why are losers like Eric Holder, Al Sharpton, and other race baiting idiots involved? We have now seen two incidents where an "unarmed" black male was assaulting a police officer in one case -- breaking his orbital socket bone -- and in the other case breaking the nose of a neighborhood watch volunteer. Both were committing a felony assault when shot, and both died from their wounds. Both are now Liberal Saints, Trayvon Martin -- aka Saint Skittles, and now Michael Brown, now Saint Swisher Sweets -- who despite committing felony assaults at the time of their deaths -- and quite frankly, already received their "justice" -- were "good boys who didn't do nuffin".

Both also led to outcry and criminal trials. Much like George Zimmerman, I would normally expect Officer Wilson to be acquitted -- but with the current mob mentality, and the desire for their pound of flesh, there's no way to predict the outcome of what is now a politically charged event.

... while nary a word is said about the epidemic of black on black violence that is occurring in Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, and Washington DC -- where in many of those cases the victims, unlike Brown and Martin, were innocent.

My, how this country has fallen so far in just 6 years.

In recent months, Barack Obama has crossed an important threshold. He has always shown contempt for his opponents; now he shows contempt for his supporters. He has quit pretending to be a leader, and more or less quit pretending to be a president. On the right and the center, he has become a joke.

Was the man ever, at any point, anything other than a campaigner? I have two words for anyone who hasn't been seeing through BHO the entire time, the second of which is "you".

Usually I'm a morning glory, but not today:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5554597&cid=47707717

Jeremiah Cornelius, sadly, needs training:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5554597&cid=47707835

Emphasis mine:

A hundred years ago, the first group of progressives concluded that this country needed to change in a big way. They argued explicitly for a refounding of the United States on the grounds that the only absolute in political life is that absolutes are material and economic rather than moral in nature.

That's one of those statements that leaves one rubbing the chin. It seems plausible on the face of matters. However, having taken one's eyes off the Almighty, much is possible. As someone wicked once said:

. . .All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

Bill Whittle is excellent, as ever:
https://www.billwhittle.com/firewall/struggle-stupidity

What hooey:

Yeah, the Hindus and Buddhists are all, "Wut?"
"When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas" is a hoot because at least a good chunk of the Enlightenment thinkers considered themselves Christian.
"...feudal society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie." Yeah, there was that extended Bourgeoisgeddon, to roughly the extent the ancient world had "death throes". Charlemagne thought he was just reforming Latin, and would have balked at the idea of these "death throes" that Marx is making up. It sounds as though Marx may have bought off on Edward Gibbon's biases, directly or not.
This is to say nothing of my contempt for Marx's view of private property. What a used car salesman. The Communist vanguard inevitably, invariably, with enough irony to float an Iowa-class battleship, becomes the aristocracy standing in the ashes of the bourgeoisie. The only thing to be done with this foolishness is to reject it, and haul it out with the kids for a cautionary tale about liars.

Took my family to see Guardians of the Galaxy last night. I had only heard good stuff about it and it was a fun movie. What's funny is I thought it was pretty good while my wife and kids thought it was amazing. My son kept going on about it and my wife said she wanted to go watch it again. Usually with a film like this it would be the other way around and I'd be the one who was more enthusiastic. Funny.

So I pulled a pile of dreck (The Communist Hooeyfesto) into the Kindle app on my 'Droid phone.
This is supposed to be some classic of political thought? Really? For 33% through this noise, I have to say that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a better read. I mean, if you're going to smear someone falsely, Jews or burgerboise, one recommends a more diabolical approach to lying.

No, it is not. The mental effort of binning individuals into abstract chess pieces, so that he could move them around some imaginary chessboard, happened mostly in the mind of Marx.
It's an appealing fable, and many have swallowed it whole, to their detriment. As Alinsky would later codify the central axis of the Commie Hooeyfesto:

There will be no improvement until people recognize tawdry plays and gently rebuff them. I hope God had mercy on Marx. While I reject his ideas, I don't want to play his game.

Don't blame them

What is your Facebook "username" any way?