Why You Don’t Shoot For The Head In Self-Defense

There’s a clip going around of a guy at the range drawing from concealment and putting fast rounds on target.

Then a cop standing behind him says, “Yeah… but mine were all headshots.”

And that comment exposes one of the biggest misunderstandings people have about self-defense shooting.

Headshots are not the flex people think they are.

Anybody can hit a head if you give them enough time. But self-defense is not about taking your time and stacking perfect holes on a paper target.

It’s about stopping a threat as fast as humanly possible.

So I put it on a timer.

Headshots vs. center mass.

At close distance, the headshots were slower and messier. At ten yards, pushing for the head caused rounds to come completely off target.

And in real life, a miss is not just a miss.

It’s a wall.

A car.

A house.

Or an innocent person who had nothing to do with the fight.

That’s why responsible self-defense training focuses on acceptable accuracy, combat accuracy, and putting fast, effective hits into the area most likely to stop the threat.

The goal is not to kill.

The goal is to stop the threat and go home.