Alphecca

I'm still trying to get good at the two-handed, one eye, use the sights, focus on the front blade and DON'T JERK THE GUN method! However, I agree with you on the sightless firing mode. I doubt said mutant will give me time to breath in and out slowly, hold and fire!

Point shooting is great inside a certain range. I think that range is different for each person. I prefer "Riding the front sight", which is basically using the front sight by itself when shooting inside 10 yards. This method relys on repetition of my presentation that makes it pretty consistant.

Jeff;

There is a wholesale re-evaluation of what id called "point," or "index" shooting, led by such well-know firearms trainers as Walt Rauch, Michael Janich and Ralph Mroz. For the past 30-40 years the emphasis has been solely on aimed fire, despite the overwhelming evidence from police and civilian self-defense shootings that under stress, people don't — and don't need to — use the sights. I'm going to do an episode of SHOOTING GALLERY on the subject for the season that begins January 1. I've written a bunch about "not traiing against the operating system." By all means, practice point shooting,...it's just another tool in the arsenal...

Michael Bane

Most Tuesday nights we practice index shooting and aiming shots. Depending on the distance, I have learned to use the back of my pistol to index the target or just indexing the sights and putting steel to target. Eye dominance is the only thing that trips me up with using sights.

Best of luck and keep practicing.

First of all, rejoice! You are extremely unlikely to ever have to engage a human being with a gun.
That said, I would set up two silhouette targets, about three feet apart and practice shooting both of them in the head QUICKLY, before they can react, from five feet away. Start with your weapon in concealed carry mode. So, draw, unsafety, shoot two people in less than three seconds.
A little bit of that drill, every year, and some visualization and you are good to go.
And of course: If you can avoid it, don't ever SHOOT anyone even if they need it. It complicates your life. Just not worth the trouble.

The best defense, pistol advice I recieved was
to point with the holding hand (non-shooting) lay
the pistol in that hand and fire. It is amazingly
accurate

The best defense is to move to a better neighborhood! :)

Jeff, i'm currently havin this debate with a bunch of guys in Kim du Toit's Nation of Riflemen Forum.

I'm a total n00b to guns, but I have a smattering of experience (i'm no expert tho, trust me) in martial arts. And it seems to me that a handgun could be more effective if used as any other wielded weapon...

Vision-dominant shooting iwth a rifle makes sense, it's the only way to get it done for a lot of reasons....but with a handgun, proprioception (yoru body's ability to tell how its limbs are positioned) shoudl be plenty if you develop the muscle memory to have the gun parallel to the forum every time.

Try
http://www.pointshooting.com/guntests.htm
OCShooters.com

I am definitely not an expert so can't add much to what the other folks said, except that I would recommend the writings of Massad Ayoob in various gun magazines (here, for example), though I don't know if he specifically addresses point vs. aim.

At short distances, shooting for center-of-mass, minimal aiming is required.

Not that you are doing quick draw.

If you hold your favorite handgun in a 2-handed grip, just in front of your chest (arms NOT extended), the gun will point accurately to about 10 yards, maybe a bit less. Since the average gun fight is at about 10 feet, this is no problem.

My take on it is that point shooting is effective at arms length, and not much more unless you put LOTS of practice into it.

Incidentally, the opportunity to point shoot is already built into the proper draw stroke. It's available from the "rock and lock" phase up until you bring the gun to eye level, at which point you transition to aimed fire.

If anything, most people are probably optimistic that they'll have the distance to target and time needed to get a complete draw stroke resulting in aimed fire, and accordingly should dry practice abreviated draw strokes ending in point fire more frequently than the full motion.

Thanks for the input, everybody.

Hip-shooting(or point-shooting) used to be the standard teaching in many law enforcement agencies for close range. It still works quite well. And, as well as being both fast and accurate(with practice), it keeps the weapon close to you and further away from the bad guy; both good things.

"Point shooting," as the term is usually used, isn't hip shooting.

I'm strongly in favor of it; see http://www.pointshooting.com, which links to some good essays, as well as one of mine. :)