How Do You Miss Six Shots From Five Feet Away?

The Secret Service agent that engaged the would-be Trump golf course assassin missed six shots despite being five feet away.

How does that even happen? How can even you even miss from that close?

I’m an adequate shot (not a Secret Service agent who presumably visits a shooting range every month), but I don’t think I could miss a human target from that range. Even if they were prone, behind a bush, next to a chain link fence.

I doubt any of my armed friends would miss either

That’s like the scene from Pulp Fiction:

Karl Rehn occasionally does some A/B testing for shooters at his range based on site picture, type of sights/red dot/etc. I would like to see him do some testing to see just how much you would need to distract even a semi-competent shooter to start missing a human target from 6 feet away. Mild electric shocks? A tuba solo directly behind them? A bright strobe light? 10 cans of Red Bull?

I wonder just how much distraction it would take for them to turn into as poor a shooter as this highly trained Secret Service agent.

I just hope they’re tasking the agent with gobs of range time before they work their next Trump detail…

(Note: No LinkSwarm today, as I’ve been too busy finishing up my latest book catalog. Maybe Monday…)

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5 Responses to “How Do You Miss Six Shots From Five Feet Away?”

  1. Zendo Deb says:

    Law Enforcement are generally poor shots. A couple of decades ago, I had a friend who got invited to shoot at all the police competitions in the area. They were mostly shooting Glocks with 15 round magazine. He was shooting somewhat-customized 38 special. (It was a nice gun… he let me borrow it once.)

    They would be struggling to hit the target. He would be making patterns on the paper.

  2. Etaoin says:

    Maybe the agent is a former cop with the NYPD? Just sayin’. Everybody remember that shootout in a crowded sidewalk in NY some years back where the cops shot seven innocent bystanders? Like Officer Fearless Fosdick straight out of the old comic strip!

  3. Malthus says:

    “How does that even happen? How can even you even miss from that close?”

    1.) Target is prone
    2.) Shooter is flustered
    3.) Technique is bad

    So yeah, it’s possible. Go to any indoor range and you will see the ceiling peppered with random shots caused by heeling the gun in anticipation of recoil.

  4. jeff says:

    Malthus, I am going to have to go with Person’s Pulp Fiction thesis. More emotionally satisfying. If a person is assigned a task and so manifestly not qualified, it raises too many disturbing questions.

  5. Firehand says:

    There’s an old saying that “You’re never too close to miss.” And for a lot that’s true, but for someone on the USSS Protection detail? And that distance? That’s not excusable.

    I’d have to go with insufficient/bad training and WAY too jumpy.

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