From its earliest roots, the primary objective to winning a gunfight, be it in an F15 Strike Eagle or between
desperadoes, has been to get your weapon aimed at your opponent as quickly as possible. While it seems
that Hollywood made a big deal out of Matt Dillon firing from the hip, and really, probably everyone
reading this practiced the same feat as a kid, the concept was just as applicable then as it is now. But,
before anyone gets to thinking that I’m endorsing point shooting, I’m not. Although I’ve practiced it, like
most people I have never been worth a damn at it beyond three yards. Granted, I have witnessed people
who were uncannily accurate at it out to ten or more yards. What Hollywood never seemed to grasp was
that the classic quick draw stance was something used when an opponent was at arms reach, not squared
off at twenty paces.

Death in a western-era saloon (or the streets of modern-day Chicago for that matter) was not about the
courage to step out into the center of the street for a fair fight. More often than not it was about one drunk,
pissed off cowboy spontaneously shooting another drunk, pissed off cowboy just as soon as his gun cleared
leather. Frequently the shot came from so close that the victim was clearly marked by powder burns.

What I’m talking about here is known currently as the speed rock. Sure, most of the famous gunfighters
who lived past thirty were known to draw, go to an offhand stance and use sighted fire to stop their
adversary. But romanticizing aside, most of the gunfights of the Old West were between nobodies in heat-
of-the-moment altercations that occurred at contact distance where the winner was the cowboy or lawman
who could get his 1860 Army upholstered and leveled the fastest. No finesse, just shoot the thing before
the other guy gets his out, too.

The speed rock gained new use in the late fifties and early sixties with the competitive quick draw fad.
Because of the simple requirements, shooters refined this sport far beyond practical (or historical) use in
the name of winning. Whatever could be done to draw and bring your weapon to bear was tried. Low-slung
metal-reinforced tie-down holsters, half pound trigger jobs, short barrels, and even peculiar body angles
were employed to shave off every last nanosecond. But at its heart, competitive quick draw was all about
a shooter getting in the first shot, accuracy be damned!

Eventually the Matt Dillon fad faded and most police agencies that had used any type of point shooting
began to return to various forms of aimed fire as the Weaver stance gained following. Oddly enough
though, reexamining the average statistical gunfight or assault showed more and more that they occurred
at incredibly close range. At the same time, police agencies, through collective data, were realizing that
two of the biggest killers of peace officers were the high speed pursuit and officers who were killed with
their own weapons. The buzzphrase for the decade became "Weapons retention."

As seen here, the weak arm is pulled back against the body to get it out of the fire zone as well as providing
shielding to your upper chest cavity. The strong hand and weapon are rotated to the firing position as soon as the
muzzle clears leather. Use of a standard interview stance will put the strong side farthest from the attacker. This
move should be done at a full retreat. At this range you are only exchanging wounds, put some distance between
you and your attacker while those bullets soak in.

While many professionals had long ago (my father switched in the early sixties) taken to carrying autos,
most police and security still clung to their revolvers. But as times changed and Hollywood made high
capacity autos seem almost magical, agencies began to switch over to magazine fed weapons. Where this
caused an evolutionary change to occur in the speed rock was in the fact that the trusty revolvers of the
frontier would feed reliably regardless of how they were held so long as you pulled the trigger.

But now we had autos that were often sensitive to limp wristing. Every 1911 or clone has varying degrees
of sensitivity, but compact weapons like the Detonics 45 and later the Glock subcompacts absolutely
disliked being fired from a true speed rock. Not only that, many shooters found they had trouble aligning
their weapon on both a horizontal and vertical axis. The stance solved a few problems, but created a few
more.

The obvious answer was to bring the weapon higher until it aligned with the wrist and forearm. Once
linear, there was a better springboard for the slide to operate properly. With the shooter’s arm braced
against their side and the sights held level, a defender had only to turn their body to align horizontally with
an attacker. The weak hand was brought back flush against the upper chest to keep from inadvertently
shooting off your own fingers.

Use of the speed rock has also found a niche among special weapons groups as the ‘point man’. Though
this hold differs from the speed rock in that it is more of a stance than a speed draw, it consists mainly of
an armpit level port arms carry. The virtues of the stance are weapons retention, ease of aiming, and a
close knit hold that provides breathing room between you and an opponent as you round a corner or enter
a doorway. I have found this tactic to be sound and have included it in building clearing training for security
officers who are contracted to provide alarm response services. In one town I lived in, private security
accounted for the majority of these responses and were commonly required to clear the premises before
returning to duty.

Although most are false alarms, either pets activating the motion sensors or systems triggered by
electrical storms, the officer has to be wary nonetheless. Every corner or dark room is a potential criminal
laying in wait.