I’ve heard it a lot in gun stores: “You don’t need sights. You won’t see that dot in a real fight. Point and pull.” Is this not a dogma handed down from an era of small, hard-to-use iron sights and different tactics. It was a different world then, was it not?
But wait! I will concede some ground here, point shooting is a narrow skill that can help in some very specific close-range contexts.
No, point shooting is certainly not a replacement for aiming systems (large modern sights with or without red dots).
And it shouldn’t be worshipped as if it’s the only “real” way to fight.
Point Shooting Does Have Some Value
- Extremely close ranges: Quite naturally, shooting become more challenging as the target get closer. Generally, shooting gets easier as the target gets closer. There is of course a point of diminishing returns where the precision that is required of aimed fire from iron sights is significantly less necessary.
- When your hands, vision, or position make classic sight alignment temporarily impractical.
- As a redundancy.
But notice how narrow that list is. Point shooting shines only when distance and time remove the need for precision. It is largely relegated to a narrow type of emergency shooting or as a training supplement.
Why Point Shooting Is Obsolete As A Doctrine (not as a tactic)
- Modern sights are dramatically better. Today’s iron sights are larger, higher-contrast, and more intuitive than the tiny GI sights from which point shooting grew. Red dots and modern sights make precise, rapid hits much easier.
- Point shooting conflates luck with skill. The old framing — “you can’t miss at close range” — is false. People still miss. Point shooting outside the conditions it excels at will be to the shooter’s detriment.
- The “they didn’t use sights” argument is weak. Folks like to cite either personal experiences during training, or secondhand stories from security personnel, Law Enforcement Officers or soldiers reporting that they didn’t “see” their sights in a fight.
The problem is firstly; this conveniently ignores anyone who did successfully
“see” their sights. No doubt there are people who didn’t “see” their sights –
but this doesn’t prove irons or optics are useless, but rather begs the
question – why didn’t they see their sights?
People new to firearms who’ve received no training, little training or poor
training, memory gaps under stress, or the shooter performing instinctive
actions can all explain this. Memory and perception are notoriously
unreliable after such high levels of stress.
- Better optics changed the calculus. In Iraq and similar theaters, high rates of long-range precision hits weren’t magic — they reflect better optics, training, and marksmanship. If sights were useless, those results wouldn’t happen.
- Training implications are inverted. If large numbers of people ignore their sights under stress, the lesson isn’t “sights useless” — it’s “train shooters to use sighted fire under stress more effectively.”
People Prefer The Easy Road
You know what’s easier than working your butt off to pay for a good handgun with good sights and a red dot, spending hours on the range practicing and training, constantly pushing yourself?
Walking into a gun store and laughing at the folks buying premium handguns, sights, and optics and telling them “You’ll never use those things, sonny”.
The reality is these things wouldn’t have been adopted by everyone, yes everyone – soldiers, police, competition shooters, CCW holders, hunters, and casual gun owners if they didn’t work, if they didn’t use them, and if they weren’t force multipliers.
See, people love dogma. It simplifies reality.
Point shooting gets evangelized because it’s macho and memorable. But effective training is nuanced and evidence-based: train to use sights under stress, keep point shooting as a backup, and measure what actually produces hits.
If you want to win a fight you don’t rely on a cult of methods and dismiss force multipliers.
Closing Thoughts
Point shooting: useful under very specific conditions.
Holy salvation: no. Don’t let nostalgia or macho dogma or some “veteran of the hobby” override measurable performance.
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