I came across it when I was going through my old e-mails in an attempt to reduce them. The e-mail which is dated 2/15/02, compliments the details of the C.A.R. system which were presented in the article on the C.A.R.

It answers the question of: Why C.A.R?

"One of the most frustrating things I have come across in the last six years in the USA, is the sheer reluctance to look at the real world problems facing Law Enforcement Officers engaged in a gun fight. It seems to me, that we are willing to continue to over look the obvious causes of lack of gunfighting abilities in the Ground Troops. We simply look towards superior numbers to defeat the 'Bad Guy' plus most Offenders who shoot at the Police expect to get killed, and don't care at the time.

Every time I read about a Police/Suspect shootout, I read "Cop shot to death." I expect to see in the next sentence "Suspect was also shot and died at the scene." This is the same old platitude. We seem to have come to accept that if a Suspect if willing to trade life for life, or rather die killing a Cop, we lose yet another Man/Women in the field. Yes often the Suspects die too, but we cannot lose a Cop for every bad guy......do the math!!!!

All too often of late, I read about Officers being killed. For example in the first month of 2002, six officers were shot in South Carolina alone, four DOE, and two seriously wounded. That is unacceptable. Yet I see no change (nation wide), in tactics.

Two things need to change, one is we need to start teaching breathing techniques under stress. The other we need to address failure to properly sight. We are simply not hitting what we are aiming at.

One of the most over looked fact is the shooting line training techniques of lining up on the range, standing in front of a target, at set distances, and shooting at a static piece of flat paper. Allowing Students to close their non shooting eye. This is wholly ineffective, and in my opinion is simply setting Students up to get killed. To evidence my statement, here is a simple test.

Take your finger and push out to your arms length, cover an object as if you were sighting your weapon on it. Closing an eye and getting sight alignment, breathing, and then taking that well controlled shot is just not real. For example. As soon as you open both eye’s the target doubles. You get twin vision. It is a recorded fact that in a CQB gun fight both eye’s remain open.

Plus, if you push the front sight out past your natural reading distance 12 to 14 inches for the average Person, the ciliary muscle in the eye is unable to focus quick enough from sight to target and back before you have shot your weapon. In other words when you look at the vast majority of Police Shootings, they are in fact shooting point/sense of direction.

Yet we continue to avoid this fact. The statement is this “We cannot teach anything other than aimed fire due to liability issues.” Well here is the dilemma, we are fooling ourselves if we do not address the facts. The answer is the C.A.R. system which uses both sight and sense of direction, they work in harmony with each other. Not against each other. Yet we continue to teach the following doctrines:

Front sight clearly in focus.

Target blurred.

Trigger pressure increased until surprise break.

Shot discharge.

Most Operators who have been involved in a CQB Gunfight will tell you the same thing "The target was always the main visual stimuli, the weapon itself the threat, and I shot towards the threat. I did not get time to sight, it just happened all to fast.

Trigger break surprise...what trigger control !!!"

So the issues remain, should we teach gunfighting or range application. Or find a solution to deal with both. The answer is the C.A.R. system. The traditional stances of Isosceles/Weaver simply put you at a disadvantage. Standing square on to the target, puts you off balance, makes you a big target.

Bringing you weapon up in front of your face, simply adds to the risk factors of being hit in the head, neck, or even below the waist. Why will people not come to terms with the fact that both Suspect and Cop will do the same thing, aim towards the threat which is the gun. The gun is in front of the face. The facts show that just as many Cops are shot in the head than the body. Just evidence the (Kehole Ohio shootout.) Find out for yourself where all the bullets struck. You may be surprised. I was not.

Being less of a target 24/7/365 has got to be the answer, being able to shoot and move, and hit the target before they can get you is the answer.

The C.A.R. system utilizes our collapsed or harmonious muscle positioning caused through the flight or flight syndrome. This position is commenced from the Officer Field Stance, and for good reason. It is natural, and effective. It is the basis for stability. It simply works and you can effectively move, and shoot at the same time. The body armor issue is moot if you are off duty, or undercover, or just do not wear armor out of choice. Plus being shot with a .308/223/7.62 is going to go through your vest, like a knife into butter. Better you are not hit at all, if you can get the picture...

Breathing issues. For many years Operators have been taught to shoot the H&K MP5 from a flat face off squared position, round the shoulders, and bring the weapon up to the center line. Common sense should tell you that this simply restricts the diaphragm, stops you from breathing, causes sight alignment problems with both eyes open, and makes you lead into a room with your weapon, which is now open to be taken from you, or deflected away by an opponent. If you lose your weapon you are likely to die.

Not to mention cutting off blood supply to the arms when wearing body armor, and how is a female supposed to do all of this with their natural contours. Plus you cannot shoot out of your vehicle in the stance, with a pistol or a carbine. With the C.A.R. system you can shoot, and shoot accurately.

Working in confined spaces is one of the biggest advantages for the C.A.R. system. Working aircraft assault, bus assault, boat assault training with SF Teams, I can assure you that the C.A.R. system will out perform all the others. Plus you can effectively breath easier, and without body movement. The C.A.R. stance does not effect the diaphragm, in any position with any amount of tactical vest attachments, or even level 3 armor plate.

Many experts continue to debate the weaver/Isosceles stance, and which is the most natural in CQB combat. The answer has been shown time and time again. It is that neither of them offer the same levels of performance as C.A.R. You only have to look at defensive wounds, to see that most of the time the wounds are found on the forearms. Because the natural defense position is to bring your arms and hands back towards your body. Collapsing to the fetal position, not to extend out and away from your body. Your muscles will always contract under stress, never relax. That is a medical fact.

The C.A.R. system has been developed to work as a gunfighting/marksmanship shooting technique. In my opinion, it offers the best weapons retention technique to be found any where in the world today, and has been proven in blood, to be wholly effective in real world gun fights.

I believe it’s time to move away from the “Sports Shooter” training theory. Time to move away from the Paper/Steel shooters. It’s time to remember what it feels like to go through the door,and remember what we did rather than what we were told we should do. Remember that we have only one life. It’s not simunitions, targets do shoot back, they do not fall when hit. There are no rules that the bad guys play by...only winning, and that means killing you.

The debates about trigger fingers on the trigger, what we should do what we should not do, all are important. But here is the bottom line. If what we are doing right now is so good, why is the national hit rate as low as 18%. If what we are doing is so good, why are we missing the target... I think that we need to get past all the range rhetoric and get back to the basic’s. Hit The Target Hard and Quickly, Destroy It. Stop it in it’s tracks. Finish it.

C.A.R. reduces recoil by 95% and that is no exaggeration. It works. For example in front of 30 FBI/Violent Crimes task force Agents and Officers, in Youngstown, Ohio. Four rounds of double 00 from shotgun, on two targets set 10 feet apart, Timer showed 0.86 seconds for fourth shot.

Seattle, Washington. King County S.O. January of this year, in the snow. C.A.R. basic class had every Student achieving 4 rounds under one second on center of target. Many shot five under one second with standard Glock .40 pistols. One achieved 6 rounds under one second nothing out of 9/10 ring on a timer.

It is not about the Expert Instructor, it’s about what the Students can do that counts, because they are the only ones there when the fight is on. We are so obsessed about the Instructors abilities, and resume, that we often fail to appreciate that if the Student cannot do it, at the end of the school, then what was the point. C.A.R. works and Students prove it in the field."

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In the two years since Paul sent the e-mail, many police agencies have adopted the C.A.R. system and many others are moving to Point Shooting for use at CQ distances.

There still is a need for Sight Shooting and it still is being taught.

However, officers are at greatest risk in close quarters, and in those situations, systems such as the C.A.R., make life over death sense.

I Jan 2004, I sent a note to Paul that I was going to put the above e-mail up on my web site, and I received the following in response. I found it to be very interesting.

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"The first thing I want you to understand as the Student looking at the C.A.R. system, is to understand that I am no Martial Artist. I do not know 9 out of the 10 deadly Yells. I am not a Nylon Ninja or Special Forces Commando. My street fighting experience comes from just there fighting in the streets. I would sum it up in this way, I have learned from breaking my wrist on a mans chin, separating my knuckles on more than one occasion, and having to learn to put on a pair of socks, with one good hand.

I learned to hit hard, a lot of times, and get to the throat and eyes as quick as you can. Pulling hair out and biting, is an acceptable tactic, as is squeezing the private parts whenever available. As a Cop I graduated to the use of a Night stick, as well as a Flashlight. If its in your hand, you will generally use it. We all know that the head is always a good target.

Now, having been totally honest about my lack of Martial Arts skills, many of my Friends are more than good. I humbly bow to those who have a focus in Martial Arts that I simply do not possess. My skills have been honed with firearms in mind. So if you want to learn go to the tree of knowledge. Go right to the source, and learn from the ground up. Because the ground is where you tend to end up as a Cop trying to get Billy Badass into custody.

The C.A.R. system can be described as the Kinetic Linking of power from the ground through a solid base, using the center line of the body, or Center Axis. Your center is a hold on power, through balance and stability. The 6 Rs are a form of Kata or fighting drills. You could call them a routine. Each of them can be deployed from no particular position. You will read what the term P.I.N. is all about, as you progress through the manual. I have identified the needs of the untrained by gathering knowledge from the trained.

My experiences have taught me that it is a combination of Power and Pressure, Balance and Technique, both from within and without. These are manifest through the correct application of Stance and Form, Flexibility and Strength. In my mind traditional shooting stances offer little of these basic requirements, resulting in not hitting what we are aiming at when we are under the stress of lethal force combat.

We are taught, that only a perfectly centered fighter can attack in any direction. It is important to own your attackers center. With a firearm you must be able to deliver multiple rounds to the center area, and in quick succession on the move. Gun fights occur from difficult angles, unlike traditional style range practice when you are perfectly centered on your target.

Balance and power are created from straight bone alignment. This means controlling the recall of the weapon on discharge. The C.A.R. system does this very well, incredibly well in fact. It is all about extremes, ask anybody who has been there on the razors edge, dancing with death. I would say this to you as the reader:

- ITS ALL ABOUT THE NEXT 30 SECONDS

- HOW YOU DRAW FROM THE HOLSTER

- HOW YOU REACTIVELY ALIGN YOUR WEAPON

- HOW YOU APPLY YOUR TRIGGER ACTION and

- MAKING SURE OF YOUR FOLLOW THROUGH SHOTS

- THE C.A.R. IS A SYSTEM and NOT JUST A STANCE

- IT WORKS and IT CAN KEEP YOU ALIVE"