Clint Smith has never been one to speak with meekness, which is one of the reasons why I love the guy. He unabashedly comes right out with whatever is on his mind, and this video is raw, so sit back and enjoy. I’ll be quoting Clint all the way through this article because…well, it’s just too damn good not to! There’s no gunplay or explosions in the video, it’s not an action-packed kill fest adventure. Instead, we get some down-to-earth knowledge from a guy who knows.
How many guns and how much ammo?
Clint opens by talking about carrying spare ammo. He says, “Guns are cool! Remember that one is none, two is one, and three is better!”
His next statement is one I can personally verify: “I’ve never heard anyone complain about having too much ammunition in a fight.” I’ve personally known dozens upon dozens of people over the years who have been in gun battles of various scales (some fast and others that lasted for days), and not one of them ever bitched about having too much ammunition.
I believe the environment plays a role here. I carry a Glock 43X most days with two spare magazines, giving me 31 rounds on tap. For the most part, I think that should be enough. But who knows? I mainly carry the two spare magazines because carrying more would start to weigh me down and take up a lot of space. If I were expecting trouble, would I carry more? Hell yes! And I’d have a long gun along with me as well.
If I were on a patrol in a hostile country with a military unit, how much ammo would I carry? As much as I was reasonably able to.
I know people who sometimes carry a 5-shot revolver with no reloads on their person. Is that enough? Not really for my taste, but hey, if it works for them, I guess it’s okay.
What’s a typical number of rounds fired in a fight?
Clint has some statistics for us. “The 1980s was the last decade for most police to carry revolvers. The average police officer fired 2.8 rounds per target and fired 5.6 rounds per engagement, which means he shot the gun until it was empty.”
“In the ’90s, we went to the Glock pistols. They only kept track for four years and then they quit. If you look at New York shooting records, you can see why; they fired 12.9 rounds to get a hit on the target and fired 17.5 rounds per engagement, so they shot the gun until it was empty.”
“Remember, in a fight, most people don’t shoot to apply marksmanship, they shoot because it feels good. If you don’t think so, watch CNN and you’ll see a guy like this (Clint holds his hands above his head, mimicking a person holding a gun up high and spraying rounds). What’s he shooting at? He’s shooting at nothing, he’s just shooting over there. Why doesn’t he get behind the sight? 58,212 people were killed in Viet Nam. 325,000 were wounded. Half of everyone killed or wounded was killed or wounded from the collar bones up.” He points out, “Your head is a relatively important body organ, and when you stick your head up and someone tries to put a canoe through that bitch, that’s why you see people holding rifles up over their head and firing blindly.”
Tips for a Gunfight
Clint’s view on remedying being shot in the head is to shoot around things. Don’t shoot over the bed, don’t shoot over the hood of the car. Shoot around the end of the bed, of the dresser—don’t stick your head up over stuff when you shoot. Again, sound advice, in my opinion, and I was taught the very same thing during the many tactical trainings that I attended. And it makes perfect sense. A head perched above something is simply easier to hit.
Those of us who have trained are wired to use the sights because that’s what we’ve trained to do. We understand that the purpose of shooting is hitting. When we apply marksmanship, when we use the sights, press the trigger, then we get good results.
Another cogent point that Clint raises is hitting a bad guy in the center of his chest, or center mass, will not necessarily take the baddie out of the fight. So what if it doesn’t put him down? “Shoot him again!” says Clint. He elaborates that when some people take a gun out of a holster, whether it’s a single stack, double stack, revolver, or belt-fed, he plans on shooting every round that’s in the gun. “But for you and I, we need to shoot them one round at a time until we solve the problem, rather than just filling the sky full of lead.” No spraying and praying.
He explains that the younger generation is largely of the Polymer persuasion, with many of them having very little knowledge about revolvers and older pistols. Clint mentions the old adage, “Beware of the guy with one gun, he probably knows how to use it.”
“One gun will generate another gun. If you have a pistol and a guy runs down the hall with an AK, you snap a cap into him and he rolls up into a cat ball, take that pistol, put it in your holster, pick that AK up and start shooting back at them with their own shit.” Battlefield pick-ups! Gotta love it!! “If it’s a big fight, there’ll be more than one gun lying around. If there’s a fight, why would you think that you’re only going to fight with your gun?” He then brings up a good point: be a student of weapon craft. Be able to pick up many different weapons and use them.
Another warrior whom I have immeasurable respect for thought the same way. His name was Bill Guarnere (Band of Brothers fame), and he spent time learning every weapon in the US inventory, and also the German inventory. He learned not only how to fire them, but how to field strip and clean them, in the event that he needed to use them on the battlefield. He spent considerable time learning these skills. I once asked him which was his favorite weapon, and without pausing, he blurted out, “The Thompson!” His eyes lit up when he said it, and there was no doubting his words. Bill was a major fan of the Tommy Gun and said he most often carried it, but then he launched into the above explanation about knowing how to use everything available. Sage advice coming from one of the best guys in the world, in my opinion.
At this point, the video concludes. I really enjoyed listening to Clint in this raw, uncut video that was packed full of sound advice. The fact that it was more of a table-top discussion, as opposed to an orchestrated, planned video was really rather neat, a pleasant departure from what I’m used to watching. This one is definitely recommended!
