A former marksmanship instructor with the US Marine Corp has tried to give a valid reason behind why gangsters often hold their gun sideways even though most people know that the aiming sights are found on the top of a gun barrel.
According to Jon Davis, there is a good reason - at least in theory.
As a specialist in pistol marksmanship and a veteran of the war in Iraq, Davis has fired these kinds of weapons thousands of times.
He explains that when aiming a handgun in the conventional, barrel-up manner the rear sites must line up with the front sight in the horizontal and vertical planes to make sure the bullet travels a straight line.
This important technique, known as ‘building the castle’ since the gunman has to line up the three ‘turrets’ into an even position, ensures that the barrel of the gun is aligned perfectly along the trajectory he wants the bullet to travel.
The problem with ‘building the castle’ each time you want to fire your gun is that it takes time. Time you might not have in a combat situation or alternatively when you want to quickly execute your victim and make a fast getaway.
Instead, gangsters use another method to get what’s called a ‘flash sight picture’ by quickly aiming down the side of the gun barrel without perfectly lining it up with the target.
The ‘flash sight picture’ is a way to quickly get an aim that’s good enough for combat but without worrying too much about being totally precise with your aim.
Davis says that marines do it too but they hold their guns the right way up.
“The problem with tilt style shooting is that it is almost impossible to acquire a reliable sight alignment. The alignment in tilt style is achieved by making the weapon flat and aiming down the side,” the Daily Mail quoted Davis as saying on quora.com.
“In theory this works, but in practice you can’t accurately measure movement left or right and you have absolutely no way of knowing if the weapon is tilted down below your field of vision from the back of the weapon.
“This means that you never actually take the same shot twice since you are never actually aiming the same way,” he added.
