Of particular concern to those who will have to take
responsibility for stray shots is the tendency for some people
under stress to "hose the foes," a habit known in combat shooting
circles as "spray and pray."
This is typically seen in people who acquired the high
capacity pistol with the feeling that it's large magazine was the
guns RAISON D'ETRE. They feel consciously or subconsciously that
if they can just get fifteen pieces of brass over their heads and
fifteen pieces of lead heading downrange, whatever is giving them
a problem is likely to be taken out of the fight and they will be
safe.
History shows us that this is wrong. Undirected full-auto
M-16 fire in Vietnam proved it. From South Africa to Britain's
SAS, battle-hardened troops made it policy to fire semiautomatic
only to force the combatant to be cool enough to aim and make
each shot count. The motto of the U.S. Army's Advanced
Marksmanship Unit, headquartered at Fort Benning, starkly
underscores this philosophy: "one shot, one kill."
Alas, not every combatant can live up to that philosophy in
the real world of lethal violence. This is why U.S. troops still
have M-16s, albeit with three-shot burst controls, instead of
having reverted to bolt action Springfield rifles. This is why
police are turning away from six-shooters to magazine-fed semi-
automatics, and not toward two-shot derringers.