Someone sent me this link to a story on Tactical-Life.com about the Center Axis Relock (C.A.R.) system of Paul Castle. At the outset it’s important to note that I don’t think much of this “system”, largely because it asks the shooter to do a number of things that aren’t congruent with how the body reacts to a threat stimulus. It may or may not have some use to military or police tactical teams when in a proactive mode, but since I’m neither of those I’m not qualified to judge its tactical usefulness in those areas.

I can, however, comment on the intellectual inadequacies of one specific part of the story. In the fifth paragraph of the article, the author defends the C.A.R. system’s extreme bladed position with regard to body armor. One of the criticisms of this exaggerated stance is that it exposes the weakest part of an officer’s (or soldier’s) body armor to the threat. The author’s rejoinder is that the system places the bones and tissue of the upper arm in a position to protect that vulnerable spot.

Seriously, that’s what it says.

There was a shooting instructor back in the 1950s or ’60s (whose name I’m not recalling at the moment) who recommended that the pistol be shot one handed, with the weak hand reaching across the chest to the strong shoulder to put the bicep roughly over the heart to provide protection. Gosh, why aren’t we still doing that? If the bones and muscles of the upper arm are sufficient for protection of vulnerable areas, why are we wearing body armor at all?

The whole idea of body armor came about because flesh and bone have proven to be quite inadequate at stopping bullets. In fact, that’s exactly the kind of material that bullets are designed to defeat. While a muscled arm may slow the bullet down a bit, it’s still going to go through and into more important organs. Body armor exists because bullets go through muscles, and we’ve expended many resources to give people ever-better armor with fewer and fewer vulnerable areas.

The sides and arm holes are a well known weakness of all armor, and the recommendation has always been to keep the front area of the armor pointed at the threat if at all possible. There are many stories of soldiers and cops killed because a bullet (or piece of shrapnel, in some cases) made its way into the body by way of the open space around the arm – the size of the bicep notwithstanding.

There are those who will read the article without questioning. Unless they think critically, examining both the author’s assumptions and logic flow, they might be caught up by the recasting of a flaw as a feature.

-=[ Grant ]=-