Navy, and the point of the drill is to show you taking a quick shot from the hip is better than delaying to aim. It’s also quite a lot more accurate than one would believe, which is another point of the drill.
USN doesn't train M16 usage in basic; they use a shotgun instead. They DO train you to fire it from the hip, but firing a shotgun from the hip is very different than firing an auto/semi-automatic rifle from the hip.
Yup, a shotgun. And difficulty hitting your target depends on what your loaded with (slug or shot shell). And you’ll hit your target just the same with a rifle. Will you be as accurate as aiming down the sights? Certainly not. Will you hit your target center mass? Oh yea unless your eye hand coordination is real off. And the original argument was that pistol grips make you more accurate than firing a weapon without. There’s still rifles and other long guns without pistol grips used in service. If this were true of pistol grips then we’d retire these guns out of national security.
