Originally found at RecoilMag.com

White gangsta wannabe James B. demonstrates the inferior shooting style.

Los Angeles, Calif. -- According to an article published in the September issue of Handguns magazine, a recent decline in fatalities resulting from inner city handgun shootings can be credited to the thriving popularity of a flashy new gangsta-style shooting technique wherein the weapon is canted 180 degrees from its normal upright position.

"Hollywood overkill of the sideways gangsta shooting method encouraged many modern hoods to look for a less trendy but equally cool-looking technique for offin' someone,'" wrote freelancer Marian Ayoob in Handguns' September cover story, entitled "Better To Look Good Than To Shoot Good." "Over the last three months, holding a gun completely upside down has become the predominant method used by stylish gangstas whom, as they say, 'be fixin' to put a cap in a [person's] dome.'"

The article went on to reiterate statistics from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), which documented August 2002 as having the lowest record of shooting fatalities for men between the ages of 17-34 since December 1980.

"The number of gang-related altercations involving gunplay has remained steady, yet the rate of fatalities resulting from these shootings dropped fourteen percent last month," wrote Ayoob. "These statistics clearly indicate that the bullets - of which there are approximately the same number being fired - are not hitting their intended targets."

Ayoob also cited studies by ballistic experts at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which estimate that employing the unorthodox handgun shooting technique can reduce a subject's short range accuracy by as much as 80 percent.

U of M researchers said that this significant decrease in accuracy results from attempting to shoot the firearm while it is upside down.

"A gangsta utilizing the sideways, ninety-degree shooting method generally experiences only an accuracy loss of roughly twenty percent," said Dr. Keith Marcus of the University of Michigan. "But the shooter loses tremendous accuracy when the gun is turned an additional ninety degrees. With the sideways method you could still use the sights to aim. Upside down, you have to pretty much guesstimate [when aiming]. And having to use your pinky to operate the trigger certainly doesn't help."

Marcus added that a shooter's accuracy is further reduced if the subject is either running from police or trying to look at himself in a mirror while aiming.

Still, Ayoob contends, more and more gangstas are becoming willing to sacrifice accuracy in return for aesthetic rewards.

"What the shooter loses in short and long-range accuracy, and the ability to quickly fire consecutive rounds, he or she more than makes up for in presenting a more 'bad ass' appearance [than using a standard shooting technique]," wrote Ayoob. "Polls indicate that thugs consider 'how you be representin' be just as important as how you be shootin'.'"

Ayoob said that Americans can expect the number of shooting fatalities to continue to drop as the flamboyant attack pose gains further popularity among the public.

"Right now, only gangstas residing in the bigger, more progressive cities are employing the 'one-eighty cock,' as some are calling it," said Ayoob. "As soon as the entertainment media gets wind that holding the gun upside down is the 'wuz-up cuz' cool way to fire off a round, you'll be seeing it in all of the movies and television shows."

Added Ayoob: "Wait until the next Denzel Washington character blasts a cop using the one-eighty cock. Everyone will want to be shooting that way. Morgues across the country will probably have to layoff half of their staffs due to lack of business."