Ever wondered why gangsters in movies (and in real life too) shoot their guns sideways? It sounds retarded to do so, what with the kind of damage you might just be taking after that. So a former Marine marksmanship instructor has come up with an interesting theory on why gangsters do so. In short: it's to quickly aim a firearm.

When firing a gun, it's important to take aim, which means making sure that the front and back of the weapon are pointed at a target in a straight line. And as it turns out, pointing your gun sideway is a pretty good way to get a "flash sight picture"



He explains it like this:
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. 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.
But what about the recoil? Wouldn't there be some? And one of the reason why most people don't hold a gun like that is simply because they don't want to hurt themselves after firing. Less you want to be the gangster that got his nose broken because of firing a gun sideways.

Read the whole explanation over at Quora: [Quora]