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What does "fire from the hip" means? When I read this phrase, I think of a person shooting with the gun touching the hip below the belt, I think of a person with a handgun with his gun low and firing? The question is does it imply that he's shooting in front of him, or can he fire on his foot, or backward? What does it mean? I also hear the phrase "fire from the hip" when people are "firing from their belly". The gun touches their belly, but doesn't touch their hip, yet people use the phrase "fire from the hip".

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  • Welcome to ELL.SE. As a reminder, one of the expectations of Stack Exchange is that you demonstrate your initial research efforts. A web search for fire from the hip, for example, turns it up as a synonym of the expression shoot from the hip.
    – choster
    Sep 12, 2019 at 17:51

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Firing from the hip originally comes from holding the gun to fire quickly without taking careful aim. The gun doesn't have to be by the hip, but usually is because that is where the holster is (which presumably the gun was just pulled from).

It can be used as an idiom meaning to act quickly without researching a course of action.

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    Also "shoot from the hip".
    – Michael Harvey
    Sep 12, 2019 at 16:47

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