Firearms Training: Police

h/t Alphecca. I was reading an article he linked to by Steve Denny.

After discussing the occasional NDs police experienced with cocked revolvers, he went on to note police looked to semi-autos for a solution to perceived under-gunned police. Money quote:

“While Condition One was a good way to carry the pistol [Colt 1911] in combat, it somehow just didn't look right in polite society and nervous police administrators realized that once the gun was drawn and the safeties deactivated, they were back to that very light trigger pull that caused so much trouble with the revolvers. In order to use a gun like this safely, training would be much more complicated and expensive.” [emphasis added]

If I could walk into any police academy class, with no instructors listening in, I would tell them that quote. Then:

The most significant part of a police career, in the event it happens, is to discharge your pistol in the line of duty. Critical decision making skills, honed by training, and the pressure from the glare of scrutiny after, all go toward making this rare event very important to get right. The way to improve the chances of success for the police officer (and all others concerned, really) is training. And the local government finds it NOT in their interest to train a young police officer much past a basic level of competence. The .gov doesn’t WANT complicated and expensive. They want cheap and easy, lowest-bidder style. They wouldn’t train you in firearms at all if they thought they could escape repercussions from lawsuit exposure or the hue of public (or Union) outcry. Think about it. The powers that be have to consider how to most efficiently dispense funds for training. They have to. The resources aren’t unlimited. And firearm discharges by police are so rare and really good training so involved that this area can be scrimped on, a little bit.

And remember; inertia on behalf of the police recruit, then police officer, is to do the mere minimum as well. Chances are, he or she will never have to pull a trigger for real in their careers, anyway. Even the thought process can be one of ‘Why train that intensely? It’s not our job to go around shooting folks like soldiers in a battle. We’re cops.’

Fight that inertia and thinking. Even if you have to do it on your own dime. No, your job is not to go shooting folks. Until there is one time that it is.And training is more than range time. It’s more than gun handling from the holster. It’s also about gun handling around obstacles, about reloading, it’s about using cover and concealment and movement. It’s about situational awareness, and mindset. It’s about knowing what the high stress of the event will do to you personally at the time and compensating for the adrenalin shakes and the time dilation, and the tunnel vision and how all that affects your shooting AND your mindset.




Anyway, THAT’s what I’d tell police recruits.

And you know what? All that applies to us ‘civilians’ gun owners, too. Except we don’t get the free training the cops do.

And I need to get off my lazy inertia-filled butt and sign up for more advanced training AND do more dry fire, and other, drills. Always more.