LEOs and "REQUIRED" training

[tuckerdog1]

I'm curious. So many of those that want to restrict our gun rights, like to say that the professionals in law enforcement should be the only one's allowed to carry firearms.

Now this probably doesn't apply to LEOs that frequent this forum. I suspect you're likely to exceed the minimums your department requires.

But just what does your department "require" in the way of firearms training, qualification and recurrence ( minimums )?

No disrespect is intended, but just how professional ( in the ways of firearms ) are you guys & gals?

Tuckerdog1

 

[dogrunner]

I'll answer, as a retiree, relative to the mandated qualification course required by the State of Florida.

Quite frankly, if properly oriented, a blindfolded experienced shooter could easily qualify on the 40 round requirement in this State. It truly is that unrealistic.

The course design utterly ignores any load capacity over six rounds, and while it requires a reload or two, in no fashion does it reflect a fair evaluation of ability.......I've gotta shoot the dang thing every year to qualify for the LEOSA standard, but in all honestly, speaking as a former FTO it is a joke! Actually, the mandated course is probably a liability and very real danger as an officer (or anyone else for that matter) will react as he's been trained. Teach him to shoot six and under stress he will, and dump a large capacity mag. in the process!!!! It truly is stupidity of the first order!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

That said, in reality, shooting is kinda like riding a bike in that you never really forget how. Granted, you might not be 'peaked out', but you are still (assuming no physical infirmities) able.

Yearly qualifications are simply a joke, and mostly an administrative CYA proposition............anyone who is serious about the matter shoots a LOT more than that...still, as I said, you really don't 'forget'.

 

[Steve in PA]

You are mixing "qualification" with "firearms training".

Qualification is NOT firearms training. In fact there is case law on this very subject.

Qualification is nothing more than proving proficency with your weapon.

 

[Erik]

My agency requires armed personnel to qualify quarterly with each weapon they are authorized to carry on or off-duty. There are opportunities for "familiarization" training for firearms they are authorized to carry but do not; if those firearms are available. In addition, armed personnel must complete a variety of intermediate and advanced training exercises plus whatever training is deemed necessary by firearms and defensive tactics instructors. Note: that last part is purposefully vague and open for interpretation. Some offices take advantage of it; some do not.

 

[Erik]

Steve is correct.

 

[dogrunner]

Steve IS correct.........but Steve MISSED the point...........that 40 round referenced course IS the training regimen as prescribed by this State...........banter all you wish relative to what you might refer to as 'training', the reality of it all that at least in this instance all effort and effect is to successfully 'qualify'...............like I said, it's really a joke!


FYI: not only am I a retired LEO/CLEO. I was also a competitive Hi power military shooter, NRA RPS LE instructor, and certified by this State to so teach.....Point being that the current 'requirement' is grossly out of touch with any realist methodology.

I'd hazard that my view is adequately qualified.

 

[Jeff White]

You are going to have as many different training requirements as you have agencies. Here in Illinois there was no training or qualification requirement beyond the 40 hours in the academy until the LESO was passed. After that the Standards and Training Board wrote up a course of fire and mandated it. They also allowed agencies to have their own more difficult standards approved.

The state standard here is not much of a test at all.

Some agencies train, some don't..it's that simple and it's all budget driven.

I am going to say the same thing I say in every one of these threads. Everyone who gets on the internet and bemoans the fact the police aren't adequately trained should be ready to put his money where his mouth is and contact his local and state legislators and demand that taxes be raised to pay for the training. If you aren't willing to pay for the training you want your employees to have, then you shouldn't complain about it being inadequate.

I could dig through my old tax returns and come up with how much I spent out of my pocket on training during my career. I'm not complaining..I took every penny of it off my taxes and I enjoyed it.

That said, unless you want to compensate the officers the way lawyers, doctors and other professionals who routinely pay for their own continuing education out of their own pocket, or unless you are willing to pay enough taxes to support an adequate training program, the system isn't going to change.

The number of private citizens who have any formal training at all is a minuscule percentage of the gun owners out there. For most of the population shooting is a skill they think they were born with.

But the whole training argument is bogus anyway. Heller gave us a firm individual right to keep and bear arms. There is no training requirement to exercise a constitutional right. If there was there would be very few journalists in this country.....

 

[possum]

i have trained along side of police officers, deputies, and even swat guys, at several schools, and i have never been impressed with any of them, and thier abilites to defend themselves, much less me. i know that there are some very good shooters out there that are officers. i know a few of them, that take training, mindset, tactics, skills, and gear very seriously, but like in the military those people are few and far between. Though i haven't been impressed with most of the officers, and soliders skill sets that i have seen, at least if they are in a training course they are trying to do right.

reminds me of the host of a Combat focus shooting class i did With Rob Pincus, the host was a long time officer and Firearms instructor for the local pd, Rob offered her to take part in the course, free of charge for hosting, she did a few drills the first day but that was it and just sat and stood around and watched. anyone in there right mind would have said heck yeah, as they would know what they were missing out on by not taking part. It is the best defensive handgun course imho and to not get in on it when it was there and free is just a shame.

 

[beatcop]

The initial training is set up in a task, condition, and standard manner. The training involves firing off two to three thousand rounds (depending on locale) in a multitude of drills, distances, and positions.

The annual qual is usually just a state mandated 40-60 round course, a few different distances, strong side, support side, two handed, etc. More progressive PD's utilize SIM, barricades, shields, low-light, & long gun training.

Some cops just strive to achieve the minimum qual (60% or more from my observations) others try a little harder to be more proficient and maybe 10-20% are "into" shooting.

As you may have guessed, getting the bullet to hit paper doesn't make a gunfighter, but it sure helps.

As previously stated...the Q-course is not training.

 

[largecaliber]

Officer training

Working as an armed airport security officer in the past when private campanies still could get those contracts, I have shot with police officers on several occaisions. In general, the shooter who spends a lot of time at the range or in the desert shooting their firearms will be a better shot than the average police officer. The course they run to qualify is a very simple course that most anyone who shoots a lot would ace in a heartbeat. I have run across very few police officers that I can't outshoot. That being said, we need to give them the credit they also deserve. Most police officers don't shoot as much as we do because they carry their weapon everyday and they want their day off just like anyone of us. The other reason they have gained that right to carry nationwide which everyone seems to overlook is that they have been through the psychiatric training of when to shoot and when not too. In this day and age the powers that be place so much on training and education that they figure that the police officers can handle it. Right or wrong this is the way it is.

 

[DFW1911]

Shoot / Don't Shoot

When I was in the Navy we had a Shoot / Don't Shoot video training capability. I don't know the particulars of the arrangement, but local LEO agencies were allowed to come over and train under the guidance of a Sr. Chief or the like.

In a word, most were awful, and I mean awful. Even if they could identify who to shoot the likelihood of a hit was very low indeed. They also shot a lot of folks who weren't supposed to be shot.

In a vocation where the possibility of having to use a firearm is high, I was stunned that many officers did the absolute minimum, just meeting what that particular department required. I found this quite disconcerting indeed.

One SWAT team took advantage of our live fire house and they became very good indeed, clearly taking their training and the input of the Navy guys quite seriously.

We had several instances where uniformed patrol officers went into the house and were, well, not so good. In their defense, though, they didn't put in the hours of training that we did. I did not view this as a personal deficiency on the individual officer's part, I viewed it as an agency not equipping their officers with the best training available.

It became evident, at least to me, that firearms training for LEOs could be viewed just as it is for civilians: some took it very seriously and gained proficiency, others did what the department required and nothing further.

Take care,
DFW1911

 

[AKElroy]

I passed Texas' ludicrous 50 round proficiency test because I cannot sacrifice my career to an unconstitutional felony, but the premise of this post is wrong. The second ammendment does not have a proficiency test any more than the first ammendment has a requirement for good spelling. Responsible gun owners will practice combat drills, and I do, but any LEGAL requirement that I do so in order to own a weapon is not constitutional.

Scratch this---I love the point I just made, but I just re-read the original post. I am not a LOE & I get where you are going with this.

 

[c5_nc]

I shoot at our LE range (I work for PD but not a swarn officer) and we loan the range out to BLET training. Sometimes its scary being there during the training. YOu will see limps falling out of trees when they hit the shotguns for the first time. 95% of people do enough to pass the firearms part. The female trainee knocking branches off the trees did not make it. Qualifications are not that difficult. Among LE you will find most are average shooters. Unfortunately often though they have free range access (not the case everywhere) departments do not give out enough ammo for officers to get lots of range time.

 

[tuckerdog1]

I was never intending to imply that 2nd ammendent rights should be restricted for reasons of training or ability.

I just hear over & over that law enforcement has all this training. They're professionals & are somehow better qualified than Joe or Jane average to handle firearms ( per the antis ).

So I was curious just how good all this training was. I expected to hear from LEOs about training and qualifying that ran the gamut. Some would be something I'd be envious of. While others would be a joke. I frankly expected to hear most were a joke. Like a once a year shoot of 50 or so rounds at a static target. Hit it a few times & pass for another year.

Tuckerdog1

 

[Erik]

Armed LEOs in the USA number some where in the low 800,000 mark. As a group, they all shoot more than the average gun owner. The world is full of Joe Averages with one or two firearms and a box or two of ammo though them total. Don't confuse Joe Average with Joe the Firearms Enthusiast.

Just like you shouldn't confuse Joe Average LEO for Joe the Firearms Enthusiast LEO.

 

[CapnMac]

Well it all goes back to that old adage about how shooters will be shooters, no matter what they do for a living. So, for a given profession or trade, there will be a wide variety of personal skill--all going back to the individual's skill level.

Where OP might have wanted to go is in the "presumption" that any given member of a trade or profession is some sort of exemplar at the task.

Which may be about the split in our modern world between those who are self-reliant and those who are externally-reliant. If you are externally-reliant you have a requisite need for those external professional to the be the best possible. If one has adopted esternal-reliance as a socio-political ethos, then, one's very life hangs in the balance of it, too.

Whether that is contractors for one's home, or medical people, or those to defend us from goblins--the externally-reliant risk all every time. Ergo, their world view, their existence itself is threatened if one even admits to any sort of ordinary range of all-too-human competence.

But, I'm speculating on OP's intent here, too. More training does not necessarily make a person more skilled.

 

[Grey_Mana]

That said, unless you want to compensate the officers the way lawyers, doctors and other professionals who routinely pay for their own continuing education out of their own pocket, or unless you are willing to pay enough taxes to support an adequate training program, the system isn't going to change.

I'm shocked by your apparent dishonesty. Police (along with fire & rescue, medical care, and 'the children') have been red herrings from time immemorial to justify jacking up taxes which inveterately get diverted.

Voting for more taxes for the police is a fool's proposition. On the rare occasion when police forces do get a little of the money, they spend it (1) on senior personnel perks and admin, (2) on flashy toys, or (3) to increase man power. I've never seen a budget request that seriously asked for more money to better train the people we already have (outside of the brief 9/11 blip).

You mentioned doctors & lawyers. Doctors and lawyers have a protection racket, requiring years of training, indoctrination, testing to verify conformity and expertise, and licensing to lock-out outsiders and to milk the system. The AMA and the bar associations pay politicians heavily and regularly to get the laws they want, and to block the laws they don't want. Medical and legal help cost so much because of the barrier to entry in these fields.

Libertarians et al. allege that police have a similar racket - a blue wall of silence that condones bending the rules for cops, because the job is difficult and the insufficiently renumerating. Your post #7, with its presumption of entitlement, seems to be not inconsistent with that worldview.

 

[Jeff White]

Grey_Mana,
This thread is not about your view of the tax system. It's about LE Training. How much LE training have you resourced and conducted? What do you even know about a line item budget?

 

[DC300a]

My experience here in Florida:

The training I recieved in the academy was first rate. Our rangemaster and head instructor was a former Homocide Detective and Counter Terrorism and was a certified gun nut like me. His hobby mixed with his professional experience gave us a wealth of knowledge.
The rest of the crew on the range were very well versed in shooting and they also had impressive resumes and a love of gun knowledge. We were required to do the basic shooting stuff plus night shooting and shoot/no shoot drills. The academy is known for producing very good graduates.
After the academy, sadly, it is another story. We are required to shoot once per year on 48 round course of fire that 12 year old could shoot.
As our Defensive Tactics instructor told us in the academy... "We have taught you just enough to get your ass beat. You have to take it upon yourself to seek out additional training and train, train, train"....
The same goes for firearms.