Does Conventional Marksmanship Win Gunfights?

[Matthew Temkin]

From PoliceOne.com
01/18/2010


Law Enforcement Firearms
with Richard Fairburn

21st century deadly force training for police

Conventional marksmanship training has little to do with winning a gunfight

We are a full decade into a new century, but the way we train police officers to employ deadly force is no different than we did a decade before the 21st century began. According to FBI statistics, 80 percent of officers killed each year in gunfights die at seven yards or less, a figure little changed in the past 30 years. Officers routinely score 100 percent at the seven yard line on the training range, but in gunfights far more than 50 percent of the bullets they fire miss the target. The low hit rate scored by police officers on the street is not a marksmanship problem.

One large agency’s officers scored a gunfight hit rate of just 11 percent during a 10-year period I analyzed. That’s a staggering statistic, but another number was even more shocking. Though the sample was admittedly small, the bad guys in those incidents also scored an 11 percent hit rate.

Their Academy Commander summed it up perfectly: “My officers get a hundred hours of firearms training in the academy and quarterly qualifications thereafter, but are hitting at the same rate as felons with no formal training? We should save all the ammunition, because our training program seems to be worthless!”

In the late 1990s that agency’s training program still encouraged one-hand, slow-fire, bull’s-eye target shooting at the 25-yard line. After all, if an officer can shoot tight groups at 25 yards, they can easily handle a gunfight at 10 feet, right? Wrong! (89 percent of the time.)
A raw shooter can be scoring 100 percent at seven yards by the end of the first day of training. But, at least with that one police agency, upping the training time to nearly three weeks only produced 11 percent hits on the street. Recently released data on the gunfight hit rate of officers in the New York City and Los Angeles Police Departments mirror what I found in the mid-west. During a gunfight, about 25 percent of the shots fired by their officers hit their intended target.

Most programs “train to the test,” meaning they practice the skills necessary to fire a passing score on the qualification course. Many qualification tests are an adaptation of the old Practical Pistol Course. Many agencies are training to a “test” that has no similarity whatsoever to a police gunfight.

We need to prepare officers for the next gunfight, not the next competitive shooting match. We must train deadly force in a manner that will ensure officers pass the real test — winning a gunfight at 20 feet, not punching tight groups at 15-25 yards. Taking the “top shooter” award in your training class is cool, but winning your first gunfight is way cooler.
A training program which emphasizes the management of combat stress, without any marksmanship training, would create a better gunfighter than any program based solely on conventional marksmanship training. If they can master stress, even a below average marksman will score hits and win most pistol confrontations. If they master combat stress, marksmanship may prove to be a minor part of the gunfight equation. If they can’t master stress, even the very best marksman may miss — and die.

The only pre-gunfight way to gain combat “experience” is through Reality-Based Training (RBT). I’m not suggesting we ignore the development of marksmanship skills. Instead, we need to develop and test an officer’s marksmanship skills against interactive threats, not paper images on a shooting range. Once trainees can reliably hit paper targets out to seven yards and load/function/clear their sidearm, we should pit them against stressful computer simulators and human adversaries in RBT scenarios using paint munitions. Only when a trainee can deliver 80 percent hits — under stress, against live hostile targets, while on the move at between five and 25 feet — should we return to the live-ammunition range to develop more refined marksmanship skills.

Talk all you like about one of the rare 25-yard shots that have been made by pistol-armed officers, but, we still shoot poorly on the street and merely training more of the same won’t change that fact. If we never get back to the range to develop pistol shooting skills at 15-25 yards, so be it! That’s why all cops should have patrol rifles. With rifles, we can develop higher marksmanship skills, building upon the true gunfighting skills they learn with their pistols in the RBT scenarios.
__________________

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Well the first problem that comes to mind is that the testing is with stationary targets fired at from stationary positions. A lot of officers are shot or shot at and attempt to return fire whilst attempting to move to cover, often backpeddling when they start shooting.

Of course one of the problems with the statistical notion of the untrained bad guys shooting as welll as the trained officers is that the bad guys usually get to shoot first, often as a surprise or ambush situation, such as when officers are walking up on a car that they have pulled over or as officers make entry into a building. So basically, the bad guys are shooting stationary or slow moving targets which gives them a decided advantage over the officers' shooting situation that often involves returning fire while attempting to seek cover and to return the fire at a perp who is on the move, behind cover, and/or continuing to fire.

If the officers and the bad guys were shooting under the same circumstances, the statistics might be more meaningful. However, to say that the training was doing no good shows a lack of understanding of what the data mean. The data are not comparing trained officers and untrained bad guys shooting at stationary targets on the firing line.

Of course, nobody said the fights would be fair. That is why the officers do have training, carry spare mags, sometimes spare guns, wear body armor, and can radio for help.

Sure the training needs to change. While the officers are being trained to shoot in an unfair fight, it is an unfair fight where they have all the advantages (large, stationary, non-firing silhouette adversary) and that is usually not how the fight starts in the real world. In the real world, the officers usually start at a disadvantage. Officers need to be able to hit moving targets that present limited target pictures (say, only one shoulder, head, and arm of a perp leaning out from a car window or half a perp leaning out from the corner of a building, both that only show themselves long enough to fire 1-3 shots at a time, perps running from car to car, running past doorways, etc.).

Simply put, most officers do not have developed target tracking and firing skills from a stationary stance and have none while moving. They have only been presented with very limited instruction of shooting on the move and when they do have shooting on the move training, their targets are full sized stationary silhouette targets which are target pictures they aren't likely to see in the field or not see very long.

Even when officers do have some training about shooting on the move or shooting moving targets, they aren't tested over such training. In speaking with training officers from several departments at various gun schools, I have learned that they fight a pretty good battle just getting their generic street officers qualified at shooting defenseless stationary targets, especially larger departments where instruction is less personalized. These less than terrific shooting officers who finally pass their shooting quals then receive little or no instruction until they fail their next qualification test. In short, they never truly improve during their careers as they don't really get much additional instruction unless they fail.

 

[armoredman]

If I could get my Dept to use Simunitions to develop real world training I'd be a happy camper - not in the budget for this year, next year, any year, "our training is just fine thank you"...

 

[Loyalist Dave]

The stats are also skewed in that the bad guys sometimes incapacitate the officer with their first shots so no return shots are fired, or the officer is dealing with a wound, as well as trying to return fire. The idea about "no formal training" is also a problematic mind set, as it seems to suggest that if one doesn't have a certified instructor and shoot at an established target range, one cannot effectively train. They have prison videos of cons practicing techniques on how to shank opponents..., why would they they think they're not practicing shooting when not incarcerated? How many of the bad guys who shot officers had been in previous gunfights with other perps, and how many of the officers involved in gunfights for say 2008 had previously been in a gunfight? Meaning, the bad guys may often be experienced gunfighters, while the officers have never fired other than at the range. So much for "formal" training.

LD

 

[Fred Fuller]

This isn't 'new news,' but some here may not have seen it before...

lpl
===========================
http://www.forcesciencenews.com/home/detail.html?serial=62

Force Science News #62
December 28, 2006

I. NEW FINDINGS FROM FBI ABOUT COP ATTACKERS & THEIR WEAPONS

New findings on how offenders train with, carry and deploy the weapons they use to attack police officers have emerged in a just-published, 5-year study by the FBI.

Among other things, the data reveal that most would-be cop killers:

--show signs of being armed that officers miss;

--have more experience using deadly force in "street combat" than their intended victims;

--practice with firearms more often and shoot more accurately;

--have no hesitation whatsoever about pulling the trigger. "If you hesitate," one told the study's researchers, "you're dead. You have the instinct or you don't. If you don't, you're in trouble on the street...."

These and other weapons-related findings comprise one chapter in a 180-page research summary called "Violent Encounters: A Study of Felonious Assaults on Our Nation's Law Enforcement Officers." The study is the third in a series of long investigations into fatal and nonfatal attacks on POs by the FBI team of Dr. Anthony Pinizzotto, clinical forensic psychologist, and Ed Davis, criminal investigative instructor, both with the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit, and Charles Miller III, coordinator of the LEOs Killed and Assaulted program.

"Violent Encounters" also reports in detail on the personal characteristics of attacked officers and their assaulters, the role of perception in life-threatening confrontations, the myths of memory that can hamper OIS investigations, the suicide-by-cop phenomenon, current training issues, and other matters relevant to officer survival. (Force Science News and our strategic partner PoliceOne.com will be reporting on more findings from this landmark study in future transmissions.)

Commenting on the broad-based study, Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Research Center at Minnesota State University-Mankato, called it "very challenging and insightful--important work that only a handful of gifted and experienced researchers could accomplish."

From a pool of more than 800 incidents, the researchers selected 40, involving 43 offenders (13 of them admitted gangbangers-drug traffickers) and 50 officers, for in-depth exploration. They visited crime scenes and extensively interviewed surviving officers and attackers alike, most of the latter in prison.

Here are highlights of what they learned about weapon selection, familiarity, transport and use by criminals attempting to murder cops, a small portion of the overall research:

WEAPON CHOICE.

Predominately handguns were used in the assaults on officers and all but one were obtained illegally, usually in street transactions or in thefts. In contrast to media myth, none of the firearms in the study was obtained from gun shows. What was available "was the overriding factor in weapon choice," the report says. Only 1 offender hand-picked a particular gun "because he felt it would do the most damage to a human being."

Researcher Davis, in a presentation and discussion for the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, noted that none of the attackers interviewed was "hindered by any law--federal, state or local--that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. They just laughed at gun laws."

FAMILIARITY.

Several of the offenders began regularly to carry weapons when they were 9 to 12 years old, although the average age was 17 when they first started packing "most of the time." Gang members especially started young.

Nearly 40% of the offenders had some type of formal firearms training, primarily from the military. More than 80% "regularly practiced with handguns, averaging 23 practice sessions a year," the study reports, usually in informal settings like trash dumps, rural woods, back yards and "street corners in known drug-trafficking areas."

One spoke of being motivated to improve his gun skills by his belief that officers "go to the range two, three times a week [and] practice arms so they can hit anything."

In reality, victim officers in the study averaged just 14 hours of sidearm training and 2.5 qualifications per year. Only 6 of the 50 officers reported practicing regularly with handguns apart from what their department required, and that was mostly in competitive shooting. Overall, the offenders practiced more often than the officers they assaulted, and this "may have helped increase [their] marksmanship skills," the study says.

The offender quoted above about his practice motivation, for example, fired 12 rounds at an officer, striking him 3 times. The officer fired 7 rounds, all misses.

More than 40% of the offenders had been involved in actual shooting confrontations before they feloniously assaulted an officer. Ten of these "street combat veterans," all from "inner-city, drug-trafficking environments," had taken part in 5 or more "criminal firefight experiences" in their lifetime.

One reported that he was 14 when he was first shot on the street, "about 18 before a cop shot me." Another said getting shot was a pivotal experience "because I made up my mind no one was gonna shoot me again."

Again in contrast, only 8 of the 50 LEO victims had participated in a prior shooting; 1 had been involved in 2 previously, another in 3. Seven of the 8 had killed offenders.

CONCEALMENT.

The offenders said they most often hid guns on their person in the front waistband, with the groin area and the small of the back nearly tied for second place. Some occasionally gave their weapons to another person to carry, "most often a female companion." None regularly used a holster, and about 40% at least sometimes carried a backup weapon.

In motor vehicles, they most often kept their firearm readily available on their person, or, less often, under the seat. In residences, most stashed their weapon under a pillow, on a nightstand, under the mattress--somewhere within immediate reach while in bed.

Almost all carried when on the move and strong majorities did so when socializing, committing crimes or being at home. About one-third brought weapons with them to work. Interestingly, the offenders in this study more commonly admitted having guns under all these circumstances than did offenders interviewed in the researchers' earlier 2 surveys, conducted in the 1980s and '90s.

According to Davis, "Male offenders said time and time again that female officers tend to search them more thoroughly than male officers. In prison, most of the offenders were more afraid to carry contraband or weapons when a female CO was on duty."

On the street, however, both male and female officers too often regard female subjects "as less of a threat, assuming that they not going to have a gun," Davis said. In truth, the researchers concluded that more female offenders are armed today than 20 years ago--"not just female gang associates, but female offenders generally."

SHOOTING STYLE.

Twenty-six of the offenders [about 60%], including all of the street combat veterans, "claimed to be instinctive shooters, pointing and firing the weapon without consciously aligning the sights," the study says.

"They practice getting the gun out and using it," Davis explained. "They shoot for effect." Or as one of the offenders put it: "[W]e're not working with no marksmanship....We just putting it in your direction, you know....It don't matter...as long as it's gonna hit you...if it's up at your head or your chest, down at your legs, whatever....Once I squeeze and you fall, then...if I want to execute you, then I could go from there."

HIT RATE.

More often than the officers they attacked, offenders delivered at least some rounds on target in their encounters. Nearly 70% of assailants were successful in that regard with handguns, compared to about 40% of the victim officers, the study found. (Efforts of offenders and officers to get on target were considered successful if any rounds struck, regardless of the number fired.)

Davis speculated that the offenders might have had an advantage because in all but 3 cases they fired first, usually catching the officer by surprise. Indeed, the report points out, "10 of the total victim officers had been wounded [and thus impaired] before they returned gunfire at their attackers."

MISSED CUES.

Officers would less likely be caught off guard by attackers if they were more observant of indicators of concealed weapons, the study concludes. These particularly include manners of dress, ways of moving and unconscious gestures often related to carrying.

"Officers should look for unnatural protrusions or bulges in the waist, back and crotch areas," the study says, and watch for "shirts that appear rippled or wavy on one side of the body while the fabric on the other side appears smooth." In warm weather, multilayered clothing inappropriate to the temperature may be a giveaway. On cold or rainy days, a subject's jacket hood may not be covering his head because it is being used to conceal a handgun.

Because they eschew holsters, offenders reported frequently touching a concealed gun with hands or arms "to assure themselves that it is still hidden, secure and accessible" and hasn't shifted. Such gestures are especially noticeable "whenever individuals change body positions, such as standing, sitting or exiting a vehicle." If they run, they may need to keep a constant grip on a hidden gun to control it.

Just as cops generally blade their body to make their sidearm less accessible, armed criminals "do the same in encounters with LEOs to ensure concealment and easy access."

An irony, Davis noted, is that officers who are assigned to look for concealed weapons, while working off-duty security at night clubs for instance, are often highly proficient at detecting them. "But then when they go back to the street without that specific assignment, they seem to 'turn off' that skill," and thus are startled--sometimes fatally--when a suspect suddenly produces a weapon and attacks.

MIND-SET.

Thirty-six of the 50 officers in the study had "experienced hazardous situations where they had the legal authority" to use deadly force "but chose not to shoot." They averaged 4 such prior incidents before the encounters that the researchers investigated. "It appeared clear that none of these officers were willing to use deadly force against an offender if other options were available," the researchers concluded.

The offenders were of a different mind-set entirely. In fact, Davis said the study team "did not realize how cold blooded the younger generation of offender is. They have been exposed to killing after killing, they fully expect to get killed and they don't hesitate to shoot anybody, including a police officer. They can go from riding down the street saying what a beautiful day it is to killing in the next instant."

"Offenders typically displayed no moral or ethical restraints in using firearms," the report states. "In fact, the street combat veterans survived by developing a shoot-first mentality.

"Officers never can assume that a criminal is unarmed until they have thoroughly searched the person and the surroundings themselves." Nor, in the interest of personal safety, can officers "let their guards down in any type of law enforcement situation."

 

[smoothdraw]

Yeah i think when bad guys have determination to shoot while our law enforment have potential lawsuit to think about, its really not a fair fight.

But in the same token, i have seen and shoot with a lot of LEOs and even SWAT team who are far worst shooters than most in our IDPA squad. 1 LEO that i know and practice regularly with us say he is being given a box of 50 ammo to practice in a month? Gee i use more than that in any given week. I hope this is an isolated case and not all LEO's not being supported by their department.

Of course markmanship itself doesn't win gun fights. Mindset, tactics plus marksmanship wins gun fights i guess.

 

[twofifty]

Armored, your dept says conventional trg. is sufficient, that better trg. is not in the budget, yet police shootout statistics show the training results in officer deaths.

Could officers obtain Court orders stating that employers must, under Occupational Health & Safety laws, provide their officers with training that saves employee lives?
The excuse that safety training is too expensive does not fly in other industries.

 

[twofifty]

smoothdraw:
"1 LEO that i know and practice regularly with us say he is being given a box of 50 ammo to practice in a month? Gee i use more than that in any given week."

I'd hope that most officers are smart enough to realize a box of dept. supplied ammo for practice will not cut it. They need to buck up for more ammo while at the same time organizing to force their dept. to improve training practices & budgets.

 

[Sam1911]

I'd hope that most officers are smart enough to realize a box of dept. supplied ammo for practice will not cut it. They need to buck up for more ammo while at the same time organizing to force their dept. to improve training practices & budgets.

I shoot with a number of LEOs regularly. Not one I know of is given a box A WEEK! That would be luxury. More like a couple of boxes a year actually supplied by the department. One officer's issued sidearm is a .357 SIG so his practice ammo bill, coming out of his own pocket, is painful.

Further, several have had acrimonious conflicts with their supervisors over being allowed to use their duty guns for practice and outside training at all. And one of those is his department's firearms instructor.

I've also recently taken some training with several officers from NY who related that their outdoor qualifying range had been shut down and the land converted to other uses. So their only outlet for practice or training is to travel to private facilities, often in other states. Some of their departments are fairly supportive, but it varies a lot.

The dedicated shooters I know in uniform all share the common lament that many of their fellow officers are hard-pressed even to meet the minimum "square range" qualification scores. Basic gun handling skills and rudimentary marksmanship are about as far as most are likely to get. So it isn't necessarily a departmental choice between training their officers to punch bulls-eyes at 25 yds vs. practical defensive shoting. EITHER would be a vast improvement over where they are now.

I really feel for these officers, too. To be issued a weapon and to know that I may find myself facing a life-or-death decision to make a tough shot, on the move, from cover, with a "backstop" of a crowd of citizens -- would weigh hevily on me if I were a highly trained marksman. As someone with only a remedial understanding of their weapon, it would be terrifying.
-Sam

 

[smince]

I think this ties in with something I posted a couple of months ago from officer.com:

It can easily be argued that the job of a law enforcement firearms instructor is more difficult today than ever before. With everything now required from our already strained training resources, it has become increasingly difficult to even establish what the right questions are, let alone find the right answers. To help build a solid foundation and establish some basic criteria for what a law enforcement training program should include International Training, Inc. has adopted the 12 critical elements outlined below.

The information gathered for this analysis was obtained from several surveys conducted by the California Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST) and the FBI. The FBI has collected data on officers killed and assaulted since 1945, and California POST started collecting such data in 1980. The surveys cited in this study encompass those conducted by the FBI from 1995 through 2004. After summarizing these studies, the following guidelines were drawn for police firearms training.

FBI Analysis of Officers Feloniously Killed from 1995-200

545 total officers feloniously killed with firearms

Broken down into two category distances: under seven yards and over seven yards.

Under Seven Yards:

0-5 feet, 268 officers killed, 49% of total
6-10 feet, 107 officers killed, 20% of total
11-20 feet, 65 officers killed, 12% of total
Note that the percentage totals indicate that 440 officers killed (81%) with firearms in the time frame specified were killed at distances under seven yards.

Over Seven Yards:

21-50 feet, 47 officers killed, 8% of total
over 50 feet, 41 officers killed, 7% of total
distance not reported, 17 officers killed, 3% of total
Totals for officers killed at distances over seven yards (or not reported) was 105 officers or 19%

1. Prepare officers for immediate, spontaneous, lethal attacks
2. Prepare officers for assaults by multiple threats and uninvolved subjects
3. Integrate the sudden transition to firearms from arrest and control techniques, including searching and handcuffing
4. Base training on the fact that most officers are killed at short distances
5. Base training on the fact that officers will have limited fine and complex motor control
6. Integrate two-person contact and cover teams involved in realistic scenarios
7. Emphasize the survival mindset and the will to win in all skills training
8. Integrate one-handed firing of a handgun. Include dominant and support hand, plus drawing, reloading, and stoppage clearing
9. Integrate close-quarter structure searching and clearing plus indoor combat tactics
10. Emphasize dim or no light situations as much as daylight training
11. Integrate moving then shooting and moving while shooting techniques
12. Integrate engagement techniques for moving targets, both laterally and charging

Much of this translates to CCW carry, too.

 

[LibShooter]

I'm all for making training as realistic as possible. But don't expect it to help much. How can you simulate shooting at a guy shooting back with real ammo and murderous intent? I don't think you can.

Our best bet is to buy police the best firearms and body armor available and hire enough officers so they seldom have to go into harm's way alone. But we won't pay for that.

B.T.W. 11% of shots on target probably far exceeds the success rates of soldiers in their first fire-fight. Since many officers never shoot in anger and a few more have to fire once in their careers, 11% may be as good as it gets. I hope we never live in world in which police officers get so much real world gun-fighting experience that they get good at it.

 

[JoeSlomo]

I'm all for making training as realistic as possible. But don't expect it to help much. How can you simulate shooting at a guy shooting back with real ammo and murderous intent? I don't think you can.

Frequent and intense training greatly facilitates stress management, and conditions an individual to perform despite stress. While it may not be possible to eliminate stress, it most certainly is possible to manage stress in a way that does not seriously degrade your performance.

IMO, the failure to properly condition shooters to manage stress is far more degrading to performance than the use of any specific technique of engagement, and it is stress that is often responsible for the failure to use technique.

 

[smince]

Frequent and intense training greatly facilitates stress management, and conditions an individual to perform despite stress. While it may not be possible to eliminate stress, it most certainly is possible to manage stress in a way that does not seriously degrade your performance.

IMO, the failure to properly condition shooters to manage stress is far more degrading to performance than the use of any specific technique of engagement, and it is stress that is often responsible for the failure to use technique.

I think some of Gabe Suarez' ideas would be helpful in this area:

You know....if I had MY way totally and did not have to conform to market demands (guys want to shoot their guns), this is what I would do.

1). Begin all students with physical training. I would get them in shape.

2). Once in shape we would begin training in hand to hand combat. Wrestling, Boxing, Kicking and punching so they know the rreality and brutality of fighting before ever touching a weapon.

3). Then begin them with force on force drills until they can bust out a take-off, draw on the run and shoot w/o getting shot.

4). Only after all of this was done, would I begin to teach traditional marksmanship. Then there would not be the silly debates about 9mm vs 45 or weaver vs isosceles or even sighted vs. aimed. Every man and woman would know personally what a gunfight was like and what it would take to win one.

 

[twofifty]

Ok, so we've established the training is not sufficient to provide officers with the skillset/mindset needed to, for the sake of argument, double their 7yd combat hit rate from 11% to 22%. I'm guessing that doubling the hit rate would likely result in at least a 25% reduction in officer fatality.

Many here have suggested ways in which officer training can be improved.

Now what pray tell prevents this scandalous and dangerous (to officers and to bystanders) situation to continue on and on? Surely it is illegal for an employer to send ill-trained employees into harms way?

What are police unions doing about this issue? The unions ought to concentrate their resources to sue the azz off some metro LEO agency. The case I'd pick would be on behalf of a widow whose husband's employee file shows he repeatedly asked for better training (i.e. modern tactics and gunhandling, marksmanship on the move, stress and FoF simulation, etc.) and didn't get it. It would be pretty convincing to show a jury the difference in proficiency between say a trained IDPA competitor (an amateur), and an officer trained to departmental standards (a pro).

Once this widow is awarded a $5 million settlement, I'd bet most other LEO agencies would come to see that officer skill and mindset training is not only a requirement of employment law, but a cheap investment against similar budget-busting and taxpayer-enraging litigation.

I just don't buy the argument that there is no problem, or that it has always been so. Because a guy has chosen a LEO career and is sent 'out there' wearing a uniform that to some says "shoot me", doesn't mean his employer can cheap out on the training side of the cost and benefit equation.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

This isn't 'new news,' but some here may not have seen it before...

And that brings up a good point about the statistics. While a lot of the people who shoot or shoot at officers are not formally trained, some are. Beyond that, many are quite skilled none-the-less and practice to maintain proficiency.

Most standardized officer shooting quals assume an unmotivated, untrained and unskilled stationary full-size silhouette being presented to the officer. Officers often suffer when going up against motivated, sometimes trained, often skilled and practiced gunmen who don't present the officers with full silhouette stationary profiles to shoot. In other words, the officers are faced with a shooting situation for which they have not qualified and for which their training isn't kept current.

 

[Sam1911]

What are police unions doing about this issue?

A shooting pal of mine who happens to be a Detective Sergeant with the NJSP, and one of the most amazing shooters I've ever seen, explains it like this, "Ask 100 cops if they'd rather have a new gun or a new ball-point pen. 99 of them will choose a new pen, 'cause it's something they'll use."

I asked some other officers from my training class whether they thought their issued AR-15s were better for the officers to have than the old 870s they'd had for years. One said, "Absolutely. Those guys were TERRIFIED of those old "cannons" -- just WOULDN'T shoot one. At least they will actually reach for the AR if they need it. Won't hit much, but will probably do better than with a pistol."

The police unions are only going to represent their officers' interests. (I know that's leaving out a huge area of debate about politics and the interests of the union's bosses, but I can't comment on any of that.) If the member officers aren't shooters, don't want to be shooters, generally dread and barely scrape through the meager qualifications they do have to deal with, why should we expect the union to demand more trigger time.

The unions are FAR more concerned with lead contamination on the ranges than they are with the quality of the shooting instruction. (From what I've been told.)

-Sam

 

[twofifty]

Thanks Sam.

It is too bad the leadership is faulty on the mgt. and union side.
Good thing its not my life that's on the line.

 

[James T Thomas]

dubious

"80% of officers killed each year in gunfights die at seven yards or less."
It may be that many or most of them were suprised and after all surprise and first to draw and take aim usually does win.

Insufficient training? That is, marksmanship training? -When someone beats you to the draw?

Mr. Suarez' four training concepts have merit at these ranges.
And how many of us know fully well that we would not want to face a blade at less than 21 feet from the attacker. What if the attacker was an officer responding to someone going for his gun?

Mr. Temkin: This article sounds too much like it was written by some advocate within a department who has a stake in some "new" trainining program.
-Contrived.

 

[LeonCarr]

To echo what has been said already, most of the good shooters I know who are also cops go to the range on a regular basis on their own time and their own dime. It is said that an average IDPA or USPSA shooter can outshoot 90% of police officers. I have seen many LEOs go to a match for the first time thinking they are Wyatt Earp, and end up in 20th place out of 20 shooters.

Most cops IME aren't shooters. They see the handgun as another thing they have to have on their duty rig. This is party due to the agencies they work for putting firearms proficiency at the bottom for the priority list, right next to paper clips and rubber bands.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

 

[JoeSlomo]

Now what pray tell prevents this scandalous and dangerous (to officers and to bystanders) situation to continue on and on? Surely it is illegal for an employer to send ill-trained employees into harms way?

That's the catch right there. The line trooper does not get the luxury of setting training standards. Those standards are more than likely set by the state, or, high level officers who are NOT called out to face the baddies on a daily basis.

Training and proficiency are relative terms in this context. Unless officers failed to meet proscribed standards, they are considered "trained", despite the ACTUAL proficiency level of the trooper.

One of my Joe's is an ex-LEO, and surprisingly, his department had a pretty decent training program. He said they shot stages every week related to possible encounters they could have on the job, and they had to qualify every quarter. From the LEO's that I have met, this department's particular program was ahead of the curve, and it payed off big time during duty related shootings.

The most common issue I hear from LEO's is budget. It takes cash to provide the resources, and it takes cash to PAY the officer during training. LE departments certainly don't have much excess cash, however, I most certainly would do everything I could to facilitate training if I was in the position to do so.

I think some of Gabe Suarez' ideas would be helpful in this area:

Absolutely.

While many of these elements are taught in the academy, I don't believe they are a part of a regular training regiment.

 

[BullfrogKen]

I'm all for making training as realistic as possible. But don't expect it to help much. How can you simulate shooting at a guy shooting back with real ammo and murderous intent? I don't think you can.

Yeah, I hear that a lot, too. Usually it's from folks who have never experienced a well-run Force on Force exercise, or went through a well-run Simunitions program.

To echo what has been said already, most of the good shooters I know who are also cops go to the range on a regular basis on their own time and their own dime. It is said that an average IDPA or USPSA shooter can outshoot 90% of police officers. I have seen many LEOs go to a match for the first time thinking they are Wyatt Earp, and end up in 20th place out of 20 shooters.

Most cops IME aren't shooters. They see the handgun as another thing they have to have on their duty rig.

Same with my experiences and observations. If you want to be effective, that takes a personal commitment. It means your own money; your own range time; your own ammo; your own supplemental training.

Training and proficiency are relative terms in this context. Unless officers failed to meet proscribed standards, they are considered "trained", despite the ACTUAL proficiency level of the trooper.

And that's the rub. The department, and specifically the elected officials who fund it, are interested in meeting the basically trained standard. Trained and proficient means a check box.


The two big problems with reality-based training are -

• finding a range to accommodate it;
• it's highly subjective

Paper targets are easily scored. Timers are easily read. Those results are easily established and defended in investigations.

The debrief of a Force on Force/Simunitions is not. It's very subjective. Successful mastery of subjective skills are hard to establish and defend. How does one "pass" a subjective test? How does one fail it? How does one get graded when he successfully handles some portion of that test, yet fails miserably on another?


All that said, many departments have recognized the value in pursuits like Force on Force and Simunitions training. I think the article oversimplifies the matter. Simply because these exercises might not be part of an examination and graded material doesn't mean they're not being incorporated into training regimens. More and more departments are doing it.


Still, at the end of the day, professionals don't rely upon some entity to provide those things they value if it's not being provided to them. Many officers buy better quality shoes and boots then they're issued. Before body armor was widely distributed, many officers found ways to acquire their own. If the officer feels his shooting skills aren't good enough, he does what any other professional does and sets a higher standard for himself and does what is necessary to achieve it.

I think the article is about 20 years behind the times. Many departments abandoned the square range and bullseye qual years ago. And some more progressive ones are branching out into some form of FoF/Simunitions exercise day/week as additional, supplemental, but ungraded training.

 

[leadcounsel]

When I was a boy I had a Daisy BB gun. I spent hours with that BB gun, stalking plastic Army men. Shooting prone, off handed, from a tree, running, crawling... I knew that gun inside and out. I could shoot the wings off a fly. Why? Because it was the only thing I thought about or focused on. Marksmanship AND shooting in various situations.

Well I'll chime in by saying that the career of law enforcement (and I'll even add military) has become so overly burdened with layers of complex laws, 'rules of engagement,' 'shoot or don't shoot', lawsuits, liability, reports, computers, cover sheets, technical equipment, communication devises, vehicles, etc. that police and military really rarely get enough time or budget to work on fundamental skills like REALLY being familiar with you weapon (and other policemen and Soldiers skills get neglected too).

Gone are the days of the gunfighter who can draw and shoot in one fast motion. To a large extent we have replace valuable life-saving skills with useless computer skills, typing, web surfing research, completing online forms, passwords, and other garbage -- we've truly become mice running on a wheel for the sake of keeping the wheel moving.

To the OP and more on topic, it is important for individuals who weild the swords to find the time and resources to wield the swords in their freetime to stay sharp.

 

[smoothdraw]

And how can we help our LEO's? Maybe when they attend an IDPA or USPSA match with us then we chip in to buy them ammo for the match. And training schools should give LEO's really good discounts.

 

[BullfrogKen]

Gone are the days of the gunfighter who can draw and shoot in one fast motion. To a large extent we have replace valuable life-saving skills with useless computer skills, typing, web surfing research, completing online forms, passwords, and other garbage -- we've truly become mice running on a wheel for the sake of keeping the wheel moving.

Come now, let's not get overly romantic about the past.

There still exist those who can draw and place accurate fire on target quickly.

The days of "the gun hand" in law enforcement never existed outside of small pockets of men. When the border territories and uncivilized areas of the nation needed fighting men, they often found themselves employing the same men for those gigs. Very often a man was brought into town and sworn in to handle a problem. After that problem was solved and order restored, he moved onto the next town or territory.

That experience has existed as long as man has existed. It's just the way it is.


I still maintain this article is about 20 years behind the times. Sure, some stale departments still have these policies and training programs. I'd imagine their shooting program isn't the only dinosaur policy. Most professionally departments have long since abandoned bullseye shooting. Some still don't have their stuff completely together when it comes to relevant shooting and firearms training, but they are making some headway. Even if it is sometimes misguided and tangental headway, every so often they'll make one good leap forward.

 

[BullfrogKen]

And how can we help our LEO's? Maybe when they attend an IDPA or USPSA match with us then we chip in to buy them ammo for the match.

It wouldn't help.

And training schools should give LEO's really good discounts.

They do.


It makes no difference in the numbers who attend.


Those who want it seek it out. Those who don't see the value in it when it costs them something wouldn't see the value in it even when it's free. That concept has been proven across all markets, not just shooting.