History of the Mozambique Drill

[Sam1911]

While I have great appreciation for the cops I know, and while some of the best shooters I've ever met are cops (well, one of them is, anyway), I also do have a fair bit of experience with qualifying and training as it is practiced by various law enforcement agencies from around the east coast.

At my former club down in MD, there was a standing arrangement with the local Sheriff's department. The week after their qualification, the newest rookie on their force was sent down to our range with a bucket of paint and a big stack of ceiling tiles.

When my current club hosted the northeast regional SWAT team challenge back in 2006, some 20-30 teams came. One of them was pretty good, too! The general consensus of the range staff, however, was "scary."

I've shot quite a lot with a friend who's a police firearms instructor for his department in MD, who had to get special permission to be ALLOWED to practice with his duty gun, as it was against department policy that the officers shoot their weapons outside of official purposes.

I've taken training with officers from NYC and the surrounding area. They lamented, among other things, chiefs who closed their qualifying ranges and turned them into parks. Or, AR-15s being assigned to a squad car so that when the officers picked up their vehicle from the motor pool each morning, they'd never have even seen, let alone shot the gun that they might have to face an "active shooter" with. And how the 870s they used to be issued had been mothballed because so many officers utterly refused to even fire those "cannons" in qualification.

So, while I know some FIRST RATE cops who can shoot far better than I, that is not by any stretch the norm, and I do believe that even the local bullseye league -- heck, maybe even the "get on target for deer season" set -- has far more proficiency with his weapons than the "average" law officer.

 

[Ankeny]

Interesting how the thread has gone from a historical perspective of the Mozambique to the typical "cops can't shoot" discussion. FWIW, the LEO's I have been with during training/qualification do pretty well. Then again, I live in Wyoming where guns are part of our tradition. Also, former military seem to have preference in the hiring standards around here. The "cops can't shoot" thing is dependent on demographics, not just on the occupation.

 

[X-Rap]

I think cops are like all the rest of us, if they want to shoot they will do it and figure out a way to do it as often as possible and seek to continually improve.
If they just look at it as an administrative requirement and won't incur any costs or sacrifice on their own and only do what it takes to get by then they will be of the marginal class just like some of us are.
A badge doesn't endow one with magical powers nor does carrying a gun.
Find a cop or soldier who was raised shooting, hunting, reloading ammo and you will find one who can shoot and works at it and one who you'd run the river with.
One of my sons threw out 25% the other day when we were talking about our forces ordered to have weapons loaded (loaded mags inserted), he said red (hot) would be a catastrophe of ND's in the general population and said he would only trust about that percentage after a long day of actual mission tempo.