(WP) "Schools Teach the Hard-Edged Lessons of Combat" (duplicate threads merged)

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K-Romulus

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I am not sure where this article should be discussed, seeing as how the article touches on legal-political/tactics/general all at the same time.

Better get your training now, before the schools get shut down like they were (so I heard) in the UK in the face of "public outrage."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/01/AR2006050101217_pf.html

Schools Teach the Hard-Edged Lessons of Combat

By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 2, 2006;


MONTROSE, Colo. -- Marcus Klintmalm's two victims lay sprawled on the ground, their weapons released by hands gone limp. Spent cartridge casings, his and theirs, were everywhere -- testimony to two gunfights.

The shooting had stopped. It was time to debrief.

"Where did you hit him?" an instructor asked Klintmalm, referring to one of the assailants. The man was standing now, with a mark of orange wax from Klintmalm's "bullet" on his pants.

"In the hip," Klintmalm said.

If the fight had been real, that might not have been good enough, the instructor said. "He may not be dead."

Such are the hard-edged lessons taught here at Valhalla Shooting Club and Training Center, where students learn the basics of urban shootouts in a mock downtown. Special Forces soldiers train here for combat in Iraq, but Klintmalm is not a soldier: He is a 23-year-old aspiring business-school student from Dallas, who gave his current occupation as "ski bumming."

Valhalla is part of a lightly regulated industry thriving in a time of war overseas and terrorism fears at home. Around the country, there are at least 16 privately run schools that teach civilian students skills usually associated with SWAT teams or military combat -- close-in gunfighting, assault-rifle tactics, sniper shooting.

The reasons for the schools' growth include the U.S. military's increasing openness to privately run training, a rise in public demand for personal-defense skills and a new marketing strategy from some schools, which now sell tactical shooting as weekend recreation. Along with this growth have come concerns, voiced by academic observers and even some in the business, about the leeway afforded these schools to choose who and what they teach.

"You're talking about an entirely new industry that has a patchwork-quilt quality. . . . Some parts are regulated, and some parts are entirely unregulated," said Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He said that such a system would be "one thing if we're talking about clown schools," but "it's different when we're talking about private military schools."

The schools, however, say that they strive to screen out clients who might misuse their training.

"They don't show up for class and have a gun in their hand until they've had a criminal background check," said Timothy Beckman, director of the High Desert Special Operations Center in Nevada. "You don't get in the door if you don't have good paper."

A survey by The Washington Post of schools that advertise on the Internet and in gun magazines located 19 that offer advanced instruction in the skills of combat, with two more such centers planned in New Hampshire and Oklahoma. Of these, only three said that they limited the teaching of advanced skills to military and police clients.

One thing shared across the industry was a sense that -- these days more than ever -- people want what they are selling.

"Our business has increased since September 11th, period. People realize since September 11th that they need to be more prepared," said Jane Anne Hulen, marketing director of Gunsite Academy, a school in the Arizona desert that is one of the industry's heavyweights. She said Gunsite's business, which now involves about 1,000 students per year, has at least doubled since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

One engine of the industry's rapid growth is the wartime U.S. military. Private weapons schools now teach thousands of Navy sailors to defend their ships from terrorist attacks, and they put Special Forces soldiers through simulated combat in Middle East villages.

But these days, the schools have an equally big business in teaching civilians. With customers looking for defensive skills or recreation, the industry buzzword is the same one that puts the T in "SWAT."

"This is not a shooting school. It's a school for tactics," meaning the total set of skills useful in actual gunfighting, said Rob Pincus, director of shooting operations at Valhalla.

At many schools, the offerings include "tactical" approaches to personal defense, in which students learn to take on burglars and other assailants in "shoothouses" designed to mimic real life. At Valhalla, there is a fake house, convenience store and barroom where students encounter gun-clutching dummies or live instructors playing armed bad guys . The courses are often intended for people who have permits to carry concealed handguns.

During a recent "Combat Focus Shooting" class, instructor Brad Schuppan sent each student into the shoothouse's fake downtown with a special training handgun -- whose wax-tipped plastic bullets are designed to leave a mark but not injure -- and a set of terse instructions. "Private citizen. Concealed carry. Out and about," he told them, meaning: Don't do anything you wouldn't do in real life.

Not everybody listened. A few steps inside the door, student Mark Youngren drew his gun on the first person he saw, who turned out to be an instructor playing an unarmed bystander.

"Why have you got your gun out?" yelled Schuppan.

Youngren was sheepish under his helmet. "Just habit, I guess," he said, and he reholstered.

Some gun instructors have questioned whether such classes make civilian students such as Youngren too aggressive with their guns in real life. But the schools say they train students to avoid confrontations if possible. They argue that a well-trained civilian should be less dangerous than an untrained one with the same gun.

"We're the solution. People have guns. They're always going to have guns," said Heidi Smith, an owner and instructor at Thunder Ranch in Lakeview, Ore.

But many schools also provide civilians with training that would seem to have few, if any, applications in everyday life.

Thunder Ranch, for instance, offers a class in which two-person teams learn to move and shoot in confined spaces and provide covering fire for each other. One recent class included eight officers from the Los Angeles Police Department and a husband-and-wife pair of junior high school teachers from California, Smith said.

At least seven of the 16 schools teach civilians the use of military-style assault weapons. Some schools say they teach only target shooting using these guns, but at Front Sight Firearms Training Institute outside Las Vegas, there are classes in both the M-16 rifle and the Uzi submachine gun that include tactical simulations and lessons in how to use the guns in "full auto" mode.

At least six of the schools teach civilians how to fire a rifle accurately over long distances. Some focus on hunting or target-shooting skills only.

But not all do: West Virginia's Storm Mountain Training Center offers a "Sniper I" course that, along with shooting, includes the construction of "ghillie suits" like those worn by military snipers to camouflage their positions. "Sniper III" includes training in "sniper mission planning" and the chance to fire live shots as part of simulated tactical missions, according to the school's Web site.

Storm Mountain accepts U.S. citizens who pass a criminal background check and a physical fitness test, Rod Ryan, the school's vice president of operations, said in an e-mail message. At Front Sight, students must pass a criminal background check, sign a "Statement of No Criminal Record, Mental Illness, or Substance Abuse" and provide a character witness who has known them for at least five years, said the school's founder and director, Ignatius Piazza.

Although some schools have even stricter standards, limiting their training only to executive bodyguards or security contractors headed for Iraq or Afghanistan, the most common approach seems to be a combination of background checks and character witnesses.

One voice absent from the debate is the federal government's. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which licenses gun dealers, has no similar monitoring for weapons trainers. State-level oversight is also largely absent, school officials said.

The self-regulating system has broken down in the past. In 1993, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officer who offered weapons and survival training in rural Pennsylvania taught a group of men from New York how to fire assault rifles and stage mock assaults on a nearby power substation. The men were later found to have been affiliated with the terrorist group that bombed the World Trade Center that year.

Some anti-violence activists and even a few weapons-school officials say that somebody -- a government agency or an industry association -- ought to set out rules for acceptable training and students.

"I don't think this should be taught to just anybody off the street," said Richard Weaver of ArmorGroup International PLC, which has camps in Virginia and Texas.

But no such limitations seem to be on the horizon. Instead, many schools are seeking to expand their civilian clientele by fully embracing the idea of gunfighting as entertainment. The Valhalla Training Center, for instance, already shares space with the Valhalla Shooting Club, which allows clients to live out James Bond-style fantasies such as taking down assailants in an airplane cabin or shooting their way out of a crowded subway station.

Later this year, a gun trainer in Oklahoma plans to create an $11 million "Tulsa Adventure Center" that will combine a climbing wall and a scuba pool with an indoor shoothouse. Jack Randal, the man behind the center, said he thinks his industry is ripe for the kind of transition into big-box prominence that the fishing-tackle industry achieved a few years ago.

"We're taking the mom-and-pop bait shop," Randal said, "and we're turning it into the Bass Pro Shop."

There is so much to comment on, I could spend all day and end up getting fired from work. I think the highlights spell out my concerns.

Of course the article talks about the one idiot in the class, but the idiot was getting training to NOT be an idiot . . .
 
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Why in the world would a free person beg and beg for regulation?
Not to be argumentative, but some regulation is good for freedom. Imagine how your freedom of movement would be impaired without traffic regulations, or regulations governing who can get a license and drive. A society without regulations is probably unsustainable and unworkable.
 
PP is drawing an analogy to what a "Hell on earth" driving would be with zero traffic regulation - no signs, no lights, no speed limits, no rules, just every man and woman for themselves... So no, it has zip to do with traffic regs. but PP's anology has some merit. Fields with no regulation get away with quite a lot. Bounty hunters come to mind. OTOH, there isn't a statistical showing of need here, all they can point to is a bunch of what ifs...

The main question I have after reading this hysterical account is WHY IN THE HECK anybody would talk to WaPo (at least not a known reporter like Jackman) ??? Would they do an interview with the Brady Campaign?

Actually, they just did for all practical purposes.
 
There is a fundamental definitional difference between rules of the road and the type of regulation you are talking about.
 
The main stream press discovers THE BOOGIE MAN teaching classes at Thunder Ranch!

Pardon me, if I don't get too worked up.

And when I go to the range next week, I think I'll take a milk jug, some accurate .308ammo, and my Ruger VT.

Booo!
 
So stupid its funny...

The self-regulating system has broken down in the past. In 1993, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officer who offered weapons and survival training in rural Pennsylvania taught a group of men from New York how to fire assault rifles and stage mock assaults on a nearby power substation. The men were later found to have been affiliated with the terrorist group that bombed the World Trade Center that year.

They point to a government agent who screwed up, and say it is the self-regulated private industry that is bad. My 'Left-wing Propoganda Alert' is going haywire. Any common-sense thinking individual can see that it is being very well self-regulated, and there is no need to add any government interference to it.
 
Rags like the WP and the NYT are well known for casting everything in the slant they want. They are political ideologues. They write/publish stories to advance their cause. So, truth and objectivity have no place in their criteria for a story. Their aim (pardon the pun) is to disarm the people so they can more easily control/advance their agenda. Clearly, the 2nd Amendment is one of their biggest boggiemen. So, from our perspective, they may appear stupid. Don't believe it. They are cold and calculating in what they want to achieve.:scrutiny:
 
:banghead: Ok, let me get this.

The libs want freedom of the press to the extreme (porno sites, pediphiles, prime time t.v. that's very questionable etc.)

However, they are now concerned about what I know and that I may show someone else.

When will the stupidity end:banghead:
 
Along with this growth have come concerns, voiced by academic observers and even some in the business, about the leeway afforded these schools to choose who and what they teach.

How dare those people participate in Free Enterprise and the American Capitalist system. They need to be stopped!
 
First the anti-gunners say only the police are trained sufficiently to use firearms, then they complain when people go out and get training. Seems a bit hypocritical to me, but then what else is new?
 
Wait . . . so this stuff is not prohibited?

And it's. . . it's not mandatory, either?

Well, that can't be right.
 
this has nothing to do with traffic regulations and you know it.
No, it has to do with regulated versus unregulated behavior. Traffic is only one example of how a society need some regulations. There are many other examples. And yes, even firearms ownership and use should probably have some regulation. I know that offends some, but I prefer a functioning society over absolute anarchy, which is what the lack of any regulation gives.
 
And yes, even firearms ownership and use should probably have some regulation.
The only regulation that I can at all condone is to disallow those that have proven that they are not trustworthy from possessing weapons. And I ain't talkin about an 18 year old that slept with his 16 year old girlfriend.

However, they are now concerned about what I know and that I may show someone else.
Knowledge is power. They know this. If they keep you from attaining and passing on that knowledge that's that much less power you and those you would teach have.

He doesn't want to give up his freedom: merely take it away from commoners. Typical leftist parasite.

For some of them yes, for others it's irrational fear of the unknown that is used by the first group to forward an agenda. The second group can learn. The first group already likely knows but it doesn't fit their agenda which is to render the public completely subservient to the government. So they work to do away with it.
 
I'm all for regulation of these classes... I think propper assult weapon employment should be required to graduate high school, and M16 & AK47 assembly/disassembly and target shooting should start in Grade School.
 
He doesn't want to give up his freedom: merely take it away from commoners. Typical leftist parasite.

Precisely. Commoners cannot be independent, let alone possess "dangerous skills". The monopoly on "dangerous" knowledge should be in the hands of somebody leftists can trust, e.g. a government controlled by them. What they always fail to see is that government is not some faceless machinery, but people that are certainly corruptible, ergo the nomenclature in the USSR. That is a lesson they keep taking but never learning.
 
Not everybody listened. A few steps inside the door, student Mark Youngren drew his gun on the first person he saw, who turned out to be an instructor playing an unarmed bystander.

"Why have you got your gun out?" yelled Schuppan.

Youngren was sheepish under his helmet. "Just habit, I guess," he said, and he reholstered.

No comment necessary I guess...:rolleyes:
 
The dying mainstream media, of which the ComPost is a prime example, have nothing but alarmism to sell these days. What better example to scare the flock than unregulated citizens learning how best to use a scary gun?

Here's an idea for you who think "some regulation is a better thing:" how about the industry sets up a voluntary code of conduct that member schools agree to observe? Why on earth would you call for more .gov regulation? What problem, exactly, is it that you think would be solved by regulation? :scrutiny:

TC
 
Eh... I dont see why government should dictate where I can go to learn something and who I can speak to, what I can read about a subject or what kinds of training I can undergo.
I dont see much of a difference between joining the military, learning the arts of combat, then comming out and putting it to evil use VS going to a weekend warrior camp and learning the same kinds of stuff on my own dime.

The only regulation I'd want to see is some oversight to make sure whats being taught are accurate military/police proceedure and not some gun-kata kung fu crap. The last thing you need are citizens thinking they can rush into a building and disarm mad gunmen with fancy footwork.
 
The only regulation that I can at all condone is to disallow those that have proven that they are not trustworthy from possessing weapons.
I'm quite sure that there are other regulations that you could support, but that is my point. I think everyone wants some type of regulation, because without regulation we cannot have a functioning society. The real question is how much regulation, and perhaps who should be responsible for promulgating the regulations.
 
I'm quite sure that there are other regulations that you could support, but that is my point.

Even when he specifically said otherwise, you're sure he didn't mean it? The arrogance of that statement blows my mind.

I think everyone wants some type of regulation,

Let me assure you, in no uncertain terms: you think wrong.

because without regulation we cannot have a functioning society.

An awful lot of people strongly disagree with that, particularly in regard to regulation of inalienable, constitutionally-guaranteed rights like that of keeping and bearing arms, but also in regard to possessing and sharing knowledge. In a very few things, we do need a very small amount of regulation. It went far past that point over a hundred years ago. Our society is functioning perfectly (with the exception of rampant government control and socialism), yet the industry of combat training is unregulated. But...you said...that um...would not be possible. :neener: I know you will say you meant regulation in general, but if so, why mention that in this discussion, where the sole issue at hand is the regulation of combat training?

The real question is how much regulation, and perhaps who should be responsible for promulgating the regulations.

That's two real questions, actually. But here are the real answers:

1. Much, much less than we have now-- government regulation has broken, rather than fixed, everything it has touched so far, while trampling an unbelieveable number of rights to an egregious degree in the process.

2. No one!
 
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